In 2014, Alexa Tsoulis-Reay interviewed a man from Paradise, California, who was at the time 58 years old, and still a virgin. The quote that ends the Q&A is heartbreaking: Asked what the hardest part of being a nearly-60-year-old virgin, the man responded, “Laying alone at night, falling asleep, and then getting up in the morning and remembering you’re alone.”

Typically, Americans lose their virginity around age 17, according to the most recent statistics. But what if it doesn’t happen then? What is dating like for the sexually inexperienced? New Kinsey Institute-led research in The Journal of Sex Research attempts to answer that, showing the awkward, bumbling 40-Year-Old Virgin trope is in reality a far more complicated existence.

In one experiment, the researchers — led by Amanda N. Gesselman of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University — asked nearly 5,000 people (ages 18 to 76) if they would consider dating a virgin. Most of the people in the study who’d had sex before reported that they would not date a virgin — but but here’s where it gets really interesting: An even greater number of virgins said they, too, would not date someone who had not previously had sex. Younger people in their 20s were particularly less likely to say they would date a virgin — even though most virgins were in this age range —and women were more likely to report not wanting to date someone without sexual experience than men. Virgins, in other words, were themselves not attracted to other virgins and, in fact, sexually experienced people were more likely to date virgins than virgins themselves.