About "Baggage"

One of the interesting things you read about when you go online looking for women's opinions of inexperienced men is that a lot of women look at such a man as someone "without baggage".  The thing is, I have to disagree.

According to the dictionary, "baggage" is defined as: past experiences or long held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments.  Since we're obviously not talking about the kind of baggage you take with you when you travel.

The idea being that someone who has had a lot (or a few) of previous experiences has a potential to bring elements of those past experiences and relationships into their new one.  This is mostly concerning when dealing with negative aspects such as cheating (that person or their partner), unhealthy dependencies, bad habits and the like.  Someone without those experiences won't have them because they won't have any experiences from which to conjure up baggage.

This is incorrect though.  Inexperienced people, especially those who are inexperienced involuntarily do have baggage.  They just have different kinds of baggage.

I have no idea how it feels to be an older inexperienced woman (though I imagine it's a similar experience to that of a man) but most inexperienced men have gone their entire lives feeling like their advances or interests are unwelcome.  Not just you shouldn't hit on a girl when she has her head turned away from you and earphones in her ears, but that even if a girl is smiling at you and giving you all kinds of positive body language she's really not interested.  Because that's all most of these guys have ever known.  Every time they'd try to hold a girl's hand or ask a girl out or give a girl a hug, sometimes even just try to have a friendly conversation it's met with a mortified look or avoidance in addition to rejection.

Granted everyone experiences rejection.  Just like everyone who has ever played basketball has missed a shot, everyone who has played baseball has struck out and everyone who has ever played quarterback has thrown an interception.  It's the nature of the game (or of life).  But if that's all you have ever experienced without any positive feedback that kind of thing takes a toll on your psyche.

So here's a list of the kind of baggage you're likely to see in an older inexperienced guy:

-Falling head over heels for a girl because she shows even the smallest interest in you.
-Being convinced a girl really doesn't like you even if she says or acts like she does.
-Being afraid of trying to hold a girl's hand or going in for a kiss when you're on a date.
-Being afraid to initiate anything physical (including but not limited to sex).
-Being afraid of having any kind of independent opinion out of worry it will make the person break up with you.

These are just a handful of the things you could expect.

My guess is that most women find these kinds of things to be turnoffs (as well they should).  So if you're thinking some shy, inexperienced guy is going to be some kind blank slate for you to imprint all of your personal tastes and preferences, you're mistaken.  You're probably better off running away like your pants are on fire.