Woman Creates Dating ‘Bucket List’ After First Date at 23 (Exclusive)

Ida “Maeby” Nariman is the first to say she’s a “late bloomer.”

The TikTok dating influencer went viral in June, when she posted a TikTok explaining that she was going on her first date ever, “at the ripe age of 23.”

Just two months later, Nariman, who had previously posted updates about casually dating a man with the pseudonym Linguini, shared with followers that she planned to lose her virginity one evening in late August.

“When I’m in my head about it, I forget that sex is actually supposed to be fun,” she says in the get-ready-with-me-style video. “I’m definitely more excited than nervous because I feel like I’ve taken all the right steps to get here.”

While catching up with PEOPLE, Nariman, now 24, elaborates on the “late bloomer” label she’s self-identified with in various TikTok videos.

“I think just ‘late bloomer’ was the most all-encompassing word for what I was describing, because it wasn’t just that I’d never had sex. It was like so many other things that I had never experienced,” Nariman says.

Nariman tells PEOPLE that her peers in middle school and high school began dating and “hooking up” before she was ready to explore.

“I don’t particularly see myself as late to the game, but other people very much do,” she says.

Nariman explained that she first noticed something was “different” about her timeline in middle school when she had more celebrity crushes than real-life ones.

“I felt like I lived in a little fantasy world where my crushes existed, but they definitely didn’t exist in the real world for me.”

In high school, her two closest friends began dating boys, but she says she still had no interest.

Nariman tells PEOPLE that at 16, she began to “lie” that she had a boyfriend at summer camp to school peers.

“I just sort of wanted to negate the commentary about, like, ‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?'” Nariman says. “I felt like at 16, that’s when people really started experimenting.”

While Nariman acknowledges that she “wasn’t ready” to explore romantic connections yet, an equally large factor in her decision to hold off on dating was the lack of people sparking interest.

Growing up in Orange County, Calif., Nariman says there were “cultural” differences that influenced her hesitance to date, including different political views from her own, as well as beauty standards she felt she didn’t reflect.

Upon leaving California, her dating life was slow to pick up pace. She attended college in Boston, where she says she experienced “like one drunk dance floor make out.”

She adds that Boston “wasn’t the market” for her, and eventually, she attended grad school across the pond in London, where dating wasn’t a huge priority.

“But I did think that something would happen naturally because I was going out so often,” she adds.

Nariman now uses dating apps, including Hinge, Bumble and Raya; however, while abroad, she was romantically offline.

“I didn’t want to go on the apps, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s embarrassing.’ Like, why do I have to do that?” Nariman says. “I was waiting for someone to come up to me, like at a bar or something, and they never did.”

Now, working full-time in New York City, Nariman is taking advantage of the large dating pool, where she says she is more likely to find compatible suitors.

Helping her navigate dating in the Big Apple are her two off-camera friends Gianna Corvino and Lia Pantanella, who are frequently mentioned in her TikTok video diaries.

The two young women have encouraged her to go on dates, and Nariman often credits them for their text-crafting abilities with men she goes out with.

The trio could be a modern take on Sex and the City, but their passions for fashion and raunchy recaps are where the similarities end.

“I’m not looking for Mr. Big. I’m really not,” Nariman says. “And aesthetically, Aiden is more my vibe.”

Since August, Nariman estimates that she’s been on 10 dates, as she works through a bucket list of experiences.

She tells PEOPLE that she started the bucket list in college, when she became more interested in her friends’ dating lives, with some items including receiving a hickey and kissing someone on a Jumbotron, she says.

She credits the list with giving her tangible goals that inspire her to continue dating, which she says can be “mindless.”

However, sharing updates on her “progress” on TikTok has led to negative comments.

“I do get slut shaming comments constantly,” Nariman says.

Despite some pushback, Nariman says sharing her content has helped other “late bloomers” feel empowered to explore their own dating lives.

She says she gets DMs from people “finding value” in her stories, who share the dating milestones she inspired them to reach.

“I’m like, whoa, I should not be able to have that much influence,” Nariman says. “You went on your first date because of me, that’s crazy.”