Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’ve been through an ordeal that is really tempting me to swallow the red or black pill. My girlfriend of nearly a year dumped me. She said I was too nice, a pushover, cute but not sexy, and she wants to see other people. So she dumped me, but later tried to bargain an open relationship but I put my foot down and said no. Things were good through most the time as far as I can tell and she even admits that early on things were great and the sex was pretty good. But as time went on she expressed some sentiments that stirred greater insecurity in me. I developed a premature ejaculation problem but we still had pretty damn good sessions at several points throughout the months. But now I feel like everything the incels believe is true, she’s going off to see the chads while I’m left to rot in all the insecurities that were just confirmed. I feel resigned to swallow the red or black pill and just cannot bring myself to believe in any optimistic projection given by my friends, family, or those such as yourself. Where do I go from here?

At The Crossroads

So there’s some critical information you haven’t given me, ATC: you haven’t told me how long it was between when your girlfriend dumped you and then asked if you were ok with an open relationship and how long it’s been since the two of you ended things for good.

Because, honestly? You sound like this happened a couple of weeks ago and you’re still hurting from the fact that you were dumped. And hey, that’s legit. Being dumped is an awful feeling. But it sounds to me like you’ve been sitting around and stewing in your resentment instead of doing that I usually recommend for the newly single. As it is, the only things that the Red Pill and The Black Pill actually offer you is justification for your anger. All either of these are intended to do is keep you feeling awful and make you angry at women for… well, pretty much for existing and not being mindless sex-dolls.

Hey, man, I get that you’re hurt.  But I’m gonna be honest with you: right now, you’re mostly looking for reasons to stay angry with her. And hey, I get it. I’ve been there, done that and built a career out of it. I got dumped by someone I thought was the perfect girl just after I got fired from what I thought was the perfect job. And at the time? The most charitable thing I called her – when I wasn’t trying to be above it all – was a stinking pirate whore. But the truth is that anger eats at you. It may feel good to hate and to lash out at that bitch as what done you wrong at first. But honestly? There’s only so long you can insist that God has shit in your dinner before you are just angry for anger’s sake. I mean, none of the various flavors of MRA – not the Red Pillers, not the MGTOWs, not the incels are actually happy. The incels are all currently crabs in a bucket, busily sharing “suicide fuel” trying to goad each other into being the first to off themselves and everyone else is busy circle-jerking over who hates the femoids more.

Now, let’s look at what you’ve actually said about your relationship. First: your girlfriend told you that you were too nice and a push-over. Ok… that’s valid. It sounds a little paradoxical – how could someone be too nice? – but nobody worth dating actually likes being with a doormat. Being the only person with an opinion in a relationship is shockingly draining; it feels like the other person has basically abdicated their entire being to you. Being someone who actually has some spine, an opinion, some confidence is an important part of making a relationship work. But let’s look at this next part. So your ex wanted to see other people. Not going to lie, that can sting. Some people don’t do monogamy well, and if you’re one of those people who needs exclusivity, that can really hurt. You’re left asking yourself “why am I not enough?” Except it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Some people ultimately need novelty and new partners. Now someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because there’s a huge “but” coming…

BUT

It’s not that your ex didn’t care for you, or that she didn’t enjoy banging you, ATC. In fact, the fact that she came back after you broke up and asked about an open relationship is as clear of a sign that she enjoyed being in a relationship with you… it’s just that she couldn’t be exclusive with you. I mean, come on. She’s seeing other guys but she’s asking if she can come back for your dick, specifically. That’s a pretty big sign that no, she does want you, too.

Now, that wasn’t a relationship you want or could handle and that’s fair. That’s valid. But all this means is that, while she didn’t care for you the way you need, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t care as best she could. You just weren’t compatible is all. Which again, completely sucks… but at the end of the day, that’s life. It’s better to find that out sooner, than later.

Look my dude. If you want to sit around stroking your rage boner, that’s your prerogative. But that’s all it is; empty angry masturbation. If you want to actually feel better, actually let the pain fade away? Then you need to take care of yourself and give yourself some closure.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

My fiancee is crazy and controlling. She has pretty much isolated me from all of my friends. All of my friends actually hate her. They think she is trying to change me and forcing me into a lifestyle I’m not ready for. We even share a cellphone because she doesn’t want me messaging people without her knowing. If she doesn’t want to do something, we sure as hell will not do it because she has the final say in everything. We even work together and share a house together and we’re supposed to be getting married in October. I’m honestly not sure if I’m ready. She wants kids and I really don’t like kids. I’m still deeply in love with my ex-girlfriend. If she ever got married, I think it would destroy me. I think she is my real match in every way but she lives really far away and always seems to be in a relationship. I don’t think she will ever be ready to settle down. I know she still cares about me too but again, she’s far away. She has been e-mailing me for 2 years now because we used to be best friends for years before we dated and my fiancee forced me to stop talking to her even though I really want to speak with her. I think I’m settling for my fiancee. I’m afraid to be alone and now I’m getting near my 30’s and I just don’t want to be the last person to be getting married and starting a life. What should I do?

Cold Feet

Hey, CF? Did you see this horror movie that came out last year? Made a big splash, lotta Oscar nominations? First time director? What was it called again?

Oh yeah…

GET OUT.

Quite frankly my dude, you’re giving this list of shit your fiancee does and I don’t quite get how in pluperfect hell she became your fiancee in the first place. Like… are you being held hostage? Does she have your soul in a jar? Blink twice if she has your soul in a jar.

More seriously: you do realize that you don’t have to be with her right? Like, you can break up with her.  Right now even. Right this second. Before you even finish reading this. You could dump her so hard that her great grandparents would say “dude what was that?”

You could, and I’m just spitballing here, ditch your phone, change all of your passwords, clean out your bank account, pack up your shit,  get copies of all of your important documents, throw it in your car, and get the fuck out of there over the course of a morning and be entirely free of this entire mess. Because, honestly? You sound like someone who’s asking permission to make a jailbreak.

So hey, permission granted. Your fiancee is a controlling, abusive asshole and you need to get the fuck out of there like all of Hell and half of Hoboken were after you.

Right now, your ex-girlfriend isn’t a concern. What you should be doing is paying attention to the fact that your fiancee is waving more red flags than a military parade in Tiananmen Square. Because if any of this sounds familiar:

• Insult you or humiliate you, especially in front of your friends and colleagues
• Belittle you, minimize your accomplishments and repeatedly tell you that you’re worthless or a failure
• Tell you that their abusive behavior is your fault
• Constantly accuse you of being unfaithful or require you to “prove” you’re not cheating on them
• Keep constant tabs on you, demanding that you check in with them regularly. They may also monitor where you go and with whom
• Isolate you from your friends and family
• Accuse your friends and family of lying in order to “drive you apart”
• Restrict your access to money or finances
• Use or deny sex and intimacy as a form of control
• Snoop through your emails, texts, instant messages, phone calls and social media profiles
• Hide your keys or your phone to keep you from seeking out help
• Use false accusations (or the threat of accusations) of abuse to keep you in line

Then it’s time to recognize that you’re in a supremely fucked up relationship and you need to peace the fuck out, Cub Scout.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Shouldn’t I Take The Red Pill? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

I think your husband has a very specific – and possibly porn-inspired – fantasy about what BDSM is. My guess is that he thinks that if he’s at all involved with the planning, or if he’s aware of any planning at all, that the whole thing isn’t “real”. It’s similar to how couples tend to think that planning when you’re going to have sex makes it less special somehow. In reality, making plans is one of the best things you can do for keeping things hot; not only does it ensure that you’ve reserved time and made arrangements to keep that particular appointment, but you get all of that lovely antici…

…

…pation leading up to it.

Now, when it comes to BDSM scenes, planning isn’t just hot, it’s goddamn required. To start with, you’re right: you need to know where his yes’, his no’s and hell no’s are. The fact that you’re the domme and he’s the sub doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have boundaries or limits… or control for that matter. It’s a cliche amongst kinksters, but subs are the ones who’re in control of the scene. After all, they’re the ones who have the power to call things off. And it’s important to know what he’s into and not into because you, as his domme, need to know how to execute those fantasies effectively and safely. Kink is a full-contact sport after all, and doing it wrong can cause serious damage. Tie someone’s hands wrong and you can potentially cause serious nerve damage, for example.

So if your husband wants to be dominated, he’s going to need to be a full and active partner in this.

But here’s a way you can thread this needle: tell him he’s going to tell you what he wants. If he’s going to be a good little sub, then he needs to provide his domme with his list of yes/no/maybe. Otherwise, he’s going to have to just sit there and live without… especially if he has to sit there and watch you watch some BDSM porn from Kink.com.

While you’re getting his list, you should do your due diligence too. There’re a number of excellent books to help ease you into the scene; I especially recommend  Midori’s Wild Side Sex: The Book of Kink: Educational, Sensual, and Entertaining Essays, Violet Blue’s The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy and Tristan Taormino’s The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge. There’re also sites like KinkAcademy that provide excellent instructional videos.

And if you want to stoke the fires a little, consider assigning him some reading material too. There’s a lot of BDSM erotica out there, even if most of it features male doms and female subs; giving him some food for fantasy might motivate him to get you that list and start that conversation a little quicker than just browsing Pornhub on his off-hours. You might want to check out Stjepan Sejic’s graphic novel Sunstone and it’s upcoming sequel Mercy; they’re gorgeous and sweet as well as being almost unspeakably sexy.

But remember: until you two have had that discussion – or series of discussions, for that matter – this can’t move forward. And that means your husband needs to be a good sub and do his part as well.

Good luck.

Hi Dr NerdLove,

I have recently gotten out of a long relationship and have gotten back into the world of dating. Now I have used dating apps before, but that was when I was 22. Being 26 now, I am beginning to feel that the dating world landscape has changed a lot.

I guess I will just start with my main question. How do you juggle chatting and dating multiple people when you are monogamist by nature? What has been happening is that I feel like I am being flooded with messages and likes by multiple girls and I am not sure how to handle it. In the past, it was almost always one at a time as I was not usually getting that much attention. I always though it was somehow associated with being nerdy, but now I am positive it was just my age and lack of dating experience. I have no idea how girls personally handle this, and I don’t think the amount of attention I am getting is particularly overloading, but it already making me a bit stressed.

I know a lot of other guy’s might read this and just roll their eyes, I am honestly am trying to find the right person, but don’t want to accidentally grow attached to someone who is not the right fit while ignoring someone that could be really compatible, just because I am feeling too tired to interact with them. I have already avoided messaging back to people or even viewing the message so that way I can give myself some breather and then try to dedicate the right time to actually get to know them properly.

My second issue is dealing with what will happen when I start going out on a few dates. I know once I start to feel it out I will gravitate towards one person. That means that the girls I have talked to I will have to let them know that I am not interested in that way. It makes me feel terrible, yet I don’t really feel its inherently wrong. If I am lucky, I may not have to deal with that and the girls I don’t have as much chemistry with will feel the same way (cross fingers).

My plan is to just take deep breaths, not worry, and things will probably just sort themselves out over time.

Thanks for listening,

A Monogamous Guy

You’re seriously overthinking things AMG. The fact that you’re getting lots of attention and messages on the apps doesn’t mean that you’re somehow betraying your monogamist nature; it just means that you’re popular and have multiple options. It’s not as though just talking to potential matches starts the countdown to a committed relationship that you can’t get out of; all that’s going on is that you’re starting to get to know people. Maybe they’ll intrigue you enough to go on a date – a date, singular – with them and see how it goes. Maybe after chatting, you’ll realize there’s no real emotional chemistry there.

Similarly, going on a date, or even a string of dates with someone doesn’t lock you in to a relationship with them. You’ve just gone on some dates; until the two of you actually have that Defining The Relationship talk where you both agree that you’re exclusive, then you’re hardly making an unbreakable commitment.

Also: you don’t really need to give all those other women a formal Thanks But No Thanks once you’ve started something committed with somebody. It’s generally accepted that the connections you’re making via Tinder, OKCupid or what-not are weak and without any real expectation of commitment. If you two’ve been talking for a while and have gone on a date or two then yes, it’s polite to say “hey, it’s been great meeting you but I don’t think we’re right for one another. Good luck with your search!” But if it’s just been casual chit-chat that might lead up to an actual date? Then just let things fade on their own. Conversations dry up and people just quit talking; that’s part of the online dating experience. Most people assume that the folks they’re talking to are also talking to other people. Sometimes that means they’re going to decide they’re taking a chance with someone else, and the other conversations just fade away. It’s an expected part of how things go on the apps.

To be perfectly honest, AMG, I think you’re inventing trouble for yourself. You’ve let yourself get so stressed over the things you imagine that you haven’t even taken the first step to deal with the reality of it all. Take a deep breath, check out the profiles of the people who’ve messaged you. If they interest you, then talk to them for a little and see if that interest goes further. If you two get along, propose a pre-date date where you meet for 15 minutes for coffee and see if you two have sufficient physical chemistry to go on a proper date. If their profile doesn’t interest you? Then just ignore the message and move on.

You’ll be fine.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Get Started In BDSM? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Men, especially heterosexual men, tend to have very few deep, emotional connections, and of the ones they do have, very few of them are with other men. And that’s actually a problem.

Men are dealing with an epidemic of loneliness and isolation and it’s literally killing us. But despite the damage that loneliness can cause, men have a hard time finding and fostering emotionally close and intimate relationships. Why are male friendships so shallow and transitory and what can we do to build the relationships we need? 

Show Highlights:

• How loneliness is literally hurting men 
• Why men have a harder time building closer, stronger social ties than women
• How society inadvertently teaches men to avoid close friendships with other men
• Why toxic masculinity prevents men from from building the relationships we want
• How the ways men try to bond actually makes it harder to actually become close with their friends

… and so much more.

Related Links

Detoxifying Toxic Masculinity

Why We All Feel So Lonely

What Men Really Need

The Surprising Need For Male Intimacy

Defining a Modern Masculinity

Listen Here
Download Here

Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes , Stitcher and on YouTube.

Like the podcast? Become a Dr. NerdLove patron at Patreon.com/DrNerdLove

Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post Episode #79 – Men and the Epidemic of Loneliness appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Hey Doc, 

A few days back, my girlfriend bumped into someone she knew from school but hadn’t connected to since at the subway stop. They chatted for a bit, and then her train came. To her surprise, the guy got on the train with her despite the fact that it was not going in the direction that he was. During the trip, he mentioned several times how lonely he was, and how bitter and angry that makes him. In school, my girlfriend had been kind to this person after his diagnosis with Aspergers, during which time he shared that he had suicidal tendencies. Now, she’s worried that he doesn’t have anyone with whom he can share these feelings. Other than a mutual appreciation of the same TV series, they don’t have anything in common.

This evening, the person sent my girlfriend an email asking to go to a movie together. On one hand, she feels like she has a responsibility to help someone so obviously in need of companionship. On the other, she has no interest in spending any more time with the guy, and has neither the time or energy to become this person’s emotional support system, because she’ll be starting an intensive program in Engineering soon. She doesn’t want to agree to one meeting and give the impression that she wants to be his BFF, but she doesn’t want the guilt of ghosting him or turning him down and later learning that he had hurt himself or others. He doesn’t seem to take hints very well, or he wouldn’t have followed her home.

Should she give him the one hang out he wants, or should she find a way to turn him down gently? She wants my advice, but I don’t know what to say.

What About Bob?

It’s good that your girlfriend is concerned about this guy’s feelings, WaB. But There’s a difference between “being concerned about someone” and “signing on to be their emotional cruise director.” One of the issues that comes up with folks who are in the center of the Venn diagram with “lonely” on one side and “socially awkward” on the other is that they tend to imprint on the first person to be nice to them like an awkward duckling. Which can be sweet at times but it’s also exhausting; more often than not, it means that they’re putting all of their emotional intimacy eggs into that one metaphorical basket. That in and of itself is a problem, but it also means that they tend to rely on that person for all of their future social connections.

And then there’s the fact that this dude is waving some red flags around. Getting on the train going in the wrong direction to keep talking to her… ok, he may not quite get appropriate behavior. It’s still creepy, but it’s a one-off. That plus advertising his bitterness and rage and dropping subtle hints about his loneliness… I can’t really blame your girlfriend for feeling weird about this guy.

Plus: she’s got her own life to live. She’s busy as it is, and her job isn’t to be this dude’s therapist, surrogate or nursemaid. And this guy is already giving signs of attaching himself to her like a lovesick lamprey.

Look, this is a case where there won’t be just one hang-out. If she meets up with him once, she’s going to be opening up the door to even more demands on her time… and she’ll feel guilty not giving it to him. Blame the same socialization that women go through that teaches them to be overly-giving to others, even at the expense of themselves.

The best thing your girlfriend can do is turn him down, gently but firmly. It’s important that she makes it clear that she’s not interested in hanging out with him; a soft “no” like “I can’t, I’m busy right now” will be read as a “…so keep trying.” She doesn’t have to be cruel or harsh about it, but she should be clear that she’s not available or interested in hanging out with him.

The other thing to keep in mind: she’s not responsible for whatever he does or doesn’t do after she turns him down. That’s bullshit that people try to use to leverage others – especially women – into doing things they don’t want to do. Just as Shana Fisher wasn’t responsible for Dimitrios Pagourtzis shooting up the school in Santa Fe, Texas, your girlfriend isn’t on the hook for this guy’s actions. He may be lonely, he may be autistic, but he still is making choices of his own free will. That’s on him. 

Tell your girlfriend the best thing she can say is “thanks but no thanks, best of luck on your search.”

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I am a screw-up trying to unscrew his screw-ups with women. Several things happened in my freshman year that reinforced my need to get better with interacting with women: I was falsely accused of stalking a girl in my orientation group, I torched a friendship with a female friend after groping her by accident and making her even more uncomfortable in my attempts to apologize, and learned that I had creeped out the girl I’d had a crush on since the beginning of the year. This is compounding on the screw-ups with women I had during high school, and suffice it to say, there are a lot of them. 

I was tired of repeating history, so I went Google searching for advice on not creeping out women, which is how I found your ‘Don’t Be A Creep’ series of articles. I learned about “soft ‘no’s”, “oneitis”, the importance of eye contact and observation of personal space, and a bunch of other helpful stuff, and for a while, it seemed to work. I fully realized some of the creepy actions I’ve done in my past, reached out to the people I could and apologized. I apologized to my crush and became, if not friends, someone she’s OK having around. I kicked porn and masturbation for four months and enjoyed the results. It was a little exhilarating. 

Well, school’s out and reality came crashing in. I had talked a little to my ex-friend, and she said she was open to me texting her, which I tried and got left on read. I had gotten my crush’s Snapchat a few weeks before school was out; it’s going on 3 weeks into summer, and she still hasn’t added me back. I tried to contact a victim of my creepiness and got no response, not even a ‘Read [insert time]’, which makes me believe she blocked my number, a horrible feeling. Porn and masturbation came crashing in, and my streak was broken within 48 hours of being home. I know I’m not entitled to forgiveness or love or whatever it is I’m looking for, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lack of whatever I’m looking for SUCKS. 

Coming home from school made me realize what was seemingly a lot of old feelings going away was just a delayed reaction, and they’ve all come back with a vengeance. That ‘I’m going to die alone’ feeling. That ‘accept your fate’ feeling. That ‘Scarlet Letter, every girl on the planet knows you’ve done some creepy stuff and wouldn’t want to be around you for a million dollars’ feeling. That ‘I’m the only one who feels this way and has these problems’ feeling. I know these are all BS, but yet another thing I’ve learned this year is the huge difference between comprehension and acceptance.

So I guess the advice I’m looking for throughout all of this gut-spilling is: what do I do moving forward? How do I take the blinders off and see the mistakes I’m seeing in the present instead of with hindsight’s 20/20? Is there some way to go from comprehension to acceptance with what’s probably never going to happen? Is there some sabotaging aspect of myself you can see that I can’t? Give me a diagnosis, Doc. Believe me, I need it. 

Needing The Truth

OK NTT, remember that you asked for this. This is going to be harsh, but I promise you: go through all of this and you’ll come out a better person on the other side.

Here’s the mistake you made and are still making: you haven’t processed the fact that apologizing for being a creeper doesn’t make things better if you don’t change the way you act. Apologies are great, but they’re just the start of the process. The next step is to quit behaving like a creeper. Part of this entails accepting the consequences of your actions. You’ve made people feel deeply uncomfortable, and those people may very well not want you around afterwards, even with your apology. People aren’t always going to give you a second chance, and frankly, that’s their prerogative. They’re neither required to accept your apology or give you another chance, and it’s on you to accept this.

And honestly? You haven’t. You’re trying to act like what you’ve done has been erased and it hasn’t. It can take people time to feel comfortable around you again; rushing in like everything’s back to the pre-creepiness status quo just tells everybody that you don’t get why what you did creeped people out. Jumping on your crush’s Snapchat? That was exactly the sort of thing that tells them that you haven’t learned your lesson. This is the sort of behavior that makes people think “this is going to be exactly the same as it was last time.”

It takes time to earn people’s trust back – often months or even years. Some may never want you around again and hey, while that sucks? The only thing you can do is acknowledge their wishes and move on.

You need to take the L right now and accept that things are going to suck for a while as you show through your actions that you’ve learned and are a better person. That may mean that you’re going to have to let these people go and accept that they just don’t want to have anything to do with you going forward. Which, hey, sucks. But it is what it is. You can only learn from this so that you don’t fuck up the same way, next time.

And while you’re doing all this, you should take time to get some help. The answer to getting better emotionally isn’t joining the no-fap movement, it’s talking to a professional. Fortunately, you’re in college, which means you have access to low-cost, or even free mental health services. Make an appointment with the counselor and start talking all of this out. They’ll be able to help you process everything you’re feeling and give you some strategies to not only handle things, but to help move forward in a healthy and productive manner.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Turn A Friend Down? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Like a lot of people, I have some complicated feelings about the death of Anthony Bourdain. As a general rule, I don’t usually have much to say about celebrity deaths other than “Man, that sucks.” But a few, a precious few, manage to hit me like a hammer to the chest. Those are the ones that feel too close to home, the ones who had serious meaning for me. Sometimes it’s because they were someone whose work had a major impact on my life. Other times, it’s because I can relate far too closely to the pain that brought them to the end. Robin Williams hit both of those for me. So, surprisingly, did Bourdain.

Now there’s a lot of talk about in the wake of his death. Many people, myself included, have had a lot to say about living with depression. There are some great resources for getting help if you have mental health issues or how to help someone you love who’s dealing with mental illness in real and material ways. And there are plenty of people arguing about suicide and how to process it all.

But, honestly? I’m getting incredibly tired of talking about death and eulogizing all of the people we’ve lost recently. Because while we should eulogize and mourn and grieve for those we’ve lost, I feel like a fitting monument – especially to larger than life figures like Bourdain – is to learn how to live. Taking inspiration from them and living a better life because of their example is, to my mind, the best tribute one could pay to the ones we’ve lost.

And while you could say many things about Anthony Bourdain, everyone can agree that the man lived – deliberately, passionately and incredibly.

So while we may have lost a larger-than-life figure, we can all learn to live our own lives in a way that Bourdain would’ve admired.

Here’s how you live like you give a damn.

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

One of the easiest – and laziest – things you can do in this life is to simply go through it on auto-pilot. Too many of us simply coast through, never challenging ourselves or taking risks. It’s incredibly easy to stay on the sure path, avoiding risk, avoiding failure. Stick with the known, the safe, the things that don’t push you or challenge you. Eat the same food, listen to the same music, go to the same places day in, day out.

Or you could end up in foreign countries eating fermented shark and warthog anus.

Part of what made Anthony Bourdain so compelling is that he lived life in a balls-out manner. As a younger man, he was a raconteur and libertine, living a punk-as-fuck life; partying to excess, drinking and drugging his way through restaurant culture. And while he gave up the more extreme ways of his youth, he never let go of the energy, drive and passion that propelled him to every corner of the world. You can take the young punk out of the walk-in freezer (especially after he’s done getting high) but you can’t take the punk out of the man. Just as that reckless disregard for the norms of life propelled Bourdain into superstardom, so can it be what gives your life the fire and grit it deserves.

If any of Bourdain’s writings, his shows, his activism or his cooking has taught us anything, it’s the joy, the terror and the wonder that comes from stepping outside of our own bubbles. It’s that willingness to grab opportunities as they come, even if they’re something you would never do, and squeeze them until they squeak.

Now this doesn’t mean that you need to be working as a sous-chef while high on LSD or subsisting on enough coffee and cigarettes to keep both Virginia and Columbia in clover. But living like you give a damn does mean a willingness to take risks. You should try things that challenge you and push your limits. Take on tasks that scare you, recognizing that you know you may well fail in the attempt… and then do them anyway. Yes, you may not succeed – at first – but you’ll still survive. And in failing, you won’t just survive, but you’ll bounce back, stronger and better than before.

Life is too short and too full of wonder to play it completely safe. Taking even a small step out of your own comfort zone is the first step towards entering a bigger, more incredible world, full of things you would never see or experience otherwise.

And while we’re on the topic:

Explore Like Bourdain

Part of what makes people lead lives of quiet desperation is how little curiosity that we show in the world around us. Think about your own daily routine. How often do you take the same routes to work, talk to the same people, eat the same food, over and over again? To be sure, there’s comfort to be found in routine, but routine can also become the straightjacket in which we live. Like I said before: we have our little bubbles and we scarcely can be bothered to leave them. Most people live their lives solidly between the lines, never venturing so much as a toe’s worth outside of them. It’s all so very safe, so very familiar and so very much the same. It’s all too easy to miss out on wonders because of how rarely we stop to look around.

And even when we do venture out, we do so in the narrowest, most structured way possible. Everything gets planned and scheduled to within an inch of its life, leaving little opportunity for serendipity. And while there are times when structure is good – even necessary – there are more times when it’s better to just strike out and find adventure on your own.

Part of what made Bourdain so compelling was his willingness to do whatever in the name of getting to know a city, a people or a cuisine. Whether it was dining at a dingy food truck in Austin or a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop in Thailand, he was willing to go off the beaten path just to see what was there.

This doesn’t mean that you need to travel the world – though you should, if you have the opportunity. It just means that you need to make a point of getting to know the world around you. Find the areas of your town where you never go and get to know it. Eat at restaurants and try cuisines you’ve never had the guts to try before. Read books that are the polar opposite of what you normally read for pleasure. Talk to people, especially the people on the margins; get to know their stories and appreciate life from a perspective other than your own. And if you do travel, give yourself opportunities to get lost and just explore.

If you want to let Bourdain be your inspiration, then find the blank spots in the map of your life and start to fill them in.

Blow Through Mediocrity

Anthony Bourdain was a man who lived for the things that he loved. Even when it hurt or things seemed impossible, he was able to push himself to new levels. He was someone who tossed the easy, predictable life aside in order to pursue the vagabond life in the kitchens of the world. And he thrived. He fought and clawed and endured and studied and learned, crawling from the bottom rung to becoming a legend in his industry. Yes, he did have prodigious talent, the sort of skill and mind that only comes along once in a generation, but talent only gets you so far. In the words of Henry Rollins: knowledge without mileage equals bullshit.

Much of what made Bourdain special, what helped him advance where others didn’t was a refusal to slack. To take it easy. To do what so many of us do and take the easy, expected way.

One of the hardest things to do in this world is to push yourself out of the rut of your life. The rut is comfortable. The rut is safe. It may be boring and predictable, but it’s also easy. Staying in your rut takes no effort. You can do it on autopilot, coasting your way through life with your eyes closed. But that’s no way to live.

And there are so many ruts in our lives. Our careers. Our relationships. Even our own identities. We take the easy path when we can because we know it’s safe. We don’t push our way out of those ruts because it’s hard and it’s risky and we don’t know what may happen because of it. Easier to let someone else tell us what to do, to look to the Great Savior to ply us with platitudes even as he expects us to ignore how empty his words are. Harder to take chances. Harder still to go over the top and face a fate that might end with our hopes and dreams shattering around us.

Even when that’s exactly what we need to do. Bourdain was a man well acquainted with failure. His second act was based on failure; part of what prompted his famous essay “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” was yet another restaurant failing. But that failure, the loss of those dreams became the foundation for new dreams. He took the remains of his future and forged them anew and attacked his life and his career again with the ferocity and tenacity of a pit-bull. The same tenacity and ferocity defined everything he did; he refused to accept mediocrity. He might succeed or he might fail but he would do so greatly. If he was going to crash and burn then it would be a fire that the gods of Olympus would see.

This didn’t mean going balls to the wall every second. Part of overcoming your mistakes means learning how to ease back on the throttle. Sometimes the way you recover from failure is to slow down and find another way… but that’s predicated on accepting that there is another way. It may not be what you expect… but it’s there for you to find it. But the fact that there’s another way doesn’t mean that you get to half-ass it. No matter what you do, life’s too important to give it anything less than the full ass.

Speaking of failure…

Collect Some Scars

In the Austin episode of No Reservations, Bourdain said something that resonated with me: “My body is like a car; there’re so many dents in it by now that one more won’t matter.”

The mistake that so many people make is that they let fear of consequences hold them back. Far too many of us treat life as a game. Not in the sense that we don’t take it seriously, but in the sense that we believe it’s something that can be won. What holds people back is their desire to critical path their way through life. If they can’t be assured of having The Perfect Run, get the Best Ending and find that perfect play through to an S-rank, they don’t want to play at all. They want to make it through to the end without a single mistake, a single flaw or a single lost life.

The problem is: we can’t. There’s no such thing. But it leads to people treating their lives like a brand new car, so afraid of getting scratches in the paint that they never drive it to its full potential.

The truth is that none of us are getting out of this life alive, or in perfect condition. But trying to stay as pristine as possible keeps us from living our lives the way that we wish we could. Scars – physical or emotional, deliberate or accidental – are examples of a life lived with purpose. They’re reminders of adventures you had, choices that you’ve made and mistakes that you’ve survived.

Some scars are ones we’ve picked up by choice; we knew that this was going to hurt, but we did it anyway. Others are inflicted upon us by others – sometimes with intent, others by accident.  Some of them may be the marks of regret or pains we wish we never experienced… but those marks add to the texture of our lives. The ridges and whorls become the maps of our lives and a sign that we didn’t just exist, we lived. Every single scar we carry is a story, and stories are part of what make our lives great. Stories are what make life worth living.

If you want to live like you actually give a damn about the act and the art of living then you need to be willing to take on the dents, dings, scrapes and bangs that come with living. They’re going to happen, regardless of what you do; life is a full contact sport and there’s no going through life without getting banged up. But it’s better to have marks that come from living deliberately than the accidental door dings… or the stress of trying to live life while staying in factory condition the entire way through.

Examine The Impact You Have On The World

Part of what made Bourdain amazing – and makes his loss hurt all the more – was his willingness to be a force for good in this world. Anthony Bourdain was a tireless advocate for the underclass and the downtrodden – in almost everything he did. He was a champion of low-end cuisine, the food of the peasant class. But rather than appropriating it and turning into haute cuisine, he celebrated the food and the people who made it. To him, the people were inextricably tied to the food; to deny one would be to insult the other. He recognized that he was in a position of privilege. As someone in the spotlight, he was able to bring attention to injustice and wrongdoing. Instead of hogging the spotlight himself, he would shine it on others and let them tell their stories.

In 2017, as the Harvey Weinstein scandal continued to unfold and #MeToo was exposing the sexism and harassment in chef culture, Bourdain took time to share how the movement had changed how he looked at himself:

I’ve been hearing a lot of really bad shit, frankly, and in many cases it’s like, wow, I’ve known some of these women and I’ve known women who’ve had stories like this for years and they’ve said nothing to me. What is wrong with me? What have I, how have I presented myself in such a way as to not give confidence, or why was I not the sort of person people would see as a natural ally here? So I started looking at that.

This is important. Instead of centering the story around himself – how he did or didn’t make things better, or proclaiming his innocence – he took a look at who he was and how he could help others. He took responsibility for his own part in contributing to the romanticizing of toxic restaurant culture and became an advocate for the women who were speaking out. He did his best to be conscious of how he could support and help others and be the person that others could rely on if needed.

In a world that seems increasingly dark, chaotic and hopeless, he was a beacon of light. He was willing to lend his voice and his prestige to tell the truth and help push back against injustice.

He was a lion of a man and we won’t see his like again.

Unless we take up the standard that he left behind and follow his lead.

There are many ways of eulogizing and mourning the loss of another. But there are few better ways to commemorate their life than to take inspiration from them and learn from them. To make the world a little better and our lives a little more interesting.

And maybe have a drink and an amazing meal in the process.

The post Live Like You Give A Damn – The Lessons of Anthony Bourdain appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Men on the whole, and white, heterosexual men in particular, tend to have fewer friends than women and the friendships they do have tend to be shallower and less fulfilling. It’s really not uncommon for guys to look up and realize just how few friends they have outside of family members and romantic relationships. And by then… it feels like it’s too late. After all, it’s easy to make friends when you’re in college. But how do you go about making friends when you’re a grown man?

Show Highlights:

• How men train themselves out of having close friends
• Why male friendships tend to be shallower than female friendships
• Why it’s harder to make friends after college
• The Friendship Formula: what it takes to make close friends
• How to turn acquaintances into lifelong friendships

…and so much more

Related Links:

Men And the Epidemic of Loneliness

Five Secrets To Make People Like You

How To Make New Friends

Building a Closer Friendship Between Men

Finding Strength Through Vulnerability

Listen Here
Download Here

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Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post Episode #80: How To Make Friends As an Adult appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Doc, I got a question for you, what the hell is there to do in the real world?

I say this as I’ve been getting more active in talking to women (albeit at the checkout line but it’s a start) and doing some online dating. 

Basically, I have absolutely no idea of what to do outside and I know that when I get a date, it is unlikely to be inside my bedroom playing video games, it’s going to be outside doing something, but I have no idea of what to do outside.

I have an interest in typical nerdy stuff, and have wanted to try LARPing but that shit doesn’t get you dates, useless shit like concerts (the only use in them is selling massively overpriced food, drink or merchandise), coffee dates where you try not to fall asleep, anything hipster where they use antiquated machinery to simulate having a personality, going to bars and paying for drinks then not having your date talk to you again, that’s the shit that most dates are made of.

I’ll admit, this is only stuff I’ve seen in TV shows and movies, but I still have no freaking idea of how to approach actually going on a date with someone, and am considering a life in a monastery ( that’s a lie, I’m too obsessed with machinery for that to ever work)

Also, how the hell do people spend their time without a computer or a phone anyway? I used to love reading and still do but the idea of just reading in a cafe terrifies me for the chance of some twilight-reading dick head to dump a cup of hot coffee over me, or a jock to punch me in the head, or getting ridiculed for reading,

Also I refuse to take my laptop to a coffee shop for the chances of it getting stolen, broken and the fact of I need to build a life outside of it.

Now the gyms a darn good idea, especially as my current diet involves a crap load of Pepsi and little water , I’ve also been trying to get more into philosophy and Buddhism just to make me more well rounded.

I think charity work could also do some good, particularly for a mental health charity, they could use some tech help or just carting around boxes, something to put on the resume.

Doc, I guess I’ll also have to accept that my dreams will never come true, like building giant robots or living on Mars or piloting giant robots or defending the earth from an alien invasion , I was born too early for that. I was holding out hope for that for a long time.

My question is, how can I get a normal life which sucks, as it’s an upgrade to my current one. I’m still young (20s) so that helps.

Blue (almost) Alien

OK Blue, here’s your first step:

Turn your fucking TV off. You seem to have gotten the idea that life outside of your apartment is an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia mixed with Revenge of the Nerds and honestly? Not only is none of that true, but it’s so cartoonishly wrong that I’m left wondering how you manage to get to the grocery store without taking the wrong left turn at Albuquerque.

Right now, dating is the last thing you need to be doing. You need to get some basic life experience under your belt because your view of the world is so off-kilter that you’re not going to get a date in the first place, never mind go on one. Concerts make for lousy first dates but they’re amazing experiences on their own. Coffee dates are all about talking with your date and getting to know them and seeing if it’s worth going on a second, more active date. And I really have no idea where the hell you’re going with “hipster shit” or the idea that going to a bar somehow results in your date not talking to you.

And that’s before we get into the weirdness about bullies who…also read… Twilight?? Or random jocks traveling in packs and physically assaulting people or being made fun of for reading?

Like, that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. I not only read books in cafes and restaurants, but I read my weekly stack of comics while I’m out and about. Hell, one of my close friends has various bars she’s designated as reading spots when she wants to get out, have a beer and relax with the latest from Seanan McGuire or Myke Cole. Nobody is going to give two shits about the fact that you have a book with you.

I also do a fair amount of work in coffeeshops when I need to get out of the house. Here’s how you keep your laptop from being stolen while you’re there:

You: Hey, I have to run to the bathroom for a second. Could you keep an eye on things and make sure someone doesn’t jack my stuff?

Helpful Stranger: Sure!

(later)

You: Thanks, appreciate that.

Helpful Stranger: No problem.

So before you start worrying about dating – or flirting, really – you need to pry yourself away from your phone, your laptop, your TV and apparently damn near everything electronic and actually get out into the meat space. You need to spend some time – and I mean evidently a lot of time – interacting with people without a screen between the two of you. Social skills are more than just making small talk while you’re bagging up your groceries, it’s understanding how the world works, what behavior is appropriate to the situation and how to read the social context. And honestly, even if we allow for your exaggerating for effect, you seem to have little idea about, well, any of it.

So you need to close down all your tabs with Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, kiwifarms and any of the rest of it, log out of Snapchat and actually go outside. Everything you listed, from going to the gym to volunteer work? Yes, do that. Find a LARP group or a geek-themed pub-quiz. Hell, go chase (or get chased by) zombies and see if you’ll survive the zombie apocalypse. Join a Pokemon Go meetup. If you’re going to study Buddhism, then I suggest you go to an actual temple in your area and see if they have any classes. Get your local alt-weekly and make a list of everything going on this weekend and pick three events to go to. Go to some dive bars and have a beer, go see a concert with a no-name band, eat some food that didn’t get delivered to your house or come from a chain restaurant (and preferably has a vegetable or two mixed in) and actually get to know your town and the people who live in it.

You need to spend more time outside and getting to know the world around you and how it actually works before you worry about dates or roving gangs of Twilight-reading, dick-punching jocks who also hate reading. Start building an interesting life that isn’t exclusively on the Internet – and that’s my addicted-to-his-iPhone ass telling you this – and you’ll be in a better place to actually meet women who will want to actually be part of that life. And the more of an interesting life that you lead, the more ideas you’ll have for dates.

Good luck.

Hey Doc,

A few months back OKCupid made some changes to their messaging. As I understand it now both parties have to message each other before they will see any messages that have been sent. I was wondering how this might alter some of the standard advice around when to message someone you are interested in?

So with sites like Match that would allow me to message anyone or send them a wink I would expect to message someone to show my interest in them. That would be preferable to just sending them a wink or similar.

But with the changes at OKCupid does that bring it more into line with sites like Tinder where you would just send someone a like and wait to see if they liked you back? Only then would you send a message. Or is it better to take the opportunity to send them a message anyway, which will be waiting for them if they like you back?

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thanks.

What’s OK, Cupid?

The core of my advice for online dating is that you do best by messaging the people who show interest in you first. Doing the dating app equivalent of cold-calls was going to be considerably less efficient than focusing your attention on the people who showed at least some curiosity about you. Now, before OKCupid made serious structural changes to how the site worked, this meant that you could see who’d visited your profile or be notified that someone who had a high-compatibility score was checking you out; then you could send them a message. Now, OKCupid has changed their system to be more like Tinder in that each profile has the option of “Like” or “Pass”. If you like someone, they get a notification. If you both like each other, then you’re able to message one another.

You still can send people a message without having matched first… but OKCupid will only show the first couple of lines.

So while the dynamic of the site has changed some, it hasn’t changed that much. However, it does prioritize mutual interest prior to messaging, rather than shotgunning out dozens of messages and hoping something stuck.

How do you work with this new dynamic? Well, you have to make sure your dating profile is up to snuff. If you’re not getting any attention or likes from people, then it’s on you to go through and do some serious revamping of your profile. What is the story your dating profile is telling potential matches? Do your photos show you off to your best effect and do they match the version of you from your dating profile? Are you practicing good dating SEO and making sure that your profile is liberally sprinkled with hooks for matches to respond to? Are you making sure that your profile is appealing to the people that you want to match with? If you’re trying to, say, find a no-strings casual relationship, those pictures of you playing with your adorable nephew are going to send the message that you’re looking to get married and settle down.

And don’t forget: the algorithm is watching. People who’re more active get higher priority in other people’s feeds. So switching out your photos regularly or A/B testing the various sections of your profile will put you up in front of more people and invite curious sexy strangers to come check you out.

Fine tune your profile until there’s no fat to trim and it’s polished to a high gloss. Then, as the “likes” roll in, see how many of them you dig. Having to have mutual likes may seem like an inconvenience, but trust me: you’ll get a better rate of return on those messages than if you’re just firing off at everyone you see.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Get A Life? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Good Morning Doc,

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of an anxious state after a date went bad a few days ago.

For context, the date seemed to go quite well initially. Despite the initial plan falling through we found somewhere else to go and had a bit of a laugh about the situation. A couple of hours after the date I sent a quick message just to say thanks and that I’d had a fun evening. She called me and told me she was upset that I hadn’t made a move. I apologised and said that it must have been miscommunication largely down to a lack of experience. She then said that she’d be quite happy to come over and “fix” that. Being the idiot I am I made the same mistake twice in misreading the situation and thought she was joking so laughed it off. I realised my mistake immediately from her change of tone, tried to backpedal but she gave me a “whatever” and hung up.

No big deal in itself, plenty of other people out there. Problem is that we have quite a number of mutual friends and there’s a get together next week that not only she will be at, but there’s a high likelihood that I’ll have to interact with her (it’s a social dance where we rotate partners so everyone dances with everyone else). I don’t want to not go but at the same time I don’t really relish seeing her again, especially since our last interaction ended on such a sour note.

Should I not go? Should I duck out early to avoid her? Should I mention something to my friends so that I don’t have to dance with her (without really letting on why)? Or maybe all of these options are simply cowardly and I should just grin and bear it if I’m forced to interact with her? These things seem so much less sticky when it’s with people I don’t know to well…

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards

An Anxious Idiot

When you’re starting out, sometimes it can be hard to pick up on the signals that someone is sending you, AAI. Hell, sometimes you miss out on even the screamingly obvious. Let me tell you a story from my bad old days. There was a night when I was working as a cartoonist and doing some work for the college paper. It was late and the only people in the office were me and another young woman who was putting the final touches on the layout. While we were talking, I mentioned that I was an anime fan. While she wasn’t that big a fan, but she’d seen a few movies. In fact, what she really dug were the horror genre and wouldn’t you know it, she had one movie she’d wanted to see back in her room but hadn’t had the guts to watch it and would I like to go keep her company so she’d feel safe?

(That movie, incidentally, was one of the most notorious animated pornos of the 90s.)

My response? “Nah, thanks, I want to get this finished before I go to bed.”

It was only days later that I realized that what she was doing was asking if I’d like to come up for a hot cup of “fuck my brains out”.

…oops.

Now in your case AAI, you managed to miss her signals and inadvertently told her that you thought it was hilarious that she was interested in you. So, not gonna lie: you managed to jam both feet in your mouth with room for her fist for dessert. However, the good news is that this isn’t as bad as it could be. You were kind of an idiot, but honestly? This isn’t social doom… unless you compound that mess. See, the problem is that laughed at her. That stings. A lot.  Ducking out or trying to avoid her – or asking your friends to keep her away is just going to end up doubling down on the impression that you really don’t like her. And that is going to make things far more awkward than if you just sucked it up.

If you want to fix this, you’re going to have to smooth over that mistake. That means you need to apologize to her. Preferably in person. The fact that you two are going to be at the same event together is the perfect opportunity to do this. The best thing you can do is go over to her and say “Hey, can I talk to you for a second? Listen, I messed up last week. I completely misunderstood what you were saying and I thought you were joking around. I think I may have come of like I was laughing at you instead of with you and I’m just really sorry about that. I really think you’re cool and I got nervous and shoved my foot in my mouth. So, again, I’m sorry.”

Once you’ve said this: leave it alone. The ball’s in her court now, and she’ll let you know how things are going to go.

Now that having been said: it’s entirely possible that she’s not quite as pissed as you expect she is. It’s not impossible that she gets that you said something stupid and the whole thing is water under the bridge. It may even be something the two of you will laugh about later on. But you should still apologize, if only so that you don’t freak out every time you see her from now on.

And, honestly, AAI? Don’t be ashamed of making mistakes. Mistakes are signs that you tried something outside of your comfort zone. We learn far more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, which is why it’s important to go out and make mistakes. The key is that you learn from them and make different mistakes in the future.

Good luck.

Dr. NerdLove,

I’m a 49 year-old gay male that has been in several but relatively continuous long-term relationships ever since coming out at 23. For the past six months, however, I’ve been single – which is the longest that I have ever been single. Although I have enjoyed these past 6 months, I would prefer to be in a relationship. But I think I am too jaded now. Ideally I want the next relationship to be the last one. I want to make sure that I choose wisely to improve the odds, as much as humanly possible, that this next one will work out.

So I want you to analyze my selection process and tell me if I need to tweak or flat out change some of it, because, I don’t trust myself anymore.

Let me start off by saying that I am above average in looks (a solid 8), fit, relatively healthy (physically, emotionally, and mentally), financially stable, and genuinely an all-around good natured nice guy. It is relatively easy for me to find guys to go out on a date. Most of them soon after want to pursue a relationship whenever they realize that I’m a “catch”. I, on the other hand, recently find myself now holding off more than I used to. Am I too jaded?

So here is my process.

1. I usually start by determining how sexually attracted I am to the other person. Unfortunately when the guy is “super hot”, I then find myself ignoring “red flags”. The last guy I dated was a Greek god physically, so I ignored the fact that he was a functioning addict for several months. I’ve also tried dating guys that I wasn’t all goo-goo-gaga over their physical attributes (say a 6 out of 10), but had other qualities… However, with these guys, the physical aspects that I didn’t find attractive became bigger over time. So how much weight should one put on initial sexual attraction without it becoming a blinding force or a future hindrance? My current feeling is that I should look for other solid 8s.

2. My next step is determining if it is easy spending the day together. Do we have similar interests? Do I enjoy talking to this person? But I also want him to have his own social circle or interests because I don’t want to be joined in the hip, so we also need to be able to be apart and be comfortable with that. However, it seems that most guys take the time apart as an opportunity to have sex, not to take up golf or join a book club. Am I being unreasonable?

3. Which brings me to my next step – communication and transparency. Life has taught me that most people lie. They lie to create a persona that they want to be – rather than just own up to who you are and embrace it. So it takes me months or years before I find out that the guy cannot be monogamous, or that they have anger management issues, or that they have a drug addiction, or whatnot. So now I usually find myself digging into people’s back stories to find out the truth, rather than just taking what they say at face value. But that usually takes a lot of time. Is there a faster way to get to know people’s true core?

Thank you in advance for your fresh perspective.

Too Judicious or Jaded?

I think your biggest problem is is that you’re trying to ward off every possible problem before it can happen. A lot of folks do this; they want to find the perfect path to the “best ending” of the relationship without taking any real risks. The problem is: you can’t eliminate risk when it comes to dating and relationships. You can have as many systems and procedures set up as you want, but humans are chaos personified; no matter what precautions you take, people will slip through. And honestly: the amount of testing you’re trying to do is going to push dudes away before you even have a chance to start wondering about their long-term potential.

Don’t get me wrong: you actually have a better grasp on things than you realize. You have a pretty good idea of what you want and – critically – where your blindspots are. The place where you go off the rails is in how you’re trying to compensate for these blindspots.

Take your plan to deal with your willingness to ignore danger signs in dudes with the hotness. The key isn’t “just date guys who’re moderately hot” it’s “get your libido under control so that you don’t let your junk make your decisions for you.” I mean, I get it: I’ve dated and slept with people I knew were bad news, but as soon as the clothes came off, all those red flags just mysteriously vanished. But there comes a point where you have to realize the problem is that since they aren’t going to stop being garbage fires, you are going to have to exercise more self control. Learning to turn down smoking hotness may be a challenge, but it’s a necessary one. Otherwise you’re just going to find yourself going after those 9s and 10s and then saying “Well that’s another fine mess my penis got me into” afterwards.

(And as an aside: I really dislike rating people like that. It’s dehumanizing whether we’re doing it to women or men.)

Similarly, your plan of “how easy is it to spend the day together” has a pretty sizable flaw. In the early days of a relationship, it’s gonna be pretty damn easy. You’re both going to be on your best behavior because this is all still new and fresh and exciting. Your brains are getting drowned in dopamine and oxytocin and everything is amazing and wonderful and easy. It’s later on, when you’re more settled into the relationship that the little quirks you thought were so cute and charming start to become annoying… and then irritating and then become dealbreakers.

I think what you need to do, more than anything else, is start by making sure that you’re looking for the right people. It seems like you’re hoping for a committed, monogamous relationship. While that can feel rare in the gay community, there are dudes out there who want the same thing you do: they want to find someone and settle down. Start by looking for people who’re more likely to be on the same page as you. Part of this may hinge on where you’re meeting them – while you can find dudes at bars or on Grindr who’re of a mind to settle down, you’re more likely to find them through your social circle or get-togethers where hooking up isn’t the main goal.

Next, if you want to know what they’re actually like, then remember: deeds, not words. You need to pay attention to how they behave, not what they say. How do they treat you? Are they considerate and attentive, or dismissive and evasive? How do they treat others? Are they polite and courteous? Catty and dismissive? Excessively flirty and inappropriate? Are they drama magnets where nothing is ever their fault, or do they have their shit together? Are they the sort of person who actually lives their professed values or do they say one thing and do another entirely?

How do they respond when they’re frustrated or disappointed? How do they handle conflict? What about when you disagree with them or turn them down?

And, for that matter: how do they respond if you open up a little to them? Do they reciprocate and share more about themselves? Can they be honest with you? Do they close up? Or, for that matter, do they overshare, dishing out more than is really appropriate for where you are in your relationship?

None of this is foolproof and won’t keep out the assholes and the liars… but it certainly cuts down the number considerably. The more practice you have paying attention to how they act, the better you’ll be able to tune your Spidey-sense and catch out the undesirable prospects.

One more thing you need to keep in mind is that dating is a numbers game. Sometimes we’ll get lucky and meet the right person right off the bat, but more often than not, we all have to go through some bad dates and awkward relationships before we find the person we need. But you can’t get through to the guy you need without taking a chance. So go out and date a little. Keep your head in the game (instead of your junk), keep your eyes open and take your time. Give yourself a chance to get to know these guys for who they really are and you’ll find the one you’ve been waiting for.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Recover From A Bad Date? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

How often has this happened to you: you’ve got a woman’s number, but you never seem to be able to actually get a date. You may be doing great at first, but then you notice that it’s taking longer and longer for her to reply and those replies are getting shorter and shorter until you get… nothing. And now you’re left wondering just what happened… and why it keeps happening to you.

Texting may have been a godsend to shy, awkward guys who want to get dates, but you still have to know how to do it right. You may be used to talking with your thumbs like God intended, but that doesn’t mean that your texting game is all it should be. In fact, if you’re regularly getting radio silence or have a hard time turning numbers into dates, then you’re probably making one of these common texting mistakes.

Show Highlights:

• How texting changed the dating game… and how it made things harder
• Why so many men get ghosted after they get her number
• The mistake men make when trying to build attraction over text
• How even the most well-meaning men can end up ruining women’s interest in them through one wrong text
• The number one mistake men make that costs them dates

…and so much more

Don’t forget to pre-order my new book I Got Her Number. Now What? A Geek’s Guide To Texting, Snapchatting and Sliding into DMs, coming July 24, 2018

Related Links:

Find Your Flirting Style

How to Use Humor In Your Flirting

How To Avoid Getting “The Fade”

The Mistake Men Make That Cost Them Dates

Listen Here
Download Here

Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes , Stitcher and on YouTube.

Like the podcast? Become a Dr. NerdLove patron at Patreon.com/DrNerdLove

Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post Episode #81 – The Texting Mistakes That Cost You Dates appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

You’ve mentioned you once lost a relationship with someone you thought was the perfect match and the love of you life. This just happened to me, and it is absolutely soul-crushing. On the one hand, it’s reassuring to know it happens and people can come out on the other side. And I know about the things I should be doing right now, like taking care of myself and trying to focus on things I enjoy and healing.

But it’s been a month and a half and while I am doing a little better than a month ago when I was an absolute wreck, it still hurts badly and constantly. I am still angry and confused and hurt and heartbroken and it is so hard to move on with my life and let it go. These things take time, but is there any way to not feel so broken in the meantime? I’m glad I cared about something so much and was vulnerable, but the pain is sometimes unbearable. And now not only do I have some trust issues due to some of the things she said to me that turned out to not be true, but I’ve lost all my confidence. I know I have a lot to offer, but my dating experience has not been a fruitful one and it really sucks to feel unwanted and undesirable.

How do I get my confidence back? How can I find the REAL love of my life without this forever hanging over my head and my heart? Please help.

Dumped, Dejected and Dismayed

Man, I’m sorry this happened to you 3D. It’s always rough when a relationship falls apart, especially one that you thought was The One. It’s like getting kicked in your soul’s nuts. It hits you on a deep and personal level, feeling like you’ve just been weighed and measured and found wanting. Now you’re left questioning everything. Was any of it real? Did they mean anything they said? Was this whole thing just one horrifying performance, a WestWorld-esque fraud where the reality is just a bunch of people telling you what you want to hear.

But here’s the thing, 3D: the fact that it feels like this doesn’t mean it’s true. I hate to trot out the phrase but feelz aren’t always realz, my dude. You’re dealing with the fact that a major part of your life has come to a sudden and unexpected halt. When you’re in a relationship, you’re no longer just 3D, you’re 3D+TheirPartner. The longer you’re together, the more that’s part of who you are; you start to reorder your life around being in that relationship, with that person. When the relationship comes to an end – especially one you didn’t anticipate – that identity and that life is suddenly gone. Now after having spent months or years getting into a particular groove, you’re suddenly finding that you’re 3D again and what does this all mean?

In a real way, you’re like someone who’s lost a limb. Your brain has carved a groove around your life with your ex. Now you have to relearn life without them and that’s hard. But no matter what it may feel like “hard” isn’t the same thing as “impossible”.

Well, the answer of “how do I get back to NOT feeling like hammered shit” is in relearning who 3D is. This means taking time to get familiar with you you are. Not who you were, who you are, now that you’ve gone through this. And if you don’t know… well, then this is your opportunity to decide who you are and shape your life accordingly. It’s time to start working on yourself, doing things that are good for you. Not just that make you feel good in the moment (or just numb the pain) but that have measurable, positive effects on your life. This is one of the reasons why I always recommend hitting the gym in the wake of a break-up; not only can the treadmill or the elliptical runner or lifting weights be a sort of moving meditation, but they’re things that you can do that are good for you. You’re working on your health and getting and shape instead sitting around and feeling like a gross lump.

While you’re at it: lean on your friends. Rebuild the connections that you let slide while you were with your partner and strengthen the ones that are already there. Your friends are a source of support in this time and it’s good to remind yourself that you’re still loved and appreciated.

This is also the time to throw yourself into a new hobby or interest. Maybe you’ve always had the idea that you wanted to learn a new language or start playing guitar. Now is the time to start. It gives you something to occupy your brain instead of playing endless games of “what if”. Plus: it makes you a more interesting, more well-rounded person… which helps you find new relationships down the line.

But the most important thing you can do, 3D, is give yourself time. It’s only been a month and a half. That’s not a long time in the scheme of things, and it’s unreasonable to expect that you’re going to be magically all better virtually no time at all. You need to let yourself heal, 3D and you can’t do that if you keep picking at the scab. It’s going to hurt while your heart knits itself back together and your wounds close. You will grieve. That’s fine. That’s natural. But it will fade over time. It will be gradual, sure. But one day you’re going to realize that you don’t feel so bad. Yeah you may not be at 100% yet… but it doesn’t suck as much either. It’s like when you’ve had a headache because you had it for so long that you only realize it by it’s absence.

So take your time, 3D. Work on yourself, connect with your friends and occupy your brain. These will all help ease the pain so that you can let time and perspective do their work. Because it will get better. I promise.

All will be well.

Hi Dr NerdLove,

Love the column! It’s given me a lot of food for thought over recent months as I begin to seriously consider dating as a fun, healthy thing to do rather than a way to fill a hole in my life.

I’ve made a lot of positive changes lately in my life in general as well as my attitude towards dating. I try to adopt an abundance mentality. I’m beginning to feel that the only chances you’re guaranteed to blow are the ones you don’t take. If I’m out and feeling anxious or sad about my prospects, I’ll turn my phone off and engage with humans rather than hide in a corner checking Twitter and cursing my genetics (which I imagine wasn’t particularly attractive behaviour). I have trouble believing that someone with my face has ever been sent signals, but I’ve actually done okay historically with people out-right telling me they like me or having friends say ‘do you remember that time I hit on you?’ years later which I was oblivious to due to my self-esteem, so it’s a reasonable assumption that perhaps at least some strangers see something attractive about me for reasons I wish I knew and believed.

I guess my concern is this: despite believing in abundance and taking chances, what if I still screw up every opportunity? Trying my best is no guarantee that I won’t die lonely and bitter and it’s crippling to think I won’t be intimate with another ever again. I do think my confidence is growing, but I’m not sure it could stand repeated rejections and therefore the confirmation of every negative thing I believe about myself, despite knowing on an intellectual level that it’s not necessarily a value judgement about me or my appearance and working on ways to improve my own self-validation. I do think I’m good at accepting rejection and have formed good genuine friendships with people things haven’t worked out romantically with.

I’ve come off of dating apps because I started to believe that quiet spells are confirmations that I’m ugly and/or boring/weird (although I swipe on very few people, I don’t find myself particularly interested on many people on them) and I become depressed. How do I build resilience when my self-esteem demons are being roused? Is it possible that some of us just don’t ‘qualify’ for dating?

– Not Quite Human Yet

Here’s my answer to what-if questions NQHY: what if a meteorite fell out of the sky and the resulting impact triggered the caldera under Yellowstone Park? Now not only is most of middle-America wiped out but the ensuing nuclear winter would cause a mini ice-age even greater than the Year Without a Summer that was caused by Mount Tambora exploding.

I bring this up because, honestly, What-If’ing is a pointless exercise. You can what-if yourself into literally any scenario because you’re not being realistic. You’re being pessimistic and assuming the worst; it only feels like you’re being realistic because our brains have an inherent negativity bias. All you’re doing is playing self-destructive fantasies that sound right to you because they conform to the beliefs you already have. 

And folks who play these What-If games never really stop to ask themselves: “what if I’m wrong?”

I mean, let’s circle back around to something you said in your letter, NQHY:

but I’ve actually done okay historically with people out-right telling me they like me or having friends say ‘do you remember that time I hit on you?’ years later

You’ve got evidence right there that folks think you’re hot piece of prime beef. And I get it: it can be hard to accept that people think you’re attractive. You want to dismiss it when your friends say it because they have to, don’t they? Trust me: I’ve been there, done that and the best compliment I may have ever gotten came from someone who was pissed I was telling incels they had hope.

There’re a lot of ways to build emotional strength, NQHY, but part of what you need to do is stop looking for bullshit excuses to undercut your self-esteem. Part of the reason you’re getting radio silence on dating apps is because that’s standard operating procedure; there’s a lot of noise and many people – women especially – get overwhelmed. As a result, you’re going to send a lot of messages out into the void. But the other reason is you aren’t doing anything either. From your own letter:

although I swipe on very few people, I don’t find myself particularly interested on many people on them)

The lack of action is coming from inside the house, man.

You’ve made a lot of progress, NQHY and you should be proud of it. So quit letting bullshit ideas undercut all the hard work you’ve been doing. You’ve got a lot going for you, if you’d just let yourself believe it. Start recognizing all those times that you’ve been sabotaging your own worth and build yourself up. Be the friend that you need, man. You deserve better than what you’re allowing yourself to have.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Get My Confidence Back? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Doctor’s Note: today’s column involves some generalized discussion of sexual assault. 

Hey Doc,

I’ve put together a profile that represents me well and that women seem to like. I get matches and messages from people who seem really cool. The problem is, I can’t sustain a conversation. I get two or three exchanges, maybe half a dozen, and they just vanish. It’s pretty clear to me that I have no idea what people want to hear.

I promise I’m not being creepy. I’m probably just being boring. I think I’m asking pretty reasonable ‘get to know you’ questions. “Are you from here? What do you think of this town?” “I’m excited about this plan I have, what are you up to?” “You like this genre of music. Do you know this artist? You’re in for a treat. (or You do? You’re cool!)”

I try to express an interest in their lives, while showing that I also have an interesting life. It’s not working, and I really don’t have any idea why. I don’t even enjoy getting a match anymore, as I know how exactly what is going to happen. I’ve been at this all year and only had one date out of at least 30 matches.

I know teasing is an important part of flirting. But I can’t do it. I’m way too genuine. I don’t even shit talk my closest friends, and I don’t know why I’d want to. One woman I dated suddenly exclaimed “Oh! You don’t know when I’m bullshitting you!” and vanished shortly after. Is this my problem? Do people want to hear bullshit from a stranger they want to like?

I’m pretty well stuck, and it’s taking it’s toll on my confidence. How can I learn to do this better? Are there transcripts of conversations I could study?

Bumble Fumble

One of the issues with dating apps is there’s a lot of noise obscuring the signal, BF. Even on apps where women make the first move like Bumble, there’re a lot of folks who are functionally clogging up women’s messages with crap. Even if we set aside the deluge of dick-picks, the guys who ask if they can fuck her tits by the second message and the unwelcome objectification, there’s a plethora of purposeless texts and messages that send the message that this person isn’t worth her time. The classic example are the messages that start up as “‘sup?”, or “what’re u up to?” but even more involved questions can turn people off.

The common denominator in all of these messages is simple: they’re boring. Boredom is the universal sin when it comes to communicating with people you’re interested in – whether you’re texting after having gotten her number or whether you’re messaging her on Tinder or Bumble. And I’m going to be honest with you BF: if the samples you shared are what you’ve been sending to you matches… well, they’re about as exciting as dry toast. The problem is that there’s no zing or spark there. The first two come off as generic, potential copy-pasted messages that get shotgunned to everyone. The third is just… there. I mean, it does give at least an indication that you’ve read their profile, but honestly there’s not much for a potential match to sink her teeth into.

There are two important factors when it comes to sending a message that people will respond to on a dating app. First, you want to make it clear that you’ve read their profile and you’re not swiping on every profile that you come across. Second: you need to give them something they will want to respond to. This means that you need to engage them on an emotional level; you want to give them something that provokes their interest and tickles the part of their brain that makes them want to know more. So instead of just saying “hey, here’s what I’m doing this weekend,” work off of something from their profile. Find ways to relate to it and show that you two have something in common. For example, do they have things that you can mutually geek out over? That kind of “you love this? I LOVE THIS TOO! LET’S BOND OVER HOW AWESOME THIS IS”, for example, is one way to get the conversation started. “Hey, you dig $BAND? That’s crazy, they were my first concert ever. That was the first time I ever went and got in a mosh-pit before and it was intense! What about you?”

Alternately, can you share something that might make them laugh? Maybe you can share a silly story about something that happened involving a shared interest you two have? Or, for that matter, can you make up something that’s clearly absurd and over the top but will make them laugh and want to play along?

This is part of why teasing is often – not always, just frequently – a component of flirting; it’s a way of engaging people on an emotional level and having some fun together. Now that’s not always somebody’s particular shot of whiskey, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find other ways to get people in the feels. Teasing, joking and being silly doesn’t require you to not be genuine, nor does it require you to talk shit. All it means is that you’re gently prodding someone but in a way that says “I like you”.

Now, if you’re having a hard time catching when someone’s joking with you, you may want to ask. Of course, even that can be made into a joke; after all, there are hordes of “not sure if serious” memes out there that get the message across without making you sound like Johnny NoFun.

TL;DR: your biggest problem is that your messages are dull and uninteresting. Find ways to engage with people that hits some positive feelings – humor, cuteness, interesting or ‘cool’ stories – and you’ll start having far more success. Save the “getting to know you” questions until you’re in person. And even then, try to avoid coming across like you’re interviewing them.

Good luck.

(Oh, hey NerdLovers: if you have some examples of some positive dating app exchanges you’ve had, please feel free to share them in the comments.)

Hello Doctor!

Before I start I feel like I should have a trigger warning. That’s the polite thing to do, isn’t it? Well here it is, sexual assault, toxic people and whatnot. I should probably also clarify that this isn’t about personal love or sex or dating, I only care for this person as a platonic friend. Never the less, I’ve held this in for a time and have no people to vent to. Don’t know if my experience will be useful to anyone, or if you’ll have anything useful to say, but it’d feel good to have it out there.

Starting from the beginning I met these two people at approximately the same time, when I started university. The guy and future assaulter, lets call him M, who I became very close friends with, and the female friend, A, who I never became friends with but who was a pleasant acquaintance. Us three, and a few others, became close knit and would often hang out and do stuff together.

The first year went… okay. Pleasant even. Never really cared about A, not for trying however. She did always seem to busy or suspicious to want to hang out one on one together. This didn’t bother me, I was not attracted to her and though she was a good conversationalist who I would like to know better I respected her wishes. She was also very… pleasing? Anxious? It is hard to explain… a certain air about her that was and is a result of past trauma.

Unbeknownst to me however was that during the spring, close to the end of the term, she was assaulted, (possibly raped, never asked), by M’s friend, whom I had no relation with. On top of that, during the summer break when I was away, M too did something (wouldn’t tell, didn’t ask) which have led to PTSD-adjacent symptoms in A.

The second year was very rough for me. Due to a multitude of reasons I became depressed, which caused my friends to reach out for me, which in turn made me even more depressed (M has a hard time respecting boundaries, and refused to leave me alone). All this culminated in me breaking of contact with all my friends and taking a break for six months. When I came back and reinitiated contact with everyone, A opened up to me, telling me that she had a falling out with our group (due to M) as well as everything mentioned above.

I believed her and kept in contact. Nowadays we talk about family, boundaries, love and her past, as well as perfectly casual and normal stuff. Though she is cautious and don’t tell me when she is uncomfortable, I have a good enough read on her that it isn’t much of a problem, and I’ve helped her set boundaries and other stuff too. This sometimes makes me feel more like her therapist than her friend, and it is draining to me.

I can’t really see M as anything other than a misinformed dude, who I’ve known had toxic ideas about sex (the dude literally can’t stop talking about his penis.) and though A still cares about our mutual friends M being around constantly drives a wedge between any relationship they may have.

I am no longer friends with M (thank goodness), but our mutual friends have no idea what happened. Any insinuation that M might not be such a good guy is met with resentment. Even though it has been six months since I came back this still eats away at the back of my mind! What can I do to adjust to my situation? What can I do to be friends with A without having to constantly keep a birds eye view over our relationship? And what can I do to support her and help her develop? Is there any other site which could help me better than a well meaning dating coach in a very awkward situation?

Thanks for listening
Confused, Concerned and Exasperated

There’re a few things going on here, CCE.

First: it sounds to me like you’re the only person that A can open up to about all of this. Right now, A’s trying to stay in contact with her friends… but doing so means that she also has to be around the guy who assaulted her. Possibly both of them. To make matters worse, they’re still valued members of the social circle, which means that she may not feel like she can talk to anyone else in the group about it. If your friends push back against any indication that M might be anything less than an upstanding guy, then that leaves A feeling lost and isolated, on top of the shame that comes from having been the victim of sexual assault.

Yeah that shame may be pure, unadulterated bullshit – it’s the fault of M (and M’s friend), not hers – but society is incredibly shitty to victims of sexual violence. We tell women over and over again that they’re at fault because boys will be boys, whatcanyado? So right now, you may be the only person who A feels safe around.

And honestly, that says a lot of good things about you.

Second: Yeah, it can be a little exhausting to be the only person someone can rely on – especially when that person is dealing with some legitimate trauma, and doubly so when you’re still recovering from trauma of your own. Very few people talk about the emotional burnout that people in care-taking roles go through – even when that care-taking are long conversations about issues like boundaries and assault. That’s all heavy shit and it weighs on a body. It can be important that you take care of yourself and get a break – and that you have friends that you can decompress and relax with. It’s important for you to spend time with people who care about you, people who you can let your guard down around and not have to be in charge of their emotional state.

Third: you’re not a therapist. You’re being a good friend to A, but she needs help that you aren’t equipped to provide. What I’d strongly recommend is that you gently encourage her to talk to a counselor or therapist, especially someone who works in issues relating to sexual trauma. It sounds like you’re in college, which means that you have access to counselors; that may be a good place for A to start, if she hasn’t already. If A doesn’t already have a counselor or doesn’t feel comfortable talking to someone connected to the school, then it may help to point her towards RAINN’s National Sexual Abuse Hotline; even though the assaults happened months ago, RAINN has operators who can help A, let her know what her options are and assist her in recovering. It’s completely anonymous and if she’s uncomfortable talking with them over the phone, they have online chat options as well.

Fourth: Whether M is misinformed or not doesn’t change what he did. The fact that he’s “not good with boundaries” or “can’t stop talking about his penis” doesn’t change the fact that he assaulted your friend. Talking about how someone “didn’t understand” ends up downplaying what he’s done and just serves to isolate and alienate A further. He doesn’t get to skate under “begin awkward”.

Fifth: Let A be the one to decide what she wants to do regarding M and M’s buddy. Right now, it doesn’t sound like she’s told anyone else about what’s happened, and that’s understandable. As I said: there’s a lot of shame and stigma involved in being the victim of sexual assault, and being outed to the group could very well just re-traumatize her. It’s A’s story to tell and A’s decision to make and she needs to make the right decision for her. The best thing you can do is support the choice she makes.

I’m deeply sorry for what’s happened to A, and for the issues it’s having on you as well. It’s a horrible situation and you’re being the friend she needs right now, which is admirable. But it’s important to realize that you have a responsibility to yourself too. Don’t hurt yourself trying to help your friend. That doesn’t help anyone. Give the care and support that you can to A… but see if you can guide her to the help she needs, too.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do Women Ignore Him on Dating Apps? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Don’t forget to pre-order my new book I Got Her Number. Now What? A Geek’s Guide To Texting, Snapchatting and Sliding into DMs, coming July 24, 2018

Lots of guys get anxious about approaching women that they’re attracted to. But what if there were a way to change that. Ever wished you were one of those men who had women coming up to them?

You can be… if you understand why women are willing to approach some men and not others. If you understand the secrets to why women do and don’t make the first move, you can learn to be the guy that women notice… and they’ll be eager to introduce themselves to you.

Show Highlights:

• Why women don’t make the first move… and what you can do about it
• How most men make it impossible for women to approach them
• What you can do to make sure you stand out and be the man that women want to approach
• The secret signal that you can use to get women to come talk to you
• The number one mistake men make that makes women decide to talk to someone else

… and so much more.

Related Links:

Fix Your Flirting

The Subtle Things Men Do That Make Them More Attractive

Discover Your Style

5 Ways To Look Better (Without Going Broke)

5 Signs Women Want You To Talk To Them

Listen Here
Download Here

Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes , Stitcher and on YouTube.

Like the podcast? Become a Dr. NerdLove patron at Patreon.com/DrNerdLove

Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post Episode #82: 5 Secrets to Getting Women To Approach You appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

On occasion, I’ll get a request for advice on a situation that’s more layered and complex than a typical Ask Dr. NerdLove question. These questions typically need a deeper dive into just what went wrong, a sort of exploratory emotional surgury – a dating Post-Mortem if you will. On other occasions, the circumstances require more than just surgery. Sometimes it requires a session with The Chair Leg of Truth.

So come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab. It’s time to put on the scrubs and dig into this particular corpse.

Hello Doc

I don’t know why I’m asking you this, I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to tell me but hey, maybe I just need to vent. This started about 3 weeks ago, I was celebrating a big accomplishment by treating myself to a fifth of tequila (I don’t really drink that often, maybe like 4 times a year, so when I drink, I drink).

OK, I’m going to stop you right there, man. This is your first mistake; in fact, this is some amateur hour shit. Experienced drinkers know better than to just get absolutely fucked up. The idea of “I don’t do this often, so I go balls out when I do” is how you end up puking up all your regrets as you try to piece together the memory of just how you fucked up. It’s far better to know how to maintain a pleasant but low-key buzz than it is to just down a fucking bottle of tequila, which is just going to lead to incredibly stupid decisions.

After the bottle was empty and I was 100% trashed, I texted a co-worker/friend, V, some very lewd things.

CALLED IT.

Knowing this was wrong, I was apologizing while still texting and said not to pay attention to me because I am drunk. After about 6 rapid fire text, I was able to stop. The next morning, I texted her again saying that I am sorry about last night.

Christ, when you fuck up, you don’t fuck up small, do you, RA? Let me underline this particular passage: “knowing this was wrong, I was apologizing while still texting.” Read what you wrote over again. Let it marinate in your brain. Because this right here? This is going to be coming up over and over again because you knew damn good and well that you shouldn’t be doing this. That alone is going to undermine literally everything else you say. This isn’t a case of “oops, I misread things and made a pass at someone and now it’s awkward”, this is “I knew it was wrong and I fucking did it anyway.”

Fast forward to yesterday, I am called into my work place’s office because of it. Now something she said really puzzled me. She said “At first, I was ‘nah, this just Redacted’ but then I was thinking you weren’t drunk”. So I apologized again, reassured her I was drunk and gave her references, my boss gave me a speech and tried to be topical by throwing in #metoo into to it (which made me roll my eyes hearing some of the stuff he has said about women). But 2 things were stuck in my head. 1, that for some reason she didn’t believe I was drunk and 2, even though I already apologized, she still brought it to our boss.

Let me give you some advice RA: when you find that you’re digging yourself into a hole, then you need to stop digging. You fucked up already by sending obscene texts to your co-worker. But starting here, you’re demonstrating that you don’t get what you did wrong.

Let’s start with the apologies. It doesn’t matter that you were apologizing while you were texting her because you were still fucking texting her as you apologized. Nor, for that matter did apologizing afterwards make a difference because you don’t seem to understand just what apologies are for.

Apologies aren’t magic talismans RA. They’re not “get-out-of-consequences-free” cards that you can hand out. Apologies are what you do when you realize you fucked up and want to make amends, not something that makes it ok because you said the magic words. If I keep saying “I’m sorry” as I beat you about the head and shoulders, it doesn’t mean that I’m no longer hitting you and it doesn’t mean that your injuries never happened or that the bruises and broken bones don’t hurt. It also doesn’t mean that everything’s fine afterwards because hey, you just got the shit beat out of you; words aren’t going to fix that.

You make it pretty clear that you haven’t accepted the weight of what you’ve done, RA. You put a lot of hemming and hawing in here and weasel language that offloads your responsibility. Talking about “making things topical by invoking #MeToo” is a pretty significant one; it’s a fairly distinct indicator that you don’t understand that this is serious, not just someone throwing you under the bus because FUCK YOU, PENIS. Similarly, rolling your eyes at your boss who’s reading you the riot act doesn’t do you any favors; you’re attempting to make a tuo-quoque, implying that your boss doesn’t have the right to punish you because he’s a hypocrite. And hey, maybe he is. But whatever he’s said or hasn’t said doesn’t change the fact that a) he’s your boss and b) you still made your co-worker feel intensely uncomfortable.

Tackling the drunk part first, I never text her, I mean never.

Well you never have to say that again, do you?

I never start conversations about sex with her, she is all ways the one to bring it up and she brings it up a lot.

That doesn’t matter. Remember what I said earlier? You knew you were doing something wrong. You had drank a fifth of tequila by yourself and still knew you were doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Once again: you were apologizing for texting obscene shit while you were texting her obscene shit. You knew that this wasn’t something she was going to be comfortable with and yet you did it anyway.

But besides that, the fact that she brought it to our boss is what has me hurt.

Probably didn’t hurt you as much as a friend getting drunk and sending lewd texts hurt her.

I will note that she did try to protect me by telling him not to involve loss prevention (they seem to handle everything where I work) and not showing him the text

Then she is a goddamn saint and you should be on bended knee thanking her and every god you believe in that you still have a job.

but all she got was pretty much the same apology I gave her before.

UP! DIG UP, YOU FOOL!

I really don’t see why she told him.

I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say because her coworker got drunk and started sending her obscene texts and now she doesn’t feel comfortable working with you.

I really considered her a friend.

Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten drunk and texted her all the things you wanted to do to her.

We hung out outside of work, I confided in here and vice versa, she has tried to get me to touch her breast on multiple occasions and has made me grab her ass before.

That’s great, sonny-jim but that doesn’t change things. The fact that you may or may not have a flirty, touchy-feely, potentially sexually charged friendship doesn’t meant that it’s anything goes. Her getting you to grab her ass or her breast doesn’t mean that you have free access at all times or that you have a license to say whatever you want. It means that in those particular circumstances she was cool with you touching her. If I have ass-grabbing privileges with a female friend, that doesn’t translate to “Now let me tell you about all the things I would do to you with my tongue”.

And, again, let’s not forget: you knew what you were doing was wrong at the time you did it. You said this yourself.

You said this in the texts you sent. 

The fact that my apology for something that was completely out of character and it was the first time happening wasn’t enough to the point that you jeopardized my job, coming from a friend, that hurts.

You know what hurts? Someone you trusted suddenly sending you obscene texts out of the blue, making you feel intensely uncomfortable and making it clear that they don’t see what the problem is.

The fact that you were drunk doesn’t excuse things. The fact that you were drunk doesn’t make things better or excuse you from what you’ve done. Alcohol isn’t Dr. Jekyll’s magic serum that turns you into a different person, it just mutes the parts of you that make you think “maybe I shouldn’t do this.” And y’know, I’ve been there and done that. I’ve done stupid shit when I was drunk. I’ve been a complete fucking asshole to people when I was drunk. And you know what? The fact that I was drunk doesn’t excuse the fact that I was an asshole. It didn’t make my behavior less bad or more forgivable. It didn’t mean that it was someone else who just happened to occupy my skin at the time. It meant that I made a stupid decision (drinking to excess) which made it even easier to make even more stupid decisions (being that asshole) and now I had to accept the fact that I did that shit and try to move forward from there.

Now today, I got some light shed on the situation. A common friend of ours came to our job today tease me about the situation (he was one of the references to my drunkenness. He had already talked to her and reassured her of my altered state. But he did get some information that turned me from hurt to angry. Apparently she did believe I was drunk at first but showed the text to her female friend just to be sure. They convinced her that I wasn’t smashed because everything was spelled correctly, like auto correct isn’t a thing. The last piece of info I got had me angry not only at her but women in general. She showed him the text. After reading it he said “But you like this type of stuff” in which she replied “yeah but it’s redacted”.

Now I admit I overthink even the most simple things let alone what people do and say, I have massive confidence issues centered my looks and while I wouldn’t classify as red pill or anything close to that I do have some views on women based on my interactions with then and what I see (my worst bullies in school where girls who picked on me because of my looks). While I do think some of my views are true based on what I’ve seen and experienced, I have been way more open to having those views challenged the past few years as I’ve been working on myself learning to let go of the past. But this whole situation have me like “FUCK WOMEN” . By say “yeah but it’s redacted” implies that if it was anyone else, say another male coworker, it would have been ok but since it was me, a “looks” challenged person, it crossed an ungodly line.

I was wondering if we’d get to this part.

Let me make this clear. This bit right here? This is why everyone’s pissed at you. You’re taking what you did wrong and getting upset because you’re seeing it how you were wronged. You have literally taken “Hi, I behaved horribly to someone I considered a friend, but really it’s unfair because she didn’t like it because I’m ugly.”

So allow me to disabuse you of this notion: this has nothing to do with your looks. This has to do with the fact that you, specifically, did things that she wasn’t cool with. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it matters that she’s not into you. And no, it would still be creepy if Brad Pitt did it.

Here’s what you’re missing: this doesn’t mean that literally any other man could say those things and she would fall on her back crying “take me now in a manly fashion.” Yes, she may like those things… but she likes them with someone she’s attracted to and who has her permission to do them. That’s not any Johnny Thunderdick, that’s specific people that she wants to have sex with. From anyone else, it isn’t sexy or fun, it’s threatening and uncomfortable. Which, in case you aren’t getting it, means that she isn’t comfortable with you, specifically sending these things to her.

Let’s put it this way: you presumably like blow jobs. If V were to tell you that she was going to treat you like a popsicle on a hot summer day, you’d be turned on because hey, you want to bang V. Now if it were Scott Glenn or Cloris Leachman telling you the exact same thing, you’d be weirded out. Why? Because these are not people you want touching your penis. And if they were drunk, looking you right in the eye, apologizing and but talking about how they were gonna eat you like an ice cream cone, it would still be creepy despite the apologies. Why? Because, once again: these are not people you want near your junk.

But let’s say that it really is the case that she’d welcome this from anyone else. That doesn’t change things because those are people she wants to hear those things from. You are not one of them and before you even bring it up, fairness doesn’t come into play in this because hey guess what she’s not obligated to be attracted to you.

And even when I admit I messed up and apologized, it wasn’t good enough and no mistakes are permitted. That and like a hundred other “FUCK WOMEN” thoughts.

And your apology might mean something if you haven’t made it abundantly obvious that you haven’t taken responsibility for what you’ve done or why people are upset at you. You’re saying a lot of “I never did this before” or “but I was drunk” and qualifiers like how she made you grab her ass or your boss has said shit too, but you’re not saying anything about “here’s why this was wrong and what I’m going to do about it.”

What you have said, over, and over again is “it’s not fair that they’re angry at me and really I’m the one being wronged here”, which is isn’t just missing the point, it’s missing the point so profoundly that your trajectory has thrown you out of Earth’s atmosphere and you’re currently headed towards Mars.

To wrap this up, I no longer feel good at work.

You no longer feel good at work?

I’m now looking into getting a new job or transferring store. Once again, I don’t even now why I’m writing this. You probably have hundreds of people asking for advice so you probably won’t get to this one. And even if you do give me advice on this, I’m probably going to “yeah but” the entire thing. But hey, you might say something that fixes this whole thing.

Thank for listening
Redacted Angry

You want to fix things RA? Actually fix things? Then you need to drop all of this self-pitying bullshit and own this. You fucked up. You fucked up badly. You have fucked up to the point that it is a goddamn miracle that you’re still employed.

The time when you could’ve fixed things would have been to not get shitfaced in the first place. The next time you could’ve fixed things would have been to not text your co-worker. The last chance you had to fix things was to not just apologize the next day but to apologize and make it clear that you understood what you did, why it bothered her so much and since you couldn’t take your actions back,  you would show how you were going to make sure that this never happened again.

Now the point where you might have salvaged a friendship out of this is pretty much out the window and all you’ve got left is to just apologize for real this time. No qualifiers, no “I was drunk”, no “but you did X”, no “but why am I not allowed to make a mistake?” Just a straight up “I was wrong, here’s why I was wrong, I’m aware I hurt you and I’m sorry,” without expectation of forgiveness. Because, frankly, she’s under no obligation to forgive you or to make you feel better for your fuck up.

This isn’t something women have done to you, this isn’t about your looks or any other weird Red Pill/incel bullshit. This is about you getting drunk, fucking up and refusing to take responsibility for it.

All you can do is own that you did this and live with the consequences – which likely includes “not talking to V for a very long time, if ever again”. If you want to make things right, take everything you’ve done and that I’ve said and not fuck up like this again.

The post Post Mortem – Textual Harassment appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Hi Doc, long time reader, thank you for putting out so much good stuff, you’re a big help for a lot of people.

A bit of backstory for me, I had an interesting childhood, abusive father, bullied in school etc. which really hammered my self esteem. I basically bottled everything up for years until it all exploded. Ended up spiralling into depression, had a passive suicide attempt about 3 years ago and hit rock bottom really. The good news, since then I’ve had 2 spells of counselling and my mental health is now much better. I’ve also worked quite a bit on myself, to the point where I’ve come from never having a date to having a couple of short relationships, couple of casual things and I’ve improved immensely in that part of my life. This is way more success than I ever thought I’d have.

The thing that’s inspired me to write in today is that even though I can see how far I’ve come and all I’ve achieved, I still find everything absolutely, painfully difficult. Socializing exhausts me in general, but especially in bars and clubs. I always seem to be on guard and frankly it’s all wearing me down. There is still this block I have mentally, where I’m so scared of getting hurt again or opening up that I can’t really just let myself go and make the moves I want to, or I shut down interactions/ relationships that could go somewhere due to fear basically. I’m also incredibly nervous about doing anything that would jeopardize my mental health. I left my last job because it was causing me to slide again and I don’t want to risk ever getting near to where I was 3 years ago.

Another thing that’s laying it on right now is that I’m currently traveling. A couple of my friends are absolutely amazing with women, they make it look ridiculously easy and go from one hot girl to the next like they get handed out with the cereal. They are great guys who absolutely deserve their success and I’m happy for them, but it just highlights to me that even after all this work I’ve done I’m still no better than bang average on a good day at all of this. This is what is getting me down. I’ve read all the articles you’ve written about staying internally validated and not comparing yourself to others and it’s all good advice, but I’m struggling to keep everything focused on the right things, which ends up with me taking nut shots to my self-esteem over the frustration.

I’m still young, mid 20s in decent health and everything, so I know I have the time, but it’s just so draining to actually realize how far I’ve still got to go after all this work. My motivation to keep going with the whole self improvement thing is waning, I’ve stopped approaching, don’t do speed dating or anything else that I had success with. I went on a couple of dates with this girl 2 months or so ago and just had no emotional energy left to give. I just see it all as a grind and I struggling to deal with it at the moment. I know you went through similar sorts of challenges back in your “bad old days”, so any advice you could give would be hugely appreciated. How would you recommend I get through this?

Thanks

Tired of The Grind

First of all, ToTG: congratulations on all the work you’ve put into your mental and emotional health, and all the progress you’ve made. That takes a lot of grit and courage, and you should be proud of just how far you’ve come.

In fact… that’s part of what I want to talk to you about. See, you’re doing one of the things that I used to do back in my bad old days: you’re so focused like a laser on the end goal – being able to get women like your buddies – that you’re missing just how much progress you’ve made. The problem with what you’re doing is that you’re working under the assumption that you and your friends started at the same place and the fact that you’re not doing as well as them means something’s wrong with you. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all. You didn’t start at the starting line; you had to sneak your way past guards, climb over walls and through air ducts just to get into the goddamn arena, never mind into the race itself. 

But here’s the thing: you fucking got there. You made it past all of those hurdles, things that would make most other people say “fuck this noise” and turn around, and got your ass into the game. Yeah, you’re not at the same point as people who had some advantages you didn’t… but they didn’t have to fight the way you did or as hard as you did. So you need to take a moment and recognize that you’ve fought long and hard to get where you are and that is goddamn amazing. You’re not some third-string bench-warmer, you’re Rudy, man.

Of course, all of this means that you’re going to have some scars. I mean, c’mon: you’ve been through the fires of hell and you’ve got the ashes to prove it. But that block you’re dealing with right now isn’t fear, it’s the anticipation of fear. You’re so worried about the feeling of “Oh god does this mean it’s going to happen again” that you’re trying to avoid anything that might trigger that fear… including the things that you long for. And that’s understandable. That part of what makes us human. But the fear is an illusion. It’s a phantom. It’s the exaggerated, funhouse mirror version of reality. The fear is honestly worse than the reality.

Right now, you’re spending a lot of your energy trying to avoid your fears – more energy than it would actually take to confront them, in fact. You just keep convincing yourself that you’re going to lose, that you are inevitably going to fail, so there’s no point in trying. Small wonder you’re drained; you’re letting that fear sap everything from you, without even taking the little victories that tell you that you’ve got far more going for you than you realize.

The sooner you learn how to grapple with that fear and push through it, the sooner you’ll realize you’re further along than you believe you are.

And the easiest way to deal with that fear? Plan for failure. Expect failure. Because you know what? Failure’s gonna happen. A lot. To everyone. Even your buddies, who attract women the way cheese attracts mice, fail. You just don’t notice it because you’re paying too much attention to their successes. But success doesn’t teach you anything. A lot of times success is just luck – or you end up taking the wrong lessons from those successes. When a plane comes back from a mission shot full of holes, you don’t patch those holes and assume you fixed the problem; those are clearly places where it could get shot up and still make it. You want to pay attention to the places where getting shot full of holes brought down the plane and work on those areas.

So it is with failure. Failure teaches you valuable lessons. You learn to recognize what went wrong and how to avoid it next time. You start to learn your real strengths and weaknesses, not the ones you think you have. And the most important lesson you learn is this: failure isn’t fatal. You can mess up – badly, even – and still survive. You may not get with that one woman… but you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again with someone else. 

Pain’s inevitable, my dude. Nobody can avoid getting hurt. But while pain may be inevitable, suffering is optional. And you suffer far more from trying to avoid pain than you do learning how to take the hits, roll with them and pop back up again because you’ve given up on even the chance of success.

These are choices you’re making, my dude. You’re choosing to believe that you will fail and it will break you. It won’t. You’re stronger than that. Yeah, you’ll fail. It’s part of the learning process. Everyone fails. But when you learn from those failures, when you dare to push yourself  back up to your feet again? That’s when you win.

You have to believe that you can survive. You hold that power in your hands.

You can win if you dare.

You’ve got this.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I have an ethical question.

The short version: a decade ago I met someone, we talked online a lot, those chats got steamy, and I saved them. Now I’m debating if I should get rid of those saved chats.

Long version: when I met J, I was in a terrible place: 25-year-old virgin with body image issues and depression, under-employed, and self-harming. J (who is gender-neutral) essentially made helping me a short project, out of the goodness of their heart, and we had what I call a “two-month-long one-night stand”. Since we lived in different cities, we communicated online only, until J invited me to their city for a weekend of sex and sex ed. This did wonders for my confidence, and our friendship helped me stop cutting. (Nine years clean!) A critical step in the process came when J laid out for me, in considerable detail, what they would do in bed with me once we were in the same place. Until that moment I had not really believed I was physically attractive to anyone. I saved that chat so I could look at it again later and remind myself it actually happened, and I saved other (sometimes steamy, usually very personal) chats as well.

Ever since then, we have been supportive friends. We don’t talk all the time, but we always know the other person will always be there. We’ve watched each other go through all sorts of relationship ups and downs. When we’re both single (and only then) we flirt, though this hasn’t happened in a while and nothing comes of it.

J’s in a relationship “up” — getting married to a truly marvelous person — and I’m in a relationship “neutral” — single for a year. The wedding has made me think about those saved chats. I look at them maybe once or twice a year, if that, but while they aren’t the same level as nudes, they are they are personal and intimate, and critically I don’t think J knows I have them, so it feels a little non-consensual. So on the one hand, it seems like the ethical thing to delete them.

On the other hand, I’m a very history-oriented person, so deleting those chats would be like deleting all evidence of a key turning point in my life. Also, while my depression is much more under control, it’s never gone — so having evidence of J’s validation is sometimes very nice.

On the third hand, I know I’m still attracted to J, so I’m a little suspicious of my judgment on this.

What do you recommend? Delete the sexy chats, or preserve the historical artifacts?

Ethical Historian

Y’know, there’s a lot of debate about that to do about the artifacts of our past relationships. Almost all of us tend to have keepsakes of our happier relationships; letters, photos, little trinkets that remind us of the good times we had. Most of the time, these are fairly harmless bits of nostalgia that we can take out, enjoy that warm hit from times past, then put ’em back and call it good. Now there are often people who feel threatened by the evidence of past relationships – the story of the Jealous Girlfriend is a well-worn routine from the early days of the Pick Up Artist scene – but for the most part, these are just reminders of days gone by. Getting rid of them just because the relationship ended smacks of trying to pretend the relationship never happened, an emotional damnatio memoriae that ultimately denies how we became the people we are today.

But some of those mementos can be of a sexual nature, and that’s where things get tricky. We live in a culture and society that’s profoundly sex-negative, and sees sexual expression as something shameful and degrading, even when it’s in the context of a committed, monogamous relationship. And in the aftermath of a break-up, the question of “what should we do about with these mementos” gets thorny. On the one hand, there are those who insist that they should be destroyed; after all, you (so the theory goes) no longer have that person’s consent to see their naked bodies. But at the same time, if you take this argument to it’s logical extension, then you’re no longer allowed to remember them or the way their skin felt or their hair smelled because hey that relationship’s over. On the other hand, there are those who will say that these were given consensually between two partners and like all gifts, there’s no obligation to return them later. But then there’s the fact that they were given under a specific context; if the relationship ended badly, those relationship artifacts can go from being mementos to weapons that can be used against the giver.

And sometimes, those memories can be weaponized by a third party. In this day and age, securing those particular relics is difficult. Cloud storage sites get hacked, computer repair services regularly steal people’s nudes from their hard drives and sexy files of unsuspecting innocents get shared far and wide. One only need look at The Fappening or boards on Reddit, 4chan, 8chan and elsewhere that are dedicated to sharing “found” nude images. Even purely physical keepsakes can get out into the wild; the infamous Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton sex tapes were on physical media, not digital storage.

These are all issues that’ve become part of the modern dating landscape. If we share those sides of ourselves with our partners – as many, many people do – there’s the chance that they won’t just stay with our partners.

Now in your case, EH, the odds of some spicy chatlogs getting out and causing problems is low. Not zero, but pretty darn low. So the bigger issue here is: why are you holding on to them? As you say: you still have some feelings for J. Is this a way of holding onto the relationship, instead of letting it be part of your past? There’s nothing wrong with the occasional naughty trip down memory lane, but if this is a way of keeping the hope alive, even as they’re getting married… well, that’s not healthy. It may be good to interrogate your feelings on this and see if your desire to keep that validation and evidence of your past is exactly that, or the fig-leaf you use to justify keeping them.

The other question involves the ethics of having them in the first place. While it’s generally a good rule of thumb to assume that anything you send to another person is likely stored and archived somewhere, a lot of folks tend to assume that hot chats and sexting conversations are lost to the ether; hell, that’s part of the whole point of services like Snapchat. As far as violations of trust go, it’s pretty far down the list, but some folks might still feel weird about knowing that those records exist.

So with all of this in mind, here’s my guiding principle when it comes to things like nudes and sexy pics from past relationships: if you’re on good terms with your ex, ask what they’d prefer you do. Of course, in your case, EH, first you’re going to have to explain that you have them in the first place. Which is gonna be awkward. But honestly? I suspect this will cause more amusement than consternation.

Some people are cool with their exes – especially ones they’re still friendly with – keeping the pics. After all, just because the relationship ended doesn’t mean that you now hate that person and want to retcon the relationship into having never happened. Others may prefer that you’d delete them, if only to keep them from ending up on dodgy blogs and subreddits.

So, you don’t need to explain about how they give you validation or that they’re an artifact of your past. Just say “Hey, turns out I have logs of some of the chat sessions we had, would you prefer I delete them or is it ok if I save them?” and let them have the final say.

And as a general rule: if you aren’t in contact with your ex – it was a bad break-up, you never want to hear from them again or vice-versa – go ahead and securely delete them. It’s better all around to err on the side of “get rid of them” than it is to have trouble down the line.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Overcome My Fear of Failure? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

(Content Warning: Sexual Assault)

On June 26th, Expendables and Brooklyn 99 star Terry Crews testified before Congress in support of the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights. As part of his advocacy for survivors of rape and sexual assault, Crews talked about his own experience of having been the victim of sexual violence. In doing so he challenged the narrative of what it means to be the survivor of sexual assault… and showed us how we fail male victims of sexual violence.

Show Highlights:

• Why few men ever speak up about having been sexually assaulted
• How we teach men to not trust other men
• How we treat male sexual assault as a joke
• Why the narrative of who can be a victim harms survivors of sexual assault
• Why rape and sexual assault isn’t about sex

and so much more.

Related Links:

Invisible Victims: Men In Abusive Relationships

Sexual Harassment and the Toxic Culture of Comics

Jonathan Martin and the Quiet Strength of Manhood

When Masculinity Fails Men

Understanding Toxic Masculinity

Listen Here
Download Here

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Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post Episode #83 – What Terry Crews Can Teach Us About Standing Up For Male Victims appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

My boyfriend and I have been together for 2.5 years now and we are best friends, but we’ve had our rough patches. I cheated on him in the beginning with my ex, and we’ve worked past it and all is well. Again we’ve had rough patches, but we also live together so I feel like it’s bound to happen. He goes away every summer for work, and when i went to go visit him, I found out he had been sexting another guy he met at a bar. This threw me by surprise because he’s not the type of person to cheat and especially with a guy. They only sexted for about an hour and he was drunk, but he did start it all. He was very apologetic when he found out and he’s a genuinely great guy besides all that.

Anyway, this entire summer I’ve been extremely horny and I want to sleep with other men, more than anything. The sex between me and my boyfriend is okay, not really that special. Kinda boring. And I feel like after finding that on his phone, I am kind of thinking about breaking up and sleeping with other people, but we live together, we have a cat, we have a great home. If we broke up, I would lose all of it. I’m not sure what to do. I feel so trapped and i don’t really have any money (I’m a student and work a min wage job) and I am also scared that he may be the only person who will treat me right.

Help?

Is It Really Over

Let’s start with the obvious, IIRO: in all likelihood, one of the reasons why your sex-life is just “ok” because it seems like your boyfriend has some needs and interests that aren’t getting met. It could well be that he’s bi or pansexual, or it could be that he met one guy who just flipped his switch. It could be something that’s been part of him for as long as you two have been together, or it could be something he’s only just discovered.

And trust me: the only thing the alcohol did was make it possible for your boyfriend to act on those interests. Alcohol doesn’t suddenly make you decide you’re into dudes, it just turns up the volume on the part of your brain that that says “hey, that guy looks hot…” which then turns into “you know, a blowjob would be nice tonight.”

However, I’m curious as to just why you’re suddenly ready to pull the plug on your relationship after having seen his sexts on his phone. The fact that he’s sexting someone else is justifiably upsetting… but honestly, this sounds less like you feel betrayed and more that you’re looking for an excuse to pull end things. And honestly, I suspect the issue is that you’re bored.

Now let’s talk a little about your wandering eye. You’re feeling the urge to get some strange; that’s perfectly normal. That’s part of being a primate with a libido. We are novelty-seeking creatures, and that includes who we sleep with. That, in and of itself, doesn’t say anything about the state of your relationship.

But boredom with your sex life does.

Sexual compatibility and sexual satisfaction is a crucial part of making a relationship work. It’s very easy to say that “a relationship is about more than sex” but the truth of the matter is, if the sex isn’t working then the relationship is heading to it’s inevitable collapse.

The big question here is whether this is a case of the spark fading over time – as it does in all relationships – or if it’s because your boyfriend needs things that you can’t give him. If it’s just boredom, there are many things you can do to reignite the spark and make sex hot again. But that’s if you want to actually fix things. If it’s the case that he’s been closing his eyes and picturing Michael B. Jordan while the two of you are together… well, he’s not exactly going to be motivated to be putting in more than a token effort into your sex life.

You and your boyfriend need to sit down and have a long and likely awkward conversation about the state of your relationship. There is a lot to talk about: your mutual satisfaction, his apparent attraction to other men and where you’re going from here. You have many different options besides breaking up and staying together – including potentially transitioning into a non-monogamous commitment.

But that’s assuming that staying together is the right choice for the two of you.

I get that you don’t necessarily want to give up the things that come with your relationship – the house, the cat, etc. – but those are bad reasons to stay in a relationship that isn’t working. Sticking in a relationship for the side-benefits is a great recipe to curdle the respect and affection you have for your partner and turn what might otherwise be a successful relationship into one of bitterness and rancor.

And believe me: he’s not the only guy out there, nor is he the only one who will treat you well. To steal a line from Tim Minchin:

“Your love is one in a million
You couldn’t buy it at any price
But of the nine-point-nine-nine-nine-hundred-thousand other possible loves
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice”

But you won’t know what the right choice is until the two of you talk it out.

Good luck.

Hey Doc,
I know you err more towards behavior and mindset stuff, but I’m going to ask this question anyway.

I’ve been trying to eliminate some creepy/off-putting aspects of myself, one of which is my facial expressions. I’ve been told a bunch of times that my neutral expression and my ‘my knuckles are itching, and your face looks like a scratching post’ face are one and the same. That’s problematic enough, but I also suck at smiling. You know how a lot of people can ‘idle smile’, sort of smiling unconsciously? I’m not one of them. My picture smile feels unnatural, and every time I’ve tried to practice smiling, I’ve gotten one of three results: 1. The ‘Private Pyle after he snapped’ psychotic smile. 2. The ‘Bugs Bunny right before he drops an anvil on Yosemite Sam’ smirk. 3. A repeat of my super-fake picture smile.

So, do you have any tips or exercises to make my smiles more ‘hey, I’m cool and getting to know me would be a fun thing for the both of us’ and less ‘I want to eat your liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti’?

Grim Grinning Ghost

Hey, some folks have resting bitch face, GGG. I’m one of them; when I’m concentrating on something, I look like I’m contemplating how easy it would be to turn someone’s face inside out. But the way you fix that isn’t to learn how to plaster a fake smile on your face and call it a day. All that does is make you look even more sinister. Even people who don’t know how to recognize a fake smile will feel uncomfortable without knowing why.

You have a natural smile; you’re just bad at bringing it forward at will.  What you need to do is make yourself feel like smiling.

After all, I’m assuming you do smile at times. The number of people who are Stoneface McGee 24/7 is very very low.

What you need to do is work less on your face and more on your emotional state. When you’re in a good mood or feel amused, it radiates through your being. Your body language changes, your facial expressions soften and you start to look friendlier and more open. So when you need to look friendlier and radiate that warmth that makes you more charismatic, think of the things that make you smile. Mentally play your favorite Looney Tunes cartoons, silly songs or Robin Williams routines – the things that make you smile and laugh. And as you do, let those good feelings spread through your body and start to show on your face. Other people don’t need to know you’re mentally singing “I’m About To Whip Somebody’s Ass”  or The Hamster Dance while you’re talking to them.

The more you get used to feeling those emotions, the better you’ll get at expressing them. Do it for long enough and soon you won’t need to use those particular tricks to soften your features and bring out that smile; you’ll be able to do it on your own.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: When Is It Time To Break Up? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Ok L&L, I’m gonna do something I rarely do with letters like yours. I’m going to be bluntly honest with you. So brace yourself, it’s Chair Leg of Truth time:

You’re doing something a lot of folks do: you’re talking a lot of self-pitying shit. I’ve picked your letter in particular because, frankly, it’s an example of an entire genre I get on the regular: guys who are miserable and lonely and want me to sign off on the idea that they’re uniquely fucked by the universe.

And I won’t do it. Sorry. My job is to help folks and give people solutions. So if you’re writing to me for permission to give up, that’s on you, chief. Because I’m not willing to say “yup, time to give up.”

Why? Because, quite frankly, most of the things you’re talking about are confirmation bias. You believe that you’re ugly and hopeless and, as a result, only pay attention the things that confirm what you already believe. Someone looked at you and looked away? It must be because they couldn’t stand to look at Quasimoto, not that they were looking at things entirely unrelated to you. Someone didn’t respond to your dating profile? Had to have been because of your looks, not because the two of you had conflicting interests or they were so inundated by messages that they never saw yours.

None of these have anything to do with your looks or your “value” – more on that in a second – but it’s incredibly easy to write a narrative that just confirms what you think of yourself. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

You’re “pretty sure” you’re ugly and you hate photos of yourself. As for the second: hey, welcome to the club. I hate 99.9% of all photos and videos of me that are out there. The ones I don’t mind tend to be taken by professional photographers, and even then I zero in on the things that I can’t stand. And y’know what? Those are things that literally only I see. To everyone else, it’s a non-issue or something so minor and nit-picky that it’s downright absurd that I get fixated on them. And yet, I do. I recognize it intellectually, but it still gets me on a gut level.

So y’know. I sympathize.

But let’s talk about the first for a second: you’re “pretty sure” you’re ugly. That’s an important distinction. 9 times out of 10, when I hear from someone who tells me they’re ugly, what they’re actually saying is “people don’t look at me the way folks look at Channing Tatum.” And when I see pictures of them? I can see why. Not because they’re ugly – they aren’t – but because they don’t put any effort in. Their hair is limp and lifeless, their grooming is entirely off and they look like they haven’t slept in a week. Their clothes are sloppy and ill-fitting, their body language screams “go away” and they look like skin care is something that happens to other people.

And here’s the thing: these are all easily fixable. These are all issues that could be taken care of in a matter of days, if not hours.

Making even absurdly minor changes can drastically affect how you look. All you have to do is watch any random episode of Queer Eye and see how a simple hair cut, beard trim and change of clothes can transform a person. But you have to want to put the effort in. The problem is that when guys declare that their ugly, they are giving themselves permission to not do anything. After all, what’s the point? You can’t polish a turd and putting lipstick on a pig leaves you with an annoyed pig. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They’re ugly, so why do the things that would make them not ugly? Alternately, they don’t want to step outside of their comfort zones – they don’t alter their hair and skin care routine because that’s not something they “do”. They don’t change their hair or their clothes because it’s “not them”.

But as I always ask: how’s that working out for you?

That’s the first step, by the way: putting some care and effort into your appearance. Even if you don’t have Michael B. Jordan’s face or Chris Evans’ chin, that doesn’t mean you can’t be more attractive. You want different results, you have to start doing different things You have to put the work in.

And, incidentally, I’ve seen burn victims with massive facial scarring find love. So can you.

Then there’s this: what’s the point of hobbies or interests if you have nobody to share them with? Well, to start with, you have things that you enjoy and bring you comfort and satisfaction in your life. That, in and of itself is valuable, even if you’re just doing them on your own. I love talking books with people, but even if I didn’t have anyone to talk about them with – as I didn’t for years –  I’d still be a voracious reader.

But just as importantly: you can have people to share those interests with. We call them “friends”. Yes, I realize that you’re talking about wanting a romantic partner, but that is actually part of the problem. One of the reasons why we are dealing with an epidemic of loneliness is because of how men have consistently isolated themselves emotionally. We are taught to equate emotional intimacy with sexual intimacy and that to be emotionally open and vulnerable to other men is gay and effeminate. So we end up expecting our romantic partners to be our all-in-one source for our needs. We treat our girlfriends and wives as not just sex or romantic partners but to be our best friends and the sum totality of our emotional connection. And not only is that not sustainable within a relationship, it contributes to that isolation. Most relationships end, after all, and when they’re your only emotional connection, you’re left feeling even more alone than before.

That’s the second thing that you need to focus on: you need to make more friends, closer friends… especially with other men. No, they won’t be your romantic partner. But they will add value, satisfaction, companionship and happiness to your life: things that you desperately need right now.

And then there’s the fact that “approaching doesn’t work and apps aren’t helping.” First, let’s be clear: most people don’t meet their partners at bars or clubs on a cold-approach. Nor, for that matter do most people meet their partners on dating apps, even in this day and age. Most people meet their partners either through their daily activities – such as work, hobbies or church – or through their friends.

This is no small part of why investing in your hobbies and interests and building your social circle are important. Not only do they make you happier, less lonely and more satisfied, but they help you meet other people. Don’t have any friends who can introduce you to singles they know? Cool, work on making more friends. Pursue your passions in ways that bring you in contact with other people – people who would make amazing potential new friends. These will get you out out of the house and interacting with more people. The more people you interact with, the more potential you have for making new friends – and in doing so, meeting folks who you will want to date and who will want to date you.

That’s your third step, incidentally.

And you may want to take another look at some of the women you’re meeting on dating apps that you aren’t interested in. They may not be a Kardashian or a Taylor Swift or a Beyonce, but that doesn’t mean they may not be relationships worth pursuing. Examining your own ideas of who you’re attracted to and why is important, especially if you’re basing 90% of your judgement on looks.

And then there’s this: “[I’m] aware that as a mid-thirties, low value man that it’s too late.”

Fuuuuuuuuck right off with that. That is complete and utter bullshit and I won’t have it. That’s just a way of absolving yourself from doing the work. The fact that you’re in your mid thirties means exactly two things: jack and shit. And Jack left town. Same with being “low value”. Value is neither universal nor permanent. It has nothing to do with your job, your looks, your possessions or your popularity? Want to be a high-value man? Cool… start providing value to others. Be a good friend to others. Help people feel appreciated and liked. Give of your time and emotional energy to people who need you. Work to make the world a better place.

While we’re at it? “I try to add value though it’s meaningless without partnership?” No, sorry I call bullshit on this action. Having a partner is great, but being partnered with someone doesn’t change your value or give worth to something or someone that you wouldn’t have being single. Being single isn’t a reflection of your worth or worthiness as a person; it just means that you’re single. Period.

And double-fuck “it’s too late”. Are you dead? No? THEN IT’S NOT TOO LATE. There is no such thing as too late. There’s no window of time which stands as the only point in your life where you can find love. Would it be nice if you had found someone amazing in your twenties? Sure. But you didn’t and that’s ok. That’s fine. You can start now.. but only if you actually start. You’re looking for reasons to not get started. You want to way “well, I missed out and now there’s nothing.” Which, hey if that’s what you want, then go right ahead. But you also have to accept that this is a choice you’ve made, not something that the universe has forced onto you.

Will it be easy? No, it won’t. Relationships and love are never easy, even for people who seemingly have the knack for it. You’re always going to have to put in effort and work for it. There will always be trials and tribulations, no matter how socially gifted you are or aren’t. It just doesn’t seem like it to you because, frankly, the anxiety weasels in your brain are telling you that you and you alone struggle. And you don’t. Everybody does. And if you saw their lives with the same totality that you see your own, you’d realize that.

Now here’s a truth: Some people do indeed die alone without having found love or a partner. But here’s the thing: you don’t know if that’s you until the moment when you die. Are you doomed to be forever alone? Nobody knows and nobody can know, not the least of all you.

Technically, you could be. You could line up a date for this weekend and be hit by a falling satellite tomorrow. Or you could be single into your forties or fifties until you meet this amazing person at lunch and spend the rest of your life in connubial bliss. You don’t know. 

And since you don’t know, it’s better to live under the assumption that it’s possible and – importantly – work towards making that happen. Otherwise you will be forever alone because you will have chosen to be so.

This is your life, and you can choose to take control of it. It’s all up to you. The choice is yours.

And I promise you: all will be well.

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

One of the reasons I like your site so much is that your discussions help retroactively clear up some things for me that have come up in my dating life of yore. Thank you!

I’m a professor at a school that puts a lot of emphasis on teaching and on mentoring students. I love this part of my job, and as I’m new-ish to the professorhood, I’m always working at trying to be firm but encouraging, supportive but clear on when I’m past my capacity (professionally and mentally) to help, etc. I refer a bunch of students to counseling and to other mental health resources to deal with everything from probable PTSD to organizational issues, though with the latter type of issue, I can also offer a good deal of advice and support.

I’ve noticed some uncomfortable moments come up with some of my male students. As a bit of background, I’m in my mid-thirties, married but my students may not know that, and they probably think I’m younger as well. I tend to have a friendly rapport with students of all genders. Anyhow, I see a bunch of male students who just don’t seem to have their stuff together–can’t start papers before the day before they’re due, aren’t really resourceful about looking things up in the syllabus, etc. I’m perfectly willing to believe that my female students are equally bad at these things, but it’s the male students who seem to end up in my office to talk about it. Usually this is all coupled with breaking up with a girlfriend, being depressed, feeling anxious, and a host of other things. Inevitably, they ask, “What would you do?” or a more intense variant, “What have you done when you feel like everything is going wrong?” And then often, they answer their own question: “You’re so together; you’ve probably never felt like this.”

So obviously I’m not going to tell them that I, too, have been a mess at various parts in my life, or at least, I’m not going to get into specifics. I try to help them as best I can, and I always say, “this isn’t about me, it’s about you and what you’re facing.”

But something about these conversations has made me uncomfortable for months, and I realized what it is: they remind me of dates I used to go on. I’d meet a guy online (usually), and we’d have a drink or whatnot, and chat about our days, our jobs, families, whatever. And sometimes, maybe in a third of all first dates I went on, the dude would say the same type of thing–they were dealing with x y or z heavy thing but “you probably don’t know anything about it, you seem perfect.” It was always frustrating–I dealt with a lot of shit but didn’t expect my dates to provide counseling! And then I would almost always delve into a really self-deprecating routine of how I worry so much about my work, I think I’m not good enough, etc. And then we would make out. Now I see: NOT OKAY, not good for me, not good for gender relations, but at the time, especially in my mid-late twenties, it felt like the only way to handle the situation. To be clear: I don’t get a flirty or sexual vibe from the students and would shut it down if I did but I do feel like gender and age are playing a role here, and they wouldn’t act the same with an older prof or a male prof.

So I guess my question is: is my feeling of discomfort that these student meetings are resembling bad dates warranted? And if so: where does this impulse from young guys come from? Why make the seemingly-together person sitting across from you into some idealized person-with-no-problems? And: do you have any possible responses to these guys, either the ones encountered on dates (not for me but I’m sure other women deal with it) or in the office?

Many thanks,
New Prof

I don’t think your discomfort is unwarranted, NP, but I think you may be mistaking the source. These guys aren’t trying to pull Schrödinger’s Date on you, they’re turning to you for support and help. They’re dumping their emotional problems on you and hoping that you can fix it for them. It’s not romantic or sexual, but they’re asking you to preform emotional labor for them none the less.

(Your dates are another story and hoo boy that’s a topic for another time because that is something that deserves it’s own full “what are you DOING?”)

This is happening in no small part because, as I told L&L earlier, men are socialized to keep everything bottled up and never open up to anyone… except women. Because emotional expressiveness isn’t “manly”, the only people that most men feel comfortable being vulnerable with are women. And in doing so, they tend to expect women to do the work for them.

Now obviously the answer isn’t to do their work. What is the right option is telling them that they can handle it and – if necessary – pointing them to the tools and resources that they need so that they can learn to take care of things themselves. That may mean pointing them towards the mental health services at your school, to sites like MoodGym or even a certain dating advice column.

But part of the point of colleges and universities isn’t just an education. It’s about growing and maturing and learning how to operate in the world we live in. And that means learning NerdLove’s First Rule: Thou Shalt Handle Thine Shit. It’s no shame to need to learn how to take care of yourself, even in your late teens to early 20s… but you still have to do it.

So take heart, NP: they’re showing that they trust you and value you and believe that you can help them. And you can… by helping them learn how to help themselves.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: What Do You Do When You’re Forever Alone? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

The state of sexual education in America is appalling. If schools aren’t required by law to only teach abstinence-only education, then at most we get a glorified plumbing lesson instead of what we really need to know. As a result: more and more people are turning to porn for lessons in sex and sexuality.

But what if there’s a better way? If the educational system fails us – either through ignorance or design – can we take sex-ed to the people? Can we disrupt sex education and give people access to the information they need via their smartphones? This week, I talk with Juicebox app developer Brianna Rader about relationship coaching, what we get wrong about sex ed, the trouble with porn… and also what it’s like to be condemned personally by the state of Tennessee.

And be sure to stay until the end; there’s an exclusive offer for my fans.

Show Highlights:

• Why schools are falling behind when it comes to teaching us about sex
• How porn is filling in the gaps… and why that’s a problem
• Why we have such a hard time communicating our wants and needs with our partners
• What it’s like trying to fund a sex-based start-up today
• How independent apps are changing the future of education

… and so much more.

Related Links:

Porn and The Real World

What We Get Wrong About Sex

What Do Your Secret Sexual Desires Say About You?

What Men SHOULD Have Learned In Sex Ed

F*ck Like A Gentleman (pt. 1)

Listen Here
Download Here

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Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.doctornerdlove.com/books

The post #84 – Can Silicon Valley Fix Sex Ed? A Conversation With Brianna Rader appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Yo Doc,

I’m a 20 year old straight male university student in the UK whose sexual experience amounts to two one-night-stands (one drunken incident with a friend and one Tinder date). I’ve never had an actual relationship, but not for lack of trying. Over the past couple years I’ve made numerous attempts at getting dates (most admittedly not very competently), but thus far it’s hardly ever worked.

I haven’t let myself get bogged down by this – that’s life, after all. I’m not really lonely; I have an amazing group of friends. But even so, I can’t help but get a feeling of unshakeable frustration.

Because, the thing is, at risk of sounding full of myself, I think I’m hot shit. I’m smart, I’m funny, I’m interesting, I have passions that I wear on my sleeve, I dress fantastically, and by all accounts I’m great to talk to at parties. I’m not completely happy about my appearance (I’m quite skinny), but at the same time I wouldn’t say I’m ugly.

Which brings me to my question: why is it that I’m still the one who has to make the first move? Why do I have to be the seeker? Why can’t I be the sought? No one’s ever asked me out. I’ve never perceived any woman assertively pursue me, or even just approach me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, and maybe I am. At parties, I try to be as social as possible, talking to everyone at least once. In the club, I don’t know how to approach people. On Tinder, I get hardly any matches. When I’ve gotten numbers (via Tinder or otherwise) I’ve frequently noticed them not putting in the effort that I am – it’s always me who seems to be beginning conversations.

I know that centuries of social tradition have conditioned us to expect that the man should be the assertive one who makes the first move. I’ve tried, I’ve failed, and now what I really want more than anything is to be the prize. But no one’s chasing me.

How do I deal with this frustration and disheartenment at the fact that, as well as me being seemingly inept at pursuing relationships with people, no one seems interested in pursuing me?

Regards,

The Good and Bad, but not Ugly

I’m gonna be blunt with you, GBNU: the main reason why men have to do the majority of the approaching is because gender roles are still a thing and societies adhering to them so strongly makes it difficult for women who flout those roles. A lot of women would love to be more proactive when it comes to finding a partner, including being the one to make the first move. The problem is that a lot of guys react badly to women who make the first move. Some guys assume far more interest than women actually have because hey, she’s the one making the first move! Women never do that, she must be thirsty as hell. Others get angry because she must be a whore or trying to trick them or just, y’know. Existing.

Either way, this tends to end badly for women since when guys get angry they tend to react with violence.

The other reason why women don’t approach is because they’re dealing with all the same anxieties and fears you are. Sometimes doubly so because guys don’t get hit with the social whammy of being seen as slutty and/or an incipient bunny boiler for being the person to actually make the first move.

If you want a society where women feel freer to be as active in starting relationships, then you should be working to help build a relationship where they feel safer in doing so, both physically and socially.

Now this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways of making yourself more approachable. One of the mistakes a lot of guys make is that they assume that women are entirely passive when it comes to dating. Not so; women do a lot of work to make it easier for men to approach them. It’s just that men often don’t notice that effort. Women who are interested in a guy will go out of their way to give that guy signals that she’d welcome his coming to talk to her and she’ll create an opportunity for him to do so. It may not be as flashy and obvious as crossing the room to talk to somebody, but it’s still work, even if people don’t acknowledge it as such.

If you want women to approach you, then you need to take a page from their book and give them similar openings. You know how you feel intimidated to approach a woman when she’s surrounded by her friends? She feels the same way about you. When you’re hanging around in a tight, closed group, she’s far less likely to want to come over and say hello. Nobody likes getting rejected and doubly so if it’s in front of an audience. Taking a step or two away to create the illusion of privacy works wonders for letting people feel as though they’re safe to come talk to you now.

Similarly, you can give them approach invitations. When you see someone you’re interested in – especially if she’s giving you the eye – meeting her gaze and giving her a smile or an acknowledgement that you saw her looking and you approve is one way of signaling that it’s cool to come talk to you. You can even give a slight head nod or eyebrow flash that can say “come say hi”.

That all having been said: it sounds to me that your problem is that you’re tired of things not working and you want someone else to validate you by working for your attention. This is an understandable feeling; it sucks when it feels like you’ve got a lot going for you but it’s still not working. However, the answer isn’t to just throw your hands up and say “Screw it, ladies do the work for me!” ‘cuz honestly? You’re not going to be getting any better results. All that’s going to happen is that you’re going to get more bitter and resentful and blaming other people for how you feel.

The things that make you more approachable – warmth, friendliness, social engagement and fun – are the same things that make you more successful when you’re the one doing the approaching.

Don’t get me wrong. Your frustration is understandable. However, I suspect the reason you’re having problems is because of the way you go about things. Clubs may not be your home, as it were. You may be pursuing people you’re not actually compatible with. You may not be giving your Tinder matches enough to work with. Or you may be sending off the Piss Off signal with your expression or body language.

What you may need to do is spend more time working on how you’re coming across. Work on projecting warmth, friendliness and fun. Do a little less pursuit and fewer cold approaches and more connecting with people when you talk to them. These will make you more successful over all, regardless of whether you’re the one making the first move or giving other people the go ahead to approach you.

Good luck.

Dearest Doctor,
I’m caught between a rock and a hard place and I need some advice. I hope you can provide such.

One of my closest male friends, let’s call him F, just recently finished therapy after a major depressive breakdown. He was doing better but still wasn’t a hundred percent there yet.

My other friends and me did our very best to be a strong support system for him. Like we made regular plans, checked in on him at least every second day via text and tried to do what’s best for all of us as a group because what happened to him affected us all.

Now while F was in therapy, my best friend got a girlfriend who brought some of her friends into our group. We all got along very well and they integrated in seamlessly. One of those friends is M. She is in her early thirties and a bit older than all of us (early to mid-twenties) but that never bothered us. Another important information is that M is married and although we were introduced to her husband at a party she hosted, he isn’t part of “the regular gang”.

When F got out of therapy we introduced him to our new friends and everything seemed fine at first. We had our friendly get-togethers, got to know each other better and F seemed to feel better and better each time we met. F and M bonded over many common interests and one thing lead to another and they ended up in bed together despite her being married (and I know that she isn’t in an open relationship because we once had a discussion about polygamy in which she stated to be a monogamist).

A one-night-mistake turned into a fling and that fling soon turned into a full-blown affair. They are also very bad at hiding it because she gives him hickeys, scratch marks and what have you. He would do that to her too if she wasn’t hiding the affair from her husband, whom she has no interest in leaving because she’s from a conservative family where divorce isn’t an option and she apparently still cares about her husband.

We talked to F about our concerns that she was maybe just using him and that it probably wasn’t the best thing to be with a married woman in the first place. He assured us that all was well because the sex is great, there were no feelings involved and he pretty much denied that there would be consequences.

We had that talk two weeks ago and we stopped addressing their relationship after that. After all, they are both consenting adults who made a conscious decision. Things went as usual up until this Saturday when we celebrated M’s birthday.

F gifted her a very expensive necklace that she had her eyes on for a while and she accepted the gift with little to no hesitation (well in my book squealing “Your crazy!” and then kissing him isn’t anything near hesitation, but I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt…).

That night we all had our fair amount of booze and while I handled myself quite well, F got wasted! We shared a taxi home and there he confessed to me that M is his dream girl and that he loves her and that she always complained to him about her husband and how much better he would treat her.

I tried to talk to him the next day but he did not take my calls and when we met yesterday with some other friends he ignored me.

I saw now how miserable this affair made him and knowing about how fragile his mental state still is I am worried sick. I don’t want to be pushy or make him uncomfortable but I feel like I have to do something to get him out of this misery. Should I talk to M? Should I keep trying to confront F? Should I talk to a therapist about this? Should I just resign and try to accept that I can’t do anything to help my friend?

I hope you can help. Thank you so much in advance.

– To Move Or Not To Move

This is a question I get surprisingly often, TMoNTM. It’s really frustrating to see one our friends who seems to be determined to go down on the HMS Douchebag all the way to the bottom of the Atlantic. The problem is that, as I’ve said before, love isn’t just blind, it also sticks its fingers in its ears and yells “LALALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” There are many times when people in shitty relationships will actively fight to stay in them, deliberately choosing to turn a blind eye to the screamingly obvious stake-lined pits and bear traps around them. Worse, the harder you push them, the more they dig in their heels. This relationship is core to who they are and challenging this just invokes the Backfire Effect. They don’t want to admit that things are bad, so they’ll just double-down instead even in the face of contradictory evidence.

This is a shitty situation because there’s no win condition here. There really is no way to Kobiyashi Maru your way out of this. M isn’t going to listen to reason. She knows what she’s doing. She’s flaunting her affair with F in her husband’s face. Maybe he’s getting off on being cuckolded, maybe it’s an incredibly toxic relationship, but she’s being increasingly blatant about things and that’s not a mindset that lends itself well to “listen, you’re hurting my friend.”

Plus: all that’s going to happen is that she’s going to tell F what you said and that’s going to cause drama.

Talking to F isn’t going to be much better because… well, dude’s fuckdrunk. He’s getting laid, he’s getting the crazy new-relationship-energy high from this even as he knows that she’s not going to leave her husband. Pushing him to leave her is just going to make him dig in harder.

And this is frustrating because you and your crew have been really good friends to F. You’ve been there when he needed you consistently and supporting him as best as you can. But you can’t save a dude who doesn’t want to be saved. As much as you may want to yank him back from the volcano’s edge, dude is just gonna keep tapdancing on the rim until either he falls in or turns around and walks away.

So here’s what you do, TMoNTM: you have one last convo with F about this. And make it clear: this is the last time you are going to have this conversation. When you do, you don’t tell him that he’s fucking up or that this is going to hurt him. You lead him to it. You reaffirm his feelings and that yes, he loves her. But… is she treating him well? After all, doesn’t it seem like she’s taunting her husband by carrying on so openly? Doesn’t it seem a little mean to be doing that? Is that the behavior of someone who’s kind and respectful? And how would he feel if that happened to him? What does he think may happen when her husband gets tired of the game?

Maybe he’ll get the point, maybe he won’t. But you can at least let him know that you’re concerned about him and how this is affecting him and that you’ll be there for him when – not if, when – this blows up. And then you let it go. As frustrating as it may be, you have to let him be a grown-ass adult to make his own mistakes.

And when it blows up and he needs you all again? Don’t – I repeat, don’t – say “I told you so”. He’s going to feel awful enough as it is. Rubbing it in will just make things worse.

You’re a good person, TMoNTM. You and your crew are the friends that F needs. Keep being awesome, because the world needs more awesome people.

Good luck.

The post Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Do Women Never Make The First Move? appeared first on Paging Dr. NerdLove.

Hey Doc,

I really appreciate your sex positive advice. That, your articles about dating apps, and your nonjudgemental approach to open or monogamish relationships and kinks makes me think you’re the right person to ask about this.

Some context: My partner and I have been in a committed relationship for going on eight years now. Our sex has always been mind blowing and a very important part of our relationship. He is older than I am, and while in the beginning he was more experienced, over time we’ve both learned new things that excite us. Most of our sex is extremely satisfying “vanilla” PiV or PiA action, but we also like to indulge in a kink or two. We’ve discovered that for each other, we’re switches–we get off on exchanging dominating and submissive roles. Without getting too graphic, on occasion he physically dominates me (always in a safe and very enthusiastically consensual way) and on occasion I verbally dominate him through taunts and cuckolding fantasy scenarios (again always in a safe and enthusiastically consensual way). Our switchery not only adds extra excitement to our sex, but also helps keep our relationship grounded, as we both recognize that our desire to be dominated in different ways is a safe means of giving in to our different anxieties about our relationship, turning those anxieties into some cathartic fucking pleasure.

If you’re still with me, I’m getting closer to my question. So far, the cuckolding has been only in the realm of fantasy, but we think we’re ready to try to make it a reality. We’ve had many discussions about how we would progress slowly, from him watching me make out with a guy, to blow jobs, to penetration. We’ve talked about boundaries like not involving people we know socially and not developing side relationships should we decide (together) to involve the same person more than once. We agree that if either one of us feels uncomfortable at any point for any reason, either one of us has an absolute right to call STOP. And we know that no matter what happens, at the end for the night, we’ll be cuddling each other, loving and secure.

And now my question: how do we find guys into being bulls, on our terms? We figured Tinder is a veritable fest of sausage, but I’ve never used tinder or any other dating app. I don’t know the basic etiquette, let alone the proper way to announce “I’m dtf while my partner watches and jerks off.” I know I should announce that’s what I’m looking for in advance, but I don’t know how or when to do so. Do I signal it somehow in my profile, tell the guy when we start messaging, or wait till we do the pre-date coffee thing to see if I even want to fuck him?

You’ve given advice and recommended resources for opening up relationships, but I was wondering if you have any specific advice for our situation. We don’t want to open up, just the respective exhibitionist and voyueristic pleasures of my getting fucked by a stranger while my partner watches.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

–If Candalus’s Wife Were into It

Hey, good for the two of you for the work you’re doing in keeping your relationship hot. What you two are doing is a critical part of making a relationship work, especially over the long term. This goes double for communicating with your partner – open, clear communication is a huge part of why some couples stay together and why others fall apart.

Now the trick is finding the right person in the right venue for the right kind of relationship, and a lot is going to depend on exactly what it is that you’re looking for. If you’re looking for more of an exhibitionist thrill, you may want to find a local play party or join the swinger’s scene. You’re as likely to find folks who’ll fit the bill and give you opportunities to play in public in various ways.  If you’re looking to play up the eroticized humiliation or domination with just the three of you, then you may want to look for a bull, specifically.

If you want to minimize potential drama with any candidate for the bull position then it can help to start by finding people who already speak the lingo and understand the scene. While you can occasionally find a guy who’s new to cuckoldry and fits right in with minimal effort, those tend to be few and far between. For a first time experience, finding someone with experience can be useful. This may mean bringing in a paid professional or it may mean meeting with some of your local kinksters, making friends and seeing if there are folks that you vibe with and who vibe with you. You may want to attend a munch or two and connect with the kinky community – not to find a potential bull, specifically, but to just make connections, meet people and attend some events. Maybe you will find someone who’s looking for your flavor of yum, maybe you won’t. But you will meet new friends who also lead kinky lifestyles. More friends, even of the strictly platonic variety is always good.

The other thing to remember is that The Internet Is Your Friend… it’s just that some places are good friends who will help you move your couch and others are the kind of friends that make you wonder why the hell you hang out with them in the first place. Craigslist may seem like an obvious choice, but it’s also a blasted hellscape of spam and bad intentions. It’s theoretically possible to find a potential bull there, but you’re going to be looking for a needle in a giant stack of other needles that are actively trying to stab you and also may be trying to give you tetanus in the process.

Sorry, I think the metaphor got away from me there.

Kinksters of various stripes frequently do meet up on Tinder and OKCupid, but it takes something of a deft hand. A woman advertising that she’s kinky (or just bi, for that matter) on a dating site tends to open the floodgates to dudes and dickpics that you’re just not into. OKCupid is useful in that it now lets couples (and poly pods) in non-mongamous relationships connect their profiles. This can help set some expectations before you get into the profile itself. It may help to start by making it clear in your profile that you’re a couple looking for a male third. As you find potential candidates, take it slow and get to know them and roll out just what it is the two of you are looking for in your third.

The other potential site to consider is FetLife, which serves as an all-encompassing kink social network. It’s not a dating site – and shouldn’t necessarily be treated as one – but it can help put you in contact with people who have compatible interests… people you might then make arrangements to meet offline.

Regardless of how you meet your third, take it slow. Even if the chemistry’s there, you’re going to want to take some time to lay down ground rules and expectations. Is this a strictly voyueristic intention? Do you and your partner want him to be humiliated or dominated? Are there hard limits to insults if so? Is there going to be any sort of male-male contact – as sometimes happens in some sessions – or is this a strict “my boyfriend is going to sit in the corner while we do our thing”?

The other thing to do is for the three of you to meet for that pre-date date. Possibly a few times. Not only do you want to vet people carefully, but when it comes to a cuckold or voyeur fantasy, you want chemistry with the three of you. After all, it’s as much your partner’s fantasy as it is yours; if he’s not feeling it with this particular guy, then it’s not going to be as good for him… and not in the fun, submissive way.

Beyond that, take it slow. You may want to take baby steps at first while you see whether what works when you fantasize still works when you approach it in real life. Watching you make out with another guy at the bar may make your partner realize that oops, he’s not into this. Or you might not dig it, for that matter.

Or you might discover that it’s insanely hot and you’re all incredibly turned on. In which case, yahtzee! Schedule a proper session and get ready to enjoy all the taboo thrills.

Sounds like you two are on a good path, ICWWI. Go enjoy some sexy adventures.

Good luck.

Hey Doc, got an unusual question for you. I want to put myself in the ”Friendzone”

I’m 30 years old and I’m quite the late bloomer. I’m on the autism spectrum, I’m an extrovert who suffered from social anxiety in the past but now things are turning around. I have a promising job lead, with lifelong benefits including tuition reimbursement and an eventual six figure annual salary. I’ve never had a driver’s license but I’m now enrolling in a course for first time adult drivers, and if the job comes through, I’ll be able to afford an in apartment where in this city where rents are insane and FINALLY get out of my parents house.

I’ve gotten more social over the past few years, so I have more friends now.

But there’s the thing, I’m a cis-gendered hetero guy who wants more female platonic friends. I’m eventually going to start dating, but at the same time I want to also meet women who are just looking for friendship with sex and romance off the table.

The reason being is my current circle of guy friends literally reek of toxic masculinity. I’m constantly on my guard. I feel like with them I have to police myself around them. One of them constantly tries to establish himself as the ”alpha male” when we all hangout, and that usually means emasculating or humiliating ME.

I’m tired of having straws yanked out of my drinks before I can react and then told I look like I’m sucking something that’s not a straw.” Also my body has a low alcohol tolerance, so I’m also tired of being belittled and shamed into getting so drunk that I inevitably vomit after which he and the others humiliate me friend in front of the entire club or bar with ”hey everybody, can you believe this pussy lightweight!” Then I’m told when the subject of sex comes up that my one-and-only sexual encounter with a woman ”doesn’t count” because I didn’t penetrate her and therefore a ”failure” and ”I blew it.” When I call them on this, their answer is ”we’re just busting your balls” or ”that’s what happens when you’re the beta” or ”it ain’t our fault you’re breaking Bro Code!” It also doesn’t help that they’re all die-hard Trumpsters, so I get the ”soy boy” insults as well because I’m the only the liberal-leaning guy in the group.

Lately I’ve noticed around women and also gay men (TBH, even though I’m straight I find it REALLY flattering when gay men hit on me) I’m friends with I don’t feel this pressure and sure as hell don’t have to tolerate that crap. I genuinely feel like I can be myself around women and gay men, it’s like this feeling of freedom and ease that I can’t describe. Also, no wingman better is better than a wingWOMAN when it comes time to date. I’ve thought about joining Bumble’s dating service (for romantic and sexual relationships with women) and also Bumble BFF to find platonic friendships with women or possibly gay men, but the question is how do I approach women with that in mind, online and IRL, how do I ask for it and how do I assure them I don’t have any ulterior motives? That I’m not just ”trying to get in their pants?” and not just retending to be their friend for hidden reasons?

Trying To Put Myself In The Friend Zone

Making approaching women (or non-binary folks or anyone else really) isn’t any different from approaching guys to be friends TPMFZ. All you need to do is just… talk to people. Strike up conversations. Get to know them and, as you all start to feel more comfortable around one another, invite them to do stuff as friends. Part of the reason why guys end up in The Friend Zone¹ is because, well, they act like friends instead of potential lovers. If you’re acting like a friend to someone – not flirting on them, hitting on them or otherwise suggesting that you see them as a potential relationship – then they’re going to think of you as a friend.

Yeah, there will be people who’ve been burned before by self-proclaimed Nice Guys, but showing that you’re trustworthy and aboveboard is going to be what proves that you don’t have any ulterior motives. And trust me: that will make being your friend a relief instead of a source of stress.

All that having been said…

While I fully support finding some platonic female friends, TPMFZ, I’m kind of wondering why in pluperfect hell you’re hanging out with these asshats. These don’t sound like friends, they sound like a bunch of sociopathic parasites who’ve latched themselves onto you and are feasting on your self-esteem.

I get that it can feel like making friends post college is difficult-to-impossible – it’s not, but I understand the feeling – but the fact that it can be difficult doesn’t mean that you have to be friends with these folks. You can break up with friends you know, especially when they’re a bunch of toxic crapsacks. In fact, bouncing these dudes so hard that their grandparents feel it would probably be the best thing for you, both emotionally and socially. After all, your social circles don’t need to be one giant overlapping Venn diagram, but it’s nice to not have to apologize for the fact that your friends are a bunch of asshole Brosephs.

Right now these dudes are trading on the fact that you have weak boundaries and aren’t willing to stand up to them. All the the “we’re just busting your balls bro” bullshit is just that: bullshit. They’re telling you that you’re not “allowed” to be upset because hey, it’s “bro code”. Fuck that and fuck them; they are the problem, not you and they can go have their dick measuring contest without you. They’re welcome to be as toxic as they wanna be, but you can opt the hell out.

So first things first: tell them to collectively go screw and dump the lot of them. Let them hoot and holler about whether or not you’re man enough or “it’s just banter” or any of the rest of their shit. It doesn’t matter, they’re not your problem any more and they can go take a collective flying fuck at a rolling donut.

Trust me when I tell you that ditching all of them with a snap of your fingers will make you feel infinitely better. It will be the first step towards learning to enforce your boundaries, which will make you stronger overall. Plus: it will free up your emotional bandwidth and your time for people of all genders who are actually your friends and not just a collection of sentient fart noises.

Good luck.

1. Standard disclaimer: there is no Friend Zone, there are just people who don’t want to sleep with you or date you. The phrase is used here as a term of convenience

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