DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  In light of the articles you wrote on not needing to be perfect to date, this leads me to an important question: how do I carry myself with confidence when I’m a work in progress? I’ll be honest, due to early life abuse and autism I haven’t really developed the confidence and life I want to have at 28 years old. I only just realized I WAS a survivor of abuse a few years ago. It’s been a game of playing catch-up ever since. And while I understand nobody is looking for perfection, how do I feel confident when I feel so behind everyone else?

I don’t want to give off “goofy side-character” energy. Like the incompetent guy in a piece of media that is clearly a bumbling fool who still needs to find himself but everyone still likes him (though nobody would date or have a relationship with him).

The only way I could ever frame this is through self-deprecating jokes-though-not-really-jokes about how I don’t have my life together. I feel this is not the best way to present myself as a potential date. I also don’t want to come across as some faux-inspirational TED talker like “My life is a journey of beauty and curiosity, I can’t wait for the destination!TM.” That whole spiel just feels super unnatural to say.

I’m trying to let go of the “not good enough” swamp I find myself stuck in and I think learning how to like and be confident in myself as I am NOW would be helpful.

Watch This Space

DEAR WATCH THIS SPACE: You’re right, WTS: that “joking-but-not-really” approach of “no, really, I suck” is far less than attractive. People are looking for partners, not weekend projects or fixer-uppers; they don’t expect perfection, but they also don’t want to end up with the dating equivalent of a money pit. This is why self-deprecating jokes don’t work when it’s pretty clear that you’re not actually joking; it comes across as you saying “no, seriously, I’m a f--king mess, please help me,” and that’s just not appealing to anyone.

Self-deprecating jokey-jokes work best when it’s clear that you’re not being serious. Craig Ferguson is a king of these; when he talks about having low standards because he’s Scottish, it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t mean it. He’s using those jokes when paired with the compliments or flirting signals he sends to attractive women. The compliment followed by the “and here’s why you shouldn’t take the compliment seriously” is part of the bait-hook-reel-release school of flirting; it’s building up tension, then releasing tension. When there’s no tension being built up, then it’s just deflating everything.

The thing about being a work in progress is that everyone is a work in progress. One of the most important lessons I learned from martial arts came after I received my black belt: this wasn’t the end of my study, it was the end of the beginning. Nobody is at the finish line; there’s always something to improve on, something to build on or something new to learn. That’s just life; we’re all imperfect, we all have things we’d like to be different or better and really, a man’s ambition should exceed his reach or what’s Heaven for?  

You’re not “behind” everyone else because there’s no race here. You’re not in competition with anyone, there’s no universal schedule or list of milestones that says “you should be HERE by X date”, there’s just life and everyone muddles through it at their own pace and their own time. The only way you could be behind someone else is if you were living their exact same life, at the exact same time and being presented with the exact same choices, opportunities, drawbacks and obstacles. But you’re not. So quit paying attention to where the folks who are supposedly “ahead of you” are, except as inspiration and motivation. They’re not outpacing you, they’re showing you some of the potential that awaits you as you grow and improve.

This is, say it with me now, why confidence doesn’t come from success, it comes from effort. This is why so-called gifted kids spin out so often and so early; the first time they run into something that they can’t do or overcome easily, they lose their goddamn minds. Why? Because they thought that everything was supposed to be this easy; they’re unused to the friction that comes with not being immediately good at something and having to overcome it.

Confidence isn’t about “I’m guaranteed to win”, it’s “I know what I’m capable of, I know what I can achieve when I put my mind to it, I know failure can’t stop me, and I know I’ve got the capacity in me for greatness”. It’s about looking around and saying “Yup, I can figure this out.” Confidence isn’t a lack of struggle, it’s being comfortable with the struggle, even loving it. It’s about being willing to meet the challenge over and over again until you overcome it.

In your case, carrying yourself with confidence means looking at how far you’ve made it and looking at what you’ve overcome to get here. It means realizing that, even with odds stacked against you, you’ve improved and progressed and letting that inform your desire to keep moving forward. Yeah, it sucks at times, and it’s easy to envious of folks who haven’t had to struggle the way you have. But their journey is not your journey and their trials are not your trials.

It also means understanding and embracing the zen Buddhist belief of “I’m perfect, and there’s plenty of room to improve.” Where you are is great, and there’s lots more to do, and isn’t that awesome? You don’t need to apologize for yourself, nor should you; you take it as a mark of pride that you’ve come this far and you still have the capacity to keep at it. You don’t have to be super-upbeat or toxically positive about it; you can acknowledge how much it sucked to get to this point, just like how celebrities will acknowledge what a f--king nightmare it is to get into Marvel superhero shape (which, like perfection, is also unnecessary and often a distraction from the real needs at hand). But you should be proud that you’re there, proud of what it took to get there and proud of knowing that you’ve got it in you to keep going.

It’s great to look to the future, but sometimes you need to stop and look at the past and say “damn, that was a long f--king slog, go me!”

Everyone’s a work in progress. It’s the confident people that say “damn right I am, look at what I’ve done so far!”

That could be you, WTS, if you let it. So let it.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I have a lot of female friends. Like, a lot. Over the past ten years I have gone on 7 trips with platonic female friends and shared a room in 6/7 cases. I have very close relationships with them all and the joke is very often that I am their “name of club” husband to them (the equivalent of work husband or work wife but relating to whatever organization I’ve met them through).

This is obviously both very sweet and very flattering.

Contrary to what everyone reading this thinks is coming, this isn’t a friendzone question. Some of these women are married, some are in relationships, some are single and I am not secretly harbouring romantic feelings for any of them or hoping their relationships fail so I can step in.

The problem is that I can’t seem to get anywhere in my romantic life. I go on first date after first date after first date and just get absolutely nowhere. I haven’t been with a woman in almost seven years and the endless rejection is really killing my self-esteem.

I know it’s hard to diagnose a problem without like 24/7 video coverage of my dating foibles but there must be something wrong with me if I am capable of having a dozen top notch relationships with women but can’t ever seem to attract one to be in a romantic relationship.

These women all want to wingwoman me (super sweet) but nothing ever really comes of it. Am I just too nice? Am I the straight version of the gay best friend? Every time dating comes up the answers are all “dating sucks” and “numbers game” etc., etc. but never any actionable advice as to what I am doing wrong.

I have been on a stupid number of dates in the past decade and a 2nd date is a rarity, a 3rd date is a miracle. I feel like I am at the point where I am trying to dig through a concrete wall with a plastic spoon so need to divert effort into something that might actually pay dividends (i.e I have to do something different). I just don’t even know what. I try to flirt. I try not to be too nice. I show up on time, ask questions, try to be relaxed and over and over and over get “OMG you’re such an amazing guy but…” and I get that’s part of dating but like fifty in a row?

Help.

Just One Of The Girls

DEAR JUST ONE OF THE GIRLS: Before I get to the meat of your letter, JOTG, I want to just clarify something that comes up a lot around here: why asking your (the generic “you”) friends for advice keeps resulting in the most cliché, unhelpful pablum in response like “keep at it” or “just be yourself” or all the rest.

There’re two answers to this. The first is simple: they don’t know what to tell you. The problem is that nobody likes to say “f--ked if I know”; nobody likes admitting ignorance, nor do we like to tell our friends that we just don’t know how to help them. Part of the problem is that most folks honestly don’t think that much about how they date or connect with folks; they just kinda fall into it and s--t works. So, rather than say “sorry, I don’t know what to tell you”, they give the usual clichés because they sound helpful and it feels better than saying nothing.

And honestly, this isn’t that surprising. There’re relatively few people who’ve actually sat down and really dug into the mechanics of what they’re doing and how, outside of very basic and broad brushstrokes like ‘talk to people’, ‘make them laugh’ or ‘keep at it until it works’. And when they do think about it, they’re rarely thinking any deeper than “oh, I should remember to do X” a la Hitch, rather than having thought about the underlying workings of it all or having developed an entire Tao of Steve/Mystery Method/The Game curriculum of philosophy and tactics around what they’re doing.

It’s not that they don’t know what they’re doing, so much as they’re doing something that they’ve done for so long and learned so long ago that they never stop to think about it. I mean, you don’t think about how to walk – the mechanics of shifting your weight, how high and far forward you move your foot in 3D space, and so on – you just do it. The same thing applies here: a lot of people just talk and connect and things work out, because they’re applying lessons they learned so long ago that they don’t remember learning them.

The second answer is… well, they don’t want to tell you what you’re doing wrong. Usually this is out of friendship or an attempt at kindness; they give the answers with the padded corners and rounded edges because they don’t want to make you feel bad because they don’t think it would help, or because they don’t want to be the reason why you spin out. They also know that, most of the time, folks don’t want the harsh truths. It’s a little like when a friend asks you to be unsparing or brutally honest in your opinion about something they’ve put a lot of work into; you know damn good and well that what they want are mild criticisms mixed with a lot of praise, not “look, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve seen dogs vomit up a better result”. Plus, there’s always the risk of sending someone into a cycle of “oh God I’ve been doing $EMBARRASSING/CRINGE/UNPLEASANT_THING this ENTIRE TIME?!?!” and then have to also help try to pull that friend off the downward spiral they asked to be set on.

But – dragging this back to your question – that’s precisely why you’re asking me.

Now to start things off, let’s acknowledge something important: you’ve got a lot of women who love you, trust you and think you’re a great guy. That is awesome, and it says a lot about the quality of man you are and how you treat the people around you. Having a lot of female friends is a lot like being on good terms, if not actively friends with your exes: it tells people a lot about your character and the sort of treatment people can expect from you. It can also be a benefit when it comes to meeting other women: having these women in your life who think you’re great and love spending time with you means that you’ve been vetted and approved. It’s not just social proof; it’s a sign that you’re someone that others can be comfortable around.

But, I suspect this is also, in its way, the source of your problems. Not that you have so many female friends but rather why you have so many female friends – you’re so safe and respectful that I’m willing to bet that you have a hard time expressing actual attraction or sexual interest in the people you’re meeting.

Regular readers of my column know how often the “I respect women so much I avoid interacting with them altogether” trope comes up – guys who are worried about creeping women out or coming across as pushy, sleezy or just all-around scumbags, and so avoid anything that might give someone the wiggins. In and of itself this isn’t a bad thing, especially when there’re so many guys whose general philosophy is “What? Women are things”, but it’s counterproductive when it comes to romance and relationships. Love, as the sage once said, isn’t brains, children, it’s blood, blood screaming at you to work its will. Or to put it another way: the goal of dating is to find someone who loves you for your mind but wants you for your ass. The key is finding the right balance of being both considerate and chivalrous, but also making it clear that you wanna bang like a screen door in a hurricane.

One of the questions I think you should ask yourself is how often you express actual sexual attraction and interest to the people you’re dating. How much do you flirt, how much do you make any sort of physical contact and how much of an indication do you ever give that you think they’re hot in a way that isn’t seen as “don’t worry, I’m not remotely serious.” I’m willing to bet cash money that your first dates are very sweet, thought out and very, very chaste, to the point of making characters in a Regency-era romance say “f--king hell, make a goddamn move already!” You don’t need to (and really don’t want to) go full-bore Pepe Le Pew, but you do need to show folks that you’d like more than polite conversation and a firm handshake at the end of the night.

There’re a lot of ways of expressing this interest, but one of the most common ways is through flirting. Flirting is, at its core, the art of telling someone you’re hot for them in a way that’s fun and engaging for the both of you. It’s an invitation to say “let’s both admit we think the other’s a smokeshow” and build a connection between the two of you in the process.

One of the best ways to understand the mechanics of flirting is to think of it like this: you’re in a pool on a hot summer day. The water’s the perfect temperature: not so cold that you’re turning blue, but just cold enough that the initial shock turns into a delicious, refreshing sensation. Your date is sitting in a lounge chair and isn’t sure that they want to get in. You know they want to get in, but aren’t sure if they’re ready or if it’s going to be too cold or what? How do you convince them to join you in the pool with you? Do you tease them about being too scared to get their suit wet? Do you play reverse psychology and tell them that it’s better to stay out where it’s dry? Do you splash a little and encourage them to splash you back?

If your response is “well, if they don’t want to get in the pool, I’m going to respect that until they change their mind”, then you’ve both demonstrated your problem while also missing the point of the exercise. They want to get in; you’re just encouraging them to do the thing they already want to do. If someone’s on a date with you, they want to feel that connection with someone. They want to be desired and feel desire themselves. But if the other person is giving no indication of interest, then they’re far less likely to show interest on their part. And since someone’s gotta make the first move, it may as well be you.

As I said: part of the reason why you’ve got so many women as friends is that you’re very safe and very comfortable to be around, which is great. But being that safe comes with drawbacks, and one of them is that safe is the opposite of exciting. It’s not that being safe is inherently bad or unattractive; it’s that there’s safe as in “people can trust you and let their guard down around you” and then there’s “taking no risks, ever”. Desire is exciting and a little dangerous; when expressing (or giving in to) desire, you’re making yourself vulnerable to a certain degree. It can be scary to do that because hey, you don’t know what could happen. But there’s no reward without risk, and you have to be willing to risk a little bit of that safety in order to reap the reward. The goal is that you want to be fun-scary, like a horror movie or a roller-coaster; there’s the illusion of danger paired with the knowledge that no, you’re actually very safe. And like with movies or theme park rides, there’re levels of attendant scares. Some people like Space Mountain or Big Thunder Railroad and some people like El Topo or Kingda Ka. Some folks like the Universal monster movies or classic Hammer flicks and some people want Wolf Creek or The Grudge. Part of successful flirting is calibrating your style of flirting and the level of intensity to both your personality and your date’s.

So my suggestion is that you need to start being willing to take some risks and express more interest in your dates – enough to know that you’re seeing them as more than another potential new platonic friend. To be sure, this is going to require a little trial and error on your part as you try to calibrate, and so you’re going to have to be willing to risk blowing it at times. But, seeing as you’re already dealing with dates that go nowhere, you don’t exactly have anything to lose. Start with some light flirting – like one sonar ping from a Russian submarine – and see what comes back. If they respond positively or flirt back, you can dial things up a bit and see. If they’re neutral, then they may have missed it; you can try a similar ping a bit later and see, or you might move the dial one notch higher and see if maybe you were too cautious. But I’m willing to bet that once you start expressing non-platonic interest and give more than just “really good friend” energy on your dates, you’ll start getting better results.

Oh, and one more thing: ask your friends about how some of their partners caught their interest or their favorite ways to be flirted with. I’ll bet you get a lot of inspiration to work with for when you go out and meet some sexy singles.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I’ve read your column for a while now and frankly I don’t know why I’m writing to you because I feel like you’re going to give me just more feel-good bulls--t. I’m tired of all the crap about how women want men who are this and that and the other thing because in my experience? It’s all lies. 

I’m in my 20s, I’m a guy who’s got all the right qualities: I’m smart, successful, decent-looking, emotionally mature, and I treat people with respect. You name it, I’ve got it. But no matter what I do, no one ever seems to notice. Every woman I meet goes for the guy who has none of what I offer. I go on the apps, I get nothing. I talk to women, they ignore me. I ask them out on dates and they go date the tall asshole who’s going to treat them like s--t and dump them two months later, and then they cry about it and go do it all over again. 

I don’t even know what the point is anymore. I’m putting myself out there, doing everything right, and still getting passed over for the guy with no ambition or the one who barely even looks like he has his life together. 

Why bother being the “right guy” if women are just going to pick the wrong ones? I’m sick of hearing about how women want a good guy, how they want someone who’s got their act together, and yet when I show up with all that, nothing. Do the qualities actually matter? Or is it all some myth women pretend to care about while they chase after the same guys with the right hair and face?

If I’m doing everything right and still getting ignored, what’s the point?

Signed,�Why Should I Believe A Word They Say?

DEAR WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE A WORD THEY SAY: Quick question, WSIBWTS – you say you have these qualities that women want but why should they believe what you say about having them?

Here’s the thing I notice in letters like yours: I hear a lot about the qualities that guys like you have, but they’re all internal ones, inherent ones. The ones like “I’m ambitious and I’m respectful and I’m emotionally mature”. OK… and? I mean, that’s great and all, but how’s anyone supposed to know you have them and why should they care?

The problem that you – and a lot of guys like you – have is that you’re dealing with the classic Nice GuyTM issue: you’re talking about who you supposedly are but not what you do. And one of the things about attraction is that attraction is sparked by what you do for others and how you make them feel. Being “emotionally mature” is great and all but that’s not something that is going to make people want to spend time with you. Successful? Great… how are you going to turn that into something that is meaningful for the other person who doesn’t know you?

Allow me to give you some wisdom from one David Mamet: “Nice guy? I don’t give a s--t. Good father? F--k you – go home and play with your kids!! You wanna work here? Close!!”

The scene itself is about sales and the necessities of capitalism overwriting basic humanity but there’s a nugget of truth there: those inherent qualities aren’t going to make a difference if you’re not doing what needs to be done, which in your case is “get them to like you”. People will care about those inherent qualities when you’ve given them a reason to care. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing that you have them and no reason to consider them to be more significant or important than what someone else has. They’re part of why someone will stick around, but they’re not going to attract them simply because those are things that you are, not what you do. And doing is part of how you get people to like you. Doing, in this case, is entirely about how you make other people feel. If they don’t feel good around you – because of what you do – then they aren’t going to prioritize time spent with you over someone who does make them feel good.

This is why I ask people “what do you bring to the table?” It’s got to be more than “I’m a good person”; it’s about what makes people want to spend time with you. This is why, for example, dudes who can cook, or make people laugh or play music or do any number of things tend to have women lining up, even when they look like a drowned sewer rat who also sells meth behind the Waffle House: they are bringing something to the table that people want and value – a good time.

The supposed “asshole” who’s going to mistreat them? He’s actually charming. He’s talking to them, he’s making them laugh and feel special. He’s not sitting there hoping that someone’s going to see his great inner qualities, he’s showing them a good time. Maybe he’s going to treat them like s--t, maybe not, but in the here and now, he’s providing a meaningful answer to “why should I spend time with you”, and that answer is “because I’m fun to be with.”

(I will also pause here to note how often “asshole who’s going to mistreat them” is usually code for “dude as what got what I wanted and I don’t feel that he deserves it like I do.”)

So if you’ve got these great qualities that make you a good partner, that’s awesome… but those come into play after you’ve gotten over the initial hurdle of “well, here’s why you’ll enjoy my company”. It’s why the Glengarry Glen Ross speech is so appropriate here: you have to sell yourself. It doesn’t matter if your soda tastes way better than Coke or Pepsi if nobody has any reason to try it that doesn’t go beyond “this exists”. You can’t just put it out there and hope folks will stumble across it, pray that they get curious to look closer, buy one and then realize that oh, the mouthfeel of the carbonation is crisper and the aftertaste is so much nicer. You have to give them a reason to try it in the first place. And from the sound of it, you’re not doing that. You’re hoping that women are just going to divine that you have these qualities or that they’ll believe you when you say it, despite a lack of evidence.   

This is why you can’t just say you “have” these qualities and assume that’s the end of it. You have to either be able to show those qualities in ways that people will appreciate, or have other things that you bring to the table that will encourage them to stick around and look closer. So show them the things you want them to see, the things they value, and do it in a way that makes them want to spend more time with you so that those qualities actually come into play. Otherwise, all you’re doing is being upset that women aren’t seeing the mystical aura that says “I’m The Good One”.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com