DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I’m a young adult (almost college age) who’s never dated before, and I need help figuring out this complex scenario between my friend and I. Here is the context: he’s a cishet man, I’m questioning but my current label is “aroace nonbinary trans man”. We met a few months ago and hit it off immediately. We’re also going to attend the same college. He didn’t know I was trans at first (I’m pre-trans and girlmode sometimes) but he’s okay with it.

I was questioning my romantic/sexual attraction when we first met, so I flirted with him and he seems to like it. I am pretty sure he is in love with me (he’s dropped hints), but he also knows I identify as aroace. Still, I feel more comfortable with him than anyone else. I have a LOT of weird qualities that he just accepts or understands.

I’m normally very afraid of touch, but I don’t mind touching him and have even held his hand. I have opened up to him about my mental illness, difficulty making friends, and body image issues, and it turns out he has similar problems. I am terrified of sex and rape (not totally sure why, I can’t remember being abused but maybe I have repressed memories or something), but he’s never made me feel uncomfortable or threatened in any way, or even ever brought up sex. Once I had a panic attack in front of him and he sweetly stayed with me and helped me calm down. We even went to prom together and had a blast. I really do love him and trust him, even though we haven’t known each other for long. He is an absolute angel and the connection is like nothing else.

I don’t know if my feelings for him are romantic or platonic, and I’m not sure if I’m aroace anymore. I do know that I am TERRIFIED and also unsure of my feelings: my brain just feels foggy when I try to think about it. I’m not sure about what I want to do in terms of specific activities, but when I held his hand, I did end up liking it and I want to do it again. I don’t know if I’m ready to date, but I don’t know if I want someone else to take him away from me, either. I wish I was more certain. I cherish our bond but don’t know how to label it.

I think it would also be too complex given that I’m queer and he’s not: he’s pretty understanding even if he doesn’t know a lot about queer people (I might be his only queer friend, lol). His parents are apparently LGBTQ-phobic, so I don’t wanna put any pressure on him. Plus, I don’t know if he would want to have sex/kiss/do anything else that sounds terrifying or uncomfortable to me. I’ve actually been the initiator most of the time: when I had a panic attack, I was the one who asked to hold his hand, and then we just kept doing that. He liked it. It really makes me wish I was a cishet girl because then I could be his ideal partner, but I don’t know if I want to sacrifice myself to be his. If I really wanted to, I don’t think I would be so scared. I also don’t know if I would have sex with him because I’m terrified of it (and I’m a virgin and also sex-repulsed). If I’m demiromantic after all, I would only consider doing it with him. He’s the only person I would do it with, but I’m scared and don’t like my body.

And another thing: I don’t know what to do about the public perception of us dating. When my friends heard I was going to prom with him, they asked if I had romantic feelings for him, and I said I’m aroace and he couldn’t have feelings for me because I’m a trans guy. One of my friends looked pretty disappointed: I think she wanted us to get together/knows he likes me. It makes me uncomfortable that other people want us to go in a specific direction when I don’t even know what I want! I’m already scared; I don’t want more pressure! I don’t want us to be perceived as dating yet, but then again, we did hold hands in front of everyone at prom and I didn’t mind…

What should I do? Do you think I have romantic attraction to him or not? What should I do about the sex stuff? What should I say to him? Is it possible to date? Should we stay platonic? A QPR? Why do I not want to be seen as dating him? Am I not ready? Am I too young to date? I feel too young! Do I even want this? Why am I so confused and scared? Please help!

Silly Little Guy

DEAR SILLY LITTLE GUY: I don’t blame you for feeling confused and scared, SLG; you’ve got a lot of complex feelings and worries going on that’ve gotten tangled up like a ball of horny snakes, and each of them seem like they directly contradict all the others. How the hell are you supposed to know anything about yourself when you’re feeling three mutually exclusive things before you’ve even had your coffee?

But honestly, I think that a lot of this is coming down to the tangle itself and the issue of labels, more than anything inherent to the situation. So let’s untangle this a bit, shall we?��Let’s start off with the simplest: you currently identify as being asexual and aromantic. Now, I say currently because – as you’ve noted – you’re having feelings that seem to contradict that label. That’s actually fine. Here’s the thing about labels, especially when it comes to your sexual identity: they’re descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, they aren’t restrictions, they’re short-hand that makes it easier to sum up this aspect of you at a glance. People are wildly complex and sometimes it can help to be able to give people a one- or two-word descriptor that can help them understand who you are and what you’re about. They aren’t necessarily going to explain everything perfectly and completely – as I said, people are incredibly complex – but it’s close enough for government work, especially when most people really only need the broad brushstrokes.

But the fact that you’ve applied this label to yourself doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with it forever, nor does it mean that your existence is entirely contained within it. People grow and change over time, and what’s a good fit for us at one time in our lives isn’t going to necessarily apply to us later on. This is especially true when it comes to sexuality. Sexuality is notorious for being a moving target, and one that rarely divides up into nice, neat, discrete categories. People start off identifying as bisexual or pansexual, only later to realize that they’re really more drawn to one gender or another and end up describing themselves as straight or gay. People who are exclusively attracted to one gender may find that there’s a specific person that they’re attracted to who isn’t that gender. And a lot of ace or aro folks find over time that they are, in fact, attracted to another person romantically or sexually.

In fact, there are a number of people who identify at first as ace or aro, in part because they are still working out their relationship to their sexuality and to themselves; it’s less that they don’t feel sexual attraction or romantic attraction so much as that they aren’t sure what they feel, and defining themselves as ace or aro gives them space to figure it out for themselves without the pressure of other people’s expectations. This doesn’t make them liars or fakers or mistaken or trend-chasers; they’re just working s--t out and that’s the label that makes the most sense for them at that stage in their lives. It applies to them in that moment, but less so later on.

Now to build off that, I suspect that part of the reason why ace/aro feels right for you up until now is because you’re also still working on understanding your relationship to your gender. As you say; you’re questioning and you don’t like your body. It’s understandable that as you’re still working on your relationship to yourself, it can be hard to really parse how that also influences your relationship to love and sex. If you don’t like your body or you feel it isn’t “right”, it’s harder to really connect with your sexuality, in no small part because sexuality is as much about your relationship with your body as it is about another person’s. Our body influences our brains, after all; if your body feels like an ill-fitting suit, it’s going to make other aspects of your life feel equally weird and uncomfortable.

Feeling more comfortable in your body and your identity frees up a lot of bandwidth to understand how you relate to others and what you might want from them, as well as what they might want from you. (Put a pin in that, we’re going to come back to that.)

That’s part of why I don’t think it’s unusual that you’re afraid of being touched or afraid of being sexually assaulted. It’s hardly as though these are irrational fears that you would only experience if you had some trauma that you may be repressing. It’s equally as possible that you’re having an understandable reaction to the way that people sexualize and treat femme-bodied and AFAB people – like you’re a thing to be consumed, rather than a person. Your not wanting to be touched makes sense, especially if you’re used to people ignoring your bodily autonomy because of the sex you were assigned at birth.

All of which is to say: yeah, the way you feel absolutely makes sense and the contradictions of it all are entirely understandable. You’re a reasonable person trying to operate in an unreasonable situation, and your trying to establish yourself as yourself in a world where everyone is trying to dictate who you are and what that means for you.

It certainly doesn’t help that your heart and hormones have their own agenda, too, and haven’t bothered to consult with your brain in the process. Love – to quote the sage – isn’t brains; it’s blood, screaming at you to work its will. Since both love and sexual attraction feel like schedules and appropriate times are things that happen to other people, it’s hardly unheard of for feelings to crop up at the most inconvenient moments – especially when it’ll make things even messier for you.

But I think part of the problem is that you are treating all of this as though it were a command, rather than a feeling. The fact that you’re having these feelings doesn’t mean that you need to act on them. Nor does it mean that you need to act on all of it if you don’t want to or don’t feel like you’re ready to do so. Let’s leave your friend out of this for a second and focus on this truth: nothing about the way you feel requires that you take it to the logical (or illogical) end point. If you discover that you enjoy holding someone’s hand, that doesn’t mean that you have to take the next step – whether that means hugging and cuddling, kissing, making out or more. You can stick to what you feel comfortable and ready for, and only move on if and when you feel like it. And that is a time that may well never come! Many ace people enjoy the intimacy of cuddling and physical contact, even kissing, but don’t want sexual intercourse and that’s fine.

This is important for you to understand for your own sake, but it’s just as important to understand that as it applies to your friend. If you were to have a romantic or non-platonic relationship with your friend, specifically, he may well want more. If he’s allosexual – as most of the population is – then it’s safe to assume that he’d want a sexual connection with a person he’s dating or in a relationship with. But the fact that he may want more doesn’t mean that you’re obligated to give him what he wants – especially if it’s something you’re not comfortable with or ready for or capable of giving. The fact that you like him to whatever degree you do doesn’t mean that you have to do things that would harm you because he wants it. You always, always have your right to your boundaries and limits, no matter how badly someone else wants something from you.

Remember: you don’t have to justify or explain yourself or your reasons. Your not wanting to is all the reason you need. Never forget: “no” is a complete sentence.

This also applies to other people who aren’t in your relationship. Your friends can want or hope for whatever they choose; you aren’t under any obligation to go along with their expectations. People are welcome to have their opinions about you and your relationships with other people, but they don’t get a vote. I understand that you feel the pressure of their expectations – or what you may think they’re expecting – but you always have the right to ignore them and do what’s right for you. And, I might point out, you always have the right to tell them to keep those opinions to themselves, especially when it makes you feel uncomfortable or pressured. If they’re so desperate to see your relationship play out a particular way, they’re welcome to write fanfic about it for themselves and never show it to anyone else, especially you and him.

And while we’re on the subject, I want to point out that the fact that your friend may want more doesn’t mean that he’s going to ask you for it, especially if he understands you and cares for you. Remember what I said about how feelings aren’t commands? Well, that goes for him too. He could – and I stress could, this is all theoretical – want to have sex with you or have a more physically intimate connection. But wanting it doesn’t mean he can’t say to himself “hey, this is something that makes SLG uncomfortable and I want him to be happy with me, so let’s put that aside if and until he’s cool with it.” And seeing as he has been incredibly understanding and careful with you, it sounds to me like he cares enough to take your feelings into consideration and give them a higher priority, especially since not doing so would have higher consequences for you.

I mean, the dude sounds like he’s pretty great, which is awesome for the both of you.

But let’s talk about you and him for a second. I understand that all of this feels complicated and horribly consequential, but I think part of the problem is that you’re not just borrowing trouble from the future, but I think you’re borrowing trouble from parallel universes while you’re at it. You’re worried about a whole lot of things that haven’t happened yet and may never happen, but you’re responding to them as though it already has or is about to, and I think that’s messing with your head.

I think some of what you’re responding to are your anxieties rather than the reality on the ground. So far, it sounds like he gets you. He gets that while you may girlmode at times, you’re not a girl. He gets that you have issues around physical touch and around sex and he’s been understanding, accommodating and supportive – which is great! I think a lot of the worries you’re experiencing are more about what might be rather than what is; that is, you’re projecting more about what you’re afraid of onto him than reacting to what you’re seeing. And to be fair, there’re a lot of unknowns here. But the way to deal with those unknowns is to face them straight on.

Here’s what I’d suggest: talk to him. You don’t know how he feels; he does. He knows some, but not all, of how you’re feeling about stuff. Talking to him about all of this is how you erase that uncertainty. Talking with him about how you feel, about how he may feel and what to do about it may be uncomfortable at first, but this is the time when powering through that discomfort will bring you greater relief than I think you realize. At the very least, you won’t be trying to read the tea leaves or divine how he feels by rummaging around chicken entrails. Having greater information helps ease the anxiety because the anxiety is your brain trying to fill in all these gaps and lacunas in your understanding of the situation.

But more to the point, you can make sure you’re both on the same page. You can reassure yourself that if he wants you, then he wants you as you, not as girlmode you or a cis version of you. You can say “if we do this, here’s where I’m at, here’s what I’m ok with, here’s what I’m not sure about, here’s what I definitely can’t do”, and he can say “Yes, that’s fine, I totally understand and I’m cool with it” or he can say “Ok, I don’t know if I could make that leap with a romantic partner, so we should stay friends instead”. You can say “Here’s the way I see this going, here’s the pace at which I’d be most comfortable” and he can say “Here’s how I would like to see this going, here’s the pace I’d like to see” and if they don’t line up exactly, you can both discuss where and how to compromise, if compromise is even possible and what works best to make you both happy.

And you and he can decide what your relationship is for yourselves. The great thing about relationships is that there are no rules except for what the people in the relationship decide. He can be a straight person dating a queer person. He could be straight-ish or homoflexible, or a single-target exception to his otherwise hetero orientation. You can decide for yourselves how to label it, what to call it or how it will work. And even if you do decide on a particular set of guidelines or rules… you can renegotiate those if and when they no longer fit. Nothing is set in stone; whatever you two decide now isn’t some geas that you’re obligated to follow for the rest of time. It’s the same as how you label yourself; if if fits now, that’s great. If it doesn’t fit in the future, you can change it.

You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to wait until it all makes sense. And – importantly – you don’t have to do this alone. Even if he’s not romantically interested in you, he is your friend and clearly cares for you. His actions have shown that he’s been understanding and trustworthy so far, so trust him with all of this. Set aside some time for the two of you to sit down and talk it out. It will be scary. It’ll feel awkward. You’ll worry that you’re making things weird. But if you both grit your teeth and white knuckle your way through, you’ll come out on the other side, closer and more in tune with each other than before, and without all the anxiety bubbling up from all these unknowns.

You’ve got this, SLG.

All will be well.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Been reading you for a while, I respect and value your opinions and insights and would like your input.

I’m 28 and I I’m in an incredibly privileged situation with my living at home arrangement, which I’m quite thankful for. I graduated college right into COVID and worked from home for two years, and the situation just panned out wonderfully. The house is huge, I have an exceptional relationship with my parents, who also encourage me to stay to keep saving money (of which I have amassed an impressive chunk for my age, that I invest), live 15 minutes from my job, have space for my own gym equipment, the list goes on. I’ve been capitalizing on the situation to get in good shape and advance my career with professional certifications.

I used to feel humiliated to be living at home, but I found a new perspective. I live as an independent adult with a free room (I contribute with upgrading and buying new household appliances like washer/dryer/fridge, helping pay for fixes/repairs, a share of utilities/internet, and other things that the whole house uses), and don’t have my parents lifting a finger caring for me in any capacity; so, no mommy doing my laundry or dishes or any man-babying. My friends who have all moved out lament that they aren’t saving a dime. Their paychecks are being devoured by rent and essentials to the effect that they can either go out to dinner once a month or buy a few shares of stocks. While I am thankful that I can amass wealth in such comfort and enjoyment with my family, and have a thankful perspective on it, there is one thing that they can do in their own place that I will not do here: sex.

I would not be ashamed to bring a woman home, but I will not, under any circumstances, f--k under the same roof as my mother. Not because she forbids it in any way, it’s beyond skeevy to me to think that she could accidentally hear something, and the thought of having to sneak around / coordinate with any potential woman to do it while Mom isn’t in the house makes me feel like a teenager and is incredibly emasculating. The way I want to sexually express myself (and any potential girlfriends want to sexually express themselves) is not possible in my current living situation and I very much want a relationship so I can get the wheels turning on the prospect of having a family.

My alternative would be to move out to a place that’s either 2+ hours away from my job (and still taking a huge chunk of my pay but I’d still be able to save something), or one that would consume a grand majority of my pay, just like my friends leaving me nothing to save. I think that the responsible thing to do, especially in times of severe economic uncertainty and rising inflation, would be to stay where I am and keep socking away money/investing if I ever want to own a home instead of being doomed to rent. However, I want to find the woman who I will spend the rest of my life with, and I want her to have a desire for physical intimacy similar to mine. My last girlfriend was in college where we were very physically intimate and really having lots of fun being as loud, wild, and uncaring as possible; not gonna happen within a mile of my mother, disgusting.

So, the question I have been pondering is: would it be worth it to move out and forgo the current financial and other benefits just to have my own place just so I can bang? Ultimately, a family is my goal, and having a strong financial position is critical to that. But I want the woman who I spend the rest of my life with to have a desire for physical intimacy similar to mine and there’s no feasible way to foster that while living at home. So, I either have to forgo happiness for security, or security for happiness. I have discussed this with my mom, and she’d be happy with me bringing any girlfriend here, but she couldn’t deny that it would be “a f--ked-up kind of weird” to know that I was having sex, to which I agree. My dad’s response was “so what? your mother and I f--k all the time here.” which I appreciated but it felt hollow because he sang a much much MUCH different tune when it was my sister having sex with her boyfriend here (whom she moved into an apartment with and is now barely saving any money) and oddly enough my mom didn’t care one bit about that. My sister didn’t give a crap about what my dad thinks but I can’t shake the ick that I have.

So, which is it doc? Move out? Stay put? Get over it? Or if you can devise a brilliant solution or offer some sagely advice, that would be most welcome.

-Man on an Emission

DEAR MAN ON AN EMISSION: OK, I’m sorry for the knee-jerk “not what you’re actually asking about” response here but I have to say it: the reason why your parents felt differently about your sister having sex with her boyfriend vs. you having theoretical sex with your theoretical girlfriend is mostly inherent and unconscious sexism. Boys are “supposed” to be going out and f--king, girls are supposed to be “pure” and knowing that one’s precious daughter is getting defiled under one’s roof is the sort of thing that sends people of a certain mindset into very weird Freudian apoplexy.   

But that’s not the issue here. The issue here is that you want to bang but don’t want to do so at home which is legit. I will admit that I don’t necessarily share that issue, but I also spent far more time in my teenage years trying to bring girls home and find opportunities to bang. To be perfectly honest, I feel like part of the fun of being young and in love is trying to find places to make out and have sex without getting caught; it required both creativity, ingenuity and a healthy appreciation of risk. The effort it took �– and the respective levels of risk of being caught – added spice to the whole affair and was part of what kept everything exciting and wild, especially at that age when just having any sort of sexual contact was new and thrilling and terrifying.

So the question then becomes: what’s going to be more important to you? Having a girlfriend and a sex-life without the complication of bringing a girl to your parents’ house, or not spending money? Because this is a money-soluble problem.

But let’s put a pin in that for a second, MOE, and let me ask you something else: what are you saving for? You’re putting all this money aside and presumably investing it, but for what purpose? There comes a point where, unless you’re a dragonborn and hoping to accumulate a hoard, that the money is going to be spent. So what’s the goal of those savings besides just the act of having it? Being able to brag about those diamond hands to other folks on investing subreddits? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against your building up your savings – far from it! But I think it’s worth thinking about whether it’s a much higher priority than a relationship, especially when not saving as much seems to bother you.

Let’s assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that you’re saving up to start a business. Ok, cool. Do you have an actual number in mind? How close are you to that number? How long would it take if you were to get an apartment somewhere and your rent and utilities meant that you wouldn’t be able to keep putting away that same chunk every month? Would you be able to make up the difference if, say, you put the money you’ve already saved into an S&P 500 index fund? Would the growth be so impacted that way that it would kick that end goal an additional decade down the line? Five years? Less? Is a romantic and sexual relationship less worthwhile and meaningful than reaching that goal at this particular timeline? Or would you see the benefits – a loving partner, a healthy and active sex-life – to be an equitable exchange for what you’d be giving up? That’s something I think you should put some serious thought into.

The next thing I think you should consider is that you’ve given yourself a false choice here; you’ve got more options than “live a celibate life at your parents’” and “not be able to save as much (or any) as I do now”.

It sounds like you’re looking at this from an angle of having a place all to yourself – either at the cost of an increased commute or not being able to put aside as much every month. But if you were to split the cost of a place that’s closer to work with a roommate or two (or three or four), I think you’d find that you could split the difference between a convenient commute and not paying exorbitant levels of rent quite handily. Now, you’d still have to deal with having roommates who’d know you and your future girlfriend were banging out… but that’s something that young people have been dealing with since the invention of cities. I think getting over the worry that other people know you’re f--king would be nicely counterbalanced by cheaper rent and having a place of your own in that particular cost/benefit analysis.

But let’s say that none of those possibilities work for you; it’s your parents’ house or your own place by yourself, nothing in between, and you decide that you aren’t willing to give up building your savings because reasons. You can still live with your parents and have a sex life… you’ll just have to learn the lessons of cheaters and/or poly and ethically non-monogamous people who can’t host. In your case, this’ll mean either dating someone who has her own place and doesn’t mind that the answer to “your place or mine” is always going to be “hers”, or using apps like Hotel Tonight and AirB&B to find love nests for when you want to have your trysts somewhere besides her place. But that’s going to cost a pretty penny too, since overnights at a place that’s going to be a cut above the local no-tell motel will add up to a de facto monthly rent in short order.

At the end of the day, you’re going to have to give something up – whether its how much you’re saving, having a girlfriend or your aversion to having sex under your parents’ roof. It’s just a question of which matters more to you. Once you figure that part out, you’ll have your answer.

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’m a huge fan of your articles. They have been helping me through some tough times in my personal life. I don’t want this to be too long, I’ll try to be as thorough as I can within reason. For most of my young life, I’ve had immense social anxiety at middle school, high school, and college and beyond. I was very much in my head at all times, especially when it came to engaging with women or just making friends of a certain caliber or perceived value for me in my mind. I have always fantasized about becoming famous and blowing everyone out of the water with my skills and talents so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the BS that comes with socializing, trial and error, and the anguish that comes from all the failed attempts to connect with people. 

I had this chip on my shoulder as far back as high school, when I discovered my passion for making music. I wanted to be a rapper, still do, to some extent. I figured my social anxiety is crippling, but one day I’ll be famous and it’ll all be worth it, and this was my excuse to not try for a very long time consistently. I was afraid of being judged, I was afraid of being embarrassed, I was afraid of being really killed, rejected. I carried this fear with me well into my adult life. I studied at an art school for undergrad and I majored in film. I’ve always had creative aspirations deep down. I wanna be an actor, a painter, musician, everything! It sucks to have so many dreams because it’s hard to focus just on one. I have put off these dreams for a long time for reasons I can’t fully describe, but the main thing has been fear. I want to be an entertainer through and through, but up until this point, I haven’t really exercised that passion in real life. I am starting to warm up to it now, but the reality is, it’s been tough for me to balance out those dreams and also figure out how to actually sustain and make a living. I’ve had the same retail job since I graduated college for the past 10 years. Albeit it’s a good job with good benefits, so to speak, it’s no longer fulfilling me and it feels like it stifles my confidence. Now I’m more nervous when it comes to dating. 

In the past two years, I went and did a master’s program for animation to jumpstart my creative journey once again. This was not too long after my father passed away during the summer of 2021, which was a major blow. Though interestingly enough, for the first 6 months after his passing, I found myself having surprising success with dating, but it was short-lived once I started grad school and all dried up. I feel like I’m starting from square one all over again. I have good friends who are all on their own way optimistic, upbeat people who are pursuing things and in theory should be inspiring to be around them enough. 

That said none of my friends really openly and directly help me with my dating life. They support my pursuits from afar, but they don’t actively take part in trying to help me, and I wouldn’t expect them to at this point because it’s my responsibility. I don’t do anything consistently, and I should. Something is always holding me back. It’s easy to blame depression; my addictions to weed or procrastination or what have you, and that’s all a part of it, but ultimately, I’m not in the position of trying to make excuses for myself anymore. But you know, even something as simple as going to a bar, alone or with friends, I’m putting myself under immense pressure to connect hook up etc, make up for lost time as it were. My self-worth is very much tied up in it, and I’ve had ideation over the years out of the deep frustration. I’m in therapy and it’s going well, though even at 33 I find it excruciating to push through all this inner resistance. I feel like a complete failure whenever I go out. There are so many beautiful happy vibrant women out there, and I am constantly overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy because of my lack of accomplishment, as it were. And I know logically that doesn’t hold up because as many of your articles suggest, that is more something in your head and anything else. That said, I can’t seem to shake it off. I can’t shake off this feeling that the only way for me to have a happy life is as if I become this prolific artist of some kind that people recognize and praise and want to sleep with. And I realize that’s not a sustainable way to go about the world, but I’m scared to let go of it.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for all that you do,

Artist In Waiting

DEAR ARTIST IN WAITING: First of all, AIW, if what you’re saying in your letter is literally true, I don’t think this is about procrastination or social anxiety. If you’re literally dealing with free-floating fears of being murdered – not just hyperbole, but actual fears that someone will kill you – then you’re think you’re dealing with a full-blown anxiety disorder and you should be looking into more than just talk therapy. And even if those fears of being killed are just exaggeration for effect… well, you should probably be talking to your therapist about going to a physician or psychiatrist for anti-anxiety medication. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, even EMDR can all be very effective, but sometimes the issue is that you’ve got issues with your neurotransmitters and serotonin reuptake.

Now that having been said, I’m glad you’re in therapy, AIW, because what I’m about to do is the opposite of therapy: I’m going to take that dream of yours and stomp all over it with my big stompy Doc Martins of Reality, with the extra thick treads.

Here’s the truth: what you’re hoping is never going to happen, because you’re hoping for something that doesn’t exist. What you’re describing is a magic bullet that’s going to insulate you from any rejection and inspire other people to be so turned on that they’ll do all the work for you. And there just ain’t no such animal. There isn’t anyone, alive or dead, who is so creative, so talented, so beloved that all they would have to do is just appear and let the other person take them by the hand and lead them through every part of a relationship. Even at the height of Lisztomania, when Franz Liszt’s audiences would go into Maenad-like ecstatic frenzies, nobody was saying “sit back and let me do all the heavy lifting”.

Moreover, being rich and famous isn’t a cure for anything other than “not having money” and “enjoying having a private life”, nor is being a successful, talented and accomplished celebrity going to remove the possibility of being judged or rejected, or even from completely s--tting the bed on social occasions. Entertainers are often among the most anxious people simply because their jobs are entirely dependent on people liking them. They have to face judgement constantly at every level – from the bookers and talent agents, the casting directors and artist juries to the media and audiences. It’s baked in to the job description.

Chris Evans – Captain America himself �– has been very open about his at times crippling anxiety. Brendan Fraser destroyed his body in attempts to prove that he was more than just some pretty boy pretending to be an actor. And there’re more “awkward celebrity encounter” stories that come out on a daily basis than I can count.

(And that’s before we get to how late-stage capitalism has systematically eliminated everything that makes it possible for artists to sustain themselves on their art – from low-cost housing to affordable health care, venues to perform in or exhibit in to quite literally stealing all of their work to train “AI” so that capital doesn’t have to actually pay the artist for their work.)

What you’re hoping for is a fantasy, a cheat code to life and those do not exist. There is no life where you are going to interact with other people where you’re not going to be dealing with the risks of other people’s judgement and rejection. If you want to avoid any risk of being judged or failing to connect with someone, get a dog. A dog will love you no matter what, and frankly, we don’t deserve them.

I bring this up because, honestly, I don’t know if you’ve realized just how much you’ve been hoping that the Success Fairy is going to come down to bless you with not just creative talent but a career and direction and also absurd levels of financial and social success. I don’t know if you realize even how diffuse this dream and ambition of yours actually is. You talk about all these creative goals you have, you list many different and distinct artistic disciplines that you supposedly want to do, but don’t focus on any of them. You single out performance art, like rapping or making music as being your passion, yet the steps you take are for film making animation – a career where you’re going to be a cog in the creation 99.999% of the time, not the face and name attached to the final output. While people can and do often have multiple outlets for creativity – I know multiple authors who also compose and perform music, actors who also paint, painters who also write poetry – it seems to me that you didn’t pursue animation because it was your passion so much as you picked something at random from a list.

I mean, if music is your passion and you want to be an entertainer, have you so much as tried out for the church choir? Or even gotten up and sung karaoke with your friends? Why did you decide to take a masters in animation instead of learning to play a musical instrument or composition and music theory or voice lessons? Why not take a poetry class or two or a creative writing course?

And look, I get it. I spent literal decides of my life trying to be a comic artist and illustrator – with occasional forays into painting, animation and photography – before I ultimately realized that wasn’t where my talent or my passion lay. But I write damn near constantly. Even if I’m not working on a column or a particular project, I’m jotting down ideas into a file for later use.

Are you doing any of that? Are there notebooks full of scribbles that you hope to turn into paintings? Is there a morgue file full of snippits of dialogue or plot outlines on your computer? Measures of notes that might someday become a composition, sitting on a sheet of musical notation? Anything at all?

I’ll be honest with you: I’m kind of doubting it. I think that’s in no small part because you’re wedded to the idea of CREATIVITY!!!! and FAME!!!! more than you are actually creating or producing or putting something out into the world. That means you have to open yourself up to that very same judgement and rejection that you’re hoping that your nascent talent and skill will insulate you from. There is no true act of creation that doesn’t require making yourself vulnerable to the judgement and opinions of others. Even being a loudmouth with an advice column means that you have to open yourself up and be ready for the folks who might take one look at your work and decide to rip it to shreds.

Putting art into the world requires that you actually put your blood, sweat, tears and soul into. You could shove all the prompts into a glorified autocorrect program all you want and call yourself an artist, but all you’re going to get is going to be hollow and dead inside because none of it actually comes from you. It won’t be your art. Hell, it won’t even be art. It will just be the output of someone else’s computer program, trying to find the statistical average of other artists’ work.  

And being an artist or pursuing your creativity doesn’t require that you do so in public. Even if your anxiety is so high that you don’t think you could put it out there for other people’s consumption, there’s literally nothing stopping you from learning an instrument and just noodling around at home for an audience of you, any more than there’re any obstacles stopping you from taking a painting class and just filling a spare room with finished canvases. Henry Darger famously created an entire, gloriously wild and weird world in a series of sketchbooks and collages that nobody ever even knew existed until after people were clearing out his old apartment after he died. But it seems like none of it means as much as being recognized for it and rewarded for it.

So I have to wonder if the reason why you’re still holding yourself back on any of this is because you don’t actually want to be a famous and talented artist, so much as you just don’t want to have to face the possibility of rejection and having to be open and vulnerable to others.

All of which is to say: the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have. You talk about your lack of accomplishments making you feel ashamed to talk to those wonderful, beautiful women, but I think it’s because you feel like you need accomplishments because otherwise you have to go out and hope they like you for being you. And let me tell you: hoping that your accomplishments will do the work for you is a recipe for misery and even greater insecurity. It doesn’t provide a stable foundation for your self-esteem or sense of worth, and the first person who doesn’t like it will kick it over like a tower of blocks, no matter how many other people tell you that you’re a genius.

I think what you really need to focus on is learning to love yourself, to figure out who you are and be that person to the best of your ability. Self-worth comes from self-love and self-compassion, not from accomplishments. If you don’t love yourself for being yourself, everything else is going to have all the emotional heft and strength of wet tissue paper, and every doubt and insecurity you ever face will blow through it like a meth’d out trucker at the wheel of an 18-wheeler.

Now, as I said at the start: if you weren’t exaggerating for effect, then it sounds to me like you’ve got a serious anxiety disorder that needs to be addressed, and that should probably be your first order of business. But the next step should be learning to create that core foundation of self-love that isn’t contingent on what you “do” or achieve. Without that, you’re building a skyscraper on sand, with no support, and it will fall over; it’s only a question of when, not if, and how much it’ll take with it when it goes.

Start looking within and find the core of who you are, without those magic bullets that’ll save you from your lack of self. They never help. But when you find yourself and love yourself the way you should be loved? You won’t need them.

Good luck.

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