DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So some context first – about seven years ago I (26M right now) confessed my feelings to a coworker – we’ll call them P (26F right now). We were super friendly, had a lot of common interests and had similar senses of humor and beliefs. But she was very taken aback when I confessed and after sleeping on it decided she did not reciprocate my feelings. She stated she was too afraid of hurting me, too anxious, and wanted to get their life in order before dating anyone. She said that maybe really later down the line she would be more open to the idea, but not at the moment. I accepted the answer and did my best to remain friendly at work. But less than one month later, she was dating a completely different coworker. I had a hunch they had feelings for each other even when I confessed, but I did it anyway because I couldn’t live the rest of my life thinking “what if”. 

Regardless, even though I expected everything to go down like it did, that didn’t make it all hurt any less, so I put some distance between myself and them for a while. Still friendly, but never too close so as to see them interact a whole lot. Eventually I was able to sort out my feelings, accept what happened, and understood that she was merely trying to protect my own feelings when she said she “wasn’t ready”.

Fast forward to now and I’ve been dating my current girlfriend, Q (27F) for just over six years. We’re a really great pair and I’m definitely satisfied with how our relationship is. But of course, we talk about everything, and eventually P came up early on. Needless to say, Q has never liked P at all despite never having met her. She doesn’t like how she was dishonest with me and how she hurt me, but also doesn’t like that I forgave her for it and still consider her a casual friend. She would get jealous whenever I interacted with her and pressured me into speaking with them less, even though P and I were no longer coworkers. Eventually Q convinced me to mute P on Twitter so that I would like P’s tweets less and they wouldn’t show up on Q’s feed (this is back before the site made likes private). But eventually life took me and P in different directions and we fell out of contact for about three years or so.

But recently I saw P playing an online game that we both really enjoyed back in the day, so I decided to play a few matches while also getting the chance to catch up. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was talking to someone behind Q’s back, so I told her what I had done for the sake of transparency. Q was not happy at all. She hated that I did something she knew would upset her, and how I “just couldn’t stay away” from P, even after so long. I told her that I would do my absolute best to reassure her – that I love her, that there are no more feelings of attraction at all between me and P, and that if she ever needed any additional TLC or wanted to talk through her feelings, I would always be open to do so and not judge her for feeling how she feels. Q keeps saying that if I really cared about her feelings, I wouldn’t have reached out to P at all. It makes her believe that I care more about a friendship with someone I’m not particularly close to than her own feelings. Even though P is not my ex since we never dated, Q treats the whole situation like P is an ex I just can’t get over and still secretly lust after, which I do not. But I also believe that it’s unhealthy for Q to restrict my platonic friendships like how she’s doing.

I never liked the fact that Q pressured me into distancing myself from a friendship – especially when I’ve felt similarly to some of the friendships, she’s had but we talked it out and she reassured me. I know it’s possible to get through this, I’m just not sure where to go from here. How can I help guide her through these emotions?

– Every Which Way

DEAR EVERY WHICH WAY: Let’s get this out of the way right up top: this isn’t a problem for you to solve for her or “guide” her through. If she’s going to deal with these emotions and feelings about P, that’s on her to do. If she wants your help, she could ask for it. But she hasn’t, and quite frankly, I doubt she ever will.

The way your girlfriend is acting ain’t cool. In fact, it’s borderline toxic and, quite frankly, is setting off my Spidey-sense. This is someone who is making her feelings your responsibility to manage and she’s punishing you for how she feels, as though you were doing something wrong here. And you’re not.

As a general rule, I really dislike folks who police people’s relationships and friendships and who use manipulative language and behavior in order to make it seem like it’s the person being policed who’s at fault.

In fact, we collectively got a prime example of this sort of s--tty behavior in 2023 when actor Jonah Hill threw a tantrum over the fact that his sexy surfer girlfriend was continuing to be both sexy and a surfer. He complained about – and demanded that she stop – posting pictures to her Instagram, having “boundaryless friendships” with men and continuing to have relationships with “inappropriate” and “unstable” women that he didn’t approve of, in the name of being in a relationship with him. To add a bay leaf of f--k-you to this toxic stew, he framed this as being a matter of her ‘violating his boundaries; her refusing to go along with these demands meant that she was the bad guy here, not him. He was just “asking her to respect his boundaries,” so how could that possibly be toxic or abusive or controlling?

Well, the answer is “because that’s not a boundary, that’s trying to dress up being a controlling dickhead, especially when these are all things you knew about when you started dating her.” Which is just yet another example of “guys don’t want a girlfriend; they want a possession to put on their shelf.”

(We can insert the whole “that’s not how any of this works” meme here, because that’s a whole rant in and of itself.)

Q is doing much the same thing that Hill did, just using different language. I wasn’t inclined to be thrilled about Q’s behavior to begin with, but her use of “… if you really loved me” hit a particularly sour note for me. Instead of abusing therapy-speak, Q is instead accusing you of not caring enough; it’s framing this as a flaw on your part, instead of someone being insecure (at best) or outright abusive and controlling (at worst) about an absolutely anodyne relationship.

Now in the interest of being as fair as is reasonable: I could see Q not liking P at first simply because P hurt you. That’s a level of reflexive “how dare you hurt my friend” I could understand, especially since P was not actually present in your life at the time. When all you have are second-hand accounts, it’s easy to create a strawman version of this person as-what-done-your-lover-wrong in your head. But Q’s getting upset that you forgave P �(in as much as there was anything to forgive) made me raise an eyebrow and start to give some side-eye. Getting upset that you and she are still casual friends and demanding that you stop talking to her at all, anywhere, is where this takes a turn from the “ok, not great but I can understand it” to “no, f--k right off with that, actually.”   

While, in general, we owe it to our friends and partners to do our best to not do things we know upset them, there are limits. And those limits especially and specifically come into play when the thing that upsets them are things that affect them not at all. Being friends with someone they don’t like, especially when that person has no meaningful direct presence in their life, is a prime example.��What we don’t have is a duty to manage their emotions for them, which is precisely what Q is demanding you do. The fact that Q has gone all bitch-eating-crackers about P is a Q issue, not a you issue. P isn’t a threat to the relationship, your friendship with P isn’t taking anything away from Q, nor is P doing anything that any reasonable person would see as being disrespectful to Q. P just has the temerity to have a) turned you down when you asked for a date and b) continue to exist.  

The reason why you aren’t going to be able to guide Q through these feelings – nor should you – is because there is no path through them. She doesn’t want to work through them, because she doesn’t see her feelings as being the problem. This isn’t about P, nor is it about how you’ve betrayed Q’s trust somehow. This is about you and her desire to control and dictate the terms of how you move through the world, and with whom.

What Q has demanded and continues to demand of you is unreasonable. Insisting that you not be friends with someone, not interact with them on social media or have any sort of contact at all because it gives her a sad is toxic behavior. Framing it as “if you really loved me, you’d do it” actually makes it worse, and it’s the sort of manipulative bulls--t that folks would recognize immediately if the genders were reversed. If P came to you and said that her boyfriend – who has never met you nor interacted with you in any way – insisted that she couldn’t talk to you any more or be your friend, I suspect you would immediately recognize how f--ked that is.

And even if – and this would be a massive goddamn “if” �– I were willing to conceded that maybe she has a point, I think it says something that Q doesn’t see how this goes the other way too. If she actually cared about your feelings, she wouldn’t insist that she has veto power over your friendships. She has any number of options available to her, starting with “muting/blocking P on social media” so that she didn’t “have” to see your interactions with her, to “sit with her feelings and ask whether maybe this is unfair of her”, all the way to ending the relationship with you over it.

The thing to note about those is that all of those are things about her, things that she can do for herself. This is what boundaries are about; they’re about what you won’t put up with or endure, not “other people have to do these things in order to make me happy.” But if she unilaterally breaks up with you because you’re casual friends with another woman, that makes her the bad guy here. If she frames this as being about your not caring about her feelings, then you are the bad guy. And that’s more important to her, it seems.

What she’s demanded of you isn’t reasonable, EWW, and honestly, I feel like giving ground the way you have already was a mistake. That made it easier for her to demand more, and to smack you for not giving in further. I think you need to establish some boundaries of your own: that you don’t appreciate and won’t tolerate someone who feels they have the right to dictate who you are or aren’t friends with. She doesn’t have to be friends with P, she doesn’t have to like P as a person, she doesn’t even have to be in the same room as P if she doesn’t want. She’s perfectly welcome to think nasty thoughts at P all she wants in the privacy of her own head and to complain about her to her friends. If she wants your help in overcoming her jealousy, you can help in limited ways; those ways don’t include your limiting or ending your friendship. Because Q – or anyone, really – doesn’t get to make demands about how you conduct your friendships and with whom. If she doesn’t like that… well, the door’s over there. And if she’s going to continue to insist on this sort of manipulative bulls--t? Then you are going to leave.

That’s the path forward, EWW: she gets over her bulls--t, or else.

Now to be clear: if you draw this line in the sand, you have to be willing to go through with it. That’s the point of boundaries; establishing them means that you accept the consequences of maintaining them and enforcing them… and that can include triggering a break up. If you lay down this boundary and Q continues to ignore it without consequence, then you didn’t actually establish a boundary, so much as a strongly-worded suggestion.

But to be perfectly blunt: I’ve got a general rule of “if your partner demands that you choose between them or your friend/pet/hobby”, unless there are very specific circumstances, you don’t choose the partner. 99 times out of 100, you don’t want someone who would be making those demands of you in the first place. And quite frankly it sounds like Q is well within the 99%.

If she’s going to act like this – especially with her manipulative bulls--t about how this proves you “don’t really care” – then this is a relationship that probably needs to end.

Good luck.

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

DOCTOR’S NOTE:  I occasionally get letters that don’t merit a response or are so short that they aren’t practical for a full column, I’m going to spend a ki point to clear out some of the inbox with flurry of replies…

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Something you should know about me? I’m a bit of a J-horror junkie. I’ve been a horror fan in general since I was in middle school.

Recently, I’ve been listening to H.P. Lovecraft audiobooks and I’ve even fallen asleep to them a couple of times. I’ve watched anime adaptations of Junji Ito’s manga like Uzumaki and Gyo. Just last year, I got into this obscure anime called “Hell Girl”.

So where does dating come in? Well…I guess I’m a “ghost chaser”?

I know that’s not an actual slang term, and I understand that’s kind of weird to say. But I recently found out I like women with pale skin and long black hair.

I’m a fan of a few female characters from Japanese horror: Sadako Yamamura from “Ring”, Kayako Saeki from “Ju-On”/”The Grudge”, Tomie Kawakami from “Tomie”, and Ai Enma from “Hell Girl”.. What do they all have in common? Pale skin and long black hair!

And just a few months ago, I found out about this former J-metal band called NECRONOMIDOL, and one of the members is this woman with…well, you get the point. She’s now a soloist that goes by Ilisveil. I remember seeing her and thinking…”Wow, she’s really cute!”

I think you get the point. And as cringeworthy as this is, if a woman with those traits happens to be of Asian descent (like Ilisveil), that adds to her charm because it reminds me of J-horror.

So you kind of get the point: My interests kinda shaped my tastes a little bit. If a woman looks like a or like she might crawl out of my TV screen, one half of my brain tells me “Wow, who’s THAT? You should hit her up!”

But the other half of me is saying that I’m weird for this. I also don’t have much dating experience; I’m a big introvert. Has my interest in the macabre become unhealthy, or am I okay? Also, do you have any good dating advice that I should take? Thanks for your time.

Love Is Kinda Crazy With A Spooky Little Girl Like Yu…

DEAR LOVE IS KINDA CRAZY: That was a lot of words to say “I’m into Asian goth chicks”, my guy. 

If you’re that determined to put the “boo” in “weeaboo”, and really want to put a Ringu on it, go put on some Buck Tick and Kizu, maybe a little 69 Eyes for Western flavor, get a pair of New Rocks and pants with an excessive number of straps, and hit up your local anime con and see who wants to complain about the Uzumaki anime with you.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I need advice and have some questions to ask. I am 19 years old and a virgin. I am underweight (5’11, 115 lbs.) So I just don’t talk to girls because I know the answer. They will always say no because I am too skinny and have no muscle. Please help!

No More Heroes (of The Beach)

DEAR NO MORE HEROES (OF THE BEACH): First: do yourself a favor and google “Perry Farrell” and realize that this dude was sex-on-toast of the alt-rock scene, then quit pre-rejecting yourself and go talk to some girls.

Failing that, you could always eat more protein, start with some basic body weight exercises before going to a gym and working with a personal trainer to ensure that you don’t wreck your back and shoulders and lift some weights. And you’re still going to be single, because this has nothing to do with a lack of muscle and everything with watching all the wrong TikTok vids on your FYP.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I can’t seem to stop having sex with coworkers… I keep being drawn to them. I have had sex with many of my coworkers… some are even married. How do I stop being drawn to them.

Home Wrecker

DEAR HOME WRECKER: I’d point out that you’re only half the problem, since I doubt you’re kicking the feet out of these dudes and pinning them to the ground against their (increasingly aroused, learning things about themselves) will. It takes two to tango after all.

But like I’m always saying: attraction isn’t an obligation and horniness isn’t a commandment, so you could always, y’know…

Not f--k them.  

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:, YOU WANT BE IN RELATIONSHIP THAT YOU KNOW HIM BUT YOU WANT LET KNOW YOU ALWAYS READY FOR NEW THINGS AND STAY LONGER WHO YOU LOVE THEN FAMILY AND THEN OTHER MEN ,BUT SEE YOU DOESNOT MATTER WHO WAS ALREADY LOVING SOMEONE WHO WAS YOU WHEN SHE DIDNT KNOW HIM, AND I WANT TO TELL ALL LOT THING I KEPT SECERT FROM HIM.

DEAR YELLING PERSON: …ma’am, are you ok? Do you need me to call someone for you? Are you having a stroke? Do you smell toast?

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: “Nobody is obligated to give you an opportunity any more than you are obligated to give others the chance to talk to you if you don’t want.”

I am obligated to do this. I am a member of civil society. I am a human being. I am obligated to give others the chance to speak to me in public. It’s called society. Maybe you have heard of it. Some have even claimed that we live in a society. I hate talking to people. I hate when people talk to me, particularly out of nowhere. And yet every time some Moonie or schizophrenic homeless person tries to get my attention, I will speak to them and at least listen to what they are asking me for. I have an obligation to my fellow man to hear their entreaties and possibly offer my assistance. I do not have an obligation to help them, but I do have an obligation to speak to them. The idea that we do not is rank Hitlerism, it is the core of fascism, i.e. the destruction of civil society.

Also, you know that you are lying. There are plenty of “famous” “feminists” (women with thousands of twitter followers) who insist that men should “never” (verbatim) speak to them in public, and they will not even assist men with simple human requests (such as giving literally “the time of day”). It is antihuman, anti-social (in the most literal sense) and thus pro fascism. This is obvious, and yet you do not critique this. Why?

When I was in college a few years ago, many times while walking (I walk very fast), even with headphones in, either Christian proselytizers or random non-English speakers asking directions would very intrusively get my attention. One time, after a particularly persistent old Korean woman basically forced me to remove my headphones, I thought to myself “I am going to stop responding when people try to get my attention”. I had a bit of an epiphany, that perhaps this is what those “feminists” felt like.

I immediately critiqued this in myself as a sign of my own authoritarianism and anti-social attitudes. No. I do owe humanity towards other humans. I do owe the “time of day” to my fellow man. We all do. I will not degrade myself by resorting to treating others like objects simply due to my own discomfort. My point here is not to make myself as some sort of paragon. In fact I am a very nihilistic and cynical person. I am a technoaccelerationist who is very openly ambivalent towards biological life on Earth, and revel in antihumanist and pessimistic ideologies. If even I am capable of maintaining this self-critique of my own authoritarianism, then how violently fascistic must your audience (and yourself) be?

I have had people knock on my car window at night alone at a gas station. I have had people honk at me walking. I will always answer them, even if angry or frightened, because that is part of being a human person. It is, in fact, the actual Rousseauvian Social Contract which you seem to reference but do not seem to understand or uphold. The idea that woman can not do this is unironically more sexist than anything I have ever heard from an “incel”. You are literally saying that women can not be full human persons. This is an idea which I obviously disagree with.

- We Live In A Society

DEAR WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY: When you think about it honestly, don’t you have to admit that women refusing to talk to someone is exactly the same as annexing the Sudentland?

Sir, while I appreciate that you apparently have also watched a season of The Good Place, I am obligated to inform you that watching The Joker fifteen times in one day is not the same as having a personality, writing like Sephiroth isn’t going to make anyone take your word salad more seriously, and that hot takes are only interesting when there’s actual thought behind it instead of buzzwords that you use incorrectly to bolster an argument you’re failing at making, and an underlying message of “but the social contract says you have to put up with me!” isn’t going to change anyone’s mind.

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.  

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: To make a long story short, due to various issues (probably undiagnosed autism, definitely also PTSD/trauma), I find it extraordinarily stressful to be around large (> 2-3) groups of people for extended periods of time, especially for free-form social activities. My own extended family has largely come to accept how I am, and how me hanging out for social events means that I’ll be reading a book in the communal social area, or running a card/board game, or whatever…and that I’m going home way early. Because otherwise, I find myself having an involuntary stress/overstimulation meltdown, and those are deeply unpleasant. Anyway.

Now I am in a new-ish relationship (~1 year). I like my boyfriend’s family a lot, and they are generally chill and my speed, but I am still struggling to find ways to spend time with them where I am not pushed into the overloaded zone. I do my best to communicate what my limits and what I’ll be needing in advance, so that I can plan ahead accordingly…and then everything changes because of Life Chaos, and I’m left alone and without resources and don’t have any way to cope.

Example 1: We arranged to go meet as his parents’ house to celebrate Easter (we’re long distance, living 3 hours apart). A few days before that, however, his grandfather (who lives in a different city) got really sick, and then began dying, so naturally he went up to visit his grandparents and help. The plan was originally that we would still both come to his parents’ house for the weekend, that I would arrive Saturday afternoon (because of trains) and he bought train tickets to arrive Saturday evening. I would be alone with his parents plus possibly some other people in an unfamiliar-ish environment for a few hours. This was doable! And before I left my own place on Saturday morning, I confirmed with him that this was still what he wanted – if he wanted to stay with his grandparents longer, I would also be happy to come up and visit the group of them there instead (weirdly, medical disasters/someone dying count as a structured activity in my own head, and I don’t feel like a space alien trying to figure out human behavior when I’m there. Hugs when needed, stay out of way when not.)

Anyway, after a four-hour multi-train ride I made it to his parents’ house on late Saturday afternoon, only to learn that his grandma had been guilting my boyfriend to stay longer, and he was thinking of only coming up on Sunday morning. I started panicking, because if I had known this would have been the situation I would NOT have come on Saturday afternoon, and told him so, that this was too much time there alone, that I knew what my limits were and this was really, really pushing it. Also, given train schedules, I would only get to see him for 1-2 hours on Sunday before I’d need to catch the train back home myself. He was really frustrated and I could hear his grandma in the background giving him a hard time again, and he eventually hung up on me. So I was stuck there (no trains to see him were feasible at that point), and I was alone with his parents, who come from a different culture than me and do not speak English, and I only speak their language at an intermediate level, and this was deeply uncomfortable! Like, again, the problem is not them, they are lovely and kind and generally willing to work with me to the extent that language barriers will allow, but I had also taken two busses and three trains over the course of four hours to get there, and there is also a limit to what I am able to cope with before going into involuntary meltdown mode.

(Luckily, this time my boyfriend’s brother was also there, and he (a) speaks English and (b) noticed I was struggling, and he and his girlfriend got me set up with some remodeling projects I could help with, and my boyfriend did show up on Saturday night, and all was well-ish.)

Example 2: The next weekend, it was my boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. Weddings are very hard for me! They are loud, there are lots of people, they go on a long time, and people start guilting you if you disappear for too long. Still, things went pretty well at first, even though roughly ten million people were staying at his parents’ house along with us, because my boyfriend made sure that I could just hide out in our room until it was time for the actual ceremony, and even ran interference with relatives who were wanting to see me (which I had asked for). And then, during the actual wedding, I was able to escape to a garden area and keep some small children entertained, which ate up most of the unstructured time. By this weekend his parents were also catching on to me more, since he’d had a talk with them about what my limits were and what I was good with, and they’d managed to find some places during the wedding where I could go off to help with wedding logistics and basically be alone.

I was enjoying being social to the extent that I enjoy socializing. But by the end of the evening (~midnight), everything started to fall apart. I was starting to feel pretty ragged from all the excitement and really needed some time alone with my boyfriend to do something nice and decompress, whether that meant making some space for ourselves at the wedding venue or going home, and told him so…and eventually it came to a head because this could no longer be put off for me, he was really irritated at me for insisting on it. (I’d been asking him to join me for a side activity for several hours at this point, and he’d just kept pushing me off.) Also, around this time our ride home disappeared– he’d brought his car to the wedding instead of taking the train so that we could leave whenever we wanted, but his brother’s girlfriend was feeling sick, so the brother needed drive the car back to their parents’ house. I went with them, because I could hold out for maybe another half-hour at that point but not longer. I wanted my boyfriend to come back to the house with me, too, so we could have some time together there, but he wanted to stay and socialize, and we had a fight over it.

When we got back to the house, I had an epic overwhelm meltdown, mostly because of the most recent fight. I called my boyfriend and he said he’d be home to be with me in about an hour when another one of his friends would be leaving and heading in roughly that direction…but that friend was taking too long and didn’t have any space in his car anyway, and my boyfriend just took an Uber back. I was pretty fried at that point from the hour of meltdown, and couldn’t easily recover. The next morning, when I was explaining how I still felt extremely brittle and ragged and still just needed to spend some time just with him, his parents drove up with a car load of wedding items to be unloaded, and he ran off to help, instead of spending time with me in the way that we’d planned. At that point I was again fried and on the edge of another meltdown, and knew I wasn’t going to get my needs met there, so I took the next train back.

Anyway. It is really frustrating for me to come for family social events with people I like and that I generally would enjoy as long as they were kept to parameters, I would be able to enjoy them within…and then communicate what those parameters are…and then have the rug pulled out from under me. And I understand – family stuff is hard! I am sympathetic! Helping with your dying grandfather is good but stressful and unpredictable! Weddings have lots of moving parts! It’s important to be a good host! With all these things going on, he was also probably pretty fried, too! But just because those things are what they are also doesn’t also mean that I can flip a switch to “normal person” for a weekend, and just be the cool not-neurodivergent/C-PTSD girlfriend it would be more convenient for me to be.

And I feel like I am trying everything I can from my end (communicating expectations in advance, communicating how I’m doing at the time and what I need now and in the near future, going to as much therapy as time/money allows – it’s only through years of therapy and multiple therapists and even an inpatient hospital stay that I’m even *this* good with social events), and it’s not enough, and my boyfriend sometimes isn’t willing to step up and close the gap because his/other peoples’ family stuff takes precedence. And that hurts, because for me, it feels like an unwillingness to make disability accommodations. Yes, I am disabled. Because of my brain, there is plenty of s--t in life that I just cannot do, and I would like to have the neurodivergence wheelchair ramps in place *sometimes* so that I can get to do *some things.*

Anyway, after those two events, I’m extremely reluctant to go up to visit the parents, or really participate in any large family events, because, again, I haven’t been getting what I need to stay stable. Any way to more forward? It would be really easy to say I’m not coming to family events any more, but…again…I DO like these people, A LOT, I do enjoy SOME group activities, within limits, and giving that all up would leave me really sad.

Alone in Weird Brain-town

DEAR ALONE IN WEIRD BRAIN-TOWN: Once again I want to re-emphasize that Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor or any sort of medical or mental health professional. I’m a loudmouth with ADHD, an advice column and too much time on my hands. 

Now with all that out of the way… 

OOof. OK, this is a hard one in part because the only really helpful answer would involve either someone developing a version of Miraclo, except instead of giving you super powers for an hour, you got an hour of being completely neurotypical, or access to Star Trek’s transporter technology.

And to be honest, I don’t trust transporters; they just kill you and assemble an exact duplicate at the other end.

All of which is to say: it really sucks that there are no good answers, and this is a case where everyone has reason to feel frustrated. It’s hard as hell to live with the way CPTSD (whether or not it’s compounded by being on the autism spectrum) f--ks with you and creates complications that make it so damn hard to try to just get through life through no fault of your own. You know damn good and well that you don’t want to exist like this and you’d probably move heaven and earth to not have to! And at the same time, it can be frustrating for people who are affected by it at a remove, like your boyfriend because… yeah, it creates a lot of obstacles that everyone needs to work around. And that can be really frustrating for someone who’s not used to it and doesn’t have the “I live with this every day” perspective you do! 

And to be clear: that’s not to say that you’re to blame for his frustration or that he’s correct to be frustrated. It’s just an acknowledgement that this is how he feels and why. It sucks that we can’t easily stop feeling frustrated simply because we know that it’s not fair to the other person, or by acknowledging the other person is also frustrated by all these complications. That would make life a hell of a lot easier for everyone. So instead, we can just try to manage how we express those feelings, and how we deal with them.

And that inability to turn off the frustration can be especially aggravating, because a lot of the time, the person feeling that frustration also feels like an asshole because they feel that way. It’s the sort of thing that makes you question whether you’re a good person or not, because they know that it’s unfair to feel like that. A good person wouldn’t feel frustrated about this, right?

But as I’ve noted before: our brains don’t take things like morality and context into consideration with our emotions. Which means that part of the human experience is that there will be times when experiencing an entirely normal emotion makes you feel like the worst person in the world simply because of when or why you’re experiencing it.

It’s a situation that kinda sucks for pretty much everyone and especially for you. So let’s talk about what you can do to help navigate things and make life a little less of a trial for you while you try to live it.

Right off the bat, it sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right. Being vocal about your limits and communicative when you are starting to get to those limits are all good things. But as you’ve noted, there’re times when communicating isn’t enough, especially when life tosses a monkey wrench into the works. This is when we move into “ok, how do we manage this new problem so s--t doesn’t get worse?” 

The biggest issue here is that it’s functionally impossible to come up with solutions that will cover every possibility you might run into, simply because the gods laugh at man’s plans. Even the most carefully plotted series of contingencies will inevitably have giant, gaping holes in them because life is chaos and life, uh, uh, finds a way. As you’ve seen, no plan survives contact with the enem^H^H^H on-the-ground circumstances intact, and things that you can’t possibly account for will crop up at what will likely be the worst possible time. Then you end up scrambling to try to come up with alternate plans, many of which get scrapped because they simply won’t work… which is quite unfair, if you ask me.

Feeling like a leaf on the wind, getting blown back and forth as plans keep getting changed and adapted is exhausting. Even when things eventually work out. But we don’t need to plan for every contingency; we just need the right plans that will do a decent job of covering the most likely of them. You don’t need to have a plan to fight overwhelm when the space armada returns and transforms a quarter of the population of Earth into carnivorous plants after all (most of us will just be mulch). But what to do when a family visit seems primed to blow your circuits? Yeah, those are ones to game out as best you can.

I think there’re a couple of key things that you can do. The first option, which I know won’t be your favorite, is to skip out on some family events where the odds of your hitting a meltdown are higher than average. This doesn’t mean that you refuse to go see his parents at all or avoid all family events; you just resolve to be a little more choosey about your availability – contingent on how likely that event is going to involve the sort of chaos that may lead to a meltdown for you.

A wedding, for example, is chaos personified; I’ve never seen a wedding that wasn’t at least 25% scrambling to solve problems or improvise solutions and that’s just with the bride and groom, never mind the guests.

(As an example: I once went to a wedding where the entire wedding party, down to the ring-bearer, got hellacious food poisoning. In fact, there were a couple of folks who felt it hit while they were in the middle of their reading for the ceremony…)

As much as you may hate to miss out or feel guilty for not going, you might have to have a tendency to get “sick” around wedding season and send a nice gift and sweet card in lieu of your presence. Especially if it’s not a close relative or friend of your boyfriend.

Another option may be to only attend some of the planned events, prioritizing the parts that are most important or meaningful, and are also most likely to have some structure that would work for you, while sitting out the others.

With weddings, for example, you could attend the ceremony itself and dip out of the reception; the ceremony tends to be the most ordered and predictable, whereas the reception is where the wine is flowing, music is playing, people dance and flirt, emotions run high and plans go out the window. If you can make it through seeing the happy couple say their “I Do’s” and get through the receiving line so you can say your congratulations, I think you’d be forgiven for getting a taxi back to your hotel. It might require a little finagling with the RSVPs, so the happy couple doesn’t end up paying for a chicken dinner nobody’s going to eat, but it is doable.

As an aside: speaking as someone who’s been the Emergency Support Extrovert And Human Shield for introverted people at parties and events, don’t stress about taking a much needed away-from-all-this break. Having someone who can run interference and cover for your absence can help push against the folks who may guilt you for not being more involved. Doubly so if you don’t have actual responsibilities or duties at the event.

You can also have A Very Good Reason why they haven’t seen you for an indeterminate length of time. A quick “Sorry, I was feeling queasy/ had a work emergency call/ needed to get some fresh air/ took a smoke break and got caught in a conversation with someone” excuses a host of absences and absolves you of a lot of guilt. People will tend to take these at face value, and sometimes they may even be true!

Also keep in mind the power of “oh, that’s just AWBT” as people get to know you. Familiarity breeds acceptance with many of our idiosyncrasies. A good friend of mine is somewhat infamous for Batman-ing out of parties; we all joke about it, but we also know and accept that there’s going to come a point in every party where we turn around and he’ll have vanished into the night.

Now, the second option is to expect that there will be f--k-ups and unintentional-yet-unavoidable alterations to the plan and to prepare accordingly. The issue here is that it’s quite literally impossible to plan for every possible contingency. You could have no way of knowing, for example, that your boyfriend’s buddy was going to smoke bomb out and leave you stranded at the wedding, or that his grandmother was going to give him a hard time. But this is why planning for specific f--k-ups is less helpful than a more general “ok, what are the things that would be the hardest for me to deal with, that are also most likely to happen?” and work from there. As a wise man once said: while plotting and planning is great, it’s often most effective to have a series of options in place and reacting to circumstances as they come up.

So, if we use the examples in your letter as the basis, it seems like the biggest, hardest-for-you-to-handle issues were finding yourself stranded, having no spell slots to handle interacting with people you don’t know well, needing time away from the maddening crowds and something for your brain to do that will keep you from spiraling. All of which can be tricky, but not insurmountable.

So what are some ways that you could have options in place that you could take advantage of if the need arose?

One option that would be useful would be to have an Emergency Back Up Support in place in the event that your boyfriend is called away. Now, this isn’t always going to be possible and it’ll be highly contingent on your relationship with some of your boyfriend’s family and friends. It is, however, something you can establish prior to the event, with a little advance information. If you can, see if you can have an idea of who’s going to be around, especially if you have a good relationship with them already. 

In the case of visiting your boyfriend and being alone with his parents when he got stuck at the hospital, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend were able to step in and help. This is a good example of having options in place that you could take advantage of if needed. If they’re likely to also be at family functions you would be attending, they might be a good secondary lifeline for you if your boyfriend gets hung up somewhere.

While it’s not something that will be guaranteed, the value of knowing that it’s available is much higher than the effort it takes to set up. Knowing that there’s a friendly face or two who will be able to take you under their wing for at least a little bit might make things less stressful and require fewer spell slots to keep your brain from going kablooey on you. Just the sense of “OK, worst case scenario, EBSF will help until Boyfriend gets back” can help ease the stress and make it easier to socialize. 

Another helpful option to set up in advance is to have things that can keep your mind busy when you get left to your own devices. Since it seems like your brain gets stressed like an Aussie shepherd without a job to do, �maybe having a couple cozy management sims on your phone could be an option. When things start getting too much, taking a moment to dip out and go water your crops and make sure you deliver presents to your friends in Stardew Valley could give your brain enough “chores” to keep it occupied and give a sense of accomplishment. Other options to help manage your bandwidth might be puzzles that require focus and engage the analytical parts of your mind – sudoku or even Tetris can be incredibly helpful here.

(Tetris, in fact, is very good for managing PTSD and reducing its presentation and symptoms. In fact it’s apparently so effective that a number of therapists actually prescribe it as part of the treatment alongside more traditional forms of therapy like EMDR.)  

There are also a number of helpful meditation apps that feature short, easy guided meditations and breathing exercises that help turn the volume down on your anxiety when your brain is doing its best to go berserk. A few minutes of a calming voice guiding you back to your body and walking you through how to breathe and focus can help restore some much-needed control and peace.

This is where smartphones are a godsend; you have a multitude of potential brain-relaxers easily to hand, depending on whether you are in more of a “organize the farm” mood, crafting and selling potions or you just want to have some satisfying number crunching. And of course, various e-book apps mean you also have your favorite paperbacks easily to hand as needed.

The next thing may or may not be feasible, depending on your boyfriend’s family’s approach to planning. Some people plan family events like they’re planning the landing at Normandy; others are far more loosey-goosey, taking things as they come with little care for things like “schedules” or “how long we’ll be at $PLACE”. If his family is more the former, knowing the overall schedule – even if it’s not a strict hour-by-hour breakdown – can make it possible to find spots for Introvert Time, where you can slip away and have a break from the chaos and the hustle and bustle.

Having a plan in place also means that you can try your best to ensure that you and your boyfriend have some dedicated “just us” time. Obviously – as you’ve seen – that’s no guarantee that it’ll happened as planned, but having it on the docket means that other folks will be more likely to adjust plans around the two of you not being there.

A fourth is what an old friend of mine learned after years of being in the Army and a seasoned protester: always have a way to leave when you need to. Since getting stuck at the wedding was a stress multiplier for you, it’ll be helpful to have options to get around as needed that aren’t entirely reliant on someone not, y’know, forgetting that they were your ride. But once again, this is where the era of ubiquitous smartphones is your friend. Between emergency contacts, ride share services and taxi-booking apps, knowing that you have a way to peace out is comforting. Your boyfriend may decide he wants to stay a little longer or your previous ride turned back into a pumpkin and mice, but you can be assured at the very least that your coach back to your bed is 5 minutes and a valid credit card away.

Now the last thing to keep in mind to make family events a bit more manageable is to manage expectations for you and your boyfriend’s alone time. When you’re going to big family events – weddings, anniversaries, graduations, reunions, holidays, etc. – the emphasis tends to be on family together time. That, and the familial obligations that come with them, means that there’s going to be a higher-than-average chance of your boyfriend being dragooned into service, whether it’s convenient for the two of you or not. Sometimes family members get slotted into certain roles, whether it is the Explain Tech To Grandma Again Official or general dogsbody, and it ends up being a lot like being the On Call at work.

This is one of those times where expectations vs. reality can cause conflict, so it’s helpful to adjust your expectations. As annoying as it can be when you’re long-distance, there may be visits where you and your boyfriend get a lot of time to yourselves and you sort of have to just fold that into your idea of how the visit is going to go. At times like that, see if you can schedule your time alone together either before or after the event, so there’s less of a chance that your boyfriend’ll be dragged away at the worst possible time.

Oh, and one more thing: you and your boyfriend’ve been together for about a year, and long distance for the majority of it, if I’m understanding things. That’s not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, and certainly if most of the time is spent apart. I suspect part of the conflict you and he are having around the way your trauma and possible ‘tism affect you is that it’s still somewhat new, rather than something you’ve both handled until it’s become just a part of the texture of your relationship. Over time, especially as your management of it improves, I suspect things won’t get easier per se, but more efficient and less stressful. Part of growing as a couple is finding the rhythm of your unique dance together. If he’s a good and conscientious dude and wants to help make this relationship work, I think you’ll both become old hands at folding ways to meet your needs into family visits.

Good luck.

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