DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I know I’m not the first to write about this subject and probably not the last but my 28th birthday is creeping around and I’m still a virgin. I don’t like it, I don’t wanna accept it and I wanna change because I treat it less like a value neutral experience and more like a tumor growing on the side of my head – IE impossible to ignore and blatant character flaw.

I’ve asked some of my girlfriends in my life if they minded dating theoretical older virgin (because JFC I’m not outing as a loser in front of them, that’s social suicide) and their response ranged from not a big deal to well, being just slightly odd but not a deal breaker. They told me they care more about like how kind he is, if he’s gold and well if he’s emotionally intelligent. But the negative brain worm in my head tells be this is BS that they would freak out and call him a dangerous incel because he’s older virgin (that’s what an incel is, a virgin struggling to get laid) and it’s because this mindset I’m not only not compassionate to myself but other virgins. Hell, a woman online her husband was a virgin at 28 and he’s amazing and wonderful and such a real resentful sparky part of me wanted to tell her to leave him because she deserves better than an older virgin. Which again I see as this shameful and a deep character flaw. 

On top of that I’m constantly comparing myself to my friends, my coworkers and my brother who I know for a for a fact that NONE ZERO ZILCH NADA of them are virgins because how well socially calibrated and stable they are, how they can find relationships be it romantic or sexually yet I struggle because I hate myself for being a virgin and we’ll all the negativity not just from men but women too. One side tells you you’re a loser because you’re not getting laid with 5 women every week and the other tells you you’re dangerous to women because your lack of sexual experience. I mean there is a reason virgin in an insult for God sake (if you’re a cis male).

So what do I do? How do I embrace and accept this as value neutral? How do I let these negativity worms stop squirming in my head? And assuming the worst about myself and other virgins?

Negativity Wormed

DEAR NEGATIVITY WORMED: I want to highlight something you say at the start of your letter, NW:

“I treat it less like a value neutral experience and more like a tumor growing on the side of my head – IE impossible to ignore and blatant character flaw.”

This is a solid indication of the problem you’re facing: the fact you’re taking something that literally nobody would know about you unless you told them, and you’re treating it like there’s a massive, flashing neon sign hanging over your head and giant chip on your shoulder. This attitude of “it’s a blatant character flaw” suffuses basically everything you’ve written to the point that it’s almost willful in how much you seem to want to be angry about it. In fact, I pulled your letter because, frankly, this is the most “I don’t care about what the facts say, what about what I want to believe?” letter I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I mean, good God, you get presented with multiple versions of “yeah, being an older virgin isn’t a big deal” by people you know and trust and your first impulse is to call them a liar because… why, exactly? No, seriously, why would you assume they’re lying about this? And when you see someone for whom this isn’t a theoretical exercise, someone who married an older virgin and who’s thrilled to death with him, you want to yell at her and tell her to divorce a guy she loves. Because, again, reasons.

Do I really need to point out that this isn’t exactly something that’s going to endear you to people who might help you lose your virginity? 

Then there’re your friends and coworkers who you assume have to be virgins because they’re normal and happy and have friends and social lives. Even if we leave aside that you have no way of actually knowing who is or isn’t a virgin or to what degree (hey, maybe they’ve only done mouth stuff, you don’t know!), I’m kind of impressed at your insistence on ignoring reality because it contradicts what you want to believe.

I’m honestly hard pressed to think of a more glaring “the call is coming from inside your head” example that I’ve seen in the last 10 years.

Now the reason for this is pretty easy to identify. So easy, honestly, that I really feel like I should program a macro so I don’t have to keep typing it: you’re swimming in a sea of s--tty subreddits and tiktok videos and other crab buckets that just keep telling you that you’re an awful person for being a virgin. You’ve made being one of those crabs your identity, so much so that you keep pulling yourself back into the bucket whenever there’s an opportunity to crawl out.

The tell-tale signs are kinda obvious. I mean, there’s misunderstanding what an incel is or why people don’t like them. The issue isn’t about being a virgin, it’s the hatred. There’re folks out there who are virgins that don’t want to be but aren’t seething in ressentiment about Chads and women who deny them what they think they’re due and nobody’s worried about them because hey, they’re normal people! They’re out having lives, enjoying their friendships and otherwise being good ol’ boys, never meaning no harm. It’s the folks complaining about ‘roasties’ or sluts or whatever the new derogatory term they’ve come up with, who are celebrating school shootings and “St. Elliot” that folks abhor, for what I would think are obvious reasons.

As the saying goes: if they ain’t describing you, then they ain’t talking about you.

Similarly, the reason why “virgin” gets flung around as an insult isn’t because being a virgin is shameful, it’s because the people flinging it around are enforcing toxic ideas about masculinity and manhood. Which is one of the reasons why life gets a hell of a lot happier when you, say, stop paying attention to people who tell you that you’re a loser because you’re a virgin and that you’re a virgin because you’re a loser.

And let’s be real here: this is an easy problem to solve. You – yes you, NW – could solve this problem tonight. It’s money soluble; you could very easily find an escort, fill out her booking form, pay her fee and bingo bango bongo, you’re no longer a virgin. Surely goodness and mercy will follow you for the rest of your days. If you wanted to ensure that there’s no legal risk, you could fly out to Reno and hie thyself to one of the legal brothels; many of them will even send a car to pick you up at the airport.

But that’s not going to actually solve anything, would it? You would insist that this “doesn’t count”. You will undoubtedly proclaim that this is just “cheating” or somehow confirms your greater loserdom. Which, ok, fine… in that case, you need to pretend that you don’t hate yourself and everyone around you, hit the local meat market and wait until last call and the lights come on; the odds that there’s going to be someone lingering who doesn’t want to go home alone are pretty high. It would require a mutual “standards are for closers” mentality, but again: you would find someone to have sex with that didn’t involve paying a person for a service. Skidoo skideen your virginity’s nowhere to be seen. Problem solved.

Except it won’t be. Because the problem isn’t that you’re a virgin. The problem is that you don’t like yourself and you’ve made hating yourself and anyone similar to you your entire personality, and that’s what you need to deal with.

And therein lies the issue. You’re not going to change this until such a time as you decide that you want things to be better more than you want to be “right”. All of this is entirely predicated on the idea that there must be something wrong with you and you deserve this, and you’re out actively seeking “proof” that you’re correct. This is why you lose your s--t at people who don’t follow the script you and the toxic Greek Chorus in your head and on your phone have written for them; they’re forcing you to confront the likelihood that you’re wrong and you’ve spent all this time marinating in misery and hate for no reason. As perverse as it all sounds, it’s a lot easier to stick with “I hate myself and I’m the most awful person alive” than to say “well s--t, I’ve wasted years of my life when I didn’t have to and now I have nothing to show for it.”

Do you want to get rid of those negative worms? Prove it. Prove to me that you actually want to get better, instead of looking for one more thing that you can half-ass and then hold up as “proof” that nothing will can be done. Because if that’s all you want… well, you’re going to have to admit that this is what you’re doing, because I’m not here to validate your lack of agency.

Once again, I’m thinking I need to program those macros, because the first step is, as always: get the f--k off Reddit. You need to do a full digital detox; shut down your 4chan account, delete your TikTok and Instagram profiles and dip out of all your angry bitter nerd Discords, because all you’re doing is just bathing in self-loathing and self-inflicted misery. If you stop constantly mainlining all these people who tell you that you’re awful and who insist that there’s nothing you can do about it, you will be astounded how your attitude will start rebounding. After all, you have people in your life who clearly love and care for you and don’t give a damn about whether you’re one of the Great Untouched; it’s a lot easier to accept their care when you don’t have all the bitter fellow travelers constantly dripping poison in your ear. Maybe you might actually realize they’re not lying to you if you don’t have other, s--tty people insisting that they couldn’t possibly mean what they say.

The next thing you need to do is actually treat yourself like you matter and deserve good things. You’re expecting this sort of mistreatment and abuse from people because you’re the first person in line to abuse yourself… and not in the fun way. It’s less that you’re teaching other people how to treat you so much as you’re teaching yourself that you “deserve” to be treated this way. You create the situation where you end up rejecting people who are showing you that maybe you’re wrong about this, like a dog snapping at hands of people trying to feed it and care for it. ��When is the last time that you’ve done something that made you feel good about yourself? Not some act of consumption for the dopamine hit – no buying a new game to fill the empty hours, no getting online to complain about the latest DC or Marvel movie, but something that made you feel good about being you? Something that actually fed your soul and made you glad to be alive? When is the last time that you’ve treated yourself the way you think you’d be treated if you weren’t a virgin? The odds are good that it’s next to never. Well… it’s time to change that.

Do a deep clean of your living space. I don’t just mean tidying up. I mean open all the windows to air it out, flip the mattress, dust all the shelves, equipment and books, vacuum the rugs, sweep the floors, bleach and clean the kitchen and bathroom, steam clean the upholstery. Think of this as a spiritual renewal ��– cleansing your home in order to create a new beginning, free of the negativity and emotional squalor you’ve built up so that you can have a fresh start.

Then it’s time to do a purge of your closet and start dressing in clothes that fit properly and make you feel like a sexy bad-ass. I don’t care if you don’t feel like you “deserve” it or that it’s a costume or whatever; do it anyway. Nobody is gatekeeping the clothes you’re allowed to wear any more than they actually give a flying f--k about your virginity, so you may as well wear the cool s--t you think you aren’t “allowed” to or “isn’t” you but you want to wear anyway.

Then write up a list of things you’re grateful for. Yes, you have them, we both know you do; you just prefer acting like you don’t because it’s easier to be angry and bitter that way. You’re going to actually acknowledge the good things in your life and at least once a day you’re going to tell someone in your life that you’re grateful for them. Thank some of those ladies who you quizzed for being a friend. Tell your co-workers that you enjoy and appreciate working with them. Let your parents know you love them. Hell, tell some creators of your favorite media that you enjoy and appreciate their work. No hedging, no qualifying, just “I love your work and it means a lot to me.”

Is it cheesy? Is it a bit cringe, even? Possibly… but first, explain what’s cringe about expressing gratitude and appreciation to the people bringing joy to your life and why being angry and cynical is better. That hasn’t exactly been making you happy or improving your life, so it’s time to try doing something different.

Then, while you’re doing all of this? It’s time to look into finding a therapist who specializes in dialectical behavioral therapy. You’ve spent a lot of time building up negative associations and living in a perpetual state of psychic self-harm and emotional dysregulation. You need to give yourself a break and start learning how to actually track and manage your emotions and start working towards treating yourself like you give a damn instead of looking for more reasons to punch yourself in the nuts.

But like I said: none of this is going to make a difference unless you want things to be better more than you want to be “right”. So, if you sincerely want things to be different and to extract those negative worms, you need to commit to actually doing the work. And that starts with the digital detox I told you; none of the rest is going to work if you keep letting the other crabs drag you back into the bucket.

It’s time to be your own hero, NW.

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 am a 67-year-old Black woman who lives in a mid-western state. I have an adult son who lives a few miles from me, but I have never been married or been in any relationship. I’ve had brief flings and “entanglements” that were far from healthy, but never a long-term, committed relationship. I was prepared to accept being a single woman in the last years of my life because my life is a good one, but my then therapist encouraged me not to accept it since I truly longed for a serious, committed, healthy long-term relationship.

Thus, in May 2024, I took the plunge and went on an online dating site that featured plus-size women and, after meeting many icky men (in terms of their behavior) met a 21-year-old man from [a foreign country] with whom I felt an immediate connection. Not just sexual attraction, but a soul connection. I had no intention of falling in love with a man young enough to be my grandson, but it happened. I have no logical explanation for it. It just happened.

After a year of texting and video/phone calls, I took the risk and flew to meet him in his home country. We spent two wonderful weeks together in a resort town. In the back of my mind, I’d hoped to discover that I didn’t love him and that I could let him go when I got back home and got back to “reality.” I thought, perhaps, I was allowing myself one last adventure like Kathrine Hepburn in Summertime. However, the time we spent together, cemented us more. And I realized, I didn’t want to go back to my lonely life the way Katherine Hepburn’s character returned to hers.

I know my fiancé loves me. His words and behavior demonstrate his love for me every day. We communicate well. We are honest with each other. Our values align. For his part, he is surprisingly emotionally mature for his age and he was looking for an older woman. Yet he doesn’t see me as old–in fact, he finds me beautiful and sexually appealing. I think he’s gorgeous inside and out, and I enjoy his youthful spontaneity. We intend to marry and we have applied for him to get a visa to come to the States, which could take up to two years to be approved–if  it is approved.

Obviously, where my fiancé and I are now didn’t come about without concern from my friends and family (and me!!), but after my positive experience overseas and my son (who has communicated with my fiancé several times over the past year) giving me his blessing, my friends and loved ones are happy about our relationship. My fiancé and I will see each other again in November for another two weeks, and then the plan is to meet every six months for two weeks until his visa comes through.

My fiancé has decided to move to the UAE next month because he hopes to build a better life for himself there while he waits to join me in the States. I think this is a fabulous idea because his home country doesn’t present many opportunities for him and he needs a fresh start. But here’s the rub: He told me that if he is not granted a visa in two years to come live with me in the States, he wants me to come live with him in the UAE. He simply will not continue living apart after two years.

As much as I love him, want to marry him, and build a life with him, I cannot see myself moving anywhere. I have a job that pays well and provides excellent health benefits, and I plan to work for ten more years if possible. I’m taking my Social Security now, so that has increased my income, and I’m financially secure for the first time in my life. I have a lovely home and a nice car. I love my son and do not want to leave him or my grandchildren. I have friends and feel comfortable and at home in my community. I envision my fiancé coming here and going to school and starting a good career, while I financially support him. I know because of our age difference, I will most likely die first, and I want to give him a great start in life, so that after my death, he can find a woman he can love and have children with. He hates when I mention anything about dying, but I am the practical one in the relationship. But believe me, I want all the time I can have with him. I want to always be his first and best love. But I want our relationship to blossom here, not in the UAE where I don’t know the language, wouldn’t be able to work or have the personal freedoms I have here as a woman. Above all, I’m afraid of being poor and without health insurance since I have chronic health conditions that require regular medical maintenance.

My fiancé believes that he will easily find work in the UAE and with his salary combined with my Social Security, we can have a great life. He doesn’t want me to work and feels I should enjoy a life of leisure after working since I was fourteen years old. This is when I feel our age difference! It sounds romantic, but I’m severely allergic to poverty. I don’t think he appreciates how important financial stability can impact a relationship.

I have not told my fiancé completely how I feel.  Well, he knows my preference is for us to live in the States, but he doesn’t know that I can’t fathom his Plan B, if Plan A falls through. I just keep praying Plan A works.

But if it doesn’t, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to live without him. I can’t imagine ending our relationship. I don’t want a life without him. I love him. He’s brought so much happiness to my life and healing to my soul. I do want us to live together. I want the everyday ups and downs of married life. I want to see where our love and relationship takes us. I want to spend the last chapter of my life with him. I’ve waited all my life for love like this and I won’t let it go.

My son tells me to chill out, enjoy my time with my fiancé, build our relationship, and face whatever comes in two years. However, one of my close friends (who is a few years older than I am) says I should tell my fiancé right now that I won’t leave my life here, so that he knows what will come if his visa doesn’t come through.

I can’t quite chill out because the possibility of his visa being denied at this historical moment in America is very real. But I also can’t tell him, “Hey in two years if you aren’t here, we’re done.” I don’t want us to be done. And maybe–just maybe–I could be brave enough to try to create a new life for myself in the UAE if our relationship is as good as it is now. Also, I think giving our relationship a two-year deadline will put a pall over our relationship and my fiancé will doubt my love and commitment.

I thought by writing this letter, I’d figure out the answer by the time I finished it. But I haven’t.

What should I do?

True Love Finally Came Along (and I Don’t Want to F--k It Up)

DEAR TRUE LOVE FINALLY CAME ALONG: You mentioned Katherine Hepburn in Summertime, TLFCA, but this sounds a lot more like How Stella Got Her Groove Back to me. Which honestly gives me a lot of pause, considering how the actual story ended for McMillan and her husband.

I bring this up because, frankly, there’s a lot going on here that sets off my Spidey-sense like woah. Let’s start with why a 21-year-old man is on a niche dating app, matching with someone who’s thousands of miles (and at least an 11 hour plane trip) away. This alone is enough to make me go “hmmm”, especially considering that one can’t open Tinder, Hinge, Feeld, Grindr, OKCupid or Bumble without seeing folks in Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and other countries in the global south popping up regardless of search radius or preferences, with all the hallmarks of a ChatGPT-written profile.

It’s not that young men can’t be into older women, nor that young, conventionally attractive people can’t like plus-size women, nor that folks from overseas may not be interested in meeting folks who don’t live in the same country. Any and all of these things can be true. But the combination of the three sounds an awful lot like the start of a pig-butchering grift or other romance scam.

That’s not to say that good things can’t possibly happen, but there’s a reason why “too good to be true” often is. This is the sort of situation where “trust, but verify” is incredibly important, especially when things seem like a fairy tale come true… or following the plot to a best-selling book and/or record-breaking hit movie, for that matter. A little hope mixed with a lot of skepticism and careful investigation is warranted in a situation like this. Hell, these days, when scammers, grifters and conmen have access to robust AI and deepfake tools, even video chats aren’t necessarily ‘proof’ that these people are who they say they are.

Now the fact that you went out to see him was… not something I’d have recommended. In fact, a lot of folks travelled to meet their overseas, online-only matches have been robbed or worse when they showed up hoping to make the love connection happen in real life. Thankfully that worked out well for you and you had a great time… but now we’re back to How Stella Got Her Groove Back territory – the actual story, not the book or the movie.

The one where Terry McMillan’s husband turns out to have been gay and apparently used McMillan for her money and to get citizenship.

I’ll freely admit to being a cynical bastard and funwrecker, which is part of why I can’t help but point out a lot of things that strike me as being sus.

To start with, it’d be irresponsible of me to point out that your fiancé’s home country is targeted by Trump’s 2025 travel bans, which �will make his getting a visa difficult. To make matters worse, even if he is allowed to travel to the US, the odds that he won’t be rounded up and deported is low. ICE, after all, is on a rampage as they round up legal migrants, including green-card holders, people granted asylum and refugee status. Being married to a US citizen offers no protection, nor is it going to be a reliable path towards citizenship for him.

But also moving to the UAE strikes me as being an unwise choice at best. While the UAE is incredibly attractive to expats who want a more permissive business and investment environment, it’s infamous for the way MENA migrant workers are exploited – from the kafala system that creates an incredible number of restrictions and opportunities for exploitation, to labor abuse, wage theft, recruitment and management “fees” and questionable labor protections.

I’m also quirking a skeptical eyebrow at his declarations that his income plus your social security would mean that you don’t have to work and he’d be able to treat you like a queen. That… sounds far more like romantic pillow talk by an idealist at best, and the sort of thing that tends to fall apart like cotton candy in the rain when it runs headlong into reality.  If I’m only somewhat skeptical, it sounds a little like a very gussied up version of an inherently conservative “women are supposed to be at home taking care of the house and children” worldview, just disguised in softer language. At worst… it sounds a lot like the “saying the things my partner wants to hear to make things more appealing” stage of the grift.

But what really sticks out to me is the two-year window. Considering the very long odds that your fiancé will be granted his visa (and the high likelihood of his being forcibly removed, visa or protections be damned), it seems like this is less of an “if-then” situation and more of a way of saying “you’re moving to the UAE with me or else.”

Now let’s get to the thing that I have been trying to not say. You don’t mention it in your letter, but I have to ask: how much are you supporting him already? While I doubt he may have directly asked for help (yet), have there been times where he’s had unexpected debts or financial emergencies and boy this has really screwed with his plans? If he hasn’t run into any already… well, I suspect they’re coming soon. Especially after he finishes his move to the UAE.

I hate to say it, but this all smells fishier than the Corpus Christi fishing pier at low tide, and I suspect it’s going to get worse.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m wrong and I’ve let my cynicism rage out of control. This could well be the story of an Odd-Couple-esque pair of lovers – seemingly mismatched, yet perfectly suited for one another, kept apart by cruel circumstance. I doubt it, but it’s certainly possible. But – and someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because that’s one huge BUT – even if that’s the case, I don’t think this is a story with a happy ending. Even if everything is 100% on the up and up and everyone’s acting in good faith, I think that the Trump administration all but guarantees that your lover boy isn’t going to be allowed into the US, which means it’s the UAE or nothing. And – as you mentioned – moving to the UAE is going to be one hell of an ask, especially for someone you haven’t known very long, nor spent more than two weeks with at a shot.

And that’s the other issue, frankly. Yeah, you’ve been talking for over a year before you saw him and you had a great two-week vacation at a resort… that’s not the same thing as really spending time together. Two weeks on a romantic vacation isn’t going to teach you anything about what it means to live together as a couple, to socialize, to face hardship together. It’s an idealized situation and while it feels incredible and it would be amazing if every day were like that… it’s not and it won’t be. Under the best of circumstances – which these aren’t – I’d highly recommend that you want to give it more time and to spend longer periods together to get to know one another when you’re not in ideal circumstances, nor in the honeymoon period of the relationship. It’s rather startling how much things can change when you don’t have the cushion of an all-inclusive resort to pad all the sharp corners and edges of a relationship.

If you want my honest advice: I’d say that you should enjoy this for what it is, see it as evidence that you don’t need to give up hope for love and adventure and to recognize that this means you are a desirable person who would make a wonderful match for someone… someone who doesn’t come with as many caveats and complications as your current fiancé. At the very least, I think you need to make it clear that you’re not moving to the UAE, end of story and see what happens. I would also suggest that you should be on the lookout for requests for “emergency” assistance or his putting a lot of emphasis on your helping him out financially, if you aren’t already.

And if, at the end of two years, he can’t get his visa? Well… it’s one of those times of “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” seems apropos. Not every love story is meant to be an epic. Some work best as a short story… or possibly another best-selling novel. 

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: Sorry in advance for some grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

The tl;dr version of the letter is basically “How does an aromantic, very sexually confused autistic guy with an avoidant attachment style deal with relationships?” (and by relationship, I mean, friend with benefits with the emphasis on friend)

Now, doing things in order, I’m aromantic, meaning that I never felt any romantic attraction towards anyone. I do feel sexual attraction (more on that later), but I never had romantic crushes (or I can’t make the difference between them and friendship), so I suppose that in the 35 years of my existence if I never had them, I won’t have them for the rest of it. I’m not romance averse, as long as it’s not directed at me. If it is, then it feels icky.

Then, there’s my sexuality. And the shortest word to describe it is chaos (technically it’s abrosexual if you want the label, but it’s a weird one). It’s literally changing all the time. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I’d find attractive in the next 20 minutes. Trying to make sense of it makes me even more confusing, so it’s easier to go with the flow. But it’s not something that I can do with dealing with people IRL. That mysterious person wouldn’t be able to change their gender to match the chaos inside me (and still, they’d have to deal with the moments I’m not attracted to anyone anyway).

And finally, the attachment style. I’m avoidant, meaning that at first, I will seem to get closer to you, until one point where I’ll keep you at arm length. I can’t really pinpoint the moment where I’ll start do that though and it’s mostly unconscious. On the other hand, I do know that I do that, so I won’t go to the extreme of starting to ghost or block people out of it, but I can be a bit colder, especially, if you’re forcing me to get closer. There’s also the “funny” situation where I get more attracted to people who are unavailable to me.

The self-esteem could also be better. I’m finding myself annoying most of the time. But looking at the data, I can’t confirm it’s how other people see me, since I still have friends who visibly like to hang around with me. So not really sure how, but I’m doing something right there. And I even had some people admitting having a crush on me (somehow???), not that it’s great with my situation.

So how to find someone with that? An easy answer could be some one-night stands, but that isn’t too interesting to me to begin with and then the autism and the social anxiety going with it wouldn’t let me live that down (my brain would scream danger to me for the entire thing). So, a longer thing is necessary to me. That’s why I talked earlier the friend with benefits, with the emphasis on friend.

How can I do that to a person? Basically, it would be asking of them: If you fall in love with me, I won’t be able to return your feelings, I’m not sure when I’d feel attracted to you and if you get too close to me, I will start running away while giving mixed signals. Who the hell would want that over any other decent relationship? I’m to the point where when one of those people who had a crush on me said that they found someone else, I felt relieved. Like “Good, you have found happiness without having to deal with my BS”.

I know I can work on the avoidant attachment style issue (working on it very slowly, because it’s hard), but the rest stays a puzzle to me. How can I work with that, without causing heartbreak for the other person and guilt on my part?

The Most Complicated Guy

DEAR DATE OR DIE: And here I thought I’d seen every permutation of relationship questions out there. Congrats, MCG, this is a new one for me. 

OK, so this one’s a mess, in part because I think you’re asking the wrong questions here. Your problem is that part of what you’re asking for at the end – how do you find the perfect relationship but also ensure that you don’t ever cause someone to get their heart broken – is not just impossible, but also seriously putting the cart before the horse.

Hell, I’m not entirely sure there even is a horse at this point. Or a cart. Mostly just an IKEA kit, a bunch of parts, fasteners and an Allen wrench in a pile and instructions that make no sense.

I know I sound like I’m being dismissive, but what you’re asking is kind of like saying “I want to start running, but I’ve got flat feet, shin splints and reduced lung capacity; how can I find a run club where I won’t completely outshine everyone else in the club?” You’re presuming a whole lot of conclusions before you’ve even gotten to the point of knowing what kind of relationship would even work for you and whether people you would connect with are even at risk of falling in love with you in the first place.

I mean, right off the top, you can’t guarantee that you won’t hurt someone or that you could keep them from falling for you. Not if you’re going to have any sort of intimate or emotionally connected relationship. That’s not how people work, and assuming that there’s some way to thread that needle perfectly is naive at best. Admirable, but naive.

Again: that’s not my saying “bold of you to assume that anyone could love you”, that’s my saying “let’s start with focusing on some basics before we worry about your being such a Casanova that you leave a trail of broken hearts and shattered lives behind you.” Because, quite honestly, I think you’re thinking a little too heteronormative in terms of relationships when you’re anything but. A traditional relationship – even the kind of FWB relationship you’re imagining – isn’t going to work for you. Certainly not under the conditions you’ve described.

I talk a lot about finding people who are right for you, and a big part of that requires knowing what, precisely, you want and what kind of relationship you’re actually open to. Then you would want to look towards finding people who are more likely to be receptive to that kind of relationship. ��So let’s roll it from the top, starting with the easiest part: being aromantic. Aromantic people – that is, folks who don’t feel romantic love – can and do have relationships; I know someone who’s aro who is currently juggling about three or four partners, depending on the day. They genuinely care for their partners, but don’t necessarily feel what most of us would call romantic love for them. Which is fine, honestly; there’re many different kinds of love, and romantic love – agape – isn’t the always the most important part of a relationship.

It is entirely possible, for example, to have a relationship that’s founded on fondness, affection, respect and sexual connection, but not romantic love. Romantic love isn’t the glue that holds a relationship together; it can be the motivator, it can be the intensifier or the reason why the relationship started, but God knows I’ve fielded plenty of questions from people who were wildly in love with their partners… but who couldn’t be in a relationship with them.

To the extent this is going to be relevant to your situation, it means that you’re going to want to prioritize things like mutual compatibility – especially in areas like lifestyle and sexuality – over a romantic connection. It may mean having that you’ll be a little more analytical in who you date or decide to start a relationship with than the average bear, but that’s fine. Data and Spock both had friends and companions throughout their lives. Hell, Spock was basically the third leg of a poly triad of platonic hetero life-mates.

The tricker aspect is your sexuality and your attachment style. I think it would be healthier �– or at least easier for others to grasp – if we referred to your attachment style as “feral cat” or “outdoor cat”. You’ll get close to others, but on your own terms and in your own time and only so close. You vanish for a while, but come back eventually like nothing’d happened. This can be a little frustrating for folks who are expecting a more traditional or conventional connection… but there’re also people who prefer this. There are a lot of folks who are more on the introverted side of the spectrum who could well appreciate a relationship with someone who doesn’t expect a lot of togetherness and who finds time apart as important as time together.

That being said, I wonder how much of this is a matter of a malignant sort of self-protection. You mention that you tend to fall for people who aren’t interested in you, but get cold towards people who try to push for more intimacy. That, to me, sounds like you may be subconsciously saying “I don’t deserve to have a loving relationship”, pushing people away who might actually return your feelings as you direct your attention towards folks who are “safe”. That is – folks who aren’t interested and thus won’t force you to deal with the idea that maybe you are deserving of love and affection.

Considering what you’ve said about your self-esteem, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case. A lot of folks on the autism spectrum tend to internalize messages about how they’re “annoying” or “hard to deal with” and take it as a sign that there’s something wrong with them, rather than a matter of society not understanding or being entirely accepting of autistic people. If you’re seeing your autism as being an inherent negative, instead of just being a part of who you are, I could easily see how that could lead to the sort of “go away a little closer” behavior you mention.

And then there’s the abrosexuality. I’ll be honest: this is the first time I’ve heard of it, and I wonder how much of it is truly a matter of “constantly changing” and more that it’s pansexuality with sprinkles. Human sexuality is often a moving target, less of a sliding scale and more of a multi-axis graph that can fluctuate over time. Someone who’s bi or pan, for example, isn’t necessarily equally attracted to two or more genders, nor do they necessarily feel both romantic and sexual attraction in equal measure for the people they’re attracted to. There’re plenty of bi and pan folks who may be sexually attracted to multiple genders, but tend to be romantically attracted to (or more likely to form relationships with) people of one gender or another.  

Hell, some folks have a sort of single-target sexuality, where exactly one person of a particular gender hits just right, but they aren’t into other people of that gender.

At the same time however, even people who have more fixed sexualities don’t necessarily find the same people attractive to the same degree at all times.  Folks who have a “type” – redheads, dump-truck butts, skinny goth disaster bisexuals, whatever – frequently find themselves into people who aren’t their usual “type”, and may find their types change over time. Likewise, people who need a lot of sexual novelty can find that their desire for a person drops dramatically over time, simply because the newness has worn off.

So I wonder if your abrosexuality is akin to that, but on a more chaotic speed and schedule.

But you’re the expert in your sexuality, not me, so take my thoughts with all appropriate salt and skepticism. Especially since functionally it would all lead to the same place: a traditional committed relationship, even a more conventional friends-with-benefits relationship isn’t going to work for you. Not, at least, with the way things seem to be operating right now.

If you want my honest opinion, based on what you’ve described… well, honestly, I think you’re going to have a hard time squaring this particular circle. An ideal setup would be less of a friends-with-benefits relationship but more of a sexually fluid social group who’re open to occasional sexual encounters, but where the relationship isn’t predicated on sex. The problem is that, unless you manage to live long enough that Dr. Mensah is born and Preservation Alliance is becomes a functional community, this is going to be like trying to find an okapi in the wild, without a map or guide – not impossible but exceedingly difficult.

You might �– and I stress might – find something akin to what you would need as a floater between various polycules in the queer community – a sort of neighborhood cat that everyone feeds and occasionally sleeps in people’s garages or on their patios, but doesn’t really belong to anyone. But again: I think that’s going to be hard to find and a hell of a lot harder to actually pull off successfully. 

If you want a practical answer with minimal drama… well, I’d suggest that this is time when developing an established relationship with a few sex-workers would be easiest. This has its own difficulties and complications, for obvious reasons. It would, however, be the simplest in terms of logistics and relationship management. While it wouldn’t be a “relationship” in the most traditional sense, it would allow for the way your sexuality and attachment style work without requiring that you seek out the Goldilocks of relationship-anarchists in Seattle or the Bay Area.

But I think some of this may need to wait until you work on your attachment issues and your self-esteem. I have a sneaking suspicion that self-acceptance and learning to lean into your autism instead of trying to work against it may help considerably. Once you’re not seeing yourself as being a walking, talking annoyance and being deserving of love, I suspect it’ll be a little easier to find relationships that works for you, without all the attendant drama and complications.

Good luck.

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