DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Longtime reader and first-time writer, and I really didn’t expect THIS to be the issue I’d be writing you about.

Last June, I (33M) began a casual relationship with a slightly older, recently divorced single mother that I met online. We both wanted a low-stakes arrangement. We would get together once a week for dinner when she didn’t have her child, and we would sleep together afterward. Her ex was petty (her words not mine) and she and I both wanted some discretion in the relationship at the time. There were no expectations of commitment, though for the year that we were seeing each other, I only went on a handful of dates that didn’t go anywhere. Even though we saw each other with limited frequency, we would talk every day over text, about jobs, family drama, pets, and just sharing stupid posts on social media. It was a happy arrangement.

Once we hit the year mark, I began to reconsider what I was looking for in a relationship. I started thinking about prioritizing a relationship where I could start a family of my own. We would talk briefly about the idea of having children in a general sense, and she wasn’t interested in having any more children, and her situation with the divorce seemed like icing on the cake. For the next few weeks, I was mulling over how to broach the topic, and if starting a family was something I truly wanted to do.

It came as a surprise when she sent me a long text out of the blue, telling me that she had family that was moving in to her home and that for our relationship to continue, I would have to meet her parents. She said she understood if I didn’t want to, but that the relationship wouldn’t be able to carry on if that was the case. Meeting her family didn’t scare me, but considering that I was already having thoughts about ending things, I chose to tell her what I was thinking and we broke up from there. I asked her if it was okay if we could still text, but she didn’t believe that was a good idea. She said she needed “a clean break” and that she was trying to be less of a people pleaser, so she didn’t want to just keep on talking just to make things less weird if it was something she felt would hurt her. She was apologetic and assured me there were no hard feelings, but still by the end of the night we had said our goodbyes and she had removed me from all social media. Reading your blog, I understand what the utility of the “Nuclear Option” is, but it still stung.

On the one hand, I want to respect her wishes, and I can’t sit here and act like I never wanted to end the relationship, because I did. On the other hand, I hoped (naively, maybe) that just because the sex would end didn’t mean everything else would end too. I feel at a loss. All I know for sure is that one day I hope we can be friends again, but I don’t know how I would even do that.

Do you think I can rekindle this friendship after some time and space, or is she now just somebody that I used to know?

– Shameless Gotye Reference

DEAR SHAMELESS GOTYE REFERNCE: Let’s get the obvious out of the way first, SGR: you can respect her wishes and acknowledge that this isn’t the outcome that you hoped for. The two aren’t mutually contradictory. You’re allowed to both recognize that you wanted different things that made the relationship unfeasible and to be sad that it wasn’t going to shift seamlessly to friendship. Respecting that she wants to take the Nuclear Option doesn’t require that you be happy about it.

But I think it is important to draw your attention to the why of it all. I’m not sure you’ve necessarily recognized what’s happened here, and the disconnect between how you were seeing things and how your ex were seeing things is why you’re shocked and sad to learn that she needs to cut contact.

The central issue here is that while this relationship started as a casual thing, it’s pretty clear it wasn’t staying casual. Your behavior was a lot closer to someone who wanted a more committed, serious relationship. Seeing each other once a week for a year is pretty frequent under the circumstances, especially when kids and an intrusive, meddlesome ex are involved. Pair that with talking every single day and I’m not entirely surprised that the both of you were starting to think about whether this relationship could be more than just a casual/FWB thing.

The problem is that I don’t know if you necessarily recognize the difference in how you two saw this change or how you both felt about it.

The issue wasn’t kids, per se. Yes, you had contradictory needs that you couldn’t resolve easily, but that was more the trigger than the cause. She, being older and coming ever closer to the point in life where pregnancy becomes more complicated and offers more risks to both mother and child, was understandably reluctant to have more children. You wanted biological children of your own. Trying to square this circle would require significant sacrifices on someone’s part – sacrifices that neither of you were willing to make.

The issue was that this underlined a difference of how you felt about each other – a difference that was highlighted by what you both prioritized as a condition for the relationship. She wanted a relationship with you, and that the next necessary step would be towards integrating you into her family and life. For this relationship to continue, she wanted you to be more than a weekly hook-up and texting buddy; she wanted you to be an active part of her life.

For you, the priority was to have biological children of your own. That was a higher priority than a committed and serious relationship with her. Since she was done with having children, that ruled out the relationship.

And to be clear, that’s valid! You’re both well within your rights to say “this is a hard line for me”, and make it the price of entry for a relationship with you. Other people may have opinions about where one or both of you set your priorities but – as I keep saying – they don’t get a vote.

However, it’s important to note that while it’s valid, that doesn’t mean those priorities aren’t going to hurt. And in particular, it hurt your ex to hear that kids were going to be a higher priority than a relationship with her. I think that’s the point that you’re missing, here: even though you wanted different things and that’s ok, it’s still going to hurt to hear that someone she cared about didn’t feel the same about her, and that he chose starting his “own” family over joining hers. And quite honestly, it’s hard to continue a friendship with that hanging over things like Banquo’s ghost. She understood that for her, this would be a stone in her shoe, something that she couldn’t overlook or ignore, and so she chose to protect herself.

I’m not entirely sure you’ve quite realized how much this hit differently for her than it did for you. You may have seen this as a FWB and thought you were offering to simply end the B aspect of the friendship, but for her, this was you rejecting her, specifically. Hence the need to go nuclear. Continuing to stay in contact – at this time, at least – was going to be a reminder that, to her understanding, you liked her but only to this degree.

I realize this may sound like I’m blaming you or saying you f--ked up and this is your penance. I’m absolutely not; it’s just a matter of understanding how this landed for her and why she needs to distance herself from you. Not every relationship can transition easily from that sort of intimacy and connection to one that may still be intimate, but of a different sort. Some of it is about sticking the landing during the break up, sure, but some of it is about how everyone sees the relationship and what they take away from its ending.

Understanding this is important, because it’s going to influence whether you can be friends in the future and what you can do to maximize the chances that you get there. She’s going to need time to let the pain ease, to give herself closure over this relationship and to decide how she ultimately feels about things. She may realize that, with time and distance and perspective, that her feelings have changed and she doesn’t see it the same way and that it doesn’t hurt the way that it did at the time. Or she may realize that she misses you and this role you had in her life and that the friendship and emotional intimacy is important to her and she has let go of wanting a romantic relationship with you. Or she may well just move on entirely and draw the curtain over this part of her life; in that case, a clean break helps ensure that it heals the fastest.

Regardless, respecting her wishes and giving her the space she wants is going to be paramount. You may not have much that you can do to sway her towards wanting to be friends in the future, but it’ll be easy as hell to push her the other way, even by accident.

She’s hurt and needs to heal. There’s not much you’re going to be able to do to change that. Your best move, if you want to keep open the possibility of a friendship in the future, is to make sure that she knows she can always reach out to you if and when she is ready. Otherwise, the ball is entirely in her court, and it’s up to her what to do next.

You can hope for the possibility of reconnecting in the future, but the best way to help that happen is to let things be for now. If it it’s going to be, it will be; trying to push it along will only work against you.  ��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 didn’t know about the term “incel” until the Toronto van attack when I was in my mid-20s. At the time, I didn’t think much of it and focused on self-improvement — my career, fitness, skills, and building a social circle — because I really didn’t want to end up like that.

Now I’m 32, and despite all my efforts, I still haven’t had romantic or sexual success. I’ve realized that I am involuntarily celibate and I really want to change that. What steps can I take to stop being involuntarily celibate and start forming real romantic connections?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer.

Trying To Be Better

DEAR TRYING TO BE BETTER: Well, the obvious tip would be to look at what Negativity Worm from yesterday’s letter is like, and then do the opposite of all of that. But that’s neither fair nor helpful, so let’s get serious for a second.��I do wish you’d told me more about what you’re doing to change and what hasn’t worked, because then I could give you some more specific advice or helped you troubleshoot your process. What you’ve given me doesn’t tell me much, so I can’t tell you what you are or aren’t doing wrong.

Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t have some suspicions. One of the things that I think is a problem is that you’re doing the same thing that a lot of guys do: you’re focusing a lot on things that don’t actually lead to relationships. Working on your career and your fitness is admirable, don’t get me wrong… but people aren’t dating your resume, nor your bank account, nor how fast you run a mile, how much you bench or your resting heart rate.

A more important metric is “how many people do you talk to on a weekly basis” and “how often do you get out of your apartment and do stuff with other people?” As much as guys chase six figure bank accounts or six-pack abs, none of that matters if you don’t actually have social skills. All of dating revolves around how you make people feel when they’re around you; even if you’re focusing on the apps, you’re still going to be meeting them in person. You still have to be able to flirt, to help them have fun with you and to otherwise give them a reason to want to see you again.

So, what I would suggest is that you take the same focus you put towards developing your career and your skills and put it towards being a socially engaged person who has a life outside their apartment. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to practice talking with strangers – men, women, non-binary folks, everyone – and getting comfortable just making small talk. Being a more social person in general, someone who is comfortable talking to folks and who people like to talk to, is hands down one of the best skills you can develop. If you’re comfortable talking to people in general, it’s that much easier to chat them up when it “counts”; you won’t first have to fight through your own anxiety and inertia before you can get to something as simple as “hi, my name is…”

I would also suggest getting comfortable with flirting and expressing interest in people. Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to roll into every interaction like you’re Pepe Le Pew trying to convince that sexy maybe-skunk into coming wiz you to ze Cazbah; it just means being willing to tell someone what you like about them. There’re as many ways to flirt as there are people, but all of them entail saying “I like you because…”.

On a practical level, this can be as simple as getting in the habit of paying people a compliment on something that they’ve clearly done or decided on for themselves. Telling someone that they’ve got great style or you dig their tattoos is validating a choice they’ve made; this is far more meaningful (and easier to accept) than telling them that they’re lucky for having won the genetic lottery.

It could also be a willingness to be a little playful or forward – think of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness and then dial it from a 10 to a 2. Or you could try a bit of light banter with them and see if they toss it back to you with an intent of playing along. Or just be sincere in wanting to know more about them.

The third thing is that you want to come to every interaction with people who might want to date with a mindset of “Ok, I know you’re attractive, but what do you have going for you that makes you right for me?” The key isn’t that you’re acting like you’re the King of the Club and they have to earn your approval; it’s simply that we all have limited time on this world and you don’t want to spend it on someone who’s a bad match. So you focus on getting to know the person and seeing what makes them tick, what makes them interesting and – importantly – if you and they mesh in the ways that you’d need to have a relationship with them.

Related to this is that I highly recommend taking the off the pressure to get “results” and instead to be open to any outcome. If you have a good conversation with a lovely lady, then that’s a win, even if you don’t get a phone number out of it. If you meet some cool people and maybe get invited to a weekly poker game – win. If you just have a nice drink or two and an entertaining night out – win. This dials down the “stakes” that can create anxiety and pressure by turning every conversation into something you can fail. That, in turn, lets you be more present in the moment, to show more interest in the person you’re talking to and to be your best and most authentic self, instead of trying to “prove” yourself to them or “earn” their attention.

The last thing I would suggest is to spend some time getting to know your city and what sorts of options are available to you. Knowing, for example, that this museum has events on alternate Saturdays or the local garden center teaches classes on Sunday afternoons or that this bar hosts live bands every third Thursday gives you not just a list of interesting things to do, but potential dates that you could invite people to. I will stress that you should plan dates that you think you would enjoy and that you would want to take someone to; it’s much easier to have a good time – and help your date have a good time – when it’s something you don’t have to brace yourself for or that you aren’t into.

Remember: people won’t necessarily remember what you say, especially when you first meet them… but they will definitely remember how you made them feel. Focus on that, and you’ll make life a lot easier when it comes to making real connections… including the ones that could lead to love.  

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 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