DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This letter has a twist at the end of the first act, so hang in there. This isn’t a dating question, but I’m hoping you can help.

I’m fifty, and I’ve struggled my whole life with bipolar 2, undiagnosed until I was thirty-five. As a result, I’ve spent most of my life miserable, with the exception of about five years when my life was absolutely perfect (in great shape, eating well, dressing well, and poly with a sexy wife and a girlfriend.)

I went through a painful divorce a few years ago, and my girlfriend isn’t talking to me anymore. I live in a 400-sq.-ft apartment, and I owe $45,000 dollars to the SSA. I haven’t been on a date in five years. My best friend died suddenly, and his estate is being hassled by one of his ex-wives. I lost touch with most of my friends because of my abusive marriage, my cat passed away, and I live in Washington D.C., which is currently under military occupation.

And I’ve never been happier. My little apartment is perfect, I have a new cat, I have a job with the perfect tasks for an ADHD brain, which respects me and even lets me go home early if I finish my work. My parents are both alive and very active for septua- and octogenarians. I’m not interested in dating, nor in sex, so I’m not missing out. I found a great place that sells marijuana for cheap, and I have plenty of time for my hobbies. I’m not in shape, but I’m healthy. Life is good.

But my remaining friends are not well. One friend has the World’s Worst Office Job, another is on methadone and is in a s--tty situation with a MAGA--hole, and another has a brain tumor that’s getting bigger. One friend is an artist with crippling depression, so she can’t bring herself to draw. In fact, most of my friends have serious health or money problems, and my parents live in Florida.

That doesn’t even cover the aforementioned military presence at my home, the hateful policies being aimed at people who can’t fight back, the fact that we have given flat earth an equal platform with common sense and actual science, and our president is a ruthless, bigoted tyrant. Also, I’m scared of AI, especially since it recently killed a man.

The world is falling apart, my friends’ lives are in the toilet, and I don’t even have survivor’s guilt. I’m there for the people I love. I only give advice when called upon to do so, and I don’t rub my good fortune in their noses. I vote, I protest, and I give money to the unhoused when I can. Is there something else I should be doing?

Is something wrong with me? I feel like the meme of the dog in the fire, but with a look of chill satisfaction, as opposed to quiet desperation. I guess if I’m asking anything, it’s permission to enjoy my life or ways to be a better friend/citizen.

I seek your wisdom.

Sincerely,

Jeremiads Were a Bullfrog

DEAR JEREMIADS WERE A BULLFROG: You’re not the first person to write in feeling conflicted that it’s the end of the world as you know it and you feel fine, and I doubt you’ll be the last. It’s not that unusual, honestly; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have never affected everyone equally. People – to paraphrase John Rogers – did manage to live meaningful lives full of satisfaction during the fall of the Roman Empire. There were villages and townships that weathered the Black Plague better than others, through luck and circumstance. That’s just life.

You are incredibly lucky in that, while you’ve been through some serious s--t – and you have – you’re generally in a good place. That doesn’t make you a bad person, especially since your luck isn’t coming at the expense of others. It’s ok to be grateful that life doesn’t suck as badly for you right now as it does for other people. Similarly, your choosing suffering out of a sense of guilt or responsibility won’t actually help anyone. At most, you’d be flagellating yourself for the sake of flagellating; your making yourself miserable would neither serve as penance, nor make a meaningful reduction in other people’s misery. Pain and suffering isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s not lessened when it’s shared more broadly. So, if your life is good, hey, congrats, you’re incredibly fortunate. It’s important that you don’t turn your fortune into something that comes at the expense of others. Acknowledging that you’re fortunate and in a position of relative privilege is one thing… but it’s also important to note that this is as much about chance and that privilege, rather than a matter of personal value or virtue.

Now with that having been said: you’re talking about a false dichotomy. Your choices aren’t split between “enjoy your life” and “be a better citizen, friend and patriot”; it’s not “either or”, it’s “yes, and”. You can do both. And honestly, I think you should.

You didn’t end up in this position because you were a better planner than others, more foresighted or able to turn it to your advantage when others couldn’t. It’s not about your being a better person or superior person, just someone who had a lot of things fall in place in very specific ways – including your race, gender, sexuality and where you live. Many of the folks who aren’t impacted or harmed the same way do treat it as a sign of favor from God or the Universe or superior breeding or whatever magical bulls--t you care to name. Recognizing that this is very much a “there but for the grace of God…” situation is an important step to maintain your empathy and compassion for folks who aren’t as fortunate as you.

This is why I think this a time where it’s good to remember the Tao of Peter Parker: with great power comes great responsibility. You’ve been blessed with good fortune, and I think one of the best things you can do – both in general and to manage those conflicted feelings – is to do what you can to use your fortune to help lessen the misery of others.

You’re already doing some of what I would suggest – staying politically active, protesting against the injustices being perpetuated and so on, which is great. But I would suggest that one of the best things you could do is look at the smaller picture as much as the bigger. Often, the place where we can have the biggest impact is right outside our front door. What can you do, with the resources and privileges you have, to help the people in your community? You have friends who are suffering. While you may not be able to end their suffering – you’re not God, you’re not The Doctor, The Beyonder or Dr. Manhattan – but what can you take off their shoulders or off their plate for them? Your friend who’s suffering from depression – are there ways you can support them and provide comfort and encouragement in the ways that they need? What are some ways that you can help support your friend’s sobriety, or be their support with the MAGA s--thead causing them strife? Can you help your friend with the horrible office job find better work? Can you take up some of the slack for your friend with the brain tumor – or even just help brighten their day a little so that they have more than just relentless misery?

You may not have the resources to save the world from the forces of fascism and oppression and that’s ok. You may not even have the resources to rescue one person or transform their entire life. That’s ok too; nobody is asking you to. All that’s asked is that you do what you can, where you can. And sometimes that’s as small as making life a little less bad for the people who don’t have it as good as you do.

There are many ways to help hold back the tide of darkness when it threatens to overwhelm us, and they don’t all require being on the front lines or being a superhero. Don’t underestimate the value of something as simple as making someone smile, even if you can’t do anything else. One story that will forever make me ugly cry is how, after Christopher Reeve was crippled in a freak accident, Robin Williams blew into his hospital room like a hurricane and was relentless about cheering him up. Williams may not have been able to fix Reeve’s back or undo all the complications that came with the injury, but he was able to use his gift of comedy to make Reeves laugh. The act of helping keep Reeve’s morale up was a gift. It unquestionably helped give Reeves the strength to keep going, even when his world had been irrevocably shattered.

Keeping people’s spirits up is as vital a part of resisting oppression. It’s precisely what gives people the strength to keep fighting. Joy and happiness in the face of the folks trying to beat you down is an act of rebellion. It’s a little like what Dan Savage said about queer people during the height of the AIDS crisis, when the US Government not only couldn’t care less about the people who were dying but actively joked about it: “[…]we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”

Yeah, cheering someone up, taking a couple items off the plate of one of your less fortunate friends or finding small ways to make things better for them can seem like little enough, compared to the sheer scope of, well, everything. But that simple act of easing someone’s burden can be the difference between life or death, between despair and hope. To quote the Talmud: “Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.”

S--t is dark, no question, and it’s a time when things feel almost overwhelming – far more than what any one person can overcome. But this isn’t a job for Superman, because it’s not the job for one person to fix. It’s the time for everyone to be the flame of hope; individually, it may not be much, but together, we are able to light our darkest hour.

When everything seems lost, that’s the time to make sure that hope burns bright.

Be that beacon of hope, JWB. We need it now more than ever.

All will be well.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: 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