DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: The idea of settling gets thrown around a lot but people often argue over what it actually means. Some say it’s holding out for your perfect partner and breaking up with a “good enough” partner. Others say it’s having a relationship you are unhappy with because you think there’s nothing better out there for you. Others still say it’s just making compromises and understanding how many of your needs are going to be met by a partner. 70%? 80? And that number depends on the person.

What do you think? What does it mean to settle in anno domini 2025?

Sincerely,

The Unsettler

DEAR THE UNSETTLER: Quick question: who’s actually saying these things and why in pluperfect f--kery are you listening to them in the first place? Most of what you’re describing as people’s ideas of what “settling” means sounds like someone’s experience-free theorizing, engagement-baiting TikTokers or people who’re trying to convince other people to join them in the crab bucket. Frankly, I wouldn’t take these with a grain of salt, I’d be throwing that salt at them, to repel them like the slaadi they are.   

Settling is very simple: it’s a matter of determining what you must have in a relationship, what you will absolutely not accept in one and what you’re willing to forgo. Everything else is window dressing.

And to be clear: everyone settles; there is no settling down without settling for. Nobody alive – no celebrity, no influencer, nobody – gets 100% of what they want in a relationship, simply because there are no “perfect” matches, any more than there are perfect people. Nobody can be everything you want and give you all the things you desire in a relationship, because they are human. They will always have quirks and flaws and their own personalities, desires and agency, which means that their desires and goals won’t always mesh perfectly with yours. Even when things seem to line up on paper, the execution can be radically different; pick three RPG-loving nerds, you’re gonna get four opinions on tabletop systems and probably at least two bonus ones on CRPG vs. TTRPG vs. MMORPG and one person complaining about LitRPG just because, and nobody is even sure how they got in the room.

The only people who can give you 100% of what you want are imaginary, and even then, you’re settling because they aren’t real. Even an AI “girlfriend” is settling – both because they’re not actual people but also because they can be changed or taken from you at any time, simply because the company decides they don’t want to bother supporting it any longer.

So, settling comes down to understanding yourself and what your priorities are and what you’re willing to not have in exchange for those priorities. You can hold out for “perfect”, if you really want to – nobody’s stopping you, after all – but this means waiting for a long, long time. ��But this is why I think focusing on “settling” is a mistake; it carries the connotation of “giving up”, or the idea that you’re quitting or conceding when you could, even should hold out. That’s not a good way to look at a potential relationship; framing it this way puts more emphasis on the supposed lack, which is a great way to prime yourself to be frustrated and disappointed instead of happy and fulfilled.

Instead, I think “compromise” may be a better mental framing; after all, your partner isn’t getting 100% of what they want either. But with a compromise, you’re putting the focus on what you do get and how this maximizes the benefits to both of you. It puts the emphasis on the wonderful things your partner brings to the table, the things that make you happy and your life better because they’re part of it and vice versa. Yes, there’re things you’re both giving up… but that’s the point of a compromise. You’re focusing on the collaborative aspect, the what you bring together and what you can build together with them, rather than on what you don’t get. And when you do it right, it means that while you may not get some things – even things you really would like to have – what you do get is so great that you don’t mind not getting the rest in exchange.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in my late 20’s and I’m fed up with dating. I feel like I’m trying to knock down a wall by hitting it with my head over and over again. The only viable option for dating seems to be apps now that I’m out of college. I have tried pretty much every popular dating app. Initially I got the most matches on Hinge but none of those lead to anything long term. Each of them averaged about 3 dates and then just kind of fizzled out. These days I get NO matches on dating apps. The app I probably had the most success with was Bumble. Using Bumble led to my first and only long-term relationship so far and it also lead to me making a new friendship. So, my experiences haven’t been a total loss. However, those were the only two matches I ever got on that app over a period of about two years.

In the meantime, my peers have all seemingly met their soul mates and are all either having kids or starting to think about having kids. For most people I know, the person they are married to was only the second person they ever dated. In fact, I know at least one couple that has been together since middle school.

I’ve been ok with being single since I made the choice to end my last relationship, and to be clear I don’t regret that decision. Following the conclusion of that relationship I’ve focused on improving my mental health and practicing self-care. While my life still isn’t perfect, I’m MUCH better off than I was 3 years ago.

However, as I’m getting older and my friends become less available to hang out, I’m starting to realize I’m lonely. That, combined with the specter of turning 30, is making me think about how to find a serious relationship again. I’ve read your old post about how you should “get off the dating apps” but I can’t seem to find viable alternatives. I’ve looked on places like meetup.com for inspiration and either events cost money, or they conflict with my work hours or the ones that seem to be interesting are all being attended by people who are in their 60’s. Honestly, I’m f--king frustrated and in my opinion the problem seems to be systemic. It’s the result of factors like the increasing power of tech companies, and the ever-growing cost of living. My folks haven’t been able to help me out. They remember back in their days when you would see someone attractive, flirt a bit and then ask them out on a date. That’s not how it works anymore. If anything, that approach feels like a social taboo. My mom has said she doesn’t understand my generation at all and I have told her that I don’t either.

If I’m doing something wrong or there is a resource available, I haven’t considered then please let me know. If I’m right and the problem is systemic, then is there anything I can do to improve my odds beyond advocating for long term political and social reform?

-Sincerely, Super Exhausted

DEAR SUPER EXHAUSTED: OK, I am going to tell you something that you’re not going to want to hear:

Your parents were right.

“See someone you find attractive, talk to them, flirt, ask on a date” is how you still meet people, even in the far-flung future of 2025 AD. That hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is where it’s all happening, not how.  

Here’s the thing that people keep getting wrong about dating apps: they’re nothing more than glorified introduction services. They are, for all intents and purposes, a singles bar in your pocket. They put you in the same metaphorical room with other people who are also interested in dating and meeting people and… well, the rest is ultimately up to you. Everything else – the match percentages, the algorithms, the boosts, flowers and so on – are sales pitches and attempts to increase the perceived value of the apps. You could try to skip the walled garden aspect and instead try something akin to an r4r subreddit for your city, where you may have no algorithm to fight against but still have to deal with upvotes and downvotes… but that’s functionally just the personals – proving once again that there is nothing new under the sun. ��But at the end of the day, the process is exactly the same as seeing someone on the street, in a bar or in class: you go over, you introduce yourself, make small talk, see if they’re receptive, maybe flirt a little if the conversation is going well and then ask someone on a date.

This is what trips people up; the apps aren’t magical, they’re just convenient. The only thing that’s fundamentally different from meeting someone in person is that you’re capable of “approaching” (i.e. swiping right, pinging, liking, etc.) far more people at a time than you could in person. You can’t carry on, say, four separate conversations while also saying “hello” to another ten people at a bar or hanging out at a mixer; you can on a dating app. But otherwise, the skills you need are functionally the same.

Now, this exchange comes with obvious trade-offs. For one, the apps have a vested interest in getting the customer to convert, and so they do things like paywall the people who you might most want to talk to. There’s also the fact that, as one person put it, you can’t photograph a personality; some people’s appeal doesn’t come across in still images, but in how they move and talk and behave. You can get hints of personality in the profile and in the photo choices, but it’s still next to impossible to get a full picture of who someone is and what they’re like until you meet them in person.

You also run into the issue that there’s a difference between someone who’s attractive and someone who’s good at creating a dating profile. Being good at being photographed, picking the right photos and knowing how to write a good profile are all specialized skills that don’t necessarily translate to being attractive or unattractive in person. It’s very similar to how a person could be an incredible songwriter but couldn’t carry a tune with both hands and a bucket and vice versa.

In fact, to take that further, there’s also the fact that there’re a host of signals and signs that affect whether you’re attracted to someone or not that you simply can’t detect without being in the same physical space as them. No dating app can convey the way they smell or the sound of their laugh when they’re delighted. You don’t see how they treat the waitstaff or how their eyes sparkle when they tell a joke. You don’t know how warm or stand-offish they may be in person or how their voice sounds to you or any of the other little hints and tells and body language and pheromones that affect attraction and connection. So, as a result: you get a lot of false positives – dates that don’t necessarily go anywhere or that fizzle out.

There’s also the fact that you’re exposing yourself to more rejection, precisely because you can carry on more conversations and approach more people; it’s nothing to do with the apps or people’s expectations or standards, and everything to do with math.

And yes, the swipe mechanic and reduced space for profiles does encourage shallower or less thoughtful connections; it’s in the app’s benefit to keep you mindlessly swiping until you get frustrated, and then to sell you tools that will supposedly alleviate that frustration. And if you happen to be someone who is popular on the apps, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by people who flood every profile with low �– or no-effort messages. As I’ve said before, the average first message from men on dating apps is around twelve to twenty-four characters. Not words: individual characters, including spaces and punctuation.

And now in the age of LLM plagiarism machines being widely available, even longer messages are zero effort and zero consideration as folks try to outsource their personality to chatbots with delusions of grandeur.

But like I said: this is why “how dating has changed” is more of an illusion than reality. The process and the skillset of “see someone, talk to them, ask them out” is the same. The problem is how little people actually try to cultivate those skills or to put them into active use. Because that’s the other part of the issue: if you want to get better at using those skills, you have to actually use them. And a lot of people’s dating struggles tend to revolve around all the ways they’re trying to avoid having to use them in the first place.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a – pardon the phrase – “target rich environment”, whether in person or online, if you aren’t going to actually go and talk to people, or if you haven’t worked on the skills necessary to actually make that connection. You still use those skills you’re going to struggle on the apps too – including if you get to the stage of actually meeting up in person, which is the part that folks often tend to forget in favor of maximizing matches.

And if you’re not practicing those skills in real life, they’re not going to improve. Which is part of why the process of getting better results on the apps is the same as getting better results meeting people in person: you use the skills. Otherwise, there will be no improvement.

And it’s not that hard to improve the skills; you talk to people, you do your best to get to know them, develop rapport and generally connect with them as a person. And that means that you have to be comfortable talking to strangers… otherwise they won’t stop being strangers. And that includes making new friends, not just finding potential lovers – something that should be of interest to you, since, as you’ve noted, you’re feeling lonely and it’s harder to meet up with your friends.

The reason why “approaching” has become a social taboo – it hasn’t, but that’s not the point – isn’t that people are turned off by it, it’s that people are assholes about it. Women, f’rex, aren’t inherently against meeting someone at the grocery store, the park, or at a MeetUp, it’s that much of their day is full of folks who see “existing in public” as a sign that those women exist for those guys’ consumption. A guy who has decent social skills, who reads the room and picks an appropriate moment to say “hey” is very different from a guy who tries to bulldoze their way into a conversation and sees her as an NPC in his game of life.

It’s very much the equivalent of having to deal with all the folks with clipboards or mixtapes demanding your time and attention and not taking “no thank you” or silence as an answer. If that was a significant portion of your daily existence, you would be on guard and far less interested in talking to strangers. Doubly so if half the time you were either trying to run errands and go home or had just had a lousy day and weren’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

This – incidentally – is also why picking your moments and being willing to take a pass is part of the skillset. Yeah, that sexy somebody in the produce aisle may fit the mold of “I don’t know anything about you, but you’re everything I’m dreaming of”, but the level of not just skill but effort to shift the mood of someone who’s had a s--t day or is exhausted and simply wants to get some zucchini to go with dinner and get home can be Herculean. Knowing how and when to pick your metaphorical battles is part and parcel of social calibration.

But all of this is to say that the in-person and online struggles tend to be the same; the only difference is that folks think that the apps are going to bypass all of the things that make them hesitate and make a connection happen where it wouldn’t otherwise. The apps feel lower risk because you aren’t trying to start the conversation in person, but as we’ve established, that doesn’t translate into better results.

If you aren’t good at the in-person side of things, you’re not going to do that much better on the apps. You still have to be able to engage a person, connect with them and get to the point where you and they want to go out and do something together.

The last thing I will say is that while developing the skill set is the most important part… you are also going to decide what level of friction, discomfort or sacrifice you’re willing to deal with and how you’re going to deal with it. Yeah, some of the meetups cost money; so do many singles mixers, speed-dating events or continuing education classes. And so – for that matter – do dating apps, with the subscription tiers, pay-to-play boosts and so on. You have to decide whether you’re willing to blow $15 on a door fee or to pay $25 a month (minimum) to Match Group.

Similarly, the friction may entail looking a little further afield – choosing to join a run club or an amateur pickleball league to meet new people with similar interests, rather than an event or meetup designated specifically for dating. This is, again, where the skills come in – including knowing when to shoot your shot and when to hold back. You don’t want to be the horny guy in the yoga class, but there’s a difference between him and the regular who makes small talk before or afterwards and gets to know people… and every once in a while, will ask someone out on a date when there’re some sparks.

So, while my general advice to you is to seek out group events or hobbyist groups – like the aforementioned run clubs and so on – that line up with your passions and interests, it’s going to be more important to spend time in those groups working on being a more socially skilled person, rather than looking for dates. This will take you a lot further, especially in the long-run, and you’ll make new friends and build new social circles that will help with the loneliness at the same time. And that will give you more opportunities to find someone who’d be a good match for you. After all, your special someone may end up being someone who you might never have seen or swiped on if you saw them on Hinge.

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: 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