DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been experiencing frequent anxiety attacks triggered by my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These compulsions often create irrational beliefs that feel real, such as the thought that if I fail to perform a certain action, something bad, like death, will occur. Although I am aware that these thoughts are not grounded in reality, my mind convinces me otherwise, making it difficult to resist them.

Recently, my anxiety and OCD symptoms have intensified. They often manifest together, leaving me overwhelmed, emotional, and increasingly isolated. My relationship with C, whom I deeply love, has also become a trigger. Despite her constant reassurance that I am enough for her and that she loves only me, my intrusive thoughts create scenarios — such as her being unfaithful — that feel vivid and convincing, even though I know they are not true.

C’s participation as a muse in upcoming events has heightened my insecurity. While I understand that I cannot and should not control her choices, my thoughts still make me anxious, particularly when imagining other people, especially boys, approaching her. Although I trust that she will not entertain them, the mere idea distresses me.

The Over-Thinker

DEAR THE OVER-THINKER: I wish you explained what you mean by “participating as a muse in upcoming events”, because I am honestly scratching my head as to what that would entail.

But frankly, that’s more about my curiosity than anything else. Even if I could say “well, by participating in this, she’s doing X and Y which precludes Z, so that’s something you don’t need to worry about”, that wouldn’t actually help. This isn’t about rational thinking or trusting your partner, this is about unwanted and intrusive thoughts – ones that you know are irrational and unrealistic but that still bother you anyway.

This is where I have to reiterate that this is a job for a mental health professional, not me. Dr. NerdLove, after all, is not a real doctor, and even if I were, this is an area where you’re almost certainly going to want the assistance of a therapist and likely a psychiatrist or medical professional who could prescribe medication to help with the anxiety.

What I can do, though, is tell you that I’ve had my own struggles with those sorts of unrealistic-but-still-troubling thoughts and feelings. My ADHD combo plate came with a side of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which had the “lovely” effect of leaving me in a near-constant state of being convinced that not only were people mad at me but that every relationship I had was a mouse’s whisker away from crumbling all around me. And even when there was no rational evidence for this, my cursed-ass brain would invent it, turning even the most anodyne and banal interactions into something fraught with layers of meaning.

So, y’know, I get it.

Now, again, I’m going to emphasize that anything I recommend is based purely on what I did to get through the worst of it; it took getting diagnosed and medicated to really turn down the volume on my RSD. So, I can’t stress enough that this is a discussion to have with your therapist.

The first thing I would suggest is to mentally remind yourself that what you’re imagining isn’t real. You know yourself enough to know that you have these intrusive thoughts and that they’re not based on logic, evidence or even reality. It’s just brainworms, gnawing at your insecurities and dripping poison all over your imagination. Reminding yourself that these are irrational anxieties, not truth, can help give yourself a little breathing room. That, in turn, gives you an opportunity to say “but if I look at this like I was giving advice to my best friend who was dealing with this situation, I would point out that C is doing X and regularly does D, E and F, which someone who didn’t care about me wouldn’t do.”

That doesn’t make the thoughts go away, but the push-back bolstered by actual behavior does help make them less intense, less immediate and easier to name them and to turn your attention away. Naming those thoughts has the benefit of separating them – they’re not things that are happening, nor are they things that define you, they’re just thoughts you are having at that moment. That level of separation helps cut the intensity and the “reality” of them. Similarly, turning your attention away is easier and more effective than trying to force them away. It’s a little like mental judo; it’s easier to redirect energy than it is to stop it. By naming the thought and redirecting your attention elsewhere, you deflate the thoughts’ power over you and cut off bandwidth to them. No feeling, no matter how intense, can last very long without being actively fed; by reducing the bandwidth you give them, you reduce the amount of time they linger and the impact they have on your immediate feelings.

The next thing is to remember that part of what makes these thoughts so stressful and hurtful is that our brains treat what we imagine as being real. An argument we imagine with our partner hurts just as much as one we have in real life, in no small part because it feels real to our brain. We are, for all intents and purposes, hurting our own feelings.

However, the fact that it’s happening in our imagination and that our brains treat it as real also gives us the ability to change them. So, you want to stop being a passive observer of these imaginary scenarios. Instead, you should take control of them and defang them by taking away the things that make them so intense or painful. When you realize you’re having these thoughts, remember that you’re the one who’s generating them and take control… and then make them ridiculous. Fighting a fear tends to reinforce that fear, but laughing at it makes it impotent.

Let’s say that you have a moment where you imagine someone hitting on C at an event and you’re having a hard time turning your attention away. Rather than trying to push past the thought or forcing it away, change it. As the scenario plays out, imagine that the guy’s voice keeps getting higher and higher like he just sucked down a balloon full of helium. Or maybe change his face so that he looks like Garfield. Imagine it playing out the same way except now it’s in black and white and upside down and everyone’s talking in Mid-Atlantic accents like it’s a film from the 1940s. Picture the dude dressed like a clown hobo or wearing the silver-tinfoil suits of an old Flash Gordon serial. Imagine a sitcom laugh track that plays every time he finishes a sentence.

The more you inject unreality and unserious things into the image, the less “real” and less intense it becomes. This lessens its ability to affect you, simply because the absurdity undercuts the emotion behind it; your brain can’t take it seriously as a threat when there’s a live studio audience hooting and jeering at the dude after all or when he looks like an outtake from Robot Monster. 

I would also suggest looking into some self-directed cognitive behavioral therapy exercises; CBT is famously very effective at dealing with OCD issues and intrusive thoughts. Having some techniques in your back pocket to deal with these moments can be very helpful.

As I said though: these are stopgaps, things that I used to hang on until the moment had passed. This is very much a matter to bring to a therapist, not a loudmouth with an advice column. Hie thyself to a shrink who deals with OCD and intrusive thoughts, TOT. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll start getting these moments under control.

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: Thanks for all your work. I’ve learned a lot from your blog and what you’ve written in your blog.

I’ll begin by saying that I’ve noticed that there are a lot of crossovers between business and dating. To succeed in business, you need to be comfortable with rejection and taking risks. You need to be proactive, outgoing, and persistent. Like dating, it’s a numbers game.

I see a lot of dating advice that recommends increasing cold approaches, pursuing your own interests, and networking. Regarding cold approaches, many of those who work in sales do not rely on cold calling alone for good reason: approaching random people does not weigh the odds heavily in one’s favor. You really need to approach a lot of people to make up for the poor odds. I don’t rule out cold approaches entirely because I think they’re great for building confidence, but they aren’t a reliable way to get dates. Many people have already pointed this out. Pursuing your own interests and networking are self-explanatory. I am working on both of these. Unfortunately, my interests are kind of niche (classical and biblical scholarship, philosophy, history, fitness, RTS games, and self-help) and I don’t know where to go to find people that also like these things. I will admit that I am not great at finding groups, so any suggestions would be most welcome.

I will now speak of a less-commonly discussed business and dating crossover: marketing. One coach I’ve read compared online dating to digital marketing, which I thought was spot on. His advice makes a lot of sense: hire a professional photographer to take some great photos, post them to PhotoFeeler to receive anonymous feedback, and use the ones with the best ratings. If your profile isn’t getting any matches, change up your photos and revise your textual prompts – data over drama. 

To continue with the marketing analogy, a lot of businesses invest heavily in market research. They put a lot of effort into understanding where their potential customers are and what they are looking for. A business could be selling a great product but, if the right people don’t know about it, it won’t sell or at least won’t sell as well as it could. Marketing is instrumental in generating leads. Many salespeople rely on leads, which help put them in contact with people who at least have expressed some interest in what they are selling. Typically, leads are generated through marketing (both inbound and outbound) and networking. 

In dating, I can imagine networking functioning as a form of marketing as it “broadcasts” your reputation, but that’s a long-term solution rather than a short term one. Relationships and social networks take a lot of time to build. So, having said all this, are there ways to market/advertise yourself outside of dating apps? Additionally, what are the best ways to generate “leads” in dating? If I have a particular demographic of women in mind, what are some ways to appeal to them? On the other hand, is there a way to find a subset of women that would be really interested in dating me (an untapped market)? How might I find the women whose type I am? My goal is having lots of high-quality women who are interested in dating me. I have a good product: I’m handsome, very fit, disciplined, ambitious, financially responsible, successful, a good listener, genuine, and kind. I have things I’m working on, of course, but I still think I have a lot to offer. I also am OK on my own; I’m not looking to fill a hole in my life called girlfriend (I made that mistake before).

I’m eager to hear your thoughts!

Building Market Value

DEAR BUILDING MARKET VALUE: Well, this is awkward. I’ve talked about thinking about marketing in a dating context before and now I get to talk about how taking that too far is both limiting and missing the point. I’m sure my own petard wouldn’t hurt me…

Before I dig into this, I feel obligated to point out a couple of things, BMV. The first is that – like many other men who struggle with dating – the list of qualities you mention at the end of your letter aren’t qualities that are going to work to get you dates. Attraction isn’t passive, it’s active; you are working to attract someone, which means you have to be active in doing the attracting.

Second, the goal you state – having a lot of “high-quality” women interested in dating you – is where you’re going to stumble. While I’m always in favor of folks having the dating and social life they want, whether it’s long-term monogamy, kitchen-table polyamory, a series of short-term, low-commitment flings or even just a series of one-night stands, these only work when it’s about the people involved having a genuine connection… even if that connection is “ok, I think we have enough chemistry to make casual sex worth the risk.”

What you’re describing isn’t about dating, it’s about ego, and people are going to pick up on that very quickly. I hate to be the one to tell you this but people who are interested in dating are looking for someone who wants a relationship of some sort. What they’re not interested in is being a name on a list, having to compete like they’re auditioning for a role or serving as one option in a rotation of arm candy. And while there are women who are fine being decorative accessories, this is because this arrangement benefits them in some way beyond “you get to be seen with this guy!” which ain’t on offer here. So if you want to have better results, I would strongly suggest that you think about your motivations and interests and adjust things accordingly.  

Third: everything you list about your interests reads libertarian/right-wing under even a generous interpretation, and that’s also going to affect your prospects. I’m sure you’ve seen all the Discourse about how women are refusing to date right-wingers and MAGA types. This shouldn’t exactly be a surprise; you’re going to find very few people who are interested in dating someone who sees their personhood as an inconvenience and who actively or tacitly supports eliminating their rights and agency. So, y’know, that’s going to inform the supposed “untapped market” of who’s going to want to date you; it’s going to be limited to folks wanting to date someone right-wing or libertarian. Under the circumstances, that’s going to be a – to lean into the metaphor – small and highly competitive market, where demand is far outstripping supply.

Pair that with the goal of having your circle of women competing for you and I think you’re setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment.

Now with that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of your question.

As I said, I’ve written before about thinking in terms of marketing yourself, especially on dating apps. I still stand by this to a degree – it can be a handy guideline for how to craft your profile and how to avoid a lot of the common mistakes guys make. But there’s a difference between using something as a sort of writing prompt to spruce up your profile and some best practices to show yourself off to best effect and thinking that everything about one discipline transfers cleanly – or at all – into another.

One of the biggest issues when you taking thinking like this past “helpful way of thinking about things, but that’s it” is that you’re making the mistake of treating people – both the ‘product’ and the ‘leads’ – like abstract concepts instead of individuals, and this sort of thinking always leads to trouble. If you try to craft your product to fit a particular market, then what you’re ultimately doing is creating inauthenticity, which turns people off. Think of how people respond when corporate social media accounts start jumping on memes or joining the trend bandwagon. This is almost always seen as being the end of things, simply because now it’s no longer an organic creation of a particular community, being shared by folks who either are part of that community or who genuinely enjoy the creation. It’s become a cynical marketing ploy at best, inauthentic and even a little insulting in how pandering it feels. So, trying to craft the product to fit the niche runs a strong risk of creating the dating equivalent of “how do you do, fellow kids?”

And it’s very hard to create authenticity if you’re not already part of that niche. To use an example – and to fold a meme into the proceedings: everyone thinks they want a big titty goth girlfriend until she wants to do goth s--t. They’re interested in the aesthetics – the clothes, tattoos, the perceived deviancy and echoes of ‘exotic’ sexuality – but less so the person underneath. Folks love the corsets and dramatic makeup and hints of BDSM but are far less cool about, say, wanting to turn her spare bedroom into a Victorian conservatory full of pinned insects, vintage medical equipment, snake and bird skeletons, amateur taxidermy and dead things preserved in jars of formaldehyde.

It’s the same as the supposed Manic Pixie Dream Girl fetish – dudes want to date someone who they think will make them a “better” person, with bonus blow-jobs. They don’t want the reality of dating someone who’s varying flavors of neurodivergent and whose quirks and adorable foibles become less adorable when they’re not in service of that dude’s self-improvement. The relationship they imagine is one that’s entirely in service to them, not about a relationship with that person specifically, with both the benefits and drawbacks that come with any relationship. It’s the “good parts” version, the one that doesn’t come with inconveniences or frustrations or days when s--t’s going badly because they’re out of spoons and struggling to get their Adderall prescription filled.

Just as importantly, if you’re focusing on a particular ‘market’ or demographic, you’re also focusing far more on what you think you want, instead of who you’re actually compatible with. I watched this happen frequently in the pick-up scene with dudes who wanted to date strippers. They wanted the clout of dating someone who was seen as being both desired but also “difficult” to attain. They were almost never ready to deal with the reality of dating someone who lived a dancer’s lifestyle – from the hours, to the personality types, to dealing their own feelings about watching other dudes try to grope their partner while she gives them a lap dance.

On the personal level, I tried to be the club guy for a long time before realizing that I’d spent a lot of time and money on things I didn’t like, pursuing people who didn’t match well with me but would’ve made my bros jealous. As I’ve said before: I was a lot happier and way the f--k healthier once I stopped and started leaning into who I was, rather than who I thought I was “supposed” to be – that is, trying to fit into the target market, instead of realizing that the two simply didn’t have enough overlap.

So rather than doing “market research”, it works far better to know yourself and the sort of person you would be most compatible with – not just in terms of surface issues like hobbies, but their ambitions, values, long-term plans and goals and overall lifestyle. You don’t want to be looking for “untapped” markets or “people who might be interested in dating you”, in no small part because that doesn’t mean that you will be interested in dating them. And unless you’re just looking for ego-fluffing and arm-candy, that’s just wasting their time as much as yours.

Focus on knowing what you want and who you would be compatible with and use that information to find the places where they’re most likely to be. Not only will that be a more efficient use of your time and energy, it’ll also mean you are more likely to actually enjoy yourself while you’re out trying to meet people. That makes everything else easier – after all, it takes far less effort to do things you enjoy and it means that other people are more likely to enjoy your company.

The next thing to understand is that the market analogy starts falling apart pretty quickly when you’re dealing with individuals… and you are dealing with individuals. You can’t date demographics or market share. You’re dating people, and people are complex, messy and defy easy categorization. Everyone, even folks who share most of the same culture and interests, are going to have individual tastes and desires and circumstances, which is how you end up with a hell of a lot of “hear me out…” over various people one wouldn’t think of as objects of desire. Brad Pitt may be the ur-example of someone held up as peak hotness, but you’re still going to find metric f--ktons of women who wouldn’t bang him with a borrowed vagina and Michael B. Jordan to do the pushing. Meanwhile, many of those same women will talk about all the depraved things they would let Matt Berry do to them.

The last thing is that “marketing” in the dating sense is down to word of mouth (i.e. networks) and personal “sales” (i.e. talking with people). Folks have tried the broadcast advertisement ideas before; personal ads have been a thing since the invention of newspapers, figures like Romeo Rose and others have put up websites and billboards advertising themselves and influencers and online personalities like Aella have tried to parley niche fame (or infamy) in an attempt to crowdsource finding a relationship – often with offers with cash rewards. These are all incredibly inefficient at best, when they’ve “worked” at all.

The fact of the matter is that the closest anyone has ever come to “marketing” someone to the dating market that wasn’t either through personal recommendations or interacting with people directly involved things like movie studios playing up stars’ bachelorhood or the media writing breathless gossip fodder about whether someone would finally “land” some celebrity. But this wasn’t marketing for the celebrity’s benefit, it was to sell tickets or newspapers. They were the ad, not the product. So unless your marketing plan involves “become famous”, even in low-grade, specific-niche fame (well known on the NY party circuit, etc.) you’re really not going to find a way to make it work for you.

So you’re basically looking at “people talking you up to their friends” or, y’know, going out and meeting people yourself. And in both of those cases, success is going to be contingent on how you make people feel. It’s great that you’re successful… now go tell someone your take-home salary and see if she wants to go on a date with you. Then try making someone laugh or feel special or just enjoy her time with you, instead.

This is why I keep hammering the “the traits you’re focused on aren’t the traits that are going to help you”. Even if we step past the “these are things men care about” aspect, the fact of the matter is that some of the traits are the sort of thing that only come up over time, in the course of a relationship, not “here’re my selling points”, and many of them are ones that can only be demonstrated, not told. Lots of folks talk about being a good listener; very few of them actually listen.

Similarly, people mistake attention for attraction; it’s like when people focus too much on maximizing matches on dating apps instead of focusing on connecting with people. Peacocking in its various forms (including being conventionally attractive) can get attention, sure, but getting attention isn’t the same as keeping it or turning that attention into attraction.

Folks aren’t going to tell their single friends to hit you up or offer to set them up with you on looks or salary. They’re going to do so because they think you’re a good guy who’s a good match for their friend. And they’re not going to do that unless you’ve shown them that you’re a good guy. Similarly, a dude who’s classically handsome but rude or off-putting may get initial attention from someone at the bar or club, but their behavior will kill any attraction their looks might have helped with. Meanwhile, the sex-gettingest men I’ve known have had a wide variety of builds, facial features and jobs… but they’ve been great at making women laugh and having a good time with them. They lived interesting lives, had lots of things to talk about but also genuinely liked and were interested in people – not just women but people. That was their “marketing” – interacting with folks and those people having a good time with them. Everything else – whether it was a friend saying “hey, you should meet my friend Bert” or getting someone’s number at a party – came from there.

All of which is to say: relationships aren’t about capitalism or an exchange of goods and haven’t been since we stopped arranging marriages between members of the aristocracy. While thinking in terms of marketing can be a helpful way of highlighting some best practices and avoiding pitfalls in specific contexts, expanding it further isn’t helpful. Focus less on markets and more on learning how to connect with people and how to make them feel good with you. That’ll work far better than trying to find underserved customers or raising market value. You’re dating a person, not figures on a balance sheet. 

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: 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