DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time reader here. I am sure that you have received this letter many times before however I have long been stuck in a dry spell which I can’t get out of, partly because of my many insecurities. I am a 33-year-old virgin, I have only kissed 2 girls till now, and I go on a date maybe once a year. They never lead anywhere, mainly because I don’t find anything of interest or excitement to say to them, or my social anxiety starts getting in the way.

It also does not help with the fact that when I am alone with my thoughts, I start hearing that voice in my brain which tells me that dating is not worth it. This culminates from the stuff that I hear from different sources about the s--t divorced men experience (Paying alimony, child custody battles etc.) because women are abusing their rights and particularly in the country I live in where divorced women only get heard and the husband is kicked to the curb by the law courts themselves. Or else this one ”make sure you get a prenup before you tie the knot”. Just to confirm this is not me s--tting on women …. there are divorced women who experience hell from their ex-spouses as well.

Even my social anxiety levels have gotten to the roof to the point when the weekend approaches, I start dreading it because I can’t find anywhere suitable to spend my time, especially in this day and age where everywhere you go, people are glued to their screens, does anyone know how to socialize anymore? Bars and restaurants serving overpriced food and drinks is another problem, especially when I am paying off a mortgage on my own. Nightclubs are a definite no go for me. Obviously, this does not help when nearly all of my friends have coupled up. I started going to the gym recently…. why I should bother socialising with hotties who spend 1 hour on a treadmill watching Netflix since it’s a clear sign to leave them alone? I should open a shop selling headphones come to think of it.

Tinder? Don’t get me started and although I get likes from hotties just to be clear however every time I have to fork out some Euro 20 to see who super liked me and then if I manage to arrange a date, it does not go anywhere.

I guess what I am looking for is that sense of connection with someone (it can be women, or a new group of friends who share my same interests) but I am stuck in this rut and just can’t settle my mind to working out a strategy which works for me. I am an introvert, I am particularly selective who I spend my time with however if I really like you, I will move heaven and earth for you and open up to you emotionally.

All these negative emotions are keeping me back and I really appreciate your feedback.

Confused with Dating

DEAR CONFUSED WITH DATING: Ok, there’s a lot to unpack in this, CWD, but I think we really should be throwing most of the suitcases away.

While there’s definitely some things you can work on that will help, I think the first thing you need to do is recognize how much you’re inadvertently reinforcing the problem.

The whole “s--t divorced men experience” thing is a prime example. Let’s leave aside that worrying about divorce courts and abuse of alimony or whatever is putting the cart so far before the horse that you can’t even see the horse any more… this is a time to consider the source before taking it onboard as gospel truth. You don’t mention what country you live in, but there’s an entire industry dedicated to inventing outrages about divorce that mostly relies on dispatches from Trust Me, Bro, Attorneys At Law and pointedly ignoring pesky details like “most men don’t ask for child custody and the ones who do tend to be granted it” and that should prompt some skepticism and independent research that goes beyond “well, DivorcedDude122 on TikTok said…” 

(And also, as an aside: pre-nups aren’t “here’s how you screw the guy over in the divorce” contracts, they’re how you determine things like “ok, I’m coming into this with these assets, you’re coming into this with these, we both leave with what we came in with and here’s how we’ll handle the assets we build or acquire when we’re married.” In other words: they’re meant to protect everyone.)  

The reason I point it out, though, is that this is just a reinforcement of your anxiety. Whether it’s accurate or not (I doubt it, but we’ll just roll with it), all that you’re doing is soaking yourself in negativity and bile from folks who are in a negative space themselves. It doesn’t help you, it doesn’t prepare you or forewarn you of anything, it just gives you yet more things to be anxious or angry about – and the anxiousness tends to fuel that anger.

This is why I tell people that they need to pay attention to what they’re paying attention to and how it makes them feel. If you’re constantly absorbing and engaging with content that makes you upset, nervous, angry or despairing, it’s going to affect your overall outlook. It’s going to become the filter through which you see everything, and that’s just going to reinforce all that hopelessness and negativity you’re already feeling.

So the first step is to take stock of what you’re feeding your brain. If it’s nothing but negativity, anger or resentment – even if you think it’s “educational” or “informative” – then cutting it out of your media diet will do you a world of good. But it’s going to be important that you replace it with things that actually make you feel good, hopeful, empowered and confident for the same reason; if it’s going to affect how you feel about yourself and about the world, then doesn’t it make more sense to choose things that will make you feel hope and assurance and optimism?

The next step is to consider how you’re spending your time and where. You mention that – social anxiety aside – that on the dates you have had, you can’t think of anything interesting or exciting to talk about. Part of how you fix this problem is to go seek out interesting and exciting s--t to do. If you’re spending most of your free time at home alone, you’re not going to have as much to talk about as someone who’s out playing amateur sports or pursuing hobbies or exploring their interests. Engage your curiosity and your creativity – find some things that interest you that you can’t just do at home, and spend time with people who are also interested in these things.

This could be almost literally anything. I’ve spent weekends taking classes or going to meetups about forging knives and picking locks, learning how to make cocktails or playing in pinball leagues and every time, I’ve come away with stories and have met cool and interesting people I might never have met otherwise.

(I also came away with a really awesome hand-made knife I’m really proud of, but that’s another matter entirely)

So do some searching around and find out what’s available around you that seems even halfway interesting. It could be anything from a book club focused on, say, mystery novels to learning how to cut and stitch leather – the emphasis will be on interacting with folks and sharing experiences together.

This is going to be a hell of a lot better for you and less stress-inducing than going to bars and clubs that you don’t like and spending your time not talking to people until you get fed up or your anxiety hits overdrive and you go home feeling like a loser. Finding events, hobby groups, meetups or classes that you like means that you’ll be in explicitly social spaces, places where people go for the purpose of meeting people. That’s going to make meeting people infinitely easier. The woman on the treadmill watching Netflix isn’t at the gym to meet someone; she’s there to work out and go home. Someone who’s at a home-bar mixology class is there to learn how to make an Aviation or Last Word and is going to be more interested in meeting other people who like craft cocktails.

Finding these opportunities means that you’re surrounding yourself with people who have similar interests (and in many cases, similar experience levels with the subject) and provide you not just with conversation fodder, but with interesting experiences and potential new friends. Meeting those people and starting to build relationships with them will help immensely with the social anxiety.

Now, will that be a little difficult as an introvert? Some, yes. But it’s been my experience that introversion and extroversion tend to be like muscles; the energy you expend is commensurate with how much time you spend in those situations. An introvert who makes a point of socializing on a weekly basis tends to have not only an easier time with how much energy they expend when they’re being social, but they also get better at managing their energy, so they don’t gas out early or as frequently.

And, not to put too fine a point on it: going out and doing stuff – not just trying to hit up the bars, but just going out and having a life – goes a long way to push back against those negative emotions. We’re social creatures; we’re not meant to hide in our 900 square foot caves, growling at anyone who isn’t our Grubhub delivery. We do best in packs and in communities. Having stuff that you’re looking forward to, activities you enjoy and people you are happy to see and spend time with is a huge overall mood boost.

Plus: the experience you get from socializing helps with the social anxiety. After all, a lot of social anxiety is about the discomfort and fear of the unfamiliar – the fear of doing something wrong or stupid out of ignorance. Being more social, even if it’s tough or awkward at first, helps you realize how much that fear is exaggerated by your brain.  

I’m sure at this point that you’ve noticed I haven’t said much about finding a date or a girlfriend. But I actually have. The skills that you use to make friends and chat with your classmates who want to know how to make Zombies and Corpse Revivers for their Halloween parties are the same skills you use to meet people you’d want to date. Stretching your social horizons and having a life are important parts of meeting people. It all contributes to your being an interesting person with perspective and experiences to share – someone that people will want to spend time with. It’ll make you feel more confident in unfamiliar social situations or talking with people you don’t know yet. And it’ll help you focus on people you’re actually interested in and excited to talk to yourself. And let me tell you, when you meet someone like that and you can relax yourself and enjoy being in the moment, the conversation will just flow.  

So the TL;DR of it all is to replace the content that makes you feel anxious, upset, angry or despairing with things that make you feel positive and hopeful. Get out of your house and find social activities and groups based around things that catch your interest. Use these as opportunities to practice and develop your social skills, meet new people and potential new friends, and let that help boost your confidence while reducing your anxiety. This’ll get you a hell of a lot closer to your goals than staying home, browsing rage-bait on TikTok and constantly refreshing Tinder and 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: I have been approached by another man in my local autistic self-advocacy group. He knows I’m a kinkster and wants me to help him enter the scene so he can find a kinky girlfriend.

The thing is, his digital footprint and the limited interactions I have had with him give off some serious Nice Guy/incel vibes. That’s not even getting into his politics, which are incoherent but very right wing-coded and drenched in military fetishization. He’s made a vague pro-dictatorship statement before.

I’ve been in the scene long enough to know what would happen if he entered it, he’d be at the very least shunned pretty quickly or banned. I’ve been pressured by third parties to bring him in, but I really think that he needs to do some internal work before he’s ready to do that.

When I mentioned this, I was told that I was “leaving him behind.” I do think this guy needs support, but I think sending him into the kink space as-is can’t be the right path. I obviously can’t stop him from going by himself, but I also don’t want to lead him to a situation where he gets tossed out because of his behavior.

Some folks in the autism community are working with him (my personal life is on fire so I can’t devote as much time) to improve his behaviors, but I think we have a ways to go before I feel comfortable exposing him to that kind of environment. I know it sounds paternalistic, but I’d rather position him for success than what I think would happen now.

How can I give this guy the support he needs without setting him up for disaster?

Red Flag/Black Flag

DEAR RED FLAG/BLACK FLAG: This is a thorny one, RF/BF. On the one hand, it’s admirable that you and others in your advocacy group want to help this guy. On the other hand, there’s helping and then there’s “helping”, where assisting this guy reach his stated goals is going to end up being a net negative for everyone else.

There’re a few things that leapt out at me in your letter that set off my Spidey-sense like a car alarm at 3 AM, and for a few different reasons. The most obvious was your description of him as “incoherent politics but drenched in military fetishization”. While that’s not automatically a red flag, I would be lying if I didn’t say it gave me concern; that’s a very similar description to many or the recent perpetrators of political violence. I obviously don’t know this guy, but it’s a pattern that would give me significant pause.

The other thing that leapt out at me was that you’re feeling pressured by others to bring him in. I wish you’d elaborated more on that – is it from others in your advocacy group? Is it from folks in the kink scene? Is it from peers of his who aren’t part of your community? And more importantly: are they dismissing or ignoring your worries about this guy?

I’m sure you’ve heard of The Missing Stair – a phrase coined by Cliff Jerrison to describe someone who’s known to be a danger in the community, but one that everyone basically ignores. The metaphor involves a sort of structural issue – such as a staircase with one stair missing – that’s a known hazard that doesn’t get fixed. Everyone who hangs out there knows to be careful going up or down the stairs and step or leap over the gap, so it’s not seen as that big of a problem…  right up until someone who doesn’t know about the missing stair falls and breaks their leg. The point of the metaphor is about how communities will sometimes ignore someone who’s a risk – if not an actual danger – because they see ‘fixing’ the stair as a bigger issue. Everyone knows to avoid the missing stair after all, so really if someone else gets hurt because of it, it was kinda their fault.

There’s a lot of overlap with one of the Geek Social Fallacies – specifically about how ostracizers are evil and you shouldn’t do it… and how this can lead to keeping people around who were getting ostracized for good reason.

This is why I’m bothered by the folks pressuring you to “bring him in”. I’m sure their intentions are in the right place, don’t get me wrong. I’m a little more worried, though, that they’re so focused on getting you to help this guy that they’re ignoring the potential red flags. If the end goal of “support our guy” end up blinding them to the way that this might cause harm to others, that’s a problem, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

The ”you’re leaving him behind” aspect is an example of this. It’s one thing to be offering a hand out to the people behind you when you’ve ‘made it’ (for however you want to define having made it), but it’s another entirely to do so uncritically and without considering who you’re giving a hand up to. If you’re right and this guy is incredibly unsuited for the community, then bringing him in would be introducing potential harm to others. I hate to go all Spock here, but this is a time when the needs of the many (to not have to deal with a Missing Stair) really does outweigh the needs of the few (the guy who wants a kinky girlfriend). “Leaving him behind” can seem bad, but bringing him along as is would be worse.

I do have to wonder if the folks pushing you are at all familiar and connected with the kink community, or if they’re coming to this from a place of relative ignorance of how kink spaces work. 

In fact, that’s a relevant question for this guy as well. Does he have any meaningful experience in kink? I don’t mean this to be a catch-22 setup where he needs experience to enter the scene in order to get experience, I simply mean whether he’s operating from a place of complete ignorance or fantasy?

Folks who are looking for a “kinky girlfriend” are often a lot like dudes who want goth girlfriends or geeky girlfriends – they’re often more focused on a fetish object than a person, and haven’t put a lot of thought into what that means beyond surface trappings. It may be worth exploring precisely what he thinks this would entail – not just issues of what kind of kink he’s into or whether he’s a top or a sub, but if he understands the dynamics of kink. A lot of folks get hot for the visuals of shibari or dominatrix outfits but forget things like negotiating scenes in advance, aftercare or even that a lot of kink doesn’t involve sex.

Does he think that kinksters are also indiscriminate f--k-monsters? Does he think that play parties are orgies with more elaborate outfits? If he does find a kinky girlfriend in the community, is he going to have a problem when she wants to continue doing scenes with other people?

Hell, has he considered that maybe he should separate his desire to explore kink and the kink community and his desire to find a girlfriend? It might be easier for him to get some experience under his belt by exploring the community solo and learning about kink in general, and then meet someone who’s not kinky yet. After all, a lot of kinksters discover they are, in fact, kinky, because they started dating someone who was kinky already and it grew on them.

I’ll be honest, RFBF: I’d be a little hesitant about bringing this dude into the scene too, simply on the basis of how everyone seems to dismiss your concerns while they push you to help him. And quite frankly, while helping him is an admirable goal… it’s not your responsibility to be the one to help him just because you’re the only one with a foot in both worlds. Wanting to help a fellow autistic person succeed and grow is great, but you’re not bound to do so no matter what. Especially if you have neither the resources nor the training nor the experience to actually help. 

But if you want to know the best way you can set this guy up for success – without burning yourself out in the process – is simply to help him socialize and find community in the physical world. The autism self-advocacy group is a good start, but the goal shouldn’t be “let’s get this guy ready to tie folks up and smack some asses” (or get tied up and have his butt beat black and blue), it should be “let’s get you some social skills and help you make friends who aren’t online weirdos”.

I’ve said before that the key to helping a lot of folks leave incel beliefs behind is to get them to go outside and touch grass, and I stand by it. A lot of the way that folks end up self-radicalizing is through isolating themselves to the point that online spaces are the only community they know. Getting them out into the physical world and interacting with people who aren’t terminally online is crucial. I honestly can’t overemphasize how important it is to have people in your life who see some of the online bulls--t you (the general “you”, not you specifically, BFRF) soak in and say “…wow, that’s really weird and not at all how the world actually works.”

Helping him make some friends, maybe join a pub trivia team or something… that will help a hell of a lot more than trying to do some sort of impromptu deprogramming. And if he can make some nice normie friends and start taking down some of that red-flag behavior… well maybe then you could say “ok, there’s a munch at The Green Mesquite this weekend, you should come meet some folks.”  

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 a 36-year-old man and I’ve been divorced for two months. My wife and I had been married for ten years and together since we were eighteen when we both had to agree that our relationship was over. The divorce was as drama-free and harmonious as you could want; it was a mutual divorce and there wasn’t a lot to do besides sign the paperwork and call it a day. We were and are still friendly, even as we had to admit that we didn’t love each other the way we needed to. All of our friends have been incredibly supportive and even remarked at how this was a model for how a divorce should go. 

Since the first time we actually mentioned the divorce word, I was sad and a little resigned but I knew it was the right decision for both of us. I’ve told my friends that I wasn’t happy about it but I was ok.

Doctor, I’m not ok. I’ve been hanging on by my fingernails and losing my grip. 

Now in the last month, my ex-wife has moved across the country for work (which was something we both knew was coming, even before we went to the lawyers) and I’m in a spiral. It’s not that I want my ex-wife back – I’m happy for her and she’s going to be much happier on the west coast than she ever was here. It’s that her leaving was apparently the last thing holding me together and now I’m freaking out. 

I haven’t left my apartment for days. I feel completely lost and confused and I don’t know what I should do. The idea of getting back on the dating scene is leaving me terrified beyond my capacity for rational thought. I haven’t been single for nearly half my life! I don’t know how to be single or how to be on my own. At least when my ex was still in the same city as me, I felt like I had a semblance of normalcy but now I feel like I’m clutching to a twig in white water rapids and heading for a waterfall. What’s wrong with me? Why am I not ok like I should be? What do I do? 

Please help.

On My Own

DEAR ON MY OWN: You’re ok, OMO. What you’re experiencing is entirely understandable and normal; part of why you feel like you’re spiraling is because you think you shouldn’t be feeling this. But that doesn’t make any sense; your world just came to an end, of course you should be feeling it! Yeah, the end may have been as gentle as you could hope for, but it still ended. That’s going to f--k with you and thinking it shouldn’t is madness.

Buddy, you were with someone for eighteen years. That’s half of the time you’ve spent on this planet where you haven’t been just one person, you’ve been one half of a gestalt entity that was your marriage. And then suddenly, that being fell apart, and now not only are you an individual again, but your other half is gone. If you were ok, then that would be the sign that something was wrong. That would be the sign that you stopped caring long ago, that you were never really forming that being that was both you and your wife, that you weren’t forming a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. The fact that you’re hurting is the sign of just how much you cared and how much it all meant to you.

It was easier to pretend when your ex-wife was still nearby, even after the divorce. Now she’s completely gone, and you’re seeing the negative space where she used to be.

It’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok that this is f--king with you. It’s ok that you’re feeling lost and confused and scared and twisted up. It’s ok to feel all of this and you should feel it.

But it’s important to recognize this for what it is. Yes, you had your world and your world ended. But the fact that the world ended doesn’t mean that this was the end. Worlds end all the time, but in that ending, a new world is born. You’re experiencing the shock of the new, the terror of the unfamiliar and the confusion of who you are and what your purpose is.

Consider that for the last 18 years, you have shaped your life around another person being there with you. Every decision you’ve made, every day you’ve experienced, every future you built were all built around the two of you. Now, suddenly, there’s just you, like before you merged your life with your ex-wife. But it’s not like before, because you aren’t who you were back then just as you aren’t who you were when you were married. You don’t know who you are now, because you only just got introduced to yourself. That’s why you’re freaking out; you’re still thinking like who you used to be and not seeing who you are now.

And that’s ok! This is all incredibly new and incredibly fresh. You’re still reeling from everything that’s happened, and two months is not enough time to get used to it. Honestly, even saying that it’s been two months is misleading; this didn’t truly begin until your wife was well and truly gone – not just from the marriage, but from your home, your city, your state. You need to give yourself a lot more grace and compassion because it just happened.

This is all normal. This is all completely understandable. You’re ok. You’re only just realizing how much has changed and change is scary.

The first thing I want you to do is reach out to your friends. Your friends almost certainly took you at your word that you were ok, and even if they suspect you may not be, they aren’t going to know that you need them until you tell them you do. Reconnecting with your friends and spending time with them is going to do a lot for helping you feel like you’ve got your feet under you and you’re standing on solid ground again. It’ll help bring normalcy back and remind you that you’re not alone – even though half of you is gone.

You don’t have to do much; just spend time with them. Feel the warmth of their presence, allow yourself to lean into them and just appreciate them. Let yourself laugh if you feel it, and let yourself cry if you need to let it out. The tears may outnumber the laughter at first, but that will change in time, as their love and affection will bring you strength and peace.

The second thing I want you to do is put dating aside. It’s not just that you’ve fully accepted your divorce, you haven’t even started the mourning process. It is way too soon to even think about dating; you don’t even know who you are yet! Dating right now isn’t about love; it’s about the fact that you’re still feeling this massive hole and you’re feeling an entirely understandable impulse to make that hole go away by shoving someone else into it. But that’s not going to fix it, because nobody will actually fit in that hole and despair and loss will seep in through the little nooks and crevices like rising damp. The hole needs to close on its own, and it can only do that as you work towards learning who you are now.

The third thing I want you to do is to focus on yourself. You need to heal and you need gentleness. What are the things that feed your soul, the things that make you glad to be alive? What is there that feels like the warmth of a sunrise against your skin and the smells like a spring breeze in your nostrils? These are the things you should be indulging, to soothe the pains and remind you that there’s still good in the world. These are the things that will remind you that you’re still alive and life is for the living, not for the walking wounded and the living dead. Focusing on these things will help ease the pain, clean the wounds and soothe the aches.

Give yourself permission to focus on yourself for a little while. You’re allowed to be a little self-centered and a little tender. You’re allowed to rest and recover instead of rushing back out into the fray. Like an athlete who’s suffered a critical injury, it does you no good to try to get back in the game when you aren’t healed. At best, you just prolong the time it’ll take to recover. At worst, you’ll only hurt yourself worse.

But I want you to understand: there will be days when you feel better, followed by days when the world comes crashing in on you like an avalanche. But as these days pass, there will come a day when you realize that you don’t feel so bad. You may only notice it by what you don’t feel – that pain that you’ve gotten so used to that you only notice it in its absence.  

When – not if, when – that day comes… well, that’s when you’ll be ready to start the process of dipping a toe back into dating and finding love again. And while I know it’s going to feel unfamiliar and intimidating, there’s nothing to fear. In the 18 years you were with your wife, you built a lifetime of experience. You’ve faced every conceivable scenario with her, allowed someone to see you in your most vulnerable and ugly moments and knew they still loved you anyway. You’ve had triumphs and failures and you came out better for it all. You have nothing to be afraid of, because you’ve seen it all and done it all and you know what you’re capable of. When the time comes, it will feel strange to do this again, with new people, and there will be times that it feels too intense or too frightening… but you’ve come through before. The person may be different but you know what you’re capable of because you’ve been there before, and you’ll be able to navigate it.

Sure, the new people will respond differently – some positively, and some negatively. But that’s ok too; this is how you’ll learn who’s right for you and who isn’t. You’ll learn who is someone to pass on, and who might be the person you will want to build with. And with time, the unfamiliar and frightening will become the known and you’ll recognize the territory much sooner and much more efficiently and stride across with that much more confidence.

But that is the future. For now, there is healing, there is mercy and there is the search for your peace. What you’re feeling isn’t pain, it’s enlightenment. You’re a new person now, with the benefit and wisdom of what you’ve earned before, stepping into a new world. It’ll take time to get used to it and to map out its territories, but you will get there.

You’re going to be ok. I promise.

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