DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been a reader for a few months now and I have had a… bizarre break-up recently that has left me with worsened problems.

My dating history already isn’t that great to begin with. Nerd in high school, which means the bottom of the social hierarchy. I got teased plenty about X girl liking me, which of course never turned out to be true. And even on the rare occasion that I actually had a crush on someone and confessed, I never got a nice rejection, it was always very mean. My first ‘relationship’ (long story for those quotes) ended because I got passed over in favor of a thieving drug addict, which I only found out because she canceled our weekend plans, met up with him and got her conscience acting up.

That was about 3 years ago and I hadn’t touched dating since on account of fear of betrayal, a generally kind of awful self-esteem and this inherent distrust of any woman showing interest in me. A few weeks ago, things went completely down the toilet as far as I’m concerned in the worst possible way. To make a very long story short, a woman who I met and was falling for hard (the first woman I’d been really interested in since the one mentioned above, mind you) led me on in a fake relationship for 2 months before I found out she was actually lesbian and was making me her unwilling and unknowing beard, a break-up which was every bit of nightmarish as it sounds.

The big question looming over my head for me is ‘where do I go from here’? I tried putting myself out there again and I’ve had women show interest in me but they all immediately get ghosted because I’m scared to death of it happening again. I keep getting that fear again of getting invested in someone only to get used and abused again like I’ve been before. It’s not rational, I’m more than aware but I can’t shake it. I want  to be able to trust my emotions with someone but I think my past won’t let me. What do I do?

Once Bitten Shy Guy

DEAR ONCE BITTEN SHY GUY: I’m sorry that all of this happened to you, OBSG. And honestly, your letter could easily have been written by me, back when I was in high-school. I had a lot of the same crap happen to me, down to dating someone – someone I met online, before online dating was even a thing – who ultimately ended up dumping me to get back with her scumbag ex.

And needless to say, I’ve had numerous dating “adventures” in college, some of which would have been enough to make me run screaming from the very concept of relationship like all of Hell and half of Hoboken were after me.

So here’s what I wish someone had told me about dating, especially when I was in high-school and dealing with all the attendant drama.

And that’s this: dating in high-school is bulls

t. The people who tell you that high-school is the greatest time of your life either peaked early and it’s all been down hill since, or they don’t remember what high-school was like.

High school is, hands down, the most terrifying and confusing time for someone. You’re always tired because you’re not getting enough sleep, your body is a toxic stew of constantly churning hormones that mean you’re the emotional equivalent of Space Mountain and everyone’s in the middle of the worst identity crisis of their lives. And it doesn’t help that kids are trying to sort out hierarchies and social dynamics based on concepts that they only barely understand, but are being executed with a ruthlessness that the Borgias would admire. Everyone’s terrified, nobody knows what’s going on, and folks are lashing out at everyone around them because it’s easier to hurt someone else than it is to admit that you are completely and utterly lost.

All of which is to say: the things that happened to you in high-school suck… but you need to let it go. All of the drama you went through, all of the heart-ache, all of the pain and the humiliation? None of that counts. None of that matters. So very little of it comes from a legitimate place, where people have made careful, rational decisions. It’s all monkeys screaming and throwing feces because they’re crammed in a cage with a thousand other monkeys and the loudest monkeys seem to at least have an idea what’s going on. The problem is that you’ve absorbed so much of what happened as valid – that this was at all about you and not the hellscape that is modern high-school – that you want to prove them all wrong. You want to show that you’re a sexy badass who’s loveable and deserving of love. And as a result: you tend to fall hard for people because… well, you want it that badly. You invest so heavily because you’re trying to prove to the world and the jerks you grew up with that you’re better than they said you were or could be.

Trust me, I know. I’ve been there, done that and based an entire career off of it.

Now, I’ll freely admit: it’s easy to say “just let it go”, as though you could just snap your fingers and things wouldn’t hurt any more. But part of why it still affects you is because you hold it close to your heart. You’re still picking at the scab the more you dwell on it. You don’t just say “yeah, that sucked, thank Zod I’m out of there,” you say “That was the worst time of my life and I’ll never get past it.” You say “This is the wound that can never be healed,” as you make Being The Guy Who Was Rejected in High School part of your identity. And honestly: that’s not you. That’s only who you are because that’s how you’ve chosen to see yourself.

You are long out of that situation. Which means you have a blank slate. You have a chance to start over and define yourself anew. You can decide that the things that happened to you are over, that they no longer count and now you’re on a journey to decide who you are and where you’re going from here.

And yeah: you’re going to get hurt. The world’s full of sharp corners and steep drops, sometimes you’re going to run into them. Dating is no exception to this. A

holes are gonna a

, you can’t avoid that. But while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. And part of how you avoid suffering, especially as you avoid people who would just use you like your ex did, is that you learn to maintain and enforce your boundaries.You have to stand up for yourself, instead of just accepting anything that comes your way in the name of having a relationship. You have to be willing to say “this isn’t acceptable, and I won’t be treated like this” to bad behavior, even if it means losing the relationship. You have to be your own first, best line of defense.

But more than anything else: you have to let go of the identity that you’ve adopted. You have to let go of the fear that’s holding you back. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, even though you’re afraid, because you can’t date without making yourself vulnerable. You can protect yourself, sure; you don’t invest emotionally in someone immediately. You give it time to get to know them and see if they can show they’re worth investing in, just as you’re showing them that you are worth investing in.

At the end of the day though, there is no reward without risk and dating is about taking risks. You minimize the risks as best you can. You prepare for the worst, even as you expect the best. But you have to decide that the risks are worth the potential rewards.

And trust me: when you find someone who’s right for you, who you just click with? Who makes you feel like you’re coming home, even though you’ve only just gotten to know one another?

Then you’ll find it really is worth it.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I need your help. 

I have an issue stemming from my past relationship. My ex-girlfriend cheated on me and lied to me in the worst ways possible, and I’ve never gotten any closure.

I’m with this new girl now. She’s really very nice and all. She’s exactly my type. However I can’t help but feel super anxious with her. For example: when she doesn’t respond to my texts for hours and says she’s busy with her new friends she made in school, I kind of lose my mind. I’d ask her to at least tell me about it but she feels that it’s controlling to make her tell me her every single move.

I also do get occasional anxiety attacks where I feel that she’d leave me anytime for someone better, like my previous girlfriend did. But, honestly. I know the problem lies with me as she’s never done anything to make me doubt her. She’s even introduced me to her sister, as well as her close friends as a way of reassuring me. But I still can’t get rid of the anxiety attacks and being clingy for her texts. It’s like I crave for her attention and when I don’t I get all weird and I wanna stop this so bad. Please help me.

Stuck In the Past

DEAR STUCK IN THE PAST: Here’s the thing about anxiety and neediness, SitP: it’s not about what the other person is doing, it’s about how YOU feel. And the reason you feel the way that you do isn’t just that your ex cheated on you, it’s that you took her cheating on you as a referendum on your worth as a person. And honestly? The fact that she cheated has very little to do with you and damn near everything to do with her. It wasn’t that you weren’t good enough, it’s that she was callous with your feelings. She hurt you, not because some better guy came around, but because she was an a

hole. We don’t take the opinions of a

holes into consideration, especially not a

holes who have no problem hurting the people who care for them.

So the first thing you need to do is give yourself closure. Look at your relationship with your ex, look at how she treated you. Accept that the way she treated you was her fault. She didn’t treat you badly because you deserved it, she treated you badly because she was an awful person and she chose to hurt you. Take all that in. Let it into you. Accept that this was on her, look at the remains of your old relationship and say “She was awful and thank God that’s over.”

Now look at your current girlfriend. Not only is she not treating you like your ex did, she’s going out of her way to talk you back from the ledge when you have these panic attacks. She has, been proving to you that she’s trustworthy and kind and gentle.

This is important because you’re going to have to do your part here. You know that you’re being an insecure bag of slop right now. You know that she’s right: demanding that she account for her movements throughout the day is unreasonable. But you also know that she’s not given you any reason to not trust her. You know that she’s been straightforward with you. You know that she cares, that she even has shared intimate parts of her life with you.

These are the things that you need to remind yourself of when you have these panic attacks. NerdLove’s First Commandment of Dating is as follows: Thou Shalt Handle Thine S

t. This is your damage, which means it’s on you to take care of it. It’s ok to ask for some reassurance on occasion when you’re being an insecure bag of slop, but you need to be the one who takes control of your emotions here. When you feel these panic attacks coming on, when it feels like she hasn’t texted you for hours, you need to take stock. Look at all the ways she’s shown you that she cares. Look at the ways she’s shown you that she’s trustworthy. Ask yourself which is more reasonable: that everything is fine and your girlfriend has her own thing going on? Or that something’s wrong and your relationship is in danger?

You know and I know that it’s the former. You just need to take a deep breath, relax your muscles, slow your heart rate down and remind yourself about this. She’ll get back to you when she’s less busy.

You’ll be ok.

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 not looking for advice for dating or sex but in relating to women as a loner, quiet, unattractive man. Specifically, at work. I’ve been reading several threads on Reddit among its female users that my kind of man is really looked down upon, even feared or looked at in disgust:

the socially-awkward causing them to feel “jumpy” around him

the virgin guy creeping them out 

the quiet guy ticking them off

several who felt the loners at the office were threatening to them due to the Oregon shooting

Which agree with my experience with women in the real world, and what they say in Twitter and Facebook and so on.

I really didn’t mind until yesterday, when my HR manager told me next week we were going to have “a talk” regarding my relationship with the female staff.

Now, I don’t treat women… at all. I try to avoid them. Since I started working 4 years ago female co-workers (except perhaps the mandatory-polite HR employee or recruiters) have been at best curt towards me. Which never bothered me, because that’s the relationship I have with women in general, both at college and outside. So I just ignore them and only just say “good morning” if I bump into them at the office kitchen or something and nothing else. Avoid even looking at them when they walk by me (and I make an EFFORT there, since I have terrible concentration and having them walk around my workstation all the time is really distracting). The few times I have to talk to a female coworker I do it in a polite, professional way, without betraying any sort of familiarity that might make them uncomfortable and jumpy or feel creeped out.

So when our new HR manager told me about this meeting I wondered if all those experiences these guys at Reddit talked about were real all along and it finally happened to me. I’m accustomed to being “the loner” and having women look down on me in social spheres or even try to avoid siting close to me in public transportation, but I never thought they would go out of their way to try to get me kicked out from work.

So what am I to do? Socializing with them is out of the question: I’m already 25, a kissless virgin with no friends or experience and, honestly, if it comes to being given the choice of being laid off or having to play the role of the pity-project or the laughingstock due to my inexperience and low social status, I’ll choose being laid off. I was hoping there was a way to just be ignored, or wondered if there was something that may have ticked them off about me. What could I have done?

—

Just The Guy In The Corner

DEAR JUST THE GUY IN THE CORNER: Ok, JTGITC, I get that you’re anxious and that you feel incomplete and depressed because of your relative lack of experience. It totally sucks when it feels like the entire world is sitting there silently judging you because you’re a little further towards one end of the bell curve or the other.

But I’m gonna be honest with you here, dude… you’re bringing a lot of this on yourself. It’s time to call in the bellhop because man we’ve got a lot of emotional baggage to unpack in this letter.

Let’s start with the obvious thing first: the fact that you’re a virgin really has nothing to do with anything. Being a virgin at 25 is relatively uncommon but hardly rare or unusual; it happens far more often than you’d think, for men and women. Whether you’re a virgin or not has nothing to do with your worth as a person, with your potential or even an indication of anything other than the fact that you just haven’t had sex yet. Period, end of.

The people who make the most fuss about a virgin being a shameful thing aren’t women, they’re other men; the idea of sex as demarcator of personal worthiness is part of the toxic masculinity package. Most of the women you’re going to encounter in your day to day life not only aren’t going to know whether or not your a virgin but frankly, most of them aren’t going to give a damn. 9 times out of 10, most of the people in your life really aren’t all that invested in whether you’re a virgin or not, and the ones who give you crap for it are proving themselves to be jerks.

Now, what are the people in your life going to care about more? Your attitude. The fact of the matter is, folks prefer being around positive people and avoid being around negative people because negative people tend to infect others with their negativity. It’s generally unpleasant to be around someone who responds to a “Hey, how’s your morning?” with a grumble and a f

k-off scowl. Same with the guy on the bus who looks like he’s imagining the best way to rip out the lungs of the next bastard who talks to him – most people aren’t going to want to deal with him, so they give ’em a wide berth. Someone who’s generally smiling and upbeat is much more pleasant to be around.

Frankly, there’s a lot in your letter that suggests to me that you’re the former, rather than the latter. It’s totally understandable that you might withdraw into yourself, considering how you feel about yourself; it’s a way of protecting yourself from being hurt by others. After all, folks can’t make fun of you or hurt you if you if you don’t let them in.  But now you’re faced with the classic Hedgehog’s Dilemma: nobody can get close because you’ve invested so much pushing them away, even if you aren’t consciously aware of it.

And of course, part of the problem with this negative outlook on life is that it very quickly becomes self-reinforcing. You treat yourself as though you’re worthless and you look for evidence that it’s true… and you’ll find plenty of it because that’s how brains work. It’s an intellectual fallacy known as “confirmation bias” – you’re basically doubling up on things that confirm what you already believe while discounting what you don’t, assuming you see it at all. Tracking down Reddit threads follows the same pattern; you’re going to only pay attention to the ones that fall in line with what you already believe.

Now let’s talk about your specific example:

The fact that you made people feel uncomfortable and ended up getting called into HR. Let’s start with the way you phrased things: that your co-workers “would go out of their way to try to get me kicked out from work.” I’m going to be honest here: I really doubt this. Yeah, there’re times when high-school never ends and even grown-ass adults can get all Mean Girls on others but frankly, those times are really rare. Most people don’t have the time, energy or interest for Machiavellian plotting against their co-workers; most of the time they just want to get through their day with a minimum of fuss.

On top of that, there’s not really anything your letter that inspires me to believe that your experiences happened exactly as you’re reporting them. You’ve got a pretty strong confirmation bias going here, and that’s coloring how you see the world and it’s blinding your self-awareness.

Before I get to your behavior specifically, let’s take a moment to examine the difference between intent and how it’s perceived. Fortunately, pop-culture has recently provided an excellent example in Rami Malek’s performance as Elliot Anderson in Mr. Robot. Anderson is, frankly, kind of creepy. He doesn’t mean to be; he’s socially awkward and clearly has anxiety issues. His behavior is off, in a way that makes people uncomfortable. It’s something of a shame because he’s got a good heart and he’s incredibly lonely. At the same time however, when people try to include him or connect with him, he pushes them away. He barely hides his contempt for most of the people around him and he’s still cold and stand-offish to others who’re actively trying to reach him. To be sure: it’s a defense mechanism. Deep down, he’s terrified of being hurt again by people close to him and he tends to keep people at a distance in order to avoid giving them the chance to hurt him. However, nobody knows that; they just see someone who makes them uncomfortable and apparently actively dislikes the people around him. As a result, people quite understandably see his behavior in a negative light. Meanwhile he tends to assume the worst in others, in no small part because that’s all he looks for. He looks for proof that his dour outlook on life is correct and – naturally – finds it, which just encourages him to be even more pissy to the people around him.

I suspect that, as with Elliot Anderson, the way you’re behaving isn’t being perceived the way you think it is. You may intend to come off one way – trying to avoid any contact beyond the bare minimum in order to ward off creeping people out – but I rather suspect you’re coming across much like the guy in the third link: surly, sullen, stand-offish and pissy. This is doubly true if you’re only behaving like this around women. People are going to notice when you’re only giving the go-away behavior (even if you’re not intending for it to come off that way) to women instead of men and that’s going to give them the impression that you really dislike women. So, yeah, that’s going to make people uncomfortable, and not unreasonably so.

So I know this is all coming across as pretty harsh. You’re probably feeling pretty defensive right now. Believe me, my intention isn’t to make you feel like a loser or a creep, because I really don’t think you are. I think you’re scared and hurt and lonely and you really don’t want to be, and I want to help you. But before I can help, you have to see the real issue and why your behavior and your attitude is contributing to the problem. And that’s not gonna be pretty. But I promise you: get past the ugly parts and life is gonna get better. Because now we’re going to talk about some practical steps to help fix things.

Ready?

My very first suggestion to you is that you quit reading Reddit, or at least threads and subreddits that focus on issues like social anxiety and being an older virgin. Despite it’s claims of being the front page of the Internet, Reddit is not a representative slice of the population. Hell, it’s not even statistically significant. Trying to gauge women’s opinions via Reddit threads is a giant mistake; it’s like trying to diagnose your cough via WebMD. All that’s gonna happen is that you’re going to convince yourself that you’ve got cancer and Venusian Death Lung and drive yourself into a panic.

Quite frankly, I think this is a large part of your problem: you’re continually reinforcing this internal narrative you have about being a pathetic virgin. When you surround yourself with people who only say “yup, it’s pathetic, people hate us and there’s nothing we can do about it”, you’re setting yourself up to believe that there’s nothing you can do. And that’s not true at all.

My next is to go into that HR meeting and listen. Don’t go in assuming that people are trying to get rid of you; all that’s going to do is put you on the defensive and make things more difficult. Instead, go in with an attitude that you want to fix things. This will totally change the tone and make things far less confrontational. Ask questions: what about your behavior made people uncomfortable? What could you have done differently? When given a chance, apologize for making people uncomfortable – not a “I’m sorry you were uncomfortable” passive-language non-apology but a legitimate “OK, I did this, I’m sorry” apology. After you’ve apologized, explain that you’re socially anxious and you tend to avoid people because you get nervous around them and worry about making them uncomfortable. To be sure: being socially awkward isn’t an excuse but giving the context for your behavior – as you’re trying to improve and make amends – can provide much needed context and help people realize what you’re doing.

Following that: talk to HR and see if they can recommend a counselor. I’ve written a lot about overcoming social awkwardness but you have some deep-seated issues that are best sorted out by talking with a professional instead of your fellow travelers on Reddit. This doesn’t mean that you’re broken, defective or otherwise bad; it just means that you’re carrying around a lot of pain and you would probably benefit from talking to someone who specializes in helping you deal with that pain. If your company’s HR department can’t recommend someone, then there’re a number of other places you can turn to find affordable mental and emotional health care.

Believe me, I understand how you feel. You feel like you’re trapped, that you’re stuck living a lousy life and being a defective person. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be. As dismissive as this may sound, a lot of your problems really are in your head… but that’s actually a good thing. This means that you can identify the problems and – with time and effort – overcome them. You have the power to make your life better. Right now things suck, but you can make things better. Get through this immediate problem – it doesn’t have to be as dire as you think it is right now – and then get some help.

Take a deep breath and let down your defenses.

You can feel better. You can be better. You can overcome this.  You’re going to be ok.

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 need your help. 

I need advice on whether my girlfriend is cheating on me.

We are in a long distance relationship; she is about 2 hours away and we see each other every other weekend. We’re going on 3 months now. The reason I think she maybe cheating on me is because for awhile she didn’t think it was important to communicate with me throughout the day. After we argued about that she’s gotten better, but she’s still acting shady. When she is around me she never wants to drink because she gets crazy, but when she’s not around me she will get drunk with her best friend. When she does go out, she doesn’t tell me and I don’t hear from her at all. The only way I know is when she brags about it the next morning. I’ve asked her why she doesn’t talk to me when she’s out and what she says is that its rude to text in front of other people, but she text in front of me all the time.

She is always talking about her past and it finally got to a point were I told her that I don’t wanna hear it, makes me think she is missing something. Whenever I try to talk about my problems with her, she gets defensive and takes everything to the extreme. For instance when I was talking to her about the drinking thing she said “Fine, I won’t drink and hangout with my friends anymore”. I love her and she says she loves me but I don’t know anymore. I just don’t wanna waste time with the wrong person. Everybody I talk to tells me she is, but I don’t know what to believe. Please help!

Totally Really Lost

DEAR TOTALLY REALLY LOST: there’re no signs that she’s cheating on you TRL, just a whole lot of signs that it’s time for the two of you to break up already, because holy God you two aren’t working out.

So let’s take this apart a little, shall we? To start with, you’re both doing the long-distance relationship thing wrong. When you’re in a long distance relationship, communication is key. It’s difficult to maintain a romantic connection over a distance; even video chatting isn’t going to be the same as when you’re in person. But one of the first things you have to do is establish your communication needs. Some people prefer to talk once a day, others like an end-of-the-week download with sporadic texting or IMing. But expecting constant contact throughout the day is going to be pushing things, even for the most “shmoopy” of couples.

Just on a practical level alone, there are going to be long stretches during the day when it’s just not practical to be texting, sending Snaps or chatting over Facebook. Sometimes, even amongst chatty types (and I speak as one of them; it’s a damn good thing that I have unlimited text messages) you’re just going to not get a prolonged conversation or even an immediate response. If you’re going to freak out about periods of radio silence over the course of the day, then you’re not ready for a serious relationship. If you can’t handle being out of contact with her, then it’s no longer about how much you care about one another, it’s about your needing constant reassurance and validation from her.  A relationship isn’t a deposition, especially one as brief as yours is. You’re not her parole officer and she’s not required to check in with you before she goes out with her friends, nor is she obligated to constantly be providing you with updates when she’s out having fun.

Now to be fair: talking with her about your needs and working to find a compromise that works for the both of you is a step in the right direction. It’s just too damn bad that everything takes about five dozen backwards after that. I’m going to be honest: neither of you are covering yourselves in glory here. You’re being clingy while she’s coming off as incredibly rude and inconsiderate.

When it comes to understanding people, there’s looking at what they say and looking at what they do. And right now, what your snugglebunny is saying and doing? Two very different things.

Let’s take the drinking issue. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean that you’re welded together at the hip, nor does it mean that you aren’t allowed to go out and party down with your BFF when your significant other is around. But it’s another thing entirely when it’s a Jekyll and Hyde situation; claiming not to like drinking because it makes her get wild, but going out and closing down the clubs when you’re not around is a sign that she’s not being straight with you… especially when she’s bragging (your words) about all the crazy times she had. You know. Those crazy times she told you she doesn’t like having.

Similarly, there’s her telling you that she thinks texting in front of other people is rude and then texting other people in front of you. Even allowing for the fact that this is the excuse she’s giving you for not taking time away from being with her friends to text with you (which is pretty impolite), the fact that she’s doing something that she believes to be rude to you tells you a little about how much she respects you. The way the two of  you argue isn’t any better; the passive-aggressive “well fine, I guess I just won’t hang out with my friends any more!” response is  just a way of shutting you down without actually addressing the issues at hand. 

This isn’t a healthy relationship for either of you. The best thing for both of you is to break up now. Even at the most generous viewing, she’s selfish and rude and you need to do some maturing so that you can get to the point where you don’t need to be in constant contact. Let her go find someone else and spend your time working on yourself so you can find someone who is right for you… and you can be right for her.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I got dumped unexpectedly last night by a woman I’d been seeing for about two months. I liked her quite a bit; I made it clear to her that I liked her, and that I wanted her, and that I was fine with moving at whatever pace was comfortable for her. I wasn’t exactly planning the proposal, but I was definitely at a point where I was thinking there might be some potential for something serious. 

When she broke up with me last night she said that she thinks I’m very sweet, and she has a blast when she’s with me, but the romantic spark never appeared for her. I was a little surprised by this–less than a week ago we enjoyed a pretty heavy makeout session that ended only when we agreed with some difficulty that it might be a good idea to slow down. I had originally worried I wasn’t building physical chemistry with her, but once we got to the point that most dates were ending with an hour or so of kissing and cuddling I figured I was in good shape.

So, what I’m wondering is: was there something I should have done differently, or done more of? Is this just a case of two people with a fundamental incompatibility? In short, did I screw this up, or is this just a case of something better discovered sooner than later?

Feeling Confused

DEAR FEELING CONFUSED: You didn’t do anything wrong, FC. The long and short of it is that you weren’t compatible and that was never going to change.

You wanted something that she just wasn’t going to be able to give; you wanted a relationship and she just wasn’t feeling that with you. You may have had the physical chemistry –  she was digging the sloppy make-outs –  but the emotions just weren’t there and there wasn’t any sign of that changing. Don’t get me wrong: she definitely liked you. After all, she was going out of her way to give it time to see if things would develop, but (and I hate to devolve to cliche) she just didn’t like you that way. Sexual attraction is great and an important part of relationships, but it’s not enough for a long-term relationship on it’s own.

There comes a point in a relationship when you have to check and see if you’re on the same page… and frankly, you weren’t. You wanted something serious with her and she just wasn’t feeling the same way about you. And so she ended it. And it sucks, I know. God knows I’ve been there. But in the long run… she was doing you a favor.

I realize that it doesn’t feel this way right now. It’s still fresh and raw and you have no real distance or perspective on the matter. It’s actually a testament to her feelings for you that she was willing to break up with you when she did. But by cutting things off early on, she was saving you both from greater pain down the line. Sticking things out would have ultimately meant that she was leading you on and that wouldn’t be fair to either of you; all that she would be doing is postponing the inevitable and ultimately making the pain worse when you eventually realized that the entire time you thought you were building to something serious, she was only sticking around because she was afraid to hurt you. That is the sort of pain that ruins people for a long, long time.

So she was cruel to be kind, breaking things off even though she liked you, liked making out with you and had fun with you. She risked the pain now to save you from worse later on. And that means a lot. She was being a better friend to you than you realized. Take comfort in that and realize that you’ll be in a better position to find someone who is on the same page as you.

Good luck.

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