DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a real bind.

I decided sometime in college and post-grad that I’m not a “relationship guy”. It’s not something I was 100% closed off to, but I decided it was not something I would actively pursue either. I’ve been in several casual relationships since then, some which ended ok and others not so great. But I remained fairly certain I was not ready for a commitment of any sort.

This has changed somewhat with the current woman I’m seeing, let’s call her M. When we first met, I had just gotten out of a casual relationship that ended really badly and left me very hurt. She basically ghosted on me and it really sucked cause we were very close. So when M mentioned that she wasn’t looking for a relationship, that it’s something she did a lot before but wasn’t feeling anymore, I was cool with that.

Then we had our first date, and I totally fell for her. We clicked on a fundamental level. We joked and laughed the entire time and I don’t think either of us stopped smiling for long. Not quite love, but I felt a strong connection and wanting for her. Usually I keep my options open when I’m seeing someone but I knew then I only wanted to see M.

Confession time: we do work together and she is technically one of my managers. I realize the risks in seeing someone you work with (or under) but I decided it was something I was willing to risk. We make it work for the most part and I’m only including this detail cause I feel it’s relevant to the situation.

We went on more dates and things were going great. I’m feeling these impulses I’ve never quite felt before, and I’m putting an effort to be romantic more than I ever have. It just flows naturally when I’m with her, and she seemed receptive to all of it. Little by little I started to open up to the idea of being with her long term.

Then one night I text M saying that I really like her. She responds by saying that I should know she’s not looking for a relationship or anything, that she definitely likes the time we spend together but wants to make sure we keep it casual.

After some brief thought, I told M I was cool with that, but I admit was kind of blindsided. Not because I didn’t think she meant it when she said didn’t want a relationship, but because I was under the impression from our interactions that like me she was maybe warming up to the idea of “being together”.

It’s also confusing because the way we interact when we hang out feels a little more than casual. We do what I would consider more or less “boyfriend/girlfriend” things: We go out on dates, we have dinner and drinks (sometimes breakfast). We snuggle a lot and don’t go just straight to sex when we spend time together. And the sex itself is great, and feels (to me at least) emotional and meaningful. We text almost every day. She also does nice things for me, and vice versa. I’ve bought her little gifts just to cheer her up a bit. One night after I had a truly awful day at work, she invited me over and talked me through it. She has a busy schedule and we both had work early the next morning but she let me spend the night with her anyway. None of this seemed to be a problem until I told her I really liked her. I admit that I became quite emotional over this as well, wondering if there’s something wrong with me, or if what I feel for/from her is “real” or imagined.

Truth be told we have only hung out outside of work six times in the last two months, though I do see her every day at work. We flirt and joke a bit but, since we have to be secretive it’s tricky. Are my feelings just moving way too fast? I just moved alone to a new city just under a year ago (she also moved out here recently) and I might just be bringing that baggage into this, plus the baggage from my last casual relationship.

M’s response made me pause and rethink what exactly it is I’m looking for. All I know for certain is that I want to keep seeing her, and doing what we’re doing. I figure I’m getting about 70% of what I would want from a potential relationship with her anyway, minus seeing her more often and literally calling her my girlfriend. And honestly, I do feel that she genuinely cares about me from how she treats me. And I know I genuinely care about her.

I just worry that “casual” to her might mean “I see an expiration date on us, and will leave when I’m bored”. But if it’s casual meaning “I want to keep things uncomplicated and not have to plan my life around another person”, then I can make it work as that’s more or less what I would consider a healthy kind of “casual”. I also don’t want to inadvertently get my hopes up for her changing her mind. I know some relationships start off casually, but I feel that hoping for that is an easy way to get real hurt.

Thing is, for this to work I have to actually tell her all of this and have the dreaded Talk. I just have no idea how to tell her everything I just said without totally scaring her off. What do I do Doc? How do I have the Talk with her?

Sincerely,

Doesn’t Wanna Ruin a Good Thing

DEAR DOESN’T WANNA RUIN A GOOD THING: So, I’m not going to go into the logistics of “here’s how many times you need to see each other to reasonably catch feels,” DWRAGT. The fact that you’ve only seen each other outside of work a few times doesn’t necessarily equate to the viability of a relationship – especially considering you see each other every day and are in almost constant contact. After all, long-distance relationships work without couples having X numbers of dates per month. Time spent together is time spent together, whether it’s under the aegis of  being “a date” or “couple time” or not – especially if you’re secretly banging on the regular.

Instead, we’re going to talk about what you should be doing about this.

Let’s start with the obvious, DWRAGT: there’s the possibility that she doesn’t have the same feelings for you that you have for her. People in relationships can have entirely different levels of feelings for one another. One person may be having the head-over-heels, followed-around-by-cartoon-hearts-and-cupids feels for someone, their partner may enjoy their company, love the sex and otherwise like them as a person… but not feel that capital-L Love. Or infatuation, really.

This isn’t inherently a bad thing, nor does this doesn’t mean that the relationship is inherently doomed – any more so than the usual fact that all relationships end until one doesn’t. There are relationships out there where one partner is considerably more invested than the other. As long as everyone is on the same page, is cool with it and commits to treating each other with respect, those relationships can work. It’s a matter of accepting that difference in commitment as part of the price of admission for that relationship.

These relationships tend to have shorter lifespans than ones that are more in balance… but length of time together doesn’t equate to the success or failure of the relationship.

Now let’s start with the next most obvious thing: you could very well have a different definition of what “casual” means from Em. Casual could mean “no expectation of monogamy”, or it could mean “we’re not moving towards moving in together/getting married/having kids”. It could mean “we don’t expect to see each other more than every couple of weeks” or “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

This is one of the reasons why it’s important to be clear and define your terms when you have any sort of “defining the relationship” talk. Assuming that your definition of what it means to be casual is universal is a very good way to end up having fights because you and your sweetie had entirely different understandings and one of you doesn’t see why it’s a big deal that they’re also banging someone else.

Now with all that having been said: it’s also important to realize that having decided your relationship was one thing doesn’t mean that it can’t change or grow from what it is now. After all: you are a different person than you were before; you used to be a “no strings” guy who’d really like some strings now. So it is with relationships. Friends with benefits  can turn into marriages, after all. So it’s not impossible that what you have now can change.

But the more important question is: what do you need right now? If you’re ok with the current situation, how long will you be able to live with it under the assumption that it will never change? If you knew with 100% surety that this would never be more than a 70% relationship, would you be able to deal with that for a month? Two months? A year?

Because unless you say something? That’s the situation that you’re looking at.

If you want things to be different, then you need to sit down and have a Defining The Relationship talk with her. Do you need more from this relationship than you’re getting? Then that good thing is going to end eventually… it’s just a question of how much frustration you’re willing to put up with until it does.

A relationship that isn’t right for you is like trying to cram your feet into a stylish pair of shoes that doesn’t fit. They may look great and you think you look like a badass wearing them… but that doesn’t change the fact that they just don’t fit and it’s gonna mess your feet up. You can try to double up on socks or stretch the shoes… but ultimately, your choice is either wearing shoes that damage

your feet, or getting shoes that actually fit.

If your relationship doesn’t match what you need from it? Then as much as it ending may suck, it’s an ending that needs to happen so you can find one that does work.

But you will never know which it is until you sit down and talk with M about it. You need to schedule a time to sit and have that awkward conversation. You need to explain just what you want, why you’re afraid to bring it up to her, why you think these changes would be better and what they’d look like. And then you need to say “…and how about you?” because every relationship is about negotiation and compromise, and that means that you need to give her the space to advocate for what she may want or need from you.

Laying it out like this – here’s what I need to ask, here’s why I’m afraid to ask, here’s how I think things will improve, how about you? – isn’t a guarantee that you won’t scare her off, or that she’ll be instantly cool with changing the nature of your relationship. But it will make it easier to get things out there and have an open and honest conversation about your needs and where this relationship is going… without the pressure of “make a decision right now.” That is far more likely to scare her off than “Hey, just FYI, my feelings about this relationship have changed, and I’m wondering if you feel the same way too.”

And if nothing else, keeping the channels of communication open are important. Because while she may not feel the same way you do, that could change. Now, it may not change either. But unless you two can talk about it? Then you’ll never know.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I’ve been friends with someone who we will call Alpha for two years. We have an odd friendship where we recognize that we both have feelings for each other but never act on them romantically, because I met him the same time I entered a relationship with my current boyfriend, Bravo. Originally Alpha admitted his feelings and offered to be the third in my relationship, but my boyfriend was uninterested in being poly and I wasn’t too sold on the idea either.

Despite this, Alpha and I were very close, he shared intimate parts of himself with me, while I typically shared in a more calculated way, to ensure boundaries for myself. I hate to admit that when we were together, it seemed as if we were a couple, but it was that way. Thankfully we caught ourselves in moments of intimacy where it could have been a problem, such as him almost kissing me once, and occasional cuddling. Nothing too spicy but still something that made me feel guilt ridden in regards to my current boyfriend. In between this time, he has a dated a few people and they never seemed to work on, always falling back on our friendship.

Recently, I decided enough was enough and that we needed to create firm, spoken boundaries. So I told him that we needed to cast away the odd, romantic side our of friendship in favour of something more platonic (still maintaining closeness but differently), in order to be fair to everyone involved. He agreed.

Then for a month and a half, he stopped talking to me. He was incredibly flaky. It was difficult to get a hold of him, or make plans with him. I confronted him about this and he explained that his old female friend, who we’ll call Charli, was back in his life and he started a new relationship with someone else, so he had been making more time for them. He apologized and assured me he would do better, we got back to semi-regular communication.

(Backstory on Charli: An originally close friend of Alpha for the past 5 years, who stopped regularly communicating with Alpha as she started a relationship with someone 2 years ago.)

Then he sent me a message explaining how much he loves Charli and how he isn’t sure how he ever got through life without her, along with how glad he is that she is back in his life. Charli is not his girlfriend, therefore he also explained how he isn’t sure how he was going to navigate his new relationship and his friendship with Charli.

This was incredibly hurtful for me because he did not at all acknowledge our background nor did he consider my feelings before sending this message, proclaiming a love for Charli, which he once denied. It also made me realize that our friendship and our closeness, didn’t start until after Charli and Alpha stopped talking. This made me consider that my presence in his world was a replacement for his friendship with Charli. Especially in terms of the previous romantic intimacies and him ignoring me once she came back into the picture/cut off those intimacies. I explained a small portion of this to him and told him that I needed space away from him to think. Despite claiming that this wasn’t the case, he agreed to give me space.

Now he made a post on Facebook about how love can be in many forms and how we need to consider that friendship isn’t a consolation prize and when to walk away from love and when to try again. All of this felt like a passive aggressive reflection on our situation and to top it off, Charli commented proclaiming Alpha to be the best kind of friend and praising him on his wise words.

What should I do Dr. NerdLove? Do I have a conversation about how his behavior isn’t fair but still try to make the friendship work? Do I cut him out completely? Am I being unreasonable by considering his actions as hurtful and dismissive? 

I’m at a loss with how to manage this.

Thanks

Caught In The Middle

DEAR CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: Y’know how I’m always saying “once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a message?”

Yeah, that doesn’t apply here. I know exactly what’s going on because I’ve done this myself.

What we have here is a serial Nice Guy – someone who will try to initiate and maintain a Schrödinger’s Relationship with a woman that pushes the boundaries of what could be considered a “platonic” relationship as far as he possibly can. This way he can try to edge his way towards the goal of bangin’ while still maintaining the plausible deniability of being Just Friends. Especially if she has a boyfriend.

Now, it’d be one thing if the two of you had always had this flirty, intimate friendship because there was always an unspoken attraction there, but you’re handling it like adults. And to be fair:  you did exactly that. You laid down some boundaries and said “ok, we can’t keep doing this if we’re going to be friends”. But he didn’t. Once sex was no longer in the picture… well suddenly he’s not that interested in being friends anymore.

Now, maybe I could square this with “hey, I gotta take some time to get right with this, I’ll be back” if this didn’t happen to completely coincide with Alpha’s relationship with Charli. Because this is where it hits a pattern I know especially well.

Dude has a bad case of Oneitis — the idea that there’s a One Perfect Woman for him and nobody else will ever match her and so he can’t let go. Dude can’t handle that his crush is dating someone else and so looks for his replacement goldfish. And when you collapsed the waveform of Schrödinger’s Relationship… well, time for him to find another goldfish. And now here he is, new girlfriend in one hand, Charli in the other. And I will bet you the price of an imported beer that if Charli gives even the slightest hint that he’s got a chance with her, his current girlfriend will be out of the picture faster than I can snap the bottle cap off that Newcastle.

Because at the end of the day: I don’t think he wants you and I don’t think he wants his current girlfriend. He wants Charli. The whole bit about “friendship isn’t a consolation prize” on Facebook? That’s him making loud, protests-too-much-me-thinks declarations about how he’s sooooo over Charli so that he can shove Schrodinger’s Relationship into that box and start the process again.

(Granted, her “awww, you’re so wise and sweet” is one hell of a subtle curve thrown his way, but hey, I’ve been there and done that and printed the t-shirts. Never underestimate the power of sexual frustration to change how you see reality.)

Now the big question here is: what do you do about this? And I guess it all comes down to just how you feel about the fact that it seems likely that he was using you as a substitute for Charli. If he can quit being an jackass about things and maybe be a legitimate friend instead of a habitual line-stepper… well, maybe you can make things work. People do grow and mature after all. But if you do let him back in your life? I’d tell you to keep a certain distance and see how he behaves. If he starts pushing the intimacy lines again – especially if this coincides with Charli dating someone – then it’s better to cut him loose. Better to end a relationship – one that you had legitimate fondness for – than to be is replacement goldfish until Charli comes back again.

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’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)