DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I’ve been reading to your column for a while now and really like your approach to handling communication within a relationship. I have a question for you as both a perpetual worrier and former long-term single lady. I hadn’t been dating for the better part of the previous 3 – 4 years due to past damage from bad relationships (narcissistic partners, self-esteem and self-image issues, not feeling good enough, etc.). I went to therapy and got a lot out of it: a new job, a new apartment in the city (Chicago), a pet cat and a boyfriend all during last year. It felt like a series of huge milestones and I’ve been having an amazing time with my current boyfriend ever since.

Based on the past advice of my therapist, I tried to hold back on some of the behaviors before that lead me to be too clingy which has helped out tremendously. He has different views than me politically, which I’m trying to factor in towards trying to understand him better and appreciate his history more. (I’m a Democrat from the Midwest, he’s a Conservative from the South who moved up here for work a bit ago.) We have so much fun together and get along extremely well but now that we’re at the 6 month mark, we’re getting accustomed to being at each other’s places all the time and have been considering moving in together. (Convenient as he’s my upstairs neighbor at my apartment. I know I know, it sounds weird but we both thought about it for a while before actively dating in case it would make things weird between the two of us.)

So this is the point where my question comes into play: I get caught in my own head often due to internalized self-doubt towards a lot for things like job interviews, friendships and now this. We say ‘I love you’ regularly, have an active sex life, cook together all the time, are supportive of each other, communicate openly about what’s bothering us, my parents love him and everything. But there’s still that annoying voice in the back of my head that makes me assume the worst and that ‘everything isn’t real’ and ‘I’ll just screw it up sometime soon like I always do by being too needy, clingy, distant, etc’. It’s that awful niggling feeling in the back of your mind that insists on sowing a seed of doubt that keeps building. I wish I knew how to shut it up. I don’t want to assume it’s going to end badly or anything like that, lest it become a self-fulfilling prophecy which will make both of us feel awful.

Is this a standard thing that happens after dating seriously for a while? My last long relationship ended in 2014 so I’m doing my best to break my own past habits to feel more confident and secure.

Thanks, 

Anne Nonymous

DEAR ANNE NONYMOUS: You’ve got two issues going on AN, and they’re both intertwined like mating snakes.

The first is that you’ve had some bad experiences with previous partners, and they’ve left emotional scars. The second is that you have low self-esteem and it’s causing problems.

One of the things that people tend to not realize about issues like neediness is that needy behavior is almost always based around fear. Most of the ways that people act needy in relationships all revolve around assuaging fears and anxieties. This is why, for example, someone with neediness issues will over-commit to a relationship too quickly; they’re afraid that this may be their last chance for love and so they try to lock it in as quickly as possible. Always wanting to be around their partner at all times is born out of the fear that if they let their partner out of their sight for a moment, they might meet someone better.

That’s a lot of what you have going on right now, AN. You’ve been hurt before and you have a hard time believing in your own value, so you worry that your boyfriend will realize he could do better. So on the one hand, you want to cling to him like a lovesick barnacle, lest a good thing get away. On the other, you also recognize that doing so will push him away. So you try to force yourself to not be clingy.

Problem is that the clinginess is the symptom and not the cause. Trying to suppress the behavior is good, but trying to suppress the emotions that cause the behavior makes things worse. The key to actually resolving these issues is to embrace your inner kung-fu hero. As any martial artist will tell you: it’s easier to redirect force than it is to try to stop it. The same is true of negative emotions. Instead of trying to force yourself to not feel or ignore those feelings, you need to do some emotional aikido.

When you’re feeling these emotions bubble up, start by noting and naming them. What, precisely are you feeling? Is it fear, where you’re expecting a specific outcome that you want to avoid, or is it anxiety, where you’re bothered by the uncertainty of a situation? Is it jealousy, where you worry that someone will take what you have? Is it a sense of feeling worth less as a partner than other people? This can seem weird, but simply being mindful of your emotions can help dampen the negative impact on you.

Next: pay attention to the language you use to describe how you feel. Language can be deterministic and the way you talk about things directly changes how they affect you. Don’t say that you are anxious or that you are afraid or jealous; that defines your emotional state as an integral part of who you are. Instead, say that you feel anxious or jealous; feelings are inherently transitory, after all. You never feel one way all the time. Even people who suffer from chronic anxiety or phobias don’t feel them 24/7. Telling yourself that you feel, instead of you are, is a reminder that this is a temporary issue that will pass.

Now that you’ve defanged so much of the impact these feelings have, interrogate them a little. What, precisely, caused you to feel this way? Was there a particular trigger, or did it just bubble up from your subconscious out of nowhere? If it was something specific, then look at it as dispassionately as possible. Is it possible that you are looking at it in the worst possible light because that confirms your anxieties? If your friend were to describe this exact scenario as happening to them, what would you tell them? Again: mindfulness here works to help train you to recognize your triggers and how to tell when you have an actual problem and when it’s just your jerk-brain dripping poison in your ear.

Another part of how you deal with that nagging voice? Trust that things are exactly as they appear to be. Part of how low self-esteem and doubt gets you is that they make it impossible to actually believe your partner when they tell you how they feel. “This compliment doesn’t mean anything, they have to say it.” “They’re only saying that to make me feel better.” Accepting that there are no hidden agendas, that your boyfriend is being honest with you when he talks about how much he enjoys being with you, helps dilute those little drops of poison.

And finally: accept that you’re worth being loved and have a right to be happy. A lot of those negative beliefs come from believing that you aren’t allowed to love or be loved.

One caveat: if you’re still having serious doubts and or obsessive negative thoughts? Then it may be good to go back to that therapist who helped you out before.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  In September of 2015, my girlfriend/fiancee of five years told me that she didn’t see a future for us. We talked, cried, yelled, cried again, talked again, until we finally ended things. I grabbed some things from the closet, packed them into my backpack, put my key on a shelf, and walked out of the door. 

If I’m being entirely honest, this was a long time coming. When our relationship was in its infancy, I made a few major mistakes in the form of talking to other women online in a sexual manner, and even talked to them about possibly meeting up. I never did, but that doesn’t matter. She couldn’t possibly have known that we didn’t, and she would just have to trust my word on it. However, after catching me doing this a few times, that trust had understandably dissolved.

The last time she caught me was a little over a year into our relationship. To this day, I can’t say what caused me to do this. I haven’t done it since. I chalk it up to being some kind of fucked up kink. 

Before I met my ex, I was well on my way to getting a lot of priorities in order. She even helped me reach many of my goals at the time. However, after the mistakes, I couldn’t muster up the motivation to do things. I stopped working out. I stopped putting as much effort into college. Hell, a lot of that effort was used to calm her down most days. Any argument, big or small, could set her off into thinking I may be cheating.

When things ended, I fell into a deep depression. I immediately went out and tried to find a rebound. I found a regretful one night stand, and then spent the next two years seeing neither hide nor hair of a relationship or anything resembling one. I spent night after night huddled onto my bed, binge watching Netflix while eating my sorrows away. I ran out of financial aid, and ended up having to drop out of college. I hopped from job to job, never finding anything that I felt motivated to work hard for, despite normally thinking that any job worth doing is worth doing right. 

Then, I started seeing people again. I had moved in with some roommates, and being around them helped me muster up a bit of confidence. I started seeing people again, and found this one woman who I thought was amazing. We didn’t have a ton in common, but we really enjoyed spending time together. The sex was great, the chemistry was great, but she didn’t want to have a relationship with me. She’d get to points every once in a while where she’d say she was starting to see things happening, but then she slowly stopped wanting to see me. It hit me pretty hard, because it started off really great, but fizzled out way too fast. To be fair, we were spending the night together a lot, but it wasn’t one sided. Eventually, she moved on to another “friend”, and I faded into obscurity.

My car broke down about seven months into starting a the best paying job I’d ever had. Then, I had to quit that job, because I couldn’t make it in to work. I got a job back at a place I used to work at in college, but I ended up needing to move out into a one bedroom with a coworker who bailed on me—and our job—only a couple of months into our lease. Luckily, I had started moving up at work, and I’m now able to pay for all of my bills by myself. Unfortunately, this also means that I can’t afford to save up to get another car.

For the past few months, I had been seeing someone. She was understanding, considerate, and comfortable to be around. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that attracted to her, and the sex was mediocre. It was weird. Even though we had barely started doing anything, it felt like I was at the end of a fading relationship where the passion was gone, and it was like that from the beginning. We talked about things, and she said she wasn’t really feeling anything either. So, we mutually ended things.

It’s been about a month since that ended, and I just can’t motivate myself to date or even get myself into a situation where I could date. I’ve gained back a lot of weight, but I have no motivation to exercise or readjust my diet. I keep meeting women I like, but I have no motivation or confidence to speak to them about anything other than in a casual/friendly manner. I can’t really even motivate myself to do anything except keep up with the basics. I go to work, do my weekly chores, maybe play some video games or binge a show, then I go to sleep. I hang out with friends, but most of them are couples, and the other singles in the friend group are all guys, and I’m not romantically attracted to men. I’m not as depressed as I was, but I’m still deeply unmotivated.

I just don’t know what to do to get myself motivated again. I just turned 31, and I’m worried that if I don’t figure things out soon, then I’ll just be alone for the rest of my life.

Stuck in Neutral

DEAR STUCK IN NEUTRAL:  Y’know SiN, I think you’re in a similar boat to AN up there. You’ve had a lot of shitty things happen to you in rapid succession and it’s taken its toll on you. The problem is, unlike AN… I don’t think you’ve really stopped to process or deal with everything. That’s going to fuck with you.

Now keep in mind that Dr. NerdLove is NOT a real doctor but… a lot of what you’re describing sounds a lot like the symptoms of chronic depression.

Depression is something I’ve wrestled with for most of my adult life, and it took a while for me to realize that I was having a problem with it. One of the mistakes that a lot of people make is that they tend to assume that depression is “the blues” when in reality, it’s often better described as “the grays”. It’s less feeling bad for yourself and more not feeling. You’re drifting through your life like a grey specter. You feel worthless, in the descriptive sense rather than the pejorative. It’s not that you’re bad – though that’s frequently part of it – but that you have no worth. Nothing is worth doing, life doesn’t have any real meaning and you just have no real motivation to do anything. You find a few things to fill the hours, even though you don’t take any joy from them, but otherwise, you just exist.

Part of what’s especially pernicious about depression is that you feel guilty about having it. You look around your life and recognize that hey, things aren’t great, but you really don’t have a reason to be depressed. Since you can’t point at any one thing that can justify those feelings, you feel like you’re doing something wrong. You feel like you should be able to just drag yourself out of it. But you can’t. And so you feel like a loser for feeling bad.

But I’m here to tell you from experience: you really can’t just grit your teeth and dig your way out. You need help. Sometimes that help is talk therapy. Other times that help comes in the form of CBT exercises. And still other times that help means medication. But the important part is getting that help.

You don’t need to be talking to a loudmouth with a blog, SiN, you need to talk to a mental health professional. Don’t worry if money is tight; most therapists will work on a sliding scale basis. If you can’t find someone in your area, you may want to try a service like Amwell and arrange sessions over Skype.

But get that help, SiN. That will help you dig your way out of the hole you’re in and help you find your motivation 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:  love your page, and love reading the advice and never thought it’d come to this but I could use some help. Apologies in advance for the length of this letter.

I’m 23, currently completing university and about to start full time as a software developer, at the company I currently work at. I’m really looking forward to being free of assignments and exams, and starting my working career.

I have a colleague at work. He actually started after me, but I’ve been part time all year finishing uni, so we only met a few months after he started. This is his first job in industry, and I get the feeling he’s a bit awkward with communication. He’s a pretty good, and productive, programmer, but he gets anxious easily, especially when he makes a mistake.

Originally I thought we’d be good friends (we both like anime, although different genres) – our workplace is a full of great people, and I have plenty of them on Facebook. So I added him, a mistake on my part, and at first the interactions were normal. Suddenly he sent me a rambling message, confessing to have a crush on me and being depressed about it, being hurt every day and ending with asking me to delete it and pretend it never happened. Of course, I deleted it and told him not to worry about it, you’ll get over it (my friend said I should have not said it wasn’t a problem). He persisted in asking me if it was deleted, after I said it was. He also unfriended me on Facebook.

And I thought that was the end of that. Only he messaged a few months later, asking me why I was not accepting his friend request. I have ignored all his messages from Facebook since the first incident. But he messaged me at work, through our work channels, asking to meet with me privately on my birthday. I asked him to book a time on my calendar – I’m the ‘senpai’ after all, if my juniors need help I want to be available to them to ask for help. Anyway he was calling me out to confess again. He felt we both needed ‘closure’ (I had mine the moment I said ‘you’ll get over it’!). Anyway, he gave me a gift which I later returned as I didn’t want to accept anything…

For me being called out at work was inappropriate, and I approached my manager about the issue. Before the meeting, my colleague sent me a couple of long messages, asking me to let him know if things were awkward, how he could not be a toxic employee, that he was terribly sorry, asked me to keep it secret. I showed all these to my manager. My manager was really nice about the whole thing. He said he was happy I felt comfortable enough to speak with him, and that they would follow my lead on how to handle the issue, and they don’t want to do anything to make me uncomfortable and I definitely shouldn’t be uncomfortable at work. All I wanted was for the issue to go away, I didn’t want it escalated, we have a good team and my colleague is part of that. And he seemed to understand why he was in the wrong, and it seemed over, so that was that. And my manager said to come back if it happens again…

So recently, my colleague sent me, and subsequently deleted, several really long rambly messages via our work channel again (though on the weekend). I don’t know what prompted them, except maybe the news I was coming back full time. The first demanded I explain myself for slights such as ‘not responding my facebook messages’ and ‘returning the gift’, if we were going to work together he needed these actions justified, he was super hurt. It felt pretty angry. The subsequent message was a watered down version of the first, with an appended ‘I know you are a nice person… any issues are probably misunderstandings’. The final message said he wouldn’t send any more messages, but if he did to ignore them. I feel he shouldn’t be sending any messages at all?

Sorry for this incredibly long exposition. I want to go bring this up with my manager again, but I don’t know how to do it. If my manager asks how I want it handled again I really don’t know. What I want is for this problem to go away. Is there something I should have done differently? We work on the same team so I was doing my best to ignore things and make things not awkward, but was it the wrong way to deal with it? I’m uncomfortable that he keeps sending me these messages, but more in a ‘why can’t you keep these thoughts to yourself if you are just going to keep sending and deleting them this is really annoying’ kind of way. It stresses me out thinking how I will approach my manager and deal with this issue, especially because I feel like I’m saying ‘here is a problem I brought up before, I’m sorry I’m bringing it up again, I don’t have any pre-prepared resolutions’. Especially because any action will clue my colleague into I told someone – what if he gets angry? Or scared? He seems so emotionally unstable sometimes… I’m even stressed about writing this here incase my colleague works out I did and does something drastic to himself.

No one tells you how to deal with this stuff. I’m a not-unattractive female studying IT, I’m familiar with guys liking me, and I’m familiar with ignoring the issue and hoping it goes away (very rarely do they approach). But normally I don’t have to keep working with the guy, and normally they aren’t this… flip-floppy.s I want him to learn that this is the wrong way to approach people, but I don’t want to be the one telling him what he did wrong and why it was wrong – it’s not my job to teach people this stuff?? I don’t know what to do and I could really use some advice.

Thank you for your time.

Stuck on Slack

DEAR STUCK ON SLACK: Every once in a while, we have a debate about whether someone is creepy, or just awkward. Buried within this is the assumption that being awkward means that one should get – if not a pass – then at least some leniency on the creeper label. However, this assumes that the fact that someone’s awkward means that he isn’t pushing boundaries and that people should tolerate it with a smile and a gentle correction.

Well, here we go again. You all know the chorus so sing along with me: socially awkward isn’t an excuse. The fact that someone may not be the most socially aware or fluent doesn’t mean that everything they do is tinged with innocent naïveté. Sometimes you can be a jackass and awkward at the same time. Dude may be awkward, but he also knows he’s not supposed to behave the way he does

So here’s the thing, SoS. If you’ve read my column before, then you may have heard me talk about Schrödinger’s Date – when a dude tries to get someone to go out with him on what is both a Date and a NotDate at the same time until he decides which is more likely. Your awkward colleague is doing something similar – call it Schrödinger’s Confession, where he gets to tell you how he feels and also not do so with his whole “delete this pretend it never happened” schtick. It’s his attempt to have it both ways; he gets to FeelingsDump on you but also not have to deal with the potential fallout of having confessed a crush like someone in a bad shoujo manga.

It’s emotionally manipulative as hell, especially since he seems to think that he can appeal to your sense of pity and make you give him a chance because you feel so sorry for him instead of, y’know, asking you out on a date like a grown-ass adult. But that manipulation doesn’t end there. He’s trying to leverage the idea that you somehow need to attend to his feelings and worries into having even more contact with him to discuss his pantsfeels, which just gives him even more chances to try to somehow wheedle you into a relationship. This is why he’s getting all cranky with the fact that you returned his gift and that you won’t talk to him; you’re not playing along with the script he’s got going in his head. In his mind, you’re supposed to be touched by the depth of his feelings, charmed by his awkwardness and eventually realize that he’s the guy for you.

Except a) that’s not how this works, b) there’s a huge difference between “adorkable” and “boundary-pushing-creepo” and c) “no reply” is a reply.

The fact of the matter is: he’s pretty aware of how he’s coming off to others. Either he’s decided to lean into it, or he’s convinced himself that he has some sort of “get out of responsibility free” card somewhere in the deck  Case in point: his deleting his various messages (hey there, read receipts) and requests for you to ignore him. He’s hoping that by saying “go ahead and ignore me” he’s getting you to agree that it’s all ok, water under the bridge and you’re not going to talk to your manager again.

And that’d be one thing if it weren’t for the fact that this is the, what, 6 separate times he’s gotten weird at you.

Which brings us to your question: what do you do about this?

And my answer is simple: you do what your instincts are telling you to do: go talk to your manager. You don’t (or at least, shouldn’t) need to “prove” that you’ve done things “right” here. You told homeboy to stop messaging you and you’ve been ignoring him since. This isn’t on you. You’re not responsible for his actions and it’s pretty clear that telling him “no” isn’t getting him across. And since you can’t swat him across the nose with a rolled up newspaper, you can and should go to the folks who have the power to tell him to back the f

k down. Dealing with this sort of thing is part of being a manager – especially before someone invokes the magic phrase “creating a hostile work environment” and rousing Upper Management from their eldritch slumber.

And since this is something that apparently needs to be said: you are not responsible for his actions. Got that? Tattoo it backwards on your forehead so you can see it in the mirror every morning. Shave your head if you need the room.

You are not responsible for his actions.

Whether he’s creeping on you and sending messages via the office Slack channel or threatening to burn himself in tribute to his precious office waifu, you are not responsible for what he does. He – and only he – is sole party responsible for his behavior. You don’t need to manage his fee-fees for him, no matter how much he tries to get you to do just that.

Dude is creating a disruption at work and he needs to learn. It’s not your responsibility to teach him. You’ve got a job, and you need to focus on that. Go report this to your manager and let them bring the hammer down.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  So, its a long story but this is what happened, and I’m not sure what to do.

About a month ago, a very attractive girl moved in to my share house. I was away at the time, but when we met, I felt like we got along very well. In many ways she is my romantic ideal (tall, dark haired, gothic, beautiful, an emotional mess). At the time of when she moved in, I had a girlfriend at the time, and we’d been dating about 3 years.

Now I knew in the back of my mind how attractive I found this girl I lived with. I told all the guys at work about her, and my close male friends about her, and they all seemed to agree that she was very attractive. She used to work for the same company I work for now, and almost all of my tenured colleagues knew who she was too.

A few weeks ago I broke up with my girlfriend. I decided to call time on our relationship due to a lack of emotional availability. I loved her, and cared about her but knew our relationship was at an end.

About 48 hours after I broke up, I was drinking with my friends to drown my sorrows. They asked me jokingly if there was anybody on the horizon for me, and I jokingly said “well there’s this one girl I live with”. And proceeded to show her Instagram photos to the guys, who joked that I should do something about that.

I passed out drunk and stoned, and eventually found myself awake at 3am. I was bored, so I pulled out my phone. By some miracle, my phone was on her Instagram still, and I saw she had added to her story. She was still out partying at 3am. I realized that if I drove home, I may be able to get home at the same time.

I drove home. When I got home, got changed and realized she wasn’t home. I lost hope and went to bed. Not a second later, the door opened up and I knew it was her. She ran to the bathroom and I went out of my room and sat on the couch and watched Rick and Morty. She came out and sat down beside me. I told her I’d just broken up with my girlfriend, and she told me she was in the same boat and had just broken up with her ex a month ago.

We started making out, which lead to getting naked. She then said “if you were any other guy, I’d have sex with you right now”. She refused to have sex with me because we were housemates, and I kind of agreed.

It’s been 3 weeks now, and I haven’t spoken to her since. She works on an opposite schedule to me (She works in a bar), and we haven’t run into each other. I very much doubt we will run into each other and talk it out, but I’d like closure.

I don’t really have any much getting girls. I’ve got my shit together, I have passion in my life, I lead a rich and rewarding life, I’m confident enough in myself and I don’t feel like I need the validation of a relationship to keep me happy. I don’t have a need for a girlfriend, and there are a few girls in my life right now that are more than enough for me. Most of the things I do that make me happy come from your articles actually.

But, for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about my housemate. I’m 28. She’s 21. She cheated on her ex-boyfriend. She posts booty shots and thirst traps all over Instagram. But I can’t stop thinking about her. Whenever I walk past her bedroom my heart flutters, and I wonder if she’s in there. Am I in love?! I haven’t felt this way since high school. My plan right now is to find the time to go to her work alone, and ask her out on a date. It could be incredibly awkward, and if she says no I’ve really lost nothing other than my housemate knowing I asked her out.

My real issue is if she says yes. I really like her, and the more I think about her the more I think she’s strangely ideal for me. I shouldn’t date again, and neither should she, but I want to hang out with her at the very least.

Every single person I know is telling me to not say anything and let the chips fall where they may, but I want closure. In part because I want to hang out with this girl, even if we don’t have sex. But there is also that part of me that sees her as the “one that got away”.

Please help. What should I do?

Hots For Housemate

DEAR STUCK IN THE MIDDLE:  You’re not in love dude. You’re in lust. Though I can understand confusing the difference.

Here’s what’s going on: You’re newly single. You’re a bit lonely. You’ve got this space in your life where your girlfriend used to be. And hey, there’s this absurdly hot person who’s in close proximity to you. Like, “the thirst is calling from inside the house” close. And wouldn’t you know it, one fateful night, right after you and your girlfriend broke up… well, you’re drunk and horny, she’s a little drunk and turned on and oh look there went the pants.

But then you two are right up against the line. That “she refuses to have sex with her housemates” line. So now here you are, right at the gates to your hopes and dreams aaaaand you’re finding out that it’s locked. Like Lucy and the football… you’re left feeling like it got yanked out from under you at the last second. Call it blue-braining, because there’s no better way to get someone to want something obsessively than to tell them they can’t have it.

(Don’t believe me? Check the prices of a new iPhone on eBay when the newest model gets released.)

This isn’t helped by the fact that you’re keeping the fires stoked by checking on her sexy Instagram pics. It’s a little hard to let things cool off when you’re going through her photostream and checking for bikinis and cleavage

But it’s important to realize that most of what you’re feeling right now – from the desire for “closure” to this idea that she’s ideal for you – is coming from the fact that you got close at a time when you were vulnerable and lonely. It’s amazing how much the combination of “recent break up,” “sloppy make outs” and “that’s all you’re getting” can round up basic horniness to “we’re perfect for one another”.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m utterly sympathetic. I’ve been there, done that and printed the t-shirts. I’ve had relationships and hook-ups that only went so far and those drove me up the wall to the point that I would’ve probably murdered a hobo. Let he with two free hands cast the first stone. But your roomie is right: banging housemates is generally a bad idea and it creates potential complications and awkwardness that is magnified by the fact that you can’t really get any distance apart to let things ease up.

So here’s my suggestion for you: let this one go. You had a moment, that moment involved some nudity and it was great. But it was just a moment and one where trying to revisit it is likely going to end up being more trouble than it’s worth. You’re not going to get the “closure” you want because there’s nothing to be had. You made out. You want more, she doesn’t, end of.

Accept that it happened once, that it isn’t going to happen again, that eventually you’ll hook up with someone else and take cold showers in the meantime. Trust me: you aren’t going to be as happy in the short run, but in the long term, you’ll be far better off.

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 seem to walk two different roads with ladies these days. The first is in a casual, social setting. If I meet a girl I’m interested in, we seem to hit it off. The conversation will be good, flirtation back-and-forth is fun, and there definitely is a chemistry between the two of us. This will either end in an exchange of info or (rarely, but fun) spending the night with each other. I’m really in my element here and enjoy the easygoing nature of meeting someone and having a nice time. 

The speed bump I seem to hit is when I ask that same girl on a date. That’s where I am struggling. The easygoing chemistry seems to evaporate and it goes from two people enjoying time with each other to an interview. While the time we had in the social setting was flirtatious, the energy in the date is significantly less so. After one or two dates, I can really pick up on her cues: she just isn’t interested. 

I’ve noticed some negative trends that I seem to repeat in a lot of these situations. I don’t go on that many dates, so the people I do date are the ones I really would like to spend more time with. This inevitably leads to a lot of anticipation, nerves, and projecting my hopes onto this person. This is sure to lead to some disappointment, so I am trying to maturely manage these feelings more effectively.

Also, I’m a very outgoing guy. As much as I want to be the cool guy, I just am not. This is okay with me, though. I’m very happy with who I am. I do ask the question though: am I coming on too strong? Do I look like a loser here? I’m going easy, should I tone it down even more?

I sense that I am missing something in these situations. How do I maintain attraction with these ladies through the first few dates and start to connect more? Is the energy I bring from the social setting to the date different enough that it throws these girls off? 

At 25, I have time to navigate these waters, but I need to figure this out before I completely jump ship.

Sincerely,

Without a Paddle

DEAR WITHOUT A PADDLE: You answered your own question here, WaP:

“This inevitably leads to a lot of anticipation, nerves, and projecting my hopes onto this person.”

The reason why you’re having such an easy time when things are casual is because it’s so low stakes. It’s so much easier and natural for you because hey, there’s no investment here. You haven’t put yourself in a position where you feel as though you’ve tied your own value to whether they like you or not. Instead, you’re able to just be in the moment. Everything is light and easy and enjoyable because hey, the worst thing that happens is that she’s not into you and you move on to find someone else who is.

It’s the moment that you ask her out on a date – with a giant capital “D” in gothic script – that it all falls apart. In that moment, you’ve gone from having an enjoyable back and forth with an attractive stranger to “everything must go perfectly.” Suddenly you’ve invested this relative stranger with such immense importance in your life that you feel as though you have to be perfect in order to get her to like you. It doesn’t matter that she’s exactly the same person she was five minutes before you asked her out to dinner. It doesn’t matter that she was clearly enjoying her time with you before, when you had no skin in the game. Now you know this boogie is for real and you’d better nail it.

But literally nothing has changed. The only thing that’s different is your perception. It’s not as though saying the magic words “hey, would you like to get a drink this Saturday?” caused lightning to crash from the heavens and now the woman you’ve been low-key flirting with has turned into Captain Future Wife. And yet, you’re starting to project so much onto this relative stranger that you’ve allowed her to damage your own self-worth… despite the fact that you may not have known she existed 24 hours ago.

So now there’re stakes (that you made up) and you’re stuck with what’s known as the Centipede’s Dilemma; you didn’t have any problem coordinating all those feet until you started to think about how you did it. Now you’re trying to consciously recreate that easy-going chemistry and charisma you had before and suddenly your brain has gone blank. You’re trying to get that scintillating banter to happen and your mouth is all “Daaaaaaw how do words go?”

And again: the only reason why there’s this dramatic difference is because your perception of the situation has changed.

Fortunately, that also means that it’s relatively easy to change things back. The trick is to simply demystify and de-emphasize the importance of this date. Your going on a formal DATE with her is exactly the same as if the two of you decided to grab a drink in the moment. It’s no different than the same steps that lead towards the two of you deciding that you’d like to take this party back to your place. The only difference is that it may be on a different night, instead of right then and there.

First: remind yourself that this person already likes you. While this may come as a surprise, most women aren’t going on dates with people they’re not at least somewhat attracted to.  The fact that she’s decided to commit an hour or more of her busy life to doing something with you is an indicator that she thinks you’re pretty damn nifty and wants to see what else might be there.

Second: remember that she’s the exact same person that she was before you asked her out on a date. All that unbounded potential that you see in her now was already there when you were chatting her up. Literally nothing about her has changed.

Third: remember that by that same token, if for whatever reason things don’t work out between the two of you? Then literally nothing changes for you. Your status quo is exactly the same as it was before. You just realized that you weren’t going to connect with this person in the way that would’ve made a relationship possible. And while that’s a shame, in the words of Tim Minchin:

“But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other possible loves, statistically, some of them would be equally nice.”

You already know that; it’s part of why you don’t have a minor freak out when those strangers you casually flirt with just don’t dig you.

So my dude, just keep your cool here. Don’t let the D-word intimidate you into thinking that this person is anything she wasn’t five seconds before you asked her out. Consider that date as just an extension of the easygoing nature of that back and forth the two of you were enjoying earlier. The energy you were bringing before is what they were digging about you, so keep it going. You don’t have to radically shift gears to make that connection work. Keep talking, keep flirting and just keep it casual as you get to know her. That deeper connection will come if you stop trying to force it and let it flow as naturally as you had been up until now.

You already have the skills to make this happen, WaP. You just need to get out of your own way.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I have been stuck in a very messy situation with my partner (for our purposes, let’s call him X).

We have been dating for almost 2 years and he is an absolute darling. In fact, I can’t even picture myself with anybody else. He is charming, loving, understanding… He makes me feel alive in a too often dim world.

The catch? He has an identical twin brother (let’s call him Z). At first this wasn’t a problem at all. In our first few months together, the three of us were unstoppable. Z became my best friend. Everything was perfect… Until Z got a girlfriend. I tried to support their relationship, but for some reason she kept on stabbing me in the back. She’s acted in absurd ways: spreading false rumors, trying to convince X that I’m cheating and even going so far as to forbid Z to so much as greet me.

This has lead to things getting bad between me and X. Because of the close bond X and Z had, ignoring the “girlfriend” wasn’t an option. I tried everything – from trying to befriend her, to talking to Z. Nothing worked. More than a year has passed and I know that I can’t take it anymore. I know that the negativity she brought into my life was too much for me to handle. But I also know, for as long as I’m with X it won’t end. I don’t know if I’m willing to let go of someone who compliments me, makes me happier than I deserve to be and who’s always knew me better than I know myself. In fact, to think about it, every major fight we had was because of Z and his girlfriend…

WHAT DO I DO?

Stuck In the Middle

DEAR STUCK IN THE MIDDLE:  Here’s a question for you, SItM. Statistics being what they are, I’m going to assume that you’re a Harry Potter fan. So let us imagine that Fred and George have both started new relationships. And while George’s relationship has been going as smooth as can be, Fred’s is considerably more turbulent because, for whatever, reason, Fred’s girlfriend has decided she’s not cool with George dating a Muggle-born. But because she can’t just make demands based on Wizard purity – the Weasleys are famously pro-Muggle after all – she decides that the best thing to do would be to wage a whisper-campaign. George’s girlfriend is awful. She’s a harlot who’s only after that sweet, sweet, prank-shop money. And now because of this toxic atmosphere, things are getting tense between George, Fred and everyone else.

But now, consider. Who, do you think, is ultimately going to have more influence over Fred: George… or Fred’s girlfriend of a year? After all, while family dynamics can vary and sex has a way of making people blind to people’s faults, there’s a bond between twins that’s incredibly deep and profound. They know each other better than anyone else, have been through the fires together and know good and well that no matter what else happens, they have each other.

If George were to tell Fred that his girlfriend has turned into a drama-bomb that’s messing up their happy family… how long do you think it’s going to take before Fred’s girlfriend is going to get pranked until she finally gets the hint and leaves?

The same thing applies with you, X and Z, SItM. You’ve tried talking to Z. You’ve tried talking to Z’s girlfriend.

But you don’t mention whether you’ve talked with X about the two of them.

Here’s the problem: as inseparable a trio as you may have been before Z+1 came along, you don’t have as much influence with Z as they do. Z’s girlfriend is his girlfriend. It’s understandable that she’s going to have more sway with him, especially if he’s in full “When A Man Loves A Woman” mode.

But X is Z’s twin brother. That trumps a whole lotta other stuff. And you are X’s girlfriend.

I hope you see where I’m going with this.

You’ve tried confronting the issue head on. You’ve gone straight to the source, and you’ve tried to talk it out with Z. Your influence with them is just not enough to beat this particular trial. But X’s is. If you can help X to realize just how much garbage Z’s girlfriend is stirring up, how much strife is because she’s the one dripping poison in everyone’s ear, then it’ll be X who’s having that conversation with Z about just how toxic his girlfriend is being.

And that’s the key here: as awful as Z’s girlfriend is being to you, her behavior is a pretty serious sign that she’s awful for Z too. And while X may not see her rumor mongering and dirty tricks campaign against you, he very well may be more sensitive to someone treating his brother like garbage and being an jerk to his own girlfriend.

It sucks that things have reached the point where you have to play “Let’s You And Him Fight”. I find the idea of having to play these sorts of games in relationships to be distasteful. But you’ve already taken the direct approach. Z isn’t listening to you and his girlfriend isn’t going to be happy unless she’s the only woman in the group. The best thing you can do is to talk to X, show him this pattern of behavior and get him to intercede. Not on your behalf – though it will certainly help – but on his brother’s.

Frame this as concern for Z – just as she’s framing her mud-slinging as concern for X – and you’ll be in a stronger position to make things happen.

Good luck.

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