DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been through an ordeal that is really tempting me to swallow the red or black pill. My girlfriend of nearly a year dumped me. She said I was too nice, a pushover, cute but not sexy, and she wants to see other people.

So she dumped me, but later tried to bargain an open relationship but I put my foot down and said no. Things were good through most the time as far as I can tell and she even admits that early on things were great and the sex was pretty good. But as time went on she expressed some sentiments that stirred greater insecurity in me. I developed a premature ejaculation problem but we still had pretty damn good sessions at several points throughout the months.

But now I feel like everything the incels believe is true, she’s going off to see the chads while I’m left to rot in all the insecurities that were just confirmed. I feel resigned to swallow the red or black pill and just cannot bring myself to believe in any optimistic projection given by my friends, family, or those such as yourself. Where do I go from here?

At The Crossroads

DEAR AT THE CROSSROADS: There’s some critical information you haven’t given me, ATC: you haven’t told me how long it was between when your girlfriend dumped you and then asked if you were ok with an open relationship and how long it’s been since the two of you ended things for good.

Because, honestly? You sound like this happened a couple of weeks ago and you’re still hurting from the fact that you were dumped. And hey, that’s legit. Being dumped is an awful feeling. But it sounds to me like you’ve been sitting around and stewing in your resentment instead of doing what I usually recommend for the newly single.

As it is, the only things that the Red Pill (Reddit-based men’s rights movements) and the Black Pill (Incel communities) actually offer you is justification for your anger. All either of these are intended to do is keep you feeling awful and make you angry at women for… well, pretty much for existing and not being mindless sex-dolls.

Hey, man, I get that you’re hurt.  But I’m gonna be honest with you: right now, you’re mostly looking for reasons to STAY angry with her. And hey, I get it. I’ve been there, done that and built a career out of it. I got dumped by someone I thought was the perfect girl just after I got fired from what I thought was the perfect job. And at the time? The most charitable thing I called her – when I wasn’t trying to be above it all – was a stinking pirate wh

e. But the truth is that anger eats at you. It may feel good to hate and to lash out at that bitch as what done you wrong at first. But honestly? There’s only so long you can insist that God has s

t in your dinner before you are just angry for anger’s sake.

I mean, none of the various flavors of Men’s Rights Advocates –not the Red Pillers, not the MGTOWs, not the incels are actually happy. The incels are all currently crabs in a bucket, busily sharing “suicide fuel” trying to goad each other into being the first to off themselves and everyone else is busy arguing over who hates the femoids more.

Now, let’s look at what you’ve actually said about your relationship. First: your girlfriend told you that you were too nice and a push-over. Ok… that’s valid. It sounds a little paradoxical – how could someone be too nice? – but nobody worth dating actually likes being with a doormat. Being the only person with an opinion in a relationship is shockingly draining; it feels like the other person has basically abdicated their entire being to you. Being someone who actually has some spine, an opinion, some confidence is an important part of making a relationship work.

But let’s look at this next part. So your ex wanted to see other people. Not going to lie, that can sting. Some people don’t do monogamy well, and if you’re one of those people who needs exclusivity, that can really hurt. You’re left asking yourself “why am I not enough?” Except it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Some people ultimately need novelty and new partners. Now someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because there’s a huge “but” coming…

BUT

It’s not that your ex didn’t care for you, or that she didn’t enjoy banging you, ATC. In fact, the fact that she came back after you broke up and asked about an open relationship is as clear of a sign that she enjoyed being in a relationship with you… it’s just that she couldn’t be exclusive with you. I mean, come on. She’s seeing other guys but she’s asking if she can come back for you, specifically. That’s a pretty big sign that no, she DOES want you, too.

Now, that wasn’t a relationship you wanted or could handle and that’s fair. That’s valid. But the fact of the matter is that while she didn’t care for you the way you need, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t care as best she could. You just weren’t compatible is all. Which again, completely sucks… but at the end of the day, that’s life. It’s better to find that out sooner, than later.

Look my dude. If you want to sit around stroking your rage boner, that’s your prerogative. But that’s all it is; empty angry masturbation. If you want to actually feel better, actually let the pain fade away? Then you need to take care of yourself and give yourself some closure.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My fiancé is crazy and controlling. She has pretty much isolated me from all of my friends. All of my friends actually hate her. They think she is trying to change me and forcing me into a lifestyle I’m not ready for. We even share a cellphone because she doesn’t want me messaging people without her knowing. If she doesn’t want to do something, we sure as hell will not do it because she has the final say in everything. We even work together and share a house together and we’re supposed to be getting married in October. I’m honestly not sure if I’m ready. She wants kids and I really don’t like kids. I’m still deeply in love with my ex-girlfriend. If she ever got married, I think it would destroy me. I think she is my real match in every way but she lives really far away and always seems to be in a relationship. I don’t think she will ever be ready to settle down. I know she still cares about me too but again, she’s far away. She has been e-mailing me for 2 years now because we used to be best friends for years before we dated and my fiancee forced me to stop talking to her even though I really want to speak with her. I think I’m settling for my fiancee. I’m afraid to be alone and now I’m getting near my 30’s and I just don’t want to be the last person to be getting married and starting a life. What should I do?

Cold Feet

DEAR COLD FEET: I’m just curious, CF, did you see this horror movie that came out last year? Made a big splash, lotta Oscar nominations? First time director? What was it called again?

Oh yeah…

GET OUT.

Quite frankly my dude, you’re giving this list of things your fiancee does and I don’t quite get how in the pluperfect hell she became your fiancee in the first place. Like… are you being held hostage? Does she have your soul in a jar? Blink twice if she has your soul in a jar.

More seriously: you DO realize that you don’t have to be with her right? Like, you can break up with her. Right now even. Right this second. Before you even finish reading this. You could dump her so hard that her great grandparents would say “dude what was that?”

You could, and I’m just spitballing here, ditch your phone, change all of your passwords, clean out your bank account, pack up your things, get copies of all of your important documents, throw it in your car, and get the hell out of there over the course of a morning and be entirely free of this entire mess. Because, honestly? You sound like someone who’s asking permission to make a jailbreak.

So hey, permission granted. Your fiancee is a controlling, abusive awful and you need to get out of there like all of Hell and half of Hoboken were after you.

Right now, your ex-girlfriend isn’t a concern. What you should be doing is paying attention to the fact that your fiancee is waving more red flags than a military parade in Tiananmen Square. Because if any of these behaviors sound familiar:

Insult you or humiliate you, especially in front of your friends and colleagues

Belittle you, minimize your accomplishments and repeatedly tell you that you’re worthless or a failure

Tell you that their abusive behavior is your fault

Constantly accuse you of being unfaithful or require you to “prove” you’re not cheating on them

Keep constant tabs on you, demanding that you check in with them regularly. They may also monitor where you go and with whom

Isolate you from your friends and family

Accuse your friends and family of lying in order to “drive you apart”

Restrict your access to money or finances

Use or deny sex and intimacy as a form of control

Snoop through your emails, texts, instant messages, phone calls and social media profiles

Hide your keys or your phone to keep you from seeking out help

Use false accusations (or the threat of accusations) of abuse to keep you in line

…then it’s time to recognize that you’re in an awful, abusive relationship and you need to peace the hell out, Cub Scout.

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 reading your blog for about half a year now, as well as your new book on surviving relationships, and I gotta thank you for your pearls of wisdom, you’ve led me from not knowing the first thing about flirting to being in my first real relationship. Which is where I’m at right now, and I’m writing in hope that you could shed some light on my situation.

So about two months ago, I met a wonderful lady on an organized trip for youngsters (ages 18-23 I think). We had an amazing time on the trip, we connected on the first day quite a bit, lots of flirting and good vibes coming from both of us, then on the second day we said we’ll give it a go. We had a good time that day, we kissed on the third day (as much as we could whenever we were away from the rest of the group), then we parted. That never happened to either of us before, but we really liked each other from the start, and I suppose the stars all aligned perfectly that we just went at it without much need for barrier breaking. The trip was almost over, and we both knew it would be a bit of a challenge from then on, since we live in opposite sides of our country, about 3 hours away from each other, but we said we’ll try it anyway.

Surprise surprise! We managed to make it work, we met almost every weekend from then until now, taking one weekend off so we wouldn’t burn out too hard. We had a bunch of sex, we met each other’s families, and we’ve connected deeper and deeper. I truly think we have something special, that there’s a reason we connected so fast. I believe it’s because we align exceptionally well on some sort of spiritual level, as in even though we didn’t know each other that well, we could feel something special that words can’t describe. It’s like we just get each other intuitively, like we already met before, like our spirits are fused and now it’s up to us to make this into something beautiful. Anyway, that’s our status right now, meeting up on weekends and trying to have a good time with each other. Also we text or call each other pretty much every day, this is important context.

Now, here’s why I’m writing you: I don’t have good experience with relationships prior to this one, only bad experience. I won’t go into detail, but lots of heart-break, confusion, depression at times, basically what I assume most people go through at one point or another. The catch with me specifically is that all of that negative experience has left me without any real faith in a relationship being something constant. What I mean is I often have the feeling that my significant other could leave at any point, without explanation, without closure, without any reason other than “I don’t love you anymore”. I try to remind myself that people don’t give up that quickly or easily on the ones they love, but it’s hard to fight these emotions. In my (unrealistic, primitive) mind I just assume that there’s nothing about me that people could love over a long period of time, which (I think) is ironic because that’s what I really want out of a relationship.

So that said, I’m having such thoughts and feelings on a weekly basis, if not daily. Every time her and I text each other and the conversation doesn’t flow, I feel it. Every time I tell a joke and she doesn’t laugh, I feel it. Every time she says something and I zone out, I feel it. Not so much that I’m anxious about it, but enough that it’s starting to f

k with my psyche. I mean I still function and everything, but then something random and seemingly unimportant happens between us, and suddenly nothing is stable anymore.

On top of that, I’m scared that talking to her about this could only make things worse, because I tried to do that a little bit, and she didn’t know what to say, which is understandable. Essentially I fear that if I try to solve this with her instead of with myself, then I’d be doing both of us a dis-service. On the other hand, I don’t know whether the problem truly stems from something messed-up inside of me, or from something either of us can do to make it better.

I love this woman Doc, the way I hope to be loved. I also know that love doesn’t last forever, and that one day it will be over, but I don’t want that day to come early because of my own stupidity or complacency. I’m frustrated that I don’t know what I’m doing right or wrong, and I’m scared that that will f

k up me or our relationship. Do you believe there’s something I can do to help myself get out of this state of mind? Or do I just have to stick to it and believe in what I’m doing? Any advice would be infinitely appreciated.

Lost Soul

DEAR LOST SOUL: Here’s something a lot of advice columnists won’t tell you: sometimes dating is as much a matter of luck as it is anything else. There will always be things that are completely outside of your control. In a very real way, relationships are a lot like poker. There will be times when pure chance means that you just get a series of bad hands, one right after the other and the only thing you can do is grit your teeth and play through as best you can, as quickly as you can.

But, just as in poker, you have to learn how to keep your wits about you. When you start taking bad luck personally, you start to make bad decisions. Sometimes it means that you start to take chances, going in on bad calls in an attempt to pull yourself out of the hole. Other times, you end up losing your nerve, giving up a good thing because you’re convinced that your luck is about to reach out and slap you down.

But the fact that you’ve had a bad string of luck doesn’t automatically mean that the problem is with you. Relationships fall apart for a multitude of reasons, ones that often have more to do with your partner than they do with you. Dating someone who’s in the wrong stage of life, for example, can make it feel as though you’re the problem, even when you aren’t. It can leave thinking bullshit thoughts like “Well, if I were better, they wouldn’t have left,” or “If I hadn’t been so X, Y or Z, they wouldn’t have fallen out of love with me.” But in reality: the reason why things fell apart is because they were the wrong person.

That’s where you are right now, LS; you’ve got a good thing going, but you’re letting a run of bad luck screw with your head. And in fairness, when it comes to love, it can be hard not to take bad luck personally; after all, you’re the common denominator in all of your relationships. When you get hurt enough times, it’s very easy to start to feel as though you’re helpless. You become so scared of being hurt again that you end up paralyzed, anticipating the pain before it even happens. And, the cruel irony is that this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; believing that you aren’t deserving of love tends to make people sabotage their own relationships. They react to the potential of being rejected instead of what is actually happening. They push their partners away because they refuse to believe that he or she is being real with them when they say that they care.

And when things do fall apart because of all of this… well, that just reinforces the meme that you’re unworthy or undeserving of love and happiness.

Now while my standard advice is to unpack some of these issues with an actual therapist instead of a loudmouth with an advice column, I do have a suggestion that can help you to unlearn this sense of helplessness: take every little positive interaction with your girlfriend as a victory. Each little moment you have – the comfort of how she fits in your arm, the way she sighs when you kiss her – are all micro-revolutions; they’re tiny wins against the forces of self-doubt and self-loathing. The way she breathes in the scent of you when she moves in close is a reminder of how far you’ve come and how much she desires you. And when you have those moments of panic – the dread of “oh god she didn’t text back immediately, she must hate me,” – you remind yourself of those little micro-revolutions. They’re the signs that all is right in the world and these moments are just that: moments. They’re little glitches that you’re blowing up into major malfunctions instead of just the randomness of every relationship. These micro-revolutions are the balm against the anxiety; they talk you down enough that your logical brain can override the panic and remind you that she didn’t text back because she’s busy. She didn’t laugh because the joke didn’t land right, not because she’s getting ready to dump you.

The other thing you need to do though? Trust her enough to talk to her. Let her know that sometimes you get little twinges of insecurity. You know that it’s irrational, but sometimes these little irrational moments flare up out of nowhere. And while you don’t need it every time – it’s not her responsibility to manage your emotional state – there’re times when it flares up enough that you’d appreciate a little extra sweetness and reassurance.

And you know what? She’s going to let you know that she gets just as anxious at times. She’s going to have the same random insecure moments. And at those times, she could use your comfort too.

You’ve got a good thing going here, LS. You just need to learn to trust your girlfriend enough to let go of those past hurts and embrace what you have.

You’re going to be ok. I promise.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been following your posts for a while now and has helped me in many situations, but I need your help with something incredibly hard.

I have been in a relationship for almost a year now. During this time my girlfriend has done things that have made me lose trust in her. I gave her couple of chances, and she really tried her best to make our relationship work. She stopped talking to her guy friends and was really open to me. But my incapability to trust her again slowly changed my feelings towards her. I felt I don’t love her anymore. It doesn’t help that my family is against me dating her. So, I decided to end things with her.

She doesn’t want to break up and is begging me to give her another chance and work this out. She says she really needs me and has never felt like this about another man before. She thinks I am her soul mate. I feel really guilty that I hurt her and makes me very sad. She says she will wait for me however long that takes and keeps loving me.

What do I do?

Pulling The Trigger

DEAR PULLING THE TRIGGER: I’m going to level with you: you can’t really break up with someone and NOT hurt them. Break ups, even the most amicable ones, hurt. It’s the end of a relationship and that’s always going to sting, even just a little. The only thing you can do is cause as little unnecessary hurt as you can on the way out. And what you’re doing now? That’s causing pain that you don’t need to cause.

It can be hard to break up, even when you know it’s what needs to be done. But drawing it out makes it so much worse for everyone. If you’re going to end things, then you need to do it as quickly and cleanly as possible. The sharp pain fades the quickest and the clean break heals fastest. If you feel bad about hurting your soon-to-be ex, then you need to do the kind thing and make it fast. Don’t talk it out, don’t stick around to argue about the whys and wherefores. Just tell her it’s over, that you’re sorry, you wish the best for her and go. If you truly don’t want to hurt her, then you need to be firm. More than that just prolongs the pain.

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 was hoping that you could possibly help me with a very difficult situation I’m in.

The girl I’ve been interested in for the past month, who is also quite a good friend of mine, has a boyfriend who is by no means a decent human being. The other day I discovered that he’s cheated on her a few times and I’ve decided that as a friend it’s my responsibility to tell her. I’m not sure if that’s the right decision, though, and I’m not sure HOW to tell her at all. If you could please weigh in on this, I’d seriously appreciate it! Thank you so much.

Waiting In The Wings

DEAR WAITING IN THE WINGS: Well, you asked, but I don’t think you’re going to like my answer.

Here’s what you do, WitW: you back the hell off.

First of all, let’s be honest here, just you, me and everyone reading this: you’re not doing this out of the goodness of your heart. You didn’t decide that it’s your responsibility to tell her because you are that good of a friend, you’re hoping that when you tell her she’s going to dump her cheating scumbag of a boyfriend and fly into your arms as the one who helped her see the truth. Which, to be perfectly frank, is a pretty awful reason to deliberately insert yourself into the middle of somebody else’s relationship drama.

But for the sake of argument, let’s game this out a little. Let’s assume that either I give you my blessing to telling your crush about her supposedly philandering beau or you decided to go and tell her regardless. How, exactly, do you think she’s going to react? Here’s a hint: she’s going to take it badly. Under the best of circumstances, she’s going to be pissed off like nobody’s business. The only question is who she’s going to be pissed at.

The smart money says it’s going to be you.

You may have noticed that people don’t appreciate bad news. In fact, we tend to get irrationally angry at the person who brings us the bad news, whether it’s their fault or not; there’s a reason why “don’t shoot the messenger” is a common phrase, after all. So you’re already starting off with your would-be hunny-bunny ticked off that you’re telling her that something’s rotten in Denmark.

But then there’s the next step: why should she believe you? Do you have proof? Do you have unquestionable proof that you can actually show her? Proof that couldn’t possibly be explained away? Because if you don’t, then it’s going to be your word against her boyfriend’s. And sure, her boyfriend may be a rotten bastard, but he’s still her boyfriend. This gives him more credibility in her eyes than you have… especially if either of them know that you’ve got a crush on her. And believe me, if she doesn’t, HE almost certainly does. This is going to be leveraged against you – you’re going to look like you’re lying up in order to break them up.

(And let’s be honest: that IS what you’re hoping for here.)

Now let’s add another wrinkle into the mix: what makes you so sure she doesn’t know already? Right now you’re working from limited information – you know he’s cheated on her. You don’t say you know when it happened, whether she found out before, whether he confessed or she confronted him and whether they’ve worked through it or not. For that matter, for all you may know, they may have an arrangement of one sort or another. So you’re going forward and telling her with the distinct possibility of re-opening old wounds, dredging up past problems or stumbling onto the fact that they were only socially monogamous. None of which is going to work out for you the way you’re hoping.

Let’s throw a third wrinkle: how’d you find out? Did you catch him in the act? Did you prowl through his phone or emails? Or did you hear it from the grapevine? Because she’s going to want to know… and she’s going to want to know why, exactly you were prying into her business. All of this is going to make a difference, because it’s going to be demonstrating your agenda rather strongly. And if you two aren’t honest-to-god BFFs – which, from the sounds of things, you’re not – it’s going to look like you went digging for dirt. Even if we grant that your motivations were as pure as the driven snow, that is going to bring you right back to that credibility problem.

But hey: let’s say that you manage to thread all those needles and she dumps her no good, scummy boyfriend. Assuming she doesn’t lash out at you for causing her break-up, she’s still not going to swoon into your arms. She’s going to be pissed off at men in general and in no mood for your trying to be the next in line… in fact, she’s probably going to resent it. Women don’t appreciate it when guys suddenly assume the window of opportunity is open because they’ve literally just broken up with somebody. She’s going to need some time to recover and your hanging around in order to help her through this ordeal is going to start verging rather seriously into Nice Guy territory.

In short: you’ve got yourself your basic no-win scenario. And you’re not going to Kobayashi Maru your way through this.

This isn’t your business. Your getting involved is only going to add another layer of drama to somebody else’s relationship. And even under the best of circumstances, it’s going to end badly for you.

Leave it alone.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a lady who recently took the initiative and asked out a guy I had some chemistry with. We’re in the same fandom world, and finding nice and normal people among us is very rare. Being totally generic for the purposes of protecting identities, we became friends by mutually respecting what we’ve contributed to our fandom.

I started to reach out to him on email a few months ago. We had a few conversations, in which he threw in some comments seemed like bad attempts at flirting. Not everyone has game, right? But after initiating a few conversations, I decided to let him reach out to me, and he didn’t. OK. Fair enough. Moving on….

Then I reconnected him at a recent event, and he started reaching out to me with gusto – emails, pictures (clothed!), etc. He even admitted to basically stalking me on social media, though he doesn’t really have a social media presence himself.

So after a few weeks of email flirting, I decided to be a grown-ass woman and ask him out. I was bold and direct (and funny). What I got back was a long, rambling email where he admits to being in relationship with someone else, but he doesn’t want to lose what “we have.” I’ve never seen evidence of him having a significant other, and I’d be really pissed off if a boyfriend of mine was having this kind of relationship with another woman.

There have been a few short email exchanges since my rejection. He’s done all the reaching out – I suspect either to take my temperature to see if I’d still talk to him or checking in to make sure I haven’t sunk into a vast depression (trust me, I haven’t).

What is up with men and their hidden relationships? Maybe his rambling was a nice way to hide that he just wasn’t into me like that? Since I’ll run into this guy at upcoming fandom events, what do I do? Honestly, I feel totally embarrassed and humiliated. I kind of want to tell him to go to hell, but I don’t want to be the bitter bitch who hates him because he turned me down. I also want to avoid him, but that gets exhausting, too. Trust me, if I had any idea he had a long-term GF or would turn me down, there’s no way in hell I would have asked him out in the first place. What was he doing starting this kind of relationship with me in the first place? Do I bother to continue a friendship which he seems to want even though I know it will never be enough for me?

Thanks,

Thoroughly Confused

DEAR THOROUGHLY CONFUSED: There are a lot of possibilities here TC. It’s possible he was stringing you along because he liked the flirty attention you were giving him. He might have had a crush on you and was enjoying the thrill of new relationship energy and the frisson of a mutual attraction from somebody besides his girlfriend.

Or it’s entirely possible that after you reconnected, he decided you were cool and wanted to be friends.  

I can’t say for sure one way or another – after all, I wasn’t there, and without interviewing you both and reading the transcripts, it’s kind of hard to say whether he was flirting – you say his game seemed kind of weak – and if so, how much of it was just flirting because flirting is fun and how much of it was flirting with intent.

All that being said: I don’t think he was leading you on, and I don’t think he was deliberately hiding the fact that he had a girlfriend. Considering that you’re running in similar circles – fandom tends to be a small world, after all – it’s entirely possible that he assumed you knew he was seeing someone. Why didn’t he bring her up when you were talking? Well, again: I haven’t seen the transcripts, but it’s possible that the topic just didn’t come up. I’ve had many, many conversations with my friends – men and women both – where we don’t talk about our significant others simply because there’s no call to. It’s possible – even advisable – to have a life outside your relationship after all.

I also am willing to bet that he had no idea you were into him. When you straight-up asked him out, he suddenly realized that you two weren’t on the same page and suddenly things got awkward. Or maybe he had a clue that you liked him but was willing to ignore it in hopes that you’d end up romantically interested in someone else and you wouldn’t have this nascent infatuation between the two of you.

Either way: it done got weird. So now what?

Before I get into what to do about this, I want to address your question about what was he doing starting a relationship with you at all. Something to keep in mind is that guys tend to have more emotionally intimate friendships with women than they do with other men. Call it part of the toxic masculinity package; men have a much harder time fostering emotionally open connections with other men. It’s equal parts an unwillingness to be vulnerable to other men and equating emotional intimacy with sexual attraction. No matter how much people may talk about bromances, being open and emotionally intimate with another dude is still seen as being unmanly. Even the term “bromance” carries the “ha ha, it’s kind of like you’re dating” pointed nudging and and not-quite joking. So, men often seek out intimacy from our female friends, who tend to be less judgmental and more accepting of emotional openness. If you look at it from one angle, yeah, it can kind of look like a romantic connection… but it’s more about fulfilling an emotional need than trying to start an amorous relationship or conduct an affair.

But all that aside, the immediate question is: what do you do now that this is all out there, flopping around on the table like an Awkward Turtle? Right now, you’re feeling humiliated and probably a little angry. And I don’t blame you: you put yourself out there, you got rejected and that sucks. Getting rejected literally hurts. So take some time to let the sting fade and the anger cool off. Once you’ve gotten past the immediate pain, you’re going to see that it’s not as bad as it seems. Liking a dude who doesn’t like you back the same way isn’t embarrassing. Getting turned down, while sucky, isn’t something to be ashamed of. All that happened is that you found out that the two of you weren’t compatible. In the end, there’s really no harm, no foul. It’s hard to see it now, but with time and perspective, this will end up being one of the things you look back on with amusement as one of the wackadoo parts of the dating game.

So where do you go from here? He clearly hopes to continue your friendship. As I’m always telling guys, one of the issues with being in the Friend Zone is that you’re choosing to stay there. You say that being friends isn’t going to be enough for you – fair enough, that’s a valid choice. Just don’t treat his wanting to be friends as though he’s offering you the booby-prize, or that being friends is a poor substitute for romance.

If you don’t want to be friends with him and you don’t want to spend the rest of your time avoiding him whenever you might be at the same event, then I suggest you be straight with him. Tell him that he’s a cool guy and you like him, but you were hoping for something more. Let him know that trying to be friends with him would to be painful for you and it’s not fair to either of you to try and continue things when you’re longing for something he isn’t able to offer you. And then you just let things drift apart. If you happen to run into each other at events, then be polite, say hi and just keep going. If things get awkward, then just acknowledge the awkwardness. It doesn’t have to be a teeth-grindingly uncomfortable situation unless you let it be.

Good luck.

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