DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: A few days back, my girlfriend bumped into someone she knew from school but hadn’t connected to since at the subway stop. They chatted for a bit, and then her train came. To her surprise, the guy got on the train with her despite the fact that it was not going in the direction that he was. During the trip, he mentioned several times how lonely he was, and how bitter and angry that makes him. In school, my girlfriend had been kind to this person after his diagnosis with Aspergers, during which time he shared that he had suicidal tendencies. Now, she’s worried that he doesn’t have anyone with whom he can share these feelings. Other than a mutual appreciation of the same TV series, they don’t have anything in common.

This evening, the person sent my girlfriend an email asking to go to a movie together. On one hand, she feels like she has a responsibility to help someone so obviously in need of companionship. On the other, she has no interest in spending any more time with the guy, and has neither the time or energy to become this person’s emotional support system, because she’ll be starting an intensive program in Engineering soon. She doesn’t want to agree to one meeting and give the impression that she wants to be his BFF, but she doesn’t want the guilt of ghosting him or turning him down and later learning that he had hurt himself or others. He doesn’t seem to take hints very well, or he wouldn’t have followed her home.

Should she give him the one hang out he wants, or should she find a way to turn him down gently? She wants my advice, but I don’t know what to say.

What About Bob?

DEAR WHAT ABOUT BOB: It’s good that your girlfriend is concerned about this guy’s feelings, WaB. But There’s a difference between “being concerned about someone” and “signing on to be their emotional cruise director.” One of the issues that comes up with folks who are in the center of the Venn diagram with “lonely” on one side and “socially awkward” on the other is that they tend to imprint on the first person to be nice to them like an awkward duckling. Which can be sweet at times but it’s also exhausting; more often than not, it means that they’re putting all of their emotional intimacy eggs into that one metaphorical basket. That in and of itself is a problem, but it also means that they tend to rely on that person for all of their future social connections.

And then there’s the fact that this dude is waving some red flags around. Getting on the train going in the wrong direction to keep talking to her… ok, he may not quite get appropriate behavior. It’s still creepy, but it’s a one-off. That plus advertising his bitterness and rage and dropping subtle hints about his loneliness… I can’t really blame your girlfriend for feeling weird about this guy.

Plus: she’s got her own life to live. She’s busy as it is, and her job isn’t to be this dude’s therapist, surrogate or nursemaid. And this guy is already giving signs of attaching himself to her like a lovesick lamprey.

Look, this is a case where there won’t be just one hang-out. If she meets up with him once, she’s going to be opening up the door to even more demands on her time… and she’ll feel guilty not giving it to him. Blame the same socialization that women go through that teaches them to be overly-giving to others, even at the expense of themselves.

The best thing your girlfriend can do is turn him down, gently but firmly. It’s important that she makes it clear that she’s not interested in hanging out with him; a soft “no” like “I can’t, I’m busy right now” will be read as a “…so keep trying.” She doesn’t have to be cruel or harsh about it, but she should be clear that she’s not available or interested in hanging out with him.

The other thing to keep in mind: she’s not responsible for whatever he does or doesn’t do after she turns him down. That’s bulls

t that people try to use to leverage others – especially women – into doing things they don’t want to do. Just as Shana Fisher wasn’t responsible for Dimitrios Pagourtzis shooting up the school in Santa Fe, Texas, your girlfriend isn’t on the hook for this guy’s actions. He may be lonely, he may be autistic, but he still is making choices of his own free will. That’s on him. 

Tell your girlfriend the best thing she can say is “thanks but no thanks, best of luck on your search.”

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a screw-up trying to unscrew his screw-ups with women. Several things happened in my freshman year that reinforced my need to get better with interacting with women: I was falsely accused of stalking a girl in my orientation group, I torched a friendship with a female friend after groping her by accident and making her even more uncomfortable in my attempts to apologize, and learned that I had creeped out the girl I’d had a crush on since the beginning of the year. This is compounding on the screw-ups with women I had during high school, and suffice it to say, there are a lot of them. 

I was tired of repeating history, so I went Google searching for advice on not creeping out women, which is how I found your ‘Don’t Be A Creep’ series of articles. I learned about “soft ‘no’s”, “oneitis”, the importance of eye contact and observation of personal space, and a bunch of other helpful stuff, and for a while, it seemed to work. I fully realized some of the creepy actions I’ve done in my past, reached out to the people I could and apologized. I apologized to my crush and became, if not friends, someone she’s OK having around. I kicked porn and masturbation for four months and enjoyed the results. It was a little exhilarating. 

Well, school’s out and reality came crashing in. I had talked a little to my ex-friend, and she said she was open to me texting her, which I tried and got left on read. I had gotten my crush’s Snapchat a few weeks before school was out; it’s going on 3 weeks into summer, and she still hasn’t added me back. I tried to contact a victim of my creepiness and got no response, not even a ‘Read [insert time]’, which makes me believe she blocked my number, a horrible feeling. Porn and masturbation came crashing in, and my streak was broken within 48 hours of being home. I know I’m not entitled to forgiveness or love or whatever it is I’m looking for, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lack of whatever I’m looking for SUCKS. 

Coming home from school made me realize what was seemingly a lot of old feelings going away was just a delayed reaction, and they’ve all come back with a vengeance. That ‘I’m going to die alone’ feeling. That ‘accept your fate’ feeling. That ‘Scarlet Letter, every girl on the planet knows you’ve done some creepy stuff and wouldn’t want to be around you for a million dollars’ feeling. That ‘I’m the only one who feels this way and has these problems’ feeling. I know these are all BS, but yet another thing I’ve learned this year is the huge difference between comprehension and acceptance.

So I guess the advice I’m looking for throughout all of this gut-spilling is: what do I do moving forward? How do I take the blinders off and see the mistakes I’m seeing in the present instead of with hindsight’s 20/20? Is there some way to go from comprehension to acceptance with what’s probably never going to happen? Is there some sabotaging aspect of myself you can see that I can’t? Give me a diagnosis, Doc. Believe me, I need it. 

Needing The Truth

DEAR NEEDING THE TRUTH: OK NTT, remember that you asked for this. This is going to be harsh, but I promise you: go through all of this and you’ll come out a better person on the other side.

Here’s the mistake you made and are still making: you haven’t processed the fact that apologizing for being a creeper doesn’t make things better if you don’t change the way you act. Apologies are great, but they’re just the start of the process. The next step is to quit behaving like a creeper. Part of this entails accepting the consequences of your actions. You’ve made people feel deeply uncomfortable, and those people may very well not want you around afterwards, even with your apology. People aren’t always going to give you a second chance, and frankly, that’s their prerogative. They’re neither required to accept your apology or give you another chance, and it’s on you to accept this.

And honestly? You haven’t. You’re trying to act like what you’ve done has been erased and it hasn’t. It can take people time to feel comfortable around you again; rushing in like everything’s back to the pre-creepiness status quo just tells everybody that you don’t get why what you did creeped people out. Jumping on your crush’s Snapchat? That was exactly the sort of thing that tells them that you haven’t learned your lesson. This is the sort of behavior that makes people think “this is going to be exactly the same as it was last time.”

It takes time to earn people’s trust back – often months or even years. Some may never want you around again and hey, while that sucks? The only thing you can do is acknowledge their wishes and move on.

You need to take the L right now and accept that things are going to suck for a while as you show through your actions that you’ve learned and are a better person. That may mean that you’re going to have to let these people go and accept that they just don’t want to have anything to do with you going forward. Which, hey, sucks. But it is what it is. You can only learn from this so that you don’t screw up the same way, next time.

And while you’re doing all this, you should take time to get some help. The answer to getting better emotionally isn’t joining the no-fap movement, it’s talking to a professional. Fortunately, you’re in college, which means you have access to low-cost, or even free mental health services. Make an appointment with the counselor and start talking all of this out. They’ll be able to help you process everything you’re feeling and give you some strategies to not only handle things, but to help move forward in a healthy and productive manner.

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 only just discovered your column and I really hope you might provide some advice on this – I’m honestly not sure how to work my way through it.

I’m a white woman dating an Asian man; we’re both in our 30s. When he upgraded his laptop he gave me his old one, which was very kind of him, but he didn’t delete his browser history so I’ve ended up finding out what kind of porn he’s into – specifically, skinny girls getting pounded by men with huge dicks. A lot of it is straightforward interracial stuff like Blacked, but I’ve also found fantasy CGI websites and text stories about elf girls being dominated by wolf men and centaurs.

We’ve been together for four years. As far as I can tell, we’re very happy and our sex life is healthy and satisfying. I honestly don’t care that he watches porn, I do too after all! And people have a right to their kinks as long as no-one’s getting hurt and it’s not illegal. But this seems like such a specific kink that it makes me wonder if I’m… failing him somehow? I have no complaints about his size whatsoever, but my height and build mean I’ll also never be a little elfin slip of a girl next to him. Does him having this particular kink mean something? Am I destined to never be quite what turns him on? How do I deal with that? Or am I just overthinking things?

I know I should probably talk this through with him directly, but how do you even bring something like this up without it sounding accusatory? I’d be really grateful for your perspective.

Thanks for your help,

Confused And Probably Overthinking

CONFUSED AND PROBABLY OVERTHINKING: One of the biggest misunderstandings people tend to have about their partner’s tastes when it comes to sex partners is the idea that a person only likes one type exclusively. Person X likes willowy, androgynous blondes while Person Y likes big, burly men while Person Z prefers women who are into bodybuilding and Crossfit, etc.

Except that our junk doesn’t necessarily work that way; we may have preferences sure, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like other people too. For example, a person who likes voluptuous, zaftig women may well date a petite spinner. This doesn’t mean that they’re going to feel as though they’re missing something for not being with someone with their ideal body type or that they’re not turned on by their partner.

Similarly, what we masturbate to doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of something in our lives. The fact that a person may be spanking it to porn stars who don’t look like their partner doesn’t mean that they’re dissatisfied with their partner. Not only do humans like variety and novelty when it comes to who we sleep with – which we may fulfill through porn – but also sometimes what gets us off isn’t necessarily about what’s on screen as much as what it represents.

Let’s take your boyfriend’s porn habits, for example. There could be any number of things at play between your partner’s ears while his hands are between his legs. It could be that there’s something about the racial dynamics at play in interracial porn – a lot of interracial porn plays up a lot of ugly racial issues and stereotypes – and the implied taboos might do it for him. Moving from interracial to interspecies heightens things; now it’s not just race issues, it’s even more extreme.

It might also be a power and dominance thing that’s tickling his fancy. Huge junk/tiny girl can hit a lot of buttons for people, whether there’s age-play involved, the sense of dominating and overpowering the receiving partner or the idea of being that potent and virile.

Or it could be a big mix of all of it together. Sexual desire, kink and arousal is a multi-axis phenomena; sometimes you want just one thing, other times you take a bunch of great tastes (as it were) and see if they taste great together.

The only reason to think that things are a problem is in how the two of you are together. If he’s neglecting you to masturbate instead or finding more and more excuses to not have sex with you, then you might have reason to suspect that he’s not happy with you or your sex life together. But, again, that doesn’t mean that you’re not his preferred type; that’s just as easily a case of sexual incompatibility as it is his wishing he were a big strapping centaur and you were his tiny elf-maid.

If you want to talk about his porn with him, that may not be a bad idea. After all, sharing fantasies and turn-ons can do some amazing things for your sex life, even if it’s not necessarily things that you can actually accomplish – what with centaurs being a bit rare on the ground and all. But you don’t have to make it sound accusatory at all.

Instead, you can say something along the lines of “Hey, so you forgot to clear your browser history before you gave me your old computer and I found your porn and now I’m curious. So what is it that gets you turned on by this?” If you treat it as wanting to get to know him – or possibly even finding it intriguing, if the idea of what gets him hot gets you hot – then it won’t feel like you’re accusing him. It’ll feel more like someone wanting to hear about her boyfriend’s porn habit… and you may want to share some of your own closely held fantasies and fetishes in turn.

Good luck!

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a major believer in “don’t keep bothering her if she’s not interested”, so if I send a girl a message and don’t get a response, or we’ve been talking and I stop getting a reply, I move on.

There have been one or two exceptions over the years, but generally I follow that rule.

That’s the crux of it, though. I really have been on a couple sites for years, off and on. OkCupid, especially, even wiping my questions and starting over, I usually see the same faces pretty regularly.

At this post I’ve messaged most of the women that really stood out to me, and worse, occasionally I’ll see a profile I get impressed with, open the message tab, and see I sent them one back in 2015 or earlier, and totally forgot about it.

Is there a statue of limitations on “not interested”?

I mean, it’s been years, I’ve changed a lot, I’m sure they have, we’re both still single/single again. I don’t think I’m crazy to feel like there might be a chance that we’d click if we didn’t before.

Sincerely, 

Not Wanting to be That Guy

DEAR NOT WANTING TO BE THAT GUY: The thing to keep in mind, NWtbTG is that just as you’re seeing a lot of the familiar faces when you refresh your OKCupid matches… so is she. Odds are good that she’s seen that you’re still on there too; if you have a relatively high match %, then odds are good that the site’s algorithms are throwing the two of you at each other fairly regularly.

So it’s not as though she won’t have had the opportunity to reach out to you if she’s changed her mind. If you haven’t seen her crop up in your “recently visited you” page or gotten other indicators of interest (especially, say, a like), then in all likelihood, things haven’t changed that much since your last attempt at reaching out.

If you want to try to push the issue slightly, you could see about baiting her into a response by visiting her (and letting her see that you visited, if you’re using incognito mode) or giving a like and see how she responds. If she checks you out in return, then you at least have an opening to say “hey,” again.

But honestly: no answer is an answer and no signs of interest is generally a sign of no interest.  In all likelihood, the reasons she wasn’t into you the first time around are probably still in effect.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a best friend who is a guy and he has been my best friend since grade 1. I just realized this year that I had a crush on him. He is kind, sweet, and a great friend. I want to ask him to dance at our graduation dance but I’m to worried that it would ruin the friendship and I am nervous to. What do I do?

Some Kind of Wonderful

DEAR SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL: Best thing to do when you have a crush on someone: tell them and ask them out. “Hey, I know we’ve been friends forever, but I kind of have a thing for you and I’d love to go to the dance with you as a date; is that cool?”

In a worst case scenario, he doesn’t feel the same way you do… which sucks, because getting turned down sucks, but at least now you have an answer. You’re free to move on without having to spend time wondering “…what if?”

Now here’s the thing about not ruining your friendship with your confession: don’t. Yeah, I know this sounds like stupid advice, but the key to avoiding awkwardness when you’ve been rejected is to not make things awkward.

What makes things uncomfortable after you confess a crush on your friend is that your friend is now going to wonder what this means. Are you going to act differently around them? Are you going to try to avoid them? Does this change things? And if you want to avoid awkwardness, then the answer is: no. You show them that you’re the same awesome friend you were beforehand and that ultimately nothing is different between the two of you. Yeah, it’s a little embarrassing at first, even a little weird, but you can acknowledge that and plow through it.

As I always say: calling out the awkward kills the awkward. Once you address the elephant in the room and make it clear it’s cool to talk about it and laugh about it, everyone feels much more at ease again. It may take a little time for everyone to relax, but that’s normal.

So take a deep breath, pull your boy aside and let him know how you feel. You’ve got nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.

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: My bf and I had a threesome with a woman and it was good for our first time. I wasn’t attracted to her, but I knew he was and I wanted to give us the experience since we’d been fantasizing and talking about it for two years.

So the threesome was great. We both had fun, but the trouble started when the third started sexting my bf. He showed me and told her that we only do things together etc. So she stepped back, but she has kept texting my bf sexy photos, and texts that have sexual inuendos. And he has been dodging most of the advances with a few exceptions when he has flirted back. I know all of this because he shows me all the communications.

I have told him that this kind of flirting makes me very uncomfortable and that it hurts, but he says that it is harmless and that he won’t break our agreements which are that we only sleep with people together not apart. But it still makes me anxious and hurt.

I don’t know what to do. Please help!

Third Wheel

DEAR THIRD WHEEL: Congratulations on the fun sexy adventures, TW! Trying new things with your partner, especially things you’d both been fantasizing about, is a big part of keeping the spark in a relationship alive and healthy. However, the opposite side of trying new things is, well, ya gotta stick the landing too. And right now, your boyfriend… isn’t.

So you have two issues here: your boyfriend and your special guest star. The problem is that neither of them are really respecting the number one rule of threesomes, which is that boundaries are absolutely important. Your third is being pretty disrespectful with the way she’s acting; yeah, you all had fun sexy times, but she doesn’t seem to respect the fact that you and your boyfriend are a matched set. The fact that you had a threesome doesn’t mean that you’re cool with having her fooling around with your partner without you. Being sexually adventurous doesn’t automatically mean that you’re in an open or poly relationship. And frankly, the fact that she’s not listening when your boyfriend said “Hey, we only play together” is not cool.

However, your boyfriend isn’t covering himself in glory either, ‘cuz while he may have told her that you two only play together, he’s also not telling her to stop. I’m not surprised, honestly; being flirted with and getting sexy photos from someone you’re into is fun and strokes the ol’ ego. But just as a threesome doesn’t mean that the individual players get to do their own thing too, the fact that he’s not planning on sleeping with her (more on this in a second) doesn’t make what he’s doing OK.

Problem is that he’s rationalized this in his head; since he’s technically following your agreement, it’s all cool. But this is a letter-of-the-law/spirit-of-the-law situation here. The point of your agreement isn’t “everything that doesn’t involve your wang-wang going in someone’s hoohoo is permitted”, it’s “These are the things we agree to to maximize our emotional safety and the security of our relationship”. And what he’s doing violates that spirit.

In his mind, he’s being a good boyfriend by being up front about this. And to be fair: it’s good(ish) that he’s not doing this behind your back. Getting blindsided by this would, in all likelihood, be worse. But the fact that he’s open with you about it doesn’t change the fact that this hurts you. So no, he’s wrong: it’s not harmless because he is doing you harm by ignoring your boundaries and encouraging her to do so as well.

And honestly, while there are people who just get a charge from flirting and sending sexy texts and photos and don’t ever intend to actually escalate to full-on infidelity… right now, your husband’s behavior is making me think that there’s an “oops I tripped and accidentally stuck it in her” situation coming.

So here’s what you need to do. First, you and your husband need to sit down and have a serious, come-to-Jesus talk about her actions, his behavior and the point of your agreement. Successful sexual adventures, including threesomes, require feeling safe and secure in your relationship, and his behavior is damaging that. You made your agreement with certain assumptions in place. Since it’s clearly not working out as intended, the two of you need to revisit and amend that agreement if you want this to work. And remember, you are well within your rights to say “This isn’t working for me, and I think we need to stop.”

And you need to enforce your boundaries here. You have a right to say “the things you’re doing hurt me,” and to tell him that his flirting with her is crossing a line. The fact that it’s “technically” within the realm of what you agreed to doesn’t make it ok. Your agreement wasn’t carved in stone and sealed in blood. You can modify it as needed.

If he’s a good boyfriend, if he values you and he wants to have a life of sexual adventure and fulfillment with you? He’ll listen, understand and do better.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I first want to say thank you for the work that your site has done. My resolution for this was to improve myself and my overall situation in life. With your help and the help of some other great sites and books I have made great strides. My own place, a driver’s license, a promotion at my job in the financial industry. I feel like it has been a good year overall. Hell, I would even call it a great year.

To get to the point of my message I went on a date earlier this year, and was ghosted. No big deal, as you say no one knows you an explanation. Well about a month ago I get a message from this girl on Facebook. we become friends and start chatting, and she wants to go out on another date with me. One night she asks me to come over and cuddle. Well one thing leads to another and we end of up having sex (before we go on the date mind you) Now I truly didn’t think that we would have sex, but I knew it was a possibility. Afterwards she said she was surprised because I came off as so innocent and shy, but when I came over I became more manly man and more assertive. Which she liked.

I will be honest this was the first time I have had sex in seven and a haIf years so I got to thinking. I don’t know if this is something that I have been doing without thinking. I don’t consider myself a “nice guy” but I do try take things slow and I don’t want to push things in a relationship. It’s how I have always been. Plus I feel I’m overly cautious with relationships because of being burned in the past.

Are there things that I can do to not come off as so shy and nice which can be seen a turn off to women? I’m gonna be honest I really don’t wanna go another presidential term without having sex.

Thanks,

Seven Year Itch Scratched

DEAR SEVEN YEAR ITCH SCRATCHED:  Congratulations on doing so much better, SYIS! Here’s to hoping the years continue to be even better for you!

So let’s talk about your issue for a second. There’s taking things slow and being nice and then there’s being passive and indecisive. A lot of guys do this; they don’t want to risk making a mistake and getting rejected or making someone uncomfortable so they pull back so far that they end up never doing anything. And that can be ok if you’re dating someone who’s naturally the aggressor. But if you’re not giving any signals or taking any initiative… nothing is going to happen. Either people are going to assume you’re not interested, or that they simply aren’t going to be attracted to someone who isn’t ready to stand up and ask for what they want.

As you’ve discovered: being shy and not wanting to push things hasn’t worked for you. Being a little more assertive and confident did. Now I imagine it helped that you felt empowered to act on your interests, seeing as you were invited over for cuddling, which implied interest was there. But it’s the fact that you acted at all that makes the difference.

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

Now don’t get me wrong: just as it’s possible to overcorrect by being nice to the point of being unable to function, it’s also possible to swing the other way and mistake “confident and assertive” for “being a galloping asshat“. Walking into every interaction crotch first ain’t gonna help any more than holding back and taking things so slow that you’re getting overtaken by geriatric snails. It’s very easy to push too far and be the guy who goes from zero to “wouldyoulikesomed

k” in 40 seconds.

So you need to find the balance between nice-but-passive and confident-but-overly-aggressive.

If you don’t want to spend another 8 years between partners, than I suggest you follow the path I call “Bang Like A Gentleman“. Own your desires – for sex, for a relationship, what have you – and accept that you have a right to want them and to pursue them. And then do so in a way that’s both assertive and respectful. Look for the people who want what you want, ask for what you would like, ask them what they would like and if the two line up… excellent. If not, then thank them for their time and move on.

You’re doing well, SYIS and you’re on the right path. You just need to keep moving forward.

Good luck.

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