DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I was dating a girl for about six months (I should qualify that I am also a girl), and things had been pretty good. I (still, even now) care about her, and she made me happier than I’d been in a while. She’s still publicly closeted, so we were secret even from close friends and family, which I was fine with. No, really, I was. I’m a very private person and my slowness to make relationships public has caused issues with girlfriends in the past, so I had no problems with being secret for as long as she wanted.

Things were a little rough for a while, mostly because work was hectic (a colleague was away and I was covering for them) and her parents (who are a good third of the reason she’s still closeted) were in town. We sat down and talked about it, and mutually decided to take a break. I could focus on work for a while without worrying about always being absent, and she wouldn’t be lying to her parents when she said she wasn’t dating anyone. This break was supposed to be about a month, with the understanding that we wouldn’t see other people during that month.

A week after that conversation, I visited a quiet restaurant a bit further out of my way than usual because it had really good reviews, and saw her tucked away in the back corner of the place, on a date with a guy.

I wanted to avoid jumping to conclusions and definitely didn’t want to make a scene, so I opted to leave quietly. She evidently noticed me as I did so, because when I glanced back at them she was staring at me like she’d seen a ghost.

I’ve mostly ignored her calls and texts, which has been difficult because, well, I’m pretty angry. I had made sure she knew that I was okay with an open relationship, and she’d said that she wanted to be exclusive.

My coping strategy for bad breakups (which is what this is rapidly becoming) has always been talking about it with friends, but I can’t really do that this time. Outing her would be a first class scumbag move, and my friends aren’t stupid. If I tell them I broke up with someone, they’ll notice the sudden absence of my ex from social gatherings and put two and two together. I know my friends knowing that she’s not straight probably isn’t a big deal, but for me it’s more the principle of it. If someone’s closeted, for whatever reason, you respect that and keep the secret.

I’ve made this needlessly complicated, but here is my problem in essence. My ex broke my trust, and not being able to talk to my friends about it is messing me up and making this far more draining than it needs to be.

Sorry for the rambling letter, 

Stressed and Emotionally Exhausted

DEAR STRESSED AND EMOTIONALLY EXHAUSTED: It really sucks that this happened, SEE and that you can’t really share this with your friends. This is one of the issues with dating closeted people; they drag you back into the closet with them, which has the effect of cutting you off from major sources of support and reassurance.

But before we get into what to do next… I have some questions. A lot of things just aren’t sitting right with me about this.

First: what’s with the “technical” honesty issue here? If she’s already lying to her parents about not being straight – and presumably lying by omission at the very least by not mentioning you – then I’m not entirely sure why saying “nope, not dating anyone” is going to make such a difference. If she’s that bad of a liar, I’d imagine her parents would’ve figured out the “not straight” part by now.

(And really, I think you didn’t need the “break”… or even to avoid being around her. Never underestimate the willful blindness of straight people to mistake flagrantly obvious lesbian couples as “just gal pals”…)

Second: how often were you seeing each other? Was this a case of you only saw each other on a sporadic schedule, or were you joined at the hip? You mention that you’ve evidently spent enough time together that your friends would notice her absence, which suggests you’ve spent a lot of time together. But if your relationship was a secret, even from friends… is it possible you were her dirty little secret?

Third: are you sure you saw what thought you saw?

I don’t want you to think that I don’t believe you. It could very well be exactly what you saw – your girlfriend was on a romantic date with a dude. This wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to… well, anyone, really. And there’s the perversely conspiratorial part of my brain that wonders if your ex’s parents actually came to town…  or if the guy did. It doesn’t take much to start spinning a narrative in my brain that she’s had a long-distance thing going on with this guy and now he’s in town to see her.

But honestly, that doesn’t feel quite right to me. I mean, God knows I’ve seen people do weirder crap to justify stepping out on their partner, but arranging a month-long break in order to fool around is a bit baroque.

But considering the circumstances, it could be other things as well. How do you know that she was on a date? Were they snuggled up in that back corner, doing couple-y things? Were they holding hands, making out and generally being a public nuisance for the people around them? Were they sitting with their heads too close together in a way that would suggest greater intimacy than with a friend?

Is it possible that this was an outing with a friend, not something romantic? Is it possible that this date was, for lack of a better term, performative? Considering that she’s still deeply closeted, is it possible that this was a stunt date, something that she’s doing to keep her – evidently deeply disapproving – parents off her back? Hell, is it possible that this is something her parents set up when she “honestly” said she wasn’t seeing anyone?

Fourth: have you listened to any of the voice mails she left or read the texts she’d sent? Are they all begging for your forgiveness and admitting culpability, or is she trying to tell you that it’s not what you think?

I’d really be curious to get the answer to these, because honestly, this feels hinky to me on multiple levels.

But, failing that… the way I see it, you have a couple options. The first is that you talk to friends outside of your immediate circle. Do you have friends who don’t live in town that you’re still close to? Or people who are completely disconnected from your primary friend group? If you have confidants who aren’t part of the overlapping social circles, and you have the level of friendship that you can discuss these things, then they might be the people to talk to. There’s no guarantee that this won’t end up outing your ex – even not using names, people can put things together pretty quickly – but it will give you an outlet for emotional release.

Another option might be to talk to a stranger. There are a number of mental health services that straddle the line between therapy and a sympathetic bartender – essentially trained empathetic listeners. Peer listening services – even therapy apps – have people who are trained to listen and offer support and comfort for people who just need a friendly ear and a virtual shoulder. While not the same as having a good vent with your friends, it might be an acceptable substitute in the meantime.

And a third option is one that you might not like… you might want to talk to your ex.

Now if you’ve read my column, you know my general feelings on closure are “decide you have closure” and that there’s nothing wrong necessarily with cutting off an ex as what did you wrong. But, honestly, even in big cities, the LGBTQ community tends to be very small and interconnected, which means that the odds of your running into your ex again is pretty good. Confronting this issue head on now might make future interactions easier. And taking the time to meet up and ask – in a genteel way – “yo what the ever-loving hell?” might do you some good. If nothing else, you might at least get some answers that will help close the door on this relationship. And who knows? Maybe this would lance the boil of resentment that’s building in you right now.

It’s a lousy situation, SEE, and I’m sorry you had to go through it. Hopefully you can find some comfort with your team… even if you can’t give them the details.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I recently read a Kinsey Institute article about how much sex people are having per year, on average. For the 18-to-29-year-old demographic, it states that the average number of sexual encounters per year is 112.

112 times?! Holy s

t! And that’s not even counting all the sex I’m NOT having as a 28-year old virgin male, dragging down the bell curve!

This figure is completely demoralizing. I would need to have sex roughly 1200 times to catch up to my peers and achieve social parity, an impossible feat (my DeLorean is in the shop)!

To quote Wacko from Animaniacs: “The mind boggles!” What can I do to not feel totally inferior in the face of this titanic task?!

Tail End of the Bell Curve

DEAR TAIL END OF THE BELL CURVE: Dude, you seem to have missed the key word here: “average”. As in, the sum of total encounters divided by number of participants to the study. It doesn’t take much to skew an average, especially if someone at the far end of the curve has an absurdly high number. Over at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, geology majors have the highest average salary post-graduation… because Michael Jordan is sitting on one side of that particular curve. If you average out my net worth with Bill Gates, it’s going to come out in the billions.

Of course, that’s not the only thing to keep in mind. The number seems to be misleading you too. This is 112 encounters, not partners – that is, couples having sex. This comes out to a little over twice a week… not exactly unusual for a young couple during the honeymoon phase of their relationship. And anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship can tell you: that number ain’t constant. Sex and sexual frequency does dwindle naturally over the course of a relationship.

And more to the point: ultimately it’s a meaningless number when it comes to personal value, it’s a statistic. Feeling bad that you didn’t have sex 112 times this year is like feeling bad that you only have two kids instead of 2.5 or one car instead of 2.28. You’re not even trying to keep up with the Jones, you’re trying to keep up with an entire generation at the same time and let me tell ya dude: life don’t work that way.

The person who only has sex 50 times in one year isn’t any better or worse than the person who had sex 150 times… or once. Or, for that matter, none. Numbers of partners and amount of sex had is ultimately meaningless. The guy who’s had a hundred lovers, but can’t keep any of them, isn’t automatically better than the guy who’s been married to one woman for 85 years. The couple that has sex 300 times a year isn’t better or worse than the ones that can only do it 10 times a year because they live across the country from one another.

To quote Yoda: “All his life has he looked away to the future, the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.”  That’s you, chief. You’re so focused on a meaningless number that you’re losing focus on where you are. Spend less time worrying about playing catch-up and more on your own development and living an amazing life. You’ll get where you’re going soon enough; spending your time worrying about what everyone else is doing or has done just means that you won’t be able to enjoy the journey on the way there.

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: 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)