DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: How in the heck does a man actually feel like a sexual creature? How do you start feeling worthy of having sex and being comfortable expressing that I want to have sex in this world?

I say this as sometimes (a lot of the time actually) it’s just not worth trying to meet people. It feels as though as everyone has a million stories about creeps trying to hit on them and as a man with no experience in asking people out, I’m going to come off as creepy a heck of a lot before I even have reasonable social skills, a 9 in charisma (out of 20).

I just don’t want to be the creep, even accidentally and I never asked anyone out in school, so I don’t have the practice to help me. I also never asked anyone out and barely socialized at all in college, meaning that I’m waaaay further behind socially than most people.

Now if I were a time traveller, I’d get my past self to socialize more but I do not have such technology, besides if I did it would be consumer-model, I. E. Terrible as slackers can’t afford nice things without taking out a loan.

Anyway, while we’re talking stats, my strength is less than 5, I’m puny, my Dexterity is 10, my best stat in that it’s the speed and reflexes of an average person, my Constitution is abysmal, 4, I get horribly horribly winded from a light 10 second jog, my Intelligence and Wisdom is 6, I’m deficient in my studies and haven’t seen enough of the world to prevent myself from getting ripped off and my charisma is a 4, I get by (barely) socially with my D&D games but I dont have a life outside of it.

My idea of a bad evening is when my computer updates and I’m stuck inside with a bunch of books I only read in the mornings over breakfast, and a ton of ideas for stories to write but not the get up and go to even write out a draft.

I got off topic, point is I now only see love as something that happens in fiction, a nice little lie to sell products on deceitful holidays like Valentines day.

I’m not angry about the love is a lie thing, I get by alright with a monk-like lifestyle right now, I just need to learn how to feel like a sexual being, as in feeling worthy of actually having sex and expressing that fact in case I meet someone that wants to spend their life with me and I want to spend my life with them, and living life like In the life insurance ads, happy in our old age.

But how would I feel like any woman would actually be interested with me? I’m the proverbial anime fan on prom night.

There needs to be something standout about me for any woman to be interested, me being a sports star, or an investor, or one of those losers you find on TED talks, trying to give others false hope. I need to be an inventor, or a scientist or a programmer who doesn’t want to take vast amounts of user information via social networking websites.

Women aren’t interested in 20-something loser man child who all they want to do is write stories, they… just want somebody better.

So anyway, how the hell does somebody even feel ready to ask somebody out? Leaving aside all the potential public shaming that could occur, my brain just doesn’t accept it as a concept. I mean the attraction’s there, but it always thinks ‘pass on by’ and I do, unwilling to ask someone out because it most likely won’t be worth the effort.

What would I gain? A nice conversation perhaps, maybe even a hug goodnight. What’s to lose? Getting beat up, publicly shamed, sneered at, or worse.

Now I was thinking about being a pillar of the community to find meaning in my sexless life, but something tells me that people will sponge off my generous nature, never learning how to do anything for themselves and just expect handout after handout. I want to help people but I don’t want to be their caretaker.

I got off track there again, apologies doc.

Thanks,

Iron Hand

DEAR IRON HAND: Alright, I’m gonna do something I don’t normally do. Iron Hand, I want you to just shut up.

This isn’t “Oh sweet Zombie Jesus shut up already you annoying idiot”, it’s “shut up and just DO it already”. You just spent over 700 words and god knows how many minutes talking about all the things you don’t like about yourself and why you can’t possibly ask anyone out. That, honestly, is time wasted. For all the time you just spent listing all the things that are supposedly wrong with you, and all the reasons why the universe is arrayed against you, and you have to suffer the slings and arrows of having leapt off the blocks at the start of whatever social skills race you seem to think you’re in, you could have spent it DOING something about it. And by something I mean literally anything. 

But you haven’t. All those things you’ve told me about? They’re excuses. And they’re not even GOOD excuses. 99.999% of them are things that you have just straight made up out of whole cloth. I don’t know if you’ve spent too much time on Incel or Red Pill forums or if this all came straight out of your own head, but you’ve painted a Heironimous Bosch painting of a world that, frankly doesn’t exist. The idea, for example, that you need to be the top 1% of anything to date, for example, is rank bulls

t and so easily disprovable that I wonder if YOU even believe it. All you need to do is go to a Wal-Mart or Mark and Spencers on a Sunday afternoon to see people who are emphatically not Elon Musk or LeBron James who have girlfriends, boyfriends, husband and wives. If we had to be the tip top of society to date, the human race would’ve gone extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago.

But like I said: these aren’t reasons. These are excuses. Because literally everything you list about why you can’t do something is a) BS and  b) eminently fixable… if you get up off your ass and do something about it. Because right now? It sounds like you’re waiting for all of these changes to just magically happen, since they didn’t just happen for you as a kid. But that’s not going to happen. I mean, if you want to talk about anime fans on prom night, let me give you a relevant quote:

“Those who only complain about their helplessness will not change a thing.”

 Nothing is going to happen unless you MAKE it happen.

We have a saying around NerdLove Industries, IH: “Deeds, not words.” You’re giving me a lot of words. If you want things to get better, then you have to quit with the words and start doing the deeds. You want to build your stats? OK, cool… then get out there. You want to work on your strength and constitution? Then hit the gym. Download a copy of “Zombies, Run” and start practicing for the zombie apocalypse. Throw some TV shows onto your smartphone and hop on a treadmill. Want to develop your social skills? Then go and practice them. They’re called social SKILLS for a reason; they’re something that you can improve if, IF you use them.

Tired of those bad, lonely evenings in? Then get up and get out of your house. Join a Meetup for something you’re into. Find the subreddit for your city and see what’s going on around you. Check out the week’s events in your local alt-weekly. There are hundreds of things that you can do and places to go on a daily basis to get out, meet people and generally be a social animal.

Will you be perfectly, socially fluent right off the jump? No, probably not. But that’s not the point, because nobody is. People don’t get off the couch and suddenly run marathons either. Everybody starts from zero and works up from there. If you want to get better, then you’re going to have to go out and grind some experience points, because you sure as hell aren’t earning them sitting around at home complaining about being lonely.

Did you get a later start than other folks? Sure… but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. You can still start now. Nobody’s going to give a damn about your being a late bloomer unless you make it an issue.

And if you actually go out and talk with people instead of creating these elaborate and oddly specific fantasies about what will happen to you if you actually interact with folks. Nobody’s going to beat you up, nobody’s going to publicly shame you and the only folks who’re going to try to sponge off of you are grifters who want you to stay exactly as you are. Don’t want to get scammed? Then go out there and take some levels in bad-ass.

The only person who can help you meet your goals and achieve your dreams is you and that’s never going to happen unless you actually commit to it. So get off your butt, make a list of the things you want to fix, make plans about how you’re going to fix them and then do it. If you need to know where to start, then grab some of my books and work from there. But if you want to become someone who’s worth dating, then you have to decide that you are going to be the one to make it happen.

It’s up to you and only you IH.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I go basically everywhere alone. Concerts, conventions. . . everywhere. Sometimes, not always, it’s nice to have a random casual conversation with another human being. But almost 100% of the time the men I speak to seem to think that I’m hitting on them or something. (And I do not just speak to men. I’ll drop a casual, “did you hit that traffic too?” to ANYONE.) And then the conversation gets shut down quickly.

Example:

Me: Nice weather for the show.

Guy: My wife is off getting our beers.

I’m not exaggerating. Within 2-3 sentences the wife or girlfriend is dropped into the conversation. This is from men young and old, attractive and not. (It happened tonight at a show with an extremely unattractive older overweight guy.)

And I need to mention that I am not dressed suggestively. I am not remotely attractive either. And I don’t give off flirty signals like some desperate stray dog out to hump some leg. So, why does this happen? I feel like they’re putting me in my place. It makes me feel like I got dropped into a scene from Dietland when all I want to do is exchange a casual sentence or three.

Just Trying To Be Friendly

DEAR JUST TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY: So one of the questions I get a lot is about why women don’t make the first move and why guys are expected to be the initiators and aggressors. The reactions you’re getting, JTTBF? That’s one of the reasons why. Because we’ve been living with the cultural expectation that men are supposed to make the first move for so long, we tend to think that women who take the initiative are far more invested than they actually are. Guys assume that if a woman is approaching them then either a) it’s a trick or b) she must really want him; after all, she’s flouting society’s accepted rules to talk to him.

This, in all likelihood, is what’s happening to you. You’re being friendly and making casual conversation, but to these guys either you’re leading up to asking them for a date or trying to sell something. So they’re trying to wave you off by bringing up a potential partner.

Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done about this because hey, that’s in their heads. Now, if you still feel like being chatty, then you could just say “…ok?” in a puzzled voice to give a sign that you’re not sure how that’s relevant before moving to a different topic. If they’re otherwise cool folks who just misread the situation, they’ll apologize or follow you into the new conversational thread. But if they’re absolutely convinced that you’re there to hit on them, there’s not really anything you can do, nor is it your responsibility. They’re just being stupid and you can go talk with someone who actually does appreciate casual conversation.

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: Been reading your stuff for awhile and it’s been really helpful. I’m a 28 year old male that’s been in a dating drought for about 3 years now, but this summer has been quite a bit different. 

So I’ve gone on a couple dates with a girl from work over the course of this last month. I wish I could say it’s been smooth sailing but it hasn’t. I asked this girl if she wanted to go to a friend’s birthday party, which she agreed. As the night went on, we were flirting and ended up having a very passionate make-out session (Awesome!), after which we planned our first actual date. Before the date, we texted frequently and she talked about how excited she was, but also told me that she’s terrible at texting, hasn’t dated in awhile, and considers herself a “work in progress.” I thought these might be red flags, so I ignored them.

The first date went great, I cooked for her, we watched a movie, made out, then went on a walk and were totally into each other and planned for a second date the following week. She went home and thanked me for a great night. The day after our first date, she got some bad news that she didn’t get a promotion that she was lead to believe was in the bag for her. She was pretty devastated. I was unaware of this and she didn’t communicate much during this time which was leading me to believe she wasn’t interested. But she told me she was still interested and wanted another date. So we planned for the next week. The day of date 2, comes by and she cancels on me saying she’s sick with food poisoning. My BS detector was giving me a strong indication that this was in fact, BS. The BS detector was validated when I saw later that day that she posted on Instagram about how hard she worked out at the gym, the day of our date, “sick with food poisoning.” Nice.

But I’m a hard learner, so I stuck around. The only reason I decided to stick around was because in the text, she wanted to reschedule for the next Tuesday when we were both off. So I figured I’d see what happens. The few days before the rescheduled 2nd date she had apologized and explained the whole thing about not getting promoted and that she’s not a flaky girl, so I was cool with that. She took me to breakfast for the second date and it went well enough. The next day or so I asked her out on a 3rd date which she happily accepted. I texted her the day before our date to firm up some details about if I was picking her up, and she took FOREVER to respond, like 7 hours. I try not to double text and not come off as needy, but I had to in this case. She sent a super brief text claiming she thought she responded (I’m sure) and was cool with me picking her up. So the day arrives, I’m supposed to take her to dinner after she gets off work but I already get the feeling it’s not gonna happen. I send her a text the morning of to confirm that we’re still on for the night. 6 hours goes by, not a word. Then about an hour before shes supposed to get off work she calls me and all I could hear was her crying, trying to talk to me but I couldn’t make out a word. So she sent me a text saying she had a sore throat and wouldn’t be able to do our date but didn’t want me to think she was lying and was struggling that day.

I thought this was pretty genuine and we rescheduled again for the next week. As this week went by we texted every couple of days and I would see her at work and we’d chill in the breakroom if we were both in there. Everything was cool. I call her 2 days before our date to firm up our plans and she was excited and totally down. We talked for a little bit and everything seemed peachy. The day of the date arrives, I send her a text that morning (about 10 a.m.) saying good morning and asking her what time she wanted me to pick her up. Now based on my previous experience with her terrible texting behavior and the fact that she was all for our date and flirty at work, I didn’t stress about not getting a response for a few hours. By 3 p.m. I started to think this was looking like a repeat of last time. By 4:30 pm I finally sent another text asking if she was still wanting to go out tonight. I saw that she was active on Instagram so I knew she wasn’t dead. By 5:30 pm I called and didn’t get an answer. Then I followed up with an “Are you ok?” text that I wish I could take back because it’s lame and was sent in a moment of desperation. I finally admitted to myself what was happening so I completely deleted her from my phone and unfollowed her on Instagram so I couldn’t send anymore texts.

So yeah, I was lead on for weeks and then ghosted on the 3rd date by someone I’ll see at work pretty frequently. I’m beyond confused as to why she would do something so rude and I’m not sure how to deal with this when I see her again at work. I want to confront her about it, but that seems pointless because in the end I’ll still want nothing to do with her. So I’d like to take the high road, but I don’t know what that looks like. Thankfully I’ll be quitting in 5 weeks when school starts back up and then moving onto a new job, so I’ll never see her again. But until then, I’ll see her a lot.

Any sage advice?

Sincerely, 

Ghost Buster

DEAR GHOST BUSTER: That is some odd behavior, GB. Generally when someone’s going to ghost on you, they go radio silent, or say something like “check in with me on the day of”. What they usually don’t do is constantly kick things down the road and keep giving every indication that they’re excited for the next date. So what gives?

The first possible option is that things are exactly as they appear: she’s horrible at texting, is a little flakey and there’s just been a long string of bad luck. Despite as improbable as it may sound, s

t does happen and life just keeps kneecapping your plans every time you turn around. I’ve had times where it took over two months to finally make date happen with someone I’d met on OKCupid because something went wrong every single time one of us proposed another time. We eventually managed to get together and had a laugh at how much of a struggle it was.

The second possible option is that she’s the sort of person who can make plans but freaks out on the day of. Maybe she had every intention of going out on that date with you but ran out of spell points (or spoons or whatever metaphor you prefer) and couldn’t quite bring herself to say “I can’t make it.” Maybe she has anxiety when it comes to social engagements and makes excuses because she’s embarrassed.

The third option is that after the first date, she just wasn’t feeling it but couldn’t quite bring herself to tell you. The fact that the two of you work together makes just flaking on you trickier, especially if you’re going to see each other on the regular. Inventing a plausible excuse and begging forgiveness gives a socially acceptable way of saying “thanks, but I’m not feeling it” without inadvertently insulting you or making things awkward at work. (Whether this actually works is another question entirely but, it’s something many people do.)

Meeting up for breakfast is a low-investment, low-intimacy sort of date that limits potential shenanigans afterwards and fulfills her obligation of having agreed to the date in the first place.

But what about the flirting and the makeouts? Well, sometimes that’s just all somebody wants; the makeouts were nice, but they don’t want to take it any further. They may have been into it in the moment but on further reflection – or dates – decided that they just weren’t feeling it. Or you may have said or done something that ultimately made them decide not to go out with you again, but not so egregious that they couldn’t talk to you in person.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, either she’s not interested or she is interested but just doesn’t have her life together enough to date. Regardless of what the truth is, the only thing to do is just accept it with a shrug and move on. As much as it may sting your ego to have been rejected like this, this is honestly fairly minor as far as dating mishaps go. The best option is to drop the subject and just be polite and cordial at work. Don’t feel like you have to talk about what happened – or rather, what didn’t happen – and just stick to pleasantries about work. Five weeks isn’t long in the scheme of things, and afterwards, you won’t have to deal with her again.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I salute you from an lost island on the Mediterranean Sea. Apologies in advance, English isn’t my first language.

I’m a 25 year old man and I’ve been studying and practicing about all this dating world for a while. I’ve finally gone from zero to “Hey, it’s a date”. But I’ve never been in a relationship

Now I’ll explain the dynamic. The date begins, all is going great, I add up a little of humour but, like a loose saltcellar, it spills everywhere. The next day I wake up on the dreaded Friend Zone (nothing bad in making new friends).

Every of my friends knows how to use the humour to flirt, they tell me to be more smooth, maybe give me some advice or two. Others don’t say a word because their techniques are “top secret”. 

I’m not a handsome boy, but at least I fullfill the basics (on taking care, getting fit, etc). Despite that, I don’t have many opportunities to get a date or a “match”.

The problems comes when my brain tells me: “Ok, It’s time to flirt” and then I go blank. I understand the dynamics of push-pulls, but in practice, nothing comes out. I don’t know how I’ve to flirt, or be playful. If I compliment her looks, ends with me being “so polite”, If I try to being a little dirty, it ends on an awkward moment. 

And, I do not why, sometimes I start the “automatic comedy routine” so I end up in Friend Zone. On Tinder is a little bit more difficult, a bad move leads to ghosting (anecdotally, where I live, is full of people from around the world on vacations, so you need to be chill in various languages and having translated bios)

Help me Doc, I want to be smooth, I want to have fun making little dirty jokes with a girl and she responding on the same way. My objective is not to write this to complain, is to know how can I practice this and not staying blank. I’ve been putting a lot of effort in my dating life, and I know I can do more! But I want to be sure that these efforts are on the right track.

Thanks for your time.

Tongue Tied and Twisted

DEAR TONGUE TIED AND TWISTED: A couple thoughts, TTT. The first is that you need to separate the process from the outcome. Part of why you’re going blank is because you’re so caught up in the outcome. You see flirting as being the key to success, so you have put monumental importance on it. That, in turn, puts immense pressure on you to Not Mess It Up. So now you’re thinking about what to say, how to say it, what your date is going to say and now you’re all “daaaah how do words go?” It’s the Centipede’s Dilemma: you were doing great until someone asked you how you kept all those feet in synch and now you’re tripping all over yourself.

Think of how you talk with your friends, male, female and otherwise. You’re not so invested in the outcome, so it’s easy to just relax and let the banter flow. You’re in the moment, not constantly analyzing every single word and phrase coming out of your mouth for maximum impact. So it is with dating and flirting; the more that you can be in the moment and not thinking about how to maximize your flirting potential, the better you’ll do overall.

The next is that you need to find your flirting style. There’s more than one way to flirt. Some people do well using humor to flirt; they’re great at banter and wordplay. Others do well with more sexual flirting, able to make ribald or even overtly lascivious comments that women love. Still others are straightforward and complimentary. It’s all about finding what works for you and with your personality. Forcing a flirting style that isn’t in line with who you are is like trying to jam your feet into shoes that just don’t fit. You might be able to make it work, but it’s going to pinch and rub blisters and generally make you miserable in the long run. The more the way you flirt meshes with your personality, the more natural and authentic it feels and the easier it will come to you.

The third option is that you need more practice flirting. Flirting is a skill after all, and like all skills, it’s one that eventually becomes part of your muscle memory. Finding opportunities to flirt for fun and practice – as opposed to when it “counts” – gives you a chance to work on your flirting without feeling like you need to perform perfectly. If things go well, then hey, bonus! If they don’t and you trip over your tongue? Well, it doesn’t matter, because it’s just practice.

Just remember: regardless of your flirting style, flirting is supposed to be fun for everyone involved. Lean into the fun side of things, and you’ll do much better… and not freeze up as often.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m going to start with a quick rundown of my dating history for context. I never bothered dating in high school, thinking that those sorts of relationships wouldn’t last and weren’t worth it. Once I got to college though, I…didn’t get much further. I saw relationships everywhere that looked miserable and seemed to end over very petty things. It was all very dramatic. I saw demanding women and inattentive selfish guys getting together constantly and I envied them. I kept thinking that if I had the chance, I would definitely be a better boyfriend and also would probably be wiser at choosing a girlfriend than some of these guys. Instead, regrettably, I became a Nice Guy; a strategy that as you can imagine, didn’t work at all.

When I eventually started dating during my first year of grad school, I decided that the best way to avoid getting trapped in the kind of miserable relationships I’d seen was to design a sort of committed friends with benefits model that in practice ended up with me getting sex and armchair psychotherapy and with her getting… to be quite honest, bad sex and not much else. I got my heart smashed 4 months into this bad experiment and yeah, I royally screwed this up because I didn’t even know what a relationship was much less how to hack them to avoid the problems I saw.

Still I was optimistic that I could do better. I’m 28 now and over the past years I’ve dated a bit in short bursts which never ended up developing into anything you could call a relationship. It just became really clear early on that these arrangements wouldn’t work out which I honestly didn’t take too hard.

The thing that has put new terror into me around the prospect of a serious long term relationship is something that happened to my best friend. He’s a trans guy which obviously comes with its own snags, but he is one of the strongest, most resilient, most emotionally intelligent people I know. He spent 3 years in what ended up being a very verbally abusive relationship with his girlfriend and spent the following 3 years depressed and trying to mend himself from the aftermath. He’s doing great now, but if I were unlucky enough to end up in that kind of situation, I think I would be a lot worse at handling it. I don’t think I would have the insight to see it for what it is or the boundaries to stand up for myself/leave the way he did. He did everything right and still had to piece himself together after. This terrifies me.

Relationships on the whole seem dangerous for me to get into at my skill level even though I’m kinda old. I really would like to be in a healthy committed relationship but I don’t have enough faith in myself or humanity to risk getting hurt or hurting someone else because I don’t know what I’m doing.

How do I gain the skills I need when the world is this scary?

Signed 

Courage the Cowardly Man

DEAR COURAGE THE COWARDLY MAN: I understand your fears, CCM. It’s understandable to be a little gun-shy after what you’ve gone through and what you’ve seen. But what you’re actually asking me for is a way to date without taking any risks whatsoever. And unfortunately, there’s no such beast. Dating is a full-contact sport. You take the precautions you can to make it safer (emotionally and physically), but at the end of the day, you’re making yourself vulnerable. That means you’re going to run the risk of getting hurt. Sometimes you’ll get hurt because of the mistakes you make, other times you’ll get hurt because there’re assholes out there and assholes are gonna ass. Still other times, you’re going to get hurt and it’s not going to be anybody’s fault; sometimes things just don’t work out and while it’s a damn shame, it’s just the way things are.

So if you want to date, you have to do so with the knowledge that you’re at risk. But, risk doesn’t mean guarantee of injury. Skiing, for example, is potentially dangerous, but I’ve been skiing for years and I’ve never injured more than my pride. My friends, on the other hand, have broken bones and twisted ligaments. And you take precautions to minimize the chance of injury or trauma. Developing and maintaining strong boundaries, for example help keep toxic partners away and help keep your relationships healthy. Being sure to avoid emotionally over-investing in people early on in the relationship helps keep you from getting hurt needlessly and getting comfortable the potential of rejection makes sure that you don’t get stuck in The Friend Zone or start becoming a Nice Guy.

But none of this helps if you don’t actually, y’know. Put yourself out there. You can read all the books, watch all the videos and listen to all the podcasts you want, but none of them are going to do the work for you. The only way to build up the skills you need is to actually put those skills to use. You’re gonna have to grind out some experience if you want to level up, CCM.

You have to confront your fears dude. Otherwise, they’ll only grow and take even more control of your life. Avoiding the things you’re afraid of just makes you more afraid of them until you are avoiding even the potential of feeling fear. The longer you put it off, the harder it becomes to face them and overcome them.

If you want to date, if you want to find a relationship, then you have to embrace that risk. You have to be comfortable with the possibility that things aren’t going to work out and you might get hurt. After all, every relationship ends eventually, until one doesn’t. But while pain may be somewhat inevitable, suffering is optional. Things may suck, but they won’t suck as bad as you think and not forever. You can get back up again..

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: First of all, I would just like to say you are doing a tremendous service here. I’m in my early 40’s and frankly I really wish you would’ve been around when I was in high school. I get the basic premise of what your telling everyone – suck it up & be a ‘man’ while showing people of the opposite sex respect.

To keep this simple, I’m going to bullet point my story for you.

– Shy, awkward nerdy kid in high school that didn’t take any chances but was actually in the ‘cool group’ of people.

– When I was 19, my best friend whose friendship prevented me from committing suicide my junior year of high school died suddenly. Because of this I was messed up for a good 3 or 4 years and never really let anyone in.

– In my early 20’s I started dating – for the 1st time. After dates with only 5 women, I met a great girl, we hit it off, and within 6 months she moved in and a few months later she was wearing my ring. She was, and still is the only woman I was ever intimate with – heck, my only kiss.

– About 9 years after we were engaged – she said that she liked the relationship the way it was – the reason she didn’t want to be married was her dad was a jerk to her mom, and she never wanted to be “tied down that way”. I’ll admit, from a financial perspective I was a bit more conservative then she wanted to be – but I tried to work on that and give her the space she deserved. At that point, I decided that I loved her more than anything and if that’s what would make her happy then I would deal with it. I really wanted to be married to her though.

– It was around this point our sex life started to drop off dramatically. I made excuses to myself like ‘this is what happens to married couples’ and crap like that. Frankly I had put on some weight, was having some performance issue but I could tell she wasn’t enjoying it which frankly made me want it less. Since I didn’t yet know of your blog I didn’t know better to just open my mouth and talk to her about it like a man.

– So, fast forward to a few months ago when she suddenly dies of an unknown health issue. As I was getting into her e-mail and phone to get photos for her funeral service, just hours after she died I found out that she had been cheating on me for the past 5 years. Ironically starting exactly at the time she didn’t want to get married anymore. Her entire “second life” on Craigslist, work associates, random guys in hotels when she was traveling, etc. was documented. Six different e-mail accounts with well over 10,000 inbound and outbound messages. Thousands of text messages, naked photos of her, naked photos of other men. Graphic stuff about what they did to each other that I’m not sure I could ever do to a woman… but she never remotely asked for me to do anything like this with her. She never deleted her browsing history on Google – her porn habits were so appalling that I get sick just thinking about watching porn anymore. I stopped reading the messages when it got to over two dozen different guys she hooked up with.

My therapist considers it a textbook sex & porn addiction. It was about the secret for her – that’s what got her off. Pretty sure that I could have been endowed like a porn star and I couldn’t compete with that adrenaline rush she had from those encounters.

So it takes me to now. It’s been a few months, I’ve lost over 60 pounds (I have a goal of another 150) and I’m totally lost without her. Until I lose ½ that remaining weight I’m going to have a hard time finding anyone that will give me a shot. I get it – it may be shallow but I don’t want to date a slob that sits on the couch eating junk food either. I’m trying to find new hobbies and define ‘me’ but it’s really tough to meet new people in your 40’s. Literally everyone I know is married with kids, so it’s not nearly as easy to ‘get out’ on your own if you don’t want to sit at the end of a bar every night.

Yup you don’t need to tell me, all these things are excuses. I’m trying though, honest.

I know I’m not ready yet – but do I feel the desire to get back out there, just like any guy that broke up with his girlfriend or got divorced. I know I need to stop being the drinking buddy of Grimes and get my life together. How in the hell do I move on from this? Do I list my relationship status as ‘single’, ‘divorced’ or ‘widowed’ on my Match profile? Everyone has baggage, but how do you even bring this up – I know ‘handle thy own s

t’ – but some disclosure of this is probably necessary pretty early in a relationship – but when? My partner lived more in the last five years of her life and did more exciting things

– I will never cheat on someone (I had plenty of opportunities myself but never thought about it seriously) but how do I even “live” like she did? Should I try to pretend that I’m in my 20’s again before moving on? I’ve learned that life can be pretty damn short.

Sincerely, 

The Longest Story Writer Ever

DEAR LONGEST STORY WRITER EVER: I’m so sorry you went through all of this LSWE. Your relationship was hard enough without suddenly losing your wife (fiancee? your letter isn’t terribly clear about whether you actually got married)… and then discovering her secret life is like losing her a second time. Suddenly, you’re forced to reconsider literally everything about your marriage and what you knew about her. It’s like discovering that the person you thought you were with never even existed in the first place, and what does this say about you and your relationship. Was any of it real? Were there any signs? Were you just so blind?

The first thing to recognize is that this was never about you. This was all her damage, and would likely have happened whether she was with you, Brad Pitt or Studly Goodnight. You didn’t see the signs because you had no reason to; you had every reason to believe that she was being honest with you and acting in good faith when she said that she loved you or that she was happy. Could you have done things differently? Of course you could have; hindsight is 20/20 after all. But you were working with the information and the beliefs you had then; there’s no point in trying to relitigate the past with what you know now. The only thing you can do is try to heal and move forward.

But here’s the thing: there’s moving forward and then there’s forcing yourself out there when you’re not ready yet. My dude, you were with her for nearly a decade or longer. That’s not something you’re going to get over in a few months. Not after a sudden death and definitely not after everything you’ve just learned. The end of a long-term relationship always has a period of adjustment; you’ve built your life around being with that person and now they’re no longer there. In a very real way, it’s like you’ve lost a limb. Now you have to have to re-learn how to do everything again without them and that’s going to take time. You have to break the habits of years and get into a new and different groove. Trying to get back out there now isn’t just a mistake, it’s trying to run when you’re still working on crawling again. You’ll get there but right now you need to focus on you and your healing.

And that’s before we take your discovery into the equation. Even though this had nothing to do with you – again, this was all about her – it’s still going to take time to process this and recover from it. You’ve been hit with a serious one-two punch from a heavyweight, my dude. You don’t need to worry about what to do with your baggage in future relationships because you’re still trying to figure out what your baggage actually is. This isn’t baggage yet, this is still clothes and detritus spread all over what’s left of your life.

So stop worrying about how you’re going to disclose this to future partners; that’s for much later. Right now it’s just a distraction. Quit worrying about how you’re going to “live” like she did. You’re not in any competition. You don’t need to “match” her, nor is the way she conducted her sex life even right for you. You need to live in the way that’s right for you; if that means being a serial monogamist or being able to count the number of sexual partners you’ve had on the fingers of one hand then that’s what’s right for you.

You are still neck deep in the healing process. You are not anywhere near ready to date yet or to even think about it. What you need to do is focus on you right now. You’re in recovery and emotional rehab. You need to put all of your attention on your physical and emotional health and rebuilding your life.

The good news is that you’re doing everything right. You’re working out, you’re talking with a therapist and you’re processing the hell out of your feels. That’s good. You need to do that for a while. Once you’ve started to get back in good working order – not perfect shape but functional – then you’ll be in a much better place to know how to proceed. You’ll have a better grasp on what happened and what your story was and will be going forward. You’ll feel more comfortable in how to label yourself, in how much to share, when and with whom. That time is not now. But you’ll get there.

You’ll be ok. I promise.

All will be well.

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