DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m almost a 40 years man and I’m in a relationship for about 20 years with a woman almost my age.

We’ve got our moments of pain and the last year we decided to break it because there were too many problems. She was depressed, not diagnosed but it was evident: she stopped taking care of herself, stopped working, we stopped having sex, we stopped doing things together. It went on for 4 years.

I tried to help without success, I tried to take her to a doctor but she didn’t want to so… I did not cheat or anything, but I was not happy and tried to search someone else, so I left her. We kept in touch.

In the meantime she changed, a lot, she found a job, lost some pounds, she was back to the living and I fell in love again. Now we’re back together and now I’m happy, but also worried.

We have a lot of common interests, we’re watching movies, playing games, nerding out all day long, cuddling and having sex often, but she seems interested only in my head and not the rest of me.

I have to say that I started taking care of myself too, building some muscles, taking a haircut once a month, but she’s not interested in all of that, and this bugs me. A lot.

I always point out how beautiful and intelligent she is (and she is, believe me), but she never compliment me on anything, and I need to know if she likes me. I mean: she says yes when I ask directly but then points out that it’s not fair that she have to comfort me on my confidence problems. I’m as confident as the next guy, but obviously never hearing some feedback makes me wonder if I have some issues with my appearance or anything else. She never say anything mean about me, physically at least.

I even asked her why she doesn’t do anything to seduce me, maybe some makeup, flirt a little, some lingerie, but she gets angry, accusing me of wanting to take her out of her comfort zone, and saying that it’s stupid to ask that an intelligent woman like herself to do such things. And this is bulls

t I think, the issue must be something else.

To be honest it does not take a big toll on my confidence, and I don’t feel abused or stuff like that, but after 20 years would be nice to feel seduced and sexy for my significant other, it would give me some peace. The sex is great but that’s not everything I think. I don’t know, I feel like I need some reassurance that everything’s really ok.

I thought that maybe she’s just shy, or insecure, or maybe a consequence of her depression. But as I said going to a doctor is not something she’ll do, no matter how much I insist.

I’m just worried that our relationship will end again because she’s not really into me.

Need To Feel Wanted

DEAR NEED TO FEEL WANTED: OK NTFW, let’s start with the obvious: your wanting to feel wanted and appreciated by your girlfriend is completely legitimate and reasonable. It’s easy to say “of course she likes you, she’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?”, but as the saying goes, you’re not just a person, you’re also a piece of meat. You want to feel wanted by the person you love… and you’re not getting that from her.

And that, honestly, is not an unreasonable thing to ask for from your partner. It’s one thing if you’re a bottomless pit of need, constantly looking to your girlfriend for validation and never taking “yes” for an answer. And it’s not that you don’t believe that she doesn’t like you – after all, people rarely spend so much time with someone they don’t like.

But you, like a lot of people, would like some feedback. You’d like a little appreciation for the work you put into taking care of yourself. You’d like a little flirtiness, a little playfulness, some sense that she desires you, the way that you desire her. And yeah, if the sex is great, then the desire may be there… but there’s still something different about hearing someone you lust after tell you that they want to climb you like a tree.

So what we have here is a situation where you have emotional needs that aren’t getting met. And again: that’s real. That’s a legitimate need. And it sucks that you’re feeling this lack.

Now, where I think you’re wrong is in the origin of the problem. I don’t think the issue is that her depression has come back. Nor, for that matter, do I think that it’s a case of her feeling shy or insecure.

I think the issue is, at its core, that this isn’t how she expresses her affection for others.

There’s a lot of talk about “love languages” and the way that we tell our partners how we feel. Some do so through touch, others through acts of service. Some do it verbally and others do it through gifts or attention or presence. The problem arises when you have two people who don’t necessarily express their feelings in languages that the other person recognizes.

I suspect that what your girlfriend says and what you can hear are two different things. And that can be a problem. When you have two people who can’t at least understand each other’s language – as it were – then you have cases where someone’s needs aren’t getting met, even when the other person is trying to fulfill them.

And I suspect that some of this may arise from the fact that your girlfriend doesn’t find certain things necessary or desirable. The bit about her moving out of her comfort zone or being too intelligent to be seductive or wear lingerie is telling. A lot of times, we can treat sex and sexuality as being the opposite of intelligence; look at the stereotype of the blonde bimbo. She’s got a dynamite body and lips that could make a preacher kick in a stained glass window, but the light in her eyes is shining through the hole in the back of her head.

So it could well be that your girlfriend believes that being sexy or seductive isn’t something “smart” girls do; it’s the mark of a bimbo. And it could also be that she has some insecurities about her body or her sexuality that she masks by choosing to believe that they’re silly and dumb and beneath her.

Or… those could just not be things she values. She may not bring up your body or your looks because it doesn’t really factor into her appreciation for you. She may very well want you for your brain instead of your ass. And that just may be how she’s wired, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

Regardless of the reason, you two need to have a conversation about your needs. You’re not happy with how things are going and, frankly, things aren’t going to change on their own. So it’s time to have The Awkward Conversation, where you tell her what you’re afraid of, what you need, why things would be better if you two did the things that you need… and then give her space to share her view on things. If she doesn’t understand why you’re asking for the things you’re asking for, she may not realize how much you’re hurting. And if you don’t understand her side of things, then you may keep asking for things in ways that she can’t understand or for things that she can’t give.

This can be scary. It can bring up potential minefields in the relationship. It may reveal that the two of you just can’t meet each other’s needs. But it’s also the only way you can resolve things, ‘cuz it sure as hell ain’t going to solve itself.

But unless the two of you can get a decent translation of the other’s language?

Well, it’s just going to leave both of you annoyed and unfulfilled.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Should you bother staying friends with someone who all but ghosted you the moment he started dating someone? I’ve got a friend who started dating his roommate within weeks (maybe days) of moving in with her. Not long after that, he pretty much stopped hanging out with EVERYONE he knew. Most of us haven’t seen him ages, although he exists given that he occasionally contacts us. But he never seems eager or willing to spend time with us beyond the token response agreeing that we should do something some time…

Anyways, as somebody who spent so much time hanging out with this guy to the extent that folks asked me if there was something between us, I find it a bit disappointing that the guy would drop his closest friends the moment he started getting his dick wet, but if I’m not worth his time, I feel like he’s not worth mine anymore.

I probably won’t outright cut him out of my life, but I probably won’t put any effort into things anymore. So the real question is: Am I making the right choice?

Cheers!

– To Absent Friends

DEAR TO ABSENT FRIENDS: My dude, your friend is going through a fairly standard phase. He’s twitterpated. He’s hung up on the sex. He’s deep within the honeymoon period of a new relationship, when everything is amazing, his girlfriend is the most magical creature in the world and he gets erections that could break concrete just thinking about the curve of her neck.

This happens a lot – especially when you’re young and and new to dating. Folks get blissed out and spend all their time with their new squeeze because they’re mainlining dopamine straight to the pleasure centers of the brain.

Now there can be times when abandoning his friends is a sign of being isolated by an abusive partner, and that’s something to watch out for.

But odds are higher that he’s just caught up in the thrill of the new and banging out with someone hot.

What do you do? Give your boy some time. He’ll come back around again. The sex will slow down, the novelty will start to fade, and he’ll come up for air again and he’ll start to be more social again. So keep the lines of communication open and let him know you all still want to see him. Sex is exciting and can steal your attention away, but close, intimate friendships between men are rare and important. Don’t let something as silly as a new girlfriend come between the two of you.

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 brother seems to be going through a rough cycle in the dating world, and I’m not sure how I can best help him, or at least support him.

So, to start with, my brother is probably one of the smartest people I know. He’s an undergrad doing grad work & research at one of Texas’s best universities, and keeps himself well read on a variety of topics outside his specialty. Personality-wise, he has his jerk

s moments, but is mostly a pretty good guy, and people really seem to love him. If that wasn’t enough, he’s absurdly face-pretty, which, not gonna lie, kinda makes me hate him some days (lol, but that’s another column). So he really has no trouble attracting the attention of both men or women (he’s bi/gay-but-makes-exceptions/doesn’t like labels).

Now, to hear him tell it, he’s not even that invested in the idea of dating anyone. He’s “If it happens, cool, but I got a lot going on otherwise”. And I honestly believe that, or at least believe that he believes that.

This issue is that he pretty regularly does get approached by someone, and they start dating, and he starts to get invested, and open to the idea of moving into something serious, and then they always seem to shoot him a text asking if they can keep it casual, or just be friends.

He’s told me he feels like he starts to bore people after a while, because (while I mentioned he’s well versed in multiple areas), he’s really only passionate about math and one or two other things, and even when the other person is, for instance, someone he met in class, who shares at least that interest, he’ll feel like he doesn’t have anything to contribute elsewhere. To add to it, his time is so full of homework/research work, that even if he had the interest cultivate more “frivolous hobbies” (his words, and he doesn’t really have the interest to do so), he definitely doesn’t have the time.

I’ve told him that right there is probably going to be his biggest problem, and he recognizes that, and admits it’s true, but he falls back on the, “I’m okay not dating anyone” excuse as to why it’s not a priority to change.

Then he still seems frustrated when the cycle happens again. Lately it seems to be getting worse, especially, with two women who were both driven, intelligent, and he could make math jokes with, but still ended up eventually giving him the “not ready for a relationship” line.

To make it more awkward to even talk about this, he’s one of those people who HATES showing vulnerability and that he’s been hurt, so he tends to shut down and just try to act like it doesn’t bother him when this happens instead of actually talking it out. (Just for the records, this isn’t so much a toxic masculinity issue as it is a symptom of childhood abuse, again, a whole other column on that conversation. We’ve both done therapy, both are working on it).

So, after it’s all said and done, I’d really like to know if there’s anything I can do besides let him vent when he works himself up to letting that side of himself open up to me.

Part of me thinks I need to do the tough love thing, and just tell him to stop dating, or stop being boring if he thinks that’s his issue, or to grow up and actually have an argument with the people he dates instead of withdrawing and let it simmer under the surface. Admit he does want to someone in his life, and figure out what he can change to make that happen, especially considering he’s already 85% there just by having his life together so much that people keep seeing him as someone to start dating.

Any thoughts?

Sincerely, 

Sympathetic Bro

DEAR SYMPATHETIC BRO: It’s admirable how much you want to help your bro, SB. But here’s my question: are you sure he really wants help right now? Because from the way you’ve been describing him, it sounds like he might be telling you straight that he really is ok being single. For some people, dating and relationships are something you can take or leave. It may be frustrating when an otherwise fun relationship falls apart, but hey, it happens, life goes on and there’ll be someone else later on.

But everything you’ve described – from the way that women are approaching him, to his behavior – suggests that he really doesn’t give that much of a damn. It kinda sounds like he’s cool with other people doing all the heavy lifting but isn’t investing much of himself in these relationships. And I’m willing to bet that if you were to do a sort of exit interview with his exes, you’d find that this is exactly the problem: he doesn’t give an indication that he has a damn left to give about them or their relationship.

Now, yeah, he may be one of those guys who shuts down and pretends he’s not hurt. But is it honestly possible that he’s just not that broken up about things?

But let’s assume for a second that he is actually hurt by all this. The biggest impediment to change is going to be, well, him. Unless he’s ready and willing to actually change, nothing is going to happen, whether you yell at him or be as supportive as a memory foam mattress. As frustrating as it may be to see someone who could be doing better, and as much as you may want to help him, there’s really nothing you can do if he doesn’t want to do anything yet. You can badger him and push him and he might make some token gestures to get you off his back. But if his heart isn’t in it… not much is going to change. He’s going to revert back to the status quo pretty damn fast.

Take it from someone who does this for a living: until folks decide they want things to be different badly enough, you can talk until you’re blue in the face but nothing’s gonna be different.

Now this doesn’t mean that you can’t be supportive. It certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t apply the Clue By Four of Loving Correction and hope that it opens his eyes. By all means, lay things out for him. Go ahead and sit down with him and tell him your side and how frustrating it can be considering how much he has going for him. And once you’ve said your peace… step back. It’s in his court now.

You can’t force him to do things differently or force him to change. The best thing you can do to support him is to encourage him to be willing to open up to you, and let him know that you’re there to help him out. And if and when he’s ready, you’ll be there to guide him and advise him as best you can.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I thought I would send a message to you since your articles have been so helpful to me. I have taken a lot of your advice to heart and it has made me a better person.

I just ended another date with another dude that indicated that their only goal was to get me into bed and that was it. Now before you become enraged you should know that it might not be entirely their fault.

I have reached a point in my life where I enjoy being single and doing my own thing. I was married for too long a tyrant that controlled my every move. Its been years since I left him, I am over it and have moved on. That being said, I enjoy my freedom but I miss the intimacy.

I have come to realize that a friends with benefits situation works best for me. Perhaps that sounds like I have an advantage, but I don’t. After my last FWB relationship ended (amicably) I went back the dating site to find another one. On the dating site what I say is “I am looking for an FWB” but what they read is I am easy and asking for a hookup. I like to be honest and upfront about who I am and what I am looking for. I am afraid if I don’t mention it in some way that I will break some nice guy’s heart. That ambiguity stresses me out, which I understand is probably due to the trauma from my marriage.

I am not a young, slender beautiful woman. I don’t have anything to offer that a younger, more beautiful woman could. When someone does show interest I really struggle to identify their motive. I am nice, smart, entertaining but quite often not worth sticking around for. I am perhaps their last choice. Their regard for me is often in terms you have described before as lucky to have someone interested and what not. I keep an open mind, and not everyone has been a jerk but that voice of doubt is always there.

I am tired of being used like a kleenex. I am tired of being pursued like a sex worker. I am losing my mind from the lack of intimacy. I just don’t want a committed relationship. I won’t back down, give in and sleep with who ever comes around. I just want someone I can rely on for sex. That is not a terrible thing and I am not a terrible person for wanting it. Please help me, give me some of your good advice to help me find someone.

Hopefully thanks,

Salacious Gamer

DEAR SALACIOUS GAMER: You are indeed correct, SG: you’ve got every right to want sex on your terms and you are not a terrible person for wanting it that way.

And it wouldn’t be as much of an issue if it weren’t for the would-be players and habitual line-steppers.

The problem with online dating is all the other people, SG – especially the guys who are on autopilot. You can have the most carefully set up profile, which spells out exactly what you want, what you’re looking for and what you will and won’t do and you’ll still get dudes who will ignore literally all of it in hopes of some quick action.

And it certainly doesn’t help that a lot of people mistake “being interested in casual sex” as “willing to take on all comers” rather than “I don’t want to date, I just want a reliable connection for intimacy”.

So what do you do about all of this?

Well, to start with, I would consider the applications and dating sites you’re using, SG. Different apps and sites have different cultures attached to them. Tinder tends to be a bit faster paced and still more focused on easy sex (even if it’s becoming more and more relationship oriented), while Match has more serial monogamists. Something like Bumble – where women are the initiators – or Hinge — which is more relationship-focused — may be more speed.

The other thing I would suggest is that you take “looking for an FWB” out of your profile for now. While yes, that’s what you’re looking for, it’s also causing you a lot of frustration with dudes who see that and assume that all they have to do is show up. You can still say that you’re not looking for anything serious – in fact, you may phrase it like that – but the words “casual” and “friends with benefits” are probably throwing a lot of noise in with your signal.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can tell people in person what you’re looking for. After taking the indication of “I just want something casual” out of your profile, take a date or two with dudes who pass your filter, see how you feel about them and then tell them “hey, just FYI: I’m not looking for commitment or strings. I just want a friend, with occasional banging”. If they’re still interested: cool, now you can start discussing terms and seeing if the two of you can work on that level. If they aren’t… well, it was just a date or two. Not a huge loss of your time, nor have you inadvertently broken a dude’s heart.

And one last possibility: you could check among your single guy friends who might be up for adding some benefits to their friendship with you. If you already have that trust and emotional intimacy from your friendship and there’s any physical attraction to go with it… well, there’s no reason not to at least float the possibility, no? The fact that you’re friends already doesn’t have to preclude a little action, nor does it automatically mean that you’re risking the friendship.

So change up your profile a little, SG, check some other apps to see if a different audience may work better for you and see if maybe you have some options in your life already.

It can be a frustrating slog, and sometimes the problem isn’t even you. Sometimes you’ve just got lousy luck. I’ve got several female friends who have similar issues with dating and a lot of the time… nobody’s doing anything wrong. It’s just there’s a lot of incompatible people out there and a staggering number of bastards. Sometimes the best thing you can do is spit in your hands, grit your teeth and keep making the climb until you get to the summit.

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 heading in the right direction but I need a push.

I am 27 years old and I have never been in a relationship. In fact, I have never had a single date at all. This is something that I have been looking for for a long time, but there was also a time not so long ago when I was convinced it would never happen.

However, last year I suffered a serious life event which ultimately led me to reflect on my own life, what I want from it, and how to get there. As I was figuring myself out I also started to see what I had been doing wrong in my (lack of) love life. Simply put, I had zero confidence and I was afraid to take any risks whatsoever. When I met someone I liked I convinced myself she wouldn’t be interested anyway and didn’t do anything.

Over the past year I’ve made major strides on that front, which leads me to where I am now. For the first time ever I honestly feel that I’m worth having a relationship with. I appreciate my qualities, I accept and work with my flaws, and I see that while I may not look like Elijah Wood I don’t look like Gollum either.

With that under my belt, I’ve also made steps to do more outside the house in order to meet people, and I’m generally more open to finding someone. In particular, I’ve been signing up for beginner courses for a number of sports, looking to find one to take up more seriously while also meeting other people trying something new. I’m glad to say it actually works (go figure!): it turns out there are a lot of attractive and interesting single women in my area. But if that was the end of the story I wouldn’t be writing in.

The thing is, for as many women as I’ve met and had nice conversations with over these past months, that first date remains as elusive as ever. Sometimes it may have been my fault, at other times it was probably just bad luck. For example, during the five weeks of one course I started to hit it off quite well with my sparring partner. After the final class I offered to exchange contact info, which she accepted. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that I had left my phone in my locker, so I couldn’t take her number. She took mine, but she was in a rush and at this point hasn’t texted me her number yet. I’m worried she’ll forget and that will be the end of that. She has a fairly distinctive name so I could probably look her up on Facebook, but I don’t know if I should.

At a different course I ended up chatting with someone after class too, but upon learning that we were heading the same direction she goes “Anyway, see you next week!” and waves me off (I’m no detective, but I’m reasonably certain that means “not interested”).

These kinds of things happen to me a lot. Despite looking, feeling and doing much better than ever before, and women generally responding positively to me, I still can’t ever seem to seal the deal. This can easily lead to old insecurities popping back up again: “If I still can’t get a date after all the progress I’ve made, maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this”. I already deleted my Tinder account some time ago because Tinder was essentially a non-stop rejection train (final station: Depressionville). I obviously don’t need every woman on the planet to fall at my feet now that I’ve climbed out of my hole, but on the other hand the old adage of “Be patient, work hard, and you’ll find someone eventually” is wearing thin.

So this leads me to my question: 

Where do you find the pool of confidence and determination within yourself to keep at it in the face of disappointments (self-made or otherwise) when you’re only just stepping into this arena and sometimes it can seem that the Universe doesn’t want you to have this? Especially when in all honesty you already wanted your first relationship (or certainly your first date) five if not ten years ago?

Worn Out

DEAR WORN OUT:  First of all, WO, let me congratulate you. You’ve been doing a lot of work and making a lot of progress. That’s incredibly admirable and you should be proud of everything that you’ve achieved.

So it seems a shame to dismiss all of that progress based on faulty information.

When it comes to dating, it can be hard to stay motivated, WO. It’s really easy to get caught up in the sense that things are pointless, especially when you feel like you’re putting all this effort in and only getting rejection in return.

And to be honest? That stuff can be difficult even when you’re socially skilled. God knows I’ve had days that wouldn’t go right even if I held a gun to it’s head. There’re plenty of times when my desire to go be social runs headlong into a feeling of “oh God people don’t want to be around me”.

But here’s the thing, WO: like I said to House up there, feels aren’t always reals. The fact that you feel something doesn’t mean that it’s true… or even accurate. The problem is that you are drawing conclusions from facts that aren’t always in evidence.

For example: you’re taking your classmate’s waving you off as a judgement on you and your desirability, but you don’t actually know that. You’ve drawn that conclusion on your own without any real data to back that up. Here’s what you know for sure: she went a different way than you after class. That’s it. She didn’t say “I’m going a different direction because you’re an uggo”. She didn’t declare that you shouldn’t even dream about trying to get with her. She just said “See you next week.” Maybe she was meeting friends. Maybe she had someplace she was going. She might have felt awkward, she might be worried that she was giving you the wrong idea or maybe the thought about attraction even entered her mind.

The truth is, you don’t know. You’re just letting your insecurities and assumptions run away with you.

The same is true of the woman you gave your number to. You’ve already decided that she’s going to forget about you, regardless of the fact that you have no earthly reason to believe it. Nothing’s happened and you’ve already locked yourself into the worst case scenario.

You, my friend, need to start developing a mindset for success, and you start by focusing on what is under your control. For example, you’re treating “getting a date” as the sign of success… but by doing so, you’re ignoring all the progress you’ve made. Yeah, it’s your end goal, but by focusing only on that goal, you’re ignoring how far you’ve come and how much you’ve achieved. You’ll do a lot better to focus on the immediate milestone and celebrate your progress instead of bemoaning that you aren’t where you want to be yet.

Yeah, a date for Saturday would be awesome. But so is the fact that you’ve been getting so much positive attention from the women around you. That’s a far stronger sign of how well you’re doing. You’re doing things you never thought you could do, achieving things you never thought you could achieve.Yeah, it’d be nice if you could have all this out of the way already and just be knee-deep in sex, but it’d also be nice if I had a restored cherry red 67′ Mustang hardtop.

Celebrate your progress, WO. Recognize where you are and how that proves what you’re capable of. Stop downplaying how much you’ve grown by insisting on the worst possible interpretations of any situation, especially when you don’t have actual proof that it’s true. Cultivate that positive attitude and realize that even when things don’t work out that it often has nothing to do with you.

And one more thought: yeah, things can be tough. It can feel like the universe is against you. But here’s something to keep in mind: if things are hard and it feels like the universe is pushing back against you? That’s a sign that you’ve leveled up, and now you’re facing new challenges. You’ve overcome those other ones. You’ll overcome these too.

Just keep at it, WO. You’ve got this.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I flat out refuse to go out with anyone who is really attractive because in my own personal experience, they are shallow, manipulative, entitled, and morally bankrupt.

That being said, even if I can’t trust them enough to give them the time of day, I till am attracted to them because I just am. Ideally I could find myself someone who is not attractive but at the same time is not ugly, just somewhere in between. But that doesn’t seem to be working.

I figure ether I’m going to have to settle for less, treat my bias, or wind up alone with just a dog and a house. I’m 23, make 60k a year stand 5 foot 10 inches any advice on this issue.

Gregory House

DEAR GREGORY HOUSE: Well you’re not wrong, GH; you basically have three options. Either you start dating people you’re not attracted to, resign yourself to being lonely… or you could go talk to an actual doctor and not a loudmouth with an advice column. Because, honestly? The problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have.

I mean, yes, there’re jerks and jackasses out there. Jerk knows no gender, appearance or sexual orientation. But if you’ve convinced yourself that every beautiful person out there is a jerk… well, there’s an aphorism about that. If you meet one jerk, you’ve had bad luck. If you meet nothing but jerks, then odds are that you’re the jerk.

Because, honestly my dude? I can feel your attitude radiating from here. When it comes to dating, attitude is destiny. As the saying goes, the optimist says “I can,” the pessimist says “I can’t,” and they’re both correct. Someone who has a generally positive outlook tends to do better because a positive attitude makes you stronger. It means that you have an easier time bouncing back from failure because you look at failure and see that it’s just a temporary thing that may not have anything to do with you. It sucks, sure, but it’s also a challenge, something that you can overcome. A negative attitude, on the other hand, makes it harder. It saps your strength and motivation because you convince yourself that this setback isn’t just inconvenient, it’s permanent. It’s an eternal black mark on your life, something that can never be overcome or worked around and there’s no point in even trying. It’s just how the universe is and there’s nothing you can do.

And then there’s the fact that a lousy attitude just straight turns people off.

I can certainly believe you’ve had a bad experience, even a couple of them in a row. But you’re also radiating bitterness like cheap coffee brewed with plutonium and that’s gonna put everyone off. When you roll into an interaction with someone with the attitude of “yeah, I’ve already decided you’re a bitch,” then you’re going to piss off a lot of people before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth. And trust me: if I can feel your attitude through your letter, then people will see you coming a long, long way away.

And trust me: your poker face ain’t that good.

Even if you were to try to date people who are just average, you’re going to have no luck. There’s not a person out there who thinks “enh, you’ll do” is sexy. They’re even less likely to be turned on by someone who’s only dating them because they feel that they’re less likely to screw him over. They don’t want someone who’s condescending to date them, they want someone who digs them. That ain’t you, and they’re going to figure that out pretty damn quick.

But even if you did find somebody who’s willing to put up with that attitude, you’re not going to be doing any better. Because, just between you, me, and everyone reading this? You’re not going to trust them either. You’re going to constantly be waiting for them to betray you too. Because the issue isn’t whether someone’s attractive or not, it’s that you don’t trust anyone. And at some point, they’re going to get sick of your crap and dump you and then you’ll be back at square one again.

So ultimately, you’ve got two choices: you can resign yourself to being angry and bitter, or you can get help. I strongly suggest you start talking to a therapist, GH, because honestly? You sound miserable. Living your life expecting people to try to manipulate or betray you is lonely and dreary. There’s a much better life out there, one that you could have… as long as you’re willing to recognize that feelz aren’t always realz and that maybe, just maybe… you’re wrong.

Go talk to a therapist, GH. Even if you never trust the pretty people ever again, you’ll be much, much happier.

Good luck.

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