DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  I used to believe that beauty is subjective and different people like different things. But that’s complete bullshit and there are certain features that would make a guy attractive for any girl. It’s just how it is.

Dimples, nice smile, warm eyes etc. I have none of those. My face is an egg, I have a weird look in my eyes,  and despite weighing 70kg and being 1.85m tall my face is still chubby and when I smile I look like a disabled person. No girls would ever look at me, and none ever told me I’m good looking, cute etc. Except from my mom and grandmother which doesn’t count. My friends keep telling me I have a great personality but let’s face it, personality is irrelevant if you don’t look good.

And I’m guilty of liking only very pretty, cute, hot, sexy girls who everyone would agree they are good looking. And none of these girls would look at me. Not even average girls don’t. I never saw a girl looking at me. I’m almost 18 and I never ever dated a single girl, never held hands with one and never kissed one. And even if through a miracle a girl I find hot likes me, I’ll probably hardly fail to flirt with her since I HAVE 0 EXPERIENCE and I’ll just look like and idiot. And boom, there it goes.

I’ll find myself at 25 still a virgin unable to find “love”. I’m still trying to accept the idea I’ll die alone but its hard. And no, I’ll not find love at 30 or 22 or whatever, and no I will not pay for escorts. If I don’t find anyone until I’m 18, thats too late. I’ll completely give up searching “love” and I’ll just join some satanic cult and listen to suicidal songs or something. All my friends have had girlfriends and I’m the only one who, whenever people talk about relationships and girls get “You don’t know anything about this” , “just don’t say anything, you’re still a virgin wtf dude” and so on.

I tried improving myself and I still do. The more I try to look good, the uglier I realise I become. When I try becoming good at something, I always fail. I know it because I tried getting new skills and stuff but it’s pointless because no matter how hard I try, I’m useless at everything. I tried dating apps, but even in my best pics, I look bad. I got only a couple of matches from average-ugly girls. The problem is that I’m an useless ugly piece of shit with standards. I’ve got too high standards. I don’t care the least about a girl’s personality unless she looks as good as a Korean model.

To understand how big of a problem it is, I wouldn't be able to walk out on the street or in a mall with an average looking girl. I’ll be ashamed of doing that. I think it's the fact that I’m ugly and frustrated and never liked by anybody makes me like that. It’s because I lack looks that I crave only very good looking girls, and I just don’t know what to do and how to deal with being ugly and shit.

Huckin’ Fugly

DEAR HUCKIN’ FUGLY: Hoo boy. Let’s roll this one from the top, shall we?

We’ll start with the most obvious issue: you’re 18. I realize this sounds dismissive, but I’m being serious here. I remember exactly what it was like to be 18. 18 is a lousy age; you’re theoretically an adult, but you’re at the tail end of the social hell that is high-school, your brain is still bouncing around in a stew of hormones and you have the undeserved certainty in your grasp of how the world works of a college student who discovered Communism and veganism at the same time, despite having next to zero actual life experience. So everything is a crisis, the world is always ending and you’ve got more overwrought drama than three seasons of Riverdale.

So it’s really goddamn easy to declare that it’s the sexual apocalypse and you’re doomed to die a virgin despite being 18. I was absolutely, hands down, knew-it-in-my-bones sure that I was going to be able to drink before I ever had sex. I knew this with the certainty of someone who has hopped in the TARDIS and went forward in time to verify it personally.

I was, incidentally, completely goddamn wrong. I may have sworn up and down that I could see every step of the next five years with perfect clarity, but I was wrong. And you’re not any more prescient than I was.

(But, listen chief, as long as you’re telling the future, could you look up the lottery tickets? The Powerball prize pool’s going up again and I’ve got my eye on a sweet, sweet rebuilt ’67 Mustang…)

Now, you’re convinced that you’re going to be a virgin by 25. Let’s see if we can fix that, shall we?

Personally, I’d suggest starting by suggesting that you dial back the histrionics. I get that you are feeling things strongly – I refer you back to the whole “18 years old” thing – but the truth is: if I had a nickel for every dude who told me that he made Quasimodo look like a Men’s Health model but turned out to be completely average looking, Elon Musk and I would be having mecha fights outside of Los Angeles right now. So take a deep breath. Take another. Hold it. Let it out slowly.

Now let’s begin.

Your biggest problem isn’t your looks, it’s your attitude. You’ve thrown your hands up in defeat over a future that you don’t know and can’t know. In fact, the way that you’re talking makes me suspect that you’ve been spending time on incel boards. But whether you’re hanging out with the Incels or just assh

e-infested sections of Reddit, the best thing you can do right now is log the hell out of them. I realize that it can feel like you’re facing harsh truths and peeling the pleasing lies, but that’s not what you’re actually doing. You’re engaging in what YouTuber ContraPoints famously calls “Masochistic Epistemology”: if it hurts, it must be true. But the fact is, that’s bulls

t. All that you’re doing is emotional self-harm, the psychological version of cutting. The only difference is that you’re cutting your soul and your self-esteem, not your flesh.

And that needs to stop. If you want to find love and lose your virginity before all-is-lost-woe-and-alack, then the first step is to stop treating self-harm as a path to truth instead of intellectual mutilation.

But hey, you want hard truths, I’ll give ’em to you. And here’s a hard truth for you: most of the issues you’re complaining about aren’t things something that are actually happening to you. You’re making broad worst-case-scenario assumptions based off of confirmation bias and your belief that you’re inherently unlovable and unf

kable. You’re drawing conclusions based on things that you assume to be true with no facts actually in evidence. And to add to the self-loathing morass, you’re not considering that there are likely explanations that don’t have anything to do with you. Case in point: no girl besides your family has told you that you’re handsome? I’m not surprised. Not because you’re ugly but because for the most part women don’t tell random dudes they’re handsome; not unless they’re already in a relationship with them. In fact I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a woman I wasn’t dating spontaneously told me I looked good.

Once. It’s happened exactly once.

I’ve gotten more compliments from pissed-off incels than I’ve gotten from women.

You want to know why they aren’t telling you that you’re hot on toast? Because we live in a culture that actively discourages it. We live in a culture that teaches us that male sexuality is aggressive, even predatory. Men are supposed to be the ones who make the advances and who take the lead when wooing women. Women are supposed to be passive and receptive, not to act but to be acted on. When women flout gender roles, guys get uncomfortable. Men almost immediately assume far more interest than actually exists, or presume that it’s a trick or a trap. I mean, if a woman were to tell you, HF, that you were actually attractive, would you believe her? Or would you immediately assume that she’s setting you up for an especially cruel joke?

So no, most women aren’t going to tell you that you’re hot. That has nothing to do with your looks and everything to do with the world we live in. We live in a world where male beauty was historically valued but hardly a priority and where men are currently discouraged from validating one another about how they look. Women, on the other hand are incredibly vocal and supportive of their friends, even strangers, in no small part because they don’t have the specter of “fag” looming over their heads. So you’re left without validation, without reassurance or comfort; your guy friends can’t provide it because guys are uncomfortable with expressing emotion or appreciation and women can’t provide it because guys freak out at them when they do.

Here’s another truth: your looks are incredibly malleable.

While you can’t do anything about your bone structure or your overall frame, it is almost mind boggling at how much minor changes can affect how you look. You talk about your chubby, egg-like face. This is less of an issue than you realize. At 18, you almost certainly aren’t done changing. The odds that the chub you still have on your face will melt away as you hit your 20s is rather astoundingly high, especially with your height and current weight. But even if it doesn’t, it’s incredibly easy to change the way that you look with even small changes. If you’re upset about the way that your face and head is shaped, simply changing your hair style can work wonders; anyone who’s been watching Queer Eye can tell you to never underestimate the transformative power of a hair cut. Letting the hair on top keep some length and allowing for some volume on the sides goes a long way towards adjusting the shape of your head and balancing things out. Similarly, some square or rectangular eyeglasses can give structure to a face that might need a bit more width towards the top. If you’re worried about a narrow jaw-line, consider a well-trimmed beard to fill things out.

But what about your ability to flirt? You have no experience to draw from! Well no s

t. Neither did I, chief. I had no game whatsoever growing up. I was awkward and uncomfortable and I didn’t find relationships so much as stumble into them. And that first one… well, I’ve written about that toxic situation at length before. Hell, even after my Long Dark Night of the Soul, my Batman moment when I fell into the PUA scene, didn’t immediately fix things for me. The fact that I now had a script to work from didn’t magically give me the gift of gab. In order to get better at flirting, I had to go out and practice flirting. That meant doing a lot of experimenting, trying to find the flirting style that worked best for me and, yes, being willing to make mistakes and look like an idiot. Nobody gets good at something, whether it’s sport or social skills, without putting in the work. If you want to get better at flirting, then you’re going to have to go out there and risk looking like a fool. It may be uncomfortable, but the question remains: are you willing to endure that discomfort in order to get better?

Here’s a more important truth: your looks aren’t going to hold you back. Not in the way that you think. Because, contrary to what you insist, your personality matters far more than you realize, much more than your looks do. 

I mean, William H. Macy is married with kids and he looks like Droopy Dawg. Steve Buscemi, he of the disturbing eyes, is married, with kids. Patrick Fischler, a man whose entire career is “that creepy looking dude” is, you guessed it, married with children. And I don’t know if you’ve seen Geoffry Arend, the guy that Christina Hendricks married, but let’s be real: People’s Sexiest Man he ain’t.

Except your personality? It kinda sucks, my dude. I mean, I get it. You’re 18. That’s an age that’s gonna exhaust people because you have that combination of energy, free time and self-generated drama. But the way that you go about is going to turn people off, no matter how much your face changes. You’re complaining about your looks and your lack of love, but you’re immediately turning around and insisting that women who aren’t the hottest of the hot aren’t worth your time. As much as you are longing for love and acceptance and possibly someone to look beyond your appearance – and let’s not forget that you’re not the most reliable judge here – you’re being as cruel and judgmental as the women you imagine are rejecting you. You’re not willing to extend the compassion and caring to others that you wish people would extend to you. And while I’m not saying that you need to lower your standards, the way you go about expressing them tells women everything they need to know about you as a person.

You say that you could care less about a woman’s personality unless she’s a 9 or a 10. You’d be ashamed to be seen with a woman who’s “merely” average. Why would any woman, regardless of her beauty, want to date someone who’s that casually cruel? That’s the ugliness you should be concerning yourself with, not the shape of your face or the way that you smile.

Which reminds me: you REALLY need to drop “…like a disabled person” comparisons from your vocabulary. That sort of ableism ain’t helping your case either.

Like I said, this doesn’t mean that you need to lower your standards to “just barely above non-existent” or any such bulls

t, but you do need to consider the vibe that you give off to others. If the only thing that you care about is superficial beauty, then why should anyone want to spend time with YOU? If you’re willing to dismiss people’s existence  – to see associating with them as shameful because they don’t pass the “You Must Be This Hot To Ride” test – then you’re ensuring that folks aren’t going to want to spend any time with you, regardless of whether you have an egg-shaped head or you wake up the next morning looking like Idris Elba.

But here’s the most important truth: you can change all of this. Like Ebenezer Scrooge pleading in his grave, you are not, in fact, out of time. You can take steps today that will change the trajectory of your life and help you become not just the man you want to be, but find the love and experience you’re looking for. But if you want to find love before you’re 25? Then you need to commit to making some changes. Not to your looks, but to your heart and your soul and your life.

Start with where you’re spending your time. Get the ever-loving f

k off whatever boards you’re reading that’ve been dripping poison in your ear and encouraging you to slice up your self-esteem and spend some time around people who actually love and care about you. If your friends are the ones telling you to STFU because you’re a virgin? Then get a better class of friend, because those guys sound like assh

*s. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. So ask yourself: what kind of person do you want to be? One who has love to give, who supports and cares for others? Or who casually dismisses people for bulls

t reasons? The people you surround yourself with, the places where you spend your time… these all directly affect who you are as a person. If you want to be a quality, high-value man, then you need to put some serious thought into where you invest your time and your friendship.

Next, get thee to a therapist. You’re drowning in self-loathing my dude and it’s poisoning everything about you. You need to spend some time talking about these feelings and these issues with an actual, honest-to-God mental and emotional health professional. One of the most important qualities to have in order to date is to be in good working order, emotionally and the fact is: you ain’t there. The sooner you start talking to a counselor or therapist, the sooner you can unpack these feels, dig into the source and learn how to let go of all that pain.

After you’ve spent time with a therapist and working on your mind, THEN you can start to work on your dating skills. And the only way you can do that is to go out into the field. Now, there are some best practices to follow; I’ve written literal books on the subject (New Game +: The Geek’s Guide to Love, Sex and Dating - available from Amazon and iTunes!). But at the end of the day, there is no way to grind out those levels in social skills without actually using them. So you’re going to need to take risks, make mistakes, collect some scars and just put yourself out there. It’ll be hard. It’ll be uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, it will be worth it.

Things aren’t as bad as you think they are, HF. You’re not doomed by genetics or cursed by a twist of fate. You’re just young, with a bad attitude and a heart full of pain. The sooner you fix those, the sooner you’ll be in a good place to start finding the love you’re looking for.

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 am in a happy relationship of nearly 5 years, I love my girlfriend and we are both very happy. Around 1 year ago I felt like I needed more close relationships with other people. I told my girlfriend I was polyamorous and that although I loved her, I wanted more than one intimate relationship.

It has since been a year that I have told her how I feel but we have swept it under the rug. This is because she would not be happy with me having more than 1 romantic relationship and I don’t want to leave her.

This is a dilemma. She is the girl I want to marry. However I feel like I need to discover what I really want, and I don’t think I’ve been given a chance to do this. I don’t want her to be unhappy.

I have since told my girlfriend that I am happy with monogamy, because I feel so strongly about her and I really want our relationship to work.

Thank you for reading!

More Love To Give

DEAR MORE LOVE TO GIVE: Let me make sure I have this straight, MLTG because your phrasing’s a bit ambiguous. You want a poly relationship because you want to find what you actually want, is that right? Because, quite frankly, the way you phrase things makes it sound like you’re saying you want to play the field to figure out what actually want while still having your girlfriend. And… that’s kind of a problem in general. It’s a really BIG problem if that’s how you pitched it to your girlfriend.

Now to back up a little bit, let’s talk about the difference between an open relationship and a polyamorous one. An open relationship in general means that you’re not sexually exclusive to your partner; the specifics and the rules involved tend to vary from couple to couple, but it tends to be more about sexual relationships. A polyamorous relationship, on the other hand, is not having an emotionally exclusive relationship with your partner.  Again, the style tends to vary dramatically from couple – some poly groups are equilateral triangles where everyone’s involved with the other equally, others involve a single person who’s with two (or more) partners who are not involved with each other. All variations can get pretty complicated pretty quickly and require some serious social calibration, emotional intelligence and incredibly clear and open communication with everyone involved. A polyamorous relationship – regardless of the structure – is dating on steroids and all the stresses and duties of a relationship are multiplied. It can seem awesome from an outside perspective – the harem fantasy, anyone? – but in real life it can explode very quickly and all over the place.

If you seriously want to pursue a non-monogamous relationship, I suggest you do your research. Read The Ethical Slut, Opening Up and More Than Two, so that you’ll have the toolset and the vocabulary to negotiate and manage an open or poly relationship. Maintaining a polyamorous relationship is varsity-level dating when it’s poly from the start. Trying to turn a long-term, monogamous relationship into a poly one is basically pro-level dating. The idea of opening up a relationship sexually is often easier, interestingly enough; there’re more cultural models for getting some on the side than there are for the idea that you can have romantic love for more than one person at the same time.

And that’s part of what’s going to make things difficult. Your girlfriend went into this relationship – quite reasonably – assuming that you and she were on the same page. Making that big of a change to the terms of your relationship? Especially if the two of you haven’t had any sort of serious discussion about how it would work and what it would look like? That’s going to be a very hard shift to make.

So that’s one problem right there. Now here’s the other:

You’ve basically kicked it back under the rug and said “never mind, just kidding.” If polyamory is something you seriously want to pursue, then that really was a bad precedent to set. While I get that this seems like best way to make things work with your girlfriend, you’ve basically given yourself a short-term fix to a long-term problem. If you’re not genuinely OK with monogamy… well, all you’ve done is set yourself up for a break-up down the road instead of ending it now, before things get more entangled and harder to end cleanly. It’s also going to suck more for your girlfriend, especially if she thinks that the entire time you were with her, you were wishing you could be with someone else… even if that’s “someone else as well“.

You’re going to have to make a decision, MLTG: which do you want more? Your relationship with your current girlfriend? Or a polyamorous one? You’re not going to be able to have both.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a bit of a complicated sexual and emotional situation that I’m looking for some insight into. There’s a lot of NSFW detail in here, but it’s important to understanding the situation.

So I’m a cis woman and my partner of almost a year (since March 2015) is a trans woman, K. She’s assigned male at birth and pre-gender-affirmation surgery. My relationship with her is the longest one I’ve ever had (my previous longest was two months, to give you an idea of my background).

When we first started dating, I was able to give K two to three orgasms in one session – with some down-time in between, of course, but still pretty closely timed. That gradually stopped, and for the past few months (I’m not sure exactly when), orgasm has been almost exclusively “one-and-done” for her…at least when we’re together.

See, K and I also made the decision to open up our relationship in early September. We started out by getting together on two separate occasions for a threesome with a cis-woman friend of hers, G, who also had a couple dates with K without me there. During the threesomes K was obviously able to orgasm much more than with me alone, which made sense. However, that was also the case when K and G had solo dates; K was able to have multiple orgasms in one night with G, but that is no longer something that K does with me.

K and I did close up our relationship in October when school got busier, but in the past month we have reopened it, again with G being K’s friend-with-benefits. It’s still the case that K is able to go for multiple rounds every evening she spends with G alone, but not when she’s with me alone. Now obviously, this makes me feel like total crap.

My brain is telling me I used to be attractive enough and exciting enough to make her want me, but now we’ve been together long enough that I’m boring and unattractive to her, and that’s never going to change. I’ve brought these concerns to K, and she’s 1) felt guilty as hell that I feel unwanted, and 2) tried to tell me that it’s not “better” with G than it is with me; it’s just different, and she still does desire me sexually even though we interact differently now. It’s just really hard for me to believe this – after all, there’s a quantitative difference between one orgasm and two or three, right? And one is simply measurably better than the other.

I don’t know what to do at this point. Our relationship has always been very honest and supportive, and I don’t want to ruin it with my own irrational insecurity on this issue. I simply don’t know what I could do to make myself believe that I’m desirable and exciting again. K suggested watching porn for extra stimulation so she can go a second round with me, and we tried that, but it ended up making me feel even worse because it’s a reminder that she used to be able to do that with only me being the stimulation, and now I’m no longer exciting enough to make that happen.

Literally anything you have to say would be appreciated here.

Thanks for your time,

Going Back for Seconds

DEAR GOING BACK FOR SECONDS: Your jerkbrain’s going nuts, GBS and it’s making you miserable. Let me help you out a little.

First and foremost: sexual desire and performance is a strange beast in mammals. We’re sexually wired in all sorts of weird ways that cause a lot of stress because our genitals don’t always play nice with our social mores. K’s not wrong when she says “it’s different”. This is actually a factor of biology, and something that trips people up all the time in long-term relationships. In scientific circles, the way we respond sexually to new partners vs. the same partner is known as the Coolidge Effect; it describes the way that the dopamine spike from sex drops when people mate repeatedly with the same partner. In layman’s terms: our bodies start getting used to our partners as we get more familiar with them and the novelty fades. Being with a new partner ramps the dopamine spike back up because, well, they’re new and different.

But new and different doesn’t mean better. It just means different. Similarly, familiar doesn’t mean worse or boring. Those are labels your jerk-brain is throwing up because it’s trying to tell you that something’s wrong and it’s all your fault.

You’re going through something every couple goes through. Sexual passion ebbs and flows in a relationship. It’s hot and heavy in the early days, then settles into something less frantic but more intimate over time… but it can come right back too. The fact that you’re at a (relatively) low ebb has nothing to do with the quality of your relationship, your feelings for one another or how attractive you are to each other. It’s just part of a cycle that everyone goes through.

Second of all: Don’t conflate the number of orgasms or length of the refractory period with the quality of the orgasms or the strength of the connection. How many times a person orgasms or how are dependent on so many factors that are completely separate from attraction that you can’t really make any qualitative statements about “what they mean”. Hell, people with penises and prostates tend to have stronger orgasms, with correspondingly higher levels of ejaculate, when they believe their partner’s had sex with someone else. This serves as a way to flush out the competitor’s sperm. It also happens to feel good, in the way that only a mind-blowing orgasm can. That doesn’t mean that they suddenly find their partner that much more attractive; it’s just a weird quirk of being a primate.

So let’s put number of orgasms aside and look at behavior. It doesn’t sound like K’s neglecting you sexually or that she’s avoiding sex with you in order to sleep with G. In fact, it sounds like K’s doing a fair amount of work to make things work – and that’s more important than how many times she orgasms with one person or another.

In fact, K’s doing one of the things I advise couples to do when the passion starts to dip: she’s bringing more novelty into the experience. Watching porn together is one of the ways for couples to change things up. You might also try having different kinds of sex – experimenting with kink, sexting, dirty talk, taking it to new and different places (literally)… getting out of the tried and true and trying the new and different to kick off the same chemicals you had shooting through your brains when you first got together.

But let’s focus on this fact: she’s trying to show you that she still finds you attractive. Sometimes you have to be willing to take “yes” for an answer and realize your jerkbrain is a lying liar as what tells lies.

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 a girl and I have this guy friend who I’ve known for about three years now. We’ve always been flirty with each other but it never really amounted to anything; at the end of the day, we were just two nerds who hung out mostly to play video games. Thats probably how it always starts, eh?

Well this year something has happened between us and I have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was his whole “self-improvement plan” where each month he would ask friends for suggestions on his personality and then go about working on them that month. He’s become a much better friend and takes a lot better care of himself now, so maybe that has something to do with it. Regardless, when I came back from summer break (we’re both in college) we started hanging out as usual and suddenly there was an intense chemistry between us. We went from not even hugging to say goodbye to being extremely touchy. I’m not a touchy person at all, but we’d end up pretty snuggly on the couch any time he came over- even with other friends with us.

Everyone jokes about how we’re “such a cute couple” because we playfully fight (which obviously can get pretty physical as well), but then we both start denying it because everyone makes so much fun of us. We’ve always been friends so people think its funny to joke about it because they don’t know anything has changed, thus it gets embarrassing when they hassle us. Plus he is well-known for his “type” because he’s a short guy that goes for all these model-esque women, yet I’m his height. There’s all these other factors to his “type” too that I don’t really fit, one especially being that he doesn’t go for other nerds. And yet today he said “Let’s take a couple picture!” after laying down next to me on the floor, then stroked my hair and did all this other couple-y stuff. (Also, no, there was no good reason for me to lay on the floor. A bunch of us were just bored at a Christmas party, so we laid down on the floor and started doing barrel rolls. College kids.)

I know at this point that I definitely have some feelings for him, but I’m completely confused by him. He’s been on a few dates with another girl recently and I don’t know where that leaves us. Every time I think he’s gonna make a move its actually for someone else. I’m debating whether he goes out with the other girls to make me jealous or if its because they meet his self-professed “type”. I also am a kind of a “tough girl” so I can come across as intimidating, but he knows me better than that and is aware its just sort of a front to keep the jerks and creeps at bay. One thing I’m sure of is that he’s definitely feeling the same chemistry I am. I sat down with him the other day and told him I didn’t want him to be so touchy if he wasn’t planning on asking me on a date any time soon and he apologized, said he noticed it, and promised to work on it. However that only lasted a few days and then it went back to flirting and physical contact. It actually got worse, I’d say.

I don’t want to lose my friend over this but I have a feeling thats where it’s heading if I don’t do something. Its gonna start making me crazy if I have to spend my time with him trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. It’s starting to feel very childish or “high school” I guess, if that makes sense, and I’m not about that. But if I’m as impossible to read as all my friends say I am, I’m worried he’s just scared I’ll turn him down when thats not the case.

I don’t know. I’m done with words. Help is appreciated.

Dazed and confused

DEAR DAZED AND CONFUSED: Ok, this may be the first time I can’t tell if someone has written in with their problems or if I’m trying to provide relationship advice to the cast of an anime rom-com. Because quite frankly, this is such a tsundere (A term from anime and manga, meaning a person who alternates between being irritable – tsuntsun– and affectionate- deredere) relationship plotline that I feel like I should be checking TVTropes for plot spoilers.

But let’s put the character comparisons aside and look at things. You’ve been good friends for a while and now there’s suddenly intense chemistry between the two of you. You’re flirty, you’re touchy-feely and cuddly. You spend all your time together…

Why exactly are you asking me for advice again?

This couldn’t be more obvious. Dude’s into you. You’re into him. Even your friends are screaming at you two to kiss already.

Here’s why your loverboy hasn’t done anything: you put up an intimidating front – even though he knows better – and it’s making him nervous about actually taking things to the next level. “Hey, don’t flirt with me unless you’re going to ask me out” can sound like an invite to make the first move… or it can sound like you’re saying “S… stop getting the wrong idea! Baka!”

Yeah, he may like those model-esque women… but he’s also clearly demonstrating that he likes you too. He’s (presumably) not dating other women to make you jealous, he’s dating other women because… well, what else is the dude supposed to do? He’s worried that you just told him to quit flirting with him because you’re not going to date him, even when you’re sitting there waiting for him to ask you out. The two of you are in shoujo anime relationship limbo right now, both of you aware that you dig each other but neither of you are willing to do anything about it.

Be very glad that I’m not anywhere near you; my tolerance for romantic comedy “can’t spit it out” drama is incredibly low and I would feel obligated to beat you both with a clue-by-four before lock the two of you in a closet until you accepted the obvious and started making out.

At the moment, homeboy’s terrified that you’re not into him. So here’s what you do: ask him out, already. This will solve all your problems: he’ll realize he doesn’t need to be afraid that you’ll turn him down and you’ll finally get all the damn tension out in the open instead of sitting around and wondering what to do do about things.

Honestly, the worst thing that happens is that he says no. In which case… well, it sucks, but you’ve got your answer now and you can move on. At that point, you tell him straight up to quit flirting with you because you like him and his being flirty with you when he doesn’t feel the same way makes you uncomfortable.

But I’m willing to wager a not insignificant amount of money that he’s going to say “yes”.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Way back in the dark ages (late 90’s) when my husband and I first started seeing each other we sat down and had a conversation about monogamy. We agreed (18-year old me and 22-year-old him) that if ever there came a time when one of us wanted to pursue a secondary relationship that we had the freedom to ask for permission for such a dalliance. That all seemed fair and equitable and incredibly distant and academic to my younger self. Honestly, that agreement still seems reasonable to me on an intellectual level.

But here’s the thing, we’ve been been married for 16 years, we have two children, and for every single one of the last 18 years (the two we weren’t married for and the 16 we have been) the idea of being non-monogamous has really never come up. Until now. Six weeks ago, after an admittedly long dry spell spurred by poorly treated depression on my part, he came to me with a question. He’d met a lovely young woman he had feelings for and wanted to pursue a relationship with.

Now, philosophically I have no issue with polyamory. And, after all, I did agree that this was a permissible question and potentiality way back in the way back. That said, I won’t lie when I say I was upset. But after I’d taken some time to process I gave him the go-ahead. What I didn’t anticipate, and couldn’t have really, is that the poorly controlled depression I mentioned above was actually entirely untreated bipolar disorder. As he was gaily off wooing this new woman I was sitting at home going absolutely bats

t insane. At this point we’re all on the same page, mostly. He continues to see his new lady friend with the caveat that they are taking things very slowly out or respect for my mental health. Meanwhile, I am getting on new meds and getting my butt into therapy.

However, in the interim, and also depending on which pole I’m at, I am either one hundred percent okay with his secondary relationship or absolutely devastated by it. I’m hopeful that once my meds start actually working I’ll be in a better place to know what my actual opinions are. I guess my questions are these: since I was cool with this all prior to losing my mind will I go back to being cool with it? Is my husband being a jerk to keep dating his other partner while I am having a major depressive episode? Am I fooling myself thinking I can be okay with this? I really can’t sort out which feelings are real and which ones are my mood disorder messing with me. With the caveat that you have no clue what’s going on in my own twisted psyche, does this sound like a fair and ethical scenario or am I actually getting the short end on things? I know how it feels right now, but seeing as I’m deeply depressed I don’t really trust my own judgement.

BiPolarAmory

DEAR BIPOLARAMORY: So a couple things first.

The fact that you made this arrangement 18 years ago doesn’t mean that you’re now soul-bound to it. You and he have done a whole lotta living, growing and changing in the intervening years. The circumstances under which you made that arrangement back in the day are not the same as the ones that stand now. So it’s not inherently unfair to you to say “ya know, I’ve got some issues with this,” and re-open negotiations if you feel that you’re not necessarily ok with it these days.

The other thing is that you don’t want to overlook how you feel.

If you’re in a place, funky brain chemistry and all, where there’re regular times when it is ripping your heart to shreds, it is totally fine to pump the brakes on things. The fact that the origins of said heart-shredding comes from a chemical imbalance doesn’t make it any less heart-shred-y. Just as with depression, just because you know what the root cause is doesn’t mean you magically stop feeling it or you’re able to somehow power through it by sheer force of will and come out not feeling horrible on the other side. Those feelings are real. They still hurt and dismissing them because you know that it’s a depressive episode doesn’t make them go away or invalid.

Plus, let’s not discount the possibility that the times when you’re fine with it could be coming from a manic episode.

Of course, opening that particular can o’ worms is a great way to completely paralyze yourself and leave you continually asking yourself what is reality anyway.

SO.

Opening up and maintaining an open relationship isn’t easy and it’s not for everyone, and one of the keys to making it work is the understanding that both of you have the right to call the question. Relationships are a continual negotiation and when circumstances change, then the terms of the relationship should change with them. If one person is miserable and the other is having the time of their lives, that’s inherently not fair to the miserable person. The point of an open relationship is that everyone is ok and on board; if opening things up is going to end up doing more harm than good, then you shouldn’t open the relationship. 

If you’re unsure about how you feel or whether those feelings are being influenced by wonky brain chemistry, then the best thing you can do is temporarily close things while you wait for the medication to do it’s thing (and acknowledging that it could take a while to find meds and dosages that work for you). And honestly, I’d say if you’re going to close it up while you’re getting your disorder under control, then close it up all the way. Which means your hubby calling things quits (for now) with the new girlfriend. Yes, it’s a shame that he doesn’t get to explore things further with her the way he’d want to but a) you need his love and support right now and b) there’s no point in frustrating him with what he can’t have or setting things up where oops he slipped and broke your arrangement.

Close things for now, get yourself in a better place and re-examine how you feel. If you legitimately are ok with it, you can reopen it again and everyone can pick up again later. And just in case you haven’t already, I suggest you both do your due diligence with regards to polyamory. Check out The Ethical Slut, Opening Up and More Than Two to help you both talk about what you want and how you’re going to make things work.

Good luck.

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