DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a position where at some point soon, I’m going have to move far away due to work. As a result, I can’t really be in a relationship. However, I still want to have sex, so I’m looking for friends with benefits arrangements. I have explicitly stated in my OKC and Tinder profiles that that’s what I want, but I have no idea how to do more than that. How would I even bring up the idea without being seen as creepy?

No Strings On Me

DEAR NO STRINGS ON ME: There are two key components to finding a friends-with-benefits relationship, NSOM. The first is, ultimately, a marketing issue: finding people who might be interested and getting your message out to them in an appealing manner.

Trying to achieve this can be tricky. It may seem like a no-brainer to say “hey, I’m only looking for FWBs” on OKCupid and Tinder… and then you spend time watching the tumbleweeds blow through your empty inbox, wondering just what’s wrong. When you’re out looking for a simple, casual relationship, it can feel like you could count the number of potential partners on the fingers of one foot. This often goes hand in hand with the maxim of “women don’t like casual sex”, often reinforced by bros doing “social experiments” on YouTube to prove the point.

The truth is that there are a lot of people out there who’re looking for casual sex or no-strings attached relationships, NSOM, both men and women. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of asshats who’ve all but guaranteed that women are going to never respond to guys who are looking for one. Women on dating sites will be deluged with offers of sex, regardless of what they say they’re looking for in their profiles; women who indicate that they’re looking for a casual or NSA relationship will be hit with a veritable tsunami of free-floating wiener. Whether you’re standing around with a megaphone announcing “My body is available, please form a queue!” or approaching women – in person or online – with an offer of NSA sex, then you’re just one more voice in the chorus of the damned.

So while you’re being clear and upfront – and presumably respectful – in your profile by announcing what it is you’re looking for, the problem is that far too many dudes have poisoned that particular well and even women who might be interested are likely to pass you by, just because they’ve been burned too many times before.

This ties ties into the second component: you need to demonstrate that sex with you will be worth that person’s time. As writer Alana Massey famously said: “C

k is abundant and of low value”; there is no lack of dudes offering to be a woman’s Studly Goodnight at a moment’s notice. The problem is that pretty much all of them suck in bed, and most of them will call her a slut and a whore afterwards. There are multitudes of women out there who would appreciate a casual relationship with a guy – easy companionship, occasional sloppy make-outs and no real expectations of future plans – but the risks involved just aren’t worth the lousy sex that would result.

So your approach has to be two-fold. First: fine tune your profiles. Were I you, I’d leave explicit mentions about FWBs out. You can send the message of what it is you are looking for without hitting that particular NOPE button. To start with, you should pick the “short term dating” option on OKCupid; not only is that literally true in your case – you’re moving at some point, so you aren’t up for anything long-term – but most people will (correctly) assume you’re talking about a more casual, less committed relationship.

Think of the story your dating profile tells – are you telling the story of a man looking for that special someone to settle down with and find that house in the suburbs with the white picket fence? Or are you someone who’s on the move, who isn’t putting down roots and wants to find someone who’s on the same page? The way you fill out your profile questions contributes to this; are you painting a picture of someone who’s potentially husband material or as someone whose lifestyle is fun but more high-speed, low drag?  Are your pictures lining up with those goals? Are they showing a guy who’s out having adventures? Or are they cozy and domestic – showing you playing with your cute niece or nephew, cooking in the kitchen, hanging out with your sweet Grandma?

The same goes with your Tinder profile. Are you talking about yourself and the kind of person you’re looking to meet, or do you have something short, funny and pithy? The former tends to imply relationship, the latter is slightly more indicative of someone not looking for Mrs. Right. “I have strong opinions about breakfast tacos” or “Living for pinball and margaritas,” often work far better than “I’m not looking for anything serious”, which has come to mean “I never want to actually define what that means as long as it keeps you coming around.”

Crafting your profile this way will not only help you find people who’re more likely to be on the same page as you, but will also mean that your likely to actually go on dates; you won’t be giving off the Douchebag Alert that drives women away before they have a chance to get to know you.

And going on dates is going to be important, because this will be how you build the connection with your potential FWBs. First, you’ll be doing your dating due diligence – testing for chemistry and interest – after all, the last thing you want is to be meeting women who just don’t rev your motor. You’ll also be in a position to build the sexual tension and chemistry that will tell women that yes, you would be fun in the sack. But most importantly, you’ll be able to show that while you’re a great potential lay, you’re also a gentleman. One of the most important – and sadly neglected – aspects of trying to find a casual relationship is creating a sense of safety and respect.

One of the biggest reasons why guys have a hard time finding casual sex is that they tend to focus on the short term, immediate goal: get her into bed as soon as humanly possible. They want to bang that night, if not sooner. As a result, they often push too hard, too quickly and ultimately snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A woman who might have said “yes” on the second or third date will almost certainly say “no” to a guy who can’t be patient. That impatience is frequently a sign that he’s more concerned with getting laid than he is about her comfort or sense of security. The best and most successful lovers out there are the ones who create a space where women feel safe and empowered to say yes, rather than badgering her to give in.

It’s on these dates, incidentally, that you have the chance to lay out what it is that you have to offer. You can make it clear that you’re going to have to move in the not-too-distant future and so any relationship with you will come with an expiration date. This knowledge will help filter out matches who are going to be looking for something longer-term. Just as importantly, it sets expectations accordingly: you may be a good friend and a great time, but you’re not boyfriend material. For many women, this is ideal; it’s some short term fun without the expectation of demands on her time or independence. Just be sure that the dates you go on are the fun, exciting type, not the “isn’t it romantic?” type; it’s easy to end up sending mixed signals if you’re essentially dating on automatic.

But you can’t just rely on subtext; you are going to have to have a Defining The Relationship talk with any potential partners. After all, a casual relationship is a relationship. So too is a FWB relationship. You want to make sure that both of you are on the same page and that you both have the same expectations and definitions as one another.

And don’t forget: just because you’re moving doesn’t mean that you can’t have a relationship with long-term potential. If a long-distance relationship isn’t your bag, then hey, that’s cool too… just don’t artificially limit yourself because you assume that anything you start now can’t last beyond moving day.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I recently started a new job. When I was going through the intake process, I hit it off with the person who explained everything to me. We have similar interests and she seems to enjoy my sense of humor. Since then we’ve become very fast friends. We have in depth conversations about who we are as people, and just seeing how we’re alike and different. Not surprisingly, I soon caught feelings.

As we’ve been talking, she mentioned she recently ended a bad relationship. Because of that, she’s working on herself and thinking about what she wants in a partner. I am fine with only being friends, she’s just that great to be around, without trying to backdoor that into something more. 

So I don’t have a particular overabundance of experience, but I do know that making a big showy confession about how I feel is exactly the wrong thing to do.

The options I see are:

a) Tell her how I feel, let her know any response is fine, and that there is no pressure to change what she’s doing for me.

b) Not tell her and stay friends. Then start looking at other people for potential partners.

I appreciate any advice you might be able to offer.

Secret Crush

DEAR SECRET CRUSH: I’m generally opposed to the idea of  “tell X person you have a crush on them” because, frankly, it’s kind of passive.

“Hey, I’ve got a crush on you.” OK… and? What do you expect them to do, now that they have this knowledge? The feelings-confession, no matter how sincere or heartfelt, tends to put the onus on the other person to take the next step, which is a bit of a dick move. This is why I generally advise people to skip the confession step and move directly to ASK THEM OUT ON A DATE ALREADY. The “I’m interested in you,” tends to be implied when you’re asking somebody out on a clear and unambiguous date. It’s baked into the whole process; one rarely goes out on dates with people they’re not interested in.

Now in terms of your specific situation, I think the best move in this case is to be friends and date around. If she’s telling you that she’s just out of a recent relationship and “working on herself”, then she’s giving you the wave-off. Either she can tell you’ve got a crush on her, or she’s pre-emptively letting you know that she’s just not down with dating you, just in case. Regardless: it’s a pretty clear sign that she’s not feeling it and your time and emotional energy will be spent pursuing people who are available.

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 huge fan of your work and I feel like you’ve really helped me advance as far as dating goes. Using your advice I started online dating (using OkCupid) a few years ago and I found out that there are women out there that find me desirable, which I found to be amazing because I’m not conventionally attractive in the slightest (I’m 5’7, Babyfaced, and slightly chubby). I’ve gotten a lot of likes, had messages responded to, had several first dates, and last year even had a girl ask to kiss me. Sadly that same girl rejected me after three dates because she suddenly lost interest (she said it was because she loses interest in relationships really quickly and that that was why she hadn’t had relationships before, I don’t really believe that and think she was just letting me down easy but, whatever).

The problem is it seems like the online dating environment is evolving in such a way that greatly disadvantages guys like me. Apps like Tinder have long since overtaken OkCupid in popularity and to be successful on that app you absolutely have to be strongly conventionally attractive or you won’t get anyone to swipe right. You don’t get to make the first move and your profile is basically meaningless which unfortunately means I can’t make up for my appearance with a thoughtful first message or a well-written profile. And of course OkCupid is changing itself to be more like Tinder: your messages are basically invisible unless you both like each other, you can’t see who’s visited your profile, and you can only see who likes you if you buy a subscription. I’m terribly afraid that people like me or going to be forced out of online dating and that I’ll lose the only way I have to find a relationship. Of course, the obvious solution would be to try and get dates in real life, but there a couple of problems with that. For one, trying to hit up strangers just sounds wrong, I can’t think of anything that would scream “I’m a Creep and Probably a Rapist” more than trawling through town hitting up random women who look single. And the second issue is… well…

I don’t have any friends. There, I said it. It’s not like I’m not socially functional, I have a ton of acquaintances, usually from places I’ve worked, who I’ve joked with, helped out, and had long conversations with. Hell, there are coworkers who’ve basically told me their life story in the time I’ve known them. I’ve also taken steps to make friends in the past: I’ve gone to Meetups, started two Meetup groups of my own, even scheduled a hang out with a coworker once. But all of these fell through due schedule conflicts, groups dying out, and personal conflicts (the coworker I hung out with has recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend and isn’t currently in the mood to hang out).

But honestly, I don’t really feel the need or desire for friends anymore. Most of my hobbies are solo pursuits: playing single player video games, reading, relaxed hiking, and biking, watching anime and youtube videos, collecting albums from obscure and forgotten bands, etc. I play guitar sometimes but I’m nowhere good enough to play in a band (if I could even find anybody in town with similar musical tastes). I have a good relationship with my family who I currently live with (I’m not a loser, I have a fulltime job and I’m getting my Masters in Library Science; I’m just staying to save money till I graduate) and thanks to my psychiatrist I have meds to deal with my anxiety issues. Besides, having someone to occasionally hang out with if I’m not too busy, I want physical affection (no, not just sex, but hugging, kissing, cuddling, etc.) and someone who sees me as something special, someone who finds me to be an attractive person instead someone cool enough to watch youtube videos with for a couple hours.

But of course, the only way for me to date if online dating stops being an option would be to meet people through friends. I don’t think it a good idea to make “friends” just so I could meet women, that would be unfair to my “friends” and probably wouldn’t work anyway. Besides, making friends takes a long time, several years probably, and as someone who’s almost 26 and never had a girlfriend, I’m not sure I want to wait till I’m deep in my 30s before I can even attempt to date, especially since my chances will have dropped dramatically by then. So I guess my question is, what should I do? Can I adapt to new online dating environment? Do I just need to suck it up and ask strangers out in real life? Do I have to spend the next several years making friends and hope I eventually meet a girl?

Thank you,

Loner Boy

DEAR LONER BOY: Here’s the thing, LB: your biggest problem seems to be that you don’t want to actually put in the effort. I’m not gonna lie, you’re coming off with an attitude of “we’ve tried nothing and now we’re all out of ideas.”

Let’s start with online dating. You’re frustrated. I get it. Online dating can frequently be frustrating because, honestly, a lot of dating sites are set up in ways that make it hard for folks to actually connect. A lot of the recent trends in dating apps and sites have been attempts to mitigate that frustration and make it a more enjoyable – or at least teeth-grindingly annoying – experience. So while I think OKCupid’s recent changes aren’t great, the double opt-in system does help cut down on a lot of bulls

t by trying to get the signal-to-noise ratio under control. And you aren’t wrong in that Tinder is more visually oriented… but that doesn’t mean that you’re just SOL. To start with, you can start by taking better photos. Getting more comfortable with the camera, knowing how to find your angles and how to show yourself off to your best effect all go a long way towards transforming your photos from “nice” to “niiiiiiice”.

But at the same time, you don’t need to be on Tinder. Different dating apps have different cultures and different approaches to how to connect people. Bumble, for example, focuses on having women take the initiative and make the first move. Hinge, on the other hand, focuses on messaging and lets users like and comment on things from people’s profiles in order to get the conversation started.

Or… you could do what most people do and meet potential dates out in your day to day life. Because, straight talk my dude: even in 2018, most people don’t meet their partners on dating apps. Most people tend to meet their partners either through activities… or through friends. Y’know. The thing you just said you don’t want to do.

But part of your problem is that you’re treating finding dates as the end-goal of making friends, as opposed to a pleasant side effect of having a robust social life. It’s not that you’re going around just trying to make connections so that you can go hit on every woman they know – that is a great way to fire up the Creeper Signal – it’s that you’re meeting people who you enjoy spending time with, who give you a strong emotional support system and and who enrich your life. And let’s be real here: not having many – or any – friends hurts you on multiple levels. There’s an honest-to-God loneliness epidemic going on right now and it’s literally killing people. Having few or no friends is worse for your health than smoking.

And to be honest: your hobbies are solo by default, not by definition. There’s nothing that says you can’t go riding bikes or relaxed hikes with others; hell, you can probably find a dozen Meetups specifically about going on leisurely strolls or bike rides. Plenty of folks like going hunting for records or hanging out and watching anime. These are all things you could do with friends, should you so choose.

You also have a weird vision of how the whole “friendship” process works. The idea that you need to know somebody for years before you’re friends – and before they may introduce you to other friends of theirs – is another one of those times where I’m left wondering where you got that idea because it sure as hell isn’t in practice. Yes, friendships develop over time and it takes time to go from “acquaintance” to “friend”… but the idea that this is a multi-year process that must be completed before any other friendship benefits can be accrued makes me suspect that you’ve taken a lot of the wrong conclusions from think-pieces about friendship.

To be fair, making friends does get harder once you’re out of college. But “harder” isn’t the same thing as impossible. It just means that, like most things in life, you’re going to have to go out and make an effort. You’re going to have to find folks who you’d want to hang out with, make an effort to get to know them, connect with them and foster and maintain that burgeoning friendship. That’s gonna take time and effort.

Rather like dating, actually.

Now hey, maybe you’re being real with me when you say that you don’t really want or need friends. Maybe you’re actually cool rolling solo, rather than just being resigned to it or feeling like you’ve given up. If that’s the case then hey, awesome. You do you. But then you’re back to square one: where are you going to find someone to date? Because honestly, my dude, you’re not going to find a girlfriend without putting in the effort. If you don’t want to use online dating sites, then that’s your call. Lots of folks don’t like ’em and that’s totally legitimate. But if that’s the case, then you are going to have to be proactive about meeting people. That may mean making cold approaches at bars or clubs. It may mean meeting people via activities you enjoy. Or it may mean friends introducing you to someone that they think you’d hit it off with.

But whether you choose any one approach or a mixture of them, you’re going to have to get proactive about it. Because women aren’t going to just drop into your lap out of the clear blue sky and the love of your life isn’t going to randomly slam into you while she’s running late to class, no matter what anime has taught you.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I was hoping that you could help me with some toxic emotions I’m feeling.

One of my friends recently started dating a friend. We had had some casual hook ups before but had decided to pull back from hooking up to just close friends. She starts dating another guy and I get these really toxic emotions of jealousy and feeling betrayed. I feel like I’ve been replaced as a friend (she doesn’t talk to me as much or as intimately as before) and after I’ve hung out as a group with them, I get some negative emotions after seeing them interact. I know these emotions aren’t right and I’m happy for her to be happy and with someone that makes her happy; is there any you have to help me sort out those negative emotions?

Third Wheel

DEAR THIRD WHEEL: The easiest way to work through jealousy is to figure out just what it is that’s bothering you. A lot of jealousy is based on fear, and the fear of loss in particular. In this case, I suspect that the underlying fear is that you’re being pushed out. Your friend’s dating someone new and now your friendship doesn’t feel as close as it used to. This relationship, which was incredibly important to you, seems to have been put on the backburner while she’s off with this new guy. Now you’re wondering: was any of this real? Were you really friends, or were you her emotional crutch, someone who was just there to provide intimacy and companionship until the “real” thing came around?

It’s an entirely understandable feeling. But at the same time… it’s not an entirely logical one. It’s easy to jump to conclusions when feelings are involved, but it’s worth taking a moment to stop and think about things. Your friend just started dating someone new. This means that she’s in the middle of the honeymoon period with her new beau. Right now her brain’s getting flooded with oxytocin and dopamine that’s all going straight to the pleasure centers of her brain. She is, quite literally, getting high from his presence, just like we all do during those initial giddy months with someone new. It’s not surprising that she’s letting her other relationships slide a little; this tends to happen when folks get twitterpated over a new relationship.

But that doesn’t automatically mean that she’s deprioritizing you or isn’t as close with you. It just means that, like everyone in the throes of a new partner, she’s caught in her own little world and it’s rapidly running out of oxygen. So for right now, if you want to keep this friendship going, then you need to make the effort and reach out. Try to make a point of getting together to hang out. Hit her up and say “Hey, it feels like we haven’t hung out in forever, we should go do $THING and catch up.” Not only does this remind her that she’s been neglecting her friends – just a little – but it also sets the tone: you want to reconnect and maintain that closeness you’d had before. With luck, the two of you can schedule some hang time and rekindle some of the closeness and intimacy you had.

I suspect that once you don’t feel like your friend is being taken away from you, you won’t be feeling as possessive, angry or jealous when you see her and the new guy together. He won’t be a threat to your friendship; he’ll be the guy who’s making your friend happy.

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’ve been a long time reader, and over the years have used a good number of your suggestions for improving myself, and so wanted to start by saying thank you for the help!

A little information on me, I am a 25 year old fairly recent graduate, in a long term (8 years) relationship with a lovely girl we can call Jane. The two of us purchased a house together about a year ago, and lived together on and off as schedules permitted throughout my time at university. By all means she is fantastic, lovable, sweet, funny, and a whole load of other things. All in all I am quite happy!

So why am I writing for help? Well, I’ve grown and changed a lot as a person since we started dating. This has been a largely positive change in most areas in her eyes, with the exception of one.

While I had grown up largely focusing on monogamous relationships, around 3/4 years back I started to notice I rather enjoyed the prospect of polygamy. I first started to think about this shift in relationship style when I realized as time had gone on I had become less and less prone to jealousy or the general sense of “relational ownership” I had felt when I was younger, and that I greatly enjoyed the idea of being able to express romantic/physical/whatever inclination to more than one party, and wanted Jane to be able to do the same.

Around this time, I asked Jane something to the effect of “Lets say I loved you fully, but also had strong feelings for another person. Do you think it would be possible for me to have feelings of love for both of you?” Jane has always been a bit a somewhat jealous type of person, never doing anything mean or destructive because of it, but none the less reacted not so well to this, assuming that in spite of what I’d said that it meant I did not or would not love her. As a result, after moving beyond the initial tears and fears, I never brought it up again.

Fast forward to the here and now, I still feel the same way. The only difference is that Jane and I have both been becoming increasingly close friends with someone I used to know from my mid teens, who we can call Susan. Back in “the day” Susan and I were never wildly close friends by any means, but were in to the same general music, hobbies, etc, and had hung out together over the years, and have kept in relatively good touch. Recently Susan and I started chatting more, just about random current events, politics, etc. It was a nice talk, and I suggested the three of us have dinner or find a time to hang out some time and catch up. We did so, and progressively one meet up became another, became many more, and we currently all meet up for movies, dinners, drinks, general whatever every weekend. Jane has expressed to me a level of attraction to Susan, and likewise Susan has expressed that she is very romantically interested in both Jane and myself. Susan has also expressed her own non monogamous leanings to both Jane and I.

I have discussed things again recently, and in much more persistent detail with Jane. I have expressed that I think it would be nice to open our relationship up to the possibility of the three of us dating, and that in the event Jane had similar feelings for another, that I (and Susan in this context) would be open to that too, regardless of gender, presentation, etc, so long as we liked them as people.

Long story short, Jane’s response was about as hard a no as it possibly could be. I wasn’t really expecting it to go over especially fantastically, but I’ve tried to improve communication and expression of desires so wanted to at least give it a “proper” try.

Anyways on to my actual problem, which isn’t the one that it probably sounds like it would be based on the stuff above.

I’m not looking for help making a decision of whether I should be with Susan or Jane, as I have already made my mind ages ago that Jane is someone I want to be with no matter what. If that means she is the only someone, and that I will not be following my poly leanings, than so be it. The issue is that even though I can consciously say this, it is something I still really want. I want to be allowed to express romantic feelings for people, and have them reject or receive them, and have that develop however it may. I have very strong feelings for Susan, and would love to act upon those, or similar for potential others in the future.

Basically, the TL;DR question to summarize this is: I am poly leaning and my partner is not. How can I focus more on her, reduce my strong romantic desires, and get myself back into the typical “The One ™” mindset?

Many thanks again!

-Polygamustnot

DEAR POLYGAMUSTNOT: First of all, I think you mean polyamory. If you were calling it polygamy, then it likely sounded to your wife like you were proposing a harem situation, which — as even incredibly experienced daters can tell you — is beyond varsity level and well into the pros in terms of difficulty. Even if she were poly-inclined, I could see that being a hard-as-hell no.

But let’s talk about you for a second. You, over the course of your growth as an emotional person, have realized that you aren’t as possessive and jealous as you once were. That’s awesome! It’s an inherently good thing to be able to legitimately be secure enough in your relationship with your partner, regardless of whether you’re monogamous or not. And, in theory, you’d be down, should the opportunity arise, with an open or even polyamorous arrangement.  All well and good. We all have wants and fantasies. We all have ideas that we think we would be into, should the opportunity arise. Sometimes, they’re flights of fancy, a willingness to admit that under different circumstances, a particular thing – whether it’s an activity, a relationship change or just a person – might be fun. It’s relatively easy to live with a fantasy even when you know – as you did, after your first conversation with your partner – that it was never going to happen.

Other times, they’re something we discover that we legitimately want, even need. And that’s when things get complicated.

In your case, the problem is that you took it to another level. Hoping to fulfill a fantasy is one thing if it’s just involving you and you alone.  But a relationship means that you share your life with someone and what affects you tends to affect them too… especially if it involves things that are already a hard-limit for your partner. Bringing up your interest in polyamory – after a pretty firm shut-down – wasn’t a great idea in the first place. Bringing it up again, with a specific person this time? That was a pretty damn big mistake. And while you don’t give all the details, I suspect that you were talking this out with Susan long before you brought it up again to Jane. I rather imagine that if Susan had told the two of you together that she’d be open for dating one or both of you, it would have been a very different conversation for everyone involved.

Instead, it seems that you took it upon yourself to start the conversation without asking your partner first. And that was where you screwed up. Now, to be fair: Jane was willing to admit an attraction to Susan. But there’s being willing to say someone’s attractive or sexy, maybe even fantasize about her in the privacy of one’s own mind, but to actually invite her into your relationship in some way, shape or form?

That’s a pretty big NOPE right there.

Before now, you were content with the relationship you had. But now that you’ve opened Pandora’s Box (as it were) of desire and thought, even for a moment, that there was a possibility of making this real, you’re stuck wanting something that you know you can’t have. Now you want to rewind time and try to find some way to shove that knowledge and that desire back in the box. And, I hate to tell you this but… you’re just gonna have to live with it.

Once you realized that there’s a part of you going unfulfilled, there really is no way to not know it. There’s no magical way of thinking that’s going to make you not want something. You’re not going to be able to force yourself to not desire something through sheer force of will or mental trickery. The only thing you can do with these new desires – if you want to maintain your current relationship – is make your peace with it.  Either you’re going to have to accept that the price of entry to your relationship with Jane is that you’re going to have desires that are going to go unfulfilled, or you’re going to have to break up with her.

You say that Jane is the person that you want to be with no matter what. Take that knowledge – understanding that she’s that awesome and that she’s worth what you’ll have to give up to be with her – and find comfort in it. Nobody gets everything they want in a relationship, because people are people and people aren’t perfect. There is no One; there’s the .6 to .8 that you round up to One. You may not get your fantasy, but look at all the amazing things you do get to have instead! If you want to make things work with Jane, that’s going to have to be enough.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been an avid reader of yours for the past few years, and I really like your thoughtful perspective. I was wondering if you could help me with a relationship dilemma. I’m a grad student dating another student in my university, and after six months, things have been getting pretty serious. My boyfriend is intelligent, kind, thoughtful, and incredibly supportive—and he’s made it clear that he sees our relationship heading towards marriage and children. He’s the kind of person who brings by homemade soup when I’m sick, gives amazing pep talks, even watches my dog so I could visit family or present at conferences. I love him, but I’m not as completely certain that he’s “the one.” On one hand, I can definitely see us together long-term—we’re on the same page with life goals, conflict styles, vulnerable and open communication, sex, finances, and even hypothetical parenting styles. We’re compatible in many ways, and one of my favorite things is sitting on the porch in a comfortable silence with him, watching the sunset after a long day of teaching or weekend hike.

But on the other hand, he’s so different from the person I’d always imagined I’d end up with. Because we started out as hiking buddies and were friends well before we started dating, things that I would have deemed deal breakers on a first date didn’t seem to matter. He’s eight years older, not particularly religious, messy, smokes weed a few times a month, has tons of tattoos, and he isn’t quite as ambitious or career-focused. I’m a person of faith, uncomfortable with drugs, obsessively clean, and my degree is significantly more marketable. He’s supportive of my own beliefs, only smokes when I’m not around, and helps me mellow out when I get too uptight about school and work (and I’ve helped him with his job applications), so I know these should be non-issues. But I struggle to dismiss them completely. Is it disingenuous to continue dating him when I’m only about 75-80% sure that we’ll make it work long term?

He’s almost finished with his PhD while I’m still facing another five years of school to get mine—because he’s older, he’s dated more than me and wants to settle down more quickly, most likely while I’ll still be in school. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does put a little more pressure on me to be sure before he tries to find jobs this year near my next grad program. Is it normal to feel this way in a serious relationship? Am I ethically in the wrong for continuing to be with him when I’m not 100% certain? He’s so supportive, so I feel terrible for having lingering doubts about issues that seem more shallow.

-Of Two Minds

DEAR OF TWO MINDS: I think your problem isn’t that you’re not 100% certain, OTM. I think your problem is that you’re getting hung up on what you think you should want vs. what you do want. I mean, you’ve listed all of these amazing things about him that you love and things that are insanely important to you in terms of long-term compatibility. Hell even by your own words, those dealbreakers of his aren’t a big deal and he goes out of his way to minimize their impact on you.

I’m gonna be honest: I’m not really seeing the downside here other than he’s not quite as much of a neat-freak as you are.

But I’m going to tell you the same thing I just told Polygamustnot above: there is no “The One”. You’re not going to find one person who has every single thing you want in a partner; you’re always going to compromise and accept that everyone you date is going to have their flaws and imperfections. The question isn’t “is this person The One”, it’s “is this person so awesome that I don’t mind the other stuff?” At 75 – 80%, you’re doing pretty damn well. To paraphrase a particular sage: there’s a million fine looking men in the world. But they don’t all bring you lasagna at work. Or homemade soup, for that matter.

And to inject a certain amount of reality: there’s no way to know who is or isn’t going to work in the long-term. Every single relationship you’re going to be in will fail, until one doesn’t… and there’s no real way to predict which one is going to be the one that doesn’t.

But let’s be real here, OTM, your dude sounds pretty awesome. You might wanna hold on tight to him, OTM, because I’m pretty sure there’re going to be some folks in the comments who’ll volunteer as tribute if you decide you can’t make this work.

Good luck.

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