DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time reader of your column, first time submitter. I’ve always found the advice you give your readers to be well thought out and sometimes with the necessary amount of tough love for when it’s needed. Now with that in mind, here is my situation.

A bit over a decade ago, I had met a young lady while on Xbox Live while playing good ol’ Call of Duty. Her combination of skill as well as interesting conversation lead us to form a solid friendship despite the fact that we lived on opposite ends of the country.

At the time, I was working third shift and would get off work early in the morning. I would make my drive home, fire up the xbox and hop in game. Due to the time difference, she would have just woken up for the day and we would start our routine stomping on other players, laughing and chatting. When we would play, I knew that whatever situation I would be walking into, she had my back. Where I went, she went. When I would get myself into a bad situation, I knew a few shots would fly over my shoulder and render the threat no more followed by a “You’re welcome.”

Now at the time, I was engaged to another woman with the wedding less than a year away. She worked a normal 9-5 job and would be on her way out the door as I came home. At first she didn’t have any issues with my online friends and had even on a few occasions played and talked with all of us. But as time grew on, she became further and further jealous of my female sniper support.

At the time I denied that there was anything more between us than just friendship and video games and this remained true until a few months later when my partner told me that she had developed feelings for me, and myself, confessed the same.

Due to us both being in relationships at the time and geographical issues, we agreed that there was nothing we could do at the time to pursue a relationship. We remained friends and tension between my fiancé and I continued to grow over the issue until finally, she called off the engagement.

Fast forward a few years, and by chance, my new girlfriend at the time and I found ourselves moving very near my CoD partner. While her and I still talked and played often, we never got around to actually meeting up. This was due to time off from work as well as once again, both of us being in committed relationships. Now we have known each other for over 12 years, and recently after I had ended my current relationship, we made plans with mutual friends and finally met face to face. She and the meeting was everything I expected. We hit it off, spent loads of time around each other and even got the approval of her best friend. Now here is where the issue is.

She is still not single! The guy she was dating back when my ex-fiancé is still around. Their relationship is on the rocks and despite multiple attempts by her to end it, or her friends telling her she should do the same, they are still an item. Trust me when I say this guy is a gigantic a-hole.

My question for you is how can I go about finally getting my chance here? Tonight I am supposed to be meeting up with her to go out to dinner. I’m sure her boyfriend doesn’t know what her plans are and even our own friends have no idea that I will be in town. It makes me feel like we are sneaking around. I know that I want to have a relationship with her, but I want to do it right. How can I ask her to finally end her current relationship without sounding like a prick?

Sincerely,

Shot In The Heart

DEAR SHOT IN THE HEART: You have two issues here, SitH.

The first is that you’ve developed feelings for someone strictly over the Internet.

The second is that you have feelings for someone who’s dating someone else.

Let’s start with the former. One of the things I’m always driving home to people is that if you haven’t met in person, you’re not really dating, and crushes work much the same way. As we spend more and more of our time online, we do more and more of our socializing online as well. We network professionally online, we make friends online and we occasionally fall in love online. And to be fair: I’ve made good friends, long-term friends, with people I’d known online for years (Warren Ellis Forum, what up?!) long before I’d met them in person. Hell, I’ve been writing for Kotaku for over 4 years now and the first time I ever actually talked to my editor (as opposed to email or instant messages) was last year for a podcast. So it’s certainly possible to make long, important and lasting connections online.

But here’s the thing: love for 99% of the population, has a physical component too. As much emotional chemistry as the two of you may have, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to have physical chemistry. You may love someone for their brain, but you want them for their ass. This is why I tell people all the time that until you meet in person, for a significant amount of time, it’s a bad idea to invest romantically in someone you’ve thus far only known as text, a voice or even another face on the other end of the Skype connection. Yeah they may be cute, they may sound like Scarlett Johansson… but you don’t know how they smell. You don’t know how they taste. You don’t see the little gestures that we pick up almost subliminally that help dictate whether or not we’re going to be into somebody. And if those parts don’t line up… well, the heart may want what it wants, but your junk tends to get a say too.

This is why there are so many false positives in online dating. You two may work on paper and you may click when you chat back and forth. But until you meet in person and find out if the rest of them turns your crank, getting hung up on them is an invitation to heartbreak.

Right now, this is where you’re at.=

(And let’s be clear: this has been an ongoing issue with you. The fact that this relationship contributed to breaking up with your fiancé is a pretty good indication where you’ve been at for a while.)

So you have basically set yourself up for trouble right from the jump. Because hey, you may be super into her now that you’ve met in person… but there’s no guarantees that she has been with you. So the first thing you need to do is tap the brakes, Romeo. You know you’re into her, but you need to spend a little time finding out if the feeling is actually mutual or it’s just your gonads trying to convince you that it is. Continuing to make “BUT I LOVE YOU” the centerpiece of your friendship is going to be a great way to not only not date her but to lose the friendship in the process.

Now for your second issue. She has a boyfriend. She has had, if I’m following your narrative here, the same boyfriend for 10+ years. And you’re hoping that she’s going to ditch this guy for you because… well, love, romance and what Dan Savage calls “dickful thinking”.

Let’s start with the obvious: you don’t know everything that’s going on in this relationship. You may be her confidant. She may tell you story after story about this dude. But you don’t know everything. One thing a lot of guys in your situation do is fail to realize that you’re someone she’s venting to. You’re hearing the worst because you’re a safe, non-judgemental space, a pressure valve where she can let off steam and have someone tell her “Oh man, I’m sorry that really sucks”. Because, let’s face it, everyone needs that on occasion. Sometimes we want somebody’s help in fixing something. Other times we want to hear someone say “there there, that’s awful, here have a margarita.”

(And honestly, if you’re going to offer  a margarita, let’s also get some chips. And maybe some queso. And also now I’m hungry, dammit)

But the fact that someone is venting their frustrations – and their frustrations may be mighty and plentiful – doesn’t mean that you’re getting the full story. You’re getting part of it. You’re not necessarily hearing about the reasons why she still likes the dude. He may act like a dick – which you get to hear about – but you’re not necessarily hearing about the things he does that make her stick around even though she wants to rip her hair out.

So, once again: tap the brakes. Dude may very well be the epitome of every bad boyfriend in the history of modern courtship and a serial puppy-kicker besides… but you don’t know that.

Now let’s go with the next obvious part: it is really damned hard to end a multi-year relationship, even one that may need to end. When you’ve been dating someone for a long time, you’ve put in a lot of time. You have – to misquote the bard – built your life around them. Ending that life – a life that has been intertwined with someone else’s for over a decade is not something done lightly or easily. The Sunk Cost Fallacy alone makes people want to stick around; after all, if you leave now doesn’t that mean all those years have been a waste? But there are other reasons people stick around too: financial co-dependence, emotional co-dependence, being worried what other people might think, being afraid of being single again… the list goes on and on. All of that is going to give people pause. Hell, it may be as simple and as frustrating as emotional momentum. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest after all, and it’s easier to coast, even in a bad situation, than it is to apply the energy to change it.

And then there’s the possibility that she’s just not ready to leave yet. She’s tried to end things but she keeps going back? That’s generally a sign that she hasn’t reached the point of no return. While I’m not the biggest fan of Alcoholics Anonymous, sometimes a person really does have to hit the relationship equivalent of rock bottom before they’re ready to finally jump ship for good.

And then there’s the last thing to consider: you want her to leave him for you… but you don’t know that she wants you the way you want her now that you’ve met in person. Yeah, you both confessed your feelings for one another… but that was before you met in person. And now that you have? You get along great, but that doesn’t mean that she’s physically or sexually attracted to you. If those pants-feels don’t exist, then there’s really not much to be said.

So here’s what you need to do. First: stop assuming things. You don’t know that she hasn’t told her boyfriend about you. You don’t know the full story about any of this. You know how you feel and a fraction of her life. Stop building your fantasy narrative and stick to facts on the ground – what you know, what you don’t know and what you know you don’t know.

Second: once again, tap the brakes. You’re about to plow headlong into a Friend Zone pileup. If you don’t want to get hurt more than is strictly necessary, stop investing quite so much into potential and deal with actual.

Third: Make your case. “Hey, I know we said we were too far away to do anything last time we talked about there being an us, but now that I’m closer, I’d like to give it a shot. What do you say?” And then leave it there. If she says “yes,” then blessings on you both. But recognize she may very well say “no”. And while she may like you – hell she may like you a lot – that doesn’t necessarily doesn’t mean that she’s ready to overturn her life. All you can do is put it out there and wait to see what she says. Maybe having a place to land if she does leap out of that boat will be what gives her the strength to do so.

But if she decides she’s not ready to, or not for you? Then the only thing you can do is accept her answer with grace and respect. Doing otherwise will just damage the friendship.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m  30 and I really don’t date, at all. So, recently I was going out with a friend. Just casual dating. It seemed like everything was going well and then all of a sudden she pulled the ”I like you and the way you treat me, but …”. She went radio silent for a while and acted differently once  we started chatting again. I admit, I was being a bit too pushy  and clearly she has no interest to try anything out. Recently, I discovered that she felt I was treating her like an idiot and sucking her into my world. I don’t really do much so I don’t really get that part.

She’s going through her own personal battles with her family. I’m also in one of my lowest points in life. 

I really want to apologize for my behavior, but it seems like it’s not completely my fault. What approach should I take?

It’s Not My Fault

DEAR IT’S NOT MY FAULT: You aren’t the arbiter of other people’s feelings, my dude. If someone tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to say “no I didn’t.”

You may feel like you didn’t do anything wrong. But the fact of the matter is, something you did made her feel hurt and offended. And nobody on this planet is going to appreciate it if you try to explain why they shouldn’t be hurt. Nobody likes it when someone tries to explain their feelings to them and they REALLY don’t like it when you try to tell them they don’t have a right to feel the way they feel.

There is only one thing to do here: apologize. And not a “sorry you feel that way” non-apology. If you care about her, then tell her: “I didn’t realize I was making you feel that way. It was never my intention, and I’m really sorry. Now that I know, I won’t do it again.”

Don’t try to parse what you did and why it wasn’t that bad. Don’t try to explain. Just a simple “OK, I didn’t realize, I’m sorry,” and then try not to make the same mistakes next time.

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 really appreciate the fact that you offer sex positive dating advice. One of my big problem with the pick up community when I started getting into it is that it made me into a somewhat awful individual that didn’t really like women. However, the dilemma remains: How to meet a woman and have some game without being a misogynistic ass worthy of Return of Kings or creepy subreddits?

I’m glad you’re providing other guys with that opportunity. Even though I’m mostly over my hurdles and I’m pretty confident now (I was the very typical nerd in high school), I still enjoy reading your column. It’s important to understand that while there are pretty awful women, they’re not representative of the entire gender/sex (And there’s pretty awful guys too!). 

 I do have a question however. When I start seeing a girl/have just slept with her, sometimes I have some vestiges of oneitis-like behavior return which makes me make poor decisions (Like sending that extra text the morning after or coming on too strong too soon.) Would you have any advice to offer when it comes down to being able to better keep a certain distance in the beginning of the relationship, without closing off completely emotionally?

 In Too Deep

DEAR IN TOO DEEP: I’m going to get to your question in a second, but I want to take a moment to point something out: you’ve basically given yourself a false dichotomy. There really isn’t an inherent divide between “being a good guy” and “having game”. As I’ve said many a time before, being good with women doesn’t also mean that you have to be an asshole. Being willing to flirt, to be sexually forward (especially if you’re prioritizing a sexual relationship or looking for someone who might be up for going home with you that night) doesn’t also mean not respecting women or having to treat them like crap, and being a decent guy doesn’t mean also being a Nice Guy. The example I always like to point to is Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood; sexual without being creepy, direct without being rude, flirty without being a dick and above all else: respectful of the people he’s hitting on.

There’s a reason why he’s called Captain Jack Hotness and it’s more than just the fact that John Barrowman is a damned fine-looking man.

Anyway. Getting back to your question.

There are usually two main causes for Oneitis. The first is the classic scarcity mentality – the idea that awesome and desirable women are a limited resource and that each rejection or relationship that doesn’t work out means that you’re one step closer to being Forever Alone. As a result, you (generic you) feel like you need to latch on to each woman that comes along because you have this nagging subconscious feeling that she could be The One and if you don’t lock her down, you’ll lose out forever and never know love/attraction/orgasms like this ever again.

The other tends to be low self-esteem. Much like with a scarcity mentality, it spurs the idea that there are few women out there for you; unlike the scarcity mentality, it’s less that there are few women in general and more that you don’t believe you could do better or find somebody equally as awesome should things not work out. You believe you have to hold onto this woman at all costs because you simply don’t think that there are other women out there who might like you or find you attractive.

In both cases, this usually results in putting the other person on a pedestal as a way of justifying your attraction to them. You’re twitterpated over them, so therefore they must be special and unique. It’s a nicely self-reinforcing feedback loop: you’re in “love” with them so you make them more than what they really are and those artificially inflated virtues make you more attracted to them. Except, in the end, it’s not about them as a person, so much as what they represent: your “only” chance at Twu Wuv.

Of course, it certainly doesn’t help that nerds tend to be overly sentimental hopeless romantics. Geek culture is especially bad about pushing the idea of The One True Love; genre fiction is saturated with the idea of a Perfect Love, one that is Destined and to which nothing else could ever compare. There may be others over time, but in the end, the protagonist’s love life will only truly be fulfilled if they hook up with their One True Pairing – accept no substitutes. Pair those years of cultural conditioning with the aforementioned underlying causes and you end up with a recipe for a nasty case of Oneitis that can come bubbling to the surface from your subconscious at the most inconvenient times.

You have to figure out just why it is you tend to attach too quickly to the women you date/sleep with. In my case, the nasty case of Oneitis that messed me up for years was due to low self-esteem; I thought I’d lucked out finding someone I thought was a Nerd Goddess and there was no way in hell I could ever find somebody that amazing who would actually, y’know, be attracted to me. As I worked on my self-confidence, it was easier to keep in mind that there were many, many women out there who were all amazing and would find me to be awesome too. I found the nagging tendency to want to push too hard or to need the validation from others would fade and I was able to take each relationship as it came.

Keep in mind is that there is no universal value to what women may or may not find excessive; one woman’s “he’s being clingy” is another’s “just right”, while trying to keep a certain distance can come off as “way too aloof” to still others. That extra text the morning after may be too much for one woman, but may be no big deal to another. You have to find the right balance with each person, and that can take some trial and error as you learn to calibrate your instincts. It can help – especially if you’re not looking for an exclusive relationship – to think of them as friends who you happen to sleep with; it can help take the self-imposed pressure of “was that too much?” when you’re texting or talking to your various partners.

TL, DR version: Oneitis is usually a sign that you need to get your head right. Work on the underlying causes and you’ll find that your tendency towards Oneitis will go away.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Kind of a long one here but I will try and give you the condensed version. I find myself in the Friend Zone with a bad case of oneitis for someone that KNOWS exactly how I feel for her. We have been seeing each other for 9 months and have had “the talk” where I received the standard clichés (it’s not you, it’s me) and she told me that she just wanted to be friends.

I was okay with being friends but her behavior has been more than confusing. She knows I am very attracted to her but I have not tried to be romantic or sexual with her since we had the conversation. I have, in fact, fended off HER advances more than once after a night of drinking. (I’m only so strong, I won’t be able to do that every time. I certainly didn’t WANT to fend her off those times either. I was afraid she would wake up with the coyote uglies.)

I have became this woman’s therapist, supposedly the only close male friend she has and she only has a couple of girlfriends that don’t seem very loyal. Every conversation we have involves an abusive ex-boyfriend or the guy that convinced her to go away with him so he could cheat on his wife. (She willingly went because she thought he was going to dump the wife for her, I mean, after all that’s what he had been telling her in texts for the past three months. That’s right, she fell in love by text…)

They were discovered, she was made out to be the town harlot, and now everyone else has moved on except her. She hides out at home, afraid to be seen in public. She uses the excuse of running into someone that was involved with that episode to cancel on me last minute for almost EVERYTHING we plan to do together. I know she has anxiety issues but seriously, cancel at the last minute every time, BY TEXT???

We hardly ever go out and when we do it is to somewhere out of town that she doesn’t think anyone will know us. If we plan on doing something 9 times out of 10 she will cancel on me and it is always last minute and by text. She even stood me up on my birthday. By text…

Now here is the kicker…I ACTUALLY FEEL SORRY FOR HER!!! AND I HAVE FEELINGS FOR HER!!! I feel horrible about all of the things that she has had to go through. I think that she suffers from manic depression. I have been on such an emotional roller coaster with this woman. I don’t know how much more I can take and honestly I don’t know why I have taken as much as I have!

She doesn’t want me but she doesn’t want anyone else to have me. Actually broke down into tears one night when a younger woman said hello to me. She told another attractive single woman that WAS INTERESTED in me that we were dating. She has dated several guys that I know to be low lifes yet I’m not datable. She doesn’t have those feelings for me. However, get a little alcohol in her and she is all over me.

I do not know how much more I can take. I don’t see this ending well if we were to get together. I feel like I am the reason she doesn’t want to be seen in public with me. I am somehow an embarrassment for her. Yet each time I try to step away from her she calls or texts, anything it takes to get my attention again. Once she has it, she doesn’t want it. My self esteem is shot. And for some reason I can’t go nuclear and drop her. I feel really guilty that I would be abandoning her, even though I know the minute the next guy comes along that says the right things to her, I’ll be forgotten. I’m tired of being stood up last minute and feeling like I’m an afterthought. My close friends that have seen the disappointment first hand for the past several months are right but I can’t seem to walk away. What to do? What to do? I know there is no chance of this relationship ever blossoming into what I want it to be. Even if it did turn into something more I don’t know if my self esteem can recover from what it has been through.

What to do?

Mixed Signals

DEAR MIXED SIGNALS: Dump her. Dump her now and never look back.

That sounds harsh I know, but you’re in an awful situation here and it’s not good for either of you. You’re not in the Friend Zone because, frankly, you’re not her friend. This isn’t about how you’re treating her but about how SHE is treating YOU.  Right now, you’re stuck as her emotional anchor and she’s dragging you both down.

So before I get too deep into this, I want to say: good on you for being willing to push her away when she’s drunk and hitting on you. That can be incredibly hard to resist and it says a lot about your character that you’ve been able to turn her down at a time when she’s really not able to give consent. And you’re right: that would be an incredibly bad scene the morning after… because she is one giant toxic mess right now.

I can empathize with her: she’s gone through some heavy crap lately and definitely needs to see a therapist to unpack some anxiety issues. At the same time however, that does not excuse her from being an a

le to the people who care about her and are trying to support her as best they can. And frankly, she’s treating you like crap. She wants you to herself, to give her the attention and validation she craves but doesn’t give anything back except for pawing at you when she’s trashed. She’s actively sabotaging your love-life because she wants you to be constantly dancing in attendance on her, soaking up all of her drama like the emotional sponge she’s always wanted.

But – and you had to know there was a but coming – you’re letting her do this to you. And, if I may be perfectly blunt, this is going to keep happening to you, even if you do cut things off with her. There are going to be other manipulative, toxic women who are going to walk all over you exactly the same way she does, unless you shape up.

You see, the problem is that you have poor boundaries. You’re permitting her walk all over you without so much as raising your voice in your own defense. Canceling plans at the last minute is a crappy thing to do, but sometimes life happens and there’s nothing you can do. Canceling constantly at the last minute is something that you should never be willing to put up with and would merit a very firm come-to-Jesus meeting long before things had ever gotten to this stage. But you’ve been accepting it and without saying “Hey, that’s a supremely awful way to treat a friend and I won’t put up with this any more,” which only gives her permission to keep doing it, and allows her to just up the stakes in her attempts to keep you around. I mean, Jeebus H. Frog, she’s gone so far as to go out of her way to destroy your chances of dating somebody else. Why in pluperfect hell are you even still TALKING to her?

I get that you like her and want to help her. However, you need to realize that while you’re her friend, she is not YOUR friend. You are letting her suck the life out of you because… well, I’m not entirely sure because quite frankly I can’t imagine the level of bedroom skills it would take to make me stick around in a situation like this. You are not her therapist, her brother, her boyfriend or anything with any sort of responsibility for her. I’m sorry for the hell she’s gone through but frankly, it’s on her head to get her crap together. It is not your duty to fix her, save her or have anything else to do with her. You have an obligation to yourself and you’ve been neglecting it

There is absolutely nothing here for you to salvage and you know it. So first things first: cut her the hell off. Dump her and go full nuclear – cut all ties. Block her on every form of social media you have, erase her number from your phone, delete her texts, block her from calling you at all if you can arrange it. Giving her any entry into your life is just another avenue for her to try to drag you back into her drama. Make sure your friends know too and have your back; do not let her use them as a way to get to you and to talk your happy ass down when you start having the inevitable second thoughts. Shut it down, burn all the bridges and salt the earth; this is the first step in your recovery.

The next step is that you need to start enforcing your boundaries so that you don’t end up in this situation again. Toxic people love folks who have poor boundaries – it’s easier to walk all over them and get what they want. You have to be your own first and best line of defense. You need to be willing to stand up for yourself and not allow her  – or anyone else – to treat you this way.

I have a word for you, and I want you to get used to using it.

“No”.

As in: “No, I won’t put up with your constantly canceling our plans at the last minute.” “No, I won’t tolerate you standing me up.” “No, I won’t accept your being a lousy friend to me.” “No, I won’t put up with this just because I want to sleep with you.”

It can be hard at first, especially if it’s someone you like. You’re going to worry that by saying “no” or calling her out for her bad behavior that you’re going to end up damaging your relationship.

Good.

You SHOULD damage relationships like that. If somebody is going to get upset because you’re willing to stick to your limits and not let yourself be guilted or manipulated into doing something you don’t want to, then you are well rid of them. If they are going to get angry at you because you won’t put up with rude or inconsiderate behavior, then forget ’em, they can go be awful to somebody else.

And you know what? The more you stand up for yourself, the better you’re going to feel. You’ll start to remember that you’ve got worth as a person, not just as somebody’s plaything. You’ll start to realize you’re much stronger than you’ve ever realized. And, more importantly, you’ll start cutting out the toxic, awful people out of your life. Trust me: it will be goddamn amazing.

So do it. Stand up for yourself. Cut her off and let your new, bulls

t free life finally begin.

Good luck. And write back so we know how you’re doing.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: In all likelihood, I am an autistic person. I have not been diagnosed, but self-testing, identification with other people with autism and the testimony of people I trust suggests, yeah, I’m autistic. And that’s okay – I actually like having that prism to see and maybe understand the world through.

However, at this point, I’ve spent literal decades feeling like an ugly weirdo. I’ve done okay with relationships, but it feels like it’s been completely by accident and I’ve always pretty much needed people to sit on my lap or just say that they like me (or both!)

I hear so much about how people look at people in social situations and consider them or playfully flirt and I don’t think I’ve ever been on the receiving end of that. And that really hurts, because it feels like neurotypical people who can present themselves well (I do take care of myself and try to dress stylishly, at least within my subculture) exist in a different world to me while I’m behind glass. I don’t know which I’d prefer – that I’m ill equipped to detect signals or that I’m never on the receiving end of them.

I know I think “oh, hey, that person is cute” or “she’s really funny” after interactions, but it really brings me down I’m just static to people I meet. I guess my question is – is it possible to be that invisible? I do try to be funny and ask questions of people and maintain hobbies and interests but it can feel like wearing a “person suit” sometimes.

Thanks, Doc

Can’t Click “Not A Robot” In Good Faith

DEAR CAN’T CLICK “NOT A ROBOT”: f you’re a regular reader, NAR, or even a fairly new one, you may notice how many people – both neurotypical and the various flavors of neurospicy – have issues with picking up on signs of interest or the fact that people are flirting with them. This isn’t something that’s only reserved for folks who are neurodiverse, it’s something everyone experiences. Some of it is just down to people not knowing how to recognize flirting or interest, but a lot of it is down to how we feel about ourselves.

After all, if you think you’re an unf--kable homunculus, you’re going to have a much harder time believing that other people could have all kinds of sweaty pantsfeels for you. And if you do see someone who seems interested, you’ll be much more inclined to assume that you’re misreading things, that you’re overestimating their interest or that you don’t know if you can trust your own judgement.

However, I think you’re missing something important: you’re autistic. That’s information you didn’t have before, information that directly affects your understanding of your own life and experiences.

I’ve talked before about what it was like for me to be formally diagnosed as having ADHD – suddenly, a lot of what frustrated and perplexed me growing up made much more sense. It was like wiping the fog off a window and finally being able to see things clearly; I had a much better understanding about why I struggled with some things or reacted in certain ways.

So it is with your coming to the realization that you’re autistic. Think of finally having that label as being a key that unlocks new understanding of your life and your past – and, just as importantly, your future. Now that you know this about yourself and how this affects you, you’re able to fold this into your understanding of yourself. Considering how autism makes it difficult to understand social cues, doesn’t it make sense that you may have missed out on signals that were less overt than “sat in your lap and started to wiggle”? Doesn’t it make sense that you felt weird or out of synch with the world around you? You were a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, sanding off bits of yourself until you managed to squeeze into an imperfect fit. Small wonder that you felt ugly and weird; you were trying to be something you weren’t. That discomfort was as much about not being your authentic self – or, rather, not realizing what your authentic self actually was and thus not understanding why everything was such a poor fit for you.

It’s less of an “ugly duckling” situation and more of a cat being raised by dogs. You could make it work, but it wasn’t going to be a smooth or easy process and it was going to involve a lot of frustration and misunderstandings.

By that same token, because you know this about yourself now, you’re in a better position to advocate for what you need for better understanding and comprehension. Sure, you’re still going to struggle to pick up on some things… but now that you know that this is an issue for you, you can actually work with that. You can, for example, tell people that you need them to be blunt with you or that you prefer they do X if they need you to understand them. You can ask for clarity when you need it and advocate for yourself and your needs.

It’s hard to fill a need if you don’t realize that need is there in the first place, after all. It’s hard to adjust your view of the world when you don’t realize you’re not seeing it clearly in the first place. You now have so much new and more complete understanding of yourself that it’s almost like you’ve evolved into a different person. But it’s more that you’re finally taking off weights that you never realized were there.

There is, obviously, going to be an adjustment period. Just having the label isn’t going to change a lifetime of ingrained habits and behaviors after all. You’ve been wearing that mask for so long that it’s going to take time to get used to not having it. So you need to give yourself some grace, some compassion and have patience as you adjust. You’re going to be carving some new grooves and developing new patterns and behaviors – ones that will actually meet your needs and serve you in ways that the previous ones didn’t.

So I think what you need to start by forgiving yourself for not knowing this about yourself. After all, you can’t always know what you don’t know. Now that you know this, you can take a different approach and figure out how to navigate the world in ways that actually work for you. It will take time – and you should give yourself that time. And while the world is still hard for people who aren’t neurotypical, I think that now you know this about yourself, you’re going to find that life is going to be very different from now on… and much better for you.

You’re doing great, NAR. You just need to give yourself some time to adjust to this new perspective. You’ve got this.

All will be well.

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