DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Since I graduated high school I came into my looks and as a result during college. I was quite popular with women even though I was really shy, however after college I started to bald severely nearly losing all the hair on the top of my head, gained some weight from 145-175 at 5’10 which gave me a gut and also started receiving wrinkles on my forehead and under my eyes. During this time period of about 2 years I went from getting constant attention to being practically invisible.

I can understand this because people have standards and what they define as attractive, however a lot of the time if I so much as made eye contact with a woman even on accident I would get nothing but the coldest stares back at me.

Sometimes I would even overhear them talk to their friends about that ‘creepy guy’ referring to me as there was no one else there that it could be. Now however I have been working out and getting in good shape, have had a lot of my hair restored through medication and have gotten rid of the wrinkles through a skin care regiment. As a result I seem to have gotten a lot of attention and just treated better overall from people. If I make eye contact now for example I get nothing but smiles so it is a bit embittering.

I would like advice on how to not let that get to me as I feel a tad bitter over the fact that I was treated so harshly and now that I have improved myself I am all of the sudden good enough for them. It definitely has created trust issues for me and not wanting to truly put myself out there seeing how shallow individuals can be.

– Second Time Around

DEAR SECOND TIME AROUND: There’s a phrase from Hamlet that I like: “There is nothing either good or bad but that thinking makes it so”.  Your circumstances haven’t changed so much as your perception of them have.

There’s a tendency for people who come into their own later than others to feel as though they’ve finally gotten their due. After years or even decades of being awkward/ignored/ugly/whatever, they’ve finally gotten what they feel they deserve. The problem is that in a lot of ways it’s not that they’ve actually changed so much as gotten their hands on Dumbo’s magic feather. It’s less that they’ve been changed so much as they’ve changed the way they feel about themselves. That change in their self-perception affects how they act and – importantly – how they choose to see the world. As cliche as it was, the power was in them the whole time.

That’s in no small part what happened to you. You came into your looks later and celebrated it… but then this one thing changed and suddenly your whole life did too. This was in no small part because how you saw yourself changed.

Bald guys, after all, do get dates and girlfriends. So do chubby guys. So too do guys with wrinkles. But you felt as though you’d become ugly and undesirable and so… you had.

Now don’t get me wrong: the frustration and emotional pain you felt was real. But what you perceivedfrom others… was less so. The thing you have to remember is that we are all unreliable narrators in our own lives. We filter our reality through the lens of our attitude and our expectations. When we think we’re too bald, too fat, too wrinkly for anyone to love us or find us attractive, we look for evidence that we’re right. And of course, we find it… whether it’s actually there or not. What we’re doing, more often than not, is a lot of mental story telling. We’re telling ourselves the story of what the other person is thinking when they look at us, even when we have no basis for it. Are they giving you cold stares because how dare Quasimodo think he has a chance with Esmerelda? Or are they dealing with things that has absolutely nothing to do with you and you just happen to be there?

The same with the whispered “what a creep” conversations. Did you actually hear your name or a description of you? Or did you hear them talking about a creepy guy and assume that they had to be talking about you because who else could it possibly be?

You went in expecting a negative response and you got one. And to be fair: there likely isn’t anything that people could say that you, in the mindset you had at that time, wouldn’t see as a negative response. Even someone being polite and positive would almost certainly have been interpreted as being pitying or a trick.

The thing to remember is: this filter works both ways. 

When you were feeling your best – then and now – you expected a more positive response from women and you were getting them. You paid attention to the responses you expected to see and disregarded the ones you didn’t. You were able to ignore negative responses from women because you were able to de-personalize it. Yeah, she may have looked right through you or rolled her eyes, but that had nothing to do with you…

The more you recognize how much our cognitive biases and our attitudes shape our lives, the more you can consciously use it. Choosing to be positive means that you’ll see more of what you hope for from others. Focusing on the things that make you feel good about yourself makes it easier to project that same good feeling onto others, which makes you feel more confident. Even when you don’t have the face of a model and the body of a Greek god, feeling like you’re the sexiest bastard and people dig you changes how you behave and how you see the world. So even when you don’t look the picture of perfection: treat yourself like you are. Dress sharp. Carry yourself with confidence. Pay attention to your grooming and your presentation.

These will all help maintain that “I’m sexy and I know it” attitude that in turn, will change how you see the world.

To be sure: there are shallow people in the world. There always will be. And I’m sure there were people who saw you and wondered how you had the balls to drag yourself out from under your bridge to inflict yourself on others. But not only are those people far less common than you’d think, those people are assholes. The last thing you need is to let the opinion of assholes define your worth or sense of self. The best thing you can do is simply disregard them. Let their glares and judgement slide off of you and resign them to the dustbin of irrelevancy.

There are amazing, caring and trustworthy people out there. You just have to let yourself see them.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a polyamorous hetero man. I have one partner that I’ve been with for a few years. We have a fantastic relationship.

I’ve also been trying to meet someone else in about that many years, but I’ve not been fruitful at all so far. “Date within your kind” they say, and so I agree that dating only poly people makes for less complications, but the community in my city (just like in almost all cities I bet) is still nascent, and so does not make for a very large pool of people. You can add that to the dozen poly people on OkCupid – not very good for an abundance mentality.

I’m quite open myself to date outside that circle, but that presents some issues: many people being closed to having anything to do with someone poly (especially someone with a partner – and that’s their choice even though it’s unfortunate); and the others, well, are harder to deal with. It’s kind of hard to come out to someone as poly, given that there’s no clear line when I should tell someone that I am (saying that out of the blue just after hi to anyone would be pretty weird and takes a lot of energy), and often it’s not something that comes up on the topic.

Emotionally it can be hard too as I’ve had the standard non-mono disclaimer on my Tinder profile, and it felt like girls were avoiding me like the pest. Add that to the remaining others who mostly treated me like garbage, and… yeah I’ve deleted the app.

That said, I’ve had a few short liaisons where I kept it to myself and it made me a little… uneasy, so I don’t necessarily like hiding things either. I don’t want the person to be losing their time if it’s a deal breaker either and since my partner and I are going to live together soon, that makes the logistics awkward.

My question is two-fold: how do I meet people who are compatible with me (either on the short or longer term), and how/when/to whom should I say I’m polyamorous? For instance, if I meet someone who’s down for something casual, how do I make that viable? What information do I owe the people that I meet? How do I make it easy on both myself and the person?

When Poly Means One

DEAR WHEN POLY MEANS ONE: Dating when you’re poly or even in an open relationship comes with its challenges, WPMO. Well… for men, anyway. Poly women have very different challenges, but they rarely involve the issue of potential suitors.

As you said: you’re limiting your dating pool. You’re filtering out all the people who prefer more common relationship styles. And while yes, it’s best to date within your tribe or species (i.e. people who’re already open to or familiar with polyamory) that can be a smaller pool of potential candidates.

(This, incidentally, is similar to a lot of the issues that comes with dating while being LGBTQ – the people who you’re compatible with is going to be a small percentage of the overall population.)

So what do you do?

Well, there’re a number of options. The first is to start looking towards partners who are already outside of the mainstream. Within the kink community, for example, people are more likely to have an understanding of how poly relationships work, which may mean they’re more open to dating someone who’s poly. This doesn’t mean treating Fetlife like OKCupid per-se, but getting to know people in your area can open up possibilities.

You’re also more likely to meet people who are up for non-traditional relationships in nerd settings. I can’t count the number of people I’ve met at cons who are either open, poly or cool with non-monongamous relationships. Geekery tends to go hand in hand with kink and non-traditional relationships.

When it comes to disclosure… well, I’m of two minds. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in informed consent and letting people opt-in. However, this comes at a cost. Online dating, for example tends to make people a little less flexible; because we can pre-screen potential candidates (as it were) we tend to stick to what we think we want. We are less open to serendipity or discovering that maybe we’d be willing to give someone a shot even if they don’t line up perfectly to our checklists.

As a result, an argument can be made that not mentioning being poly in your dating profile is an allowable lie as long as disclosure comes sooner (i.e. before sex or commitment) rather than later. This lets a potential partner get to know you as you, not as the stereotype of WPMO-The-Polyamorous they may have in their head. And if you’re just meeting someone off Tinder for NSA sex… well, a lot of people may choose not ask or want to know in the first place.

But this approach comes with its own risks; many people will feel tricked and that’s going to really upset them. So you have to weigh the risk/reward ratio to this.

As a general rule, I’d disclose earlier rather than later; if not during the heavy flirting stage then definitely before pants start coming off.

Unfortunately there aren’t any easy answers, WPMO. The challenges in finding compatible partners is part of the price of entry when it comes to an open/polyamorous relationship, especially when it’s still in the early stages of cultural acceptance. There will have to be compromises to necessity; you may have to look further afield than normal and be open to something long-distance if you don’t have much luck in your area.

Regardless of the approach you take, you’re going to have to spend some time finding what best practices work for you, in your community.

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: Recently I met a pretty nice guy. I wasn’t gonna date him but I liked talking with him until one day he confessed that he used to be the abuser in an abusive relationship. That made me wonder what happens to people like that after their abusive relationship ends. I mean, does being an abuser once or twice make a person dangerous for others for life? With STD you at least know that infecting others is not something infected person wants to do. But being violent and manipulative towards one’s partner seems to be something one must be able to control. Which makes a former abuser into a person that others should keep their distance from. Yet, it seems to be a bit unfair. So, my question is whether trusting the former abuser is no different from trusting someone with criminal record or it requires super extra caution because people rarely change?  

No Need For A Clever Name

DEAR NO NEED FOR A CLEVER NAME: Whoof. This is a tricky one, NNFACN. On the one hand, I have pretty much zero sympathy for people who abuse their partners, either physically or emotionally. It’s a deep violation of the trust that we put in our partners, and the scars that result can last a lifetime. On the other hand, I do believe in redemption and in the potential for people to come back from the Dark Side.

Unfortunately, the “I’m so ashamed, I’ll never do it again” card is an incredibly common play by abusers as a way of manipulating their victims into sticking around – so many that it’s hard to trust someone with an abusive past, even when they were disclosing it to you so you can make an informed decision about your association with them. After all, the world is full of people who are a sucker for a good redemption story.

And yet at the same time, you don’t necessarily want to slap someone down for being honest with you, especially when they’re (hopefully) doing so in good faith.

You can see how it’s possible to tie yourself in knots over this.

So I’m going to be honest: my knee-jerk reaction is “Not just no but HELL no”. But again: I WANT to believe in second chances and people’s ability to change and do better. And on the other, other hand, there are people who eagerly want to take advantage of that belief.

So here’s my thought on the matter: if you’re going to pursue this, you do so with an incredibly skeptical eye and some VERY finely tuned bulls

t detectors. You follow the old Russian proverb: trust… but verify. Someone who has a past as an abuser is someone who needs to be vetted extra carefully — we’re talking CIA levels of carefully —  before entering into a relationship with them. There are many, many questions that need to be answered: what happened, how did he or she start abusing their partner, why did they stop? Were they abused themselves? Did they have specific triggers? Was the abuse part of being addicted to drugs or alcohol? Have they undergone addiction counseling? Anger management therapy? Worked with a psychologist to deal with their underlying issues? Do they have references - exes who can tell you about their relationship?

That is not a joke – being able to talk with former lovers about the (ex) abuser can give you a more rounded picture of what he or she is like and whether or not they fake remorse as part of the abusive cycle, and they’ll have perspective that their ex doesn’t.

The guy will also have to be willing to accept that pretty much everything they do is going to be going under a microscope over the course of a relationship – little things that might be brushed off as happenstance or not a big deal can have vastly different significance when you know the person doing them has a history of emotional abuse. It will be a while, possibly a long while, until their new partner may fully trust them and the ex-abuser will have to accept that he or she is going to be on double secret probation until they’ve proven themselves. And it will take a LOT of proof.

And even then… that may not be fool-proof. Some abusers are very, very good at earning their partner’s trust, and there are many who can play the long game. It’s a good idea to have someone else as a potential sounding board/canary in the coal mine.

But to be honest: this is all theoretical. My idealism is warring HARD with what I’ve seen others experience in abusive relationships. My instinct is still to say “date somebody else.”

At the end of the day: it’s tricky, it’s complicated, and it depends entirely on the individuals involved. I want to believe that people can be redeemed, but I would demand some pretty goddamned extraordinary evidence of change. 

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in an unfortunate situation at the moment. You see, my boyfriend is in an abusive friendship, and I’m not sure how to help him. His friend, who I’ll call “Danny” was a mutual friend of ours for some time. In fact, it’s because of him that my boyfriend and I met! My boyfriend has known Danny for nearly ten years, and considers him his best friend. I met Danny 4 years ago and recently ended our friendship; he started out nice but within the past year became abusive towards me as we became closer friends, and I finally worked up the courage to get out of the relationship and cut him out of my life.

Part of the reason I woke up to the abuse is because, when I talked to my boyfriend about Danny’s negative behavior, he said that Danny had *always* been like that! He had always been exceedingly selfish and demanding of his friends’ time, simultaneously belittling and jealous of their accomplishments, prone to unpredictable verbally violent outbursts, very controlling, and sexually inappropriate (a real creeper). I asked him why he is still friends with Danny if that’s the case, and he says it’s because he believes Danny is actually a good person, he just doesn’t know any better–and that he will one day change. He also says he is one of the few true friends Danny has that haven’t left him, and that everyone needs at least one friend.

My own decision to end my friendship with Danny put some strain on my boyfriend and I’s relationship, but we have mostly worked through it. (It helps that Danny no longer lives in the same state as us, and that I have no contact whatsoever with him.) But, from what my boyfriend tells me, Danny has not changed his behavior, and continues to hurt my boyfriend and treat him abusively. I do not want to pressure my boyfriend to leave a friendship he wants to stay in, especially since it might seem I’m only doing it because I am no longer friends with Danny, or that I somehow want to hurt Danny as “revenge” for abusing me. This isn’t the case, I just want my boyfriend to stop being hurt. How do I–in fact, CAN I?–make him see that he’s in an abusive friendship? And how do I help get him out of it?

Thanks for your help,

Worried

DEAR WORRIED: When we talk about abuse, we almost always talk about it in the context of an abusive relationship – usually romantic or parental. It’s incredibly easy to forget that friends can be abusers as well. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s harder to rid yourself of an abusive friend because we tend to be so slow to recognize it and when we do, we don’t recognize just how much damage it does. I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve known who’ve had incredibly toxic “friends” and put up with their abuse for years – sometimes decades – because we just don’t have any real cultural recognition of the issue outside of cutesy names like “frenemies”.

Unfortunately, you’re caught in an impossible situation, Worried. You can’t make your boyfriend break up with Danny, any more than a concerned friend can make their best friend break up with their abusive partner. Making ultimatums will only make it worse; it gives Danny ammunition to claim that you’re just “jealous” and to whip out the “I was here first” card to play on your boyfriend’s sense of loyalty. And from the sounds of things, your boyfriend is admirably loyal – even to people who don’t actually deserve his loyalty. You also can’t make him see things the way you do; those years of being Danny’s friend are going to be a powerful filter. You can present the facts to him – point out how much he feels like crap after talking or hanging out with Danny, show him all the ways that Danny abuses him and cuts him down. You can even point out that if you were describing a female friend talking about her abusive boyfriend as “a nice guy who doesn’t know any better” and how “he’ll change some day”, your boyfriend would (probably) be insisting that she should leave his ass ASAP. But in the end it’s not going to do any good because things aren’t going to change until your boyfriend wants them to change. He is going to have to hit the point where he can’t take the abuse any more and recognizes that the only thing he can do is leave.

Now what can you do? Well, the most powerful thing you could do is something you’ve already done: you cut ties with Danny. You refuse to be complicit in the abuse by being part of Danny’s world and letting him manipulate you the way he’s manipulating your boyfriend. The next thing you can do is simply be Team Boyfriend; be the person who supports him, who cares for him and treats him the way he deserves to be treated. He needs someone on his side who can help draw out the poison. But – and I realize that this is going to be hard – you have to be non-judgmental as you do it. You’ve made your case about the way Danny treats him; the next move is your boyfriend’s. It’s ok to get frustrated that he doesn’t see the abuse but at the same time, blaming your boyfriend for not seeing things the way you do isn’t going to help him and will just push him away. You can keep him busy as the two of you build a life together. But the most important thing is simply be there for him. He needs someone to support him and this will be doubly true if and when he finally decides to cut ties. There’s going to be an ugly period as he processes everything that’s happened and he’s going to need your help afterwards.

It’s not going to be easy. In fact, it’s probably going to be pretty damn maddening. You’ll grind your teeth and want to tear your hair out. But in the end… being the support he needs will be the strongest and most important part of helping him break the cycle of abuse.

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 have been dating my good friend for six months now, things with him are going really well. Not only do we have many similar interests but we are also similar in personalities and wave length. And because we were friends first, he knows the real me.

My issue is that after being in so many failed relationships (where I felt like I’ve put in more effort than the guy), I have became rather insecure. Knowing this issue, he still wants to be with me and we are really happy together. We talk about the future often and I don’t feel insecure around him…. but only when I’m with him. The problem is that both our careers require traveling. He also travels for pleasure often (generally without me because scheduling doesn’t work). So for literally half of our relationship, we have been apart.

My insecurities only get to me when we are apart for too long (more than a week) because he is not good with online communication. Sometimes he forgets to respond. Sometimes he would message me but not in regards to what I just said. Sometimes I would mention a couple of things and he would only comment on one. This is actually not much of an issue when we are both in the same city or if it’s a short trip because we see each other often. I’ll just bring up unaddressed comments the next time I see him and he’s fine in person. But it is a problem when we are apart for too long because I feel like we aren’t having actual conversations… and when we are not in the same city, it’s really one of the few connections we have.

Currently I am out of the country for work and the plan is to be gone for half a year to a year. It’s been a month now and it’s been really hard on me. When he is busy with activities (which is often), he is not responsive at all, especially if he’s on a trip. It makes sense that he wants to be present. I understand that yet I still get insecure. I feel like I am secondary to what he’s currently doing and not important enough to even say hi. He said that statement is unfair and that I am important. We would also Skype when we can but with the time difference (15 hours), plus sleep and work, we have very little over lap time.

I’ve addressed it to him before and he admits that he’s no good at long distance/online dating. I can tell that after our talks though, he’s been trying to be more responsive to me… but since it continues to get brought up even though he tries, he feels that it isn’t something he can change much in the long run.

We have already fought twice within the month in regards to this (this is a lot for us). I can tell that if we continue to constantly fight like this, especially with the distance, it will break us.

Logically, I know he cares for me. Aside from everything else, he’s been making plans to move across the world to be with me even though he doesn’t want to move. But emotionally and irrationally, I still get insecure when he isn’t really responsive. I’m starting to feel like I could be over reacting and it really is a “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of thing.

What do you suggest I do to let go of my insecurities so that it won’t ruin our relationship?

Thank you for your time,

Insecurity Guard

DEAR INSECURITY GUARD: Forgive me for half a moment Insecurity Guard, because you’ve accidentally tripped up on one of my pet-peeves that I see all the time in people. You aren’t doing this, IG, but your situation is close enough that it’s worth mentioning.

I talk a lot about the importance of self-awareness when it comes to dating. Self-awareness is a vital skill; it’s part of what helps us recognize unhelpful patterns in our lives. It’s what makes us conscious about possible issues we may have that might be off-putting to others. It also makes us aware of our good qualities – something that a lot of people1 are very bad at.

But one of the key components of being self-aware of one’s flaws is the willingness to address them. Something I’ve run into frequently – and believe me, this is something that spans all genders and orientations -is the idea that being aware of an issue somehow excuses you from having it. I have heard people say verbatim “Yes, I’m a jerk, but I know I am, so it’s OK.”

Um… no. No it freaking isn’t. “Take me as I am” isn’t a license to be a complete jackass to others. You (generic you) don’t get a pass on awful behavior because you acknowledge that it’s awful. At best, you’re providing a warning to others before they get involved with you. At worst… well, you’re expecting people to forgive you and allow you your awfulness. That’s not how this works. If you’re going to own your behavior, then you have to do something with it… even if that’s dealing with the consequences.

(ahem)

OK, that rant aside, let’s turn back to you, IG. You’re different in this case: you’re saying “hey, I’m kind of an insecure bag of slop and I’d really like to stop being an insecure bag of slop.” And hey: all of us are insecure bags of slop. Everyone’s got their issues and insecurities. Right now, you’re staring yours in the face and looking for a way to make it quit being quite so bad.

The thing is, you don’t have an insecurity problem (well, you do, but that’s not the major component) so much as a long-distance problem. Long distance relationships are hard under the best of circumstances – it’s difficult enough to keep a relationship going when you’re living a couple hours’ drive away. When you’re trying to maintain a relationship with half the goddamn planet between you… well, you’ve chosen to play on Expert Mode without the benefit of a New Game + save.

So before we get started with any of this, the first thing you need to do is change your vocabulary. Words have power, and how we describe things affects how we think of them. So when you’re talking about this, change the verb. You aren’t insecure (active form of “to be”), you’re feeling insecure (active form of “to feel”). When you say “I’m insecure”, you’re saying that insecurity about relationships defines who you are. When you say “I’m feeling insecure”, you’re saying that this is an emotion you’re experiencing, not your permanent state of being.

A little woo-woo, new-agey? Yeah, a little. But trust me on this: it works.

Now to handle this properly, it requires a two-pronged approach. The first is dealing with your feelings of insecurity. The second is working on how to make your new LDR work between you and your sometimes incommunicative boyfriend.

In the first: well, I’m going to give you my standard disclaimer: Dr. NerdLove is not a doctor. And if these feelings of insecurity are really overpowering you and causing you serious distress, the best thing you can do is talk to a therapist. They’re going to be better positioned to help you deal with those issues over the long-term. Depending on where you are, there may be resources available to you (especially if you’re in a sane country that has national health-care… unlike the US) that you should see about taking advantage of. If there aren’t, there are still options you might be able to use. Over on my Tumblr, I’ve written up a list of affordable therapy alternatives, many of which are online or have heavy online components.

But one thing I will suggest is retraining your brain. Intellectually, you know you have nothing to worry about. Emotionally, however, your heart isn’t listening to your intellectual side and that’s leading you into these recurring thought-patterns that tell you something’s gone drastically wrong and everything’s about to go tits-up. So what you need to do is learn to break those patterns. When you get into one of those downward spirals of thought-maelstroms what you need to do is acknowledge that you’re feeling something (again, feeling, not are) and consciously reframe the situation. When you’re thinking “He’s not responding to me, he doesn’t think I’m important enough to respond to,” you consciously say “No, he’s busy and a little forgetful. I’m just feeling insecure. If he were in the same city, I’d just talk to him about it later.” Repeat this to yourself every time you start to spiral into feelings of insecurity; it’ll soon become automatic and help calm you down.

You may also want to look into mindfulness meditation; this can be a good way to be more aware of your thought-patterns and emotional triggers, which is the first step towards being able to break them.

Now for making the long-distance issue work, your boyfriend has to understand the facts of life here. When you’re doing an LDR, communication is more important than ever. When you don’t have things like body language and physical proximity to communicate feelings and emotions or reassurance, then you need to make what you say, when you say it and how you say it an even higher priority than it is when the two of you are in person.

First: learn to embrace asynchronous communication. Back in ye olden days before we had things like the Internet and cheap long-distance calling plans, most of us who did the LDR thing had to rely on writing letters. Like, physical, lick-the-envelope-stick-a-stamp-wait-by-the-mailbox letters. And in complete honesty… that could actually enhance things. Getting a letter from my LD girlfriend (who was in New Jersey, not Canada, thank you very much) would be the high point of my day; checking the mail was kind of exhilarating. But now that we can have nigh-instantaneous communication with anyone in the world at any time… we’ve got kind of spoiled.

So it’s time to use your words… and by that I mean write some emails. Letter writing is a fine-art and one that was celebrated between couples separated by distance and circumstance. It lets you have full conversations full of longing and emotion, even if you’re not having them in real-time. It also makes it easier to point out that hey, your honeybun didn’t respond to this particular part of your last missive, maybe he could get on that hmmm?

Texting is another way you can keep the lines of communication open, even when you’re literally on opposite sides of the world. If you have a smartphone, something like What’s App can save you the cost of sending texts internationally (which, incidentally, is a damn racket and I despise cellphone providers for milking us like this) and allow you to continue the conversation at your convenience. Plus: if he’s taking a bit to get back to you – longer, that is, than the 15 hour time difference might account for – then you can give him a gentle poke to respond to when he gets up.

Also: schedule Skype sessions to make sure there’s overlap. These are too important to just let them happen. Yeah, you’re on a 15-hour time difference and you have different responsibilities that can make this hard. This is why you want to schedule these dates and stick to ’em like glue. I’d recommend picking a time when you’re both going to be able to stay up late (or get up stupid early) – a weekend is ideal for this – and then alternate who gets up when. On even sessions, he stays up while you call him up at a reasonable hour in your locale. On odd sessions, you get the late night/early morning while he calls from a normal time. This helps keep the burden from being completely on one of you and leaving you feeling drained and cranky and more likely to resent his “can’t-be-bothered-to-skype-you-at-O-Christ-Hundred” ass.

And one more thing about your boyfriend: I want you to send him the link to this article and make him read it because it’s goddamn important to note that a relationship isn’t about one person doing the work. Remember what I said earlier about how self-awareness isn’t an excuse? That applies to him. Just because he “knows he’s not good at the LD thing” doesn’t mean he’s suddenly forgiven from having to put some goddamn effort in. He sounds like he doesn’t want to make any changes because he doesn’t want to be inconvenienced. To which I reply: “Cowboy the hell up already!”

Because let’s face it: you know you feel insecure about relationships, especially while you’re forcibly separated. You’ve let him know that this is an issue for you and you’re making a point of trying to handle your crap. If he cares about you and about making this relationship work, then he has to be willing to handle HIS crap too. Working on being more supportive, more communicative and more responsive is not that high of a bar to clear, especially when it’s for somebody he purports to care about and wants to have a future with. If he’s just not willing to put in the work – if his only response is to throw his hands up and say “Hey, I told you I’m not good at this LDR stuff, so you can’t expect more from me – then he’s telling you that he’s prioritizing his convenience over your relationship.

And if that’s the case… well, I hate to say it, but you’re better off without him.

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