DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a bisexual woman in a very happy relationship with my fiancé (a dude). Recently, we have been discussing the potential of having threesomes, as a way of exploring our sexuality further together.

I have had something of a long-standing crush on a mutual friend of ours. He’s a part of our main group of friends who we hang out with weekly to play D&D with. We’re all slightly awkward nerds. I’ve been getting a general vibe lately that the attraction might be mutual, especially after we spent the majority of the last party we had basically cuddling. But I feel I could also just be reading what I want to be into what may just be friendly interactions for him! I’ve been thinking lately that I might want to be straightforward about my attraction to him, and ask if he’d be up for a threesome. My fiancé is aware of all of this and is open to it as well.

I just really don’t want to make things uncomfortable between us. I really like him as a person and value his friendship more than anything. I think a threesome could be a lot of fun if he was interested, but I don’t want to be creepy, or make him feel like I’ve been his friend under false pretenses. If his answer was no I would be absolutely ok with that, and it wouldn’t change how I feel about him as a friend. I’ve only ever had sex with my fiancé before, so this is really a varsity level conversation that I don’t know how to even start, or if I should start at all. What should I do?

Thanks, 

Don’t Know If I Can Make This Diplomacy Check

DEAR DON’T KNOW IF I CAN MAKE THIS DIPLOMACY CHECK: short version: this is a bad idea, DC. There’re just too many unknowns involved here and too many ways that could end up with a critical fumble at the wrong moment. Then suddenly you’re stuck with a drama bomb that’s about to go off, messily and all over the place.

Now as a general rule, I’m all in favor of adding some adventure to your sex life. I’m very much pro threesomes, if that’s what you’re interested in. But finding the right person to bring into the game is important, because the stakes can be surprisingly high. The wrong addition can turn sexy fun and games into an unpleasant mess. Somebody who doesn’t respect the boundaries of your relationship can cause strife even when they’re not there. Plenty of people have had issues with special guest stars – or their partners – deciding that if it’s cool for all three of you to bang, then a little one-on-one time is just fine too. Then there’s the issue of handling the relationship with the third party afterwards.

One of the reasons why finding a third can be tricky is because so many couples treat their third like a toy; they only want that extra person for as long as the sexy times are going on and kick them out before the sweat has even cooled. And ideally, you want someone who will understand and respect the relationship between you and your fiancé and not cause a fuss in the middle of things.

The ideal partner for a threesome, especially if it’s your first ever, is either often someone you already have a good relationship with – an ex you’re on good terms with, for example – or a professional. In both cases, you’re far more likely to have someone who can communicate clearly, who will respect the rules you all lay out in advance and who won’t cause problems afterwards.

In this case, I think you’ve picked the wrong potential addition to your party.

Let’s start with the fact you don’t really know how much he’s into you… or how. I mean, yes, cuddling in general can be a sign someone’s interested. By the same token, some folks are cuddlers and have no problem being part of a puppy pile with their friends; that doesn’t mean that they have any sexual interest in the people they’re cuddling with. This is information that you might want to have before you try to making your move on them.

But even if he is interested, starting off with a threesome is a pretty big ask. I mean, sure it’s possible he’d be down for hooking up with you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to be the meat man in your particular sexy sandwich. It’s one thing if it were just the two of you. It’s another entirely – if he’s down in the first place – to say “OK but it’s not just me, it’s me and my fiancé.” That adds all kinds of extra layers of difficulty that’s going to have you rolling with disadvantage.

To start with, there’s the immediate question of whether he likes threesomes in the first place. Yeah, porn tells us that threesomes are the top-tier prize, but sexy is in the eye of the beholder and not everybody is into it. Some folks don’t want the pressure of trying to please two people at once – or be pleased by them, for that matter. Others don’t do their best work with a crowd. And if he were into you and into having a threesome with you right off the bat, the fact it’s with your male fiancé may be a line. There’re a lot of folks out there who’re down for hooking up with two women but get vexed at the thought of another dude in the room.

And even if you rolled that particular natural 20: he was into you, and into a threesome off the bat and cool with it being with you and another guy… he may just not be cool with the idea of doing it with your fiancé, specifically, participating.

That’s a lot of stackable modifiers to that particular persuasion check. And it’s already a varsity level conversation to have with someone. The last thing you want to do is invite him over, wave in your fiancé and ask “So how do you want to do this?”

Now, if your fiancé is amenable to opening up the relationship somewhat to let you pursue things with this guy, then you might be able to work towards eventually having a threesome. But in general, I think this is a bad idea and a bad way to try to leap straight into advanced-level fooling around. This is something you might want to table and come back to once you’ve got a few more levels under your belts.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: First of all I’m sorry if you’ve been asked this before. I’ve been a long time lurker and you give some good advice and I hope you can help me.

I’m 24 and I never kissed or held hands with a girl, figure out the rest. I know it’s pathetic but I can’t stop thinking about everything I missed and I’ll never be able to experiment. Missing out teen love mortifies me and I think it fucked me up. I mean, in your teenage years you get your first relationships and you learn the basics about being with someone, what is like, how it works, what to do, what to don’t, how to behave, etc. And you do it with someone as inexperienced as you in that wonderful time of your life when you had no big worries at all. I know it may sound cheesy or maybe I have an idealized, but that’s what I observed from the shadows and now every time I see a young couple walking in the street I want to cry and it ruins my day. In fact, I can’t see pictures or tv shows where romance is involved without wanting to cry.

I know I’ll be single for the rest of my life. I know I can’t predict the future or know what will happen, but I look at the odds. To meet someone you need friends or acquaintances so they could introduce you to someone they know or just be in the right place at the right time. I don’t have friends or acquaintances. So the chances of meeting a girl are nearly impossible or have a low-probability, while dying alone and no one noticing it after several weeks because of the smell is more likely. Believing that out there is someone who can love me is like thinking that pink whales exist. It’s true I never approached a girl, but when I see a girl I find cute, I always think that she’s too pretty and I’m unlovable. That’s why avoid girls like the plague and I try to not be close to them, because is a constant reminder that I’ll be alone forever. I’m hideous, too weird, I don’t have social skills and I’ll never approach someone because that’s like telling them ‘hey, I think you have low standards, bad taste and poor eyesight. Wanna hang out?’ I know every girl will reject me so there is no point in trying. High school taught me girls are disgusted by my mere presence and that I should stay away from them and never dare to look at them. That’s what I do everyday and I try to not show any interest at all. No girl deserves me because they deserve someone better because it’s simple: there are millions of guys out there and I know I’m among the worst (excluding criminals). I can’t enhance their lives, because I have nothing to do it. They deserve someone normal, not me.

My question is, how can I accept this? I mean I KNOW I’ll end up alone and that I’ll never get a girlfriend or to love someone that loves me back, but it hurts me to the point I haven’t slept well in months. I stay up hours thinking and ruminating about this and sometimes I cry. A lot. I just want to be able to say “I’ll never experience love, so what?”. I don’t want to get sad knowing I’ll never get a girlfriend, get married, have kids and raise them together. I just want to accept my fate and stop worrying about something I can’t change. Or at least be able to sleep well and be somewhat happy being alone.

-Quasimodo’s Ugly Inexperienced Twin

DEAR QUASIMODO’S UGLY INEXPERIENCED TWIN: I think you came to the wrong place, QUIT, because you’re asking me to sign off on your decision to give up and that’s not what I do. If you want to give up, lay down and rot… well, that’s your decision. You don’t need my permission to do that. But I’m also not going to be the person to tell you that this is the right decision or to applaud you for doing so. My job is to help people fix things and find solutions and I’m NOT going to be the guy to tell you “nope, nothing you can do, time to die.”

And, straight talk: you don’t need to be talking to me, my dude. You need to be talking to a therapist, because the things you’re describing? They’re not reasonable. If you’re feeling this much emotional anguish over being a little to the right on the far-end of the virginity bell-curve, then the issue isn’t whether you’ll be forever alone, it’s the negative thought patterns and the pain they’re causing you. I mean, I hate to break up the pity party (no, that’s a lie; I really don’t) but you’re not that rare of a beast; nearly a third of men are still virgins between the ages of 20 – 24.

But to be perfectly blunt: you’re talking a lot of shit my dude. It’s like I’ve told folks before: you’re not a prophet. You can’t see the future and no, you DON’T know that you’re never going to have a girlfriend. What you have here is a metric ass-ton of self-imposed, self-limiting beliefs that are based on sweet fuck-all and a heaping dose of self-pity.

I mean, let’s start with the fact that you didn’t have a girlfriend when you were a teenager. Neither did a lot of people. You’re right: you have a completely idealized – and completely fantastical – idea of what dating and teen love was like. It sounds to me like a lot of your ideas about what dating would’ve been like in high-school came from TV and books because it sure as hell doesn’t look like anything most people have seen. You don’t come out of your first relationship as a teenager with a new knowledge of how everything works; half the time, you don’t know what the actual hell happened and you’re as confused as you were before… if not more so. Nor, for that matter, are you guaranteed that you’re going to be with someone who’s as equally clueless as you. The fact that you’re the same age doesn’t mean that you have commensurate levels of experience. Just as some people were late bloomers, others bloomed early and may have been sexually active at an earlier age.

And honestly: having had a relationship in high-school doesn’t automatically set you up for dating success later in life any more than not having had one dooms you. You may want to try talking to some of your LGBT peers; many of them lived in places where there were no other queer kids for them to date. Hell, there’re many who didn’t come out until long after high-school and didn’t start dating until they were in their 20s. All not having gone through the emotional roller-coaster that is dating in high-school means is that you’re just going to be going through that ride a little later than some folks. That’s neither a good or bad thing. It doesn’t mean that you’re at a permanent disadvantage or you’re doomed to failure. It just means that you didn’t start at the same time as other people did and that’s fine because you’re not actually in competition with them. There’s no prize for getting to any particular dating milestone first. You don’t get bonus points in life because you lost your virginity before the median age (17-18)

(And show me someone who had no major worries as a teenager and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t remember what being a teenager was like. Everything was a cause for stress; you just didn’t have the experience or perspective to know what things you were supposed to get stressed out over.)

But literally everything else you bring up is either self-inflicted, easily corrected or both. Your complaints are almost word-for-word the same as many of the other people who’ve written into me before, and the solutions are almost identical as well. Just about everything you describe is the sort of thing that you could change in the matter of weeks.

Let’s be real here: just about everything you’ve told me is based on pure speculation. You say it yourself: you’ve never approached anyone before. Cool so then you don’t know that you’re going to get rejected. You’re just assuming you will. Why are you assuming that you will? Because you believe nobody could possibly be interested. And you know this based on…. what, exactly?

Well, going by your letter, high-school. Except, as we’ve already covered: not only is high-school not like real life, but we’re already in a position where we can’t really trust you to be the honest assessor of your own life right now.

There isn’t a thing that you’ve mentioned that can’t be fixed and most of it is just a matter of an order of operations. You don’t have friends or acquaintances. OK… so it seems obvious to me that the first step would be to start working towards making some. You don’t have social skills? You can actually develop those. They’re called social SKILLS for a reason; you build them through conscious and deliberate practice. You think you’re hideous? Well, first of all, I would love it if I had a nickel for every single average-to-good-looking dude that told me he was so ugly he made blind people scream. So I’m already calling bulls

t. But second of all: that’s fixable too. Not with plastic surgery or some other actually-trying-to-dodge-the-topic answer but really simple grooming and style techniques. I mean, all you need to do is watch any given episode of Queer Eye to see just how transformative some decently fitting clothes and a haircut can be.

But before you do any of that? You need to be willing to actually let go of the f

ked up, bulls

t incel logic you’ve got going on. You need to get the hell away from the incel boards and subreddits I know that you’re visiting – trust me, I’ve heard all of this before – and quit pretending that the fact that something hurts means that it’s true. No, the fact that something hurts just means that it hurts. Truth can hurt, but there’s something that hurts because it’s true and then there’s what you’re doing: the emotional equivalent of self-harm.

You need to talk to an actual therapist, QUIT, and preferably one who specializes in sexual and emotional anxieties like you have. I would strongly suggest that you go to the website for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists; they have a referral directory that can help you find a professional in your area. Working with them will help you take the most important first step: they can help you learn to put down the pain that you’re inflicting on yourself so that you can finally heal and realize that you’re wrong. The world isn’t the cruel, cold and dark place you think it is. You’re not doomed, you’re not forgotten and you’re not destined to be forever alone. You’re just lonely and in pain.

Start by addressing that pain. Once you’re not hurting yourself as much, you’ll realize just how much potential you have and how much this world actually has to offer, once you stop viewing it through eyes clouded by self-hate.

This can and will get better. I promise.

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)

(Doctor’s Note: today’s letter deals with abusive relationships.)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I would normally dispense with the niceties and whatnot, but I feel like I’m in the middle of a potential crisis.

The long story made short is that I’m a 23 year old guy who had just graduated from college with a bachelor’s, and there’s a female friend of mine  – “Annie” — who had recently turned 29 (although if you ask her, she’s around 32 but that’s a detail I’ll get to later).

I’ve become increasingly concerned about her, to put it lightly. We’ve built up a rather strong friendship over the course of well over a year, but it seems like something has been very off over the past few months.

I know this because she was willing to become good friends because she gave me her number to text her (before that, we were DMing each other via Instagram). We’ve shared quite a lot of similar interests in just about a lot of topics (ranging from our favorite movies to particular styles of art), as well as recommended each other various new things to try. We’ve even vented to each other about our more personal secrets.

But like I said, it seems like there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.

I noticed that Annie wasn’t really reading my messages or my DMs anymore plus her overall activity on Instagram and Tumblr have been significantly reduced, so I decided to email her. Some time ago, I asked her (through email of course) if she would be able to come to my graduation ceremony as well as let me stay over at her place (I graduated with honors and there was a cosplay convention on that same weekend as my graduation, and the con was about a couple of hours from where I live).  I was actually kind of expecting “no” because she wasn’t used to people staying over at her place, nor was she the kind of person to attend events with loud music and tons of people.

(In fact, neither am I, but graduation is pretty much a huge stepping stone that deserves commemoration).

The reason why wasn’t what I expected at all. She declined both offers because as of this writing, she has a fiancé that she’s been with for about three years now, and if her fiancé found out that another guy (even a male friend) took her to an event or let him stay at her place, then in her own exact words, “he would be significantly less than pleased… to put it lightly.” She then added that if her fiancé were to find out that we had been messaging each other as much as we had been in the past, then she would be forced to block me from all social media.

This wasn’t the only strange behavior I’ve seen from her. She has mentioned that she’s incredibly introverted and antisocial, but at least when we were talking more, she would at least take the time to talk when she was available. Not the case anymore. In fact, she was perfectly willing to give me her number in the past, but now it seems like she blocked my number for no apparent reason. She then DMed me on Instagram about that, trying to brush it off as a bug on her phone.

When another friend of mine tried to reach out to Annie, to check if this were a potentially abusive relationship, the she straight-up blocked them.

Finally, her whole demeanor has become a lot more… subdued, to say the least. I remember when we were texting until the wee hours of the night (it helps that she’s a night owl), she would get very emotional and very passionate about various topics. Nowadays, her personality seems to have just deflated into a shadow of her former self. She’s way less emotional now, and has become somewhat impersonal, almost robotic.

I’ve talked to another friend who recently got engaged , and they said that being engaged can come with less engagement with other people (especially on social media). According to them, it does kind of come with the territory. I do figure that’s understandable, except this feels less “guess they can’t stop bangin’” and more “blink twice if your soul is being held in a jar.”

Initially, I just brushed off all of this strange behavior from her because she recently became a business owner who works with several different countries (specifically China). Knowing that and her night owl tendencies, I could understand why she would be less active because I imagine that it’s a very demanding job that requires several hours of commitment. I mean, we’re both adults here, we both have real-world work to do.

In fact, I would even understand her having a fiancé and would have otherwise backed off because that kind of relationship requires a special kind of commitment… if her fiancé in question hadn’t been showing some serious red flags.

I just want to confirm that these are in fact red flags, and that I’m not going crazy:

– Annie telling me that her fiancé would be significantly less than pleased if any guy (including a male friend) took her to an event or let a male friend stay at her place.

– Annie telling me that if her fiancé found out we’ve been messaging each other as much as we had been in the past, then her fiancé would force her to have her block me from all forms of contact

– Her suddenly becoming way more willing to burn bridges with people, even with people she’s called friends for years (I can’t confirm this, but it seems like she’s unfollowed more friends who happened to be abuse survivors)

– Her outright disappearing from all social media and forms of contact (including her removing me from her Pokémon GO friends list for no apparent reason); she mentioned she’s a business owner who works into the wee hours of the night, but this disappearance is unusual even for her (I mean, she’s a diehard Pokémon fan for life!)

– Her apparently changing her age online to be “older” than she actually is (she has a history of dating men older than she is because she apparently finds herself unable to connect with guys around her own age, but this was well before I came into the picture)

After she told me about all the things with her fiancé and whatnot, I sent her a response email telling her about the potential red flags their relationship is showing, as well as all the strange behaviors that she’s been exhibiting over the past couple of months.

I haven’t heard from her since.

Interestingly enough, as of this writing, she hasn’t even unfollowed me on Instagram (she decided to follow me after her account had gotten hacked by Russian spammers; that was cleared up within a matter of hours), not even after I sent her that last email or after she blocked that friend who reached out to her.

This isn’t like she’s just “unfamiliar” with abusive relationships in the past; if anything, she has quite a history with them. Apparently when she was approximately closer to my age several years ago, she was in an extremely abusive relationship with a man who was about twice her age at that time. She doesn’t really want to talk about the details, but it more or less left her impoverished as soon as she left. Not too long after that, she met another guy and they started dating soon after. This now-ex had psychologically and sexually abused her, including forcing her to take alcohol and hard drugs to force her into caving in. As a result, she ended up alienating people she cared about, did some things that were uncomfortable and stranger for her, and developed C-PTSD as a result.

After all of this, she even created a sort of charity for abuse survivors and even creates hypnosis tapes for those survivors in order to help them recover (she’s a certified hypnotherapist, complete with degrees).

Additionally, I even did some asking around on online forums and chat rooms in order to determine if her fiancé’s behavior was indeed becoming abusive, and the overall consensus was pretty much “yes, the relationship is toxic AF and she should nope the hell out of there ASAP.”

While all of this might be bad enough, here comes the part where I screwed up. After her mentioning that she had a fiancé, I was in panic mode because of past friendships that would cease to exist because that friend would immediately ghost me after that relationship had started (that’s another story entirely), and as a result, I let it slip that I was planning on asking her out someday. At first, I saw her as someone that I could summon up the courage to ask out, but as time passed, I got to know her more and saw her as the good friend I now have, to the point where I simply forgot to ask her out.

As a result, she got scared and put “romantically unavailable” on her Instagram bio (apparently because two other friends had tried to ask her out around the same time; I honestly didn’t know about this until another friend told me).

However, the number-blocking and deletion from her Pokémon GO friends list happened way before I let that slip out, so there’s no correlation here.

Besides, if she had been for fiancé for about that length of time, asking her out would have been a moot point back then.

I know you’re going to summon the Chair Leg of Truth on me for this cardinal sin, but screw it, I honestly don’t care anymore because first and foremost, she’s my friend. I care about her as an individual, and I most certainly care about her safety (especially her safety).

I suppose I could sum it up to that being an inconvenient crush, but who knows? But then again, not knowing is part of the human experience, isn’t it?

It’s just that I really think she’s an awesome person, that’s it. In fact, she’s actually one of the few people I can actually talk to not just about personal items, but also about intellectually stimulating topics in such a way that I really can’t with most other people.

However, I am myself NOT ready for another relationship due to baggage that I won’t get into here (because then this will be a hell of a lot longer than it needs to be). I don’t feel emotionally ready for it, is what I’m trying to say. I even have plans to see a therapist to address this kind of baggage. On top of that, something like “getting into her pants” is NOT something I’ve thought about at all, not when she could be in potential danger.

Besides, it’s not like I can just drop her and move on with my life either, because like I said, her life could potentially be in danger.

In any case, I’ve asked my other friends for advice on what to do about this, and the best advice I’ve received so far is to just give my friend space. That’s… exactly what I did. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks, although I still find myself worrying about her every now and then, to the point where I check up on her to see that she’s doing ok (and that she hasn’t blocked me yet in case I finally decide to reach out to her).

I really don’t know what else to do. I guess I’m just looking for additional insight (especially from a professional), but more important, I just need advice on what I can do for my friend who may have potentially trapped herself into yet another abusive relationship.

Thank you for your time.

Stuck in the Middle with a Scorpion

DEAR STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH A SCORPION: Hoo boy. There’s a lot to unpack here, SitMwS and I have a lot of questions.

But let’s take it step by step.

First and foremost: Assuming everything is as you say it is, then yes, it sounds an awful lot like she’s in a toxic, if not outright abusive relationship. A lot of the behavior you’re describing sounds like someone who’s being isolated by an abuser. Take your friend burning so many bridges and cutting back on everybody in her life. While everybody’s different, getting engaged usually doesn’t also involve cutting ties with one’s friend. Someone who’s in an abusive relationship, however, often will suddenly withdraw from friends, from family and from activities they used to love.

This is entirely deliberate. Abusers will frequently try to cut their victims off from friends and family. The more isolated that their victim is, the more they come to rely on the abuser. It also helps keep them under the abuser’s thumb. By cutting their victim off from their friends, the victim has fewer voices warning them about the abuser’s behavior. Just as importantly, if the victim is cut off from her friends and family, then she has fewer available resources and fewer places to turn if and when she decides it’s time to get the hell out.

Abusers will frequently frame this in ways that may seem reasonable. It’s rarely “I don’t want you talking to anyone who isn’t me” – though there are those who will make it about how jealous they get. More often though, abusers will try to poison the well and sew discord and mistrust while convincing their victims to cut ties – the better to inoculate themselves against accusations of abuse. So they’ll frame the request as “they’re bad friends” or “they’re trying to break us up because they’re interested in you” or “they’re trying to turn you against me because REASONS”. This way, if someone tries to point out how awful his behavior is they can say “see, they said exactly what I said they would.”

Unfortunately, if her fiancé IS abusing her, then you played into this narrative by Nice-Guying your way through this. It’s much easier for him to sew doubt and mistrust by pointing out that you were hoping to ask her out at some point. This puts pretty much everything about your relationship with her into question, like asking if you can stay at her place, even knowing she was probably going to say “no”. Now anything you have to say about him is going to be through the filter of “yeah but he wants to date me,” regardless of whether that’s true any more or not.

I also want to come back to something you mentioned earlier: you’re surprised by this because she’s familiar with abusive relationships, having been abused before. This, unfortunately isn’t uncommon; a number of victims of abuse – especially as children – will end up in other abusive relationships. This can actually put something of a whammy on people who find themselves in abusive relationships; they don’t want to believe or accept it because they should supposedly “know better”. They believe they shouldn’t be the kind of person who’d get abused, especially again. It’s incredibly difficult to say “yes, this happened to me”. It’s even harder to say “It happened to me again,” especially to friends who may have pointed it out before. This mix of denial, shame and embarrassment can make it harder for them to decide to get out.

And it is hard to leave an abusive relationship. Abusers are very good at getting into their victims’ heads and convincing them that things are better and it’s all going to be fine now. They’ll lovebomb their victim and reinitiate a honeymoon period where they’re on their best behavior and it can feel like things are getting better. This lasts long enough for the victim to recommit and let their guard down… and then the cycle of abuse begins again. A victim of abuse – physical or emotional – often will leave and go back to their abuser multiple times before they leave for good. This can be maddening for their friends because… well, shouldn’t they know better by now? This cycle of leaving and going back often grinds people down, to the point that they’ll sometimes throw their hands up and say “fine, you know what, you chose this, I’m out.”

Which further isolates the victim.

Now someone call Sir Mix-A-Lot because there’s a huge “but” coming.

BUT. That’s all assuming that’s what’s going on here. Yeah, the activity that you’re describing all sounds like very typical abusive red flags.

They ALSO sound an awful lot like someone who’s trying to wave off a dude she barely knows who’s way more invested in her than she is in him.

You’ve known her for a year and over the course of that year — a year in which you’d been planning to ask her out. That would be a year in which you’ve known she’s had a fiancé.

And her dialing back contact with you has been happening over the course of several months. And the reduction in contact with you seems to have started around the time you invited her to your graduation and asked if you could stay at her place

All this raises other red flags with me.

Straight talk: a lot of the things you describe could be someone who’s giving soft excuses as to why she doesn’t want you visiting or staying over or wanting to dial back her relationship because you’ve been getting way too intense for her comfort.

Frankly, it wouldn’t be the first time that somebody wanted to turn down a crush and shifted the blame to a jealous partner. The increasing ways she’s disconnected from you – and the lame excuses – could be depression, it could be a way of trying to put boundaries between the two of you… the possibilities are fairly robust. Her withdrawing from the various friends could well be because she’s getting tired of a bunch of folks getting wound up by someone telling her that she’s being abused.

The truth is that there’s a lot that’s pretty damn ambiguous here. First of all, you’re getting a tiny sliver of her life and extrapolating worlds of information from that without any real justification for those conclusions.

There are loads going on that you don’t see and that you don’t know. And let’s be honest here: you’ve got some motivated reasoning going on here to want it to be abuse and not just her rejecting you.

But before everyone gets angry in the comments, all of the things I just mentioned? That’s part of what makes it so damn hard for an outsider who wants to help and support their friend. All of the potential ambiguity, the potential other reasons for the suspicious behavior… all of that muddies the water and makes it hard to know how to respond. And even if you are 100% correct, they may not see it that way yet.

That’s why the hardest part for someone on the outside is that, at the end of the day, there’s very little that you can do to get somebody out of an abusive relationship before they’re ready. You can’t “rescue” someone from an abusive relationship. The only person who can make the decisions for their life is them. The only thing you can do is provide support and a non-judgemental space. If she comes to you – IF – and asks for help, then you can provide her with resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 and help her create a safety plan. But those have to be her choice, and pushing her could very well push her away.

So if you’re right and she’s being abused, then you’re going to have to accept there’s not much you can do. Check out the resources for friends and family of domestic abuse victims at the National Domestic Violence Hotline (https://www.thehotline.org/help/help-for-friends-and-family/). Call them yourself if you want to talk out potential options and how you can best help your friend if she asks for it. You can contact her and let her know that you care, that you’re worried about her, that you’ll always be there if she needs you and that she can reach out to you at any time for any reason.

But then… you have to leave the ball in her court.

Hopefully you’re wrong. Hopefully this is all a wacky misunderstanding and everything is just fine and there’s a logical and sensible reason for all of this. But if there isn’t… well, the best thing you can do is be the friend she needs, when she needs it.

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 25-year-old woman in a weird place in my dating/sex life right now. For a long time, I thought I was a lesbian, until about a year ago when I dated a guy. Unfortunately, I was so anxious about how to be good in a relationship/sexual with a guy, I kind of sent it to it’s doom. Then I went on a date with another guy about six months later and I was kind of coerced into sleeping with him, and he was the first guy I slept with and this gave me even more anxiety.

To help me get over my sexual anxiety with guys, I started having a friends with benefits thing with someone I trusted would actually respect my sexual wishes and wouldn’t make me feel like I couldn’t have input. Now though, the thing seems to be that guys ONLY seem to want sex from me. The last date I went on, I thought I really connected with the guy, but he kept pushing for me to sleep with him, and probably was being way too sexual for a first date (I.E. talking about how he had a boner).

So I guess, my questions are: 1. Does having a friends with benefits situation mean that guys I might date in the future will consider me slutty?, 2. How do I tell if a guy wants to date or just wants sex? and 3. How do I let a guy know whether I want sex or just dating in terms of body language or without being too direct?

Any help would be appreciated.

Bewitched, Bewildered and Befuddled

DEAR BEWITCHED, BEWILDERED AND BEFUDDLED: Here’s something I want you to realize: you’re not alone in this. Like other folks who’ve written in — this week even — you’ve had a fairly circuitous route to your sexuality. As I’ve said before, sexuality isn’t as carved in stone as we like to think. It’s not even a spectrum, so much as it is a multi-axis graph and series of slides. Some people may be staunchly heterosexual or homosexual, some may be bi or pansexual and some folks may slide around attraction over time… just as it seems to have been in your case. That can be an inadvertent source of confusion and anxiety, especially if you’ve spent most of your life identifying one way or another.

Of course, this is going to lead to something of an adjustment period as you start getting used to the social mores of dating men in addition to/ instead of women. You’re used to one set of experiences when it comes to dating and now you’re dealing with something that’s familiar, yet just different enough to be anxiety-producing – a dating uncanny valley as it were. This is can take some getting used to; the skill-sets are essentially the same, but the applications can be different enough to be confusing. Gender roles, particularly surrounding dating, can be a pain in the ass that way.

And let’s be fair: you have some legit reasons to be anxious. Not only are you exploring a different side of yourself, but you’ve had some seriously awful experiences.

But hey! You bounced back from that and you then went and found a good guy to be with – someone who was caring and respectful, listened to you and deferred to your limits and wishes. That’s awesome. 

Unfortunately, the guys afterwards… not quite as awesome. But here’s the thing: there’s a difference between correlation and causation, B3. The issue isn’t that you had a FWB relationship with someone and now everyone thinks you’re a slut, the problem is that you seem to be dating jerks.

The first thing you should be doing is figuring out some screening techniques to filter out the jackasses sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, part of the way you learn to filter out these goombas is through experience. Womp womp.

Learning how to tell guys who just want sex versus those who want a relationship is something you learn over time. People of all genders come on a spectrum; there will be guys who will be very obvious about just wanting to fuck and there will be guys who are so restrained that you’ll wonder if they actually see you as a potential partner or just a good friend. There will be guys who will fake wanting to date just so they can get sex and there will be guys who are super-sexual but who’re totally down with something committed. Most of the time, you figure out who’s who by their behavior; are they respectful, or are they pushy? Do they acknowledge your boundaries, or do they take every opportunity to tell you what they want from you?

Let’s take the dude you mention in your letter. You thought you were connecting with this guy. He, on the other hand, seemed to think that this connection was going to be leading straight to his bed and he was being a pushy ass about it. I’m all in favor of some sexy flirting and banter, but there’s flirting and then there’s being an asshat. There’s a time and place for bringing up one’s boner (i.e. heavy make-out sessions). Trying to steer the conversation to sex when you’re not down? Asshat behavior.

Now, I do have a couple questions for you. You’re worried that guys will think you’re a slut because you’ve had a FWB relationship… but how, exactly are they finding this out? If you’re laying out your sexual history – especially on a first date – they might be assuming that you’re signaling that you’re looking for more of the same. As a general rule, if you (general you, not you, B3) are talking about sex a lot on a date – sex you’ve had, sex you’d like to have, etc – it’s likely going to be seen as a sign that you’re down to bone. Which is awesome if you are, but if not, you’re going to end up with some confusion. Same thing with signaling that you’re just looking to date – if you’re bringing up kids, marriage and vacation plans on a first date, people will assume that you’re looking to settle down ASAP, even if that’s not what you mean.

Keep in mind: trying to establish the kind of relationship you’re looking for on a first or even third date can be difficult; one person’s “this is totally casual” is another’s “we’re feeling out potential commitment”.

One of the things I think may be causing you problems is the assumption that wanting to fuck and wanting to date are two entirely different beasts. There can be a lot of overlap there; many, many happy long-term relationships have started out of one-night stands and casual relationships. But if you want to take things at a relaxed pace – totally understandable considering your history and anxieties surrounding sex – then make sure to maintain your boundaries. Having boundaries is part of how you filter out the asshats. Good guys will respect your limits, and the guys who want the same things you do will proceed at the pace you want. As

*les will push and push (case in point, Captain BonerTalk); feel free to kick these dudes to the curb.

But honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being direct and up front with what you want. Letting someone know you want to bone is fairly easy. Signaling that you want to date through body language is… kinda awkward and uncertain. Holding back on sleeping with someone isn’t any more reliable a sign that you’re headed to commitment than sleeping with them on the first date is a sign that you’re not. Guys who’re uncomfortable with your being straightforward about what you’re looking for are demonstrating to you that you’re likely not compatible in the first place.

The other thing to keep in mind: dating men as someone who’s bi or pansexual isn’t really all that different from dating women. There may be some adjustments – after all, some guys are seriously uptight about gender roles and performance when it comes to relationships, while others are more flexible – but you’ve done this before. The plumbing may be different but the hearts are the same.

So establish your boundaries, B3 and find the pace that you’re comfortable with. Find the guys who’re willing to respect them. And don’t be afraid to advocate for what you want, whether it’s sex or something more long-term.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ll keep this brief – I just turned 28 years old and am not looking for a serious relationship. Not now. I am currently working on some things in my life. The past couple of years have been a struggle for various reasons, and while I’ve kicked my ass to the point where I’m doing better, I still have to Improve myself mentally and physically before I can have something to offer.

That said, I am concerned about my future dating prospects. Lots of people from work, old colleagues from school, old friends and so on, are getting engaged and married. This is a surprise to me, as I assumed most people my age would wait till their mid-30’s, and now I’m worried. Forget about being in a serious relationship – I’ve never even dated. Anxieties, social and sexual got in the way, although when I look back I can’t think of anyone I knew who would have been compatible. Suddenly, I’ve been obsessively reading about when the right age to marry is. Apparently, it’s 28-32! Each year past that is 5% more likely to end in divorce! That gives me less than four years to date enough people before I’m sure I’ve found a compatible partner to share my life with! I’m not even dating material yet!!!!Of course, I’m self aware enough to know that some people marry late. But it’s less common, and I’m deeply frightened that by the time I’m ready, it will be harder to find someone, because there will be fewer people my age that haven’t tied the knot.

I think you’ll tell me that everyone goes at their own pace, based on other articles I’ve read on this site. You’ll also tell me that there’s no cutoff point to losing virginity. But I don’t care about my virginity. I don’t just want to get laid in a one night stand. I want to find someone to share my life with. With that in mind… should I be concerned?

I don’t want to rush into a relationship and end up with someone incompatible or abusive – something my Mom’s warned me about. But I also am depressed about the thought of spending my life alone.

Any feedback or advice – about dealing with this anxiety, about challenges that I can expect, or whether it’s too late and I should just give up (ha ha just kidding please don’t tell me it’s too late) – will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for all the work you’ve done, and for reading this far!

Regards,

Roadblocked

DEAR ROADBLOCKED: Alright, I want to give you a little secret, Roadblocked. This is something that I’m not supposed to tell you about marriage, so I need you to lean in close. Ready?

The right age to get married is… when you’re ready.

That’s it.

There is no magical formula about the “ideal” time to marry because what makes a marriage “work” has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the people involved. There’s no age that is going to divorce-proof your marriage because there’s no such thing. The whole “X% more likely” is horses

t. It’s trying to apply statistics and math to social issues by people who understand neither. Every relationship you have will eventually end, until one doesn’t.

And the fact of the matter is: the fact that your relationship ended – even if you got divorced – isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that your relationship failed; it just means it came to its conclusion. We all grow and change over time, and sometimes a relationship that is right for us at one part of our life isn’t going to be right for us in the future. That doesn’t mean that it was bad or you did anything wrong; it just means that it was what you needed at that time in your life and now you’ve both grown past it and it’s time to begin the next stage of your adventure.

And if you’re self-aware to know that people don’t necessarily marry at 32, then you should also know that people find themselves single again at 33… and at 43… and 53. Getting married young doesn’t mean that they’re forever off the market. Marriages end, partners pass away, people realize that their partner isn’t the person they should be with. Nor does it mean that they won’t want to date someone who hasn’t been married before. People who’ve been married before get married to people who’ve never been married before all the goddamn time.

You, my friend, need to take a long, deep breath. You’re losing your shit over patently false information and robbing your own future happiness for no reason. You have no reason to rush. All you’re losing right now is a good night’s sleep because you’re freaking yourself out. Slow down and relax. Take your time, date around and find people you really click with. Love and marriage will come in time… but not if you rush into it because you’re trying to beat a clock that doesn’t actually exist.

Good luck.

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