DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Last year I separated from my wife. It was the first long term relationship I had ever been in, we were together for 10 years, and married for 8. We’d been living like we were married for almost the entire time we were together. Problems at her home when we first started going out spurred me to invite her to move in with me very early on in the relationship. Probably a bit too early, but that’s neither here nor there.

As the relationship progressed we Tic’d and Tock’d back and forth between an extremely loving and caring couple and an abuser/abused relationship with me as the abused. Nothing physical, but it was the classic emotional kind. Isolation, feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy in either in the bedroom and in the job field.

It took the intervention of someone I met at work and developed a strong –and likely unhealthy but that’s a different story– friendship with to really open my eyes to what was going on and make a choice of what I wanted. I was given an ultimatum and was forced to choose between my wife and my friend and I chose my wife. Because… that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Well, saying goodbye to my friend was such an agony to do that it was what helped push me into making the decision to saying goodbye to my (now) ex-wife.

It’s been the better part of a year plus since this happened and I’ve gone on a grand total of One (1) date in that time. I was on OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, even Tinder. Entertainingly, the date I did go on was matched through Tinder but ended with coffee and someone I’m glad to call a friend, but nothing more.

The thing is… my heart’s just not into the dating scene. I’m 30, recently graduated with an Associate’s Degree back in December, and desperately underemployed for it. I speak to people on OKC, POF and other Dating sites but even when the possibility of a date is broached I just don’t “feel it.” I sigh, and try to politely decline. I’ve even matched up on Tinder a few times and even when a hookup is proposed I’ve got nothing. Zero interest on my part. I’m flattered when asked, I mean, I know what I look like; both in pictures and on paper.

So, I’m trying to get an outsider’s opinion on this. Am I in a slump? Is this something I should be looking into professionally? I’ve had a history of depression and the last two years of my marriage were goddamn miserable. I’ve read the site a lot, but to have just ZERO interest when a woman is basically saying, “Look, I want to hook up. You’re place or mine?” and my only response is, “I’m sorry, but this is not the D you’re looking for.”

Is there any way to work past this or is the answer a simple “Time heals all,”?

Not the D They’re Looking For

DEAR NOT THE D THEY’RE LOOKING FOR: While I don’t think it would hurt to talk to a counselor or a therapist to hash out some of the pain you’ve gone through, NTDTLF, you’re looking for problems where there really aren’t any. You’ve recently ended a very long-term, turbulent relationship… that’s going to take it’s toll on you. There’s going to be a period of adjustment – after all, you’ve just cut out a relationship that’s lasted for a decade. That’s going to have carved a groove in your brain. In a lot of ways, it’s almost like you’ve lost a limb and you’re going to need to adjust to doing things differently, from things as major as your daily routine to as seemingly minor as where you sleep in your bed. You’re going to have a lot of little things to unlearn that you’ll never even suspect had become part of your daily life until it was suddenly gone.

And then there’s the emotional toll that this can take on someone. You’ve been in an abusive relationshipand that’s going to leave wounds and scars and those take time to heal. To be sure: everybody handles abuse differently and there’s no one way to respond to an abusive relationship but frankly… it’s going to take a little time just to get back into emotional shape again.

I don’t think that you’re in a slump, I think your problem is that you’re trying to leap back in before you’re ready to date again. Yes, everyone recovers from breakups and heartbreak at different speeds and some people often start the getting-over process while they’re still with their partner but a year is awfully quick to try to push yourself back out there when you’re not feeling like you want to be out there. Maybe you feel like it’s time. Maybe you have well-meaning friends who’ve been telling you that you need to get back out there as quickly as possible or maybe they think that people need to be coupled off to be happy. But while getting under someone can be a great way to get over someone else, that’s not the only way to get over a break up… especially a relationship that was as turbulent as yours.

So do yourself a favor: take yourself back off the market. Suspend your accounts on OKCupid and Tinder. Spend some more time on you, with friends and family who’ve got your back and who’ll just be there for you while you take care of yourself. Just let yourself recover at your own pace and wait until you feel like you’re ready to date again – not when you “should” be but when you honestly feel the desire to do so.

Don’t worry about how long it will or won’t take; the dating scene will be there waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been reading your book, New Game +, and I love it. I’m up to doing the approaches bit and I have got a bit of anxiety.

I love the idea of gradually desensitizing myself. Yesterday I asked 7 girls for the time like you suggested. I didn’t ask 20 people for the following reason (and this is my current sticking point):

I work in a smallish town just outside of London. I would love to do them at lunchtime but my biggest fear is for my colleagues at work finding out what I am doing and my employer finding out about it. That of it blows up and an interaction goes wrong and if it’s witnessed by my colleagues, my employer may think I am harassing girls. Even if an interaction doesn’t go wrong but it is witnessed by colleagues, they think I am asking weird questions.

Also I am worried about bumping into the same people if an interaction goes wrong.

Do you think this is a legitimate fear?

I am thinking about approaching girls in a different town or London where I can do it and practice anonymously. It’s a shame I can only do it on weekends.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks

Nervous Newbie

DEAR NERVOUS NEWBIE: You’re overthinking things, NN. If it’ll make you feel more comfortable and you’ve got the cash to do it, then by all means, practice regularly in London. But I don’t think it’s really necessary.

If you’re following my book, then all you’re doing right now is making some fairly innocuous approaches – you’re asking people for the time or for directions to some place nearby. If your colleagues think that asking a stranger for directions to Starbucks or the nearest Marks and Sparks is weird… well, that’s pretty much their damage, really. Can’t really help it if they assume that human interaction is inherently unusual. Even when you advance a little further, you’re just having a brief, polite conversation with someone before going on your way. That’s really it. As long as you’re not bothering people – trying to start conversations with people who’d rather not talk to anyone, for example – there really shouldn’t be any problems.

Similarly, unless your town is so small that everybody knows everyone else by sight if not by name, then odds are that the people you’re approaching will forget that you exist pretty much as soon as you leave their eye-line. Think of how many people you see during your daily commute to work and back. How many of them actually stand out in your mind, instead of being a non-descript, human shaped blur?  Trust me: people are more oblivious and self-involved than you realize. Unless you do something so significant or unusual, you’re going to return to being the background noise in their day-to-day lives.

Just remember: at this stage, all you’re doing is getting used to having brief, polite conversations with folks. This is How To Human practice, not making street approaches and trying to get phone numbers. There are times and places where that’s appropriate and the social contract allows for it. But that’s for later on. Right now, just work on being comfortable talking to folks.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Your advice vibes well with a lot of others I read and take seriously, my question is simple, but it seems complex to me. I’ll make the story as short as possible.

I have feelings for a girl I’ve known for two years. The feelings mutual. She used to date a good friend of mine. About a year ago, they broke up. It seemed like they both moved on, she was dating a new guy, he moved in with his new girl.

5 months go by, she breaks it off with her new boyfriend. She and I have a talk over text, she invites me over to her place for drinks (around midnight), I decline the offer, counteroffer with Saturday evening at my place, she accepts.

Everything seemed good to go, two nights before the date my friend calls me up tells me he’s thinking about getting back together with her. I tell him he should do what feels right, he decides he’s going to. I decide it’s best to back-out of the situation, I should have explained why but I didn’t, it was obvious she felt rejected by me, which was not my intention. A month later they’re back together, now, every time I’m over there’s this huge amount of sexual tension between her and I.

She’s flirting, engaging me in conversation, touching me, making eye contact with me to the point where we’re staring at each other you get the idea. I TRIED to friend-zone this girl even though I have feelings for her, but its not working. So my question is this, would it be appropriate for me to sit down with her, tell her how I feel, and make it clear that I have no intention of betraying my friends trust? Or should I just keep my mouth shut and keep my distance, even though it doesn’t seems to be having any effect on her, she just comes onto me harder.

Before you tell me I shouldn’t talked to her or asked her over in the first place, me and my friends have a rule about dating each others ex-girlfriends which I followed to a T.

I Wish I Didn’t Like Jesse’s Girl

DEAR I WISH I DIDN’T LIKE JESSE’S GIRL: Before I go into my answer here, I want to take a moment to highlight your last sentence. You really didn’t do anything wrong about inviting this woman over.  She was clearly interested in a booty call with you. She was single. You were single. It’s all pretty much on the up and up. The fact that she’s your friend’s ex is kind of irrelevant, to be honest. Yes, she and your friend have history but – as I’ve said many times before – you don’t get to call dibs on someone. The fact that they’ve dated doesn’t mean that he gets to decide who is or isn’t allowed to see her. If he can’t handle the idea of someone he knows seeing her – especially a year after they’ve broken up – then that’s his problem. Not yours. Not hers. You’re both grown-ass adults. You get to decide what you want to do for yourselves.

As for what’s happening between you and her now that she’s with your buddy again? Assuming that she is indeed flirting with you and you’re not misreading the situation… use your words and tell her that you’d rather she stop flirting with you while she’s with him. If you want to give her a little extra wiggle room for plausible deniability, you don’t even have to be direct about it. Just say “Hey, I don’t know if I’m just reading too much into things, but I’m kind of getting a flirty vibe from you while you’re dating my friend, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d appreciate it if we could have a little more distance while the two of you are together.” This gives you both room to save face and address the elephant in the room.

Plus, if and when the two of them break up again, then you’ll have left things open for the two of you to bang like a screen door in a hurricane.

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 had an interesting childhood, abusive father, bullied in school etc. which really hammered my self esteem. I basically bottled everything up for years until it all exploded. Ended up spiraling into depression, had a passive suicide attempt about 3 years ago and hit rock bottom really. The good news, since then I’ve had 2 spells of counseling and my mental health is now much better. I’ve also worked quite a bit on myself, to the point where I’ve come from never having a date to having a couple of short relationships, couple of casual things and I’ve improved immensely in that part of my life. This is way more success than I ever thought I’d have.

The thing that’s inspired me to write in today is that even though I can see how far I’ve come and all I’ve achieved, I still find everything absolutely, painfully difficult. Socializing exhausts me in general, but especially in bars and clubs. I always seem to be on guard and frankly it’s all wearing me down. There is still this block I have mentally, where I’m so scared of getting hurt again or opening up that I can’t really just let myself go and make the moves I want to, or I shut down interactions/ relationships that could go somewhere due to fear basically. I’m also incredibly nervous about doing anything that would jeopardize my mental health. I left my last job because it was causing me to slide again and I don’t want to risk ever getting near to where I was 3 years ago.

Another thing that’s laying it on right now is that I’m currently traveling. A couple of my friends are absolutely amazing with women, they make it look ridiculously easy and go from one hot girl to the next like they get handed out with the cereal. They are great guys who absolutely deserve their success and I’m happy for them, but it just highlights to me that even after all this work I’ve done I’m still no better than bang average on a good day at all of this. This is what is getting me down. I’ve read all the articles you’ve written about staying internally validated and not comparing yourself to others and it’s all good advice, but I’m struggling to keep everything focused on the right things, which ends up with me taking nut shots to my self-esteem over the frustration.

I’m still young, mid 20s in decent health and everything, so I know I have the time, but it’s just so draining to actually realize how far I’ve still got to go after all this work. My motivation to keep going with the whole self improvement thing is waning, I’ve stopped approaching, don’t do speed dating or anything else that I had success with. I went on a couple of dates with this girl 2 months or so ago and just had no emotional energy left to give. I just see it all as a grind and I struggling to deal with it at the moment. I know you went through similar sorts of challenges back in your “bad old days”, so any advice you could give would be hugely appreciated. How would you recommend I get through this?

Thanks

Tired of The Grind

DEAR TIRED OF THE GRIND: First of all, ToTG: congratulations on all the work you’ve put into your mental and emotional health, and all the progress you’ve made. That takes a lot of grit and courage, and you should be proud of just how far you’ve come.

In fact… that’s part of what I want to talk to you about. See, you’re doing one of the things that I used to do back in my bad old days: you’re so focused like a laser on the end goal – being able to get women like your buddies – that you’re missing just how much progress you’ve made. The problem with what you’re doing is that you’re working under the assumption that you and your friends started at the same place and the fact that you’re not doing as well as them means something’s wrong with you. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all. You didn’t start at the starting line; you had to sneak your way past guards, climb over walls and through air ducts just to get into the goddamn arena, never mind into the race itself. 

But here’s the thing: you got there! You made it past all of those hurdles, things that would make most other people say “ this noise” and turn around, and got your ass into the game. Yeah, you’re not at the same point as people who had some advantages you didn’t… but they didn’t have to fight the way you did or as hard as you did. So you need to take a moment and recognize that you’ve fought long and hard to get where you are and that is goddamn amazing. You’re not some third-string bench-warmer, you’re Rudy, man.

Of course, all of this means that you’re going to have some scars. I mean, c’mon: you’ve been through the fires of hell and you’ve got the ashes to prove it. But that block you’re dealing with right now isn’t fear, it’s the anticipation of fear. You’re so worried about the feeling of “Oh god does this mean it’s going to happen again” that you’re trying to avoid anything that might trigger that fear… including the things that you long for. And that’s understandable. That part of what makes us human. But the fear is an illusion. It’s a phantom. It’s the exaggerated, funhouse mirror version of reality. The fear is honestly worse than the reality.

Right now, you’re spending a lot of your energy trying to avoid your fears – more energy than it would actually take to confront them, in fact. You just keep convincing yourself that you’re going to lose, that you are inevitably going to fail, so there’s no point in trying. Small wonder you’re drained; you’re letting that fear sap everything from you, without even taking the little victories that tell you that you’ve got far more going for you than you realize.

The sooner you learn how to grapple with that fear and push through it, the sooner you’ll realize you’re further along than you believe you are.

And the easiest way to deal with that fear? Plan for failure. Expect failure. Because you know what? Failure’s gonna happen. A lot. To everyone. Even your buddies, who attract women the way cheese attracts mice, fail. You just don’t notice it because you’re paying too much attention to their successes. But success doesn’t teach you anything. A lot of times success is just luck – or you end up taking the wrong lessons from those successes. When a plane comes back from a mission shot full of holes, you don’t patch those holes and assume you fixed the problem; those are clearly places where it could get shot up and still make it. You want to pay attention to the places where getting shot full of holes brought down the plane and work on those areas.

So it is with failure. Failure teaches you valuable lessons. You learn to recognize what went wrong and how to avoid it next time. You start to learn your real strengths and weaknesses, not the ones you think you have. And the most important lesson you learn is this: failure isn’t fatal. You can mess up – badly, even – and still survive. You may not get with that one woman… but you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again with someone else. 

Pain’s inevitable, my dude. Nobody can avoid getting hurt. But while pain may be inevitable, suffering is optional. And you suffer far more from trying to avoid pain than you do learning how to take the hits, roll with them and pop back up again because you’ve given up on even the chance of success.

These are choices you’re making, my dude. You’re choosing to believe that you will fail and it will break you. It won’t. You’re stronger than that. Yeah, you’ll fail. It’s part of the learning process. Everyone fails. But when you learn from those failures, when you dare to push yourself  back up to your feet again? That’s when you win.

You have to believe that you can survive. You hold that power in your hands.

You can win if you dare.

You’ve got this.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have an ethical question.

The short version: a decade ago I met someone, we talked online a lot, those chats got steamy, and I saved them. Now I’m debating if I should get rid of those saved chats.

Long version: when I met J, I was in a terrible place: 25-year-old virgin with body image issues and depression, under-employed, and self-harming. J (who is gender-neutral) essentially made helping me a short project, out of the goodness of their heart, and we had what I call a “two-month-long one-night stand”. Since we lived in different cities, we communicated online only, until J invited me to their city for a weekend of sex and sex ed. This did wonders for my confidence, and our friendship helped me stop cutting. (Nine years clean!) A critical step in the process came when J laid out for me, in considerable detail, what they would do in bed with me once we were in the same place. Until that moment I had not really believed I was physically attractive to anyone. I saved that chat so I could look at it again later and remind myself it actually happened, and I saved other (sometimes steamy, usually very personal) chats as well.

Ever since then, we have been supportive friends. We don’t talk all the time, but we always know the other person will always be there. We’ve watched each other go through all sorts of relationship ups and downs. When we’re both single (and only then) we flirt, though this hasn’t happened in a while and nothing comes of it.

J’s in a relationship “up” — getting married to a truly marvelous person — and I’m in a relationship “neutral” — single for a year. The wedding has made me think about those saved chats. I look at them maybe once or twice a year, if that, but while they aren’t the same level as nudes, they are they are personal and intimate, and critically I don’t think J knows I have them, so it feels a little non-consensual. So on the one hand, it seems like the ethical thing to delete them.

On the other hand, I’m a very history-oriented person, so deleting those chats would be like deleting all evidence of a key turning point in my life. Also, while my depression is much more under control, it’s never gone — so having evidence of J’s validation is sometimes very nice.

On the third hand, I know I’m still attracted to J, so I’m a little suspicious of my judgment on this.

What do you recommend? Delete the sexy chats, or preserve the historical artifacts?

Ethical Historian

DEAR ETHICAL HISTORIAN:  there’s a lot of debate about that to do about the artifacts of our past relationships. Almost all of us tend to have keepsakes of our happier relationships; letters, photos, little trinkets that remind us of the good times we had. Most of the time, these are fairly harmless bits of nostalgia that we can take out, enjoy that warm hit from times past, then put ’em back and call it good. Now there are often people who feel threatened by the evidence of past relationships – the story of the Jealous Girlfriend is a well-worn routine from the early days of the Pick Up Artist scene – but for the most part, these are just reminders of days gone by. Getting rid of them just because the relationship ended smacks of trying to pretend the relationship never happened, an emotional damnatio memoriae that ultimately denies how we became the people we are today.

But some of those mementos can be of a sexual nature, and that’s where things get tricky. We live in a culture and society that’s profoundly sex-negative, and sees sexual expression as something shameful and degrading, even when it’s in the context of a committed, monogamous relationship. And in the aftermath of a break-up, the question of “what should we do about with these mementos” gets thorny. On the one hand, there are those who insist that they should be destroyed; after all, you (so the theory goes) no longer have that person’s consent to see their naked bodies. But at the same time, if you take this argument to its logical extension, then you’re no longer allowed to remember them or the way their skin felt or their hair smelled because hey that relationship’s over. On the other hand, there are those who will say that these were given consensually between two partners and like all gifts, there’s no obligation to return them later. But then there’s the fact that they were given under a specific context; if the relationship ended badly, those relationship artifacts can go from being mementos to weapons that can be used against the giver.

And sometimes, those memories can be weaponized by a third party. In this day and age, securing those particular relics is difficult. Cloud storage sites get hacked, computer repair services regularly steal people’s nudes from their hard drives and sexy files of unsuspecting innocents get shared far and wide. One only need look at The Fappening or boards on Reddit, 4chan, 8chan and elsewhere that are dedicated to sharing “found” nude images. Even purely physical keepsakes can get out into the wild; the infamous Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton sex tapes were on physical media, not digital storage.

These are all issues that’ve become part of the modern dating landscape. If we share those sides of ourselves with our partners – as many, many people do – there’s the chance that they won’t just stay with our partners.

Now in your case, EH, the odds of some spicy chat logs getting out and causing problems is low. Not zero, but pretty darn low. So the bigger issue here is: why are you holding on to them? As you say: you still have some feelings for J. Is this a way of holding onto the relationship, instead of letting it be part of your past? There’s nothing wrong with the occasional naughty trip down memory lane, but if this is a way of keeping the hope alive, even as they’re getting married… well, that’s not healthy. It may be good to interrogate your feelings on this and see if your desire to keep that validation and evidence of your past is exactly that, or the fig-leaf you use to justify keeping them.

The other question involves the ethics of having them in the first place. While it’s generally a good rule of thumb to assume that anything you send to another person is likely stored and archived somewhere, a lot of folks tend to assume that hot chats and sexting conversations are lost to the ether; hell, that’s part of the whole point of services like Snapchat. As far as violations of trust go, it’s pretty far down the list, but some folks might still feel weird about knowing that those records exist.

So with all of this in mind, here’s my guiding principle when it comes to things like nudes and sexy pics from past relationships: if you’re on good terms with your ex, ask what they’d prefer you do. Of course, in your case, EH, first you’re going to have to explain that you have them in the first place. Which is gonna be awkward. But honestly? I suspect this will cause more amusement than consternation.

Some people are cool with their exes – especially ones they’re still friendly with – keeping the pics. After all, just because the relationship ended doesn’t mean that you now hate that person and want to retcon the relationship into having never happened. Others may prefer that you’d delete them, if only to keep them from ending up on dodgy blogs and subreddits.

So, you don’t need to explain about how they give you validation or that they’re an artifact of your past. Just say “Hey, turns out I have logs of some of the chat sessions we had, would you prefer I delete them or is it ok if I save them?” and let them have the final say.

And as a general rule: if you aren’t in contact with your ex – it was a bad break-up, you never want to hear from them again or vice-versa – go ahead and securely delete them. It’s better all around to err on the side of “get rid of them” than it is to have trouble down the line.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a gay 27-year-old male and I was raised in a very conservative household: coming out when I first realised I was gay (15) was completely out of question. I kept it well hidden for about five years because, really, I had no choice. When I was in my early 20’s I fell head over heels for a boy. To me, he was perfect, and he also liked me. This happened only weeks after I came out for the first time to a friend. It seemed like a sign… except it wasn’t. Some time passed without seeing him after I first met him. We saw each other again a year later. We began seeing each other from time to time (nothing romantic), but I slowly began to get in my head… because I was a virgin (I have read everything you have written about being a virgin and all the troubles it brings, but I always find a way to see myself as an exception to all of it), and he, although he was younger than I was, wasn’t. He was your typical gay “slut”. I liked him (more on that later), but I thought I could never be enough for him. It was the first time I felt anything like this and I did not know what to do. I felt inferior to him: he had experience; I didn’t. He had lived his life and had no regrets; I had nothing but regrets. I could never be good for him because he had done all the things I wanted to do and he had done. The mistakes you can’t make are the ones that hurt the most.

It did not go well. I began to get in my head for two reasons: one, I liked him, I REALLY liked him and being what I was was keeping me away from him. Second, I began to realise that I was trailing behind virtually ALL OF HUMANITY -not just him- in a fundamental part of life: sex. Every younger person that I met knew what it was like, and I didn’t. I had been carrying a bad depression ever since I realised I was gay, but this took it to an extreme. Had I had the option not to hide as a teenager, like everyone else my age (and younger), I could have been living my life all those years, and I could have been with him, because I wouldn’t have gotten in my head the way I did. I could have said that I lived my life to the fullest. But I couldn’t. And I can’t. I will never know what it is like to be a teenager and it is something that haunts me every day and will do so all my life.

I eventually I did ask him, explicitly, if he could help me with my issue. He said “no”, that it was “too much responsibility”. He knew about it when we first met (I told him) and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it back then. I asked him two years later and, by then, I had gotten in my head for too long and it was obvious to him. Don’t get me wrong, I am aware that I was the one who turned it into “too much responsibility”, but that would not have happened had I had my time to develop like a normal human being. There is a fundamental part of my life (some would say the MOST important part of my life) that was stolen from me. Without having tried it, I have developed a genuine fear towards sex. I can’t go a day without crying my eyes out. I feel trapped by the past I couldn’t have.

After many years, I realise that I was not (only) physically attracted to him: I felt admiration towards him. That admiration eventually turned into jealousy and obsession. Not a day goes by in which I don’t think of him and the perfect life he has: how he was able to be a teenager (he lost his virginity at 15), how he can have a normal, heathy sex life and how I can’t, how he doesn’t have to deal with a depression that is, quite literally, destroying every aspect of my life (I can barely write this). I WANT TO BE HIM. But I can’t: he was a teenager and I never will be, even if I suddenly started acting like him, which isn’t possible, because I’m too much responsibility at this point. He sleeps around with everyone and has no problem with it. I can’t do that after all that has happened: sex has gained such a negative meaning for me. I am disgusted that everyone else knows what it is like to be a teenager and I never will, I am disgusted that I could be too much responsibility for someone who is willing to sleep with everyone. No matter what I do, I will always be inferior, to him and to everyone else. No matter what I do, he will always be there being better than me in every way possible. I have lost too much time and I have missed too many moments and experiences life has to offer. Getting into a relationship won’t fix anything either: that’s for adults. I genuinely feel you can’t be an adult without being a teenager first; it’s like going from 1 to 3 without going through 2. Not possible. Also, I feel by this point I’m too tormented by the frustration and impotence to be with anyone. I would make them miserable.

I have been to therapy, I am on medication and I have read everything there is to read on similar subjects (many things by you). I’m fighting the fact that there’s no turning back time and I am losing it. Again, I can’t accept that a fundamental part of my life has been stolen from me while everyone else had a chance to live it. Any advice you can give me will be useful. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Thank you so much.

Man Without a Life

DEAR MAN WITHOUT A LIFE: OK MWaL, here’s what I want you to do: I want you to repeat to yourself “There is nothing wrong with me.” Make this your mantra. Repeat it every morning when you get up. Tattoo it backwards onto your forehead so you can see it in the mirror. Shave your head if you need the room.

Because – and stop me if you’ve heard this before: there is nothing wrong with you. You’re a virgin. You’re not broken. You’re not defective. You are not a failure. You’re not trailing behind anyone because you’re not in a race with anyone. 

Here’s a truth: you’re going through what a lot of young LGBTQ people have gone through: you’re wrestling with your social development now because, quite frankly, you weren’t able to go through it when straight kids did. You have been in a place in your life where you couldn’t be your true self because it was dangerous for you. Now that you’ve been in a decent place for a few years, you are in the position of having to go through the struggle and drama most of us go through in our teens. You couldn’t work this crap out then because you weren’t safe. Now you’re in a better place.

Here’s another truth: your journey is your journey. I know that there’s a lot of pressure for men – gay or straight – to be hypersexual, to lose your virginity as early as possible. But thing is? That’s bulls

t. It’s part and parcel of the same toxic ideas around male behavior that encourages us to treat sex like the end-all, be-all of life, regardless of what it may do to you.

Your crush lost his virginity at 15. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was – or you would have been – ready for it. A lot of guys I know who lost their virginity when they were younger will posture and brag about it in public… but in private, once they’ve had a few beers in them, the truth comes out: they weren’t ready, it was a confusing, complicated mess and it took them a long damn time to sort things out.

Here is a third truth: comparison is the thief of joy. Your life will never be like your crush because you are not him. The more that you try to measure yourself by somebody else’s metrics, the worse you will feel because you are not them. They didn’t have the life you did. You didn’t have the life they did. Beating yourself up because your life isn’t like theirs is like a dog beating itself up because it can’t fly like a condor.

Your life is uniquely your own. Your challenges are uniquely yours. Nobody else is going to have your story, just as nobody else will have your crush’s. Nor will anyone else have mine. Trying to live someone else’s story is only going to make things worse because you’re not them.

Here is a final truth: it is never too late. You haven’t missed “your time” because your time is NOW. These are your teenage years; you are just dealing with them now because you had to put your life on hold until it was safe to live it. Society may fetishize the life of teens, it may make being a teenager the pinnacle of your life… but that’s just marketing. They do this because it’s easier to sell high-school drama to the 12-19 year old set. You may be learning more about you, your life and your social mores now, but you’re doing so at a time when you have the age and maturity to handle things in ways that your peers, gay or straight, didn’t.

It is not too late for you. It will never be too late.

Now here’s what you need to do. You need to get yourself to a therapist. It’s good that you’re on medication, but as someone who deals with depression himself, medication alone doesn’t do the trick. Having a therapist, especially one who’s familiar with LGBTQ issues, is going to be incredibly important. They will be able to help hold your hand and guide you through these rough times. They will be better able than a loudmouth with a blog to remind you that there is nothing wrong with you.

Just as importantly: don’t forget that not all antidepressants  work for all people. It takes time to figure out the correct medication and to find the correct dosage. If one isn’t working after a period – could be weeks, could be months – then be willing to advocate for yourself and tell your doctor that they’re not helping.

And as important as the therapy, as important as the medication: find your community. Find your Team You. Not the people you want to sleep with, not the people you think have perfect lives (trust me: they don’t), but the people who love and care for you. You want the people who will help you up when you’ve fallen down, who will have your back and who will call you on your bulls

t when you need it. Because having your team in your corner is going to be important. You are strong. You had to be to survive until now. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the love and support of your friends and family.

And most of all, as you work with your therapist, as you connect with your Team You, remember: there is nothing wrong with you.

You’re going to be ok. I promise.

All will be well.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m female, single, in my 30s, and I’ve never been romantically attracted to anyone. Ever.

Sure, I’ve dated, but I’ve never gotten beyond half-a-dozen or so dates before … well, I just don’t want to take it any further. I don’t want to hold hands, I don’t want to kiss, I don’t want to officially be their “girlfriend.” So I end up having to give the “let’s just be friends” talk and … that’s that.

I hate it because these men have done nothing wrong. Some of them were really great guys. And yet every time I have to be the “bad guy” and break it off for seemingly no reason. (And I know you don’t need any reason other than “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore” to end a relationship, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling pretty awful.)

(I’ve been asked if I’m gay before – mostly from friends or family with whom I’ve discussed this and they’ve tried to look at my situation with an objective eye – but I don’t think that’s it because I’ve never felt attracted – romantically or otherwise – to women, either. But at this point, can I even say I know what romantic attraction feels like?)

A glimpse into my mindset: I’ve always found it strange that people can jump into romantic or sexual relationships with people they’ve only known for a few weeks or months. I can’t imagine having that kind of closeness with someone without having been friends for literally years beforehand. But there’s no way I’m going to tell that to a guy – “hey, let’s be friends for a real long time, and then maybe, maaaybe I’ll be open to dating you in a few years, but no promises!” – because that’s just ridiculous and mean.

And yet every several months (the frequency has gotten lower as I’ve gotten older and this has happened more and more) my family or friends will set me up on a date with someone they think I’ll like, and I’ll acquiesce due to a combination of “everyone thinks I’m weird and need help, I better at least give it a try” and “… maybe this time will be different?”

But it never is.

Luckily, at this point in my life, I am quite happy being single. No, really – I promise you it’s not a case of “she doth protest too much” (like my mother suspects). But will I always feel this way? Will I regret not finding someone when I’m much older and alone? (And I’m allergic to cats, so I can’t even be a crazy cat lady!)

So, my question is: should I keep trying? Is it really just that I haven’t found “the one” yet (as so many of my older relatives keep telling me – “oh, you’ll feel differently when you find the right person!”)? Do I have intimacy issues I need to work through? Or is this really just who I am?

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

Not Sure if Romantically Broken

DEAR NOT SURE IF ROMANTICALLY BROKEN: First of all, no, you’re not broken. Remember that. Nor are you alone in this. There’s actually a name for people like you: aromantic. It means that you – like many others – just don’t feel romantic attraction to others. It’s not common, but it’s also not unheard of; in fact, it’s often folded in under the asexual umbrella. It can be hard for people to realize that not everyone needs to be part of a couple or in a relationship to be fulfilled. A lot of our culture is based around the idea that coupling up is the end-goal of life and so it can be difficult to feel ok with being ok about being single and not wanting a partner.

Will you be like this all of your life? Hell if I know. You may be watching TV one day and realize that you’re fantasizing about your dream wedding to Rhianna. Or Zack Efron. Or both. Or you may never want a romantic partner in your life.

My question to you is: are you happy? Do you have friends, family (biological or by choice), a community? Do you feel connected to others? Do you have things in your life that bring you satisfaction?

If the answer is yes… well to hell with worrying about it. You’ve got a good thing going. Why stress about stuff that you clearly aren’t interested in?

Meanwhile, check out the Aromantic FAQ over at Asexuality.org and the associated forums. This may give you more insight into people like you and the vocabulary to describe it to others.

Good luck.

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