DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m completely nuts for a girl and she seems to be completely nuts for me. She’s smart, funny, gets excited by the littlest things, is a complete geek, and is seriously beautiful. I think she is about the best woman I’ve ever had a relationship with and I’d totally consider her to be marriage worthy. However you knew there was a “but” coming and here it is: she is pretty religious and wants to be married prior to engaging in *any* sexual activity. That includes just about any form of physical contact beyond some heavy petting… that is any heavy petting is okay so long as it doesn’t directly bring a digital member in contact with a genital member. This in itself isn’t that scary… I’m fairly traditional in a lot of ways myself… and I appreciate that she doesn’t hold others to her standards, being accepting of people who don’t feel that way.  She’s also super liberal when it comes to social mores and doesn’t worry about gay marriage and all of that.. she’s just attempting to stay true to “her walk” and as such she doesn’t want to have sex until she is married.

My concern is, what if I marry her and there is no sex? What if she finds I’m not right for her in a pants-feel type of way? Before her I’ve only had one sexual partner, and that only lasted for a few months and wasn’t that great so I know that that can happen. My own libido is maybe middling on a scale of ravenous to frigid, but I’m just afraid her’s is going to be on the frigid end and it means that by marrying her I’ll gain an awesome friend-life-partner to do cool stuff with but I’ll never get the physical aspect of it except very rarely (as in she wants to conceive, or it’s my birthday, and then I have to worry about her just lying back and thinking of England as it were, the whole time) and that’s just it. I’d be fine with a couple of times a month; I’m not a crazed sex machine who is constantly rock hard and raring to go. I actually fully agree with her in fact that I want to be completely head over heels with any person I’m having sex with because otherwise I don’t feel like either of us would be getting the full experience that both of us have said we need. I’ve talked with her a bit about this and that’s how we know we both are on the same page about how we are feeling. I think what is scaring me is that I’ve expressed how much she turns me on, how sexually she excites me, (something she has commented on recognizing due to certain things popping up between us…) and her responses to that are always deflection or to tell me how smart she thinks I am, or how much fun I am to watch movies and do geeky stuff with. To me it feels as though she wants us to stay in the early stage dating experience forever, and I’m desperate for it to become more physical at least occasionally, beyond hand holding and cuddling on the sofa..

I just don’t know what to do Doc, she’s everything I could want in a partner but I’m afraid to commit because I’m afraid that means I’m resigning myself to being a celibate life partner, not a romantic and sexual partner… but at the same time i don’t want to throw away a good thing. I just can’t seem to balance if sex is more important to me than companionship and she seems reluctant to talk about it. 

Sex Or Love

DEAR SEX OR LOVE: The problem isn’t that she doesn’t want to talk about it, SoL, it’s that she’s told you how she feels and you keep pushing the subject. The reason why she’s continually deflecting you or trying to change the subject is because you keep talking about how much you want to sleep with her and she doesn’t want to sleep with YOU right now.

Now here’s the thing: sexual compatibility and sexual satisfaction is an integral part of a relationship.Personally, I think waiting until marriage is an incredibly bad idea for precisely that reason. If you and your honey aren’t compatible or able to find a working compromise, your relationship is going to fall apart. It’s completely understandable that you’re worried about your future sexual compatibility with your girlfriend. It’s a legitimate fear and you’re well within your rights to want to be physically intimate with the person you’re dating.

That having been said: people have a right to set their boundaries wherever they want, and one of hers is “no sex before marriage.” You and I can disagree with her choice, but it’s totally her prerogative and it’s as valid as your wanting to have sex before marriage. But right now you aren’t respecting her boundaries. You may be framing it as being afraid of what your sex life will be after you’re married but the fact of the matter is, you’re constantly pushing her to change her mind and give in and that is not goddamn cool. Concern trolling about whether this is going to lead to a sexless marriage doesn’t make your badgering her any more acceptable. The fact that she wants to wait has absolutely nothing to do with the state of her libido. Maybe she’s asexual. Maybe she’s a raging goddamn inferno of horniness and she keeps it under control through levels of willpower that would impress the Green Lantern Corps. Maybe she’s somewhere in between like most people are. But all that doesn’t matter. She’s told you how she feels and why.  That’s the price of entry. You can respect her boundaries and accept that dating her means no sex before marriage or you can break up with her.

I’ll be honest with you: breaking up with her because she won’t have sex with you is going to sound like a dick move to a lot of people. There will be a lot of people who give you crap for it… and they’ll be wrong. If you have mutually incompatible needs, then breaking up is the best thing you can do. You want to have sex now. She does not. That’s the state of play. Sticking around pushing her to change her mind is a dick thing to do to her. Sticking around in a relationship that ultimately leaves you frustrated and upset is a dick thing to do to yourself.

There are other women out there, women who are just as wonderful who also want to have sex without necessarily saying “I do” first. If you’re not willing to wait until marriage, then you’re better off finding one of those women who’re on the same page as you and letting your girlfriend find a guy who’s on the same page as her.

Good luck.

Oh, and one more thing: if you do move to break up with her and she offers to sleep with you in order to keep you from leaving? If you take her up on that offer you will be one of the biggest bastards possible and go to the Special Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a female virgin in my late 20s and I need some advice. One of the biggest issues I’ve run into is men fetishizing my sex life. Men either run away, view it as a challenge and want to “plant their flag”/Conquer me, or view me as their Manic Pixie Virgin Girl (if you start using that, I want royalties). The majority of “advice” I’ve been given surrounding this is “don’t tell a guy until after you’ve had sex with him”

This is obviously awful awful advice for a whole host of reasons.

I think it’s important to note here, that I’m not a virgin for any reason other than lack of opportunities. It doesn’t come from religion, or some idea of “saving myself” or Mr.Right. I’m not looking for LTR necessarily. There’s nothing “wrong” with me, I’m not broken, or traumatized. I’m a sex-positive person. Kinda just laying out all the reasons I’ve had people tell me I must be a virgin because XYZ.

The issue isn’t the why, or why men react the way they do (Say it with me everyone: SOCIETY IS THE WORST) Quite frankly I think the idea of virginity is pretty antiquated, nothing about me is going to really change. A penis doesn’t have the power to change who I am.

Question is: how do I approach this with men to avoid the aforementioned reactions?

Sincerely,

Not Your Manic Pixie Nerd Girl

DEAR NOT YOUR MANIC PIXIE NERD GIRL: Honestly, NYMPNG? You lay it out the way you told me and my readers: “I haven’t had PIV sex, no biggie.” This tells people exactly one thing about you: that you haven’t had a particular experience. How they react to that information, on the other hand, tells you everything about them.

The thing is, you can’t control people’s reactions. You can lay the groundwork as best you can, lay things out in a “this is not a big deal” manner and generally show that you’re pretty chill about the whole virgin thing but they’ll still react however they’re going to because the problem ultimately lies within them.

We as a society are allllll kinds of screwed up over the concept of sex and virginity and the assorted double-standards and social traps that are associated with sex just make it worse. Men are shamed for being virgins and expected to be mindless satyrs that’ll bang everything that moves, while women are shamed for having too much sex, but also shamed for not being desirable enough to have sex with in the first place. And while things have improved, we’re in that weird transitional place where women are encouraged to own their sexuality and buy vibrators in bulk but not be too slutty because women aren’t supposed to have sex like men (see also: Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck). Meanwhile, women who are still virgins are both fetishized and to be feared because “bro, if you sleep with a virgin she’s gonna wanna, like marry you and stuff and you never get away from that,” because as we all know, when you’re a virgin’s first, they imprint on you like a baby gosling.

(Amusingly, but not really, I’ve seen some women worry about being a man’s first for the exact same reason. Yay, equally awful treatment for all genders!)

So getting back to your question: there’s only so much you can do to avoid people having weird issues around virginity. They’re still an unfortunate part of our cultural background radiation. You can do your best to mitigate it, but you can’t entirely eliminate the possibility. For the most part, people will take their lead from you.  The more chill you are, the more likely to get a chill reaction from the people you talk to, but there will still be people who get weird about it no matter what you say. Some folks will, given half a chance and an opportunity to talk things out a bit like the grown-ass adult they are, recognize they’re being ridiculous and get over it. Whether you are willing to be their emotional Sherpa on this particular issue is up to you; if they’re an otherwise cool guy you really dig, it may be worth your time to help smooth over that particular rough edge. Your call. Others will – as you have experienced – try to mansplain your own sexuality to you; these dudes can and should be kicked to the curb at your most immediate opportunity.

But on the whole: keep it simple, keep it chill. The less of a big deal it is to you, the less of a big deal it will be to anyone worth dating.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been following your blog for a couple months now, and I think you could really help out with something, or someone in this case. 

I’m a cosplayer, and I like being connected with the cosplay community in my area. However, there is this one cosplay photographer (let’s call him J) who has a history of being problematic and frankly, a creeper.

To sum him up, J is in his mid-30’s, single, and really looking for a girlfriend. He uses his photography as an excuse to meet younger cosplay girls (some of them underage). He often asks for private photoshoots (usually in a public area, but still alone with a girl), offers to buy them things, or takes them out, usually for meals or a movie. 

I will admit that I was one of J’s… “targets” for a while, when I was fairly new to the cosplay scene. He would constantly message me on Facebook, to the point where I would only check Facebook for a few minutes before he had the chance to start chatting. He also would hover when I was at cosplay meet-ups, and asked for photoshoots that separated me from the group. One time I did cave to an offer to hang out, and there was some photos taken that made me feel uncomfortable, which I asked him to delete later. All his attention stopped as soon as I got a boyfriend though, which I’m grateful about. Other girls however, have had to deal with a lot worse.

J’s behavior has been going on for a while; it’s happened to enough girls that there’s a Facebook group all about him and trying to prevent him from creeping on other girls. Some of his guy friends are in said group too, but more because he has other problematic qualities that make him difficult to deal with. He invites himself along to group hangouts when he’s unwanted, he owes some of them a fair amount of money, and he often complains and makes himself out to be a victim.

This past summer, there was an intervention for J where a few friends pointed out his behavior, and asked him to start changing. He said he would work on it, and for a few months there didn’t seem to be any major new developments; no bad news, but not a lot of good news either. However, he seems to be up to his old ways and unwilling to change. His few friends are at the end of their ropes and want to cut ties all together.

How can you help someone who’s unwilling to change? How can you make him see that he has to change, or else alienate everybody he knows? Personally, I would like to just sit him down at a laptop and make him read the entire Doctor NerdLove archives, but hopefully you have a better solution.

Thanks,

Concerned Cosplayer

DEAR CONCERNED COSPLAYER: How do you help someone who’s unwilling to change?

You don’t.

You can’t make someone change against their will, nor is it your responsibility to try.

Lots of social groups have someone who can be creepy; often it’s just a case of the individual not knowing any better and having a firm come-to-Jesus meeting with him can set him straight. It’s the ones who refuse to change even after they’ve had their behavior pointed out to them who are worrisome… especially since many geeks don’t like confrontations.

You, Concerned Cosplayer, are not responsible for J’s behavior. You’re not his mom, his doctor, his girlfriend or his manic pixie dream girl sent by Heaven to shake him out of his rut and magically turn him from a creepy caterpillar to the beautiful sexy butterfly that exists deep within his soul. The only person who is responsible for J’s behavior is J. You can’t force him to change; the only way he’s going to change is if he wants to.

Now that being said: you can provide plenty of incentive to change… by not putting up with his shit and making a point to exclude his creepy ass. Quite frankly, this isn’t just creeper behavior; a lot of what you describe is PREDATORY behavior. Trying to get girls alone, especially young girls- and underage ones, what the actual hell –  who don’t know better is a HUGE goddamn red flag.

He’s abusing a position of trust – that of a pro or semi-pro photographer – as a way to try to find impressionable and potentially vulnerable women and that is not cool.

It’s not surprising that J’s targeting younger women – the sort of crap he’s pulling as a photographer would get him shut out of working with the modeling community. I’ve done my share of photography and let me tell you, the modeling community is small and very connected and they love nothing better than to make sure everybody knows not to work with the creepy assh

es.

This is exactly what you need to do: make sure word gets out far and wide about J until such a time that he’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s reformed.

It can be difficult to make this stick. Lots of insular groups, especially ones composed of individuals who’ve been excluded or shunned, have a hard time with the idea of excluding someone even when they fucking deserve it. It’s a common geek social fallacy that ostracizers are inherently bad and this makes them prone to letting people get away with behavior other social groups would never put up with. Moreover, many people will insist that they don’t “do drama” – that is to say that they are hoping to involve the stress involved in confronting an uncomfortable situation. They may even turn against the people who bring it up because it’s their fault for “causing drama” and making people feel uncomfortable rather than the predator in their midst. It ends up silencing the people who are trying to help because they’re stirring s

t up and nobody wants to to handle the awkwardness of social confrontations.

This ultimately enables the predatory types; refusing to take a stand is de facto siding with them.

You’ve said that his friends have had discussions with him that went nowhere. Fine. Under different circumstances, I’d say having a second, much more pointed discussion – one with some very definite ultimatums – would be warranted but J is already showing signs that he refuses to man up and take responsibility for his actions. If his behavior has been as widespread as you say then it’s time to start limiting his ability to interact with people.

First and foremost, this means blocking him on your social networks – and encouraging others in the cosplay community to do so as well. Secondly: document EVERYTHING. Have people share their stories, with as much detail as possible, so that others understand what he’s like and why. Stick strictly to the facts – who said what, how they felt and why. The more people who share their stories, the harder it is for others to say that you’re exaggerating or overly sensitive, or that there was a simple misunderstanding. Remember, this isn’t just your imagination. you said it yourself – he pressured you into working outside of your comfort zone. Imagine some of the younger girls who may not have the strength that you had to say “Hey, I’m really uncomfortable with these photos, so please get rid of them.”

Third: you and your friends are going to have to be willing to be confrontational. I know it’s difficult – women are socialized to avoid confrontation and nerds are particularly conflict-averse – but you’re going to have to be willing to block the hell out of him. If you see him talking to a newbie to the scene, someone who doesn’t know better, move in and pull her aside to explain things – especially if you can share your experiences with her. Don’t let him separate people from the herd and make sure others know not to let him pull people away.

Don’t let him hover around you at cons or cosplay events. Go to security and tell them that he’s making you uncomfortable. Let them deal with him wherever possible. It’s also worth bringing him up to the head of con security and the event organizers.

Don’t let him force himself into being part of the group. You can’t just try to avoid him or hope he doesn’t find out – you have to be in his face and make sure he knows in no uncertain terms that he’s unwelcome and why. If he tries to come along or “just happens” to show up, tell him to leave – and have others back you up so he can’t appeal to the group by trying to make himself out to be the victim. Don’t debate him or argue with him or justify yourself – this only implies that you feel as though you’re doing something wrong, which he will take full advantage of. Stand your ground: he is not welcome and he needs to go away.

Frankly, his friends should cut ties; he’s proven that he’s not willing to listen to them and he’ll go back to the status-quo as soon as he sees the chance.

It says a lot about you that you want to help him and that you’re afraid that he’s going to alienate everyone he knows. You’re a good person at heart and your desire to help is admirable. In this case, it’s severely misplaced. It’s not your duty to fix him or to drag him kicking and screaming to the light. You’re afraid that he’s going to get shut out when that’s exactly what needs to happen.

If he’s not willing to change on his own, then you have to give him a reason – in this case, cutting him off from the social circle he’s trying to take advantage of.

He’s not misunderstood. He’s not being creepy by accident. And he refuses to change.

Cut him out.

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 wanted to ask if you could help me out with something. This is my first time writing to you, although sadly this letter is probably a few years too late. I have done some terrible things.

A few years ago, I was talking to a girl on Twitter, she is the same age as me (18, at the time). I will just call her D. We have never met in person and live in different countries (I live in the UK and she lives in Norway) and had started talking a year earlier. It was obvious she only talked to me because she pitied me. I was very needy and insecure. I asked her out earlier that year, which was stupid as we live in different countries and couldn’t have dated anyway. She politely said no. I messaged her back but didn’t here back from her. I didn’t hear from her for about six months, until I created a twitter account just to get in touch with her.

Anyway, so it was later that year, and while talking to her as myself, I created a new twitter account under a fake name to talk to her. I originally created this in order to talk to her anonymously and not have to worry about what I wrote to her. Anyway, I couldn’t resist asking about her boyfriend. After, I asked about him once I couldn’t stop probing her about him. I asked to see a photograph of him, and then ignored her first attempts to refuse to give me that picture. Also, while I was doing this I hunted down a photograph some guy who she may or may not have been dating in order to compare myself to him. I asked some guy she was friends with on twitter tons of questions about D, such as whether or not they talked about me and even asked if he thought she and her best friend ever had sex. The exact question was ”Do you think D and her best friend ever lezzed off before?” At the time, I thought this was an okay thing to ask. He said that was creepy and refused to keep talking to me.

I eventually admitted to D that it was me and we stopped talking for a short while. I offered to leave her alone, and she then took me up on it. I eventually messaged her again anyway.

I was recently re-reading a conversation I had with a Woman on Quora about this (which is what inspired me to write to you). She was trying to convince me that this was cyber stalking and would have frightened her a lot. She even advised me to write to you. I didn’t want to believe I had stalked, as that would probably have meant I had no chance with her, and knew what you would say, so I refused. She said she knew I would do this, as I had too much staked on my self image as having not done so much harm. She eventually cut contact with me, as she promised she would if I messaged D or her friends, without letting her get in touch with me first.

A year from when I created that fake account, I insulted her as I was desperate for attention from her. I messaged many times after that and never got a response. I had bad day, and I logged on to the internet and began insulting a bunch of people. A bunch of people who had been good to me, including D. I regretted doing this and when I went to apologize she had already replied. She told me she had been busy with work and uni and a family member of hers had just died. She told me she was disappointed in me and said she no longer wanted to talk to me anymore.

I left her alone for two months, until I messaged her again. This time the message was much bigger and more insulting. In the message, I said things like how I only wanted to give her multiple orgasms (this was intended to be a ridiculous thing to say, not serious, but I didn’t realize it had rape connotations). I also told her how I was jealous of her boyfriend and wished I was more like him. I also called her boyfriend a “cuck” and insulted him several times and insulted D once. I didn’t think about what I was doing and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I originally was just some something ridiculous about her boyfriend and I thought I could provoke her into responding to me. I felt entitled to talk to her and couldn’t stand it that she didn’t want to talk to me.

The next morning, I tried to apologize and try to convince her not to block me. In the end, I ended up writing a bunch of nonsense, and then she blocked me anyway. Of course, I know I completely deserved to be blocked and I am probably lucky that’s all she did. At first I was okay with it. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In the next hour or so, reality set in. I had realized what a terrible thing I had done and that I would never get a fix of my fantasy girl ever again. I panicked and created another twitter account and begged her to message me. She blocked me and I created another account. She ignored and then I gave up. I curled up into a ball for a while and it was one of the worst days of my life. I thought I was done, only do the same thing again a week later. I tweeted her the next morning on the third fake account, I apologized for what I did and promised never to contact her. again. That was at the beginning of a new year and the last time I contacted her. Although, I had been tempted to add her on Facebook messenger a few times, but I knew it was wrong and thought about she wanted for once. So I didn’t do it.

Again, not trying to paint myself as a victim here, but I do deeply regret what I did and I know that sort of behavior is completely unacceptable. She was very sweet person as well which makes my treatment towards her even worse. I have only been able to accept what I did was stalking until recently, when I knew I definitely wouldn’t hear from her again. I had too much staked on my self image as having not done the wrong thing I had done. Now that I have stopped lying to myself and accepted how poorly I treated her, all I feel is grief.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you

What do you think of my behavior?

Do you think she was frightened by how I behaved? Does she probably think I would beat and rape her if given the chance?( I wouldn’t obviously)

Also, do you have any advice for me to help make sure I never behave this way again?

Thanks a lot Doc!

Yours Sincerely

C-Creep-e-o

DEAR C-CREEP-E-O: Wow sport, when you f

k up, you don’t do it small, huh?

Well, you asked for the Chair Leg of Truth, so you’re going to get it. Better buckle up chief, because this ain’t going to be pretty.

Here’s what you did: you stalked someone, gaslight her, tried to drag her friends into enabling your stalking of her, created multiple accounts in order to get around her blocking you, sexually harassed her repeatedly, insulted her, insulted her boyfriend and continually begged for more access to her after doing all of the above, then proceeded to insult and harass her some more.

You manage to hit pretty much every single point on how to not talk to a woman on social media short of actually waving your d

k at them and frankly I’m kind of surprised you managed to leave that one out.

Literally everything about your interaction with her told her that you:

Have no concept of boundaries

Ask profoundly inappropriate questions of her friends

Say horrifically inappropriate things to her

Have no problem with stalking people

Have a hair-trigger temper and lash out at the slightest provocation

Will immediately turn around and beg forgiveness and swear that you didn’t mean it before doing it all again

Will work constantly to circumvent her attempts to shut you out of her life.

Congratulations, my dude, you hit “I’m A Violent Abuser” yahtzee! I can’t f

king IMAGINE why she didn’t want to talk to you.

You say you’d never hurt her. This may indeed be literally true. Too bad everything you write about in this letter has so many red flags it looks like a NASCAR race in Beijing. Women look at this behavior from a guy and assume the worst because, quite frankly, they’ve either experienced it personally before, or they know somebody who has. The Internet is littered with stories of women who had randos on the Internet lose their s

t at them to disastrous results. Even with thousands of miles between you, it’s not as though we don’t have an abundance of examples of how dudes used the Internet to punish women they were angry at.

Frankly, if you were in the same country, I’d imagine she’d be looking into protective orders to get you to leave her the hell alone.

So, yeah. She’s had reason to be afraid.

What do you need to do? You need to get your happy ass into therapy. You have a whole lot to learn about handling your emotions, appropriate ways of dealing with anger and frustration and a s

tload of emotional issues that I can’t deal with for you. And until you do, I suspect that it would be a very good idea to stay the f

k off the Internet so you don’t unleash this torrent of bulls

t behavior on your next crush.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I started dating this guy about a month ago.

He is very nice, gentle, extremely considerate, sometimes v. cheesy (my analytical mind says), and if there is such a thing as doing everything right, I think he is probably doing everything right.

He introduced me to his friends by date three, we went out as a group by date four. And, he started planning tons of things to do for us for months to come.

I am so impressed by his attitude and personality, but having come out of a bad first relationship, I have a nagging voice telling me “what if this is just an act”. Although, how could someone act like that?

Anyways, here is the only problem so far:

We have kissed, with some heavy petting etc. I am a penis-in-vagina virgin. I haven’t had suitable opportunities in my short dating history to do that. I am also into developing an understanding, affection and care for a person before getting physical. I told him very early about these values, and the fact that I want to take my time. And I added that if and when I am ready, I will tell him, and I hope we both get tested, work on contraceptive and stuff to ensure that we are both safe. He agreed, and assured me that that was fine by him.

In the next few weeks, we ended up spending most of the time in his house, usually in his room. And what starts as a let’s watch this anime, or let’s make some tea and talk, ends up with us cuddling in his bed. I do like cuddling very much, but I feel as if that most of it is angling towards making both of us hot and bothered. And his pointing out a few times that ” I just need to say the word” or ” we might actually have sex sooner than you think”. I start feeling uncomfortable, but he is really nice and I feel bad refusing to go to his place. Also, he said we should get STD tested.

Recently, I told him that I still need time in order to have sex. I really don’t feel ready.

He said he is willing to wait, especially if there was some form of sexual relief (that didn’t have to be sexual intercourse). Inner red flags started appearing. Then he added, he was thinking that he can wait for a couple of months, but afterwards, he will probably start looking for someone else.

My reaction was to say that I understand. I reality, I am not sure (1) having been abstinent for years, I feel it shouldn’t be that difficult to do. (2) Having been abstinent for years, I feel may be I am not qualified to talk for people who are sexually active, and may be things are indeed different and people need sex at least every two months.

Frankly, I am confused. Part of me likes this person very much, and the other part is skeptic and now feeling very unsafe. May be it is also my problem for not being as sexually active at this age, and expectations are different.

Heck, I don’t know.

Is this guy saying something reasonable ? Or, is this my cue to an incompatibility between us?

Thank you very much

A Visitor From Planet Inexperienced

DEAR A VISITOR FROM PLANET INEXPERIENCED: He’s not willing to wait. He SAYS he’s willing, but all of his behavior is him pushing you to giving in and sleeping with him. I mean holy s

t, “We may be having sex sooner than you think”? While I don’t think that’s a threat, that’s not someone who’s patient and kind and giving you the space to feel comfortable and secure. That’s somebody who thinks that if he pushes you juuuust right he’ll get you to give him what he wants.

What you said about his using cuddling to get you hot and bothered? That is EXACTLY what he’s trying to do; he’s hoping that he’s going to get you to say “yes” by either turning you on so much that you throw your reservations out the window or you’ll feel his boner poking in your back and feel like you need to do something with it. And that bit about “Well, I’ll wait but only so long”, while honest, is meant to push you into being afraid to lose him.

So I’d say you need to call his bluff and – in the words of Dan Savage – DTMFA because this ain’t going anywhere good. And, let’s be honest: this isn’t someone worth losing your virginity to. Even if we leave out the whole “pushing you for sex”, the two of you are sexually incompatible. You have different drives and expectations and those aren’t going to line up in ways that’ll make you both happy.

But then there’s the fact that someone who’s this much of a dick about your feeling comfortable and secure isn’t good boyfriend material. They’re a case of Crouching Nice Guy, Hidden Douchebag and things are only going to get worse from here.

Here’s the thing: you have the right to go at your pace and what you feel comfortable with. Yes, people are more likely to want and expect sex at a pace that you aren’t cool with… but that does not mean that your comfort and desires are irrelevant. It may mean that you’re going to have to do more dating and more searching to find someone who is worth dating. There are dudes out there – especially demisexual guys – who’re a slow burn, just like you are. Finding someone who is on the same page as you or is actually willing to wait (instead of saying “OK, I’ll put up with oral sex for a while, but I expect you to give it up sooner rather than later” while poking you with his erection) is worth the effort.

And even if you decide to pick someone and just get it over with, you can do a metric ton better than this douche. Kick his ass to the curb and find someone who’s legitimately good, not a jackass in good-guy drag.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NEDLOVE: I’ve been with this guy for about 8 months now and I wouldn’t say I’m happy but it’s company. Recently I’ve been having sex dreams:

1. I was having sex with some girl (completely unknown)

2. I was having sex with an ex (I believe it’s because he reminds me of a movie character who I am attracted to and who’s movie I had recently rewatched)

3. I was pregnant by said same ex but the person he was in the dream was much better than who is was to me in real life

4. had sex with a cousins roommate because I had broken up with my boyfriend and needed to get him out of my head (in the dream it seemed like that was just an excuse to have sex with someone else)

(These are all in the past like week or two)

I guess it’s worth mentioning that I haven’t been having sex with him lately and we were at one point very sexually active (like 3-5 times a week; like 3-6 rounds through our time together). He is at the top of my best sex list and because he’s mine (doesn’t happen very often) so I can do more and feel more comfortable. I may have an idea of what these dreams may mean but I really need some second or more opinions….

Thank you

Hey Libido Bats in the Belfry

DEAR HEY LIBIDO BATS IN THE BELFRY: Here’s what sex dreams mean: your brain is doing weird s

t. Period. Maybe you’re feeling frustrated and horny and it’s getting pulled into the core dump your unconscious does when you sleep. But in terms of the people you’re having sex with? That’s just the weirdness of dreams.

If you let the randomness of who you find in your dreams take on too much meaning, you’ll lose your goddamn mind. People have dreams about sex with all kinds of random people, from folks outside your sexual orientation to family members or other people you’d never touch with a borrowed vagina and Ryan Gosling doing the pushing. It doesn’t mean anything other than dreams are goddamn weird.

You can dig into the Jungian analysis and what-not if you want, but honestly? It doesn’t mean much. If it’s making you think of an issue in your relationship, then it’s as good a motivation to go hash it out. But don’t get too deep into things before you start wondering if Father McGuilicutty is giving you the eye and also might look better as a merman.

Good luck.

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