DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a twenty-something-ish woman and I broke up with my ex-girlfriend “Sam” about a year ago. It was a super serious relationship: timeline for having kids/holidays with each other’s families serious. The official reason for said breakup is that I was tired of long distance (Sam has a temporary position in the neighboring state).

Reality is more complicated.

1. Sam was really insecure about the fact that my ex-boyfriend was my best friend as it wasn’t “normal” to stay in touch with your exes. It got to the point that she banned me from talking about him and refused to meet him and his husband/son when they came to visit. We had planned a trip to the city my ex lived in right before we broke up and I was having panic attacks about bringing it up.

2. Sam had a lot of internalized misogyny from her more conservative, Christian upbringing that led to some judgmental statements about my past.

3. I have some mental health issues that I treat with medication and therapy. They’re well managed but if anything flared up, Sam would insist I find a new therapist because the one I had wasn’t “curing” my issues. She said I was being lied to when I stated that therapy is not a cure.

4. We’d have what I took as “Let’s agree to disagree” moments about X which she’d then bring up in later unrelated disagreements about Y. She’d usually do this in front of others, with a laugh and an eye roll.

5. Towards the end of our relationship, Sam informed me she wasn’t sure how she felt anymore. She wasn’t sure she wanted to move back because there was no guarantee our relationship would work out and she was afraid she was wasting her time with the long distance. She asked me to convince her it would work.

At some point, we had a dumb argument, didn’t speak for three days. I realized I was relieved to have a break from reassuring my girlfriend about our relationship. I was exhausted trying to give Sam a kind of security no one could. I broke up with her the next time we spoke on the phone. After some time, Sam and I started casually texting. I’m able to cope as the emotional stakes were waaaaay lower. I love her sense of humor and I do take pride in maintaining friendships with former partners. I have zero interest in anything non-platonic with Sam.

Sam and my parents/brother have stayed in touch. They became close while we were together and this normal behavior for my family (they’ve stayed in touch with my aunts and uncles’ former SOs). I’ve tried to explain to my family why we broke up but they spin it some way where it’s never anything Sam did wrong in the relationship and that I’m being too picky.

Recently, Sam has pressed me to visit/come see me. My family is ecstatic about this and asked her down for a long weekend. She thankfully already had plans. Unperturbed, my parents got her a belated Christmas present. Not just any present but fancy alcohol. Which they legally can’t ship. So I’m expected to hand deliver it and I’m not sure I’m ready to be in a room with Sam.

I’ve considered the nuclear option but doing so risks damaging the close relationship I have with my parents and brother. I’ve gone with the flow up to this point. I don’t care that my family maintains contact with Sam (okay, I care a little), but I don’t want to be in the middle of it.

Questions: Is there a tactful way to extricate myself from the love fest between my family and my ex-girlfriend? Have I screwed myself by being non-confrontational up to this point? Am I being too picky? Should I have given into my instincts and chugged the 12-year-aged Scotch I’m giving Sam in two days, consequences be damned?

Didn’t Ask to be Santa’s Helper

DEAR DIDN’T ASK TO BE SANTA’S HELPER: Let’s tackle the most important issue first, DASH: you don’t chug 12 year old Scotch. That’s just a crime against alcohol. That Lagavulin didn’t do anything to deserve such treatment!

Now,  with that out of the way…

Y’know, DASH, this may be one of the few times that I’ve been grateful that the only involvement my family has with most of my exes is to randomly bring up how much they didn’t like one specific one while I was dating her. If I was having to hear about how amazing she was and how I was a fool for letting her get away, I probably would blown a fuse trying to decide whether to throw them or myself out a window.

The problem here is three-fold. The first is a simple bias in perception. Your family only saw a small sliver of your relationship with your ex. They got the highlight reel, where Sam was sweet and brilliant and just Captain Fantastic. Meanwhile, you got the unedited footage, with all of the flaws, gripes, headaches and legitimate “woah that is NOT goddamn cool” of a relationship that ultimately needed to end.

Now to be fair, it’s understandable that you and your family have this split view of things; it’d be a little freaking weird if they were so deep into your relationship that they got front-row seats to your fights about your history. But that doesn’t really excuse them for insisting that you have to be part of their friendship with her.

Which leads to the second problem: your parents are suffering from one of the classic Geek Social Fallacies, the most famous of which is Ostracisers are Evil but only slightly less well known is this: that Friendship Is Transitory (And also Magic). Your parents are treating their friendship with your ex as a transitive property. They have a relationship with your ex, they have a relationship with you, therefore YOU should have an equal relationship with your ex! The fact that you aren’t going along with this is, in their eyes, a betrayal of these self-imposed Rules of Friendship. And it’s all a lovely idea except for the fact that your ex is an ex FOR A REASON, and while they’re welcome to their friendships, they don’t get to demand that you have to manage yours accordingly.

Which is what brings us to the third problem: you have some weak boundaries with your family around this issue. This is totally understandable. It’s one thing to stand up to people you don’t like and don’t have to see  regularly. There’s nothing easier than telling people who will have no meaningful impact on your life to take a flying f

k at a rolling donut. It’s another when it’s people you care about, who you presumably want in your life and who you want to get along with. Drawing a line in the sand can be harder because there will be consequences! Doubly so when it feels like your family cares more about your ex than they do about you! If you take a stand and insist that you be excluded from this narrative… well, what if they decide to take Sam’s side instead of yours?

But that fear you feel? That anxiety about standing up to them over this issue? That’s precisely why you need to stand up. Because as much as you would prefer this to just blow over and go away… it’s not gonna. Nothing is going to change on its own unless you make it change. And that means telling your family that you don’t want to be pulled into their friendship with your ex.

However, none of this means that drawing and enforcing a boundary is going to be a confrontation, complete with arguments and hurt feelings. All you need to do is tell them – firmly – that you don’t want to see your ex. No, not even to drop off a fancy bottle of Scotch. That’s it. You don’t need to explain why. You don’t need to justify your decision, nor should you.  Your limits are not up for public debate and your boundaries aren’t up for public vote. They don’t get to override your boundaries if your reasons for having them aren’t to their satisfaction. You said no and – as I always say – “no” is a complete sentence.

They may tell you that you’re being selfish. Yup, you are. They may tell you that you’re being unreasonable. Damn straight. BE unreasonable. All they need to know is that you don’t want to see your ex, period, the end.

If your family wants to be friends with your ex, that’s great… but that obligates you to exactly two things: jack and s

t. And Jack left town. You and you alone get to decide how much contact that you do and don’t want to have with your ex. If they want her to have that bottle of Scotch, they can courier it over themselves or they can make arrangements for her to pick up a bottle in her city.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been trying to use OKCupid in search of dates, hookups etc. However, I am nonbinary, and the majority of other people I “like” are also nonbinary and I find that I always have to send the first message. If I don’t send a message, then they never message me. I know the standard advice you give is for men to do the approaching of women but I am not a man, the people I am interested in are (usually) not women, I’m not sure what the etiquette is.

Also, feel free to blame my need for external validation but being the one who always has to initiate + carry conversation is bumming me out, it makes me feel like I’m not worth approaching or liking. I list several interests and potential question prompts in my profile, why won’t anyone try to court me beyond swiping right? What am I doing wrong? It’s my face isn’t it

Know-Nothing Non-Binary in NYC

DEAR KNOW-NOTHING NON-BINARY IN NYC: One of the things that’s perversely fascinating about dating apps is that as much as they were supposed to be this disruptive, revolutionary event… they essentially recreated many of the same social dynamics of approaching people out in the physical world. For all that we’re living in the future, we’re still holding to old-fashioned gender roles when it comes to dating.

It’s not that much of a surprise; socialization is a motherf

ker and God knows there’re plenty of folks – mostly men, but some women too – who react badly when people flout gender roles. But where things get interesting is the intersection of non-traditional expressions of gender and the very gendered dynamics of dating. And one of the gendered aspects is “who makes the first move”.

Over in my column at Kotaku (kotaku.com/c/ask-dr-nerdlove), my friend (and ACTUAL doctor) Dr. Liz Powell refers to this as “lesbian sheep syndrome”, where both parties stand around waiting for the other person to make the first move. And since nobody is willing to be the one to initiate things… nothing happens.

You’re nonbinary, KNNYC and so are many of the people you’re into. You and your preferred partners are all choosing to ignore the dynamics of gender… but unfortunately (in this case) this often means being willing to ignore who is or isn’t supposed to start things off. But somebody has to make the first move if anything is gonna happen. So it may as well be you.

The key here is that you need to learn to decouple being the initiator from your sense of validation, because who makes the first move ultimately doesn’t have much to do with your worth. As with many aspects in dating, you’re assuming that this is about you and not about what’s going on in their own heads. They could be shy. They could be afraid of how people might respond if they made the first move – there are folks out there who can be sh

ty to enbies and gender-nonconformists, after all. They might think you’re hot as a five-alarm fire and they’re too intimidated to make the first move because they think you’re out of their league. They might not have even seen your profile.

Similarly, making the first move isn’t necessarily validating; ask any female-presenting person about the dudes who shotgun generic, copy-pasted first messages to literally everyone.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s definitely a thrill when someone digs you enough to say “hey, I like you! Let’s chat and see if it’s mutual!” But who says it first isn’t the end-all, be-all. Someone responding to your message with “woah, you’re pretty cool, how YOU doin’?” is just as validating and potentially more meaningful.

TL;DR: it isn’t you, it’s a whole host of things surrounding dating, many of which have nothing to do with you personally or even in the abstract. So go ahead and make the first move. You’ll make somebody’s day.

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 want to apologize in advance for any bad English, it’s not my native language.

I’m a 25 year old man, and I’m dating a girl about two months.

She is the most interesting girl I’ve ever met. I have limited experience with relationships, but enough to know when the girl worth the “long term investment”. 

A month ago she told me she needs to travel to another country to study. She really needs it as a “test to become an adult person”, and she’s planning to go the end of this year. She is 28 years old and she fears she won’t have any more chance. And, as she said, she might never come back. In her field, the odds of finding a job are better outside of our country. If she finds a job there, she might not be coming back.

So, needless to say: I’m terrified! I’m trying to enjoy the moments we are together, but sometimes I think too much in the future. I’m really anxious over this.

Furthermore, I’m feeling that thing we used to call “passion”, that I really hate. I would like to not lose my mind in this and become obsessive.

So, what can I do? I don’t really want to take the easy way, that’s to stop the relationship. I think this is cowardice and I can’t stand to lose those really good moments with her, but I can’t enjoy these moments with this weighing on my mind.

I would like to simply not feel so passionately, to face it calmly, and, if there’s something I can do to change this situation, I would like to know what can I do.

I thought about going with her on the interchange, but I don’t know if this is a “healthy” solution, I would ignore my real objectives to be with her.

I need help.

Time Is Running Out

DEAR TIME IS RUNNING OUT: Be honest with me, TIRO: is it the passion you’re afraid of - the way your heart speeds up at the thought of her, the way that you seem so much happier when she’s around and the way that you find everything about her fascinating - or is it a fear of feeling this way and then losing it?

Because, quite frankly (to steal a line from my Celebrity Dating Advice Patronus, Dan Savage) every relationship is going to end until one doesn’t. And you almost never know which relationship it’s going to be.

In practice, what this means that every relationship you ever have is going to come with the likelihood that it’s going to end with you two breaking up for one reason or another, until you find the one that lasts until death do you part. Now, you can either go into a relationship anticipating the break-up - which, SPOILER ALERT, will make you completely miserable - or you can go in with an optimistic and hopeful heart.

Because, I mean, look at you. You’re twitterpated. You’ve got it bad for this girl, even when it’s just two months in. That can be scary to people – you worry that you’re in too deep, too soon. And to be fair, that’s a reasonable worry. You don’t want to invest too much in a relationship that young… though, that level of intensity isn’t BAD in and of itself. As long as you don’t push too hard for her to match your level of emotion just as quickly or push to commit exclusively too soon, feeling strongly for someone is just fine.

But the course of romance never did run smoothly and all the legendarily passionate love affairs come with complications. I mean, look at you: you’re in a relationship that comes with a known expiration date. That’s going to be tough. In fact, it’s going to be even tougher because the reason for the expiration date is that your girlfriend sounds mature, intelligent and adventurous and is taking advantage of an incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I mean, it’s a little hard to fault her for wanting to go on this adventure that could change her entire life.

Now, the fact that she’s going to study abroad doesn’t necessarily mean the end of a relationship, but as I’ve said before: long-distance relationships can be difficult to maintain, especially when there may not be an end in sight.

But here’s the thing: she’s been up front with you about this. Her telling you about her plans to study abroad sounds to me like a way of giving you both a head’s up (“Hey, I’m going to be leaving at the end of the year, so keep that in mind,”) and a way out (“I would understand if you decided you didn’t want to face the difficulty of an international long-distance relationship.”)

And now you have to decide.

The way I see it, you have three choices.

For the first, you can end things now in the name of saving yourself the future heartbreak. Some will tell you that this is the coward’s way out, and that you’re using the end of the upcoming relationship as a way to justify breaking up with her; when what’s really bothering you is the intensity of how you feel about her, the fear of emotional commitment, and the loss at the end.

Which, admittedly is true. But the fact that you love someone doesn’t mean that you necessarily want to subject yourself to the known pain of a rapidly approaching end date. That’s a perfectly valid and legitimate reason to not date someone.

The second is that you can continue to date her, but let the fact that your relationship comes with an expiration date grow to consume your every waking moment and eventually come to define your relationship. You’ll get angry and bitter and clingy. You’ll consider going with her to study abroad and run the risk of growing resentful when the homesickness kicks in.

Or you’ll choose to stay behind and be frustrated and bitter when she flourishes in a foreign country while you still feel as though you’re floundering at home. You’ll fight, but never over the real issue: the way you feel betrayed by the fact that she’s going to leave you.

In short: you’ll spend the rest of the year making yourself and your girlfriend goddamn miserable.

OR

You can take the third option: you learn to appreciate what you have, while you have it, for what it is. You quit borrowing heartache from the future and learn to live in the moment. You cherish every minute you have with her, savor every kiss and embrace and make every second you have with your girlfriend special – even with the understanding that you know when it’s all going to end.

Now, I will grant you: that third option is difficult. It’s incredibly difficult for humans to focus on the moment; our awareness of the future is part of what combines with our opposable thumbs and downloadable porn that puts us on top of the food chain. You can never get rid of that impending sadness that comes with separation from someone you care about.

But just because things are going to end – and all things end – doesn’t mean that you should cheat yourself out of happiness now. She sounds like a special person, the kind of person that will make you a better person for having known her; the kind of person where you would look back on your relationship together as something wonderful and life-changing, even if it didn’t necessarily end the way that you hoped it would. She sounds like someone who brings a lot of value and joy to your life.

If you want my advice: accept that your relationship has an expiration date. Don’t try to artificially extend it by going on the interchange with her – that’s only going to make things bad for the both of you. Don’t let yourself be bitter or resentful towards her for going or for “not caring enough about you to stay”. For the love of all things holy, do not try to convince, coax, cajole or otherwise pressure her to NOT go.

Just… enjoy your time with her. Learn to live in the moment and revel in what you have. Feel all the feels, savor every minute you have with her and when the time comes, let it go. It’ll suck and it’ll be like the worst break-up that you’ve had, but it will be survivable. Take time to mourn the loss and then move on. Don’t hold yourself hostage to the hope that she’ll come back. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t – but either way, you need to go on and live your life. A little sadder, yes, but richer for the experience.

Eventually you’ll fall in love again. And maybe this time, it will be the relationship that lasts until the end of your days.

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 use social media a lot, which has made me a lot of friends. Our social circles always begin to intermingle and before you know it I have friends all over the world. I got into contact with one girl this way who’s gorgeous and into a lot of the same things I am, and naturally I developed a bit of a crush. The problem is, though, that she lives in another country. Remarkably, I managed to wake myself up to the idea that developing feelings for someone I’ll never see in-person and only communicate with through tweets was a terrible idea that could only end badly, and so I put those feelings aside, we stayed online pals, and everything was all good.

Then at the end of last year I was on holidays and posting updates and photos from my trip. She posted a few replies to those that were a bit flirty, but I’m the worst at misinterpreting friendliness for flirting and so I just posted some jokey replies and didn’t think much of it. But then as we’re talking she suggests that my next trip could be to visit her town. It turns out she’s actually not too far away from a friend I was planning on meeting up with this year, so I tell her it’s a possibility and we’re both excited by the idea.

A short while later she shows up in my DMs and we get talking a bit more normally than just tweeting jokes and short comments between us and our shared friends. She starts sounding flirty again and I respond a bit reservedly because I’m afraid of just seeing what I want to see in her messages. But then, and I have no idea how we actually got onto the topic, but we start talking about dating and relationships and she mentions that she would totally date me. I respond saying I would happily date her as well, and next thing I know she’s given me her number so we can properly chat with each other. Now, I’m pretty confident that that’s a sign of some kind of interest.

Fast forward to now, a little over a month later. I’m going to be making a trip in a few months to visit her and my other friend I was intending to meet up with, and I sent her some souvenirs from my trip which she loved. She and I have been talking regularly and have gotten a lot closer, but the conversations haven’t gotten as flirty as they did to start with – on my end it’s because I rarely have much success in the dating department and now that I seem to be onto a good thing I’m terrified of coming on too strong and scaring her off. On her end it could be the same thing, or she could have changed her mind, or I’ve misread some playful flirting for something more. 

I’m really confused how to work out where I stand with her, and what to do if I’m standing where I want to be. If she were local I’d just bite the bullet and ask her out, and if she turns me down then no big deal; I’ve been through that before and stayed friends with those girls. But with the distance being what it is I’m not sure what my next move should be, and whether I should be making it before, during or after the upcoming trip. Then if we do hit things off, what’s the best way to approach a long distance relationship to avoid it being the fiery disaster I’m worried it could be.

I’m willing to put in the work, but first I want to figure out if there’s actually something to put work into. Do you have any advice?

Thanks so much!

Hopeless International Romantic

DEAR HOPELESS INTERNATIONAL ROMANTIC: What you need to do right now, HIC, is slow the hell down. A lot. You have jumped a good six moves ahead of where you actually are. This isn’t just putting the cart before the horse, there is no cart to put in front of the horse.  Right now, what you have is some flirty talk in the DMs and vague plans to meet up while you’re on vacation. These do not an impending relationship make.

Straight talk here, HIC: you’re making a mistake that a lot of folks make when they don’t have much in the way of social or dating experience. You’re assuming that emotional chemistry is exactly the same as physical chemistry. The fact that you two spark when you trade DMs back and forth like a modern day Abelard and Heloise tells you that you two are on the same wavelength, but there’s a physical component to attraction that can’t be denied or circumvented. The truth is that no matter how enlightened we may claim to be as individuals, but you may love someone for their mind but you want them for their ass.

What works between two people in text doesn’t necessarily translate when the two of you are face to face. Humans as a species are designed for face to face communication. There are reams of information that we convey in the tone of voice, in our body language and even in scent and touch that just can’t be conveyed by text. Even regular Skype sessions can’t quite convey the physical side of things when you’re in person with one another. No amount of FaceTime can equal the gut reaction you have when you smell, touch or even kiss someone for the first time. You could well find yourself in the position of meeting up in person and realizing that you’re not quite so warm for her form as you thought, or vice versa. Or you might find that you’re kind of into her, but not so much as you expected to be. Now you’re in the awkward position of asking yourself whether you try to move forward despite being kinda “…enh” about her or choosing to be friends instead.

And that’s before we even address the question of whether she’s still into you. Right now you’re tying yourself into knots trying to figure out whether or not she’s still into you and it’s draining the excitement from your upcoming trip. You’ve built up this idea that this trip is going to be the start of a grand romance; if that doesn’t happen, then that’s going to taint what might otherwise be an awesome trip.

You can already see this playing out with the way you’re interacting with your crush. When you were just in the moment and just talking with her like anyone else, you were doing so  much better.  Now that you feel like there’re consequences, you’re tensing up and second and third-guessing every single thing you say. It’s draining all the fun playfulness the two of you had going on when there were no stakes.

One of the best things you can do – in dating in general and on this trip in particular – is be outcome independent. If you’re focused on getting with this one particular person OR ELSE, you’re going to psych yourself out. You’re going to invest this one person with terrible significance and subject yourself to any amount of anxiety as you try to read the tea leaves and tell whether or not she’s into you. But if you remain outcome independent and focused on just enjoying yourself, you remain calm and relaxed. You don’t scrutinize everything you say and she does because hey, if it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out. The only important question is whether you’re having fun.

So it should be with this upcoming trip and any potential relationship with your crush. Focus on just enjoying the trip and the possibility of meeting an Internet friend in person. Everything beyond that is gravy. Do that and you’ll be in a much better position to handle whatever it is that comes your way.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a 23F looking to start seriously dating again after being single for about half a year. But I don’t know how (or when!) to tell any future boyfriends that one of my closest friends is my ex. We broke up on good terms after 3.5 years, when we finished undergrad. He lives on the other side of the world now.

He and I transitioned pretty easily back to being the great friends we were pre-relationship. We text a good amount and call about twice a month, I’m in his Skype d&d campaign, my mom messages him sometimes. We have clear boundaries in that we established early on where our line of platonic-ness is and how to not go over it and make things uncomfortable (like not teasing, even though we tease other friends, in case it comes across as flirting). Everything’s been totally fine–we even give each other relationship advice.

Even though this feels normal to me, especially because my best friends have historically been guys, I don’t know how to handle the “ex” part of my friend situation with future relationships. I can’t just not talk about him – it would feel weirdly sneaky, and I have too many stories that involve him. But when do I bring it up, and how? Knowing us, our friends thought it was a given that we would pop right back into being friends after we broke up. But I feel like to a new date it would seem weird.

Thanks,

Permanently Platonic

DEAR PERMANENTLY PLATONIC: There’s really not much to explain, PP. “How do you guys know each other?” “We dated for a while, it didn’t work out, we realized we were better off as friends”. Boom, done.

It might be more complicated (but not much) if the two of you were living together or had an incredibly close platonic relationship where you were constant physical presences in each other’s lives that might seem romantic to an outsider. But he’s your best friend, you talk regularly and you’re in the same D&D campaign. None of that’s going to so much as twitch an eyebrow for anyone who’s cool.

Now somebody who’s insecure may have issues with this. But they’d likely have problems with the fact you have “too many” (read: any) male friends, never mind that your BFF is a guy you used to date. So if somebody freaks out over the fact that your best friend is your ex – as opposed to realizing that being on good terms with your ex is a good thing – then that’s as strong a sign that they’re not right for you as you’re likely to find.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a problem. I really like this junior in my high school (I’m a sophomore). I share two classes with him. We’ve talked a lot over Discord and message each other every once in a while and talk in school, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve had the feeling he likes me too, but of course there’s no way for me to know whether or not that’s true.

That’s where the problem lies: I’m at a standstill. I want to be around him and talk to him more but I don’t know for sure whether he likes me back and wants to do that too or not. I really like him and would like to start a serious relationship but I don’t know what to do or where I’m standing here. I feel like he hovers around me sometimes and wants to talk, but we both don’t know what to say or maybe he’s shy. And he also holds eye contact longer than usual and sometimes starts conversations with me. But then at times I’ll feel like he’s avoiding me or trying to stay away or maybe I’m coming off as rude.

Should I wait for him? Should I say something? Am I overthinking things? My point is, I want to keep moving forward but I don’t know what to do anymore and then I start thinking he doesn’t like me which throws me into a mild state of depression and it’s at the point where something needs to change. Do you have any advice? I’m just confusing and depressing myself further the longer this goes on.

Thanks so much,

A Confused Person

DEAR A CONFUSED PERSON: There’s a very easy way to find out if he likes you or not: use your words. Quit hemming and hawwing and waiting for signs, muscle up and just ask him out on a date.

He’s either going to say “yes” or he’ll give you the Let’s Just Be Friends speech. Either way, you’ll get your answer and know for sure instead of always wondering “maybe but what about”.

And if it’s the case that he’s just not into you that way… well, it’s a shame but now you’re free to find someone else who digs what you have to offer, instead of getting stuck in a constant loop of insecurity and uncertainty.

And as an aside: it’s a good idea to get in the habit of being proactive about your interest instead of sitting around waiting and trying to read the tea leaves. The more time you spend trying to gauge someone’s interest – which, let’s be real, is mostly about trying to avoid rejection – the harder it gets to actually make a move. You spend so long building up the importance of the question that you end up paralyzed, on the chance that he may reject you. Learn to get comfortable with taking the risk.

It means that yes, you’ll get rejected (like everyone does), but it also means you’ll quickly learn that rejection doesn’t hurt more than you allow it to.

Good luck.

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