DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a heterosexual male who is about to turn 26 in a few days. I’m an average guy on good days (I don’t pass the Grimes Test with flying colors) who has never been in a relationship. I consider my social skills to be below par than a lot of people, especially when you consider the fact that I haven’t even had a single friend from the opposite sex in my entire life.

Up until this point, this might sound like any other letter that you receive but this is where it gets interesting.

I have had type-1 diabetes for over a decade and a half now. To add to that, just before I turned 20, I was diagnosed with AIDS (not sexually transmitted).

I know that you repeatedly mention that you are not an actual doctor and I acknowledge and completely respect that. Moreover, you have covered some extremely complex issues, including stuff like living with STDs and chronic illnesses in some of your articles. But this letter is about something else. This is about the practicality of pursuing a relationship while living with such issues.

As I mentioned before, I am an average guy living with 2 chronic illnesses (3, if you consider the psychological issues that come with them). Whenever I look online for advice on whether someone with chronic illnesses should pursue love, relationships, a social life and all of that, the standard answer is that we deserve to be as happy as anyone else and therefore, we should go for it. But the fact that you have a tendency to delve deeper into such issues beyond the obvious, here is what I’d like to know from you:

How fair is it for the person living with something like AIDS to pursue a relationship with a person who may not have it? Consider the number of single guys out there who are looking to be in a relationship with any given girl (I know about oneitis but generally speaking). Out of all those guys, there must be some who are at least comparable to what I am and what I can provide in the relationship. But they do not come with the 2 chronic illnesses, one of which can threaten the life and well-being of the partner. So, why should a girl choose me over someone else who does not have my illnesses, considering that I do not bring anything special to the table? Now, add to that the issues like stigma that the disease brings with it, the other person will be made to go through troubles that they will never know when being with a healthy person.

More importantly, how right is it for someone like me, morally speaking, to even try to look for someone to be in a relationship with when I cannot ensure the health and well-being of myself, let alone my partner?

So in a nutshell, is it even practical for me to try to pursue a relationship?

Thank you for all your help,

Patient Zero

DEAR PATIENT ZERO: Right, so I’ve got a lot of questions right now – not the least of which being why you’re talking to me and not a real doctor, because Dr. NerdLove is NOT a real doctor. But let’s focus on the big ol’ elephant in the room here: the fact that you’re HIV+. This is an area where you really need to talk to your primary-care physician because… well, I think you’re missing some information, PZ. Like, really important information.

To start with: people who are HIV+ do, in fact, date, have sex and marry. Quite regularly, in fact. There are even dating sites out there specifically for people with HIV to  do what’s known as serosorting or dating other people who are also HIV+. So that’s one option available to you. But here’s something you don’t seem to have heard: the guidelines surrounding sex and HIV transmission have actually changed. To start with, people who are at high-risk of exposure to the HIV virus can go on what’s known as PrEP or Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. When taken consistently, PrEP reduces the chances of transmission of the virus by up to 92%. When PrEP is combined with other safe-sex practices, including the correct use of condoms, the chances of exposure become minimal.

Moreover, scientists and doctors have been agreeing that people who have maintained undetectable viral loads – fewer than 200 copies of the virus per milliliter of blood – for six months or more don’t transmit the virus during sex. (https://nrdlv.co/2I4jdiC)

Now of course, this requires strict maintenance of one’s drug regimen in order to keep the virus suppressed in one’s system and getting careless with the meds can cause the viral load to rebound. But we are at a point where not only is HIV not a death-sentence, but the odds of transmission have also been radically reduced.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that there’s not still a lot of stigma out there when it comes to STIs in general and HIV in particular. Many states criminalize not disclosing your status to your sexual partners if you’re HIV+. And, quite frankly, you’re going to have a lot of people who are going to opt out of dating someone who’s HIV+. That’s not fun, but it’s reasonable; folks have a right to decide if even a managed risk is one they don’t want to take. But the fact that someone is HIV+ is just one piece of who they are, and as I’ve said, people with HIV have and are dating and marrying. It’s not a condemnation to a life of celibacy or becoming a social pariah.

Now getting to you, specifically PZ. You say that you don’t pass The Grimes Test. Which, hey, that happens. Now the question becomes: what are you going to do about it? Because just as I’ve talked about how dating is a skill that can be learned and not an essentialist binary, so too is The Grimes Test. If you don’t pass The Grimes Test (https://nrdlv.co/2D16zwO), then you have two options. You can throw your hands up and decide that life has cursed you and there’s nothing you can do… or you can take control of things and start becoming somebody worth dating.

This isn’t to say that you don’t have disadvantages. It doesn’t mean that things can’t be difficult. But difficult isn’t the same as “impossible”. It all depends on how badly you want it. You can accept your life as it currently stands or you can build the life you want, find things that you bring to the table and give yourself the opportunities to find that special someone, someone who’s not going to be put off by the fact that you have a chronic condition.

It’s not easy… but nobody promised you easy. But it is worth it.

The choice is yours.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a long distance relationship with a poly girl back home, and I am not poly. This is the first open relationship I’ve ever been in, and we kinda moved into this when I moved away about a month ago. I met her at the start of this year and we immediately had the best chemistry I’ve ever experienced with any person. In terms of interests we were pretty much exactly aligned. We had an amazing 8 months of exclusivity together, but being fully monogamous was clearly taking its toll on her, so we agreed to go our separate ways (at least relationship-wise) following my departure from the country. At that time I never thought that I’d be able to deal with her seeing other people whilst we were together, because no matter how hard I tried to believe that her loving other people did not detract from her experience with me, I just couldn’t.

Of course the problem was that in these 8 months this girl had also become my best and closest friend, so once I left we still talked pretty much daily. This meant that neither of us moved on much at all from one another, but this, of course, manifested in different ways for the mono in me and the poly in her. For me, this meant that I was (and am) completely disinterested in pursuing females over here, whether it be for a fully fledged relationship or just for a casual sort of arrangement). By contrast, for her she moved onto new hookups within a week. I was quite torn apart by this but we talked about it and she explained that she had “moved on” so quickly because she didn’t really consider me to have disappeared from her life.

Fast forward a bit, and after a few more hookups (which she always told me about because she said she wanted to be able to talk about these sorts of things with her best friend) I was slowly becoming more and more okay with her seeing other people. At this point, the whole her being poly thing had been marinating for quite a while, and I’d done a lot of research as to whether a mono person could work within a relationship with a poly person. We’d been talking every day since I’d left, and one night she said that she really wanted to be dating me again because that’s what it felt like we were doing. At first I was a bit reluctant: what changes would being “together” actually enact? We would just be able to call each other by different names, and I would feel even more reluctant to explore other options in terms of dating. I also didn’t want to enter into anything formal, because the lack of rigid formality had allowed me to relax a bit: she could do what she wanted with her body, because we weren’t a thing, and I could afford to not care sometimes. Nonetheless, I really love this girl, and I agreed that we’d been treating each other just like we were together, so I agreed to an open relationship with some restrictions (mostly to make me feel better): she could explore other people sexually, but she was not to enter into parallel relationships. I felt like since I wasn’t there to satisfy her sexually, it would be too much for me to say that she couldn’t have repeat experiences with particular people.

Two weeks later and I feel like she’s only following rules that she wants to follow. She talks to me about a person she met a week ago like she wants to date them (they talk all the time, have talked about sexual stuff they wanna do). I kinda feel terrible asking her to slow down with all that and remember the conditions of our arrangement because I don’t want her to feel like her being poly is ruining our relationship. But at the same time I am suffering. How can I trust her to follow the rules when she’s already ignoring them? Also the ease with which she is able to hook up with people around her is beginning to take a toll on me because of my own lack of success thereof since I’ve been here (it feels like she’s shoving it in my face).

On top of all that my friends are beginning to lose patience with me because they have always counselled me to escape from the relationship as fast as I could. Because this was also the perspective of my parents, I mostly decided to ignore it because I thought if I was happy that was the only thing that mattered. It just takes its toll when everyone around you is unsupportive of my situation.

So what do I do? When entering into this open relationship, I said I’d try my best for a month, and if I couldn’t make it happen, it was never going to happen. I’ve thought about expressing my desire to downgrade the nature of our relationship to purely casual (whilst I’m away at least) but if that happens I don’t know if I’ll be able to avoid staying connected to her. Do I just bite the bullet and completely tear her out of my life? Whilst I’ve been here she’s been one of my only connections back home and has helped me through the hard new city experience.

I’m just beginning to feel like I’m losing my own sense of self value the longer this goes on; like I’m not deserving of a relationship where I’m as happy as my partner.

Thanks,

Lost in My Own Head

DEAR LOST IN MY OWN HEAD: Hoo boy.

Hey, LIMOH, I’m here from the future and I have news for you: this relationship is only going to get worse. Here’s why.

First: you’re really bad at establishing boundaries with your partner. It’s great that she wants to be able to share everything with her bestie. However, her best friend also gets a say in how much gets shared. Just because ya’ll are BFF’s doesn’t mean that you’re both automatically cool with 100% radical sharing – especially in your case, when you’re still dealing with having just broken up with her and the wounds are still raw. If her talking about the dudes she’s sleeping with is bothering you, you are fully within your right to ask her to stop telling you about it. This doesn’t mean that you’re not friends or that you’re Doing Poly Wrong or what-have-you, it just means that you, LIMOH, don’t like hearing about your partner’s sexual adventures.

Second: she’s not following the guidelines you’ve set up for your relationship. And it’s not even “you’ve been doing this for a while and she’s starting to realize that maybe these restrictions don’t work for her” but “it’s been two weeks and she’s already breaking the rules”. That is less of a red flag and more of a seaof red flags at the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. And the fact that you don’t feel like you can call her out on this? Bad. Bad. Sign.

Look my dude, I’m all in favor of whatever flavor of non-monogamy that people want to negotiate between themselves and enter into. But frankly, I think you did what a lot of people do: you agreed to something you don’t actually want because you saw it as your way of holding onto a relationship that, frankly, wasn’t meant to last. Not every relationship is going to end with one of you dying in the saddle, nor should it be. It’s ok to have had a relationship that was just for a little while. Trying to stick the electrodes on it to keep it alive past it’s natural span is just a recipe for heartbreak and misery. And that’s where you are with this. You’re not the first dude I’ve seen dragged into being poly kicking and screaming and you won’t be the last, but the fact is that I don’t think non-monogamy is for you. Certainly not like this and definitely not with her.

Straight talk: she seems… very careless with other people’s feelings. That alone isn’t good. But the fact that she see’s oblivious to your pain, ignores the rules you two had agreed to and doesn’t seem to give much of a damn about how what she does makes you feel? That’s a sign that you should be running from this relationship like all of Hell and half of Hoboken is after you.

Break up with her, dude. This isn’t a good scene and it’s only going to get worse for you. And start working on establishing and enforcing your boundaries while you’re at it.

And for future reference: if you’re ever in a position where you’re contemplating doing a non-monogamous relationship again, I highly suggest you do your research first. I recommend you check out Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino and More Than Two: A Guide To Ethical Polyamory by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert. These’ll help give you some structure and vocabulary if you ever want to negotiate an open relationship in the future.Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a bit of an ongoing issue with someone who I think is a ‘missing stair’. About a year and a half ago, I met this guy through a sports team I’m in and we became acquainted but not close. He had a reputation as a ‘gutter-punk’ type who’d steal your cigarettes or crash on your couch, but he seemed to have outgrown it by this point.

I became aware of some gigs he was co-organising being cancelled as accusations of sexual assault came to light. By the end of the next day, multiple women had mentioned having similar experiences with the guy. A friend and I in the sports team contacted our management who recommended he step back, but felt they couldn’t expel him as the accusations were accusations only.

A few months later, I started dating a person who is friends with this guy’s girlfriend. My girlfriend doesn’t trust him either, but feels that if he is abusive that it would be unfair to abandon her friend who may need support should it transpire this guy is the liar and (frankly) rapist that he’s reported to be. And I agree. I think this guy’s girlfriend has (at best) bought into his sketchy excuses or (at worst) can’t leave due to some kind of duress and might need people in her corner.

As a result, I’ve encountered this guy socially a few times. He’s aware I reported him and I’ve made him fully aware that I can’t ever trust him again and not to read me being civil as friendship, but he continues to try and brute-force his way back into my good graces. Some friends have had the confidence to tell him exactly how unwelcome he is (which has ended in physical altercations in some cases) but with me he seems to engineer situations where if I blew up at him, or even enforced firm boundaries, I’d be the one turning a ‘civil chat’ into drama and ruining evenings. It feels awful every time.

Every time my partner and I acknowledge him, we both feel awful and feel like we’re betraying other people we know who end up in tears or fits of rage when this guy shows his face. I feel like I’m enabling the missing stair, but can’t think of what to do that wouldn’t turn into a screaming match or worse, especially as his girlfriend, who is an otherwise pleasant person, is very defensive about the situation.

We’re not in any other contact and I’ve blocked him on social media, but short of leaving town, I don’t know what to do about this guy and feel like scum for every time he’s wheedled me into tolerating him. This guy’s needled me into hugging him before and the thought makes me wretch. My heart sinks when I hear his voice. What do you think, Doc?

Cheers,

Carpenter In Training

DEAR CARPENTER IN TRAINING: before I get to your question, let’s define some terms.

In 2012, sex blogger Cliff Pervocracy wrote a column called “The Missing Stair”, where he coined the phrase “the missing stair” as part of a metaphor to explain the phenomena of tolerating an abuser or harasser within one’s community, even though their behavior was generally well known. In the column, Cliff compared the malefactor to a known problem with a house – something that was unacceptable and dangerous, but allowed to continue – such as a staircase with no railing in a dark basement that happened to be missing a stair in the middle. While the staircase itself is a known danger, everyone in the house has become so used to its presence that they just remember to leap over that missing step whenever they have to take the stairs.

While this arrangement – as questionable as it may be – has been fine for the folks who live in the house, there are the occasional moments when they forget to warn visitors or newcomers about that missing stair. And then someone gets hurt.

In the column, Cliff refers to someone within his own community who was allowed to stick around despite being a known rapist; people would insist he was ok as long as folks made sure he had a chaperone… a “rape babysitter” if you will.

Take a second. Roll that particular phrase in your mouth. Let the horror of it wash over you. And then ask yourself whether there’s someone in your community who folks try to work around instead of, y’know, fixing the problem.

Now back to your question CiT. You’ve got yourself a bad case of a missing stair. Everyone around knows that there’s a missing stair. But there are folks who don’t want to actually deal with the missing stair. Maybe they think it’s too much hassle.  Or it could be that they think the stair’s problem is one of ignorance. Maybe they think it’s not bad enough to warrant fixing. Perversely, there may be folks who LIKE that particular gap and feels like it just adds something to the house that offsets the risks. But the fact is that the stair is still f

king missing and people are getting hurt.

Case in point: the management of your sport team. The fact that they’re unwilling to do anything “because it’s just accusations” is a common response. Many people will fall back on the idea of “well we haven’t proved that this is a problem,” or “what about innocent until proven guilty”. Except there’s one slight problem with this idea: a community or social scene or sports team isn’t a court of law. You’re not putting him on trial in order to determine whether he’s going to jail or not, you’re trying to decide whether it’s a good idea to keep him around. And while it’s good to not just knee-jerk respond to every random accusation with maximum prejudice, there comes a point where people are actively saying that it’s better to keep someone around – someone who’s been credibly accused of some heinous s

t – then actually do anything about it. They’ve weighed the risks of not addressing the problem and decided that the consequences of doing nothing are acceptable.

And honestly, it’s worth noting that the underlying message of saying “well it’s just accusations” is “…so we think ALL those women are lying or exaggerating about this.” Something to keep in mind.

This doesn’t mean that the people who are refusing to act are pro-rapist/harasser/creeper. It could be that they’re the sort of people who fall victim to the idea that “causing drama” is somehow worse than actually addressing the source of the drama. Or they may feel that if they exclude the creeper from the group, it may have greater consequences than letting him stay. After all, if people just apply the correct work-arounds, then he’s not a problem, right?

But the reasons why they won’t address the problem don’t mitigate the fact that there IS a problem. A problem that is harassing, abusing or assaulting people within their community. And, for whatever reason, they’ve decided that they’re more comfortable dismissing the very valid concerns and accusations of the community as being less important than the current status quo.

And to be fair: the status-quo is a motherf

ker. The longer something has been the status-quo, the harder it is to convince people to change. There is a lot of pressure to not rock the boat, no matter how awful the boat may be. Anyone who decides to flout those social niceties is going to be seen as an unmitigated a

hole. Someone who’s making a scene and ruining an otherwise nice evening.

This is where you are, CiT. You’re feeling stuck in a position where you can’t act because you’re going to be the one who causes drama. Isn’t it easier to think of others and not make a scene and ruin the night for everyone?

F

k.

That.

Noise.

That’s exactly what this dude is doing, and it’s not by accident. He’s leveraging those social fallacies against anyone who might actually hold him to account. The only way that’s going to change is if somebody gets a case of the F

k Its. F

k this, f

k that and f

k that guy in particular. Somebody needs to be The A

hole Who Said Something and it may as well be you because – as you’ve seen – nobody else is willing to step up.

So you need to muscle up and decide that being quiet in the name of Going Along To Get Along is un-goddamn-acceptable. It’s time to reach deep down, find your inner Drama-Causing-A

hole and let it rage forth like The Hulk. It’s time to get angry because in the words of a wise man, Angry Gets S

t Done. Yes, you’re going to cause a scene.  Some scenes need to be made. You’re going to be uncivil. Civility is overrated when it comes at the expense of people’s health, safety and right to not be assaulted by somebody. You’ll ruin the night. Some nights need to be ruined.

You need to speak up, loudly and bluntly. No, he is not allowed to be part of your community. If he is allowed at a party that someone else has thrown, then ask the organizer why he’s there and make it very, unpleasantly clear that this is unacceptable and why. If he tries to engage you, tell him to f

k all the way off. Loudly. Make it clear that he is unwanted and unwelcome, no matter what “let’s be civil” bulls

t he pulls. If he tries to manipulate you into explaining or being reasonable, refuse, flatly and loudly. You have no reason to be reasonable. You are a blank, imposing wall that is unresponsive to appeals to decency, community or civility. If he tries to shake your hand, pointedly refuse. If he tries to pull you into a hug, push him away and loudly remind him that if he tries to put a hand on you, he’s pulling back a stump.

If other people ask you to be reasonable, ask them if they’re comfortable with somebody who’s been accused that many times, presumably by people they know and trust. Are they willing to call ALL those people liars or say that they’re mistaken or that it’s ok that they’re no longer comfortable around this guy?

I’m not going to lie: this can be an incredibly uncomfortable thing to do. It may be that you’ll simply be the first pebble that triggers the avalanche and more people will be willing to speak up now that somebody else went first. But you might also find yourself out there on your own. As disturbing as it may be, it’s still necessary. Do it anyway, because somebody needs to do the right thing. And while you may be the guy who’s Causing Drama and Making A Scene, at the very least, you’ll also be able to sleep at night knowing that you’re no longer willing to be dragged into being an unwilling accomplice and accessory to this guy.

And what about his girlfriend?

Well to be perfectly honest: there’s not much you can do. It sucks that this may blow back on her as well but, to be quite frank: her comfort doesn’t override what her boyfriend has done to other people.

Now this doesn’t mean that you need to isolate her as well. She very well may be a victim rather than an accomplice. You and your girlfriend can make it clear: she is welcome. She has your support if she needs it, especially if she decides to leave him. You can be in her corner – if and when she needs it –without enabling her boyfriend’s horrifying behavior. But right now? She’s just one more line of defense, another accessory in his malefactions.

You may not be able to fix this particular stair by yourself. But at the very least, you can make sure that everyone knows that it’s there and that the answer isn’t to just make sure to keep leaping over it – and blaming people for not jumping far or hard enough.

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: My girlfriend and I are both virgins, and we’ve have been in a relationship for two years and change. Recently – around two years ago – we ended our long-distance relationship and finally started living together. Ever since I moved in, she’s been more and more insistent on having sex.

Simply put, I don’t want to have sex yet. She always respects it when I say no (otherwise I would have broken up her the first time she did this) but she seems to get very upset when I do. She’s been getting increasingly antsy about it each time. She’s even started telling people I wont have sex with her, and has been making remarks to others about how I wont have sex with her in casual conversation… whether it’s private or not.

I honestly feel quite close to screaming at her about it, but I don’t want to be the person to bring it to that point. The last thing I want is an argument. It’s incredibly upsetting because I feel as though she isn’t respecting my boundaries on this.

If it’s worth mentioning, I’ve still been regularly masturbating and my sex drive is still very much intact. I just don’t personally feel ready for this, the way that she seems to be. She even dropped condoms near me and said “We’re using these tonight” before going to work today.

Thank you

Stressed and Unsure

DEAR STRESSED AND UNSURE: Dude, I’m not going to lie: my immediate response is to tell you to break up with her right the hell now.

I wish you’d included a little more information in your letter, like how old you two are and just why you don’t want to have sex yet. Not because your reasoning makes a difference – you can decide you aren’t ready for any damn reason you choose – but because that would make it easier to give you an idea what to say to her about your desire to not sleep with her just yet.

But the truth is that it doesn’t matter what you say to her because the answer here is to get the fuck out of this relationship already. First, there’s the fact that the two of you are simply sexually incompatible. We tend to think of sexual compatibility as people whose wants, needs and kinks line up correctly or who have relatively similar sex drives. But another element of sexual compatibility is how you feel about sex in general and in your relationship in particular. She wants to have sex right the hell now. You aren’t ready yet and you don’t give an indication of just how long it’ll be until you are ready. That alone is a strong indicator that you two aren’t going to work out. Right now you’re in a situation that’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to her. She would be happier in a relationship with someone who’s ready for sex and you’d be happier in a relationship with someone who’s willing to wait. The kindest thing to do would be for the two of you to break up so that you can find the people you are compatible with.

That having been said, there’s a much bigger issue here than the fact that you two are on different timelines regarding sex, and it’s one that’s way the hell more troubling.

I want to highlight something you said, SaU: “She always respects it when I say no (otherwise I would have broken up her the first time she did this) but she seems to get very upset when I do.”

First of all: getting upset at you for saying no – even if she doesn’t push the issue further – is the oppositeof respecting your no. She’s doing what a lot of people do in toxic relationships: she’s giving you the chance to say “no” but she’s making it abundantly clear that this isn’t the answer that she wants. Now she’s going to punish you until you say “yes” because it’s easier than dealing with the fallout of saying “no”.

But then there’s the rest of her behavior: bringing up your relationship issues with others to humiliate you, dropping condoms off and telling you that you’re fucking her tonight… that’s shitty, that’s unacceptable and it’s coercive as hell.

What she’s doing is trying to get you to change your mind without actually asking you to do so. By making a fuss – getting upset, demanding explanations, bringing it up in ways designed to embarass you in front of friends and strangers – she’s trying to pressure you into to saying yes, even though that’s not what you want. This, unfortunately, is a shockingly common tactic. Sometimes it comes with an implicit threat. Sometimes it comes with an explicit one. Often times it comes with just constantly ignoring the fact that someone said no by asking “So… how about now? What about now? What about now? Oh you didn’t mean it that time, so what about now?”

It doesn’t matter that you masturbate regularly or that your libido is raring and ready to go when you’re finally ready. This is shitty behavior when it’s a guy doing it to his partner, and it’s just as shitty when it’s a woman doing it to hers.

Now I will grant this: you two sound painfully young. It’s entirely possible your girlfriend has bought into the idea that all guys are horny satyrs and can’t quite process why you won’t fuck her already. She may not realize just how toxic her behavior is. But that ignorance doesn’t make what she’s doing any better; the fact that she doesn’t recognize what she’s doing to you doesn’t absolve her from doing it. If – and that’s one mighty big if – you think that she’s acting out of ignorance, then you need to sit her down and have the extended dance remix of a boundary-setting conversation with her. You need to tell her that you have something to say and you need her to listen to all of it before she says anything. Then lay it all out for her: why you aren’t ready to have sex yet, when you might be ready and why her behavior upsets you and – most importantly why she needs to cut it the ever-loving-blue-fuck out.

And then the ball’s in her court. Either she can respect your wishes and your boundaries…  or she can get the hell out.

Frankly, my vote’s on the latter. But who knows; sometimes people will surprise you.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Recently I hit it off with this girl at work. She is here on an international program and won’t be in the states for long. She said she was open to having a fun time and, well, one thing led to another and we ended up in bed together.

She told me her previous sexual experiences weren’t that good, so I decided to make it all about her that night.  She seemed to enjoy everything because in the heat of the moment she said “finally a guy that knows what a girl wants”

She stayed the night and, come morning, we started making out and had great morning sex together. She left a couple of hours later, kissed me and thanked me for a great time. We decided to remain friends who hook up on occasion.

We continued texting for a few days and decided to hang out again… only her roommates joined us this time. We went out for drinks and I could feel we were leaning closer into each other and I really wanted to kiss her. I guess she wasn’t into it because the next thing I know, she told me “We are just hanging out as friends.”

I pumped the brakes and decided not to follow through. I asked if she was going home after and she said that she had recently had her hair done and “I go home with you my hair will get sweaty.” This made me laugh.

Once the night came to an end I just felt awkward about the whole situation. Now I am wondering: how do I keep cool and not “scare her off”?

Trying To Stay Casual

DEAR TRYING TO STAY CASUAL: Alright my dude, let me give you the advice you really need right now: slow. Your. Roll.

There’re a couple things going on here. The first is that the fact that you hooked up and had that awesome night (and morning after) doesn’t mean that you’re gonna bang every time you hang out. Part of that whole “friends who hook up on occasion” agreement you made were the words “friends” and “on occasion”. While she enjoyed the sex and had a great time, that doesn’t translate to “sex is always on the table.” I suspect that what she’s much more interested in is a friend who she can hang out with, enjoy herself, have fun while she’s overseas… and if she happens to decide “yes, a dude going down on me would be nice tonight”, she knows that you’re going to be a reliable good time.

So don’t necessarily assume that sex is going to happen whenever you see one another. There will likely be times when she just wants company and companionship. That’s harder to enjoy if she feels like she’s gonna have to turn you down every single time you get together.

The other thing to keep in mind: her roommates were there with you. It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t want her roommates to know much about her business – especially who she’s hooking up with. Right now you’re a friend and a good time, not her boyfriend. She may not want to have to explain that you’re a friend with occasional benefits. Or she may just not like making out in front of her roommates.

Or it could well be that as much as she enjoyed your hook-up, it was a one-time thing and she doesn’t have any interest in another round – either in general or with you.

Now none of this means that you have to act like the sex never happened or that you have to behave like she’s a nun. Hang out with her, flirt with her, be your fun, cool self. Just be aware of her comfort and her interest. Let her take the lead to let you know if she’s in the mood for kissing someone or being kissed. The more fun the two of you have together without her feeling like you’re expecting sex at the end of the night, the better the odds are that she’ll be interested in another night with a guy who knows what he’s doing in bed.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a young lad only 15 and I recently asked a girl out that I had been thinking about for a small amount of time. I was very straightforward and direct as I usually am, she told me she wasn’t ready for a relationship, but gave me her number anyway.

I’m mainly trying to suss out what she means, any help would be great!

Thanks!

Don’t Forget My Number

DEAR DON’T FORGET MY NUMBER: It means pretty much what she said, man. She’s not interested in a relationship.

But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t like you or think you’re cool; clearly she wants to stay in contact if she gave you her number. So treat this as a low-key opportunity to talk, flirt and possibly hang out with someone cool.

Just don’t treat this as a way of back-door-ing your way into a relationship. If she wants to date you, she’ll let you know.

Good luck.

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