DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m am 23 and in my last semester of college. I am a virgin. The closest I’ve come is with a girl at a team party who approached me and made the first move. We were about to get down then she changed her mind at the last minute. How do I deal with being fat friend? I feel like whenever I go out with my friends I am the only one who never gets approached by girls. I feel like when we go to bars or parties I’m immediately ditched for my better looking more in shape friends. I can tell its because I’m fat.

I feel like when I go up to talk to girls I’m just wasting my time and theirs. I feel like girls everywhere we go just see my friends and then me the designated fat friend. I can help but feel like I’m not good enough for any girl. So I just become quiet and reserved. It’s hard because I see people of all sorts having sex or are in relationships. Sometimes I feel depressed and suicidal (nothing serious) I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. I’m doing the basics right. I always dress nice( I thank my dad for that one) I have lots of female friends that describe me as funny and charming. I’ve met very few people I couldn’t get along with. I couldn’t  I’ve done what parents said would make me happy. I am a collegiate athlete, I am a member of a popular fraternity. Yet none of these things make me feel better about myself. 

Thanks for seeing me Doc. 

Designated Fat Friend.

DEAR DESIGNATED FAT FRIEND: DFF, I think you have problems. It’s just that they’re not what you think they are.

To start with: you sound like you’re dealing with depression. Not just “feeling a little down today” blues but full-blown, chronic depression. I can tell because quite frankly you sound a lot like I did when my depression was at it’s worst. I mean, holy s

t dude, “sometimes I feel suicidal but it’s not serious”?  Feeling like the best thing you can do is just end things is GODDAMN serious when you’re dealing with depression.

Here’s the sneaky thing about depression: it lies to you. Depression feeds back all the worst things you already suspect about yourself, except as irrefutable fact. It’s the emotional equivalent of confirmation bias; you only see the things that validate the awful way you feel about yourself and ignore just about everything in your life that tells you otherwise. And it’s especially insidious because you can be doing everything “right”, have an amazing damn life and still be depressed. In fact, it’s often worse because now you’re getting down on yourself for being depressed in the first place when you have nothing to be depressed about and other people have it so much worse than you do.

So my first suggestion for you is that you take advantage of the fact that you’re still in college. Go to the Health Services Center and see about making an appointment with a therapist to talk about the way you’ve been feeling. They may recommend a few different potential therapies, including medication if need be, which can help you with the way you’ve been feeling lately.

Now, all that aside, let’s get to your other problem. Because, you see, the problem isn’t that you’re fat, the problem is the attitude you have about yourself. You’ve bought into the idea that you’re Fat with a capital F and this somehow has rendered you unf

kable and undesirable, and adopted this core identity of The Fat, Loveless Virgin. The fact that you see yourself this way completely affects just about everything in your life. You don’t believe that women can possibly find you attractive, so you don’t even try; you just withdraw into yourself. You’re not talking to anyone. You’re not really making an effort. You’re sitting there, quiet and withdrawn and sending off vibes that say “It’s ok if you don’t want to talk to me, I wouldn’t want to talk to me either” and wondering why people don’t approach you. And here’s the thing: the way you label yourself affects how other people see you too. You’ve turned Fat, Loveless Virgin into your personal brand, and people are buying into the stereotypes because, honestly, you’re not really giving them anything else to work with.

I mean, hell dude, let’s be objective here. You say you dress well, you’re funny and charming, you make friends easily, you’re an athlete and a member of a popular fraternity. By most people’s standards, you’re a catch. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that you’re getting hung up on the fat thing. And it’s understandable; body size is one of the few things society still views as acceptable to shame people for. I mean hell, I saw well-known men’s magazine that had an article called “The Portly Man’s Guide To Fashion” that’s 99% fat jokes, 1% fashion. Something that promises to help – because finding clothes that fit and look good when you’re big is a legitimate challenge – and all it does is swing for the balls instead. So even things that promise to be helpful are just insults in disguise. That sort of s

t is going to wear down your soul, man. So I get why you feel the way you do.

So let’s work on changing it.

Here’s the thing: women love a wide variety of body types from the heroin-thin to swimmer’s builds, to barrel-chests to straight-up fat dudes. What makes someone attractive and/or datable isn’t whether they look like an underwear model, it’s what they bring to the table and how they make people feel. From everything you’ve said, you bring a lot to the table… but while you’re clearly capable of making people feel good, you’re not really doing it. That mental identity you’ve chosen for yourself is filtering out all of those opportunities to go out and wow people with your wit and charm… and I’m more than willing to bet that you’re missing out on people who are interested in you. When you’re convinced that you’re unlovable or unf

kable, you end up ignoring even some of the most blatant come-ons because you’re convinced that they couldn’t possibly be interested in you. Trust me, I can relate: there was a time in college where I missed out on a hook-up with a girl who straight-up invited me back to her place for a hot cup of F

K ME TILL MY EYES BLEED because I thought I was misreading things.

I’m assuming that you want to get better, yes? I’m also assuming that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to learn how to get better with women and feel better about yourself. So I want you to trust me and do what I tell you, without hemming, hawing or otherwise arguing with me about why something is impossible or can’t work.

First: start visiting these blogs – Chubstr and Chubby Guy Swag. If you want to deprogram the bulls

t idea that you can’t possibly be attractive, cool, sexy or badass, you need to see other hefty dudes just killin’ it. You need some positive reinforcement in your life.

Second: dress sharp. I know you already say you’re a snazzy dresser, but I want you to kick it up a notch. Why? Because not only will it help you stand out the right way, but it’ll make you feel sharp. Our clothes are an outward extension of who we are. When you dress like a million bucks, you feel like a million bucks. I’ve got some tips specifically for bigger dudes when it comes to how to dress better and big-man fashion blogs like Chubstr can help you put styles and outfits together.

Third: I want you to stop pretending you’re a mind-reader. You’re making a whole lot of unwarranted assumptions about what other people like and whether they could possibly find you attractive. That’s your jerkbrain talking and you need to quit listening to it. Instead, I want you to go into interactions with people assuming that you’re going to be friends and that they’re going to like you. You’re not “wasting their time”, you’re the cool guy they should want to get to know!

Fourth:  I want you to start faking some confidence. That means holding your head up high, walking with your back straight, your shoulders back, a s

t-eating grin and a swagger in the step that says “walked into the library like what up, I’ve got a big dictionary.” Yes, it’s going to feel weird at first. But here’s the crazy thing: it’s going to make you feel more confident. Our brains take emotional cues from our bodies; carrying yourself like you’re confident means your brain is going to make you feel more confident. That helps form a biofeedback loop that’s going to make you feel better about yourself overall.

Incidentally, this means no hiding in corners or curling in on yourself when you’re out with friends. You already know that you can be funny and charming and get people to like you. Time to prove it, even if you have to psych yourself up to it by assuming a persona at first. If you want to be the cool guy people approach, you have to give off approachable vibes; that’s not “quiet and withdrawn”.

Finally: This is going to be a bit woo-woo new-age-y pop psychology sounding but stick with me. Every morning when you’ve gotten up, gotten dressed and are about to face the day? I want you to look in the mirror give yourself a compliment. In the middle of the day? I want you to give yourself a compliment. Before you go to bed? Compliment yourself. It can be something as simple as “Damn, I’m looking good”, or it can be acknowledging something cool you’ve just done. But I want you to do it regularly. You’re spending most of your time beating yourself up. Now it’s time to be good to yourself. You need to build up your sense of internal validation and being that means being willing to acknowledge your good side… something you don’t really do.

As I’m always saying: dating success is 80% attitude… and that includes your attitude about yourself. You’ve got the tools. You’ve got the talent. Now you need to realize it.

Talk to health services. Get your depression under control. And then start practicing some self-love and recognize how much you bring to the table. You need to recognize your awesomeness. DFF. Because you’ve definitely got it.

Good luck, man.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m one of those lucky guys who met their significant other pretty damn early in their life. In my case she is my second girlfriend and I met her even before college. I married her a few years ago and we still have a very affectionate and fulfilled relationship. But nevertheless, now being in my late twenties, I have to admit to myself that I’m probably not so much into life-long monogamy.

Fortunately, my wife feels the same and so we read your articles about non-monogamy and talked a lot about the pros and cons of opening the relationship. While neither of us is really comfortable with the idea of an actual open relationship, we both agreed that some extra-martial action is tolerable as long as we keep it secret and within reasonable limits (though keeping it secret from one another might make it hard to gauge and maintain a certain symmetry in our respective promiscuity). 

So I decided to keep my eyes open for a potential partner in crime, became more outgoing and more comfortable with flirting, but I soon noticed a problem which puzzled me: Is there any way I can tell a woman that I’m interested in a sexual adventure or even a little romance, but that she has to accept the fact that my wife is my number one and that there’s no chance I would dump a decade long relationship for a casual hook-up without sounding like a jerk?

Though I’m quite sure that there’s a tremendous number of women who are interested in that sort of no strings attached flings, directly approaching them and saying something along in the lines of “Hey, I think you’re hot and it’d be great if the two of us made your bed squeak this weekend, as long as you don’t tell my wife!” could be just a little too much for a girl you just met in a coffee shop.

On the other hand, asking a woman out, having a date or two and eventually telling her that “Yeah, I enjoyed your company (and your soft parts), but you know, there’s this girl I’m married to and you’d better not call me again. Sorry if you misunderstood my intentions” would make me a complete a

hole to say the least.

So, Doc, where do you see the golden mean between those extremes? Or do you recommend something entirely different?

Married My Second Girlfriend

DEAR MARRIED MY SECOND GIRLFRIEND: First of all, good for you for having the sort of relationship that you and your wife can communicate your desires openly and honestly!

As a general rule, I am a big believer in full disclosure when it comes to opening up the relationship, and I’m sure many of the poly and monogamish readers of the column are too. This is important if only so that both of you can provide a certain level of accountability to one another with regards to your limits, as well as to be able to touch base with how you both are feeling about the matter. I tend to believe that more communication is better in general, but even more so with open relationships. If nothing else, you may find that talking about what the two of you have been doing with your outside partners may bring new and unexpected sexual excitement to your own relationship.

But hey, everybody gets to make the rules for their own relationships and if being mutually discrete makes it work for you, go for it… with one caveat that I will get to in a moment.

Finding a new partner while you’re in an open relationship can be tricky. There will be plenty of people who just aren’t cool with banging a married man, no matter what permission slips his wife has given to him, which is why I generally recommend early disclosure… ideally before you go on that first date. It’s only fair that you let them know in advance what they’re signing on for. Yes, this means that there will be women who will refuse to date or sleep with you right off the bat; this is the price you pay for being ethically open rather than a cheating piece-of-s

t going behind his wife’s back.

Now, there ARE women out there who are interested in no-strings-attached sex and there are women who won’t mind playing around with a guy who already has a girlfriend or a wife. Some will get off on “seducing” a married man into cheating, while others won’t mind as long as she can actually confirm with your wife that you’re actually on the up and up about being in a semi-open relationship and not a cheating piece-of-s

t who’s just saying whatever it takes to get laid. And believe me, there are plenty of dudes out there who will say “Yeah, my wife’s totally cool with this, no need to ask her…” in order to get into somebody’s panties.

Thus the exception: while in an ideal world the two of you would have a complete DADT arrangement, if she wants to talk to your wife – or meet with her, without you – in order to make sure you have permission to be let off the leash, you make the arrangements. If you and the wife aren’t cool with this… well, you’re more or less going to have to accept that there will be people who would otherwise love to sleep with you that are now considered out of bounds. Sorry.

That having been said, you may have an easier time finding potential partners by looking for people who’ve already opted into ethical non-monogamy. You can start by creating accounts on various dating apps that have options for open relationships. OKCupid specifically allows people to indicate that they’re in an open relationship, while apps like Hinge and #Open are designed with polyamory and non-monogamy in mind. This helps smooth out the conversations surrounding whether or not your potential play partner is ok with dating a married man, and it helps ensure that everyone is on the same page about where that relationship is going.

Similarly, while this may not fall within your mutual secrecy pact, it may be worth your time to find the local poly community and make inroads there. Getting to know people within that community makes it much easier to find people who would not only be open to dating or sex but who are much more likely to respect the rules you two have established.

You may also be interested in checking out sex clubs or swingers events as well. While yes, this does mean that you’re not going to be able to maintain the illusion of ignorance as easily, it does put you in a locale where you can potentially find partner who what what you have to offer. And the fact that you met them at those parties or clubs doesn’t mean that you have to hook up with them there. You and your wife can just as easily make arrangements to meet up later and pretend that neither of you has any idea.

In the meantime, I’d recommend you do your due diligence and read up on ethical non-monogamy. I’d recommend starting with The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Harvey, then move to Opening Up by Tristain Taormino and Building Open Relationships: Your hands-on guide to swinging, polyamory, and beyond! by Dr. Liz Powell. These will help serve as a guide for navigating the tricky ethics of open relationships. It covers all of these issues and many that you and your wife may not have thought of.

Good luck!

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a 24 year old gamer lady currently engaged to my very own gamer lad. We’ve been together for three years and decided about six months ago that marriage was in the cards.

He is the sweetest, most thoughtful man I have ever dated, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him. He’s funny and intelligent, protective, and an overall Good Person. I know he would do anything in his power for me. I aspire to be deserving of this and reciprocate it as best I can, but there is one thing that does bother me, and that is our sex life.

Prior to this relationship, I have had a number of boyfriends and lovers. Not a large number, but enough to realize that I am both a very private and very sensual person. Unfortunately, my fiancé doesn’t have the benefit of that experience- I am his first girlfriend and his first lover. And he’s come to realize he just… doesn’t have much of a sex drive. At all.

At first, I badgered him for sex rather frequently, but then I turned it around and realized that that was wildly inappropriate of me to do- after all, a guy harasses his girlfriend for sex, that’s horrible! So I stopped doing that. Unfortunately, without me aggressively pursuing it… we almost never have intercourse. We’re talking two or three times… a month. In previous relationships, it was at least once a day, and it would have been more if I’d had my way.

I used to feel rejected and like it was my fault, as I am overweight. But I tend to think he’s really just not that sexual of a person. It’s taken some getting used to, to realize that men can be so disinclined towards sex, and we’ve talked about it fairly extensively, but I still worry that it really is just me or that we have poor chemistry.

We’ve found ways to compromise - we snuggle all the time, he’s very affectionate, we have lots of physical contact; he ‘helps’ sometimes, when I masturbate and he’s not in the mood. My own sex drive has died off quite a bit since we started dating, because in spite of logic I *do* feel sort of rejected. He frequently has erections but his head isn’t in the right place, which is frustrating for me because it’s hard to tell when it’s ‘okay’ to pounce without it being unwanted. We’ve even talked about having an ‘open’ relationship and he’s said he’d be willing to try it, but I really hesitate to even go there - I’m a very private person and I don’t like to open up to people like that without a very high degree of trust, and it just seems selfish of me and risky to our relationship.

I worry that maybe marriage is a bad idea, since our sex drives just seem incompatible, but the fact is, I love this man and I value him more than I value sex… but it’s a daunting prospect, to spend the rest of my life - not getting any, when it has, in the past, been so important to me.

Do you have any ideas on compromises? Anything?

Thanks,

Defying Gender Norms

DEAR DEFYING GENDER NORMS: First things first: you have a right to have your sexual needs met in a relationship. Feeling frustrated and wanting to be desired and fulfilled isn’t selfish. It’s a critical part of maintaining a healthy relationship, and a lack of sexual satisfaction will kill a relationship faster than… well, damn near anything, really.

One issue I stress over and over again is how important sexual compatibility is to a couple. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that yes, New Relationship Energy fades and sexual desire tends to ebb and flow over the course of a long-term relationship – but that doesn’t mean that partners should feel as though that asking for their needs to be met is an unreasonable request.

Sexual compatibility is more than just making sure that all of the appropriate parts line up in a pleasing manner; it also has to do with being interested in the same activities – or at least willing to fake it for the sake of your partner’s pleasure – and, critically, having compatible sex drives. It’s very rare that you will find two people who’s libidos align perfectly; men on average tend to have higher sex drives earlier in life, usually peaking in their 20s and declining as testosterone production declines, while women’s drives are more variable and often depend on cultural factors as much as biological ones.

(Side note: the idea that women’s sex drives peak in their 30s has less to do with biology and more with sociology. It arose out of the Kinsey studies in the 40s and 50s and didn’t take into account that at the time, a more mature woman is much more likely to feel more comfortable and familiar in her sexuality in a way that a younger woman wouldn’t.)

As a rule of thumb, most relationships’ sexual frequency will tend to default to the level of the partner with the lower libido; it’s uncommon – not unheard of, but uncommon – for a partner with a lower libido to try to maintain the level of sexual activity desired by a partner with a higher sex drive.

It’s going to take some digging to get to the bottom of just what the issue is. Your fiancee may just have a low libido normally – possibly even asexual – or me may have outside factors like stress that are killing his sex drive. Or  – and I hate to say it, but I have to:  he may not be attracted to you sexually.

You say that your fiancee still gets erections; that eliminates the first and most obvious question of whether he’s having erectile dysfunction. My next question to you would be whether he masturbates  – that you are aware of – and how often; some asexuals will still masturbate as a way of keeping the prostate drained rather than out of a sense of sexual pleasure. Following that, I’d want to know whether your sex live has changed. Were things hot and heavy early on and then suddenly plunged off a cliff, or was it always as infrequent as you say? When you say his head isn’t in the right place, is it because he has other things on his mind – work stress, financial problems, random attacks of ennui  – or because he’s just really, really slow to warm up to the idea of wanting to bang?

It’s good that you have found some forms of compromise – being willing to give you a helping hand (or tongue) is good, assuming that he’s not doing it grudgingly. But yes, it’s going to be hard1 to feel desired and attractive when the person you want to desire you the most is so unresponsive and apparently uninterested. You are a sexual person and while you love your man, this is an area that’s going to become a bone of contention between the two of you (as it were)… and it may well drive you into the arms (and pants) of someone else. One partner doesn’t have the right to unilaterally decide that both parties are now done with sex; that’s a very good recipe for infidelity at best and the end of an otherwise great relationship at worst.

I’m going to be honest with you: until you’ve worked out a more successful compromise than snuggling and occasional masturbatory help, marriage is going to be a bad idea. If you’re having problems now, getting married isn’t going to magically solve them, no matter how much you may love each other. You and your fiancee need to have a very long, very honest and incredibly in-depth talk – possibly with the help of a sex-positive relationship councilor – about just what his issues are with sex. If the two of you are going to be getting married, you need to know right the fuck now whether it’s a case of he’s not attracted to you or whether he’s not attracted to anyone and how you’re going to work around this. This includes a very in depth and frank discussion about opening up the relationship, even if it’s one-sided. I know it can feel as though you’re betraying him, but you need understand: wanting sexual satisfaction is not selfish. You said it yourself: you’re a sexual person and this is an aspect of who you are that is extremely important to you. It’s unfair of him if he were to declare that because he’s not interested in having sex, you’re not allowed to be either.

Now I do want to say: companionate relationships – ones that are based on emotional intimacy and affection but without a sexual component – can and do work… but they usually entail one or both partners having their needs discretely met on the side. You have to ask yourself which is more likely to ruin a relationship: your being allowed off the leash on occasion with your hubby’s permission in order to get your itch scratched, or years of frustrated desire… which has a nasty tendency to turn into resentment and bitterness.

Good luck.

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