DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m starting to believe I’m not actually capable of dating someone and I’m becoming afraid of dying alone.

I was bullied most of my school life, I probably didn’t help myself much at the time but now I realise the experience left me socially isolated/awkward, lacking in confidence and self-belief and believing I had little to offer in life. I’m now 24 and all in all I really cannot complain: I have my health, I’m financially stable and I have the career I always aspired to which offers a fantastic work/life balance. I’ve always been somewhat introverted but I have my friends I see (as and when work schedules allow) I do socialise more now and have become a bit more self-aware and hopefully less awkward. I’m certainly no party animal and I choose not to drink. I prefer to spend my time away from work with outdoor adventure activities, exploring different countries, keeping fit, generally seeking to learn and develop in and out of work and charity/volunteer work.

However, my dating/love life has not had the same success, in fact much the polar opposite. I think this stems from a bad dose of what you’d probably call oneitis I had in school: in hindsight we were opposing ends of the social spectrum so it was an impossibility really. She was perfectly polite and respectful in her rejection but unfortunately once word got around it all fed more ammunition to my childhood tormentors and as is the way in school the majority sided with the socially dominant bullies. This has left me with crippling approach anxiety for fear not so much of the polite ‘No, thank you’ but more the nuclear explosion of abuse and psychological torture that historically followed. So I’ve hit 25 and not managed a meaningful romantic relationship. Not one.

Of the odd, irregular night out I enjoy bars and pubs but clubs are really not my scene. I suppose this limits the number of women I meet but I also think it’s probably better to meet them doing what I enjoy. I have many female colleagues as well (I realise work isn’t necessarily the best or even appropriate time to approach anyone).

My trouble is, if I meet a girl who I find attractive (personality, physically etc) the fear starts brewing. I automatically assume they’re already spoken for, wouldn’t be interested or could do better and I get tongue tied: either I end up saying something stupid or blanking them. Even worse, sometimes I manage a pleasant but platonic conversation when it’s just one-on-one, but cross paths with her with other people present, I panic and blank them. Probably as creepy as it is offensive and I don’t mean to be that way.

I have friends and colleagues who really have made a great effort to help. I regularly hear: “You’re not exactly ugly, impressive physique, you have a great career which involves helping people and you really can say you’ve saved more than one life, you’re passionate about your job and hobbies, well-travelled ambitious, intelligent, honest, well-meaning, pretty funny when you want to be AND you can cook! That’s quite the package to offer”

I go away feeling better about things but as soon as I’m faced with the pretty girl it all crashes back: Nope. I’ve got nothing to offer her. She’s out my league.

I’d love to follow the advice of just ask, nothing to lose, ask straight away before you’ve become over invested in the answer but, being a bit socially awkward, it takes a while for me to become comfortable talking with someone and by then I have overthought everything and convinced myself not to bother. On the incredibly rare occasion I’m seriously thinking of asking I don’t know how to, I can’t work out how to make the conversation more than just platonic chat or professional courtesy. On the even rarer occasion I’ve actually asked (unimpressively, timidly and stammering) it’s always a no. A polite and thoughtfully worded no (mostly) but still a no.

I’ve managed a few (we’re talking less than 5) dates in recent years. None successful. To be honest, none of them have even been enjoyable. She may be very beautiful with a great personality and I may have wanted to see her again but the pressure I seem to put on myself believing that I have to try and act like someone else because they clearly won’t like me just leaves me feeling deflated, defeated and exhausted. They never want to meet a second time. The reality is, I don’t enjoy the process of meeting someone or getting to know them (mainly due to my lack of self belief) but I don’t want to grow up and die alone. Unfortunately, in my work I see this happen scarily regularly and with every partially decomposed body that was only found cos the neighbour hasn’t seen them for a while it hits me every time that I’m possibly seeing my own future.

The internet is full of warped and contradictory “…treat em mean keep em keen…” advice filled with “infallible techniques and pick up mind tricks” and I’m buried under a belief that you need to be a psychological genius to work it out.

I guess my question is what do I do? Where do I start?

Feeling Like Failure

DEAR FEELING LIKE FAILURE: You have a classic issue, FLF, one that a lot of men have: you’re too busy fighting ghosts of the past to live in your present.

I see this a lot in my line of work. Hell, I’ve been through it myself. And it almost always happens the same way: there was some event in high-school – it’s always high-school – that’s convinced you that you’re an unf

kable homunculus, that you’ll never actually be good enough  to be worth someone’s interest and if people realized that you were interested in them, they’d run screaming like all of Hell and half of Hoboken were after them.

And honestly? It’s all bulls

t. It’s all bulls

t and it’s born from bulls

t.

Notice how I said that this always seems to revolve around an incident in high-school? That’s because high-school is when people are at their casually cruellest, for no good goddamn reason. Not out of malice – necessarily, most of the time – or out of a desire to destroy something, but because of the one big secret of high-school: nobody knows what the f

k they’re doing and everyone is terrified by this. High-school is the nadir of most people’s lives. Our bodies are in constant flux as our hormones are surging out of control. We’re dealing with desires and impulses that we don’t know how to handle, but we know they’re so much bigger than we imagined. We’re in this bizarre liminal state where we’re convinced we’re adults, and legally we often are. But we don’t have the knowledge or experience that comes with adulthood, and the actual adults around us alternate between expecting us to be grown up and treating us like children. Meanwhile we have no goddamn clue who we are or what we’re supposed to do and so we grab for anything we can that will serve as an identity or purpose. We strive for status and power because we’re terrified of not having it. And the people who do seem to have it often wield it like a club. Sometimes it’s because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do. Other times they lash out to cover up their own fear and insecurities, keeping everyone from questioning their position by drawing their attention to someone more vulnerable.

And if you’re not one of the people who’s at the top of the heap – or you’re so perpendicular to the social ladder that you don’t come in contact with it – then odds are you’re one of the people who gets s

t on. It’s always easier to throw attention at someone who’s weaker and less influential than you, especially when they don’t fit artificially determined standards or niches.

(Doubly so if you have some behavior that’s seen as “not normal”… which just happens to be defined as non-normative sexual orientations, non-conforming gender presentation, neuroatypicality and racial differences.)

So yeah if you’re not someone who peaked by 18, then high-school probably sucked and you probably went through some s

t.

But as significant and momentous as it felt – and again, I’ve been there, done that, got the therapy bills to show for it – it’s all bulls

t. Somebody weaponized their own insecurities and shoved it into you. Problem is that instead of rejecting, it you’ve let it infect you and metastasize until it’s taken over your system like an emotional cancer.

And look, I get it. I’ve wrestled with this s

t myself. My high-school experience blew goats, and the only reason why things weren’t worse for me was because I was lucky enough to grow up before mainstream adoption of the Internet, before Columbine, before social media… before so many things really. It took me a long goddamn time to get over it, because I internalized all that s

t too. I made all of the s

t I went through part of my identity.

But I didn’t have to. And neither do you.

So much of what you’re dealing with are the after effects of this bulls

t. When you’re approaching people, you’re remembering everything about the woman you had a crush on. You’re remembering that “EWWWWW HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK IT?” moment from the folks who felt like they had to enforce their weird and arbitrary social borders. You’re still more than half-convinced that they were right, that you’re too awkward, too weird, too creepy to ever insult them by expressing interest.

You’re not. You’re just hearing ghosts. And you can shut them up.

And here’s the thing: you already have the skills you need. You don’t need those bulls

t “seduction secrets” people are peddling. You’ve got friends, co-workers who think you’re great, and a whole host of experiences and stories under your belt. Those are all you ultimately need to meet people, find dates and start relationships. If you can make friends, you can get dates; the skills are fundamentally the same. The only difference is how you direct them.

What you need, more than anything else, you need to learn to love yourself. Not think “you ok”, not “get comfortable with rejection”, but learn to love yourself. Not the self you are when you’re in a relationship or the self you think you need to be for people to like you. You need to be able to love yourself, right now, as you are. Maybe it’ll take talking to a therapist. Maybe it’ll take making lists of your great points and reading them regularly so you remember they’re there. Maybe, as stupid as it may sound, it’ll mean standing in front of a mirror and complimenting yourself and giving yourself regular affirmations.

It doesn’t matter how you get there, so long as you do.

You need to be able to recognize your awesome as YOUR awesome, not by how valuable other people find it. Because the more you can learn to love yourself and see the value inherent in you just being you, the less you feel like people are “too good” for you. You don’t feel like you have something to prove – not to your friends, not to the random strangers that you are attracted to, and certainly not to the ghosts of your past.

This is important because it means that you will stop being so afraid of other people. Not just the possibility that they’ll reject you, but the fear that they see something in you and have found you unworthy. Because that? Is alllll kindsa bulls

t.

The more you are able to recognize your worth, really believe in it, the less you’ll feel like you need to pretend to be some version of you that measures up to expectations you seem to think other people have.

And, straight talk my dude. High-school was seven years ago now; that’s damn near twice the length that you were actually there. It’s time to quit letting bulls

t from f

ked up teenagers – because we’re ALL f

ked up at that age – live rent-free in your head. You’re better than that and you deserve better than that.

You’ve got this.

All will be well.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Over the past five years I’ve had a very toxic relationship, which has now ended. In that time I’ve changed and grown as a woman and mother, now having a completely different attitude from five years ago. I’ve now made the right moves for a secure and stable future. I couldn’t have that with my ex. My ex-partner never changed or grew at all, even though he promised to try. I decided that enough was enough, I was never going to have a life I want if I stayed with that man. To put it in a nutshell: in our  five years together he’s spent 2-3 in prison, 1 year out with his friends and the rest in between my home and others.

Now I’ve had the space to think, I don’t believe I’ve let that rubbish be normality for so long. Don’t get me wrong we was very much in love at one point, but not going nowhere in life which I couldn’t stand. Neither of us had the strength to walk away and we were in a pattern of breaking up and getting back together. Now I’ve got myself together away from him, I feel absolutely fine. I Am proud I had the strength to get out of that rut. I genuinely have no bad feelings towards him I’ve let it all go so I can move on with my own life, wishing him the best of luck for his future.

I moved on and I met somebody else. I started to get feelings for him which I was very surprised at; I expected it would take me a long time to love again. He felt the same way- or  at least he made me believe that he did.

(My ex always drummed into my head that no one would love me, so it was strange at first for me)

I thought the new relationship was going to be great. We had the same expectations and goals in life,. I decided to keep it quiet as I know what my ex-boyfriend is like and 100% would cause trouble. The only person who knew is my best friend at the time. However, my ex began to see her. Unfortunately for her I could see the bigger picture and knew that he was using her to hurt me. Which he did. I was very disappointed in her but I didn’t expect any different from him and got over it pretty quickly. I even wished them luck. I didn’t see why I should hold on to feelings that didn’t matter anymore to me.

When my ex found out about my new partner, he then began to start so much trouble. Other people started spreading rumors. It’s really frustrating because I can see the bigger picture that he and I were not good together and I would rather him be happy with somebody else. I wouldn’t even get involved in his life. He just can’t seem to feel the same for me. All the trouble made my new boyfriend back right off. I wouldn’t even say he was my boyfriend anymore; I’ve barely had any contact with him for 2-3 week. He has given me mixed signals. I’ve stepped back and left him to deal with his own thoughts. It did make me feel like my new relationship rushed. Like we had to prove something to others, I don’t know. It’s quite annoying; it made all the fun go away. I’m feeling very confused. Should I just forgot about my current boyfriend now?

Back In The Saddle Again

DEAR BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN: Damn, BITSA, it’s a damned good thing that you and your ex broke up. He sounds like an incredibly toxic person and you’re far better off without him. Sadly, he seems to disagree, judging by the fact he went out of his way to make trouble for your current relationship.

Considering how all the s

t went down, you need to do is start taking steps to excise your ex from your life and insulate yourself from his future attempts at manipulation. You don’t need to keep your dating on the down-low but you do need to make sure that the people in your life who are privy to your relationship status changes know about your dirtbag ex-boyfriend. Doing things like dating your best friend in order to mine information about you isn’t just creepy, it’s potentially dangerous. That’s some serious stalker behavior in and of itself. Starting a whisper campaign to sabotage your current relationship is equally disturbing.

(Also: Christ, high-school never ends for some people, does it?)

The first thing you should do is start putting your information on lockdown. Tighten up all of your privacy settings on your social media and let your friends know what he’s doing. Some stalkers and abusers will try to insinuate themselves into the lives of their victim’s friends in order to gain access to the victim; they may even start relationships with friends in order to use those friends as catspaws. I’ve seen plenty of vengeful exes (see also: GamerGate) try to pour poison into people’s social circles as a means of getting their revenge and “punishing” their victims. As cold-blooded as it may be, if any of your friends continue to let him into their lives, you may need to consider cutting them out of yours. This includes friends who were willing vectors for the gossip he was spreading. The less access he has to you – either directly or by proxy – the less damage he can do. If he continues to interfere with your life, you may want to consider talking to a lawyer and see what your options are with regards to getting a restraining order filed against him. Even high-school grade bulls

t can have a toxic effect on your life.

Once you’ve cleaned house and sealed this guy off from you… then it’s time to reconsider your current relationship. Right now, all that drama has made your current boyfriend take a few steps back. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that; very few people want to date a drama bomb, even when that drama is being inflicted by other people. It’s not fair to you, but it’s the current state of play. It takes a special kind of relationship to last when the shit hits the fan like it has here.

Did you and your current beau rush into things? I can’t say. You don’t mention how long it’d been since you and your ex broke up when you got together or how quickly things progressed. This is made even more complicated by the fact that your ex has done a serious number on you and your self-esteem. It may be best to let things with your current boyfriend go for now and take time to recover – not just from this bulls

t, but from your relationship with your ex. Getting away from him was the first step. The next is to let the wounds heal and excise the poison he’s left in you. It may be worth your time to talk to a counselor, just to process things.

TL;DR – lock your ex and his proxies out of your life and then take some time to recover from the damage he’s done. Surround yourself with Team You and take care of yourself until you’re sure you’re ready for a new relationship.

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’m contacting you because I need a non-biased opinion about my situation. It’s about my ex who pushed me away, then broke things off via text, then apologized three weeks later. Can’t ask friends or family because they will obviously side with me and just hate on her.

So, first thing I want to start off with this girl I dated for a while had her own problems dealing with anxiety. Just stating that to help explain what happened afterwards. The start of the relationship was fantastic for me and her. The first month and a half were great and a lot of fun, I connected with her on nerd stuff like games, comics, tv shows, a ton of stuff. Then stress starting piling up with her due to her job and possibly looking for a new job out of state which would mean the unfortunate end for us. The weird thing is we talked about it and suggested that we could still make it work. Anyway, as stress grew and I tried as much as I could to help and be there, she started to push me away. To a point that she wouldn’t see me or even have a phone conversation with me. She put up walls and made excuses to not see me, then after a little over a week dumped me.

Three weeks later she texts back to apologize, and explain that she couldn’t handle the stress and was too proud to have anyone help her including me. That and she has had good people leave her and hurt her, so she instead pushed me away and hurt me so she wouldn’t get hurt. I do forgive her, because its over and done with. I’m not someone to stay mad easily. She didn’t try and get back with me or said we should get back together, just the explanation and the apology. (All via text.) Afterwards though I thought of the line from Age of Ultron, where Bruce Banner is done fighting after the intro fight of the movie and says “You know, sometimes exactly what I want to hear isn’t exactly what I want to hear.” It made me realize hating someone who hurt you is easier than forgiving them. Which brings me to my question.

Should I say something to her a long the lines “Hey, if things work out with finding a job close by, and if you feel like you’ve changed and would like to grab a coffee sometime and start over, give me a buzz”? I mean, am I wrong in even thinking about this? Should I believe in the romantic side of me and give it a second chance if there is one? Or was I right in my initial thought and move on, because there is a possibility she won’t change and could do this all over again? Interested in your thoughts.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

DEAR ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY: OK let’s break this down a little.

First of all: you weren’t with her for that long, as near as I can tell, before things started to pile up. As unromantic as it is to say, a relationship of a month and a half is not a terribly serious one and most people aren’t going to be as invested in one of, say, six months or longer. Relationships can take a not inconsiderable amount of time and attention, especially if you’re looking for something with potential to be serious rather than a casual one. We all have limited emotional and mental bandwidth and that means on occasion we have to prioritize what gets our attention. When things start to pile up and something has to give, a fledgling relationship is going to be on the chopping block. This rarely is a comment on the relationship itself or the person they’re dating; it’s more of a case of “right person, wrong time.”

Now, could she have handled this better? Oh yes. Just squeezing you out – probably in hopes that you’d get the hint dump her – wasn’t cool. It would’ve been better for her to say “Listen, I have too much to handle right now, so I need to end this for now. Maybe we can get back together when things are different,” instead of the passive-aggressive path she took.

The fact that she’s gone out of her way to apologize and at least explain is a good thing, in my opinion. At the very least, it’s an olive branch, an expression that she knew she did you wrong and wants to at least make some amends. Of course, this does make it a lot harder to stay mad at her. I mean come on, how can you hate her as what done you wrong when she stubbornly refuses to be a cardboard cutout of an evil ex and takes responsibility for her behavior during the break-up? The nerve of some people!

And that brings us to your question: do you make any tentative overtures about maybe, possibly get back together? Or do you forgive, forget and put her in the rear-view mirror? Well… that depends.

Deciding whether trying to get back together with your ex is a good idea hinges on two very important questions: why are you trying to get back together and have the circumstances that caused your break-up changed?

Many people who hope to get back with their exes have just refused to move on. Either they’ve developed Oneitis or they’re missing the nostalgic comfort of the known (usually plastering over those unpleasant parts about what the relationship was really like). In your case, you’ve handled things the right way – you’ve made your peace with things and moved on.

So we need to look at the second question: have things changed enough that your relationship will be viable this time around? Is her self-awareness matched with a willingness to do things differently the next time the stress piles up (and it will)? Is she in a better place, where she’ll be more willing to let you in, or at least give you a heads up about what’s going on instead of just squeezing you out?

Personally, I don’t think three weeks is really enough time to make that substantive a change if this is as deeply ingrained a pattern as she implies. But you know her better than I do, so you tell me. As it stands, I think it would be ok to make the offer to at least see each other again and then take things from there. Although if you do get together, I would suggest that you take things slower this time; leaping back in with both feet will only get you hurt again.

Good luck.

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