DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This is unusual, because after reading all your blog posts about toxic relationships and such I’d like your insight on my previous toxic relationship. The twist : I think I was the toxic one.

I was in a relationship with a girl for 3 years. She was madly in love with me in the beginning and would do almost anything to please me (mistake #1). I was less into her at that stage but I figured hey what the hell she’s cool to hang with and the sex is great so why not. There were things about her I didn’t like and what I didn’t like I fixed by giving her my advice and of course she changed those things, because of mistake #1.

Her family didn’t mesh well with me mostly because some of them would treat her badly. I didn’t keep away from them out of fear or jealousy. I kept her away because they would degrade her in their drunkenness in front of 30 other people and I couldn’t handle that. So I started to keep her away from them.

The same applied to her friends. I kept her from the ones I judged as irresponsible drunks, and when she wanted to hang out with the mature ones who had normal lives and wanted to take her to coffee I said “Go and enjoy yourself” and didn’t go with her so as to give her some space.

I did always use the “Then we should break up” when arguments go heated and she told me that I was the only person who made her so upset and angry that she would start throwing things around. I think my being calm when she was losing it made her even more angry.

Eventually it ended and now she wants nothing to do with me. I miss her dearly and recognize that I’m not in a good place to make an informed decision about whether it was in fact a good relationship with bad parts that I’d like to fix or if it was terrible.

I want to know whether I should blame myself. Was she just not the right type of woman for me? Do I have to be with someone who has mature friends and a loving family? Did I ruin her life and leave her with more bitterness than I could ever make up for? Finally, is there a way to move on without always feeling like I should go back and try to make amends?

I did contact her to try and just set up a normal coffee meeting where we could chat about normal things, because I figured “talk is cheap” and saying “I see where I went wrong” was less useful than showing it but she refused and I could hear the bitterness in her voice so I accepted the no and said goodbye.

Blaming Himself

DEAR BLAMING HIMSELF: Let me sum this one up in advance, because I’m pretty sure you know what I’m already about to say:

Holy hopping sheep-s&&t YES you were being the toxic one.

Ok, with that out of the way, let’s break this down a little, shall we? This is going to be harsh but, honestly, I’m not sure you quite get the magnitude of what happened here.

Let’s start with mistake #1. The mistake WASN’T that your girlfriend was madly in love with you and would do anything to please you, it’s the way you took advantage of it. “There were things about her I didn’t like, and what I didn’t like I fixed by giving her my advice and of course she changed those things.” 

Um… do I need to point out how incredibly goddamn creepy and manipulative that sounds? Because that sounds unbelievably creepy and manipulative. People are not repair projects. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean that you get to customize someone to fit your specifications. Nobody – not Brad Pitt, not Drake, not Taylor Swift, not Nicki Minaj, nobody – gets 100% of what they want in a relationship. You get 60%, 70%, even 80% and you round up to 100% because that percentage is so damn awesome that you’re willing to accept the rest as the price of entry. If you’re not willing to accept those imperfections and flaws, then you break up and find someone whose flaws and imperfections you can accept. You don’t try to mold them into the perfect person as though they don’t have a will or personality of their own.

See, it’d be one thing if, say, she’d come to you and said “You know what, I’m not happy with X part of my life, would you help me fix this?” That’s part of being a supportive partner. It’d be equally understandable if it was a case of maintaining your boundaries and saying “I don’t appreciate it when you treat me like X”. However, unless you miswrote things, that isn’t what you were doing.  You were telling her “I don’t like X part of your life and if you loved me, you’d fix it.” And seeing as you weren’t staging an intervention for her alcoholism or substance abuse or something equally destructive, then holy crap does that start to border on emotional abuse.

And I don’t use that term lightly, because of what you say next:

“Her family didn’t mesh well with me mostly because some of them would treat her badly. I didn’t keep away from them out of fear or jealousy. I kept her away because they would degrade her in their drunkenness in front of 30 other people and I couldn’t handle that. So I started to keep her away from them.”

Which you then follow up with:

“I kept her from the ones I judged as irresponsible drunks, and when she wanted to hang out with the mature ones who had normal lives and wanted to take her to coffee I said ‘Go and enjoy yourself’ and didn’t go with her so as to give her some space.”

Want to know why I’m singling these out? Because isolating someone from their friends and family is one of the key hallmarks of an abusive relationship. Dude, I’m sorry if her family were a bunch of drunk a

holes, but it’s not your place to take it upon yourself to decide things for her! You can advise. You can give your opinion. You can tell her that you don’t like how her family treats her. You can suggest that it might be healthier for her to not spend time with family members who’re going to treat her like s

t and encourage her to stand up for herself and her boundaries. But “keeping her away from them” is not your call.

The same goes for isolating her from her friends, because her friends don’t meet your approval. I’m sorry you don’t like her friends. Too goddamn bad. You don’t get to tell someone who they are and aren’t allowed to hang out with.

Using isolation, controlling who she sees, what she does, who she talks to and gets to spend time with are hallmarks of an abusive relationship; it’s the sign of someone controlling and dominating their partner to keep them under their thumb.

The fact that you were doing this out of supposed “concern” for her well being instead of jealousy doesn’t make it better or any less coercive.

Then there’s this:

“I did always use the ‘Then we should break up’ when arguments go heated and she told me that I was the only person who made her so upset and angry that she would start throwing things around.”

These are more tactics of abusers, one that some even call “Dread Game” — weaponizing the fear of losing the relationship as a means of control. Constantly holding the state of the relationship over her head is not a way of handling an argument in a relationship, it’s a way of controlling someone. That’s not a relationship, that’s someone trying to train someone into never complaining. No, her throwing things isn’t the best way of handling things either but Jesus f

king Christ, I’m not entirely surprised that it would escalate to this level.

“I think my being calm when she was losing it made her even more angry.”

Or maybe it’s because you were constantly threatening to break up with her instead of trying to resolve the argument.

Here’s a free hint: arguments are about engagement. Standing there and acting like the stern, disapproving parent isn’t how you resolve things even if you’re 100% in the right. All that’s going to do is piss people off even more.

And oh look, she refuses to have anything to do with you? GOOD.

It’s a damn shame that you miss her, but I find it hard to believe you can’t tell whether it was a flawed-but-fixable relationship or just terrible.

Because, SPOILER ALTERT: it was terrible. And while she may have had her flaws, there is literally nothing in this telling me that this was a case of “picking the wrong partner.”

Well… at least not for you. For her, it very much was.

Should you feel terrible? YES.

Should you be dating someone with a mature and loving family? My dude, if you think that was the problem with your relationship, you really missed the point.

Did you ruin her life? That I can’t say, but you were DEFINITELY an abusive, controlling piece of s

t to her.

Now as for your question about going back and trying to make amends?

Here’s the thing about making amends: it’s only useful if trying to make amends won’t cause even more harm… and that’s exactly what trying to contact her again will do. I simply don’t believe that your desire to make amends is about actually helping her heal so much as an attempt to salve your conscience and convince yourself that you’re not the bad guy here.

No, if you want to move on, you need to change.

The good news is that you’re at least starting to question your behavior. That’s how change starts… but that’s not where it ends. Where it ends is after you’ve gotten help to recognize not just how your behavior was abusive but why and how to start taking responsibility for it. And that’s not going to be a quick and easy transformation.

Here’s what you need to do: you need to call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE and talk with some of the counselors there. They’re there to listen, to help and to make recommendations as to how and brainstorm with you to find possible courses of action. But you need to be completely honest; giving excuses or rationalizations is only going to make any progress take longer.

Here are signs – adapted from author Lundy Bancroft – that you’re making progress:

Admitting fully to what you have done

Stopping excuses and blaming

Accepting responsibility and recognizing that abuse is a choice

Identifying patterns of controlling behavior used

Identifying the attitudes that drive  abuse

Accepting that overcoming abusiveness is a decades-long process and not declaring yourself “cured”

Not demanding credit for improvements you’ve made

Not treating improvements as vouchers to be spent on occasional acts of abuse (ex. “I haven’t done anything like this in a long time, so it’s not a big deal)

Developing respectful, kind, supportive behaviors

Changing how you respond to their partner’s (or former partner’s) anger and grievances

Changing how you act in heated conflicts

Accepting the consequences of actions (including not feeling sorry for yourself about the consequences, and not blaming your partner or children for them)

You’re admitting that you’ve made mistakes. That’s a strong first step. Now you need to take the next one and get help. It’s going to take time – a lot of time. It’s going to take work. But you can do better.

It’s time to BE better.

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 writing to you from a position of slight desperation and I’m really, really hoping you’d help. I’m a 33 year old grad student at one of the leading universities in the USA. I’ve never had a girlfriend of any sort and in fact am still a virgin. One of the reasons for this is my staggering reticence with women; reading your blog (which I cam across last week) was a mind blowing experience as I see so much of my younger self of the Platonic Back Door tactic. Older, and maybe a little wiser, I now know it to be nonsense and this summer I finally decided to try and do something.

The object of my affection is a fellow grad student at the same university; she is in her late 20s, incredibly cute and fantastically smart. Most of all she is my match in wit and banter. I’m a very outgoing, sociable person and it was fantastic to meet someone who can give as good as she gets, tirelessly, when it comes to a bit of teasing. More than anything we have a lot in common and I can genuinely see myself being quite happy with this woman for a long time. I’ve known her since last year, so we’ve been friends – good friends – for about a year. 

Discovering I was attracted to her came completely out of the blue at the beginning of the summer. I finally plucked up the courage to ask her out for a date last week. We went on that date a few days ago and it ended in catastrophe. After a pleasant enough evening I casually mentioned that I would like to kiss her. She totally froze up and, after a few moments of silence, said that it would feel like kissing her brother. After a few more moments of chatting it became clear that all bets were now off and this would be our last date.

I’m perfectly aware that my error was moving too fast; I was extremely angry with myself afterwards and spent much of the rest of the evening beating myself up in my head. I couldn’t believe that what could have worked with frankly the most amazing woman I’ve ever met had ended up in the toilet over one single misplaced sentence. I was perfectly aware of the fact that transitioning from friend to romantic partner required time and yet I got carried away and blew it. I told myself firmly that this was it and that at very least I’d tried, and decided to move on.

The problem is – for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to. Usually in these situations I am true to my word and would not pursue this any further. But I am a real believer that in picking our partners in the long term compatibility is far more important than romance. I’ve never met anyone with whom I am as compatible as her, and I’m just not prepared to let this go over a misplaced move right at the beginning. The challenge facing me, I guess, is how to escape the friend zone with this one. I’ve never really done that before – but I’m prepared to make the effort for her. I guess on some level I’ve realized that she is, most definitely, the one for me. 

Could you possibly help?

Friend Zone Parolee

DEAR FRIEND ZONE PAROLEE: Let me correct you real fast, FZP: you didn’t really make an error here. You didn’t move too fast or really do anything wrong. All that happened is that you went out with someone and she decided that she wasn’t attracted to you. That’s really all there is to it.

I mean, you can dress it up as transitioning from friend to lover or what-not, but it all comes down to the simple fact that she’s just not into you. And that’s a risk you run into when you’re asking people out, whether you’re friends with them first or not. I am questioning whether she knew this was a date or just the two of you hanging out as friends… but I suspect that if you were clearer about things, then she wouldn’t have said yes in the first place, so it would be a wash all around.

You are, however, overreacting to all of this. I get that you’re inexperienced and you really like this woman, but your despair and self-anger is seriously out of proportion to what actually happened. It’s not a catastrophe, it’s just an awkward moment at the end of a date that ultimately went nowhere. That’s it. Everything else you’re dealing with is entirely self-inflicted. Right now you’re giving yourself a nasty case of Oneitis; you’re turning her from someone you like into The One, with a capital T and O. Except: she’s not. She may be wonderful and amazing, but she’s not the only woman out there who you’re compatible with or who you’ll be attracted to. There are literally millions of single women out there and there will be plenty who are just as awesome and smart and gorgeous and all those other qualities that make your heart stutter when you see her. You will find others – and more importantly, those others will like you back.

Can you get out of the Friend Zone? Yes. You just have to be willing to walk away and date other people. Can you get out of the Friend Zone with this person specifically? Well, it can happen… but honestly, I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you. You would be much happier in the long run to recognize that you’re lucky to have someone awesome like her as a friend and move on to pursuing other people. And there will be other people.

I realize this sounds harsh, so let me end this with pointing something out: you did well here. You got over your shyness and your aversion to asking women out. You cowboy’d up and asked someone out. And then, towards the end of the date, you made your move. That is goddamn huge. Yeah, it didn’t go the way you hoped but dude, could you see yourself doing any of that a year ago? Or even six months ago? That’s some serious progress! Yeah, getting rejected sucks, but that’s how you build up your skill points, man. You’ve just shown that you can do this. You should be proud of yourself.

So do yourself a favor. Take a day or two, feel your feels and then let ’em go because you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished here. Take that to heart and start looking for those other awesome women. You’ll find them. And you’ll find the ones who like you too.

You’re doing great, man. Remember that.

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 question concerns whether to compete, and if so, how to compete, for a woman’s attention with another guy. As background, I’m 28 and have been without a relationship/or any meaningful dating activity for about two years. Besides a great relationship that lasted a couple years, I have never had much success in the dating department. That means I am nearly 29 years old, but with the dating skills of your average high school student (and this question practically shouts that from the rooftops). I know that I can make a relationship work once I get in such a position, but getting there for someone like me is tough. 

I started taking German classes after work last week as part of my attempt to meet more people and hopefully find a date. It’s a small class.  There are 6 students, and we all sit along a table, four guys and two girls. There is an amazing girl (classic beautiful, and a huge brain and warm personality to boot) in the class, and two other guys are obviously interested in her along with me. Unfortunately, I am developing a severe case of “Oneitis.” It is especially unfortunate, because from the way the seating is arranged, I don’t have the opportunity to work with her during partner exercises. The guy who gets to work with her is, admittedly, a much better catch than me. He is handsome, athletic, and has that reserved, detached cool of an ER surgeon. I, on the other hand, am more like a self-conscious golden retriever. I am friendly, but not at all cool, and sit squarely in the middle of the bell curve on most measures in life.  I can barely focus on grammar and the like because I am too busy dying a little bit inside while she smiles her awesome smile and he tries to make her laugh with jokes about Paris Hilton. Doc, it kills me! I want to be in his shoes! I want a shot! If that dude wasn’t in class, I would already have introduced myself and asked for a drink.  But now its tough, because making a move during class would be seriously weird, and after class, there will always be at least one guy vying for her attention while we walk to the parking lot. 

At this point, I regret signing up for the class, because now I have 10 more weeks of watching another guy have a perfect opening with this amazing woman for whom I would happily poke out my eye with a sharp stick. I am not confident enough in the force of my personality or the awesomeness of my life to compete for her attention with this other guy, but I don’t think I could bear to watch if things kept moving forward between them without doing something, anything. 

What should I do here? 

2nd Place

DEAR 2ND PLACE: First of all: good for you on getting out there and taking some classes. It’s a good way of making yourself a more interesting person while you’re trying to meet someone new.

Now having said that: slow your goddamn roll son. You’re locking yourself into a “what-if” death spiral. I’ve always said that nerds have the worst superpower in the world: they can perfectly map out all the horrible way that everything will go wrong and it freaks them out.

This is exactly what you’re doing. You’re imagining every possible worst-case scenario and reason why you can’t possibly do anything and you’re letting it intimidate you into not doing a damned thing. You need to quit war-gaming every scenario or thinking “if only I had X” or “if only there was a chance to do Y”; these are nothing more than self-limiting beliefs that slow you down and hold you back. The more time you’re wishing for something to happen is time you’re not spending making something happen. And if you’re not going to make your move, somebody else will.

Let’s run it down a little here.

Limiting Belief #1: Oneitis

By focusing like a laser on your in-class crush, you’re investing her with far too much importance and setting yourself up for failure. It’s one thing to think “hey, cute girl, probably awesome, I’d love to date her.” It’s quite another when your attitude is “She’s God’s special angel and she’s made of light.”

Look, I’m sure she’s cute and has all sorts of amazing qualities, but she is just a woman, singular. There hasn’t been some sort of weird apocalypse and now she’s the last woman on Earth. She’s not your one chance at true love and if you miss out you’re doomed to be single for the rest of time. She’s a person. Same as you are. She puts her pants on one leg at a time.

She’s just the only one you’re spending your time on.  There are hundreds, thousands even at the school where you’re taking classes. Tens of thousands or more in the town where you live. Millions in your state. If you ask her out and get shot down… well, that sucks and I’m sorry for you, but it won’t be the end of the world.

Limiting Belief #2: You’re Competing With Someone

The instant you start having a dick-measuring contest with someone over “who’s got a better chance”, you’ve lost. You’re spending precious time and mental energy trying to weigh your pros and cons versus his pros and cons… and you have no idea what his pros and cons really are.

You, my friend, are comparing your unedited raw footage to his highlight reel and you’re letting it screw you over.

When you’re finding yourself in “competition” with other people, what you’re really doing is psyching yourself out. You’re too busy looking for weaknesses in yourself to think about how awesome YOU are and how much you have to offer. You’re spending too much time trying to measure up against other people using a bulls

t metric and not enough time building yourself up into an even more interesting and charming person.

You can’t look at other people as your competition. You can be inspired by them. You can envy them. But the only person you should be competing with is yourself, otherwise you’re going to be seeing every other person out there as a potential adversary instead of, say, a friend. Or even an ally.

There will always be people who are handsomer than you (general “you”, not you specifically, 2nd Place), funnier than you, richer than you, whatever-er than you… if you get together with this girl, are you going to spend your life looking over your shoulder for fear that someone better than you is going to come around and snatch her out from under you? Or are you going to live the best life you can and show her just how much value you have?

Limiting Belief #3: He Has A Better Chance Than You Do

You know next to nothing about this woman. You don’t know what she wants. You don’t know that this guy is her type. For all you know, she likes guys just like you – a little sheepish, maybe not the handsomest or cleverest but with a great heart. But it doesn’t matter whether that’s true or not because you’ve apparently decided it for her.

Right now: yes, he does have a better chance… because you’ve already surrendered. You’ve effectively conceded the game to him and you haven’t even gotten on the field yet.

The only way you can know for sure whether he has a better chance than you is if you get in there and make your play. She may still end up dating him… but she definitely won’t be dating you if you don’t actually make your move.

Limiting Belief #4: Wrong Time, Wrong Place

You say if it weren’t for this guy, you’d ask her out for a drink.

Well, why haven’t you already?

OK, so maybe it’d be weird in class. But after class… oh noes, more people want to talk to the pretty girl!

Guess what my dude. There’s always going to be a reason why it’s not the “right time”… and the more you wait for the “right time” or the “right place”, the more chances you’re giving other people to ask her out before you do. If you don’t make your move, somebody else will.

OK, look I get that the guy’s intimidating. But unless he’s actively c

kblocking you, the only thing really getting in your way is… well, you. You’re psyching yourself out again because you’re afraid of being rejected. And I understand. I really do. Rejection sucks. It hurts, literally. But that’s the price of entry when it comes to dating. You need to reach down into your core and say “You know what? F

k this. I’m tired of being intimidated. I’m tired of being cowed. I am going to go ask her out and let the chips fall where they may.” Pull her aside with “Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?” and ask her out for that drink. Ask her after class, even with the looming “threat” of other guys vying for her attention. Ask her before class.

But you have to ask her.

There will never be a “right” moment, just the moment you make.

Limiting Belief #5: Your Life Isn’t Awesome Enough

Too many guys seem to think that they need to be perfect in order to get a girl. They need the Ryan Reynold’s washboard abs, Ryan Gosling’s dreamy eyes, George Clooney’s smoulder, Kanye’s swagger and Oscar Wilde’s wit in order to win a woman’s heart.

And if this were true, the human race would’ve gone extinct.

Look, just because you’re not in the top 1% of whatever doesn’t mean you aren’t “worthy” of a girl. Your life may not be where you want it to be – and if you’re living life right, there will always be more room to grow, more ambitions to achieve – but waiting until you’ve hit some arbitrary point is just another way of psyching yourself out and giving yourself excuses to avoid being rejected.

You’re taking this class because you want to improve yourself, right? Well, asking her out for a drink is part of the process of improving yourself. You can’t improve your skills without putting them to work.

You may not have a perfect life, but you should be able to look around and say “hey, good enough to give it a try right here, right now”. While you’re busy wishing you were at place Y, you may be missing the possibility that your crush would be very happy with you at place X in the meantime.

You may get rejected. Fine. It’ll suck and you’ll feel bad for a while. But that will fade – faster than you think – and you’ll realize that all it means you’re one person closer to finding the woman that’s right for you and one step further down the path at getting better at dating.

And that means that when you meet the next incredible woman – and there will be another woman, just as incredible – you’ll be even better prepared.

Good luck.

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