DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This one is going into the “what the hell is going on with my ex” category. You see, we broke up about seven months ago. I was devastated for a while, but managed to heal, more or less (you helped a lot with that, in fact; thanks!). I am currently going out casually with some girls on a “let’s see where this goes” kind of way, but recently figured I might as well try reconnecting with my ex, just to see if we can remain friends.

Problem is: after some texting, she called me and spent hours talking to me on the phone. The conversation got really weird, in fact: she started asking me about my sexual exploits post-breakup, and telling me about hers, in richness of detail. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but hey, no big deal. Thing is, I took that as a possible sign that she was down for some casual sex and started subtly flirting with her. We decided to meet in the near future halfway through the conversation, but she picked up on my hints and said she wasn’t interested. We talked A LOT, and, as a result, she seemed to have changed her mind slightly; she said we should just go out, just the two of us, to see what would happen. She was really busy, and so was I, so we decided to try and find a good day for both.

Three days later, she suddenly messaged me, telling me she was going to skip her night classes for that day, and asking me if I was free. Turns out I was.

That was when things got weird. We started talking about our past relationship, and she mentioned how much of a wonderful boyfriend I was when we were together when the subject “why we broke up” came up. She even said she was sorry if she ever made me feel like I had done something wrong; the problem, she said, was that she felt that was not the sort of relationship she wanted at the time.

The night went on, and I was reminded of how much we had in common, Doc. We discussed philosophy, politics, books; she is a brilliant woman, which was the reason I became infatuated with her in the first place. It is rather sad to say this, but I was reminded of how much she fulfilled me intellectually, something no girl has done for me since. 

To make matters worse, things started getting infused with a weird dynamic. She started pouring her heart out to me, telling me about her deepest problems, about how directionless she’s been feeling lately. Shortly afterwards, she told me about her previous lovers, and about the various levels of frustration she had experienced with them. Regarding this topic, she even seemed to be losing her grip on her own trail of thought; telling me about her fantasies of having a threesome with a guy she’d been seeing, for instance, and about how their fling was cut short when he had to move. She said they “were totally gonna do it” when they met again, only to mention they had a fight via phone months before and that they had become really distant as a result. I asked her about that contradiction, and she told me to not mind her, since she was prone to fantasizing about stuff out loud. Shortly afterwards, we started discussing our own sex life, down to the fact that she often wore low-cut blouses to get me horny, since she knows I love boobs. There was even talk about whether or not what we were having was a date… her answer was, “It could be”.

The entire night was weird like that, down to the touching: sometimes she would encourage me to place my hand on her hip while we walked, sometimes she would gently remove it. Nevertheless, I decided to take a risk and make a move; it didn’t help that she had gone to our “date” with really sexy clothes (a low-cut blouse and a really short skirt – yeah…). I figured, well, why not? Signs are all over the place, she herself put a possible hook-up on the table. I went for it.

She said no. That bummed me out more than it should have, but okay. But, once again, she made me confused with her explanation. She reminded me of how she initially said she was not interested, and explained that a casual hook-up with me would never be just like a casual hook-up with anyone else; since we used to be in a relationship, there are a lot of pent-up emotions between us… which is why we should be careful if we are to get involved sexually again, especially given how emotionally frail she is now (“we both still have the traits that made us fall in love with each other”, she said). The fact that we were still discussing our old relationship, down to the breakup, didn’t help. I half-jokingly, half-seriously mentioned that I should not have made a move, since things would now get weird between us, but she replied that nothing would get weird, and that, if I ever wanted to go out with her again, all I had to do was call her; she would happily accompany me. She even went as far as to say that the fact that we did not hook up this one time did not mean she would never want to kiss or have sex with me again.

And that was it. I drove her home, and for the past few days we’ve been talking semi-regularly. I know how stupid this all sounds; I only realize now what I was getting into. The worst part comes now; I am starting to have doubts, Doc. Throughout the night I thought I only wanted sex, but I am starting to feel like I am developing feelings for her again… and the door she left open, at the end, is only making me feel anxious. She is a direct woman; if she truly does not want something, she does not mince words… or, at least, that is how she has always been. I don’t know how to interpret her actions; is she just keeping me around because she trusts me and sees me as a friend she can confide in? Is she interested in sex, but does not want to rush things because she does not want to be hurt? Or is there something else here? She trusts me enough to pour her heart out to me, that much is true, but everything else is shrouded in fog.

I’ve read your advice on how getting back together with an ex is often just a fantasy, Doc, but let me me honest; I’ve been obsessing over this whole situation. I am still going out with other people, but every now and then my mind darts back to that night. I need a bit of the chair leg of truth, here; how do you think I should proceed? The fact that she is being so difficult to interpret, so emotionally frail, and my own doubts probably mean trying to get back is too risky, but I don’t want to shut her out of my life. I really want to be at least friends with her, but I am afraid that this uncomfortable situation will manifest itself whenever we see each other, which will only end up hurting me. Should I distance myself from her? Should I sit down with her and sort out the situation in a friendly way, so we can dispel this fog and remain friends? Or should I just kick reason to the curb and keep asking her out (she said she would go, after all) to see where this will go?

Allow me to end this by saying one final thing: I was the dumpee, but when we broke up, we both more or less knew what was coming. We were an interesting case; we resonated in an amazing way in some aspects (sexually, too), but other parts of our personalities were just too different. Maybe this is to blame for the fact that I still feel so weird around her?

Thanks in advance, Doc

Stupid Heart

DEAR STUPID HEART: There’s a lot to dig into here, but a lot comes down to what you’re hoping to get out of this.

What I’m seeing is that your ex is trying to sound out exactly what you think you’re doing. After all, there’s a long and glorious tradition of dudes trying to reconnect with exes in order to get “closure”, because they’re horny and want a hook-up or because they’re really trying to get back together but don’t want to be obvious about it.

That initial conversation was pretty clearly her looking to see what you were looking for. Rehashing the break-up, reassuring you what happened wasn’t a reflection on you, talking about what you’ve been up to romantically… these are all pretty standard part of the “are we going to be friends?” script. After all, trying to be friends with an ex afterwards can be tricky, especially if one or both of you have any lingering issues with the break-up. You may have had a lot of emotional intimacy before, but breaking up means having to step back and reassess just how intimate the two of you are  going to be now. It’s easy to accidentally slip into old patterns when you’re with someone you used to date, especially when those old patterns means sharing everything. Those old levels of openness and intimacy can be tricky at times. Some folks are ok with hearing about their ex’s love-lives. Some aren’t, and hearing about it is uncomfortable or reopens old wounds. Some are cool with the bare bones details (“Yes, I’m seeing someone, it’s pretty good”) and others are cool with sharing every single intimate detail down to size, shape and smell. Talking about her previous lovers and her fantasies can be feeling out just where the two of you are (or will be, should this friendship continue), or it can be a subtle bit of games-playing: “see how popular and in demand I am? You should be jealous.” It can even be a hint that she’s down to clown.

Then she noted that you were angling for a hook up and shut that line down. It’s pretty clear that she’s not interested in having a casual thing with you. I mean, she shut you down twice. That’s a pretty solid answer right there.

But the fact that she doesn’t want to have a casual, NSA relationship with you doesn’t mean that she isn’t necessarily interested in you at all. Look at her behavior. It’s flirty, it’s sexually charged, (come on, she points out that she wears low-cut shirts because she knows they turn you on, while wearing a low-cut shirt)  but she’s also setting boundaries; she’s interested in you, but not as a one-night stand or a fling. In fact, I suspect that the times she’d pull back are when you’d be sliding past “flirty” and into “it’s gonna happen” territory. Be honest: when she’d move your hand from her hip, how much had you let it slide towards your ass?

But honestly, you don’t need to read between the lines much, seeing as she flat out told you what was going on. She wasn’t interested in sport-f

king, but talking to you did remind her of all the good times you had together and that moved her. She wants to see what’s going on with you and if you’re interested in more than just a fling. She’s open to dating you again, but she doesn’t want to be hurt and pumping and dumping her will very clearly hurt her so if all you want is a couple of easy orgasms then she’s not gonna be down. Why is she not being more direct? Because she doesn’t want to be hurt and flat out asking you runs the risk of getting hurt if you said no. But being flirty, giving you signs – and let’s be honest these were not subtle ones; she may as well have been using semaphore – and leaving the door open for you to make the next move gives her enough plausible deniability to let her salvage her ego if you’re not into it.

There really isn’t any uncertainty here, SH. It’s pretty clear what she wants. Now it’s just a question of what you want.

When it comes to getting back together with your ex, there’re generally three questions that need to be answered.

1. Why do you want to get back together?

2. Why did you break up in the first place

3. Have those circumstances changed?

With numbers two and three, the answers are fairly simple: she wasn’t ready for the relationship the two of you have and she seems to be willing to give it a shot now.

So you have to ask yourself why you are starting to get those feelings again. Is it because she represents something safe and familiar, a piece of nostalgia rather than the threatening and uncomfortable uncertainty of dating someone new? Is it because you have unresolved issues with her that you hope to get sorted a second time around? Or is it because your relationship was a case of “right person, wrong time?”

It sounds to me like what you really want is to give this another chance and you’re looking for permission to try.

And frankly, it sounds to me like your ex is hoping you’ll give it a shot.

I say go for it. Take it slow, be gentle and see where it goes. The last thing either of you need is to be 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)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I need your help with this girl.

So typical text game. I met her through my friends. She messaged me on Facebook saying that “she was told to contact me” she instantly said that I looked handsome blah blah blah etc. We ended up texting and everything went great. I worked my way from face pics to nudes within 4 days.

Note: I haven’t met her yet but we Skyped a few times.

So we were planning on meeting this past weekend. she lives four hours away in South Carolina and I live in the western part of the state. We were to meet in Charlotte because we had mutual friends we were going to meet with anyways. I ask the night before to see if we were still on for the day, she never responded. We text almost everyday! She didn’t text back for four days. We were in contact everyday. I did the right thing and never text back and was waiting until she texted me.

So she texts today that saying how horrible her week has been and her phone messing up. Me, being the stalker that I am, saw that she posted a snapshot of a text convo on her Instagram. I ignored her text. I knew she was lying. I had to study anyways. She texts back again four hours later. This is where I went wrong.

She texts “HEY”

I text back “I didn’t believe your excuse of a messed up phone because you were active on your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. so you’re lying. You could have followed up with a yes or no response via numerous other options. Im not mad, i just feel obligated to call you out.”

This happened hours ago and she hasn’t text back. I f

ked up. I want to get with her soon. How do I successfully recover from this without seeming desperate?

Frog King Horny

DEAR FROG KING HORNY: So I’m going to be perfectly blunt here: you screwed the pooch on this one.

Now I’m going to start with the obvious: it’s really not cool that she flaked out on you without so much as a phone call or a flimsy excuse, especially when your upcoming date required a not-insignificant amount of travel on both of your parts. It’s s

tty behavior on her part, no question.

HOWEVER.

She’s not the one who wrote me, you did. And frankly, you’re not exactly covering yourself in glory either.

I have no idea why she flaked; I don’t have her side of the story. If things had been going as well as you said, then it’s a bit odd that she would suddenly “forget” that she had all of these ways of getting in contact with you to let you know that she wasn’t going to make it. But if I had to lay odds, I’d guess that she had second thoughts at the last minute on meeting up with someone she really doesn’t know all that well, especially when there are clear expectations – explicit or otherwise – of sex. I’d be further willing to bet that she didn’t know how to back out with any grace and ended up just not saying anything with the hope that it would all pass without comment and everybody could just move on and that it would blow over.

Keep in mind:  a) that’s speculation on my part and b) I’m not here to excuse what she did.

But again, that’s not the point. The point is that you handled it badly. So badly, in fact, that I’m not convinced that there’s a point to trying to fix things. You’re asking me for the right things to say to undo what you did when what you NEED to be asking is whether you can borrow my flux capacitor or the keys to the TARDIS in hopes that you can go back in time and smack the phone out of your hands before you made some truly stupid decisions.

I sympathize with you in as much that you wound up getting ghosted and left with just PornHub for company; that’s annoying and frustrating. You feel cheated and betrayed by the fact that she lied to you about it… that’s understandable.

“Calling her out on her bulls

t”, however, is counterproductive. What, exactly were you expecting to happen? Did you hope that, after you vented your righteous anger at her, she would beg your forgiveness and promise you an around-the-world in exchange for getting back in your good graces? Because that ain’t gonna happen.

Y’see, calling a girl out for flaking may make you feel righteous in the short term and it’ll get you lots of headpats from your buddies for “putting that b

ch in her place”, but it’s a lousy way to get laid in the vanishingly unlikely event that you ever see her again. Just between you, me and everyone reading this column, let’s be real: this is more about lashing out at someone who hurt you than making something productive happen. I mean, unless you were raised in a VERY small, insular and specific subculture, you HAVE to know that the number of women out there who get their engines revved by being insulted by relative strangers are so minimal as to be functionally non-existent.

I will concede one theoretical exception: if this had been part of a routine of boundaries-testing behavior on her part. Establishing that this is behavior that you wouldn’t put up with – in a calm, rational and non-accusatory manner – would be appropriate… but it would also ideally be what you say right before you deleted her number and moved on to someone who didn’t act like that.

But that’s not what happened here.

But let me be charitable for a moment. Let’s assume that you called her out with the idea that this would actually make a difference.

In that case, you’re 100% correct. It totally will make a difference.

It’ll make sure that you won’t hear from her ever again.

No woman is going to respond positively to being called out for flaking on someone. Women aren’t Mr. Myxytlplk; catching them out isn’t how you change their minds and get them to go out on a date with you. When a woman flakes or ghosts on you, it’s a sign that she’s not really interested or is having second thoughts about wanting to see you. You’re already working from a losing position when this happens, and getting angry at her about it isn’t going to improve things.

In fact, calling her out on it is going to put her on the defensive, and that’s not a good place to be if you’re trying to sleep with her. Calling her out and then scolding her with “Oh, by the way, I totally cyberstalked you and I know you’re lying because I have evidence” is just going to drive the stake into the heart of whatever sex might have happened, then cut off it’s head, stuff communion wafers in its mouth and burned the body at a crossroads for good measure. You’re not going to “shame” her into shaping up and correcting her wicked ways; you’re not her boyfriend, her BFF or anyone else in her life who might have some moral authority, you’re just some dude she’s been flirting with online. If she was THAT worried about your opinion of her… well, she wouldn’t have flaked on you in the first place.

So yeah, I don’t think you can expect to get up in there any time soon.

For future reference: if someone’s going to flake on you, it’s generally a sign that you haven’t built up enough attraction or interest with her before arranging a date. Without seeing the transcripts and what-not, I can’t point out exactly *where* it happened. However, if she ignored you for four days following when the two of you were supposed to hook up, I’m willing to make some guesses.

I’ve had more than a few occasions where I’ve inadvertently screwed myself out of guaranteed sex because I was horny as hell and I didn’t know how to take “yes” for an answer. I pushed too hard, came on too strong and scared any sex away by generally acting like a horny idiot, thus jawing defeat from the snatch of victory. And frankly, I suspect that’s what happened here.

Now, if you had wanted to discuss the matter with her with an eye towards there actually being a next time, here’s what you should have said. “Listen, I know you weren’t having phone problems last week. If  you’d changed your mind or were having second thoughts, I really would rather you have actually told me instead of acting like this; it’s insulting to the both of us. I still want to see you, but frankly, handling it like this really wasn’t cool.” Calm. Reasonable. Establishes what you expect and what behavior you’re not willing to put up with, without jumping down her throat. And, critically, it doesn’t put her on the defensive or validate her decision to flake on you in the first place.

Freaking out at someone flaking on you isn’t going to help. It just makes you seem immature and lack confidence… or any other options. The only acceptable response to someone flaking on you is to not let it bother you and just move on to someone else. There are other women out there and the vast majority don’t play these sorts of games. Most flakes aren’t because of nerves, they’re because the flaker has decided she’s got better things to do and doesn’t have the courtesy to call you up and cancel. Being willing to put up with that sort of behavior just means you’re more likely to attract it in the future.

When you suspect a flake is imminent, the only real way of pulling out of the nose-dive is to preemptively flake on her. Then when you get in contact afterwards, you are all apologies: “Oh man, I’m so sorry, this thing came up last minute and I totally owe you an awesome dinner for this and I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.” This puts the ball back in HER court and makes her somewhat more likely to go out this time because now she’s the “wronged” party and you “owe” it to her.

Please notice very carefully that I say “somewhat”. You have, at best, a 40% chance of this working. If you’re lucky, it buys you some time to do a better job with the flirting and rapport building… although to be perfectly honest, I don’t know why you’d want to go out with someone who flaked and lied about it, but hey, your milage may vary. Maybe she’s just that good in bed.

As for this girl… yeah, you’re pretty much done. Your only option if you want to salvage the incredibly minuscule chance that she will ever talk to you again is to apologize for being a jerk to her (without the “but you deserved it” subtext – maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but it’s not going to help either way) and see how she responds.

If she does decide to keep talking to you… well, you’re going to have to dial it all the way the f

k back. You’re not picking up where you left off, you’re starting from zero, and you’re going to have a serious uphill climb to get back to where you were in the first place.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I had a decade long relationship  with a lady (We’ll call her B) which came to an end. We both realised we needed to do things for ourselves and work on becoming better more mature people emotionally for each other. In order to work on some of our toxic habits within the relationship, we took a break from the relationship. But the reality is, we weren’t sure if it was a permanent break up or not.

Fast forward a year after, we continued talking and having fairly regular friend-sex, but I made a huge move away. We had spoken about wanting to get back together for months, but we both believed we weren’t quite there yet. We see each other as the one and only of our lives, but we had been dating for the entirety of our adult lives, and sometimes it felt like things were missed outside of our relationship . I have started to become needy and concerned in my time away wanting to talk to her more but I was busy with work and worried she would see me as needy and annoying. I was also scared that she was seeing other guys.  Getting so scared about it made me feel very insecure, selfish and immature, wanting her to myself even though I moved away from her.

For some context, I have had sex and some teenage experiences before being with her, but I was her first and only experience for the last 10 years and I think that slightly adds to my insecurity. She has used that slightly as a reason to wanting to see what it was like to sleep with others.

After moving, she continued sending me things like nudes and telling me to hurry and visit because she’s getting “desperate” —  just all playful flirty fun to get me rushing back sooner I guess. But last night I tried to call her wanting to catch up and talk about the “us” situation.

Well it ended in her missing my calls and telling me later she has been having sex with some other guys specifically that night while I was calling her and other nights before this, she would reaffirm that nothing was serious, I was still special and important and saying things like no one gets her or makes her feel like I do, especially sexually. She also said that a lot of what she’s been doing has been to due to depression; she has a history of self harm and ended up replacing it with sex, sex that I could no longer give her since I moved.

(I was unaware of the self harm coming back up until recently; she had only continued in the last few months.)

I guess my question is: how do I come to grips with all of this? I truly believe she still loves me and I know I still love her. After a long up and down night, we seem more determined than ever to get back together and make it work in the near future.  Of course, the geographical location side of things being eventually dealt with as well.

But I feel so horrible and like a fool. It’s brought me to tears every day, I feel angry, replaced and unneeded, but also jealous and somewhat envious. She was happy for me to see other girls but I can’t bring myself to even try now, I don’t see myself as someone who could get laid or do the dating thing anymore. Not to mention I’m still madly in love with her and don’t want to string other girls along just for sex to even some sort of score between me and B.

I am dealing with all sorts of emotions daily now and plan to make regular visits to her until it either we break up for good, or one of us makes the move and we get back together. I want to feel important and special, and she says all the right things but I am having such a hard time getting over her experiences while we weren’t together. I wanted to be mature and understanding but I’m struck with jealousy and anger like nothing else.

She tells me she doesn’t want to keep sleeping with guys after talking to me, that she wished I was more needy and spoke to her on the phone more, that might have made her less wanting of finding other temporary guys. I wish I put in the effort now, I feel like an absolute fool for trying not to bother her constantly when she tells me now that’s what she wanted, that she hasn’t thoroughly enjoyed sex without me and misses talking to me.

I just wanna be the better man and believe she wants me over anyone else and be better for her, that I don’t become resentful because of her interest in experimenting out there during our “break”. Help?

Break Up or Break Down

DEAR BREAK UP OR BREAK DOWN: So I’m not gonna lie: I hate “we were on a break” with the firey passion of a thousand suns. I hated it when it became a punch-line on Friends, I’ve hated it when couples suggest “taking a break” as a means of dealing with issues in their relationships, and I hate how it never seems to have gone away.

Straight talk: there is no such thing as “taking a break”. It’s one thing to, say, decide that you’re not going to see each other for a little while because you both need space — and hey, every couple needs space on occasion. We can’t expect our partners to be all things to us and trying to make them fit into that role is a recipe for stress. Plus, even the most loving couples will turn into rats in a cage if they’re cooped up in too small a space. Even Gomez and Morticia have a mansion, graveyard and haunted forest in which to do their own thing.

But “taking a break” is a very different beast. “Taking a break” is what you say when you don’t want to admit the truth: you’re breaking up. You may be breaking up under the assumption that you’ll get back together some day in the future… but you’re still breaking up. And unless you have specifically talked about what this does or doesn’t mean and how long you think it’s going to last, then everyone involved needs to understand that it’s functionally a break up and to respond accordingly.

Amongst other things, that means understanding that you can’t expect your partner to be celibate during the time you’re broken up. They may or may not decide to exercise that option, depending on circumstance… but the fact remains that they have it. As do you. Your relationship is functionally over; holding onto the expectation that they’re going to continue acting like you two are still together and the rules still apply is a recipe for heartbreak.

Now in your case, things can feel a little complicated. You two were still talking and hooking up. This isn’t entirely unusual; there are plenty of couples who had great chemistry and affection for one another but couldn’t make things work as a relationship. They may have broken up, but they still talk, hang out and have sex on occasion.

(In fact, for some couples, the problem was the relationship. Take away the relationship label and the attendant expectations and suddenly things work so much better and they’re much happier with one another)

However for you, this blurred the lines; it felt like “taking a break” was more of a formality rather than a break-up. As a result, you continued to behave and think about B as though you two were still together. This is the source of the conflict because B didn’t. She treated this like a break up and as though she were single again instead of just waiting to run down the clock to get back together. That right there is part of the problem; that dissonance between what you thought you two were doing and what she thought you were doing has lead to your feeling hurt and betrayed by the fact that she was also seeing other people.

To be fair: she really didn’t help things by telling you that she missed your call because she was banging some other dude. In fact, her telling you that was both unnecessary and needlessly cruel. All she needed to say was that she was out or busy; the additional detail was pain that could have easily been avoided.

But regardless, the fact that you didn’t treat this like a break up may have also blinded you to an important point: she still loves you. In fact, she was making it clear: she still loves you, desires you and that you’re incredibly special to her. Her having been with other guys — whether it was a matter of self-harm or not — doesn’t change that. Sex isn’t a zero-sum game; her having slept with other guys doesn’t make her feelings for you any less real or special. Hell, she’s telling you, straight up, that none of it was as good or exciting for her as it was with you. If you had treated this more as a break-up and not a temporary interruption in service, you might not be putting the same emphasis on her having slept with someone else. It may still have stung — it can be hard to hear our exes have started dating again — but you wouldn’t be feeling like it was a betrayal or a referendum on you as a person and lover.

All of that having been said: the problems you two are having now — from whether this was temporary or a break-up to what she wanted and needed from you to what your expectations were — come from a lack of communication. You two may have been talking, but it doesn’t seem like you were saying the things that needed to be said. You weren’t sharing what you needed from one another or what you expected to come of this break. So you need to start having those conversations now, at length and in great detail. If the two of you want to get back together and make this work, then you need to have a series of in-depth, awkward conversations about where you are as individuals and as a couple. You need to make sure you’re both on the same page about what you want, what you need from each other and — even more importantly — what you see as being the issue or issues with your relationship. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much you two may love each other; if you don’t resolve the issues that lead to this in the first place, all you’re doing is setting yourself up for the extended dance remix of your first break up. And that one will be a lot harder to pull back from.

Good luck.

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