DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been lacking courage with women in my life, and been taking steps recently to have more courage and take action to go talk to women I’m interested in. Yesterday, I took one of these steps. I went to talk to a performer of the improv show I went to, she was absolutely brilliant (and pretty!). I interrupted her with her friends after the show to congratulate her, and we had a nice little chat, she made conversation with me and seemed interested. She asked if I’d be coming back to the next show, which is in one month, to which I replied I definitely would. Now I didn’t want to bother her as her friends were interrupting, and it was another (scary!) step to take her number right away/suggest we meet again, which I didn’t do. So I wished her good night. (Aside: It’s hard to reconcile being proud of taking little steps while still being disappointed in oneself for not being perfect)

Now the next show is in one month and I think it’s a long time to wait. And I’m pretty good at finding people on Facebook, if you catch my drift.

My dilemma is this: should I contact her online, offering we meet again, or should I wait a month to (possibly) talk to her again? On one hand, I want to strike the iron while it’s hot and act with urgency but I don’t want to make her feel stalked; and on the other, I prefer the engagement of face-to-face but a lot of things can happen and pass in one month, and the logistics of talking to her again could be difficult.

Thanks Doc, keep on keepin’ on

Taking Little Steps

DEAR TAKING LITTLE STEPS: First of all TLC, you should be proud of yourself. You’ve done something that you’ve had a hard time with in the past – going up and starting conversations with people. That’s awesome. Don’t let the fact that you didn’t do or accomplish everything you’d hoped for get you down; self-improvement is a marathon, not a sprint. Take each milestone as it comes instead of getting upset that you haven’t hit the next one already. Trust me: success breeds success, and those little steps add up over time. Take pride in what you have done and let that motivate you for the next step.

So with that in mind, I want to make sure that you don’t screw up your progress and set yourself back by making a couple common mistakes.

Because believe me, tracking this person down on Facebook would be a mistake right now.

Here’s a quick rundown of social media etiquette: certain platforms have different expectations of intimacy. Twitter, for example is an open platform; it’s generally expected that you’re tweeting out to the general public. In an awkward metaphor, it’s somewhere between standing on a soapbox and having a conversation with people out on the street. Some people prefer private accounts and only interact with mutual or approved followers, but for the most part there’s a low expectation of privacy and intimacy.

(Of course, this can quickly lead to problems with people sea-lioning…)

Instagram is similar; it’s an outward facing system designed for people to promote themselves and build an audience of people who want to see their content. While there ARE folks who prefer to keep their IG private and locked to friends only, it’s generally safe to assume that people on Instagram are cool with their content being put out there for public consumption.

Because a lot of people – especially creative types and performers – use Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat for public promotion, it’s not terribly unusual to follow people you don’t know well or know at all.

Facebook, on the other hand, is more intimate. While there are people who will leave their Facebook accounts wide open and who collect as many friends as possible, most people reserve Facebook connections to people who they have a certain level of familiarity with. The accepted level of familiarity may vary – some people will accept friend requests from friends of friends or people they interact with in Facebook groups and professional pages, while others will only accept requests from family and people they know very well. When you get a friend request from someone you only barely know or have only met once… well that can be a little awkward, especially if you don’t otherwise have any social contact with her.

In your case, TLS, you really don’t have a social connection with this person. Unless you’ve left some details out of your letter, you don’t share overlapping social circles or mutual friends to vouch for you; if you did, you wouldn’t have to track her down on Facebook. All you’ve had at this point is one conversation after a performance. And while it’s great that it went well, you’re still a stranger to her. And believe me, having someone who you have met once or twice in passing track you down on Facebook is seriously creepy.

Here’s the other mistake you’re making – you’re overestimating her potential interest in you. As with most things in life, context counts. In your case, you’re coming up to a performer after their performance and chatting with them briefly. They’re still in performance mode, as it were – enjoying the endorphin rush of another successful show, appreciating the kind words and compliments from the audience, engaging with fans, etc. Unless she was going out of her way to engage you, then odds are good that this was her-as-performer; asking if you were going to come to the next show is more about getting people to come back and fill the seats. It’s like meeting creators at conventions: they’re there with a purpose, and that purpose isn’t about making new friends. It’s rare that you’re going to become fast friends after a brief conversation at their table.

So to be perfectly blunt: there really isn’t any urgency here because there’s no emotional momentum to lose.

I know this is feeling kind of harsh and upsetting; despite all appearances I REALLY don’t like stomping on people’s hopes. But right now, you’ve made such great progress that I’m trying to keep you from ruining it by overstepping things and feeling even worse when things don’t work out the way you’d hoped. Believe me, that painful mix of feeling rejected and “how could I be so stupid” hurts way more than dialing your expectations back. Trust me: I’ve been there and done that so many times I bought the factory that makes the shirts.

So here’s what I suggest: hang tight, practice your approaches – both cold and warm approaches – and get better at starting conversations with people. Take the month to just work on being social. When the next performance comes around, see if you can talk to her a little more afterwards. Don’t go into it hoping to get her number; just work on getting comfortable talking to someone you’re attracted to. And if things are going really well, then ask if you can friend her on Facebook. Simply say “hey, I’m really enjoying talking to you, and I’d like to continue later on. Is it OK if I friend you on Facebook?”

If she’s cool with it, she’ll tell you how to find her. If she’s not – she may say she only talks to close friends or family – then… well, it’s going to be disappointing, but you should still be proud of yourself. You’ll have made another significant step. And those steps are going to lead you to some amazing times in the future.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: 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)