DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I come to you seeking advice on my issue with casual sex. Currently I’m 27 and I’m starting to notice some issues when it comes to hooking up with girls I’m not romantically involved with. When I was younger (18-23) it was easier for me to dissociate feelings with sex. I would be perfectly okay with no communication or not seeing someone again after a one night stand. Now things aren’t as easy and I find myself becoming emotionally attached to the women I sleep with even though I know they’re not someone I’d be in a relationship with (and the same with them).

A little background info on me… I spent a year in Afghanistan from a deployment with the Army and I came back thinking everything was fine because I didn’t have any traumatic experiences. It turns out I was worse than I thought, I was anti-social and separated myself from friends and family. When I did hang out with people I was kind of empty inside. I believe now I’m passed those feelings but my issues with feelings after sex are worsening.

I recently hooked up with my friend from the army’s sister (Her and I are friends too but through him). It was not only a terrible night of sex because we were both really drunk but I found myself nearly depressed the next day. I felt feelings of rejection and projected a lot of feelings in my head that she never really even hinted at, she’s more of a free spirit so it was completely casual. It’s like I’m torn, I know that we would never date because she lives a ways away and I don’t think we would make a good couple, but I also feel like I should date her and almost feel guilty about the night we had. How do I dissociate these feelings? Why do I feel like we should be dating and also being content with being friends despite the massive contradiction? This isn’t the only time it’s happened, just the most recent.

I appreciate your time!

-Some Strings Attached

DEAR SOME STRINGS ATTACHED: As with many people who write in, I think the problem you’re asking about isn’t the problem you’re having, SSA.

See, I think your problem’s pretty clear: you’re dying for a connection with someone… anyone. I mean, you say it yourself: you spent a lot of time separating yourself from your family and friends. However, you’re also craving connection and emotional intimacy and you’re probably feeling intensely lonely and you’ve got this part of you that’s reaching out for almost anyone who comes within your orbit. You’ve pushed away a lot of the people who you were close to and so now this part of you that’s craving a human connection is trying to build it up with the people you’re hooking up with.

Now keep in mind: Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor and nothing I say should be taken as anything even vaguely like medical advice. However, the thing that leaps out at me is your social isolation and feeling empty… those tend to be pretty big warning signs and ones that correspond a lot with people dealing with emotional trauma and PTSD. You say you didn’t have any traumatic experiences, but that doesn’t mean your time over there didn’t affect you. Similarly, the fact that you’re not digging trenches in your back yard or having flashbacks doesn’t mean that you’re not having problems; a lot of people coming back have issues reconnecting with family and friends or feeling whole again. And to be quite frank: issues like that doesn’t just go away… especially on it’s own. You don’t talk about whether or not you talked with a therapist after your deployment, but the way you describe things makes me think you didn’t. It sounds to me – and I freely admit I could be wrong – that you tried to white-knuckle your way through things and waited to get better. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but either way it really doesn’t seem like you’re past those issues.

That’s why I think that you’re looking in the wrong direction. I don’t think the problem is that you’re catching feelings from random hook-ups, I think the problem is that you’re having a hard time after an emotionally trying, possibly overwhelming experience. Trying to distance yourself from the people you’re sleeping with is a mistake because not only is that treating a symptom rather than the source, but it’s just reinforcing your isolation and disconnection.

Again: I’m not a doctor, I’m a loudmouth with a blog. However, a doctor or therapist is exactly who I think you should be talking to right now. The fact that you can’t point at any single thing that happened to you doesn’t mean that you on your deployment to cause a problem doesn’t invalidate how you’re feeling. You don’t need to have been in the middle of a giant explosion, crash or ambush to have gone through some s

t and need to talk to somebody. ER nurses, first responders, social workers and other people who don’t go through combat or assault suffer from PTSD, after all. Similarly, asking for help or going to talk to somebody – even if it’s just about a vague sense of unease – isn’t something to be ashamed of, or something that makes you weak or unable to hack it. It makes you human, same as everyone else. And humans need help on occasion. It takes some real strength to admit that sometimes you can’t do it on your own.

The best thing you can do right now is to find a counselor to talk to about your self-isolation and the way you’re responding to sex would be a good start.

Good luck. And write back to let us know how you’re doing.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long-time listener, first-time caller. I’m having trouble coming up with a positive way to phrase what I’m looking for on my dating site/app profiles.

I’m a guy and I’m in my 30s, but I’m not looking for a long-term relationship. Instead I’d like to explore more of the casual sex/dating/fun side of things (which I’ve never really done, so I’m not 100% sure exactly what I AM looking for).

I’m not looking to compulsively rack up notches on my bedpost — it’d be nice to have sex AND make friends — but I want to make it clear I’m not angling to be a boyfriend, while also not coming across like a guy who’ll say “wassup babe u dtf??” and send a d

k pic.

See? It seems easy to describe what I don’t want, but tricky to describe what I DO want. I suspect Captain Jack Harkness could say it with a wink, but I’ve got 500 characters to work with instead. Any ideas?

Swear To God, Not A Creep

DEAR SWEAR TO GOD, NOT A CREEP: t’s really not that difficult, STGNAC. Most of the time it’s about being honest about what you want and looking for people who’re on the same page as you.

Keeping things casual is more about behavior and attitude than anything else. In an online dating profile, f’rex, there’re a number of things that give a more “looking for a relationship” vibe than a “looking for friends-with-benefits”. If your profile is filled with photos of you playing with your nieces and nephews or talking about more “domestic” activities like cooking and such, you’re going to be giving more of an impression that you’re looking to settle down. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the dudes who have nothing but pics of them with their bros or finding excuses to get their shirts off to show their abs and talking about their crazy weekends are pretty demonstrably looking to get laid.

In your case, it’s pretty clear that you want to strike the balance between the two while leaning a wee bit more to the “casual sex” side of things. One of the things I’d suggest is leaving “long term dating” off your profile. Same with mentions of whether you want kids and the like. You can also say that you’re not looking for anything serious or just wanting to meet cool people and have fun… both of these are going to read more as “not looking for commitment”.

The other thing I would suggest is being playfully flirty in your messages back and forth. Maybe not right off the bat, but a little teasing, a little innuendo… these go a long way towards signaling intent without necessarily going overboard.

I’d suggest splitting your time between OKCupid and Tinder. Tinder may be more hook-up oriented, but there are plenty of people looking for something casual on OKC as well. Playing around with both will let you functionally A/B test your approach; what works on one app may or may not work as well on the other and you can adjust your profile accordingly.

And don’t forget: my book “When It Clicks” is great for helping refine your online dating game, regardless of whether you want something casual or more serious.

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 just coming out of what I think was my first relationship, but to be honest I don’t know if it’s over, or if it even started. I’m all mixed up and feeling lonely without the support she would normally be giving me. The events leading up to it are unusual to say the least so I’ll start at the beginning.

A few years ago, two friends of mine started dating. I’ve been friends with one of them – we’ll call her A – for three years, but we were never super close. I’d been friends with the other guy – who we’ll call B – for eight years. A and B started dating around two-ish years ago, and they’d been going steady ever since.

This year I started going to the gym with A. We started becoming closer, but we never hung out outside of the gym. However, things started to get rough in her relationship, and she and her boyfriend fought a bunch. It culminated in B hurting A, and doing some pretty bad emotional damage. I’d rather not disclose the exact details of what happened, but this was lifelong trauma levels of hurt.

It was… bad. They dragged out the relationship for about a month after, during which A came to me for comfort, while B turned away all the help I offered. A and I grew extremely close. I opened up in ways I’ve never opened up before, and was able to receive emotional support in a way that just isn’t really common between guys. Additionally, it felt like I was genuinely helping someone to become a happier person, and that gave me a great warm and fuzzy feeling. Over all, everything was great. I’d found someone who I could genuinely call my best friend, a title I’d never wholeheartedly given out before.

Here’s where things go wrong. A had been separated from her ex for about a month and a half, even though the breakup was only formalised a few weeks ago. At this point in time, A and I were hanging out one or two times a week, and we talked every night before bed. I realised that had feelings for A, but I didn’t really understand them. I couldn’t tell if I liked her romantically, or if she was just a friend who also happened to be extremely attractive. Regardless, I asked her out and she said yes.Sort of.

Her last relationship had left her with her trust pretty damaged, and she said she didn’t want a full relationship yet. I was about to let it go and move on when she said she’d be open to being casual, and that she’d actually had a crush on me since before the big bang that ended her relationship. I was ecstatic. I’d never been in a relationship before, and I’d never been as close with anyone as I was with A. I had been afraid that I would ruin our friendship when she turned me down, but everything was going better than planned. The next few weeks were heaven. We had sex a couple times, and we talked even more openly than before.

Unfortunately, school ramped up, and we didn’t have time to hang out. I was feeling a bit alone. I got drunk and depressed at a party. In my drunkenness, I decided to “test” her. I pretended to be sad and refused interaction from anyone to see if she would come and check on me. She sent a friend to do so because she felt she was too drunk to help.  I interpreted this as her not deeming me worth the time. It was a dick move in hindsight. Apparently her ex used to do this and she really didn’t like that I did it too. She became distant over the next week before telling me why she was mad, and I was hurt that she hadn’t told me I’d messed up earlier. It’s been downhill from there.

And now we’ve reached the present. We’ve been talking lately. Apparently what she’d wanted from “being casual” was casual hookups on top of being friends. What I thought she’d meant was an open, short term relationship. She revealed to me recently that things just got to close to a full relationship for her comfort. She’s been wobbling between wanting to be friends with benefits with me, wanting to cut things off, and everything in between.

I think I still have feelings for her, but I don’t really know. Last time we hung out was before it all went bad, and we had a great time. I want to continue to spend time with her, but she keeps jumping around on what she wants. She’s leaving for out of town soon, so she’ll be gone for a while. I’m all mixed up inside and I don’t know what to do. This is not only the first (almost) relationship I’ve had, but also the first time I’ve really liked a girl this much. I know that a serious relationship is totally out of the question, but I’d like to at least go back to how we were before.

Basically here’s the questions:

Will we ever be able to go back to being close friend’s like before? The support from that was amazing and really helped me make it through the year, and I’d love to go back to that.

Is it possible for us to be physically intimate, but also be friends, without all this happening again?

How can I tell how she feels? Everything she says contradicts something she has said, is contradicting something she ends up saying later.

What should my next steps be? I really don’t like the idea of going nuclear with her.

How do I avoid this sort of thing happening again in the future?

Best Wishes

-All Mixed Up

DEAR ALL MIXED UP: Hoo boy.

This was… not the best relationship for your first foray into dating AMU. While I don’t doubt that you and your friend had a real connection, there was a lot of crossed wires, miscommunications and complicated history there.

The good news is that this is also going to provide you with a lot of much-needed experience that will serve you well in future relationships. Assuming, of course, that you actually learn the lessons from this one.

And the first lesson is don’t test your relationships. Ok, look, I get it. You sound pretty young and this was your first serious relationship. You were drunk, you were feeling low and you were having doubts. But there’s feeling low and having doubts and then there’s trying to make your girlfriend jump through hoops in order to prove… something. Part of the point of being in a relationship with someone is learning to trust them and to rely on them. If you’re worried about things or have questions, the answer isn’t to see if she’ll pass your ordeals three, it’s to use you words and talk to her.

That, incidentally, is the second lesson. For as close as the two of you were, you weren’t talking with each other… not in the way you should have. The most obvious disconnect happened right at the outset. One of the most important parts of having the Defining The Relationship Talk is to actually define your terms. It’s pretty clear that you and A had very different ideas and expectations of the kind of relationship the two of you were going to have. You heard “casual relationship” and focused on the “relationship” part, not the “casual”. She, on the other hand, expected to just add sex to your pre-existing friendship without expectations of monogamy and commitment. She wanted something low key, some intimacy and comfort  while she was healing from the heartbreak of whatever it was that B did.

If the two of you had had a conversation about what you expected and defined your terms, things might have turned out differently. You might not have been quite so upset by her being busy with school and accidentally reopened the wounds that B gave her.

But you did and now the only thing to do is move forward.

So taking your questions in reverse order:

The way you avoid this in the future is to prioritize open and clear communication. Make sure you and your future partners are on the same pages about what you expect from your relationship, and don’t be afraid to express your feelings to them.

Your next step is to talk with her, find out what she needs and let her prioritize her healing; she hasn’t been out of her relationship with B very long and if things were as traumatic as you said, she’s going to need time. That may, unfortunately, mean time away from you.

You tell how she feels by talking to her and making sure you understand what she’s saying. It’s not that she was asking for contradictory things, it’s that you two were talking at cross purposes. You had conflicting ideas of what this relationship would entail and that detonated the whole thing.

No, I don’t think you’re going to be FWBs again any time soon. I think you’re going to need to get more relationship experience under your belt before that’s a real possibility, and she’s going to need time to focus on getting over her previous relationship.

Only time will tell. If you can go back to being her friend and letting go of your hope to get back into her pants, then maybe. But again, this is going to depend on her.

Unfortunately this leads into your third lesson: not everything can be fixed, no matter how badly you want it. Sometimes the consequences of your mistakes is that the relationship is permanently changed and can’t go back to what it used to be. The only thing you can do from this point forward is see what this new relationship will be… or if there will even be one.

But that’s going to depend on A. And the only way you can ever know for sure is to talk to her.

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: It’s been a year since I joined the military, and looking back, I’m in a much better spot now than I was then. When I joined, I had just withdrawn from college due to drug addiction and was living with my parents, feeling like dirt. I joined because I felt like I needed a kick in the ass, I was tired of feeling like a flunky who blew his chance at a good life, and I wanted to try and start a career in a different direction.

A year later, and I’ve got a much better relationship with my parents, I’ve lost weight, and I’m doing well financially. By all metrics, I feel like life is going better, and that I’ve made immense improvements to myself.

So why can’t I stop feeling like a f

king loser?

When I was skipping class, doing drugs, ignoring my well-being and relationships, I was getting more dates than ever and felt more confident than I do now, despite my life being in shambles. In my mind, I went from an awkward nerd who had trouble talking to people let alone women, to someone who partied, hung out with friends, and could chat up women easy.

Everything fell apart. And I’ve built myself back up. But I’m not valuing that. And I can’t stop thinking that the me that appears when I’m an addict is more appealing than the me that has my s

t together.

I can’t even trust my own mind. I guess that’s why I’m asking you; How can I get myself to start valuing my accomplishments again? I want to have the same confidence I had before but without the same self-destructive habits.

Very respectfully,

Hyde Wishing He Was Jekyll

DEAR HYDE WISHING HE WAS JEKYL: You said it yourself, HWHEWJ: “in your mind.”

It’s not that being an addict made you a cooler, more confident person: you’re just remembering it that way. I mean, let’s be honest here: if life were that awesome, why’d you stop? By your own admission, you had dropped out of college, your relationships were awful and your life was falling apart.

Fun thing about our brains: they lie to us. We aren’t objective, impartial observers of reality; we lie to ourselves all the time. We distort our own memories, we edit out the unpleasant parts and choose to only focus on the highlights of our past. That’s one of the reasons why, for example, we’re tempted to go back to exes that we know are bad for us. It’s also part of the reason why we’re tempted to go back to lifestyles that we know were ruinous.

That’s before we even factor in mind-altering substances. To quote a wise man, everybody knows you’ll life forever when you’ve done a line or two. It’s really easy to think that you’re hotter, suaver, smoother and more attractive when you’re drunk or high. But the problem is that your ability to judge your own state is severely impaired. You’re not thinking clearly… you just believe you are. In your mind, you’re the second coming of Oscar Wilde, dropping bon mots and holding court to a room full of admirers who’re hanging on your every word. In reality… well, you’re the guy who’s slurring about his philosophy, laughing at his own jokes and missing the increasingly annoyed, uncomfortable and bored looks on the faces of the people around you.

And look, I’m as guilty of that as anyone. I’ve had too much to drink and thought I was the smoothest of the smooth and the coolest of the cool… and in reality, I was being an obnoxious asshole to people. And yet even after hearing about my drunken a

holery after the fact, I still remember things differently.

The parts I remember at all, that is.

Right now you’re at a low point. You’re missing that bullet-proof confidence you used to have. It doesn’t matter that it was all illusory, smoke and mirrors from your own brain; you miss the way it felt, even if the reality doesn’t line up. And that’s totally understandable. But here’s the thing: you still have that confidence. You have the capability within you. At the risk of sounding like an After School Special, you had the confidence in you all along. It’s not that drugs magically imbued you with confidence and the gift of gab, it just turned down the volume on the parts of your brain that were holding you back. It’s less Dumbo’s magic feather and more Dumbo’s magic mushroom.

You felt that way before. You can feel that way again. You can still party, you can still hang out with your friends and you can still talk up women. You can find your confidence again. You’ll have to do it the hard way – not using the drugs as a short-cut – but it can be done. You start by recognizing what you have and learning to be grateful for them. Simply stopping and taking stock of your life is a good way of recognizing that you have more going for you than you realize. And you already have a lot to be proud of; pulling yourself back from the brink and rebuilding your life is pretty goddamn impressive.

The next step is rebuilding your social circle. Part of recovery is having your Team You on your side, the people who love and support you and encourage you. The good news is that you have easy access to that too; you’ve got your brothers and sisters in the military… your literal squad. They may not all be your new best friends, but you’ve already got that bond to build on. Let that be the foundation for finding those important, emotionally fulfilling friendships, especially with other men. You can still hang out with your friends without having to be stoned out of your gourd.

And while you’re at it, find your community. One of the things that helps build us up is feeling like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. Your service in the military is one example. Another may be what you do after you leave the service. Finding – or creating – your community and your purpose will give you direction and fulfillment. You’ll have the feeling of satisfaction, of knowing that you’re doing something that matters will help build that sense of confidence and make you realize just how much you have to offer.

Remember: the past you remember is an illusion, a mirage. It’s a fantasy that obscured the ugly reality of your situation. You’re in a position to rebuild it… for real this time.

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