DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Really appreciate the good work you’ve been doing ever since I first came across your site. I’ve recently found myself in a bind and I’m hoping you could maybe bring out the chair leg of truth…?

First off, I’m a 22 year old cis male living away from home. In the last three years, I’ve moved abroad and changed cities twice. While it has been a worthwhile experience, most of my relationships have been rendered short term. As a result, I’ve been in a drought, if you know what I mean. However, I met this girl, let’s call her True, like two years ago. It was a cold approach, and when I asked for her number, she said she would rather take mine. I thought that was a soft no, and she would not contact me but, lo and behold, she did. We started talking.

She made it clear after a while that she was in an open relationship but/and she was open to fooling around. I agreed, partially because I already liked her and well, I was kinda desperate. We met and had a make out session(which was really good) and slowed down on the talking for a while.

We recently reconnected and she said she wanted to meet up. She invited me to an event, which later turned out to be at her boyfriend’s house. As it turned out, the boyfriend had also invited the girl he fools around with. I didn’t know how to feel about that but True and I ended up fooling around like some teenagers again. And it was fucking awesome.

Here’s the thing. I’m not sitting around waiting for them to break up (I think they plan to get married) but this arrangement is taking an unnecessary strain on me. I definitely like True and I know she likes me but I really don’t know what’s the endgame here. I’ve struck out with my last few approaches and as a result, I’m unfortunate developing an unfortunate case of Oneitis.

I’ve considered blocking her and ghosting but it seems a bit extreme. I really don’t know where to go from here, because I know there’s an end coming, I’d just like it to be on my own terms to the extent that that’s possible.

Any wise words of wisdom…?

Thanks in advance.

Stuck In The Middle

DEAR STUCK IN THE MIDDLE: There’s not really an endgame here, SITM. You and True may get along like a house on fire, have amazing chemistry and astounding make-out sessions… but at the end of the day, you and True just aren’t right for one another. She may be an amazing person, but she’s a person with a boyfriend, and it’s pretty clear that the whole “open relationship” thing isn’t gonna work for you.

Now maybe it wouldn’t be as difficult if they did their open relationship differently. Some couples (and throuples and polypods) have no problem with everyone knowing everyone else; it’s just a case of “hey we’re all a big friendly social circle and also some of us fuck”. Others prefer to date discreetly or keep their various relationships separate. In the case of True and her boyfriend, they’re the former. Maybe it’d be easier or less stressful if it were the latter. But even if you were seeing her and never having to meet or hang out with her boyfriend, he’s still gonna be in the picture. Even if they’re polyamorous and she can have romantic relationships alongside her relationship with her boyfriend… well, she’s still gonna have her boyfriend.

If you can handle that then hey, there’s nothing wrong with this being a relationship that doesn’t have a long-term future. As I often say, not every love story needs to be an epic poem. Some love stories are meant to be a short story. Some are meant to be a dirty limerick. You can let things be and take this ride to its natural conclusion… if that’s something you’re ok with.

But if you what you’re looking for is monogamy and exclusivity, or the potential for long-term commitment and something casual doesn’t work for you, then the best thing you can do is call it and free yourself to find someone who’s in line with what you need. But I think blocking and ghosting is the wrong approach here. It would be one thing if she were cruel or inconsiderate, or there were some reason you didn’t dare break up with her in person. But it sounds to me like she’s a lovely person who’s been straightforward and honest with you; her only flaw is that she just just doesn’t mesh with you in the ways that you need. I think in this case, you owe her the respect of telling her “Hey, you’re great, but this isn’t right for me.”

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: It’s Navigating Muddy Waters, from last year (“Am I Leading On My Ex?” 04/11/19)

Thank you and the community for your advice! They’ve given me strength to deal with my line stepping ex.

I went ‘no contact’ with him but we sometimes see each other at friends’ birthdays. While he’s not hinting at sex with me anymore, he’s offended when he deems me too flirty with common friends. 14 months have passed since I broke up with him, yet still he lies in wait for every smile I throw anyone — this time to be offended rather than hopeful for sex. It’s a lost cause really.

Your advice and the readers’ comments help me not feel guilty about it but rather annoyed with this guy, so: thanks!!!

Clear Sailing Now

DEAR CLEAR SAILING NOW: Hey, awesome! I’m glad to hear you’ve taken some positive steps and enforced your boundaries with your ex.

Thanks for writing in and letting us know how things are going.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: A guy from school that I barely know – we have one class together and don’t even sit beside each other – has been telling my friends and acquaintances about how ‘heartbroken’ he is that I “don’t like him the way he likes me”. Of course my concerned friends and acquaintances have approached me and told me about it – he corners them in line at the cafeteria, or while they’re waiting for the bus, or even when they’re in the library studying, so he can dump his FEELINGS all over them and ask for “advice” about “how to get me to like him”.

They’re freaked out, I’m freaked out, and I don’t know what to do.

Is this guy just trying to dig for information about me in order to gauge his chances? Or is he trying to coerce me into going out with him so he’ll stop harassing my friends and making everyone (including me!) SUPER uncomfortable? I get that, if you’re shy, you might want to test the waters first, but this feels more like a coordinated campaign than some innocent, awkward guy trying to figure out his feelings. Of course he knew that my friends/acquaintances would tell me about his actions and “feelings” so, now that the cat’s out of the bag, apparently I’m supposed to respond. Consequently, it feels manipulative and creepy and now I’m scared and don’t want to go to class. If I say, “Sorry, not interested. Stop hitting up my friends because you’re freaking them out”, I’m guessing that there’s a pretty good chance that it’ll go badly for me and he’ll try to retaliate somehow. If his current M.O. is any indication, he’ll probably spread malicious lies and rumours about me in order to get people in our program ‘on his side’ and make me out as some kind of psycho b*tch who was actually stalking him rather than the other way around.

I have no interest in dating him, though, and don’t respect the way he manipulated my friends into telling me about his feelings on his behalf rather than just nutting up and doing it himself. Should I just ignore him and hope he gets the hint?

(I know this sounds very high school-ish but we’re actually in university. I really didn’t see this coming.)

Thanks for your feedback.

Objection, Hearsay

DEAR OBJECTION, HEARSAY: Not gonna lie, OH; until I got to the end of your letter, I was pretty convinced this was going to be another in the long-running genre of “high-school is hell, don’t worry too much about dating” genre of letters I get. I’m a little surprised — not that surprised, but a little — to find out that you are all in university. There’s always the hope that folks will have, at the very least, learned enough to actually talk to the person they’re trying to date.

You’d think after doing this for all these years, I would’ve learned.

So this is going to sound like a digression, but stick with me. Recently, there’s been a company called Spinner that promises to essentially gaslight someone in your life into doing what you want. Among the various suggested ideas are “Get your ex to take you back,” “convince your partner to initiate sex more”, “convince your parents to buy you a dog” and other, increasingly dubious options. The way they propose to do this is to insert targeted ads into the “Around the web…” ad blocks (er… like the ones I use…) on your target’s browser. So if you, for example, are hoping to convince your ex to come back to you, they’d seed articles about how great sex with your ex is or some such s

t into ads that your target would see. And then, theoretically, even if they never actually click on the ads to see the accompanying article, your target would have seen so many instances of “hey, you should go back to ol’ wozizname” headlines that they’d be subliminally influenced into giving you a second chance.

(In reality, you spent a stupid amount of money to enable being a goddamn creep AND exploit someone’s trust and poor info-sec practices for s

t that doesn’t actually work but hey, let’s not quibble over details.)

I bring this up because honestly? That’s a high-tech version of what this guy is doing: he’s making such a fuss about oh how in luuuuurve he is with you that you can’t NOT hear about it. And since so many movies and pop songs and rom-coms focus on “oh but he cares SO MUCH how could she not be swayed by the depth of his devotion” and then a love to last the ages is born. Any actual intelligence or advice he may get from your friends is a bonus, not the goal. As long as you hear about this and get curious enough to find out more, then he gets what he’s always wanted: a chance to convince you by… I dunno. Just existing. Or promising that nobody would ever care for you the way he does — something that’s easily disproved by getting a dog.

Unfortunately he’s yet to learn a truth that, sadly, many folks haven’t learned yet: if the only thing you have to offer somebody is your affection, that person could get better results by visiting their animal shelter and giving a dog or cat a forever home.

Notice, however, that he’s not talking to you. There’s a reason for that: he knows that if he were to actually put on his big-boy pants and ask you out like a grown-ass adult, you’d say “no”. And possibly “who are you, again?” Not coming to you directly does two things. First, it lets him keep his fantasy that if he just crushes at you hard enough, he’ll eventually reach a tipping point where you’re swayed by just how much he “loves” you, without his having to do anything like “risk rejection” or “have qualities that would make you interested in dating him.” Second: it lets him position himself as The Love-Lorn Hero, the tragic figure who is so pure and true, yet cursed by unrequited love, woe and alack. It’s easier on the ego to feel like you’ve had the s

t kicked out of you by love than it is to admit that not only did you get overly dramatic about a crush, but you didn’t actually do anything in the first place.

Plus, there’s always the chance that some well-intentioned bystander will start pressuring you to give the poor guy a chance because just look at how heartbroken he is, would it be so bad for you to just talk to him? Hence the “WOE IS ME FOR MY HEART IS BROKEN. YOU, STRANGER, TAKE PITY ON A POOR LOST SOUL” dramatics. It’s as much about the performance and his personal narrative as it is about you hearing about it.

Personally, I’m a fan of what the Talmud had to say about what women owe some poor “heartbroken” soul who insists that he’ll just die without her:

“The Gemara notes that Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: There was an incident involving a certain man who set his eyes upon a certain woman and passion rose in his heart, to the point that he became deathly ill. And they came and asked doctors what was to be done with him. And the doctors said: He will have no cure until she engages in sexual intercourse with him. The Sages said: Let him die, and she may not engage in sexual intercourse with him. The doctors said: She should at least stand naked before him. The Sages said: Let him die, and she may not stand naked before him. The doctors suggested: The woman should at least converse with him behind a fence in a secluded area, so that he should derive a small amount of pleasure from the encounter. The Sages insisted: Let him die, and she may not converse with him behind a fence.”

This dude’s feels are his own responsibility. Not your friends’ and not yours. At the moment, I don’t think your telling him to f

k off is warranted; I’d be more worried about the fact that you had to track him down to tell him would just give him the feeling that hey, maybe this s

t works! Your friends, on the other hand, should start by telling him to leave them the hell alone about this and to quit trying to drag them into his drama. If he keeps bugging them about you, then they can tell him that not only should he leave them the hell alone, but that you aren’t interested, that you aren’t going to be interested and he needs to make like Elsa and let. It. Go.

If he starts bugging you, personally, then I’d say not only tell him to go away, but seriously consider dropping a word to the university. As it is, your giving him any direct attention only reinforces that these tactics work. So unless and until he brings it to you, then your ignoring it denies him the thing he’s desperate to have. Hopefully your friends telling him to go away will be enough that nobody has to break out the Chair Leg of Truth and give him the bad news in a blunter and more direct manner.

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 want to have casual sex with women, but it feels like there’s no way a guy can communicate this without being seen as creepy, shamed, or demonized.

Ask her off the bat? “Eww, too forward!”

Ask her after getting to know her? “I don’t see you like that!” followed by all future interactions being tainted and her likely telling anyone we know I’m creepy.

Ask her after sex is on the table or we’ve already had sex? “You are awful, leading me on like that!”

So what are we supposed to do? It’s not like we can read women’s minds and know exactly what they want. How do I get to the point where we can just communicate like adults, and she can say “no thanks” instead of demonizing me for having different desires than her?

To clarify, I’m not looking for something that works 100% on all women at all times, I’m trying to not be seen as evil just for stepping over an invisible line I had no way of knowing even existed.

No Strings On Me

DEAR NO STRINGS ON ME: The answer is pretty simple: you look for folks who want something casual. There are plenty of folks on dating apps who are looking for short term relationships or don’t want anything serious. Similarly, being up front about what you are and aren’t up for makes it easier for the folks looking for some no-strings, casual fun to find you.

But before you do that, I think you need to take a moment and stop anticipating fights that haven’t actually happened. You give me a list of things you expect to happen or imagine happening… but not experiences you’ve actually had. You’re coming to this under the assumption that you’re going to end up in trouble for wanting a casual hook-up and that’s going to color the way you interact with people and ultimately drive them off.

The thing to keep in mind is that lots of women would be up for a casual hook-up; it’s just that most of the time it’s not worth it for them because the guys who are also looking for casual sex are likely to call them sluts and whores for having the same sex that they wanted. Women are much more interested in sleeping with a guy who’s discrete, polite, safe and non-judgmental. That’s a guy who’s far more likely to care about their pleasure and fulfillment and not be an asshole to them immediately afterwards.

So if you want to start finding folks who are down for a one night stand or a f

kbuddy relationship, start by coming to it from a place of collaboration. Here’s what you’re into and what you bring  to the table, here’s what they’re looking for and what they bring, what happens when the two of you put those things together? Once you can get into that mindset, then it’s time to start looking around on OKCupid or Tinder or FetLife and seeing who’s around and who’s down to get down.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My situation is that I’ve been in a relationship with “Angela” for the past 3 1/2 years. Some of that was long distance and the other was live in. There is a 10 year age difference, I’m 38, she 28. We come from different backgrounds and cultures. To get to the point. When we met, within a short period of time she knew that I had religious ties to an organization in my past. I even have a tattoo associated with this belief. In the beginning and basically for the past 3 years she hasn’t really had any objections until recently. Now, it’s a huge problem. She gets so angry that I believe in something she thinks is ridiculous and can’t understand why I just don’t see her point of view and give it up or be less religious. I should add, I’m perfectly tolerant of her atheism, I have no issue with her and don’t get upset with her about it. Live and let live is my motto. This is why it’s so hard to hear the things she says and it causes huge arguments because I, according to her don’t change my belief. Today it has come to a crunch, where I basically had to argue chapter 18 of the charter of Human Rights that gives me the right to believe what I want. She still doesn’t get it and blames it on me.

What do I do?

Man Of Faith

DEAR MAN OF FAITH: What do you do? You break the f

k up with her, right the hell now.

It’s one thing to not be a fan of organized religion personally; it’s another to berate and insult other people because they are.2 This is doubly true when it comes to your3 partner in a relationship. You may not share their belief (or lack thereof). You may even think that it’s absurd. You don’t even have to respect their beliefs, but if you love and care for them and want the relationship to work then you need to respect that they believe that way. If you’re both intractably set in your ways, being willing to live and let live is going to be key to lasting happiness.

But when one partner uses their faith or (again) lack thereof as a cudgel to start fights and insult their partner? It’s time to peace the f

k out.

The problem here isn’t your faith or her atheism, it’s her. It would be one thing if this were an occasional (good-natured) debate, or if you could disagree without it escalating to full-scale arguments. Hell, if it hadn’t been escalating, I’d say maybe you two could work things out and find a sort of detente, an agree-to-disagree arrangement and just politely pretending the difference isn’t there. But the fact that she is continually bringing your faith up and attacking you for not abandoning it? That’s abusive behavior, it’s getting worse and it’s time to get the f

k out.

This isn’t about the incompatibility of different beliefs. This is about one partner abusing the other and this isn’t going to get better.

Dump her. Dump her right now. You deserve better than this.

Good luck.

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