life

I Made a Mistake and Now My Crush Hates Me. How Do I Fix This?

Ask Dr. Nerdlove by by Harris O'Malley
by Harris O'Malley
Ask Dr. Nerdlove | April 18th, 2020

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: There’s this girl I really like and she likes me a lot too; at least she used to. We were very good friends and not in any romantic way at all. She was the only person I could have a normal intelligent conversation with.

Recently, I took her out with my other 5 friends for beers that I funded in celebration of my birthday and things got bad. First she got drunk and started making out with my friend while sitting on his lap, then I also got kinda drunk and I kicked her by accident in the ear (we were sitting down on a log when my friend dragged me off it from behind and she was sitting next to me…) and then later I fell on her.

Afterward, everybody went home except for my friend who made out with her, who I allowed to sleep at my place. Because we were both drunk, he kept getting in my face how good of a kisser she is and so on. I went on a rant how I always talk to her, listen to her problems, cheer her up and that I love her. So he convinced me to tell her that I love her. I just would have to use his phone, because my phone’s battery was dead.

And I did it… because I was drunk. She didn't write back.

That’s not the worst part yet. So the other day, I find out that when I kicked her in the ear and fell on her, I somehow f

ked up her nose and ear and she gotta have an operation now… and she hates me.  

I didn’t have the courage to talk with her about that, cause when I heard it, I was devastated so I didn't apologize to her kinda.

A little later on, I went for a smoke with my friends, but she came along too so somehow they got on the topic of her f

ked up ear and nose (it’s not visible; I think there’s just interior damage, which is worse) and she said that its my fault and that I’m a f

ked up person. I muttered “oh ok I’m sorry I was wasted,” which she responded “yeah, sure you were.” And the other day I found out from another friend that she said that she counted the amount of beers that I drank and it was only 2 and I got so f

king drunk just out of 2 beers.

THATS BULLS

T! I DRANK WAY MORE THAN THAT AND I KNOW IT! And I haven't properly apologized yet but I’m too much of a coward to do it I’m know I'm supposed to do it but she probably wont even want to hear it.

So help me out Doctor NerdLove cause Im in a giant stinking pile of elephant s

t. And sorry for the grammar, I’m polish.

Dun Goofed

DEAR DUN GOOFED: Hoo boy.

Well, on the plus side, DG: with a couple rewrites and some masturbation jokes, I’m fairly sure you could use this as the basis for a wacky teen sex comedy screenplay.

But on the more serious side of things: your friend’s kind of an a

hole. Now, you didn’t cover yourself in glory here with him in the first place; you don’t get to call dibs on a person, no matter how long you’ve been pining for them. However, someone rubbing your face in it with tales of how great she is at making out is a s

tty thing to to, even if you’re both drunk at the time.

But then there’s this wrinkle: so far just about every bad thing you’ve heard has been from a third party, not her. I’m not saying your friends have lied to you, but it’s entirely possible – likely, even – that the message has gotten twisted and confused as it’s passed from person to person to you and back to her. That means that there is room for a lot of misinterpretation here, up to and including how many beers folks think you actually had.

Now let’s look at things rationally: your female friend – let’s call her Emma for convenience’s sake – Emma got hurt because of some drunken roughhousing. It happens, it kind of sucks, but if she honestly hates you for it… well unless she thinks you deliberately kicked her in the face, in my opinion of an overreaction on her part to what’s ultimately an accident on yours. An accident that you weren’t even responsible for; it was somebody else’s horseplay that caused you to get yanked off the log in the first place. You, presumably, weren’t roughhousing beforehand; you were sitting, talking and having a drink when someone grabbed you and went “YOINK!”

Even if she got clocked hard enough to require surgery – which isn’t outside the realm of possibility; I’ve had friends crack ribs during drunken wrestling matches – it’s a little unfair on her part to put the blame on you for getting yanked off the log by one of your a

hole friends.

I’m left assuming that she didn’t KNOW that you were pulled off and thinks that you got so hammered that you couldn’t even sit without falling over. If she doesn’t know that other folks were involved… well, I can see why she’d blame you, even if it’s a pure accident.

Drunk texting her is another matter. Presumably Emma knew it was you even on your buddy’s phone, otherwise we’re well into the world of wacky sitcom misunderstandings. Even so: drinking and texting don’t mix, and I almost wish that smartphones came with breathalyzers built in. It’s likely that your texting her exacerbated the situation. Getting a rambling “I lurveyuo soomcuh” at 4 AM from the dude who just kicked you in the face is gonna be a lot like pouring lemon juice all over an open wound.

Now let’s be clear: all this is bad. Even though you were not at fault for other people messing with you, it’s still a bad scene and one that’s going to leave someone less than charitably inclined towards you. What made it worse is that you didn’t man up and apologize to her the next goddamn day. Waiting even longer – until your friend tells you that he’s heard via the gossip line that she hates you because you messed up her nose – just made exacerbated the situation.

Now? Now it’s just a giant festering abscess of misunderstandings and resentment that’s poisoning your friendships. At this point you have no reliable idea who said what or what anyone thinks occurred, and incidents like this can quickly twist and mutate into something night-and-day different from actual events.

What do you do now? Well, you make arrangements to talk to Emma – alone – try to figure out exactly what she thinks happened and tell her your side of things. You aren’t going to try to excuse yourself or rationalize things or try to minimize what happened; just lay out the facts. You had X beers – decidedly more than two – your friend yanked you off the log, causing you to flail around and kick her, you thought confessing that you had a crush on her was a good idea and had no idea that she’d been seriously injured. 

Then you apologize, PROFUSELY. You apologize for hurting her, even though it was by accident. You apologize for the drunk text. You apologize a hell of a lot more that you didn’t come to her earlier and apologize then. After you’ve begged her forgiveness – assuming she accepts it – you can try to piece together how your ideas of what happened differ.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to sort things out first – if she’s pissed at you, she’s not going to take “Wait, you can’t be mad at me because X said this and I thought that and Y said…” well. Muscle up, swallow your pride, do some groveling and THEN work out how things got this bad.

As a general rule, you the sooner you can leap on that to straighten things out the better. Waiting, even if you’re feeling devastated because you’ve been told your crush hates you, only makes it worse.

Will this fix everything? Well, at this point it’s impossible to tell. This sort of drama gets blown out of proportion and can be the end of friendships. But at the very least, you owe her an apology. It may not fix things and you may not be able to convince her of your side of the events, but an apology is literally the least you could do right now.

Good luck.

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

Love & Dating
life

Can I Date Someone With A Different Religion?

Ask Dr. Nerdlove by by Harris O'Malley
by Harris O'Malley
Ask Dr. Nerdlove | April 17th, 2020

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a rather sensitive question. What is your advice on inter Religious relationships? As a Christian, I’ve met a lot of nice women, although they are usually of different faiths than me (usually atheist or agnostic). Is it worth pursuing relationships with girls of different belief systems in the long run, or should I stick to my faith?

 A Humble Pilgrim

DEAR A HUMBLE PILGRIM: Religion can be a tricky matter when it comes to relationships. It’s deeply and intensely personal, but it is frequently intended to be projected outwards. It’s supposed to be a source of comfort, community and strength, but all too often it’s divisive and exclusionary, and the cause of conflict and anxiety.

And then when you mix two distinctly different ones… hoo boy. If you’re not careful, you end up with a lovely volatile mixture, the emotional equivalent of a Coke bottle full of nitro glycerine.

But it doesn’t have to be.

In general, the more strictly traditional and orthodox the branch of the religion, the more exclusionary it tends to be when it comes to dating and marriage; Orthodox and Hassidic Jews aren’t supposed to date or marry outside of the faith, for example, while traditional Muslim women aren’t supposed to marry non-Muslim men.

In Christianity, the idea of not marrying outside the faith predominantly comes from 2 Corinthians 6:14 — “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?”. This is a metaphorical reference to a passage in Deuteronomy; certain animals should not be yoked together, because together they cannot plow a straight furrow. The implication is that the unbeliever will inevitably pull the believer off the path of righteousness and into sin with him or her.

In less spiritual terms: the implication is that a non-Christian is inherently incompatible with a Christian and that such relationships are doomed to failure anyway.

Leaving aside my feelings about Paul and his place on the development of Christianity, I, personally, find the idea that you can only be compatible with people of your own religion to be absurd. Just being Christian isn’t going to guarantee the success of a relationship, nor will an interfaith relationship ensure it’s eventual failure. That line of thinking never leads anywhere good, and when you follow it to it’s logical extreme, then you inevitably come to the conclusion that you should never date outside of your own very narrow community.

Sure, you both may be Christian… but when one of you is Catholic and the other is a 7th Day Adventist, you’re going to run into just as many complications if one of you is Mormon and the other is Muslim.

The secret to keeping a difference in spiritual beliefs from wrecking a relationship is a matter of respect. You may not share your partner’s belief – or lack thereof – but you should at least respect that they have it. As long as one partner’s belief isn’t a matter of practical difficulty – she doesn’t believe in going to doctors and only relies on crystals and homeopathic remedies, he refuses to touch his partner during her “unclean” times until she’s completely re-sanctified herself – then you have the responsibility of being respectful.

This doesn’t mean you can’t disagree – far from it, I’m a firm believer in the idea that you should be able to have a reasonable disagreement on the subject – but at the same time you shouldn’t actively disrespect it or otherwise antagonize it. If she’s a Jew who keeps kosher, you don’t want to taunt her about the salami sandwich you just had. If he’s Christian, you shouldn’t be telling him about how “cute” it is that a grown-ass man still has his invisible friend from childhood.

Similarly, you have an obligation not to try to press your religion – or, again, lack thereof – on your partner. A relationship is not an open-ended invitation to proselytize. Be willing to answer questions, sure. Explain the tenets of your faith and why you feel they are correct. But unless he or she specifically expresses interest in conversion, your best choice is to leave it well enough alone. Leading by example is far more persuasive than constantly explaining to someone that if they don’t believe exactly as your Invisible Sky-Daddy said you should, they’re going to be condemned to Hell and you’d feel horrible about it if they were.

In your case, AHP, you’re meeting girls who’re attractive and interesting… but aren’t Christian. I don’t think that this has to be a deal-breaker; in fact, I think you may be missing out on relationships that you may find make your life richer and more rewarding. As long as you’re willing to be respectful of their beliefs and they’re willing to afford you the same courtesy, there’s no reason why things couldn’t work out.

And if you’re terribly worried about the Bible forbidding you from interfaith relationships, I’ll point you towards 1 Corinthans 7:12-14 : ” If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband.”

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: There’s a nerd guy in my social circle (we see each other mostly at gatherings that are commenced by a couple of our mutual friends, as well as on a couple of different Interned platforms through which we follow/friend/circle each other).

I’ve been interested in him for several months now. I know he likes me as a person, but I haven’t had any vibes that he reciprocates my romantic feelings. All of our mutual friends have confirmed to me that he is, in general, very socially awkward and that it takes quite a while to get to know him. I did once see him at a party with a girl who he was briefly dating, and he looked very comfortable with her and treated her respectfully, so I know that he’s not completely inept at dealing with women or anything like that. 

Months ago, before we actually met in person, I ended an email by saying, “I’d like to meet you. We should grab a drink sometime,” hoping that he’d pick up on that and say sure, but he never acknowledged that I said it. I realize that was a really open-ended way to put it, I could have asked him to do something specific, but again, I hadn’t met him yet, and my real goal was to bring the social media connection into the real world. So, you see the frustration I’m dealing with here!

That said, it’s been really difficult for me to gauge whether he’s not into me, or just not the type to make the first move. I’m heeding your advice about how many nerd guys are shy and women need to club them with a clue-by-four. I’ve wielded the clue-by-four in the past with other nerd guys with varying degrees of success, but I’m nervous about doing it this time, because the last time I did it the guy insisted that he just wanted to be friends (and that was particularly painful, because I thought he was the love of my life and just too shy to put the moves on me…and things got ugly and now we’re not even friends anymore).

So now I’m basically waiting for the right moment to say something to this guy, and I’m getting impatient. I drop subtleties here and there, but he doesn’t pick up on them (or perhaps he’s giving me the brush-off… there’s no real way to tell). 

So I’m looking for creative solutions. I’m interested in hearing about times you and your nerd-guy readers have been approached (or perhaps clubbed) by women, and what those women said/did that made you feel comfortable and amorous enough to respond positively to her advances. Any tips you can provide on communicating with this nerd, and all adorable nerds in general, is much appreciated!

– Clue By Four

DEAR CLUE BY FOUR: You’re overthinking things, Clue.

I can’t blame you for being a little gun-shy considering you’ve had being the aggressor go badly, but let’s face it, everybody has had a bad experience asking someone out, men and women. If we let that put us off dating… well, it means I get a lot more business, but it also means that there’ll be a lot of really frustrated single people out there, wondering why nobody does them the favor of asking them out.

So you’ve tried to get him to go out in a more round-about way and he hasn’t said anything and you’re trying to figure out whether that means anything.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like you’re starting to hit “reading the tea leaves” territory: you’re trying to find meaning in what he does and doesn’t do in order to get a clue as to whether he’s just missing your subtle clues that you like him or whether he’s deliberately missing them.

The odds are that he got it. It’s just that that he’s not interested.

No answer IS an answer, nine times out of ten. It just means “no”. Some folks will play dumb in order to avoid what they worry may be an uncomfortable scene. “Missing the hint” or playing dumb is a way of giving a soft “no”, in order to turn someone down without having to say the words directly. If your guy is uncomfortable with confrontation or isn’t most assertive soul, it’s likely that he’s trying to take the less-direct route to turning you down in order to avoid making things weird.

On the other hand, you know he’s a little socially awkward and some folks are just bad at picking up signs. This is, admittedly, one of the reasons why people find dating so frustrating – half the time we’re not sure whether the signals we think we’re sending are the ones everybody else is picking up.

Back in college I had one woman who got annoyed with me because I didn’t realize she was amenable to my making a move by playing a specific song on her stereo; how the hell was I supposed to pick THAT up, especially when I was too busy trying to figure out whether or not she liked me liked me in the first place?

Quit beating around the bush and quit waiting for the “right” moment. There is no “right” moment except the one you make. So ask him out on a date point blank – no hedging, no “maybes” or “sometimes”. Just “I like you and I want to go on a date with you. Why don’t we get together this Saturday at 8? How do you feel about bowling?”

You might get your date. You may get shot down. Either way, at least you’ll know for sure instead of playing “what-if ” games in your head over it.

Good luck.

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

Love & DatingReligion
life

Is It A Good Time To Get Back With My Ex?

Ask Dr. Nerdlove by by Harris O'Malley
by Harris O'Malley
Ask Dr. Nerdlove | April 16th, 2020

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: First off, I’m really glad you do what you do. I’ve read through some of your material and it’s helped me so far.

Now, in order for my question to make sense I have to give some context. I’ll try and shorten this down as much as I can.

Met a girl through OKCupid sometime in 2016. Hit it off right away. She blew my mind and I was head over heels for her.

She was on again/off again with her (now) ex, and I met her during an “off” time. Well, I went to my first year of college out of state, and then transferred to a school in-state. So I was talking to here more once I was back. She was now dating her ex again.

From the beginning I could easily tell she liked me. That kind of attention and chemistry – I knew there was something there and it wasn’t just me. But she was still dating this guy.

Well, I was awash with infatuation and I wasn’t ready to walk away, so I stuck around. She was everything I’d ever wanted. Smart, passionate, a gamer and artist, had drive and goals, had a good head on her shoulders, good person, and drop dead gorgeous. Full package deal. Amazing.

From my perspective though, across the next 4 years, I felt… I felt like I wasn’t being treated well. It didn’t help that she was into me and was still dating her ex, and was torn, and dealing with her own emotions and life, etc – and I also let it continue. I couldn’t walk away yet. Wanting her was far greater of a force than sticking up for my worth. We would only hang out sporadically, and rarely. It was always last minute and was late at night or something similar where I was compartmentalized from the rest of her life. We never *really* went out and did stuff. It was 99% of the time at her house, sitting and talking or watching a show. Not that I don’t want that, but not at the expense of doing anything else.

Well, I walked away the first time in 2018, and she roped me back in. Then again about 6 months later. Then about another 3-6 months after that.

The last time she pulled me back into her life was at the end of August, last year. We met and talked for 3 hours, she confessed to having been REALLY into me this whole time (she had even had dreams about me during the time I had walked away.) and just… didn’t know how to handle that, didn’t feel comfortable with it yet, etc.

She said she only came back because she felt like she was over her ex and wanted to treat me right instead of as a recovery. She even kissed me.

Well, she’d been planning and working up to transferring/going to school across the country, and it was going to happen starting in January.

So I wanted to make the last 4 months she was here great: go on adventures, eat, have a blast, and have some fun in the bedroom. (Which she had opened up about wanting for awhile, but again wasn’t comfortable with it yet.) (we never did.)

So we hung out a few times, and then, of course, it felt like it went back to how it had been before: rarely seeing each other, at-arm’s-length, compartmentalized, etc.

I ended up not seeing her at all for about the last month of her being here, and I called her while she was at a hotel room in St. Louis while on her drive to school. Basically, I ended it. I told her that we hadn’t actually taken any steps forward and I needed to walk away. I think she knew the conversation was coming but was hoping it wouldn’t. When I told her this was it, she talked about how I was one of the only people in her life anymore that she felt close enough to and trusted enough to talk about things with, etc etc.

She then added that “I figured we would keep talking and stuff and we would pick up where we left off when I came back for the summer, just like I’ve done with… all… my… relationships….” (I used ellipses to try and show how, when she said this, she ended up slowly trailing off as the sentence went on, because I think she realized how shitty it sounded.)

I told her that it wasn’t fair to me to wait around and essentially twiddle my thumbs until she came back, with no guarantee of it actually being anything when she did. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold anymore than I already had.

I told her that, if she reaches a point in her life where she wants me to be a part of it and I’m a legitimate priority, she should come and find me and we would see what happens. (A priority as opposed to what felt like just an option – because I was never really a priority – other friends, family, and other things were always more important or urgent than me.) it ended amicably, I told her I loved her and to “go be successful”.

I will say, up front, that I know I had issues of my own that were a problem. I had expectations, I had a lot of trust issues.

She has insecurities and self worth issues, and I was honestly looking to her to give my life meaning for a long time. Not the most recent stint, but for a long time before I was.

Sorry if that was a bit long winded, it’s a long story.

NOW – it’s been almost 3 months since she’s left, and we haven’t spoken since. I do still care about her, and there is a large part of me that misses her. That’s the same part of me that is considering contacting her and seeing how she’s doing. (In part to see if she’s ok, given the recent pandemic going on.) part of me misses her. Still wants her. Still wants to do all the things we said we’d do. I don’t want to have her as a regret in my life because we didn’t actually move forward. And I still want her.

However – do I trust her again and believe that things will be different? Is it a waste of my time and energy to invite her back in, given that she will be going back to school I’m the fall and, once graduated, be moving to that end of the country/somewhere else in pursuit of her career? Am I BS’ing myself in thinking that there really actually was a chance for anything to happen, or was she just not being truly honest with herself and didn’t have the same feelings? Was her indecision and at-arms-length treatment a much better indicator of her interest and intentions than her words?

And lastly, do I miss HER or am I really just struggling to feel like I have a chance finding someone else as amazing, or that I’m worth being with someone else as amazing?

I’ve struggled with feeling “good enough” for most of my life – one of my parents was always critical, even when given a compliment, and I think it created my struggles with self worth, or at least started them. I’m much better now, but I’m wondering if it’s really that I’m feeling like I have a better chance with her than anyone else because I’m “not worthy” of love.

I don’t know. I’ve been mulling over this for about a week, and I’m just filled with uncertainty. Is there a “litmus rest” or a question to ask myself in order to weed through some of these thoughts?

I hope you can help, I’m not sure what to do/how to approach this.

Also, probably way too wordy, so sorry for that.

Really appreciate the help,

Just When I Think I’m Out…

DEAR JUST WHEN I THINK I’M OUT: have you ever heard the phrase “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result?” That’s where you’re at, right now. The idea that a) she’s going to come back and b) things will be different is… well, honestly it’s kind of laughable, if I’m perfectly honest. I mean, dude. You’ve been in this pattern for four! YEARS! You know exactly how this is going to play out if you go back.

Now look, I get it. God knows in my time I’ve had folks who played the “go away a little closer” game that kept me on the hook for a while. But sometimes it can help to examine just what was going on with her… and why you’re having such a hard time getting over her.

I’m going to be blunt: you were never really in the running for being her boyfriend. You were, at best, a distraction. You provided her emotional intimacy and validation but that’s it… and always on her terms and her schedule. I mean, let’s start with the fact that she was in a closed, monogamous relationship and she’s keeping you around and telling you how into you she is. While it’s true that sometimes it can be hard to end a dodgy relationship and some folks will start flirting (or even sleeping with) someone else in order to force the break-up, it’s pretty clear that you were the guy she turned to because you’d give her the emotional intimacy and validation she craved, without needing to give you anything from her end of things.

You even say it yourself:

“We would only hang out sporadically, and rarely. It was always last minute and was late at night or something similar where I was compartmentalized from the rest of her life. We never really went out and did stuff. It was 99% of the time at her house, sitting and talking or watching a show. Not that I don’t want that, but not at the expense of doing anything else.”

I’m sorry dude but you were her emotional side-piece. Her “in case of feels emergency, break glass” pseudo-boyfriend. That’s why you’d get those last-minute, can’t-go-anywhere-we-might-be-seen hang-out invitations. She didn’t want to take the risk of word getting out that she was hanging out with you, while also giving you just enough to keep you on the line. It’s pretty significant that for all that she tells you how she’s SO into you and has dreams about you and wants to “treat you right”, literally nothing ever happened. She never treated you like a boyfriend or a potential lover. She gave you just enough hope to think that this might be the time you two finally got together because it kept you around.

Shit dude, she literally said that she wanted you sticking around until she decided to come back again. Once you said “Yo, I’m out,” and meant it, she couldn’t even keep up the pretense that anything would happen. It’s not that she realized how shitty things sounded as she said them, it’s more that she realized that this line was going to work this time.

So no. Getting back in touch with her would be a profoundly stupid idea. All you’re going to get is the 12″ dance remix of the last four years, with her dangling just enough hope in front of you that you keep giving her what she wants and receive literally nothing in return.

That’s no way to live, man.

Like I said: I get it. She’s a lot like an earworm; you’ve had this little fantasy playing in your head all this time and you really want to make things happen so that you can finally close the loop and exorcise the song. But that’s not gonna happen. It’s never going to happen. You’re a kitten chasing after a laser pointer; even if you “catch” it, there’s nothing to catch.

But here’s the thing: the reason why it’s so hard for you to give her up is because you’ve spent so much time on her. I mean, four years is a long-ass time to be carrying a torch for someone. If you were to give up now, it’s going to feel like those four years were for nothing, and that’s really hard to accept. It’s what’s known as the sunk cost fallacy; you don’t want to admit that you lost all that time and effort and so you throw even MORE at it in hopes of making things work. But it won’t. The only healthy option you have here is to write this off as a loss, learn from it and move forward.

And before you ask: no, there is no way to try to keep this to just being a “just friends” thing. That’s the emotional equivalent of playing “just the tip”; all that’s going to happen is that you’re going to get roped back in again and then having this exact same conversation three to six months down the line.

So you need to excise her from your life. You need to treat this like a break-up. That means it’s time to take the Nuclear Option and cut off all the forms of contact you have with her. That means deleting her number and texts, blocking her on social media, archiving all of her emails and gathering up all the souvenirs of your relationship and stashing them away. You want to put as many steps between you and your getting back in contact with her; the more effort it takes to reach her, the easier it is to resist. Right now there just isn’t any way that you can contact her that won’t end in your getting sucked back in, so you need to make it as difficult as possible.

And while you’re doing that? You need to put yourself back out there. You’ve spent four years hoping for a relationship that was never going to happen. That’s four years that you could’ve spent finding someone who is just as awesome as her — if not more so — but who also wants you back. You may never get that time back, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start now and find somebody else.

Letting her go is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. You worry about feeling good enough. You worry about being worthy of love and affection. Here is a truth: there is no expression of self-love and self-worth greater than to tell yourself that you deserve more and better than anything she was offering you. It’s not whether you are good enough for the love of other people, it’s whether they are good enough for your love, time and attention. And your ex? She very clearly isn’t.

To quote the sage: “I may love you, yeah, but I love me more.”

Cut her off and cut her out, man. It’s hard to let go of a dream, but sometimes the point of a dream is to wake up from it.

It’s time to start the next chapter in your life.

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

Love & Dating

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