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

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

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