DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a question about whether men need to be “Able to protect their women”.

Quick backstory first – I was recently attending a wedding reception with a (fully platonic) female acquaintance when we stopped off at a nearby shop to get some supplies. I was already preoccupied with the prospect of seeing a longtime former crush (that had gone very sour) at said reception, so my thoughts were perhaps elsewhere when the following went down:

My friend was exiting the car when she lightly bumped my car door against the adjacent vehicle. The woman passenger in the other car reacted angrily, my friend smiled and said sorry, but for whatever reason Angry Passenger immediately flew off the handle even more. Maybe it was my Platonic Friend’s dressed up appearance (she had her hair did, makeup, posh accent etc.), maybe Angry Passenger was just in that kinda mood. Anyway.

Passenger carried on shouting, Friend started having to shout back, and for instinctual impulses I have yet to comprehend, I was frozen behind the steering wheel. Maybe my brain was too slow to cotton onto this turning nasty, maybe I’m just a cowardly sort, maybe I (rightly) felt that Platonic was perfectly capable of taking care of herself (she often describes herself as an ‘alpha female’). Passenger then got out of her car and tried to grab my car door, as if to haul Platonic out into the car park and start attacking her. Finally coming to my senses, I tried to get Platonic to shut the door so I could lock it and drive away. I think that’s what happened next – it’s all still a blur – but end result is we locked the door, reversed onto the road and sped away.

Once clear, Platonic went ballistic at me for not leaping to her defense the moment things went south. I had no answer. I can’t explain why I didn’t react – for the reasons above – but what I quickly spiraled into was a pretty dark mood as I mercilessly tore myself to shreds alongside the tongue-lashing Platonic was dishing out. All sorts of ugly thoughts filled my head – I was weak, cowardly, spineless, pathetic, I wouldn’t leap in front of a flying bullet for someone (to quote my man Morrissey).

Eventually the dust settled but I feel my relationship with Platonic has been irrevocably shifted by that incident. Why does this bother me? There’s no question of me trying to win her over – it’s a thankfully ‘safe’ friendship in that regard – it’s more her points hitting home about why I didn’t valiantly hulk out and wade in fists a’ flyin’. She recently brought this incident back up again and mentioned the telling phrase ‘women need to know their man can protect them’. This has caused me great personal conflict. Would I be the kind of guy who’d step up if my lady was threatened? Is that required behaviour? Do all women expect this kind of fearless, brazen protectiveness of their women in the face of any danger?

Platonic mentioned one friend’s boyfriend who ‘practically started crying’ when they were mugged a while ago, and how that didn’t seem to phase the girlfriend. But is that acceptable? Will the girl forever lose respect for her partner that can never be won back until an opportunity for some other feat of swashbuckling fortitude comes along, as if it’s a test he must succeed to prove he deserves his testosterone? 

So, in a nutshell, the question is thus – should me be expected to thoughtlessly risk life and limb to protect their loved ones, and is this a quality women universally expect in their men? And if the man fails to prove his mettle, will the woman’s opinion of him be forever damaged as a result?

Yours flexingly,

Zero To Hero

DEAR ZERO TO HERO: I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that that your question is going to prompt a lot of interesting conversations in the comments section.

There’re a couple different issues at play here, ZG.

Let’s start with how you reacted: you didn’t leap out of the car as soon as the passenger started yelling. This is actually good; the last thing you needed was to antagonize or provoke someone who’s already pissed off. Platonic yelling back, on the other hand, was a dumb move – the woman’s pissed off already, yelling at her’s just going to make things worse. Ever watch a cop handle a rowdy drunk? The smart ones stay calm, speak slowly and firmly; they keep control of the situation by being in control. Getting angry, yelling and making threats only serves to escalate the situation. So right off the bat, your friend f

ked up and just made a volatile situation worse.

Next: Passenger got out of the car and tried to haul your door open. Again: the worst thing you could do here is actually, y’know, get out of the car. You’re safe there, and it’s pretty obvious that Passenger isn’t looking to exchange phone numbers and insurance information to handle the door ding. Judging from your spelling and vernacular, you’re from the UK, so the odds that Passenger had a gun are pretty remote, but she could very well have had a knife, a bottle, or a bludgeon or other weapon. Whether she did or didn’t, you’re looking at a potential fight in the parking lot – again, something you would be wise to avoid unless necessary. So yeah, locking the car and driving off is the better idea. Calling the cops may well have been wiser still, but hey, s

t happens.

So let’s get this clear: you didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you did the right thing: you got the f

k out of there.

Why did you freeze up? Well, it’s a fun bit of human physiology that when we’re in danger, our adrenal glands go into overdrive, spitting adrenaline into our systems and giving us extra strength and energy. You may have heard of the “fight or flight” response. Thing is, that’s actually incomplete. It’s actually “fight, flight, fawn or freeze”.

If you’re not used to that sudden adrenaline dump what’s entirely more likely is that you’re going to freeze. After all, back when we were apes on the savannah, many of our predators were attracted to motion; freezing up is one way of trying to keep it from noticing you instead of the gazelle down the way. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily help when you’ve got 190 lbs of rage getting ready to slam the back of your favorite head into the pavement. Your body doesn’t size up whether you’re in a bar fight or you just heard a tiger in the grass behind you, it just reacts.

Moreover, that adrenal dump has other effects that seem counterproductive at the time. Your throat constricts, so it’s hard to speak or yell. You’re suddenly paying attention to so much sensory input (“WAIT. DID I JUST HEAR A TIGER? WHERE DID THAT SOUND COME FROM? I DON’T SEE ANYTHING. IS IT BEHIND ME?”) that you’re easily overloaded by sensation. Martial artists, firefighters, EMTs, soldiers and cops – anyone who deals with fights or crisis situations really – have to train extensively to overcome that freeze response. They drill over and over again so that their response – block, dodge, charge into the fire, draw their nightstick or gun, etc. – becomes muscle memory and they can move on automatic until they’re more in control. They train in order to get used to the adrenaline response and to be able to direct it as needed. So you’re not  a coward, ZtH; you’re human, same as everyone else and you had a perfectly human reaction to a f

ked up situation.

Now as for your friend ripping into you – that s

t’s pretty much uncalled for. Things went south because Platonic made things worse. By getting pissed off and yelling at the woman in the other car, she escalated a situation that maybe could have been defused if she’d kept calm. This wasn’t a sudden and unavoidable ambush – a mugger stepping out from the shadows, say. This is her getting mad at you because you didn’t valiantly offer to beat someone up in a situation she created. In other words: in her twisted-ass world, she’s expecting YOU to be the heavy when her mouth starts writing checks HER ass can’t cash.

The truth of the matter is that you DID come to her defense: you got her the f

k out of there before things could get worse. That’s the best thing you could have done. Picking an unnecessary fight would have ended with people getting hurt (quite likely you two) and the bonus possibility of assault charges and an ASBO for everybody. If she doesn’t appreciate that, then she’s a goddamn idiot.

Why did she go ballistic at you afterwards? Well, likely because after you guys got away, she realized she was terrified and lashed out at you because she’s angry about being scared. Easier to blame you for not magically making things better – presumably by staving some rando’s head in – than to admit a) she f

ked up and b) she’s almost peeing herself in fear. She keeps at it because from the sounds of things, she’s the sort of person who can’t stand having been seen in a moment of weakness and now she’s trying to put it all on you.

Now, the reason why this is bothering you because you’re feeling emasculated. I don’t blame you. The idea that men are supposed to be macho, chest-thumping, two-fisted tough guys is pretty well embedded in the culture. We all like to think we’re action heroes waiting for the right moment, but we never really know how we’re going to react to imminent danger until it happens. And when it did happen… you froze. So instead of having that action-hero, crouching moron-hidden badass moment you always imagined, you ended up unable to move and it feels like you’ve been tested and you failed.

Except… you didn’t. You kept her safe despite her best efforts and got out of there unharmed. But that’s not what you picture John McClain or Peter Parker or Frank Dux to have done, and thus you’re feeling weak.

But you know what? It happens to all of us. There was a point when my last moments on this Earth were very nearly me in the back of a car screaming like a little girl while an elephant was charging straight at us.

Your a

hole friend giving you constant s

t and telling you how unmanly you are isn’t helping. How do you handle this feeling? Well to start with, tell your friend to shut the hell up already. She claims to be mad at you for not hauling her ass in the way she wanted out of a fire she started. In reality, she’s upset because she was scared and you saw her – a self-proclaimed alpha female – in a moment of weakness and fear. So this is her problem, not yours.

Now, I would recommend studying martial arts. Not, mind you, because you need to learn how to be Billy Bad-Ass, but because it will teach you discipline. It’ll help you get a feeling of control back without feeling as though you need to throw down to do it. It’ll help you get used to moments of panic and adrenaline dumps so that you can handle them the next time you’re in a crisis situation. It’ll help you learn how and when to react on instinct. And – importantly – a good martial arts teacher will teach you that the best fights are the ones you avoid. Just like you did this time.

Does every woman need her man to be Batman, waiting to pounce on those who would do her harm? No, not really. In fact, in my social circles, most of the women would be insulted by the idea that they couldn’t save their own damn selves if the need arose; guard their backs, sure but don’t assume that they need or want a protector. Being able to protect your friends and loved ones is an attraction switch for some women but it’s not the switch, nor is it universal. After all, your friend even mentions a guy who broke down during a mugging and his girlfriend wasn’t phased or disgusted by him.

Should you be willing to spring to action with violence? Probably not, to be perfectly honest. While I don’t subscribe to the idea that violence is NEVER the answer, it’s also not always the right or best answer. Women don’t expect their significant others to be super-heroes. Being able to keep your head in a chaotic or dangerous situation – even if you’re practically soaked in fear-pee – is much more attractive than some meathead who wades in, fists a’flailin’ whenever somebody shoots their mouth off.

Women don’t need a Big Moose to beat some fools. They want someone who can keep their head in a crisis situation and do not just the right thing but the SMART thing. And more often than not: the smart thing is getting the hell out of there instead of escalating things and possibly making it worse.

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 know you are not actually a real doctor (thankfully I have a therapist for that) but, maybe you can shed some light on my situation.

Long story short, I got diagnosed with PTSD from childhood and Depression and I am working on overcoming my avoidant tendencies.

One major problem that seems to pop up is that I truly do WANT to meet and connect with people but, what actually ends up happening is that I throw up an emotional wall as soon as that starts to happen. Whether that be with humor or just silence, the thought process always ends with the same message “Don’t get too close”/ “Keep it superficial”.

Now I would love to shatter this outdated defense mechanism into a million pieces (especially because it could explain why I am so emotionally detached from people) but unfortunately the human pysche doesn’t work that way.

So with that being said, my thought process to overcome this was:

1. Throw myself into a ton of social events (Virtual for now due to COVID-19)

2. ??????

3. Congrats you can feel again!

Seeing as you run a relationship advice column maybe you can shed some light on what my next move should be?

– Removing the Armor

DEAR REMOVING THE ARMOR: I understand the desire to throw yourself into things as a form of intense exposure therapy, RTA, but I don’t think it’s going to work quite the way you expect it to. The problem with just doing a whole bunch of social events is that unless you actually take deliberate steps to either take down your walls or start letting people in, you’re not going to actually get anywhere. In fact, virtual events might actually make things worse. It’s very easy to keep those walls up when the only connections you have are virtual. We’re not a species built for Zoom calls or Skype chats; we’re built for face-to-face, in person communication. When you’re at a remove from everyone, it’s very easy to see them as being less real or less significant than they actually are. That distance makes it so much easier to just put up the wall and hide behind it.

Unless you take actual steps to change things. And, importantly, they need to be the right steps.

I’ve seen lots of folks try to do the “get over this issue by flooding myself with it” thing. In fact, one of the most common examples I’ve seen has been the “do a thousand approaches to get over your approach anxiety” trick. But while seeing that being rejected or turned down won’t kill you can ease that anxiety a little… just doing a thousand approaches isn’t going to fix things unless you’re doing it deliberately and intelligently. Otherwise, you’re just trying to reach a benchmark with no real meaning. It’s kind of like the proverbial 10,000 hours to master a skill. Ignoring that the 10,000 hours number was basically made up out of whole cloth, it’s not just “do this for 10k hours and you’ll master it”, it’s putting in deliberate practice. Michael Jordan didn’t become who he was by just shooting random free throws. He drilled the basics until they were muscle memory, he practiced making shots from all over the court, he practiced and refined his technique until he could do it by pure instinct. It was a course of sustained, careful and strategic development that lead to him becoming one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

So by that same token, just going to thousands of social events isn’t going to break your armor. Instead, it’s going to take going to events with the intent of letting people in. The answer is to start finding ways to be more comfortable with taking down the wall, to addressing the fear of letting people get close to you. That’s why I don’t think going to a bunch of different events — a new one every time  — will help. You’ll have no real motivation to let the wall down and no reason to trust anyone. These will all be strangers to you, a different set of strangers every time. Instead, what I think would be more productive would be to go to specific events, regularly. If you go to the same, let’s say 3 events, every week, you’ll start to get to know the regulars. You’ll be seeing the same people over and over again, which will increase your familiarity with them. They won’t be intimidating strangers, so much as “ok, that’s Tim with the Mage campaign, that’s Nina who plays jazz piano, that’s Umberto who’s obsessed with Animal Crossing”. As any marketer will tell you: familiarity and repetitive exposure breeds comfort and ultimately affection. Just as hearing the same pop song over and over again eventually makes you go “ok… that’s not so bad”, seeing the same people over and over again helps you get to know them. That knowledge and familiarity helps breed trust, even affection. And as you get to know them and trust them enough to not hurt you… you can let down your guard. Not a lot, just a little. It’s the emotional vulnerability of “just the tip”, being just a little vulnerable with someone to see how it feels. Just to see how they react.

And when they don’t respond by taking advantage of that vulnerability or that chink in your armor? Well… with a little more time, you might be willing to open up a little bit further. And then a little bit further after that.

Now obviously, I think this is a plan that should be coordinated with your therapist; as you correctly observed, Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor. But the problem isn’t that you lack socialization, it’s that you were hurt in ways that make it hard for you to trust people. But if you give people the chance to earn your trust and prove that they’re trustworthy, I think you’ll start feeling secure enough to open up a little bit at a time. It may seem like a long, slow process at first… but those little changes, those little micro-revolutions add up over time.

Take it slow, keep those changes small… but give people the chance to show that they can be trusted. Do that, and I think in time, you’ll feel safe enough and confident enough to let your walls down and let people in.

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 been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend for close to two years now. And she has always had some male friends. In fact she has been hanging around these guys for years even before I met her. And she told they’re like brothers to her. I am aware that her mom knows them and is even friends with some of these guys parents. Before we met she use to hang out a lot with them but I told that I didn’t feel comfortable with that and she backed off. It would usually be every once in a while. Lately, especially because of the pandemic we’ve been talking on the phone a lot, close to all day sometimes (I don’t work everyday and she’s out of school at the moment).

These past few weeks they have starting hanging out more, I would say once or twice a week and it really bothers me. I’m currently in a different state for work and I know absolutely no one here and everything is closed to add to it. So phone conversations with my friends or her keep me busy. On the weekends I would try to hang out with some colleagues (that I would not usually go out with) to keep myself from thinking about her being with her friends. She’s a very direct type of girl and would tell you what she thinks right off the bat but I can’t seem to not think that she might be cheating or something especially when she goes home late even though she texts me whenever she’s out. I got so bad that I would get so angry when I come home from work and want to talk with her and she tells me she’s at their place, that I would not text her nor answer her calls until the next day.

I know there is an issue from my side and it starting to be poisonous for me but how should I address this situation?

Green Eyed Monster

DEAR GREEN EYED MONSTER: Y’know GEM, you’ve caught me at an interesting time. A lot of times, getting a letter like this would lead to my basically ripping you a new one about the hypocrisy of going out with your friends while telling her not to hang out with her, about the coercive and even unreasonable demands that she not spend time with her friends…

But I’m actually in a more mellow mood at the moment so instead of tearing into you, let’s talk about what’s actually underneath all of this and just why what you’re doing is inevitably going to backfire on you. We need to talk about exactly what’s going on and why you’re jealous of her friends. Because, let’s be clear: this is a you problem, not a her problem.

And it starts with a very simple question: what’s wrong with her spending time with her guy friends? Now obviously, you’re worried that she’s going to cheat on you with one of them. But why, exactly? What, exactly, do you think is happening now that wasn’t happening before? After all, she’s known them for years before she ever started dating you. Why should things change now? Is she telling you about how one of her friends has started horn-dogging around her or has been getting incredibly flirty? Is she gushing about how amazing Guy X, Guy Y or Guy Z are, in ways that she would have gushed over you in the early days?

I rather doubt it. If that were happening, I imagine you would’ve said so in your letter. So I think we can safely say that your anxiety around her and her friends is free-floating and irrational.

Instead, if you’re absolutely honest with yourself, I think we can both agree that there isn’t any actual, reasonable basis for your discomfort. After all,  nothing has actually changed other than the fact that she’s dating you. Everything else seems to be exactly the same. But your presence isn’t going to make one of her bros and BFFs suddenly decide that now is the time to try to undermine your relationship and try to snap her up… and even if one of them was trying to Nice Guy his way into her pants, that doesn’t mean she’s going to go for it. After all, it takes two to tango; one dude’s pining away for someone or even trying to be a relationship Machiavelli about it doesn’t mean that she’s going to fall for his bulls

t.

Unless, of course, you don’t actually trust your girlfriend.

However, if we’re being honest, then I think we both know that’s not the issue. The issue is less about trust and far more about your own self-esteem and the fact that you’re both in a long-distance relationship. It sounds to me like you’re dealing with some serious FOMO; after all, you’re in different cities,  you can’t see each other in person and that curtails a lot of what makes a long-distance relationship work. Lots of folks have that sense of FOMO, the fear that their friends are off doing cool and amazing things without them. Almost every time, the fear isn’t about missing out on whatever cool activity their friends are doing. The fear is almost always “what if my friends are having a great time without me? What if they’re bonding and becoming closer with each other and, since I’m not there, they’re going to become tighter and closer and then there won’t be room for me any more?”

That, I suspect, is the cause of your jealousy. You don’t feel secure enough in yourself or your own value, and so you worry that your relationship with your girlfriend isn’t nearly as solid as it could be. When you don’t have faith in your own value, it’s very easy to feel like someone else — someone with higher “value” or a relationship of longer standing — would turn her head. And if she’s spending more time with other people, people she’s close with, people she clearly loves and feels strongly about and you’re not there… well, doesn’t that mean that you’re getting squeezed out?

And that’s the real fear, frankly. It’s not that you’re afraid of her cheating on you so much as that you’re worried that she’s going to leave you. That you’re going to get squeezed out by people who are physically there with her. And if we proceed from that angle — that your fear is that she’ll be getting closer with her guy friends than with you — then there’s a perverse logic where trying to get her to spend less time with her friends makes sense.

Notice very carefully that I said “makes sense”, not “is a good idea”. Or, for that matter, “won’t fail miserably” or “won’t blow up in your face.”

Here’s a truth about dating: you can’t break-up proof your relationships. There is no magic formula that’s going to keep people from leaving you — whether it’s being hyper-vigilant in an attempt to keep them from cheating, trying to occupy all of their time so they can’t meet other people or even just keeping tabs on them at all times. In fact, almost all of that will all but guarantee that they’ll leave you. You might keep them from cheating — assuming they were ever even thinking of cheating in the first place — but you will destroy the trust, affection and respect that is critical for relationships to survive.

And let’s be real here, my dude: that’s exactly where you’re heading. The fact that you’re getting angry and giving her the silent treatment to punish her when she sees her friends is going to be exactly the reason why she’s going to leave you. There’s nothing more poisonous to a relationship than to have someone not only constantly tell you that you’re a liar, but to punish you for doing things as simple, basic an inoffensive as spending time with her friends. Friends, I might add, who have been in her life for far longer than you have. There comes a point very quickly where she’s not going to be willing to put up with this s

t. You’re going to put her in the position where she needs to make a choice between her boyfriend or her platonic friends, and she’s going to choose them. Not because she’s banging one of them or all of them, not because she’s secretly in love with one of them or because they sabotaged your relationship with her. It’s going to be because you demanded that she make that choice and her friends didn’t. And trust me: she’s going to go with the people who know her well enough to not demand that she choose.

If you care for her and you want this relationship to work? You’re going to need to work on yourself. The problem isn’t the jealousy, in and of itself. The jealousy you’re feeling is a symptom, not the cause. So, for that matter, is your lack of trust in your girlfriend; again, that’s a symptom. Your problem is that you don’t believe in your own worth or your own value or the fact that people could value you for yourself. Having things to occupy your time — not being able to spend time with your friends or go out and do things — isn’t the answer either. That’s just a way of distracting yourself or keeping yourself occupied. You need to get to the root of the issue and find your own value, the internal validation that helps you feel secure in why people would care for you and want to stay in a relationship with you. If you were more secure in your own worth, you wouldn’t feel like the way to preserve your relationship is to cling to your girlfriend the way that you do. You’re demonstrating classic needy behavior in a way that’s turned toxic and corrosive, and if it’s left unchecked, it’s going to destroy every relationship you have moving forward.

And honestly, this sounds to me like something that would best be discussed with a counselor or therapist. They can help you break the patterns in your life that lead to these feelings and help you find ways to get those needs met in ways that are actually productive and useful, rather than destroying the relationships you currently have.

But the first step to any of this? It’s going to be accepting that your girlfriend cares for you and just trust her. You have to trust that she is honest with you when she says that she cares for you. You have to be willing to believe her when she tells you that there’s nothing untoward in her relationship with her friends. And here’s the thing: trusting her will give you the proof that you can trust her. Her hanging with her friends and coming back to you is proof that yes, she loves her friends but she also cares for you. As you see that your fears and anxieties are unfounded, it’ll be that much easier to shut that part of your brain up that drips poison in your ear. Just as confidence is fear + survival, trust in this case will be built out of fear + reassurance. Understanding that your anxiety is lying to you makes it that much easier to ignore it and to take refuge in what you and your partner have built together.

But if you don’t get it under control, it’s all going to come crashing down around you. And that will be your fault.

You have a choice to make here, GEM. Here’s to hoping you make the right one.

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