DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am 29, male, cis, of Indian descent although very much western (and was born in the US), and am trying to kickstart a romantic life that I left behind.

Now, context. When I was about 16, the first girl that I really fell for ended up rejecting me, and, while I know this sounds like a sob story (“it’s been 13 years, for f--k’s sake”, I hear you say), it’s relevant: she rejected me because I was “incompatible with her family’s beliefs”. After asking for clarification, it was exactly as bad as it sounds: her family was racist (she wasn’t, and was in tears telling me this), and I would never be accepted, no matter what existed between us. We tried to go separate ways, accidentally spent the next three years in each other’s social circles, tried addressing it a few times, she gaslit me about how she felt about me for a while, screamed at each other a lot, and then I sent a text that wasn’t meant for her when I was 20, and we went radio silence on each other. Saw her four years ago, and she spent a night getting drunk with her soon-to-be-husband, being snarky and mad at me while I bonded with her (very nice) husband over movies. 

I never really…”got over it” is what I’m saying. I just kind of stopped, romantically speaking. I spent, essentially, every year since kind of just meandering, never acting, finding people attractive and never saying anything, always assuming that people don’t find me attractive (according to some friends of mine from college, the amount of times I missed that someone was into was easily into the double digits). I never really felt “deserving” of affection and there was definitely a period of drinking based depression over my loneliness in the last ten years. I’ve talked with too many people about this, including actual therapists, and I think I came to a conclusion: my brain internalized the idea that, because of who I am, affection from people is limited, and that who I am is inherently going to give a glass ceiling on what people can/are willing to offer me in all relationships: professional, platonic, romantic.

Obviously, this is not true, completely irrational, and something that I have had to get over in setting after setting. I am currently on the path to becoming a teacher, having worked in education for, now, just under a decade (despite constant parental/sibling/familial bashing on my choices), whilst being actual award-winning levels of good (framed awards, on my desk, super proud of those), and looking at Master’s programs when *gestures wildly at current world* all of this at least calms down enough for me to stop stressing about that. I have amazing friends who care about me, all of whom are people who matter to me, and are all people I miss dearly given, again, present circumstances. I am constantly in contact, and have definitely been known to talk too much, but everyone either a) doesn’t seem to mind and actually loves hearing my conversations that spin into seemingly irrelevant tangents or b) get mad at me when I apologize for thinking that I dominate conversations because they’re sick of me apologizing for things. I’ve turned my “I talk too much in a language no one but me seems to understand” into some devastating rounds on JackBox is what I’m saying.

But the romantic side is just…something I can’t get over. And I know that that is irrational, and unreasonable. Healing is a process, and my other half-hearted attempts that ended in failure over the years in between have done me no favors (processing pain while still attempting to get people to care about you is both not fun or healthy). But I find myself again and again dwelling on just how alone I’ve felt and feel and it really bothers me.

However, I have really grown absolutely f--king sick of this side of things, have determined that my loneliness and apathy towards taking action to feel better is the root cause of a surprising amount of emotional pain in my life, and have decided to give this part of me another shot, I just…can’t help but feel absolutely paralyzed. I tried just pulling up the website for a dating service months ago, and I could FEEL my breathing, I ended up closing it and cleaning my apartment instead. One of my best friends SUGGESTED that they be the one to make a dating profile for me, and I dove at that, despite all the combined guilt that hit me like a punch to the soul after. Hell, I even feel bad writing this, and have had to FORCE myself to submit this question just because I feel guilt even asking for help.

I just can’t help but feel like I should be over this, ya know? I’m 29, I look the best I have legitimately ever looked, finally putting effort into working out daily and dressing better (online fashion services did away with a lot of my shopping anxieties). I am professionally fulfilled and damn good at it, with teachers in the school I work at giving me the chance to teach guest lessons, which I also knock out of the park. I don’t make a huge amount of cash, but enough to be comfortable while indulging my incredibly nerdy hobbies (I have a mostly painted army of 40K Necron to my right).

But every time I try to think about dating, my brain screams “You’re too inexperienced, you’re too old to learn, you’re too old for people to be forgiving about both of those, and you’ve lived too much of your life alone and could never adapt to anything else. To think someone could possibly care for you how you want them to is impossible. Just learn to be by yourself”. And then I calm down, meditate, go to sleep, only to wake up and think about this all over again. Quarantine has been hell.

It feels like the only thing I’ve ever wanted is to feel a sense of reciprocal attraction, and yet every time I try and do something about it, I seize up. I don’t know what to do, how to start, how to fix this mindset, or what steps I should be taking so, here I am. Emailing you on a Monday night where these emotions have flared up again.

So, yeah Doc. I know there’s a cure, I just don’t think I have it.

Any and all ideas are appreciated.

– Need a Battering Ram for this Emotional Wall

P.S. — And in classic fashion for my paranoid self, I read this back at least seven times.

DEAR NEED A BATTERING RAM FOR THIS EMOTIONAL WALL: This is a classic case of “the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have”, NBRTEW. Your issue isn’t needing to get started or an emotional wall that you need to break through, it’s the sheer level of anxiety you’re feeling.

I don’t think it takes Freud to say that this goes beyond just having been dumped at sixteen. Don’t get me wrong: that absolutely sucked, especially considering why she dumped you. But while that certainly may have been a traumatic event at the time, I don’t think it’s the only thing that’s causing these feelings in you. And hell, while I think that the reinforcement from the way she treated you since — getting pissy at you for bonding with her fiancé, for example — certainly didn’t help, I don’t think that is the root cause either.

I think there’re two issues at play here. The first is that it seems like you’ve grown up in an environment where nothing you did was good enough. You drop a lot of hints in your letter that give a pretty strong indication that your family life was and is one of apparently heavy criticism. While I don’t think every family needs to be a recreation of the Brady Bunch or constantly affirming everyone’s worth and worthiness, if 99% of what you’re hearing is about how you don’t measure up, that’s gonna carve a groove in your brain. And when that feeling seems to be reinforced, repeatedly, by someone who supposedly cares about you… that’s going to leave some pretty hefty scars and make you incredibly gun-shy.

The second issue sounds very familiar to me. Again, there are a lot of things you mention in your letter — apologizing constantly, having panic attacks over mundane things like clothes shopping, even forcing yourself past an anxiety attack to write this letter (and proof-reading it seven times) — that set my Spidey-sense tingling. A lot of what you describe sounds an awful lot like what’s known as Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria — something I’ve dealt with over my lifetime as part of having ADHD. Now, this doesn’t mean that I think you have ADHD; in fact, RSD tends to be co-morbid with a number of other conditions, including borderline personality disorder, anxiety disorders and depression.

Rejection sensitivity and RSD can manifest as anxiety and panic attacks, intrusive thoughts about being “unworthy” of love, friendship and relationships, constant fear that you’ve upset or angered someone or being so terrified of rejection that you end up just not doing… anything. It can make you constantly second-guess yourself or try to analyze everything you’ve done in hopes of either avoiding rejection or reassuring yourself that no, everything’s ok and your friends don’t hate you. And honestly: it’s not something you can just will yourself to get over. Trust me: I’ve tried. I found ways of pushing past it in the moment, but that low-grade hum in the back of your mind doesn’t go away.

Now the good news is that this is all treatable. There are, for example, medications that can help with the anxiety and the emotional symptoms. Meditation, therapy, even learning how to control your breathing can all help manage the panic and calm down the jerkbrain voices that all insist that you’re not good enough and that your friends don’t like you. But that’s a conversation to be having with your therapist, not with me; Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor, after all. Talk to your therapist about the possibility of RSD or an anxiety disorder and whether talking to a psychiatrist about medical options would be right for you; they’re in a better position to tell you what your options are and what’re most likely to work well for you.

But one thing I can tell you: let yourself off the hook, man. Yes, this feels like something you should have been able to “just get over”… but the truth is that it rarely works like that. Especially if other things in your life — whether your upbringing, your familial relationships, even your exes — are reinforcing those negative feelings. Your anxieties aren’t something to be embarrassed about, nor should you be kicking yourself for not being able to just “will” yourself out of it or just magically “get over it”. The truth is that you’ve been putting in a lot of work to grow and improve as a person, in your career and in your relationships. That’s all something to be proud of. The fact that you short-change it or hold it up as proof that you “should” be over this just devalues the work and progress you’ve made. All that you’ve mentioned about how far you’ve come? That’s a sign of just how strong and determined you are.

The fact that you have an issue that’s hung in there as long as it has doesn’t mean that you’re weak or defective; it just means that it may be something you can’t handle by yourself and that’s fine. It’s not failure to need help from others, nor is it a sign of weakness to reach out to ask for it. You wouldn’t blame someone for not being able to ‘will’ themselves cured of cancer; why are your emotional problems any less serious or deserving of less help from professionals who specialize in it?

The other thing I think that will help is to give yourself permission to not worry about relationships right now and to focus on your emotional health. The best thing you can do for yourself is make yourself and your well-being your priority. Dealing with these issues and finding treatments and ways of getting it under control are going to be much easier if you’re not kicking yourself for not having more relationships. As I said before: erase the word “should” from your vocabulary. You’re treating this as though you’ve fallen behind on a plan and path that everyone is expected to follow. Except you haven’t, and you aren’t. There’s no one path, no one set number of waypoints you’re supposed to hit within a certain time limit. There is only your path, your journey, and you will get where you need to go at your own pace and in your own time.

Don’t worry about love or relationships; those will still be waiting for you. Make yourself your top priority for now. When you’re ready, there will be time enough for love.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a mess. I was supposed to get married this summer until we postponed for COVID; then two months ago my fiancé confessed to cheating on me. Not like once or twice, but probably twenty times with maybe a dozen different women, from one-night stands to hookups with a friend of his who I always distrusted to paying for oral sex at a strip club, happy endings and prostitutes, to more one night stands and bar make outs, to an acquaintance of his (I had seen him flirt with her which feels awful), and lastly with a friend of mine several times after he moved in with me!! Ha!! This was mainly in the first three years of our relationship though earlier this year, while in pre-marital counseling, he ditched me to hang with some poly friends of friends and made out with a woman, though he confessed after.

My last ex cheated on and gaslit me terribly, which fiancé knew. Meanwhile, I knew my (ex?) fiancé wanted to explore sleeping with other people and I did try to have the conversation about how to make it safe for me. Obviously it was never going to be because he was dishonest and had disrespected me and been unethical. Also he never responded to my many efforts to open up a conversation around it, the most serious of which all happened after most of the cheating. Now he says he still needs an open relationship, and he seems to not want reconsidering that to be open-ended. We are living separately and in couples counseling; I’ve told some friends and family but my parents still think I’m engaged. Also, I’m about to be 37, and we were off birth control when he told me and in theory moving on to being open to having kids. I certainly can’t see opening anything up unless I feel radically safe and heard and prioritized which I never have been, and what’s way more important to me is having a secure foundation for being parents. I in theory can be down with sexual exploration but in all honesty it’s just not a priority. (I should also say that in our relationship I had the higher sex drive for years before lowering my expectations, and I almost never said no and I believe when he tells me I gave him the best sex of his life).

Obviously I loved him and wanted to be with him before I knew; when I found out I could clearly see the behaviors I had been ignoring and looking past and could kick myself for tolerating it, and him for letting me go down this path with someone who was being dishonest. I honestly don’t know if I can forgive the laundry list of betrayals, which still make me mighty mad.

Can I forgive him and also deal with his sleeping with other people in future under some theoretical framework that I question he could honor? Even less unsure! I guess I’m just looking for an outside opinion on what to do. He confessed out of guilt and has been willing to apologize and work on things, though some projection and resentment have popped up from him along the way that haven’t helped. He fundamentally shuts down when I need support a lot of the time, so maybe I just can’t at all be with him despite the other times together he made me happy. It sucks and I kind of can’t believe I have to deal with something this egregious again (but like, more so).

Heart Needs a Second Chance?

DEAR HEART NEEDS A SECOND CHANCE: So let’s get this out right off the top: dump the dude. Dump this guy so hard his grandparents divorce retroactively. Dump him so hard that the break up echoes through the galaxy and tens of thousands of years from now, aliens in Alpha Centauri pick up on this and collectively go “daaaaaaaaaang”.

Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about the whys and wherefores about your situation.

As many long-time readers know, I’m pro open relationships and pro ethical non-monogamy. I’m also an advocate of the idea that cheating isn’t the worst thing that can happen in a relationship, nor is it always automatically a relationship extinction level event. But both of those come with fairly hefty caveats.

For example, I have long said that not all infidelities are equal. There’s a world of difference between a one-off, never-to-be-repeated mistake that the cheating partner sincerely regrets and, say, someone who thinks that monogamy is something that happens to other people, even after they’ve made a exclusive commitment. Your fiancé is rather clearly the latter. The fact he’d been cheating on you repeatedly, with many, many women is pretty much all that needs to be said on the subject.

While there are people whose chief mistake is that they keep making a monogamous commitment — especially if they know they are incapable of keeping it — there are also folks who just plain don’t give a s--t. For them, it’s not a case of someone who shouldn’t promise to be monogamous, they’re someone whose life philosophy can be summed up as “got mine, f--k you.” Sometimes they like the thrill of doing something “wrong”. Others like the feeling of being sneaky and clever and not getting caught. And of course there’re always the ones who just don’t give a s--t as long as they get their rocks off.

(And to head off the comments: no, I don’t think your fiancé is a sex addict… primarily because sex addiction isn’t a thing. The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, the Center for Positive Sexuality, the Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom have all released statements: from a medical and scientific perspective, there’s no such thing as sex addiction. And studies agree with them.)

Your fiancé’s behavior makes it fairly simple: dude’s an a--hole.

Similarly, open relationships can be wonderful… but not only are they not for everyone. Open relationships require trust, emotional security, strong boundaries, commitment and open communication… all of which your partner has very clearly failed at. Part of making an open relationship work means being able to maintain a relationship with your partner, especially if you have a primary partner rather than a “relationship anarchy” style form of openness. The fact that your fiancé shuts down when you need support, can’t seem to discuss things openly and clearly and has, y’know, been going behind your back for most of the time you’ve been together are all pretty good indicators that, monogamous or not, this is not a dude you should be marrying or considering scrambling your DNA with.

Also, just for the record: an open relationship is not a “get-out-of-cheating-free” card. You can be non-monogamous and still cheat on your partner… and I strongly suspect he would still have cheated on you, even if you had been open.

Now, I can have some forgiveness and understanding for someone coming to realize that they can’t make a monogamous commitment. That still would require them doing a lot of work to both earn forgiveness and trust back, as well as making things right… but I can see that happen. Similarly, there are plenty of folks who’ve realized that monogamy isn’t right for them (but haven’t cheated) and want to discuss the possibility of transitioning into an open relationship. There are many, many relationships that have made that switch and survived, even thrived.

However, if your fiancé knew from the jump that he can’t do monogamy, then that is a conversation you both should have been having from the jump. It wouldn’t mean that you had to start as non-monogamous; he should be willing to prove his commitment to you to help build that trust and security before having the series of discussions about when and how you’d open up. He didn’t do that, and I suspect he didn’t because he either didn’t respect you enough to try, or had a “better to beg forgiveness” philosophy which is some next-level bulls--t.

If this relationship were to have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving, it would require your fiancé to be going above and beyond to earn your forgiveness and to prove worthy of your trust. To be perfectly frank: it doesn’t sound like he’s doing that, nor does it sound like he’s even willing to try. He sounds like he’s trying to retroactively make his cheating ok by getting you to agree to an open relationship, as though that could be backdated and magically make his betrayal of your trust go away. It can’t, and it’s bulls--t for him to even try, especially knowing how your previous ex treated you.

So dump this dude with a quickness, call the Whole Man Disposal Unit and get him out of your life. Whether you’re ever willing to explore some form of non-monogamy in the future or not — and either of those options is perfectly fine — he has proven definitively that he is not the person you want to be spending your life with.

Break up with him and find someone who will treat you with respect. You’ll be much happier for it.

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’ve been with my boyfriend for almost 11 years. We’re best friends and very happy. I love him very much and know I plan on being with him for the long run. We get along with each other’s families and friends. We recently purchased our first home together, so I know there are no problems in regards to his commitment and dedication to me and our relationship.

I’ve known from very early on that he is not interested in marriage and this truly does not upset me. I know he also plans on sticking with me forever and that is all I need. He of course gets uncomfortable when family members pester him about “when are we getting married?” to which I try to intervene as quickly as I can by saying “It’s not for us, we’re happy with what we have now.” (I’m hoping by being the girlfriend saying this, it eliminates further pestering on his end due to gender norms).

We’ve had a few instances where friends or family members have gotten engaged, to which I appropriately reply how excited I am for them. I’ve been a bridesmaid/Maid of Honor in numerous weddings, so many times they want to show me their ideas or request advice. This causes my boyfriend to think I’m “catching the wedding bug”. I ensure to him every time I am not.

Here’s the catch though: there have been a few smaller, more intimate weddings that we have been guests of, to which my boyfriend will sometimes say to me when we’re alone or slow dancing: “We could do something like this.” To which I have no clue how to reply.

I am over the moon with what we have now and am perfectly content never getting married. However, I would get married if that is what he wanted. But I don’t KNOW what he wants.

Help. I am so confused. When I try to ask him about it he either brushes it off, says “I didn’t mean it”, or kind of shuts down. He doesn’t get mad or defensive, but his shutting down completely prevents us from having a proper discussion without him getting the wrong idea. Any idea how to approach this?

Waiting For an Explanation

DEAR WAITING FOR AN EXPLANATION: Usually in cases like these, I say that you and your boyfriend need to use your words. But the problem here is that your boyfriend seems to be using his in ways that don’t make a lick of goddamn sense… when he uses them at all.

So unfortunately, you’re going to have to call the question and sit him down to have an extended Awkward Conversation. In this case, you’re going to need to tell him: “Hey, I’m honestly confused about where your head is at regarding our relationship, and I think you’ve got the wrong idea about what I’m expecting. I want to carve out some time to talk with you about this and make sure that we both understand each other, and we’re on the same page about things.” And then schedule a day and time that you are going to dedicate exclusively to having this conversation.

On that day, you’re going to need to take charge and direct the conversation. Start with a simple declaration of intent: you want to clarify things because you’re pretty certain that you and he aren’t understanding each other, and that you need him to listen and let you speak without interruption until you’re finished. You want to make sure that you get through this and speak your peace, and so you need him to just hold any questions or things that he feels he needs to clarify or what-have-you until you give him the go-ahead.

Next: tell him that you’ve been worried about having this conversation because when you’ve brought it up before, he tends to shut the conversation down and that leaves you more confused than before and afraid that he he may not get how you feel. You’re also worried that he may not understand your feelings or what you want, or have ideas about what you want that simply aren’t true.

Now you start to get into the meat of things. Start with telling him that this is what you understand his position to be regarding your relationship, marriage and so on; make it clear that this is what you have gathered from what he’s told you and so on. Then tell him that you agree with this, that you’re happy with what you have and that you don’t need to get married. Explain that the fact that your being in so many wedding parties — to the point that other people are coming to you for advice — doesn’t mean that you’re “getting the wedding bug”; it just means that you’re celebrating the marriage of friends or family members, and that you’re happy for them. Being their bridesmaid or maid of honor doesn’t mean that you’re secretly dreaming of your own wedding.

Next: tell him that, with all that in mind, the way he behaves is confusing to you. That when he’s said things like “we could do something like this,” you don’t understand what he means. You don’t know if he means some form of a commitment ceremony, some elaborate party with friends and family or what. For that matter, you don’t know if he says that because it’s something that he wants, or that he’s saying it because he thinks that this is something that you want.

Now finish with letting him know how clarifying these issues will make your relationship better. That you’ll both know for sure how the other feels, that you’ll both be on the same page regarding your relationship and its future, and that there won’t be this confusion about how you feel or about how he feels. If you both clarify things, communicate your feelings clearly and make sure that you both understand one another, not only will you both have a stronger relationship over all, but there won’t be any confusion or conflict arising from these miscommunications.

Then give him space to ask questions, clarify things he may not understand and let him share his side of things. And, just as you asked it of him, let him speak uninterrupted until he’s done. It may be difficult to do this, especially if you feel like he’s misunderstanding you or is misstating how you feel. However, it’s important to let him get his side out and then go back and clarify things, just as it was for the two of you. If you both are allowed to speak your peace uninterrupted, then its’ much easier for both of you to get your points across. Interrupting to ask questions or try to correct one another just ruins the flow of the conversation and risks either sending it down unrelated tangents or creating even more confusion… and a lot more frustration.

Now one thing I will say is that the way you’re answering family members’ questions about when you two might be getting married might be causing some of the confusion. While I realize that you’re saying that you’re happy with your relationship in its current state, when you say “we’re happy with what we have now,” it can sound like you’re saying that this is a temporary state that may change in the future. That could be causing him — or various family members or both — to think that you’re saying “we’re not interested in getting married YET“, rather than “we’re not interested in getting married at all“. It might be helpful to phrase it as “we are happy with our relationship as it is”, or even “we’re happy with what we have,” with no conditional. That, at least, makes it less likely that someone — whether your boyfriend or others — will interpret this as saying “not yet but maybe some day…”

But for now: have that Awkward Conversation and make sure that you and your boyfriend both understand what the other wants. The more you two can communicate clearly about this, the easier it will be to put all this behind you and continue building a beautiful life together.

Good luck.

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