DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: How do you handle a mutual acquaintance that is just too mutual? I met many friends through my local frisbee club two years ago. The club friendships blossomed into separate gatherings for parties, trivia, and movie watching. These are my main group of people who I love to hang out with……and Tiffany.

Tiffany is a long-standing group member who has known many of my close friends for much longer than I have. She even lives down the street from one of them and works with another. Most group events involve Tiffany in some fashion since she’s close to everybody in the group besides me.

I find it difficult to hang out with her, since she is my total personality opposite. Tiffany is an anxious extrovert, while I am a decisive introvert. I could throw a frisbee around for hours, while she mainly plays frisbee as an excuse to talk to people. Tiffany hates competition and I love trash talk and close games.

Every time I see she’s attending a group event I’m at, I let out a huge sigh. Events with her have been marked by people missing amazing frisbee throws, since she had to show the crowd a video right this second. I was bantering back and forth with a friend in the middle of a course, and Tiffany has to chastise me for being “too mean”. She’s super chatty and has known most of these people 5 years longer than I have. This leads to me feeling left out of conversations, since I don’t know enough to keep up with what’s being discussed.

I know I have no right to kick Tiffany out of the friend group, since she’s not an awful person. I just need a better way to accept we will never be best friends and deal with the fact Tiffany will be at most group events in the foreseeable future.

Overlapping Circles

DEAR OVERLAPPING CIRCLES: Ah yes, the dreaded ONE person. I think most people have experienced this at one point or another: somebody in your social circle who you — for whatever reason — just can’t get along with. Sometimes it’s somebody who’s just objectively awful and you can’t wrap your head around why they’re still around. It’s even worse when that one person is a classic Missing Stair — someone who’s an active danger to others that your social circle has learned how to avoid, but not excise. Other times, it’s someone who has, for whatever reason, decided you are their nemesis and treats you like shit. And then there’s the person you just don’t like, but they’re embedded in the group like a tick.

The way you resolve things depends on precisely what the issue is. Often, when there’s one person who’s demonstrably awful, the problem is that the group overall is afraid of confrontation. Sometimes it’s the classic Geek Social Fallacy that Ostracizers are Evil and it’s sub-fallacy The Person Who Points Out The Drama Is The Problem. Groups with a Missing Stair — or just That One Asshole — often don’t like to face up to the fact that they’ve abdicated the responsibility of making sure a space is welcoming or safe and would rather ignore the problem. Or worse, they feel like they can’t excise them because… reasons. So they just let them stay and decide that it’s easier to kick out the people who point out the problem. So that often ends up falling to the person who’s willing to make the fuss, break that group’s social contract and, hopefully, pull enough people together who felt the same way but couldn’t speak up.

In your case though, it doesn’t sound like Tiffany is a bad person… just someone who you don’t click with. And hey, that’s legit; Geek Social Fallacy #4 — that Friendship Is Transitive — ain’t any more real than Ostracizers are Evil. Just because you all have friends in common doesn’t mean that you and they are going to be close; the Venn diagrams of your friendships don’t overlap that far. There’s no reason you need to be friends with her. It’s good if you can be friendly, or at the very least, polite, but you don’t need to like ’em.

Now the key is how to handle things in ways that let you keep things cordial with Tiffany but without letting her existence kill your ability to have fun with your friends.

The trick, in this case, is to compartmentalize as best you can. There will be times when you can get by without needing to interact with her much. At more social gatherings — parties, trivia events and so on — you can more or less minimize how much direct contact you have. You can, for example, have separate conversations with friends that don’t involve her. You can even use the 3:2 rule in group conversations where Tiffany is involved. Since people can only really pay attention to so many people at once, conversations can really only sustain about four active participants. When a fifth person gets involved, the conversation tends to split in a 3 to 2 ratio, with two people branching off into a side-conversation. You can use that to your advantage and use something as a springboard to a new topic; you just need a brief transition like “oh that reminds me…”

Also: beyond the fact that just listening is a perfectly valid way of contributing to a conversation — especially until you get more context — you can also ask questions about the discussion. Often, people are happy to fill newcomers in, especially if it means a new person to hear some of the stories that everyone else already knows.

Now when it comes to games of frisbee… well, that’s a point where you may have to recalibrate your expectations. You may be looking for competition, but if most of the club is expecting a social event with occasional tossing of the frisbee, then you may just have to adapt to that mindset. If you’re looking for a group that plays the game with deadly seriousness, then you may have to look at a different group to meet that particular need.

(Though if you and your buds are enjoying the in-game chirping back and forth and Tiffany doesn’t, then she doesn’t have to participate and you and the others can leave her out of it. If she’s objecting to it happening at ALL… that’s a her problem, not a you problem and she can deal with it on her own.)

Don’t forget, however, that you’re options aren’t limited “put up with Tiffany’s presence” or “never see your friends”. You can set up events and get-togethers with your friends in the group that don’t involve Tiffany. Now, this may or may not run into Geek Social Fallacy #5: Friends Do  Everything Together, where folks feel like if you’re getting the gang together that has to include Tiffany. If that’s the case, then you may have to organize events with different sets of people at different times. Having smaller, slightly more intimate get-togethers means you may not get the full “yay, I’m seeing my whole squad” experience, but it’s less likely to trip the feeling that you’re being rude by leaving Tiffany out.

That having been said: don’t feel like you have to pretend that you and Tiffany are buds, even to the others. There’s nothing wrong with saying “hey, she’s perfectly fine. She and I just don’t click, that’s all.” Make it clear that this isn’t a problem that needs solving, just that you and she have personalities that don’t mesh well and it’s easier to just keep things polite but distant than to try to mix this particular blend of oil and water.

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’m reaching out to you because I feel like I’ve reached my wits end with trying to find a date or find a girl who’ll give me a chance despite my extreme ugliness.

Anyway, a little about myself, I’m 21 and I’m a University student living in the United Kingdom. I’m brown, short and ugly and no, please don’t think I have bad skin or that I’m obese; my problems aren’t really circulated around the things I do have control over, rather the things I don’t. I have a weird looking face, soft jaw and chin (growing a beard has helped there but it still doesn’t look that great), a bad eye area and a huge and crooked nose.

I’ve tried dating apps, since that’s the avenue most people my age take yet not avail. I don’t get matches with real people at all and my experience with online dating is practically harmonious with my real life experience. I’m just invisible.

Anyway, I just want some realistic and useful advice, I still do have a little bit of hope but it’s slowly slowly dwindling.

Thank you

Phantom of the Soccer Pitch

DEAR PHANTOM OF THE SOCCER PITCH: I’m going to start by pointing out that I get variations on this letter more or less constantly. In fact, if I had a nickel for every time I got a “I’m too ugly to ever date” letter — usually from someone who’s completely average at worst — I’d be having mecha fights with Elon Musk off the coast of Los Angeles. And that’s before I get to the folks on Twitter, the NerdLove Facebook groups and elsewhere.

For all that we talk about unrealistic beauty standards for women — and don’t get me wrong, they absolutely exist — men tend to have incredibly twisted ideas not just about their own looks but also what women find attractive. The incel community in particular has this down to a pseudoscience, inventing new, exacting forms of phrenology that would be fascinating from an anthropological standpoint… if it didn’t come from places of curdled hatred and rage.

The idea that “a few millimeters of bone” is all that differentiates someone from being a sex god and being completely unf--kable leads dudes to drastically overrate their own ugliness, often to the point of absurdity. You expect someone who looks like Deadpool crossed with a rotting avocado and what you actually get is… someone who’s completely unremarkable. Weak jaws turn out to be just not being as lantern-jawed as Bruce Campbell, weird noses are usually well within the norm, sunken eyes tend to be more of an issue of replacing sleep with caffeine and so on.  Most of the time, the issues that folks have aren’t that they’re irredeemably ugly, it’s their attitude and their presentation. Every time I’ve seen people insist that they’re too ugly to date, they’re wearing clothes that don’t fit, had nothing approaching a sense of style and often looked like they hadn’t seen the business end of a washing machine in days. Their hair is a greasy mess and they look (and on many occasions, smell) like hygiene is something that happens to other people.

Similarly, their attitude — both explicit and implicit — ends up being what drives people off, far more than any issue with their looks.  For all that people mock the “Virgin Walk/Chad Stride” meme, there’s a part of it that is accurate:

The “head down, refusing to look at anyone, closed off ” posture of the “virgin” is classic “don’t talk to me” body language. It radiates irritation and unhappiness — all of which pushes people away and encourages them to not engage with the person walking or standing like that. That  body language tends to be the visual representation of the sort of negative attitude makes people want to keep their distance. After all,  negative people tend to be emotional black holes; they suck the life out of the room and make other people feel uncomfortable.

So as I said, POSP, I’m skeptical that you are some mutant, fresh from a remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I think that the far likelier issue, both in person and with online dating, is about how you present yourself. Lighting alone can transform someone from a goblin to a sexual dynamo.

But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are, in fact, not blessed with facial symmetry. What do you do?

Well, you start with the fact that there’s a reason why “good looking” isn’t the same as “attractive”. There are more people out there than I can easily count who aren’t going to show up in a compilation of People’s “Sexiest Man of the Year” but who get more strange ass than a guy who got into a car chase, crashed through an ass cart and then plowed through a plate-ass window. The classic example, of course, is Serge Gainsbourg, a man who looks like his parents spent too much time in Innsmouth. Vincent Cassel, likewise, is someone who is best described as “very French”, not “good looking”, but is doing quite well for himself. Steve Buscemi — he of the meme’d out eyes — had a decades long marriage before his wife passed away. Vincent Schiavelli, who has Marfan’s syndrome, was cast whenever a role needed a character with an immediately recognizably odd face; he was married twice. Michael Berryman, who has made his living playing freaks, mutants, and monstrous killers, is happily married. Doug Jones, most known for being under makeup in various creature features, also has an incredibly unique and unusual face and build… and is not only married but has quite the devoted fanbase of adoring women who think he’s hotter than an erupting volcano.

The secret to not letting their looks — which range from “striking” to very, very odd — get in the way of their romantic success is due in no small part to presence and charisma. Their overall attitude isn’t (or wasn’t) woe-is-me, it’s “yup, this is who I am and I don’t give a good god damn if you don’t approve”. They aren’t hiding or trying to excuse their looks; they became comfortable with themselves. They don’t treat their looks as something that makes them unloveable, but rather as what makes them unique — and uniqueness tends to win out over classic good looks, especially over time. By owning who they are, rather than treating it like a liability, it becomes part of what makes them interesting.

Now it also helps that they’re charismatic as hell; they have to be, they’re actors, after all. But charisma is something that you develop, not something that you’re born with. A warm smile, swagger, confidence and authority all make you more magnetic. So does spreading positive energy to others — when you make others feel listened to, understood and appreciated, they’re more drawn to you than they are to others. This is known as The Reward Theory of Attraction. When you make people feel good, they prioritize their relationship with you versus with other people; we’re drawn to people who make us feel good, after all.

But you also have to treat yourself well too. Much of self-confidence comes not from what we’ve accomplished but from what we believe about ourselves. When you believe that you’re the human equivalent of a popped zit, you tend to treat yourself accordingly. This is one of the reasons why so many of the self-proclaimed uggos who write to me tend to have a presentation problem. They think they’re garbage and so they don’t see the point of doing more than the socially required bare-minimum. They don’t believe that they deserve good things and so don’t bother to put the effort in to take care of themselves or present themselves well. And since they’re dressed like a slovenly pile of crap, they feel like a slovenly pile of crap, and since they feel like they’re a slovenly pile of crap, they treat themselves like one. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, and one that only stops when they choose to break it.

This is one of the reasons I tell people that it’s important to fake it until they make it; by acting with confidence they may not feel (yet), dressing stylishly even when they don’t feel like they’re someone who can be stylish (yet) and so on, they’re training themselves to be more confident and self-assured. This is one of the reasons why, even if you think you’ve got a weird nose or chin or whatever, it’s important to take care of yourself, emotionally and physically. When you’re willing to treat your presentation as something that matters — wearing smart, well fitting clothes, working on your grooming and so on — you start to feel like you matter. And that attitude grows into self-confidence and self-assurance.

And here’s the thing: even small changes can be absolutely transformative. Watch any episode of Queer Eye and you will see just how much a simple hair cut, beard trim and properly fitting shirts and trousers can be a complete metamorphosis.

So what should you do, POSP? Treat yourself like you matter. Don’t beat yourself up because you think you’re too ugly; it just creates that self-perpetuating cycle I mentioned. You have to be the one to break that cycle.

Maybe online dating won’t be the best venue for you to meet people; that’s fine. Not everyone meets their partners on dating apps, nor is it the best place for everyone, even the conventionally attractive. Meeting people in person and letting them get to know how awesome you are can play to your strengths far more than Tinder or Bumble. While nobody is saying that conventionally attractive looks don’t help, the truth is that majority of people don’t date or start relationships with folks they just met; they tend to get to know folks over time.

Dress like the sexy bad-ass you wish you were, carry yourself like you’re worth a million bucks. Take your face — whether it’s unusual or completely average — and treat it as what makes you uniquely you rather than a source of shame. Learn to be bring those positive vibes, that personal warmth and authority, even that hint of swagger and attitude. The more you develop a positive sense of presence and an attitude of warmth and bonhomie, the more you will draw people to you. That, in turn, will help you meet more amazing people… including folks you may want to date and who will want to date you.

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 dating my boyfriend for two years and our sex is amazing! Before I met him I used to have normal sex (nothing kinky and not many sexual partners), but with him, I became more advanced and now we both enjoy it.

Recently, we’ve been getting more experimental. Yesterday we went to the sex toys store for the first time and got some stuff including a 6-inch silicone dildo. My boyfriend likes incorporating toys, but yesterday he got really upset because as he stated the toy that we used was thicker/bigger in size than his own. I personally don’t wanna use that toy anymore, because I love my boyfriend and his penis and I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable. But now I feel we have an issue because of this incident.

I don’t know how to behave, how to make him feel better and I now I feel maybe it was too much to be so slutty.

Please advice.

Best regards,

Too Much Too Soon Too Fast?

DEAR TOO MUCH TOO SOON TOO FAST: On the one hand, it’s great that you and your boyfriend were finding some new ways to bring variety into your sex life, TMTSTF; that’s a core part of how you keep the spark alive in your relationship. On the other hand, it seems like your boyfriend has run head first into a surprisingly common issue: getting insecure about sex toys and penis size, especially if the sex toys in question are bigger than him.

A lot of dudes get hung up on the idea that bigger is better, particularly when it comes to penises. Straight cis dudes have a tendency to think that their junk aren’t big enough. In fact, according to a 2006 study found that only 55% of men were satisfied with the size of their penis… even though 85% of women were just fine with the size of their partner’s junk. This is thanks in no small part to a culture of restrictive and toxic ideas of what it means to be a man and what gives a man status or value. This has a tendency to get exacerbated by porn; porn made for straight cis men tends to fetishize the size of the performers’ dicks, with the implication that women need Dongzilla in order to be properly satisfied. This has the unfortunate tendency to leave a lot of men insecure in their own length and girth. After all, if they can’t compete with, say, Ron Jeremy, can they ever truly satisfy a woman the way they see in porn?

In reality, a survey of over 64,000 people found that women on average prefer a guy who’s got an average penis, instead of King Dong; larger dicks can be incredibly uncomfortable — hitting the cervix ain’t that fun — or cause injuries, including UTIs or internal tearing of the vaginal lining. Porn sex is to real sex like The Fast and The Furious movies is to your morning commute: fun to watch but not something to try to replicate in the real world.

But for a lot of guys, reality doesn’t matter. The fact that porn sex is nothing like sex in the real world never really factors into this equation — something that comes up again and again, in fact. Because despite what browsing PornHub will tell you, most women can’t and don’t get off from vaginal penetration alone. Women and folks with vaginas tend to need direct clitoral stimulation in order to orgasm, and penetrative sex, particularly penetrative sex in the missionary position, is the least effective way of achieving this. There’s rarely enough contact either with the external clitoral head or the internal wings to get them off.

This also tends to run headlong into the other reason why straight men often have issues with bringing sex toys into bed: because it takes away from the possibility that their penises are the only thing that are making their partners orgasm.

(Seriously: you will never find folks more obsessed with dicks than insecure straight dudes.)

Just as with penis size, men have been socialized to believe that penis-in-vagina sex is the only sex that actually “counts” — whether for losing one’s virginity or for “the main event”. Other forms of sex, including oral sex, masturbation and so on, is seen as “lesser” or a prelude to actual penetration. Just as importantly though is the idea that men can make their partners orgasm through penetration alone. If his wand by itself isn’t enough to make the magic happen, then something is “wrong”. For a lot of guys this means that the only orgasms that matter are the look-ma-no-hands types, where his pounding away like a jackhammer is what got her there. His partner touching herself means that he’s not doing it right. And using a sex toy means that he’s not “enough” or, worse, she won’t “need” him because her Silver Bullet or Hitachi or what-have-you can make her orgasm harder and faster than he ever could.

Combine those two together and you end up with someone who’s already worried that his dick isn’t enough and that he’s going to be replaced by the toys that he wanted you to use. Is it logical? No… but logic has nothing to do with this.

The issue here isn’t you or anything you did — certainly not being “too slutty”. The issue is his insecurities. And while there are things you can do to help give him some reassurance and walk him back from the edge… ultimately this is a HIM problem, not a YOU problem, no matter how much he tries to make it about you.

Now one thing that might help him start to get over this is to point out that sex toys are tools, not replacements for a boyfriend. The dildo isn’t going to do the job itself, any more than a hammer pounds nails without someone wielding it. It’s not the hammer doing the job; the hammer is just the method by which the job is accomplished. Similarly, it’s not a cop-out or substitute for him, regardless of how big it may or may not be compared to his bio dick. It’s doubtful that he’s going to be going around insisting that the only way to build a house is to cut the wood with his teeth and pound the nails with his bare hands. If he got you off using a toy, then it’s not the toy that got you off, it’s just the method by which he did it.  And if it’s a case of you putting on a show with them while he watched… well, again, it was the whole event that made it hot, including his being part of it. Without him, it’s not the same.

Remind him of that and hopefully he can start to realize that toys — regardless of girth — aren’t a threat to him or his masculinity. But making you think that it’s somehow your fault that he gets weird about this is a threat alright…

To your relationship.

Good luck.

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