DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This letter was spurred by your recent column about letting folks down gently. My question is related but separate: how do I keep a relationship platonic when the romantic interest is mutual?

For some context: I’ve recently met this lovely person with whom I have a great deal in common, including stated romantic interest. However, for reasons unrelated, I (though poly) am not open for new relationships at this point, and falling in love would cause serious harm to both myself, this new friendship, and to my already established relationships.

We’ve spoken about this explicitly and seem to have a good understanding of each other’s positions, but I want to make sure my actions match my words here. It’s a precarious situation.

So. How do I maintain a platonic relationship with my new friend, while minimizing the risk of catching feelings? Emotional intimacy is a major aspect of all my relationships, and I want that to be true for this new friendship as well, to the extent that I can manage it.

What advice do you have for navigating these deep waters? What are your do’s and don’t’s for not falling in love?

Love Fool

DEAR LOVE FOOL: This is one of those times where I feel like an oracle in Greek myth, except my answer would probably be “You realize that by asking this question, you’ve more or less ensured the fate you’re trying to avoid is going to happen, right?”

The sad thing is that I’m only partially joking.

I’m, gonna level with you, LF; you can’t really force yourself to feel or not feel something, and trying to do so usually makes things worse. It’s rather like folks in monogamous relationships who get bothered by the fact that they’ve developed a crush on someone. The more that people try to force their feelings away, the stronger and more intense those feelings tend to become. Trying to bottle up your emotions or force them away is more akin to a pressurized gas in a fragile container; you may have it contained for now, but the odds are good that things are gonna blow up and make it everybody’s problem.

So, under normal circumstances, I would say you don’t need to worry that feelings are inevitable. After all, people are complex creatures, capable of multitudes; just because someone is friends with a person they’d be into doesn’t mean that sex or romance is automatically going to get in the way. Folks are quite capable of being happily platonic, no matter what When Harry Met Sally says.

The problem is that you and your bud already are attracted to each other. You both know it. You both are trying to avoid it… but you both know it’s there.

That can be an issue if the two of you aren’t very good at compartmentalizing. There’s only so much “oh but if things were different” you can do before you start thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you indulged this a little. Especially when you, LF, already prioritize emotional intimacy in your relationships. While I’m very firmly of the position that emotionally intelligent folks can tell the difference between emotional intimacy and romantic attraction… the two tend to go together like nitro and glycerin when both parties are already into each other.

Does that mean that this friendship is doomed to fall under the weight of your mutual attraction? Not necessarily. A lot is going to depend on how disciplined you can be and how much you’re willing to sacrifice some of the emotional intimacy that is so important to you and your friendships.

A big part of how you can try to decrease the odds of falling in love is to try to try to avoid subjecting yourself to unnecessary temptation. I realize sounds like a sex-negative religious group telling men to block women with bikini pics on Instagram, but stick with me for a second. Human willpower is, in a way, a limited resource. Think of it like a muscle; you have a fairly finite amount of energy, and the harder that muscle has to work, the faster you burn through that energy supply. The less it has to work, the more energy you have overall. With willpower, the less you have to utilize it, the less likely you are to run into a scenario where you no longer have the willpower to resist a particular temptation. If, for example, you’re trying to cut sodas out of your diet, not having any in the house means that you don’t have to expend willpower to choose water instead of Dr. Pepper. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you’ve expended your willpower on other things — maybe you had an awful day at work — and you know you’ve got an ice-cold can of God’s own nectar in the fridge that would taste like pure happiness.

The same general principle applies to dealing with relationships. One of the things I suggest to folks who want a casual, no-strings relationship with a sex partner but want to avoid things getting more emotionally entangled is to avoid the trappings of romance. Get-togethers that feel particularly date-y — things like quiet, intimate restaurants, long walks on the beach watching the sunset, and so on — carry connotations and emotional associations that yell “WE ARE WORKING TOWARDS ROMANCE”. Similarly, getting deeply emotionally intimate in conversation, talking about future plans together…. the sorts of talks that people who are moving towards romance do also carries that connotation of love and emotional entanglements. Avoiding the sorts of behaviors that carry those connotations and implications helps keep the likelihood of developing feelings to a manageable level.

I realize that talking about framing and connotations sounds weird, but humans are bad at lying to ourselves and understanding why we feel the way we do. Our brains don’t rule our emotions; more often than not, our brains take their cues from what our bodies are doing and assign a reason for it that lines up with what it’s experiencing. When we do things that we associate with a particular behavior or emotion, our brains assume that we’re feeling that emotion. It’s part of why actors who play couples or whose characters fall in love will often end up dating; they’ve been imitating being in love and their brains said “oh, must be real, then.”

This sort of “brain follows the body” result is hard enough to shake. But there’s also the fact that you and your friend are already into each other; having those intimate moments together — especially alone, with physical intimacy or in a romantic atmosphere — makes it harder to say “we probably shouldn’t do this.” I mean, falling in love feels amazing; that new relationship energy makes our brains kick out the jams and dump dopamine and oxytocin into our systems. That increases the likelihood of hitting a point where you and your new friend aren’t going to be as able to pull things back a little.

And of course, it’s made that much harder when you’re constantly thinking “ok, can’t let this go too far, can’t fall in love, can’t let myself get too into this.” Much like trying to not picture a purple elephant — or, say, Bea Arthur wearing a strategically ripped Deadpool costume — the effort of not doing so just ensures that it will be on the top of mind. So it becomes this little reminder of how you feel that gets harder and harder to ignore, like a metaphorical rock in your shoe.

So as unpalatable as it may be for your usual relationships, having to keep this one a little at arm’s length until things have time to fade may be the key to not catching feels.

Now with all that being said… the problem isn’t falling for your friend, it’s what pursuing a romantic relationship with them would do. After all, catching feelings for somebody doesn’t mean that you have to do anything with them. You can realize you’re in love with somebody and not act on it. Emotions are just that — feelings; they’re not commands or obligations. You can be in love without doing anything about it.  As I’ve said before: crushes, even romantic and sexual attraction are like a fire. As long as you don’t add more fuel, they burn out and fade on their own over time.

Rather than dwelling on it or pining away, you can note those feelings, name them, and just let them be. Rather than damming them up or taking them as a call to action, you can just let them flow through you. When you become aware of it, you say “ah, yes, that’s my affection for %FRIEND” and allow it to just be there while you do other things.

Of course, it helps if those other things aren’t, y’know, deep and meaningful conversations over a candlelit dinner or something.

Does this mean you can’t pursue a friendship with them? No, of course not. It can certainly work; it just means that the two of you will have to be mindful and willing to not act on this attraction. If you can manage that — or if you can keep this relationship at a bit more of a remove than you might prefer — then you can have a great and meaningful relationship. If you can’t… well, then you have to ask yourself whether this relationship would be worth the effect it would have on the other aspects of your life.

Just be aware that aspects of this friendship will be more difficult than they would be otherwise. Go into this understanding that and you have a better chance of things staying to a level you would prefer.

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 am recently in the process of leaving my toxic job with a little bit of savings and no concrete plan for what’s next. I can’t even think about work and job stuff without feeling dread, anxiety, depression, etc. because not only am I leaving a bad environment after 5 years, but I also feel my career in tech and engineering no longer fits my life. I have no idea what my future holds and I’m absolutely terrified. I just turned 30 years old, male, straight-ish but identify within the queer community, and I am feeling so stuck with trying to get out of the toxic masculinity, “high-performance-male,” “life purpose or bust” mindsets.

I am in the slow process of seeing a career counselor and I am also on the ADHD/ASD spectrum. I have a lot of dating experience and good social skills, but the career aspect of life is just so painful for me and contributes to horrible feelings of low self confidence and failure to live up to my potential and expectations (I am a self-taught musician, avid reader, good friend and ally, and have a lot of positive social feedback, but I just don’t know how to pull these all together into a career that can pay the bills and still have free time to prioritize relationships). I am also terrified of going back to school for exploring interests in psychology, social sciences, arts, etc. because of not only post-pandemic uncertainty, but also if it’s something I’ll actually maintain long enough interest and executive functioning to succeed in without having mountains of debt for nothing (I consistently seek treatment for ADHD, but it’s a constant struggle because my brain might be treatment-resistant to most medications and there’s a lack of alternative resources in my area. I need A LOT of reassurance and support just to feel that I am succeeding and worry that I may need too much support that would be unattractive for a “grown-ass-man”).

So anyways, back to what I want to ask. In case I am unfortunate to experience long-term unemployment, failure, etc., what is my possible outlook for finding partner(s) who are okay with dating an unemployed man in his thirties or potentially forties? How can I still feel attractive and “sexually valid, wanted, etc.” without thinking too much about job uncertainty and potential financial dependence on others? It personally doesn’t bother me about not fitting the traditional stereotype and role of a man in today’s society, and I actually am not interested in children. But I am very worried about other people’s unconscious beliefs from society blocking me from finding loving, sexual, and fulfilling relationships (which I have found WHEN I was working, but never had the experience of finding them during unemployment, and I do not want to live with my parents). I know that I would never fall into a co-dependent hole of binging on weed, drinking, video games, porn, etc. if I ever found myself in a relationship as an unemployed person, but how can I portray that while dating or explaining to others about my circumstances? Would it still be attractive to call myself a potential “stay at home boyfriend?”

Thank you for your time and support,

Potential Stay-At-Home Boyfriend

DEAR POTENTIAL STAY-AT-HOME BOYFRIEND: There’re a lot of questions tied up in this, PSAHB, but a lot of false assumptions too. But as with a lot of apparently complicated and thorny issues, it helps to start with just one thing and working outward from there. Because, quite frankly, sometimes the reason why folks get tied up in knots is because everything stems from an initial underlying issue. Address that and everything else starts falling into place.

So let’s start with your leaving your job. First and foremost: congratulations on recognizing that you’ve been in a s--tty situation and taking steps to get the hell out of it. That alone is some huge progress, and you should be proud of yourself for doing this. It’s also entirely understandable why you’re having complex and weird feelings about it. You’re making a choice to step away from something that not only have you invested a lot of your life into, but something that also lines up with toxic and restrictive ideas of what it means to be a man. So not only are you dealing with the sunk cost fallacy, but you’re deliberately choosing to push against a lifetime of messages that tell you that this is what you’re supposed to want and what you’re supposed to be. That’s really, really goddamn hard to do.

We live in a culture that equates “productivity” with morality. A culture that confuses “being busy” with “being a good worker”, and one that consistently tells folks that if you aren’t hustling and grinding and breaking yourself to pieces, you are lazy and worthless. In a very real way, we are taught that our job is supposed to be our identity. This is especially true in the tech and startup industries, where there is a very real push to see yourself not as a worker but as “part of a community”, subsuming your identity as an individual into the company. The whole “we’re a family”, “be part of something bigger” mythos that gets pushed on folks is all about giving up everything in your life in the name of providing value for someone else, for benefits that you will never fully receive. You are being expected to sacrifice your life — and often your emotional, physical and mental well-being — in the name of “being a team player”. But what this tends to end up doing is causing burnout, breaking people and wrecking their lives. If you look at the various exposes about the way employees have been treated at various game companies and the toll that “crunch culture” takes on people, you can see just how much this attitude damages people. And to make matters worse, the very people who are broken by these practices are then shamed for having been broken. They’re told that giving your entire life to a job is a privilege, or that they don’t have the grit for “the hustle”. They get told that reasonable hours, non-abusive working conditions and living wages are unreasonable asks, things that you should be willing to give up in the name of Being Part of Something.

Rise and Grind Twitter and LLC Twitter will tell people they’re doing something wrong for wanting unreasonable things like “work/life balance” or not trying to become a CEO of something. The whole “we all have the same 24 hours” mantra gets repeated like gospel truth instead of bulls--t hype that only gets shared because it fits on a bumper sticker. Not everyone wants to be a captain of industry, nor do they need to. Not everyone wants to run a business, nor do they need to make everything in their life about making money. People feel pressure to somehow monetize their hobbies or casual interests, turn things they enjoy doing for its own sake into a “side hustle” because… reasons. And as a result: they get stressed because they aren’t living up to an ideal that not only doesn’t appeal to them, but doesn’t actually exist in the first place.

And in a real way, it’s worse for men because there is still the pressure of “a man isn’t a man if he’s not a provider”. This ties very firmly into the belief that a lot of men have that they have to be needed because they can’t be wanted. The push to be The Provider comes from a place of “this is the only way women will want to be with you,” turning relationships from something built of mutual respect and desire into a commodities exchange. It bolsters and encourages the idea that Women Only Want “High Value/High-Performance” Men because they don’t believe that women could be interested in men for who they are as individuals. It also denigrates the value of “soft” skills like communication, emotional support and engagement, positivity and warmth and domesticity. As a result, you get generations of men who think that the only way to find a partner is to break themselves into pieces in the name of trying to fit into a cultural expectation that not only doesn’t exist, but is virtually impossible to achieve.

(Everybody can’t be the highest performer, everyone can’t be the top-earner or climb the ranks to the top of the industry. The feel-good motivational stories you read are exceptions, not the rule, and most of the “role models” people point to have advantages that 99% of the world doesn’t.)

So it’s not surprising how much this choice is weighing on you… but I think you don’t realize how much it does. You say that you aren’t bothered by not fitting into the traditional stereotype of men’s roles, but those are the very anxieties you’re describing in your letter. The fear of not being a high-performance male, the fear or finding a relationship while being unemployed or under-employed… that’s all part and parcel of those fitting into those roles. It’s very much the story of the mahout and the elephant; you are more powerful than the things that hold you back, but you have been told to believe this for so long that you don’t see it yet.  You are making the choice to step outside of what you have been told you “need” to do and society pushes against that. Those doubts and fears you are having are born from trying to go against the grain. It’s the voice of a culture trying to force compliance, terrifying you into falling into line.

As the saying goes: before you diagnose yourself with depression and anxiety, first make sure you haven’t surrounded yourself with assholes. You’ve been neck deep in a toxic environment that has been sapping away everything about you and being told that you were defective for being harmed by it. Simply taking that first step is going to feel like you’ve made a tremendous difference. You will have made a choice that says you know your own worth and that you have chosen to prioritize that rather than giving everything to somebody else.

You are afraid of needing more support than is ‘seemly’ for a grown-ass man… but the issue isn’t needing that support, it’s where you’re getting it from. Everybody needs support. No man is an island, nobody is such a rugged individualist that they’re completely self-sufficient. Everyone needs somebody they can rely on and lean on. If you’re putting all that weight on one person then yes, that’s a problem. But if you distribute your support by working with a therapist, having a strong support network of friends and loved ones that you can rely on, that’s an entirely different scenario. It’s the difference between a thousand pounds of pressure on one square inch versus a thousand pounds of pressure spread out over a wide area. One punches straight through, the other spreads the load to the point that any individual portion barely notices.

But here’s the thing about your current job, the stress of leaving it and your anxieties for the future: so much of what you’re dealing with — the stress, the anxiety and so on — is because of your job. We all have only so much emotional bandwidth, and when most of it is taken up by a job that you hate, in an environment that’s profoundly toxic for you, it’s going to leave you with virtually no room for anything else. You aren’t leaving those negative feelings behind when you clock out; they’re with you, all day, every day, bleeding into everything else you do. Just by leaving this job and not subjecting yourself to that continuous treadmill of misery, you will be cutting off the source of so much anxiety that you’ll be astounded. It will be like shutting down applications that are using all your processing power and RAM, defragging the hard drive and clearing your emotional cache. That alone will make you feel like you’ve dropped a burden you never realized you were carrying. While it certainly won’t cure any conditions, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if you find that it alleviates them. As somebody with ADHD, I can tell you from personal experience: you have no goddamn clue how much what you’re dealing with are compensating behaviors and how much they take out of you until you don’t need them anymore.

By freeing up that bandwidth, you’ll be in a much better position to decide what direction you want to take and what new career path you’re going to want to follow. You may even discover that you want something that isn’t as “prestigious” or “glamorous” but speaks far more to your soul. You may discover, for example, that you’re a facilitator, not a leader or driver. You may realize that you’re happiest being someone who makes things run smoothly or who helps people do what they need. In gaming terms, you may well discover that you’re best role is support, not carry or pusher. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s not only valid, but valuable and undervalued by folks who think that everyone needs to be the aggressive go-getter.

You know who’s one of the most beloved and — in a real way — desired characters in pop culture? Samwise Gamgee. He’s a quiet man who doesn’t want to change the world, he doesn’t want to be all-powerful or an influential leader of men. He wants to work in his garden, grow his vegetables, cook and clean and generally live a very quiet, domestic life. He’s there for his friends and will help quite literally carry them through Hell… but his greatest ambition is a quiet, calm life with a nice house and a nice family. And there are many many women who want a partner like that.

One of the things people tend to not understand about relationships, especially when it comes to questions of “being the provider” is that people in general, and women in particular, aren’t looking for someone who’s going to be covering all the costs and paying all the bills and anyone who can’t keep up gets seen as a mooch and slacker. What they want is someone who contributes, who doesn’t take more than they give. Being a provider isn’t just about money or material goods, it’s equally about labor and effort, including emotional labor. A guy who pays all the bills but treats this like they don’t need to do anything else for the relationship isn’t giving equal value for what they’re taking. The cost of the labor and effort they are demanding from their partner isn’t equivalent to just covering expenses.

The obstacles you’re imagining and the complications you’re afraid of aren’t based in the value of being domestic while under-employed, they’re based in the way you’re diminishing that worth. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at dating men, women or non-binary folks; they’re all are just as caught up in the day to day grind of capitalism and trying to squeeze life into a workday as everyone else. They’re struggling just as much as men to try to figure out how to do basic life maintenance while also trying to live up to a world built around an 8 hour work day while demanding 10 and 12 hours from workers. A guy who’s going to keep house, cook and clean and do the domestic stuff is gonna be huge for folks who feel overwhelmed just by trying to do the day-to-day business of life. Taking those stresses off their shoulders is a goddamn gift.

But all of this? This is all what’s known as “borrowing trouble from the future”. This isn’t what you’re currently dealing with, these are all things that you’re anticipating. You’re worried about whether telling people that you’re a stay-at-home boyfriend will be unattractive when you haven’t even decided what your next career steps are. You’re still in the beginning stages of retraining, not dealing with having been unable to find a job for months. Trying to deal with a problem you may never encounter is a way of tricking yourself into not making actual progress. You’re giving yourself the illusion of forward motion — “Hey, I’m alleviating this worry, so I’ll be ready to start looking for a new career” — but that’s all it is: an illusion. You’re devoting energy to a problem that doesn’t exist yet instead of the problem that does: getting out of your s--tty environment and taking the steps to starting a new career. That is where your energy should be directed. The worry of “will people find me attractive as a partner if I don’t have a job” is answered by “yes, because my value isn’t in my paycheck”. Boom, done, now you know how you can deal with it if — not when, if — it comes up.

Focus on your immediate steps. Get out of work, realize how much it’s going to free things up for you and how much better you’ll feel. Take a moment to rest and and let things settle before you leap back into the pit, so you don’t trade one source of burnout for another. Getting out of a s--tty environment can feel weird at first and you are going to want to adjust. Just because you put the weight down doesn’t mean you aren’t ready to pick up a lighter one; you need time to recoup your energy. Then, as you feel your strength and energy return, focus on your next immediate step: looking towards retraining or going back to college. Focus on the step in front of you, not the one that may be there 45 steps down the line where you can’t see yet.

Take it one step at a time, one milestone at a time and let the future take care of itself. Trust in yourself and your own value to carry you through if, IF, unemployment intersects with finding a relationship. That’s not a worry you need to expend your energy on. That’s not a thing that exists yet. You are here, in the present. Be in the now. Take care of the now, and that future will just be one more day that never comes to pass.

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: My question is, honestly, is it truly possible for men to actively seek out casual sex or hookups without being creepy? Now, let me clarify some things about this question. Theoretically, of course, the answer is obviously “yes”, but practically? How does a man even bring up the idea without ever creeping out a woman? Many women seem to be repulsed by the idea. Some may like it, but only with certain men. Of course, it’s impossible to know if a woman would like hooking up with you, or even if she wouldn’t be utterly repulsed by you asking, without asking in the first place, so even finding out that vital part of the equation seems impossible to do without creeping a woman out, unless you’re ungodly lucky and every single woman you happen to ask just happens to not be repulsed by you asking.

Another thing is even approaching. Ask on Reddit about it, every single possible venue has its detractors.

“Don’t ask me at the store, I’m just there to shop.”

“Don’t ask me at class, I’m there to learn.”

“Don’t ask me at salsa lessons, I’m there to dance salsa, and I’d be uncomfortable dancing with guys who ask me.”

“Don’t ask me at the coffee shop, I’m there to read/work.”

“Don’t ask me at the bar, I’m just there to drink with friends.”

“Don’t ask me at the club, I’m just there to dance with friends.”

It would be one thing if these were just framed as personal preference, but these always carry the implication that any guy who would do this is probably predatory. And God help you if you DARE ask any follow-up questions about any of these. If you do, it’s obviously because you want to invalidate her opinion or you think you’re entitled to women’s time. Just about the only uncontroversial venue is Tinder. But for many men, that’s just a self-esteem destroyer, of constant one-sided swiping and ghosting.

Some may say that the best thing to do is through social circles or activity groups. But because of everything else I mentioned, I REALLY do not want to do that. If I creep out a stranger, that sucks, but there’s likely no more negative consequences than that. The fact that she even would meet me again is slim to none. But if I creep out a friend or a friend or someone else in an activity group, that’s just terrible. She could tell others about how I creeped her out, my already existing friends would be more suspicious of me, any future interaction with any female member of the group would be tainted, I might even get shunned from the group. That makes me never want to look to friends or activity groups.

So basically, how is it even possible for a man to look for hookups without being creepy? It sounds like he’d need ungodly luck. First, the woman has to not be offended by a simple approach. Then, she has to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up, and then, to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up with him. None of those are knowable without asking in the first place. But to ask requires approaching in the first place. And then if he asks, she would then know he thinks of her like that…

Seeking Something Casual

DEAR SEEKING SOMETHING CASUAL: As is so often the case, SSC, the problem you have isn’t the problem that you think you have.

People — guys, gals and non-binary pals — regularly find folks who are looking for one night stands, friends with benefits and partners who are just looking for sex without the strings or complications of a committed relationship. And no, it’s not just about hots finding thots, nor is it about the Mythical 20% of Twitter exercising droit du seigneur over 80% of the women. They’re just people, same as everyone else, putting themselves out there, shooting their shot and finding people who are of like-minded interests.

Despite what folks would tell you, women are as interested in sex as men, including an interest in casual sex and no-strings hook-ups. Barrier that folks frequently run into is that women who sleep with men face disproportionate levels of risk than men do, the sex that they find — or are offered — is often not that good, and a lot of times, the men they hook up with prove themselves to have a nasty case of Crouching Nice Guy, Hidden Douchebag afterwards. When guys try to get someone to f--k them and then turn around and shame women for doing exactly what they were asking for, that tends to disincentivize women from being as up front or open about wanting to bang.

But when you mitigate the risks, including post-coital slut-shaming, women are emphatically down for it.

The issue that you are having, SSC, is that you’re coming at this from the angle that women don’t like sex or find casual sex repulsive, that men’s — or rather your — sexual interest is inherently unwelcome or intrusive and that the only way to find a sex partner is to creep on women until someone says “ok sure”.

Some of this is ignorance, some of it is inexperience and a whole lot of it is a combination of low self-esteem, listening to the wrong people and a heaping helping of confirmation bias.

So, let’s take this in reverse order.

Part of why you’re struggling with this is that you’re coming to this discussion under the assumption that casual sex is, by definition, mostly unwanted, unwelcome and hard to find. When you start from a base of “I want this but there’s no way to find it without being a creep,” it’s very easy for confirmation bias to seep in and cause you to give far too much credence to random people. Seeing folks on Reddit say “ewwww, no” seems more impactful because it already lines up with what you believe; you’re much more likely to take what they say as gospel, rather than seeing it as one person’s opinion.

(This is, in fact, a common issue on Reddit, where non-representative samples are regularly held up as proof of random bulls--t…)

Despite the seeming size and authoritative nature of r/relationships or what-have-you, subreddits aren’t a meaningful sample of the population at large. You’re seeing individual people’s opinions about specific circumstances. Even if those get massive upvotes, that’s still opinions, not facts, nor are they universally held.

And to be clear: they’re very circumstantial. While I’m certainly not going to claim that there’s a Brad Pitt exception or something, there are going to be plenty of folks who will say “well, that’s how I met MY FWB”, and they’ll be telling the God’s honest truth. They did what they weren’t “supposed” to do according to your sample and yet still found success.

Which is actually leads us to the next issue: a lack of experience. Your interpretation of this seems to be predicated on the idea that finding a FWB or casual hook-up is primarily a meet-someone-and-hit-on-them scenario that leads to them going home with you that very night. And while this does happen, it’s not the most common occurrence. This is more how people tend to think it works, rather than how it actually plays out. That’s part of why you’re finding (and overvaluing) the resistance to this idea.

Here’s part of why so many of the women you bring up are very much against dudes asking them out at whatever venue: because they’re picturing the typical “nice shoes, want to f--k” approach that some folks seem to think will get them laid. It would be tempting to say this is an unfair stereotype or straw man if it weren’t for the fact that lots of dudes legitimately and literally act like this — both on dating apps and in person. But this goes back to why women frequently aren’t (openly) into casual sex: because the guys who are offering it the most often have all the social calibration and awareness of a brick. A particularly horny brick.

The issue with a lot of the examples that you listed is that approaching women for sex goes against the social contract. One doesn’t generally go to the gym, the grocery store or class in order to hook up or even expecting to. Now, you’re far more likely to meet someone who’s at least open to meeting and talking to strangers at a club or a bar; the social contract of being in those places is that this is a venue where people frequently go to socialize and meet new people.

(This does, admittedly, depend on the type of bar. A singles bar in the entertainment district is gonna be very different from the local watering hole or an Applebee’s.)

Now just being in those venues doesn’t mean that someone’s interested in being approached by all and sundry. It just means that you’re far more likely to find like-minded folks.

With that being said, let’s get back to social calibration and experience. There are ways that it’s possible to meet and even hook up with people in all of the theoretical situations you bring up. What it requires is being aware of not just the social norms, but paying attention and knowing how to read social signals. Someone who is at a bar to drink or dance with her friends is going to be giving off far different vibes than somebody who’s open to talking to people. The same is true of folks at the coffee shop, at the book store or in class. You want to give your attention (and time) to folks who are open to or actively interested in talking.  Somebody at Starbucks who’s got their headphones on and is staring intently at their laptop is giving off the nigh-universal “don’t talk to me” signal. On the other hand, if you and they are both waiting around for your orders, it’s very easy to use a general observation or comment to start a conversation.

The same is true for someone at a bar. If she’s oriented herself towards the room, you and she make eye-contact and she gives you the look-away-look-back-and-smile or other indications of interest, then she’s signaling that yes, she would like to talk to you. On the other hand, if she’s in a group of friends and they’re all standing around in an inward-facing cluster, then she’s going to be far less receptive to somebody rolling up on her.

By that same token: nobody appreciates a guy who treats a MeetUp or a dance class like a singles bar. Dudes who cruise those like horny sharks make the experience a misery for everyone. However, folks will frequently talk with other regulars that they see often; those are the folks who’ve demonstrated that they’re not there to hit on people. They’ve built up trust and social capital and — critically — they aren’t just hitting on folks. And while they may start flirting with someone or ask somebody on a date, that is far more often the culmination of previous interactions and conversations, not necessarily the first time they’ve ever spoken.

So no, you wouldn’t just hit on somebody in the middle of your conversational Spanish class. But you might go up to them afterwards — especially if they’re not rushing off to another class — and ask them about the reading. And if you and they have more than a five word conversation, it might lead to asking them if they’re free and would they like to grab a quick coffee at the Student Union? And as you and they talk, you may find that you both have a lot in common, you find that you’re laughing and joking and having a good time… and this may lead to your asking them for a date. Or it may lead to getting dinner, drinks or even eventually going back to your place or theirs’.

Yeah, the women in the examples you bring up probably don’t want a dude who just asks them if they’d like to f--k. But if you were to ask them if they would be open to talking to somebody who was nice and funny or charming and warm… they would very likely say “ok, in that case, maybe.”

(Obvious disclaimer is obvious: this is not the same as “all women would be down for this type of approach”.)

The difference here is that the guy who has the most success isn’t shotgunning an approach at everyone who he finds vaguely attractive. He’s paying attention to the people who are most open or interested in talking to somebody. He’s not hitting on her, he’s having a conversation. There’s flirting, yes, but it’s flirting with an eye towards whether she’s interested in flirting; if she isn’t, then he dials it back. By paying attention, being appropriate to the moment and the location and being mindful of her interest and comfort, he doesn’t have to worry about being creepy.

This same approach applies to people in your social circle too. You don’t start from a position of “hey wanna f--k,” you start from a position of paying attention to folks, seeing who is or isn’t attracted to you and might be interested in more. You talk, you flirt, and if there’s mutual interest, see about a date.

“But what if they’re not interested?” I hear you cry. “Wouldn’t that lead to everyone getting weird and destroying your friendships?”

I’m glad you asked, convenient rhetorical device. The answer is “no, not if you don’t make it weird first”. If you and a friend were vibing, and you were to say “hey, I really enjoy what we have, but I’m curious to see if there’s more. If you’re interested — and it’s absolutely cool if you’re not — I’d love to take you on a date,” that’s not a friendship killer in and of itself. If they were to say “thank you, but I’d really rather be friends” and you respond with “I totally understand, not a problem,” and continue to act like a friend? Then things are gonna be fine. It’s only going to be weird or uncomfortable if you don’t take “no” with good grace or make your entire friendship about “BUT WHYYYYY WON’T YOU F--k ME?”

And, incidentally, the same approach applies to dating apps. First and foremost: much of why dudes have less success on dating apps is completely down to how people use those apps — bad pictures and profiles, engaging in behavior that downgrades them in the algorithm, poor messaging behaviors and treating each potential match as the end-all-be-all of dating. But even when you do match with people, you don’t want to lead with “so who’s up for a little f--ky-f--ky” — which, I hate to say, isn’t an exaggeration. Even women who are actively looking for NSA sex don’t appreciate being treated like a foregone conclusion or a human Fleshlight. You come to that first meeting with an attitude of “let’s start by seeing if we have chemistry in person”, not “it’s all done but the squishy noises”. Meet up for 15 minutes for coffee or ice cream and see if you have as much of a connection in person as you do over text. From there plan an actual date and see where it goes from there.

Just as importantly though: you need to be willing to own your interest and what you’re looking for. If what you want is a casual relationship without an expectation of commitment, then you have to be willing to put that out there. Yes, people who aren’t into this will say “thank you but no”. That’s good. That’s what you want. You want people who are on the same page as you. Pretending that you might be open to a relationship or looking for something long term just to avoid chasing people away will only lead to heartache and annoyance. It also means that you stop casting your interest as something unfortunate or to be hidden or that makes you undesirable. That outlook will make it next to impossible for you to actually find a partner because nobody appreciates an offer of “um, I know this is going to disgust you and you’re probably going to say no anyway but if you can stand it, would you very much mind having sex?” Not only will you not be able to act with confidence, but you’ll be seeing the world through a filter of “nobody could possibly want this” — which means that you’ll miss the folks who are interested in what you have to offer.

Now, I’ve written a lot about casual sex, about flirting, what women look for in a casual hook-up relationship, how to approach women… I suggest that you check out my books or go through the archives and read up.

But here’s the thing: all of the reading and study in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t put it into practice. This is where ignorance and inexperience comes into play. The only way you can actually succeed is to get in the game in the first place. There is no reward without risk, nor is there any way of getting what you want without taking a chance at being rejected. The way you learn is through trying, making mistakes, learning, trying again and succeeding and learning from that, too. If you’re going to spend all your time looking for a way to get a 100% guarantee of success… you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

As I’ve said: don’t come at this from a place of trying to get laid off the bat. That is unquestionably part of why this freaks you out. Take it step by step, not trying to get a place on the varsity team on your very first time on the field. Come at this from a place of having conversations and getting to know people. If there’s a vibe, then go on a date. The more experiences you have, the more your skills will develop. The more you develop those skills, the more success you will have.

And seriously, stop looking at subreddits as proof of anything but the opinion of that person on that subreddit… and half the time, not even as that.

Good luck.

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