DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: long time reader here. I think I have an unusual problem. I’m a cis, straight, white guy who during my teenage years (I’m 22 now!) used to be a Nice GuyTM, didn’t care about presentation and didn’t have many (if any) female friends. I want to make emphasis on how much some of your advice has helped me to grow as an individual.
Nowadays, I pass the Grimes Test with flying colors. I dress properly and regularly go to the barber. I joined a D&D group with strangers who turned out to be some of my best friends. I have deep, intimate friendships with both men and women. I don’t panic anymore when talking to women. I’ve read a lot of feminist literature that literally changed the way I saw a lot of things for the better. You could say that I’m peaking, and the best part is that I’m constantly growing and developing myself.
The one thing that I don’t really know how to solve is, what’s next? I would really like to find a meaningful relationship, but I don’t have a clue about how to go about it. I tried Tinder, meeting friends of friends, and most of the times people just ghost me. I also don’t know how to flirt, I’m scared of saying or doing something that might be wrongly interpreted. Also there’s the fact that we are living through a pandemic, which doesn’t help. I know dating is sometimes a numbers game, so if anything, I wanted you to know that I owe some of my growth to your column.
Thank you for all these years, you’ve been killing it-
Completed the Tutorial
DEAR COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL: This is something a lot of folks wrestle with CTT. There’re a lot of folks who’ve taken the lesson of “create an awesome life and become someone people want to date” to heart. They have actually put in the work to become their best, most polished self… and then they realize they’re still single. Women, as it turns out, aren’t beating down their door because they heard a rumor that a real catch is there. So… now what?
Well, you do the work. Becoming a good guy isn’t the end of the journey; it’s the beginning. While yes, building up an awesome life and becoming a good guy is a reward in and of itself, you’ve also built the foundation for everything that comes next. You go out and start meeting people and turning those connections into dates. Now, one of the things I’m always telling guys is that they don’t need to do this in serial fashion — step one, step two, step three, now you’re ready to date. You can work on your personal life and your social life in parallel, treating your personal development like a web or network, rather than a linear process. By treating “… and now you’re ready to date” as the end goal, you run the risk of constantly kicking “being ready” down the road. There’s an infinite supply of reasons why you might decide you’re not “ready” yet.
They’re not good reasons, mind you. But they exist.
However, there are some benefits to taking things in the order that you did. Think of The Karate Kid and the classic “wax on/wax off” scene. The whole point of those exercises was how they taught Daniel the basics without his realizing it, helping him develop the muscle memory that would allow him to respond without thinking. Those seemingly unimportant tasks and busywork made it easier for him to actually translate those movements and responses into action as needed. So it is with the lessons you learned as you were building up this awesome life you have. Without realizing it, you’ve cultivated the very skills you need to date. Now it’s a matter of applying those lessons.
Case in point: you’ve cultivated your confidence and self-esteem. You know you that you’re a prize because hey, look at how great your life is now. That’s the outlook you want when it comes to dating: “I have an awesome life full of passion, friendship and satisfaction. The only thing that could make it better would be sharing it with someone.” You know that a relationship will be a complement to your life, not the keystone. That means that you’re developing an abundance mentality; if this person isn’t right for you or doesn’t fit, then that’s fine because they’re not necessary for you to be happy. Better to find someone who is right for you, instead of hoping that there’s some way of making one specific person like you.
Similarly, you’re confident in talking to women. You know that it’s not some impossible task that only some people can do — you just talk to them, like you would to anyone else. You also know you can walk into a room of strangers and make them lifelong friends. The skills you use to strike up friendships and connect with people who you’d love to hang out with are the same skills you use to connect with people you want to date. The only difference is how you apply them and what your end-goal is.
No, seriously. Dating and making friends are the same skillset. You’re taking a relatively weak connection — you just met, you’re still getting to know each other — and turning it into a relationship through communication, sharing passions and spending time together. The difference is the message you’re communicating. With friends, you’re checking for and signaling platonic interest. With people you want to date, you are showing that you’re interested in them as potential lovers and partners and you want to see if they’re worth your time and attention. The skills you use to cultivate those relationships are the same, just applied slightly differently.
Case in point: you want to find women to date? Consider how you made new friends as an adult: you went and found people with shared interests. You talked, hung out, made plans. That’s the same process you go through when trying to meet potential partners: you seek out folks you are compatible with, strike up conversations and make plans together. The biggest difference between Tinder and meeting someone through your social network or even just a serendipitous moment is the context; people on Tinder are specifically looking for relationships, whereas that cute woman browsing the stacks at the bookstore may not be. But then again, that’s something you run into when trying to make new friends.
The same applies to flirting. You already know how to flirt. Flirting is, as I’ve said many times before, letting someone know that you like them and engaging with them on an emotional level. You do this with your friends already. You presumably have inside jokes with your friends that you share. You let them know you think they’re awesome and that you enjoy hanging out with them. You almost certainly poke gentle fun at one another or engage in collaborative jokes where you build on what has been said before.
Those are the fundamentals of flirting. The difference is that with someone you are attracted to, you also are conveying that interest goes beyond just enjoying their company.
Now you mention that you’re worried about saying or doing something that could be interpreted the wrong way. That’s a common worry… but it’s a self-inflicted one. The truth is that most of the time, this comes from a place of feeling like any attraction is inherently fragile or that your interest in someone is unwanted; the idea that you have to phrase things exactly right is a way of trying to control that anxiety. It’s treating flirting like a magic spell — frame thing like this, say it like that or else it all falls apart. But that’s not how attraction works. Hell, that’s not how most conversation works. While people can and do say stupid s--t or shove their feet into their mouths — been there, done that, built a career out of it — the vast majority of people are actually incredibly understanding and forgiving. Let the one who has never stumbled over their own words, said the wrong thing or wished they could dig a hole and pull it in after themselves cast the first stone.
The truth is that while there’re ways to make it less likely of being misunderstood — being clear and straightforward in your interest, not playing head games or pretending to be less interested or available than you actually are — you can’t control how other people hear things or think. The only thing you can do is trust yourself enough to be clear and, in the event of a misunderstanding or mistake, apologize and clarify. If someone’s into you, they are much more likely to give you some leeway to clarify things and realize you were speaking in good faith. And if they don’t… well, it sucks, and it’s going to feel embarrassing as hell, but you will survive it. This is now something you can learn from for the next time, and something you’ll laugh about ruefully down the line. Again: been there, done that, got my black belt in it. But as scary or painful as it may feel when you imagine it… it’s not nearly as bad as you worry it will be. It won’t ruin your life or destroy your chances of dating someone. It just means that you’ll deal with some discomfort, them move on. And when you realize that this is all that is, you realize it’s not something to fear.
That’s how you build confidence after all; confidence is the result of fear + survival.
What about the numbers game and ghosting? Unfortunately… that’s part of life, really, particularly when it comes to dating apps. One of the issues with dating apps is that what looks good on paper doesn’t mean it works in person. There’re so many signals and clues that control who we are or aren’t attracted to that we can only perceive when we’re together in physical space. These can range from everything from timbre of their voice to the way they treat the waitstaff at the restaurant to things you can’t consciously perceive… and that’s all information that can’t be conveyed in emails, texts or even video chats. So you often get first dates that go nowhere because there were those subtle, even subconscious keys that meant you two weren’t mutually compatible. And while that may mean that there’re folks you like who aren’t into you (and vice versa), finding this out early on means you’re now free to find someone who is right for you.
And if they ghost you on the app… well, they weren’t that into you in the first place and that’s ok. Again: there’re best practices that help minimize the odds — including getting off the app and meeting up in person ASAP — but you can’t control other people. You can only control yourself and your reactions. So you just recognize that, again, this was a sign that they weren’t right for you, dust off your shoulders and move on.
Here’s the thing, CTT: you’ve made a lot of progress. You’ve done the work, you’ve build a great life and you should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished. Not only is your improvement a reward in and of itself, but you’ve laid the foundations for the social life you want. What comes next may be a challenge, but it’s not nearly as hard as you might fear. You already know what to do. You just need to apply it in new ways.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com