DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: recently confessed to a cute new guy at my school, we share the same class, our class in particular has a groupchat on a messaging with all our classmates inside. Prom is coming up and he asked someone else(let’s call her Elise) who is a known aromantic and not really likeable.

After my confession to him in his DMs, he replied by saying I was super cute and asked me out to prom(in which I said yes), but thinks that we should keep it a secret because of how awkward it would be if everyone knew. We were really close friends before my confession, but after I confessed, he immediately stopped talking to me during school and would only text me. He wouldn’t directly ignore me but he’d avoid me and avoid conversations.

In art class, he hung around Elise and everyone started to ship them together as a couple, and he continued to hang around her and approach her. I’m a little jealous but he did tell me when I confessed to him, that he only asked Elise out for fun, that it was nothing serious. The thing was, he asked her to prom in the class groupchat, while he told me to keep it a secret.

I gave him paper roses I made late last night, and just put it on his table when no one was there, everyone started teasing him and saying Elise made it for him, which I felt a little heartbroken at that time. A few hours later, my friend has told him that I was the one who made the flowers, not Elise. He just said “ok” and had no reaction.

My question is, is he playing me/am I a backup plan? Or does he truly like me?

High School Drama Club

DEAR HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA CLUB: I’m not a fan of just “confessing” one’s feelings, HSDC. It’s the sort of thing that makes for drama in CW teen shows and shoujou manga, but in real life it’s not terribly helpful. Leaving aside the framing – as though being attracted to someone is something that needs to be “confessed”, like it’s a secret shame – what you’re doing is functionally offloading responsibility onto the person you’re confessing to. You’re telling the other person “hey, I have these feelings about you. Now go do something with them.” Even under the best of circumstances, you’re essentially asking somebody to decide in that moment whether they want to explore a relationship with you. Not a lot of people are going to want to make a snap decision like that, especially if you two don’t have much of a relationship beforehand.

This is why I prefer just asking someone out on a date. To start with, it’s a much easier lift to decide if you want to go on a date than to decide if you feel the same way about someone in that moment. Dating is essentially a way of determining if you both think there is enough there to make a relationship work and if you’re compatible on that level. Asking someone on a date gives them something they can say “yes” to without feeling like they’re committing to a great unknown. Plus, the “I like you” is part of the ask; people rarely ask folks out on dates if they’re not at least somewhat attracted to the other person.

Now that rant aside, let’s talk about what’s going on here.

If I have the timeline correct, it sounds like your crush asked Elise to prom before you told him you liked him. Now, going to prom with someone isn’t exactly a promise of a lifelong commitment, but it does make telling him after he publicly asked her something of a bad move on your part. Even without some of the other issues – and we’ll get to those in a moment – you’re asking him to take backsies on his prom invite, and that’s not a great position to put somebody into. Suddenly turning around and saying “you know what, never mind, I got a better offer” is rude at best. So if he likes you back… well, his choices are either coldly drop her like fifth period French or go to the dance with someone else even though he’d supposedly rather go with you. Again: great for teen dramas on streaming, not so great for real life.

But it’s the rest of what you say that makes me think that maybe you should just let this one go. Whether Elise is aromantic or not – known or otherwise – is kinda irrelevant. The fact that he supposedly asked her out for the LOLs is… well, that’s kind of a dick move. It’s one thing to ask someone to prom when you’re friends and you’re going AS friends. Asking someone, again, publicly, as a goof? That’s just cruel.

That is, admittedly, assuming that is what he did. Because the whole “hey I like you too, but let’s keep this on the down low” part? That seems like someone who’s either playing you for laughs, or who wants to have his cake and eat it too. There can be legitimate reasons to say “hey, let’s keep our relationship secret for now”, but they’re relatively few and far between. And going by the way he’s behaving? Well… I’m going to go with “doesn’t have good reasons for this”. The fact that he says he likes you in private but ignores you in public while cozying up to someone who he supposedly asked out as a joke doesn’t say good things about him. Either he’s lying to her – which, again, is cruel – or he’s lying to you, which is dickish. And if he really is hoping to keep you as his backup choice in case he doesn’t have the magic wand that’ll turn Elise from being aromantic into a lovey-dovey dance partner? Then that’s even more dickish.

And if he’s hoping to have it both ways – something public with his aromantic friend and you as his sidepiece on the down low so he can get his rocks off? Well that’s beyond dickish and well into “called shot to the balls” with workboots territory.

While I don’t expect teenagers in high-school to be the most adept at handling nuanced relationship issues, none of this sounds good. His words say one thing and his actions say another. When you have a dichotomy like that, you should believe the actions. And his actions say that either he’s not into you, or you’re his fallback plan at best. At worst, he’s playing both of you.

Do yourself a favor: chalk this up to a learning experience. Some guys seem nice but end up being a classic Crouching Nice Guy/Hidden Douchecanoe who think they’re slick enough to keep multiple balls in the air without dropping them or letting the others know. If the way he’s acting isn’t who he really is, then he’s got terminally poor judgement and a lot of growing up to do. If it is a representative of his true self? Well, not dating him is a bullet dodged and a lesson learned.

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 ex and I broke up a couple months ago; we were together 2 years and six months. She broke up with me because she said that I was manipulating her, even though I wasn’t and if I did it wasn’t on purpose. After this we stopped talking for a month. When I saw her again, she told me that I wasn’t manipulating her and that her friends told her that I was and just a lot of things that didn’t make sense. After that we stopped talking. Then we went to a football game and saw each other by accident and we talked and she said that she was sorry about it. When I told her I forgave her, she asked if we can try again. I said I don’t know.

After that day, we went to a dance and we talked about what happened and just danced with each other and kissed, then I made up my mind that I wanted to try again. But now every time I see her with friends, she just doesn’t seem like she wants to but after all that when we are alone she either ignores me or just talks to me about us like she wants to be together.

I feel like I am being lead on. Can you help me Doc?

Please, I want to try with her but I don’t know what she wants and she wont tell me. What should I do?

Running Hot and Cold

DEAR RUNNING HOT AND COLD: So, unlike a previous letter about relatively explicable and understandable behavior, I feel like pointing out that these are some actual mixed signals.

When you’re dealing with actual mixed signals – where either words and deeds don’t line up or someone says one thing one day, says another the next and then goes back to the first on yet another day – there’re two likely reasons. Either the person sending those conflicting signals is confused or doesn’t know what they want, or they’re playing head games with you.

The problem is… neither of these are great.

Now, I’m going to assume – and this may be an overly generous assumption – that you told her you wanted to try again. If you hadn’t… well, then there’s your problem. You need to actually say the words, and make it clear where you stand. But if you have and this is what you’ve ended up dealing with? Well, then I’m going to say that this ain’t a great scene for you.

Let’s start with what kicked the whole mess off: your girlfriend dumped you because “you were manipulating her”. Except, apparently, you weren’t the one manipulating her, her friends apparently were, or at least were the ones telling her that you were. Now, this wouldn’t be the first time friends have interfered with someone’s relationship for seemingly bizarre reasons, whether with good or malign intentions. Maybe they didn’t like how much time you were spending with her and conspired to break you up so she would have more time for them. Maybe they watched the wrong TikTok videos and the tendency to misuse and abuse legitimate psychological terms like “gaslighting”, “lovebombing” and “trauma dumping” lead them to think that normal relationship behavior was somehow toxic. Or maybe they had legitimate worries about her and were calling out what they saw as real problems in good faith.

Ultimately though, that doesn’t matter as much as how your now-ex responds once the truth was revealed. And it seems that… well, not much has changed. She says she wants you back. Her actions (at least in a few places) suggest she wants you back. But she either doesn’t make a move, acts like she’s not interested or otherwise seems to go every which way. And that’s a problem.

See, one of the things about being a good potential partner is that you have good emotional intelligence and to be in decent working order. This doesn’t mean that you need to have Hannibal-like insight into people’s emotions or psychological states, nor does it mean that you can’t have any quirks, flaws or neuroticisms. It just means that you need to be in good enough mental and emotional shape to date. And right now? It doesn’t seem like your ex is.

It’s hard to say why she’s acting the way she is. You say that she acts like she’s not interested in you when she’s around her friends. Well, could it be that her friends are still on Team Someone Else? Is it possible that they’re still trying to talk her out of getting back with you? Or maybe the friends have nothing to do with it and either she took your “I don’t know” to heart. Or she might not be entirely sure, herself, and her desire to get back together flows in and out like the tides.

But at the end of the day, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Any of these reasons are big signs saying “this is a bad idea”. If her friends are still dripping poison in her ear about you, then she’s still allowing them to dictate her relationships, instead of recognizing it for the toxic friendship that it is. If she’s blowing hot and cold because she legitimately doesn’t know what she wants, then she shouldn’t be telling you “let’s try again” one day and then giving you the cold shoulder the next; she should be trying to figure out her own mind instead of making it your problem. And if it’s that she took your “I don’t know” as the last word… well, either she’s playing a very weird game or she’s almost absurdly fickle.

One of the things I always tell people when they want to know if they should get back with their ex is that if the reason that they broke up in the first place hasn’t changed, then all they’re going to do is end up in the 12″ dance remix of their first break up; it’ll just be faster and have a more driving beat. And going by what you’ve said here, nothing has really changed. Either she’s stuck with toxic and manipulative friends, has poor boundaries or simply doesn’t know what she wants. That combined with her constant routine of “Come here, go away, come here” is enough for me to say that she’s not in a place where she’s in good shape to date. If her boundaries are just that poor, it’s a bad sign. If she doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to know her own mind enough to decide what she wants before telling you she wants you back (maybe), then that’s a bad sign.

If you’ve told her you want to try again and she’s acting like this? Then the best thing you can do is take her non-committal behavior as an answer and the answer is “no”. Even if it isn’t a no, you should move on; quite frankly, this will just end up being more confusion and headaches for you, and for no purpose whatsoever. I know you want her back, but taking her back when she’s acting like this will just leave you back where you are now: confused, frustrated and nursing a broken heart. Better to take the clean break and let yourself heal than to commit to a second, slow break up that’ll take that much longer for you to recover from.

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 an incel, but not the kind of incel that comes to mind when you hear or read the word. I am not a hateful incel. I’m simply an incel by the words definition, nothing more, nothing less.

As for my major problem, it too is implied by the question, and that question is, “how do I stop being an incel?” I’ve exhausted every conceivable strategy to lose the negative mindset, but I’m all out of options and I need someone who knows what to do in a situation such as mine.

It’s been like this for me for about 5 years now and due to this fact I am now a 20 year old virgin. I honestly don’t know what to do. And that’s why I asked you for help.

Need A Way Out

DEAR NEED A WAY OUT: Well, on the one hand there’s an obvious way of stopping being an incel, NAWO: you have sex with someone. This may mean that you have a fling with someone you’re not necessarily over the moon about, simply to get laid. It may mean going to a sex worker, finding someone who’s equally only interested in just getting their virginity out of the way or some other way to get over the technical definition of “involuntarily celibate”.  But as with many people who talk about their anxiety about being an older virgin, the issue for many incels isn’t sex or virginity in and of itself. After all, losing one’s virginity can be achieved through a flight to Reno and a trip out to some of the legal brothels in the surrounding counties. What people – anxious virgins and self-described incels alike – ultimately want isn’t sex so much as validation. The sense of being chosen, being desired or otherwise being affirmed as being wanted.

I bring this up because it seems pretty clear that a big part of what you’re trying to ditch isn’t just the virginity aspect, but your feelings around being a virgin and your attitude in general. And for that what we need to do is look within. And since one sentence leapt out at me, I think that’s where we need to start. Specifically: “It’s been like this for me for about 5 years now and due to this fact I am now a 20 year old virgin.” My dude, I cannot emphasize this enough: the fact that you didn’t have sex as a fifteen year old is absolutely normal. I realize that it feels like we live in a world where high-school is nothing but hot-and-cold running oral sex and buttstuff – when folks aren’t wringing their hands about whether men and boys are having enough sex – but that really isn’t the case.

Not only can I guarantee you that your peers aren’t nearly as sexually active as you think (and in many case are actively lying or exaggerating how much they’re actually doing), but I can also tell you that at 15 you were almost certainly not emotionally or mentally in a place where you were ready to have sex. Your body may have been screaming that its time to start sowing those metaphorical wild oats, but you’re more than just your body; you’re your intellect and your emotions and your attitude and so much more. And while I know teenagers have very strong ideas about their own levels of experience, maturity and so on, I absolutely remember all the stupid s--t my peers and I did at 15. For all we thought that we were worldly and wise and were more mature than any adults would give us credit for, we were goddamn idiots who weren’t ready for the real complexities and consequences of a sexual relationship.

(Not, mind you, that this stopped any of us from trying.)

Similarly, the fact that you’re a virgin at 20 is not a big deal. And its not as though I’m not sympathetic. At the risk of TMI, I was 19 when I lost my virginity, and up until then I was fairly convinced that I was going to be able to rent a car legally before I was ever naked with a girl. So I get where you’re coming from. But having the benefit of decades’ worth of experience and perspective is a gift in this case and I can promise you that the person who was the harshest or who cared the most (or really, at all) about my being a virgin was me. Nobody else really gave a s--t, and certainly not to the level that I thought they did. The few times anyone threw my non-sex-having status in my face were a--holes who not only knew sweet f--k-all about me, but were folks who I didn’t want in my life in the first place. A--holes are going to ass, and life is too damn short to give a damn what a--holes think.

So right off the bat, I can tell you that the first step to no longer being an incel – either in the technical sense or the colloquial sense – is to change your relationship to your own virginity. Being a virgin means exactly one thing: that you haven’t done a particular activity yet. That’s it. It holds no more real significance than having traveled overseas, gone scuba diving or playing Texas Hold ‘Em in Vegas. When you have sex for the first time, you will be the exact same person you were before, with the same thoughts, feelings and quirks. You won’t be more mature, more desirable, less awkward or anything other than who you are. What changes you do experience won’t be because of your change in sexual status, it’ll be because of your change in belief about yourself. And if we’re being honest? You can change those beliefs now, without having had sex.

In point of fact, changing those beliefs about yourself will go much further towards actually helping you find someone who wants to have sex with you. So, in case you needed a little motivation, there you go.

But of course, it’s easy to say “just change your attitude”; it’s a lot harder to actually do it. So let’s talk a little about concrete steps you can take that will help change how you feel. Now, I can already hear you protesting; as you say, you’ve “exhausted every conceivable strategy”. I wonder whether that’s true though. I mean, I remember saying the same thing about, well, lots of things in my life when I was your age. The truth is that what I actually meant was that I exhausted the things I wanted to try and half-assed the things I was “supposed” to do, and mostly wrote them off when they didn’t fix things instantly.  I suspect that a lot is the same for you. And – again, speaking as the voice of experience here – I think I know some areas that you have neglected that will help.

First and foremost, you need to pay attention to what you pay attention to. One of the single biggest impediments to leaving being an incel behind are… other incels. A big part of why people have a difficult time ditching the negative attitude is because they’ve surrounded themselves with other people with that same attitude. It’s very much a “misery loves company” situation, where you feel like these are your peers, the folks who understand what you’re going through. But often they’re also the ones who are dragging you back down and keeping you from breaking free. One of the most significant aspects of incel communities – and not even the ones actively hating on and wishing violence on women – is the crabs in a bucket phenomenon, where any reference to improvement or leaving being an incel behind is defined as “cope”. Part of what marks someone out as an incel isn’t the lack of sex but the attitude that this something imposed upon them by fate and is ultimately unchangeable, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is either deluded or selling something. If someone talks about how to improve or their desire to fix things, they tend to get shouted down or browbeaten back into compliance; pulled back into the bucket by the other crabs, even as they’re about to crawl out.

It’s not exactly shocking that every story about people who’ve stopped being incels starts with “well, I quit listening to what everyone on the subreddit said and went out and just talked to people.”

Now, to be fair: this is ultimately about ego-protection, more than anything else. If someone successfully leaves the incel mindset behind – especially if it then results in their having sex – then it stands as a sign that this isn’t a universal constant nor the result of fate (or genetics or any other force you care to name), but the results of one’s own choices and actions. It’s easier and less ego-damaging to blame God, the universe, evolution or even the hegemonic idea of “women” than to look at your life and accept that it’s the result of a series of choices you’ve made that brought you to this point. That’s not to say that external forces didn’t have influence, but an acknowledgement of that even when external forces were involved, your current circumstances are in part based on how you responded to them.

Let’s be real: it’s really, really difficult to look around and say ‘well, I’m isolated and lonely and upset because of decisions I have made’. It’s easier and more perversely validating to say “no, it’s the Stacies who are wrong” and to blame others, even when that other is just “genetics”. When someone does leave being an incel behind, it’s a stark reminder that incels tend to be incels by choice, not fate… and thus it’s more soothing to the ego to prevent others from leaving. It’s often easier and comforting to deny that change and improvement is possible than it is to say “well at the end of the day, this is ultimately down to me,” and a lot of folks find having to admit this to be painful, even humiliating. And so they’d rather suffer the pain they currently feel than risk the humiliation of changing and hearing other folks say “we told you so.”

But here’s the thing: you are where you are today because you made the best choices you could under the circumstances with the information that you had. Now that you know more, you have new and better information, you’re ready and able to make different and better choices. That’s not bad or humiliating, that’s growth and maturity.

So start by paying attention to what you’re feeding your brain and who you’re allowing to have access to your innermost self. Are you constantly reading and watching material about how awful you are and about how nothing will ever get better? Are you surrounding yourself with a community – in person or virtual – that tells you hope is cope and that improvement is impossible? Then you need to cut those out cold turkey. You want people in your life who are Team You, folks who inspire you and are inspired by you in return, people who support you and cheer you on and help pick you back up when you stumble. You, in short, want to surround yourself with folks who not only motivate you to be your best self, but who help you be better. And this means genuine friends, not folks who’ll sell you snake oil or who sell hate for others – especially women – dressed up as “advice” or “self-improvement”. If their “support” comes in the form of contempt for the very people you’re hoping to have relationships with, then all they are doing is selling you the same incel mindset, just in a different flavor. You don’t need misogynists looking to use sex as part of their grift, you want the people who cheer you on and remind you that you’re doing great and to keep going.

The next thing to do is focus on how you feel about yourself. I’ve touched on this regarding feelings surrounding virginity, but this is a big one. Part of why the incel mindset is so perversely appealing is that it justifies your negative feelings about yourself… all those negative feelings, not just the ones about sex. If you pay attention to how incels talk about themselves, it’s just relentlessly s--tting on themselves. The supposed detriments to sexual attraction are ultimately the excuse they give for feeling that way. But those feelings would still be there; the “shame” about being a virgin is really about how they feel about themselves as individuals. If it weren’t sex it would be some other way that they’re failing to measure up to being “a real man”.

And this is ultimately why, even if they were to all somehow find willing sex partners, their attitudes wouldn’t evaporate like the morning mist. There would be any number of reasons why having sex that time “didn’t count”… because sex isn’t the issue. Their feelings are.

So rather than trying things that supposedly make you more attractive and desirable, I want you to focus on finding and doing things that make you feel better about yourself. What are the things that you do that feed your soul and bring joy to your life? What are the things that drive you, that make you say “you know, this is really good. This makes me feel at peace, this makes me feel satisfied and content”? If you don’t know what those things are… well, this is as good a time as any to find them. Now personally, I’d suggest doing things that are inherently nurturing and supportive. Gardening and growing things, crafting and building, cooking, volunteering… these are all inherently pro-social and supportive ideas and hobbies, ones that make it easier to bring people together.

I’d also suggest trying new and different things, not because you think it’ll make you popular, but because it feeds your soul and makes you feel good about being you. Learning a new skill or language is always a good option. So is learning how to play music, or to tell stories or express yourself artistically. You might join an amateur or intramural sports team, not because you want to be the bestest athlete, but because it’s fun, it gets you out of your dorm or apartment and connects you with other people, as well as just enjoying using your body and moving around. Exercise is great, don’t get me wrong, but doing it because you love how it makes you feel is going to be much more motivating than “I need six-pack abs to get laid”.

You should also do things that make you feel like a sexy bad-ass. Not “what other people think make you look good”, but the things that affect how you feel. Dressing well in a style that speaks to you, getting a good hair cut, taking care of your hair and skin – not for others, but simply because you like it better that way – will change a lot of how you feel about yourself.

And of course, I’m a big advocate for simply going out and being social – talking to everyone, being curious about people and looking towards broadening your own perspective. Being interested in others makes you interesting, and it forces you to practice your social skills. After all, social skills are skills, and they only improve via deliberate use. So the simple act of being someone who likes to talk to people and people like to talk to will go a long way to making you realize that you’ve got far more going for you than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. Yeah, it may be rough and awkward at first, but as the sage says: sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at it. You power through the suck and hey, turns out that on the other side is skill!

Do these things and you’ll find that a lot of your attitude will shift. It won’t be fast and it won’t be immediately obvious. But if you commit to this course for… let’s say a year, then I can guarantee you that by the end of the year, you’ll be amazed at how the way you feel has changed and how subtly that feeling crept up on you. And I can also tell you: that change in how you feel will improve your social life. I won’t promise that it will get you laid – nobody can gaurantee that – but I will promise you that it will improve your life, your friendships and drastically increase your ability to find the relationships you want.

Oh, and one more thing. I know it’s practically a cliche around here, but I do suggest talking to a counselor or therapist, especially if you’re in college or university. Most schools have low cost or even free mental health resources for students, and I can’t recommend taking advantage of them highly enough. A lot of times, when we’re dealing with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy or shame or despair, we may have other issues going on that are best treated by actual trained professionals. Getting counseling, even if only to have someone to talk to and express these feelings to without judgement, can be a huge, huge help.

No matter how bad things may feel, they can and will get better if you work at them. You’ll be ok. I promise. So write back and let us know how things are going.

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