DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Here are the facts:
– long distance relationship for five years
– had a shared Google drive where we saved nudes, lewds, love letters, etc.
– the ex pays for it, but we both uploaded stuff to it and had the password
– we broke up over a year ago
– I got a new phone right after the breakup and didn’t add our shared account and didn’t think much about it
– I didn’t ask him to delete anything when we broke up
– we don’t talk now
– I had to wipe my old phone and opened the Google drive folder and can see that he’s accessing our videos and photos often

Do I just delete anything I uploaded? Delete the whole thing? Ask him to delete it?

I trust him not to distribute any of it, but like. Privatize your spank bank so it’s at least not hanging out in a place where I can see that you’re still getting off to me.

Thanks for any insight,
G Drive Spy

DEAR G DRIVE SPY: I’m going to be honest, GDS, the question of “what does one do about shared nudes after a breakup” can be a thorny one.

Every relationship ever has… let’s call them mementos, it sounds so much better than “leftovers” or something - that need to be dealt with. Because I’m Gen-X, the more common post break-up challenges involved things like splitting up the record collection or doing a sort of hostage exchange of various belongings that ended up at your exes place and their stuff at yours. Sometimes it may have involved things like “so how do we split custody of the dog?”

The nice thing about these was that it was fairly cut and dry. You could argue about who got to keep the copy of Dolittle or accept that your favorite hoodie was now the exit tax for the relationship, but that’s more or less where it ended. Losing some of your stuff in the break up could sting, but (barring custody of said dog) it was more or less a cut-and-dry situation. You accept the loss, mourn the missing sentimental value of some of those keepsakes, but it was a rare occasion indeed that anything from the relationship itself was likely to come back to haunt you.

(Well… besides your ex, that is).

While the saga of Pamela and Tommy Lee became a national story during this period (and hideous invasion of privacy besides), the likelihood of things like nude photos or videos of you and your partner re-emerging and biting you in the ass was vanishingly unlikely.

(Plus, unless you had a darkroom in your spare bathroom or REALLY had a thing for Polaroids, the barrier to entry for having nude photos meant accepting that the pimply teenagers working the Fotomat were gonna make extras.)

But as sexting becomes an increasingly common part of dating and relationships, cheap digital storage and the ubiquity of camera phones, the odds of your pics never going away – or worse, escaping into the wild – are much higher. And along with the sex-negative bullshit stigma that comes with the possibility of pics getting out, it’s lead to new and unexpected post-break up etiquette questions. Is it ethical to keep them after the break up? If they’re in a shared drive, who do they technically belong to? What about if your ex doesn’t ask you to get rid of them? And what do you do if you find out your ex is still cranking it to them?

Now, for you, GDS I think the big question comes down to “what aspect of this situation is bothering you?”, which will ultimately decide the best approach. Is it a matter of knowing that he still has a sort of lingering sexual connection to you by proxy? Is it the mere existence of the photos themselves? Or just “dude, I don’t need to know what you’re up to with my pics?”

If its the latter, then the easiest thing to do is just, y’know… not log into the drive. Unless there’s a really compelling reason to keep having regular access to the drive, you should be able to remove yourself from the People With Access list without much fuss. Just right click on the drive on your “shared with me” page, hit share, find our name and select “remove access”. Now you never have to worry about seeing just how often he’s viewing your pics or videos and he can keep making withdrawals from the spank bank without involving you.

However, if it’s more an issue that he has the pictures at all, then you’re likely going to have some sort of communication with your ex. The question is “how much contact are you willing to have”.

You don’t say if the break up was particularly acrimonious or if you and he are on good or bad terms. The complete lack of contact would suggest that you’re at least neutral towards one another. If that’s the case, I think an email or text saying “hey, I saw my pics were still on the cloud drive, I’d really prefer that you delete them” would be in order.

However, it’s ultimately going to depend on whether you trust him to actually delete them. After all, there’s no way to know for sure that he doesn’t just move the files instead of deleting them permanently, or doesn’t make a show of deleting them but recovering them later. If you do reach out and the files disappear from the drive, you’ll have to weigh the possibility that they’ll still exist, just in a place that you don’t know about. If you’re ok with that possibility, then I’d suggest sending that email.

Deleting them yourself is an option, but it’s a potentially aggressive one that could backfire, depending on circumstances. If you just up and delete the pictures and videos yourself, then odds are good you’re going to end up getting a call or email. If he’s accessing them often, he’s going to notice that they’re gone and it won’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened.

Plus, there’s a non-zero chance that he has copies elsewhere, which would mean that this an notable but ultimately futile gesture.

(And if he’s an especially tricksy hobbitses, he may well have noticed that you’d logged in recently. He could very well lock the permissions on those files and prevent you from deleting them before you have a chance.)

Of course, if you’re feeling slightly puckish, you could log back in, upload a text file titled “Dude, I can tell you’re still getting off to these, maybe move ’em elsewhere” before removing yourself from the drive. It wouldn’t mean he’s going to delete them, but at least you’d get some satisfaction of tweaking his nose slightly before you go.

But at the end of the day, if you two ended things on decent enough terms, I’d suggest a quick email. As a general rule, I’m in favor of making your wishes known, clearly and directly. It won’t ensure that he deletes them for good, but at the very least you will make it clear where you stand.

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 reading your website for a while now and figured it was time I shoot a message your way, especially as right now I’m at my wits end for what to do with myself.

I’m a late twenties male who hasn’t had a date for the last ten years. I’ve tried, of course, but to no avail. It’s very frustrating, particularly as there’s no real reason why I shouldn’t be able to find someone to spend time with.

So what have I got going for me? I’ve got the basics down, like a roof over my head and car. I have a career I’m extremely proud of, and passionate about, and which allows me to live a lifestyle that I enjoy. I’ve got my health, including working out regularly, and I make sure to look after myself otherwise with clothes that fit, grooming, cologne etc. I’m caring, thoughtful, intelligent, and I’m a great listener. I enjoy talking to people and getting to know them. I’m supposedly good-looking; I’ve had random compliments throughout my life to that effect, and I’ve been consistently rated as a 9 on Photofeeler. To put myself out there, I’ve been to salsa classes, board game groups, pub crawls, ice-skating, concerts and other meetup events. I’ve tried dating apps on-and-off.

I’ve yet to make a friend throughout any of this, let alone a date. I get along with people, make them laugh and generally give off a good impression, but it never translates to anything meaningful. I’ve never been approached by a woman, and they generally avoid talking to me in group settings. I certainly have never noticed any sign of attraction. I just go to events, talk to people, but in the end I’m always alone. It’s got to the point now, that I don’t bother to go out.

Just the other day I had a colleague say I was handsome and that I must have had plenty of women in my life, and not long after that, a female colleague said it was a shame I was single because I’m “good-looking and a great guy”. It’s all very confusing when people seem to think highly of me, but I’ve got no romantic or social prospects…and it hurts.

To top it all off, I’m now scared of being the type of guy who will eventually get settled for. I’ve missed out on dating when I was younger, and I can’t see my luck changing for the better.

I’m in therapy, so here’s hoping that eventually helps me, but until then, I just need to get things off my chest, and maybe get some guidance in the process.
Thanks.

The Lost and the Lonely

DEAR THE LOST AND THE LONELY: OK my dude, I get a lot of letters like yours, and I chose yours because it’s a prime example of some classic mistakes I see men make all the time. So I want to preface this with the understanding that this isn’t just about you, so much as the collective you and other men who’ve found themselves in the same boat.

Similarly, I want to make it clear: this is going to be blunt. This is going to be unpleasant. But I promise you: make it to the end, take it in, and you’ll be in a much better position than you’re in now.

So with that in mind, I want to talk about what I’m not seeing in your letter: you don’t say what you do. Not “what job do you have” or “what actions are you taking”, but actual verbs. Actions. Behaviors. Actual, demonstrable steps you take with others.

When I look at this list, I see two categories of descriptions. There’re the qualities that’re directed towards yourself – dressing well, taking care of yourself physically – and that are passive, such as being a good listener. And hey, that’s all well and good; taking care of yourself, working on your style and presentation is important. But it’s not active. It’s directed inward, not outward. Yes, being conventionally good looking helps. Having a strong sense of style and getting your grooming on lock helps. But it’s not going to do the work for you. If you think about it in D&D terms, it’s giving you an advantage on some of your rolls; it’s not going to draw people in, in and of itself.

Similarly, “being caring” and “being a good listener” is nice… but that’s a very passive thing. It’s important, yes; these are things that people are looking for in relationships. But it’s not only not the only thing, it’s not something that draws people in. Telling someone you’re a great listener isn’t going to make them want to date you, any more than being “a really nice guy”. Those are, honestly, the sorts of things that people expect to come standard. The fact that they often don’t is something of an indictment on how men are raised and taught, sure, but it’s not going to bring someone in.

If you’re a regular reader, then I’m sure you’ve seen me talk about passing The Grimes Test. If you haven’t, then let me run you down a quick version: Grimes is a kaiju made out of toxic waste. He’s relatively cute as far as toxic waste monsters go, he has a job, he has is own place to live, but he doesn’t have much of a life outside of work. Grimes has never hit a woman, he’s never harassed her or sent pictures of his genitals to someone without their express consent. The Grimes test is this: what do you have going for you that Grimes doesn’t already have, that would make women want to date you instead of Grimes?

What you’ve described about yourself thus far doesn’t pass the Grimes Test precisely because it’s very much about an absence of negatives, rather than an abundance of positives. Grimes is the baseline; you want to date, then you need to do more than the baseline.If you want people to want to date you, you have to bring things to the table that go beyond just inherent qualities.

To put it another way, it’s a little like the quote from Glengarry Glen Ross: “Nice guy? I don’t give a s--t. Good father? F--k you, go home and play with your kids. You want to work here, close.” 

You aren’t closing. You aren’t demonstrating to people why they should like you or want to talk to you. You have to do things that actually bring value to their lives – things that aren’t just “sit there and listen while you talk about your day”.

If we go through the list of things you’ve done, I see a list of places you’ve gone and hung out. I don’t see you saying “and while I was there, I talked to X people, made Y connections, invited Z people to do things”. I see you say that nothing “happens”, or that women don’t approach you or ignore you in group situations. And that’s the wrong way of looking at things.

You can’t wait for folks to do the work for you. Yes, having women approach you is nice when it happens – and there’re certainly ways to increase the odds of it happening – but you can’t rely on it. You have to be willing to take the initiative, take risks and put yourself in a place to get rejected.

Now, I can hear you, and other guys like you, say “well how do I do that?” And so let’s take a theoretical example from your list of activities… the board game group, let’s say. You go to one for the first time and there’re lots of folks there. Ok cool… are you chatting and having fun with folks? Are you making a point of connecting with people, maybe setting up a game and saying “hey, want to get in on this?”  Or are you taking a more secondary role, where you’re waiting for people to ask if you want to join them? Are you being an active participant in those group conversations, or are you just sitting there, hoping someone will ask you questions?

If you go over to people, introduce yourself, get to know them a bit, that’s going to work far better than hoping that they notice you or bring you in. That’s going to signal that you have confidence and belief in your own value. If you’re waiting for other people to do that for you, then you’re not showing what you actually bring to the table.

Similarly, being the person to invite others to play a game goes a very long way towards establishing yourself as someone who brings things that people value to the table. You’re creating a situation for them that is fun, where they’ll enjoy themselves, instead of letting it just happen. If you were to say “Hey, I brought a copy of $GAME, have you ever played it before? No? Awesome, here, let me set it up, it’s really fun,” then you’re creating an opportunity for these relative strangers to have a good time with you – something that is incredibly attractive and appealing. They’re going to associate those feelings with you, because you’re the one who created the situation for those fun times to happen. They’re not going to say “oh the GAME is fun”, they’re going to say “Wow, Lost and Lonely is a cool guy, he brought a fun game we’d never played before.” 

Afterwards, are you connecting with people? Are you committing to coming a second time and a third,  becoming a regular at these events? Are you saying “hey, I really enjoyed talking with you, can I add you on Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/whatever?” Are you setting up opportunities to hang out again? Are you saying to people “there’s this cool barcade that just opened that I’ve been meaning to check out, you should come with me” or doing things like maybe organizing a cook out or some other group get together?

If you aren’t, then you’re being passive, not showing what you have to offer and ultimately waiting for other people to choose you and do the work for you. that’s not attractive, that’s not helpful and honestly, you’re not going to get a lot of great friendships or relationships if you’re just hoping for someone to come and adopt you into the group. You don’t have to be the leader or organizer every time, but you do need to be much more active than what I see from guys in your position. 

What does it look like if you’re not being the organizer? Well in that case I can give you an example from my OWN life: how I joined a popular podcast. When Spill.com (RIP) had a fan meetup at a bar in Austin, I went and chatted with everyone, especially the talent – Chris, Martin, Cargill and Korey. Chris and Martin and I all got along well when we talked, and Chris invited me to come chat at the bar where he worked; he had some questions about some animation work I’d done. I made a point of coming by semi-regularly to hang out, drink a beer and talk movies. Over time, we become friends and eventually because we had good chemistry and I clearly had no problem being a chatty bastard, he invited me to be a guest on the League of Extremely Ordinary Gentleman.

None of that would’ve happened if I hadn’t deliberately made it happen. Yes, Korey and the others arranged the meetup and Chris invited me both to the bar and to the podcast, but it happened because I made a point of connecting with them, making them laugh, telling fun stories and generally being someone they enjoyed talking to. I didn’t wait for them to bring me in, I went up and introduced myself.

Now to be clear: I didn’t have an agenda for any of this besides making friends. I just really enjoyed hanging out and talking with folks whose work and creativity I admired. But I was proactive about it. I was bringing value to the interaction by helping them have fun and being fun. And I would do things like help out with cleaning or set up, bring drinks to recordings, put on parties and get-togethers, all of which helped cement our friendships.

Are you doing any of that? Because if not, then there’s your problem. If you’re at a bar, you have to be willing to make the first move and risk rejection; otherwise you’re not going to be able to flirt, joke and have fun. You’re not going to have opportunities to bring people in or show them a little of what you have to offer.

It’s also worth noting that all of this happened over time. When it comes to meeting people – whether you’re looking for platonic friends or romantic partners – one of the most important factors that leads to success is repeated exposure. That is, folks see you frequently, get to know you over time and become comfortable with you. Regular exposure breeds familiarity. Familiarity breeds both trust and affection. Trust and affection breeds relationships.

We all love the idea of love at first sight or a meet cute that immediately leads to dates or something, but that doesn’t happen often. Most of our relationships, platonic and otherwise, come about because we get to know people over time. This helps build a relationship that can blossom to attraction, but also makes you more attractive to people as they get to know you.

So if you’re tired of being alone, then you need to start taking more concrete steps. You need to commit to more than just a one-off MeetUp or showing up once or twice to some gaming event. You need to be proactive about not just introducing yourself to other people, but making connections happen. This could be by organizing game nights, setting up cookouts, even getting people together to do something crazy and fun like having a pillowfight in the park or getting people together to do Segway tours of the city or something. Even if you’re not the organizing type, then you should be making a point of proactively meeting people, staying in contact with them and building your connection with them.

And, importantly, you need to be active in bringing value to their lives and showing what you bring to the table. This may mean dinner parties. It may mean being the person who shows up to help set up the event and clean up afterwards. You might be someone who knows where the fun new bars or interesting restaurants are, or who invites folks to come watch the game or the MMA match or otherwise arrange group hangouts in fun places.

It could mean connecting disparate groups of friends because you know that Dude from Friend Group A would really click with Friend Group B or that Woman from MeetUp Z is looking for work and Dude from Friend Group B needs someone with her talents.

And if you don’t have those qualities or you aren’t finding ways to show them off or utilize them? Well either you actively go out and cultivate them, or you put in the work of figuring out how to make it happen. You may have to think outside the box a bit or get creative… but those make you more interesting, more unique and thus more fun to be around.

Please notice very carefully that the common denominator in all of these is how you make people feel. Part of bringing value to people or showing what you bring to the table is to recognize it’s not about material goods or showing off. It’s about the emotions you inspire in folks through those actions. The better you make people feel, the more they enjoy hanging around you. The more they enjoy having you around, the more they’ll prioritize time spent with you instead of other people.

The more you show folks why it’s good to have you in their lives – even if that just comes down to “you’re really fun to talk to” – then the more success you’ll have. But you have to do it in a way that you actively make happen, instead of hoping that others will do the hard work first.

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 young now, but haven’t found love yet, and I’m scared I never will. I just wanted to know, is it scientifically impossible for a postmenopausal woman to find true love/sexually please a man? Because studies and evolutionary psychology seems to think so.

And, is it scientifically impossible for a woman with a rectangle body type to do those things? Be honest with me, because I sometimes don’t believe men who are positive about these types of women.

Signed, 
Screwed Over by Evolutionary Psychology

DEAR SCREWED OVER BY EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: Here’s the thing about evo-psych, SOEP: the people who yell about it the most tend to know the least about either evolution or psychology. A lot of evo-psych is basically Flinstonization, pretending that evolution just happens to set things up for 21st century social mores and that how we meet, mate and otherwise conduct our lives is somehow completely immune to influence by culture and circumstance and other social pressures, while also ignoring… pretty much everything else.

I mean, which is more likely: that women used to prioritize marrying men who were financially well off because they evolved with an uncontrollable instinct that pushes them to look for someone with the wherewithal to provide for offspring… or because women were culturally (and legally, in many cases) prohibited from owning property, having access to capital and credit or even their own bank accounts until 1974?

So my first suggestion is to quit looking at “science” – and my use of scare-quotes is deliberate here – that says something is “impossible”. To start with, there’s a long and glorious history of things that are science has “proven” to be impossible that were… well, demonstrably not true. Doubly so where women were concerned. Considering how many times doctors have “discovered” the true size and shape of the clitoris, I take a dim view of folks who will insist that science “proves” that it’s impossible for women of a certain age or body type or what-have-you to find love.

The question of whether a post-menopausal woman could find true love or please a man sexually is honestly absurd on it’s face. I mean… did going through menopause line the inside of her genitals with sandpaper, cause her hands and feet to fall off and her mouth to slam shut?

But surely nobody could possibly love or desire a woman who – in MRA parlance – “hit the wall”, right? Dunno, but Cindy Gallop, Cher, Megan Mullalley, Mariah Carey and Gabrielle Union all say “hello”. Like the bumblebee that supposedly shouldn’t be able to fly, they’re all out there ignoring that their relationships are supposed to be “impossible”.

The same is true with body types. Just as women are fully capable of finding dudes who don’t look like Greek statues to be smoking hot, men as a group find many different body types to be desirable. The idea that men are “programed” by evolution to “only” like bodies whose measurements fit within a certain ratio is horses--ttery of the first order.

Are there body types that tend to be more popular? Of course. But that’s always going to be true… and which body types are currently a la mode varies. Compare the supermodels of today to the models of the 60s and 70s, the bombshells of the 50s vs. the 90s and so on. Hell, look at classical art and see how often the “ideal” body has changed due to any number of factors, from fashion to class and wealth.

I’m not entirely sure where you’re getting this information – though I’ve got some suspicions – but I’d suggest that maybe you’ll be happier hanging out in other places, with a better class of person than whomever really wants you to think that you should be grateful for whatever scraps of attention they deign to throw you.

You’re not cursed, you’re not damned, you haven’t been f--ked by the fickle finger of fate and evo-psych, especially what you’ll find online, is 90% bulls--t, 8% actual science and 4% inability to understand math or statistics.

Oh, and one more thing. Someone being positive about “these types of women” as you’re calling them isn’t lying to you. You are falling for a fallacy that YouTuber Natalie Wynn refers to as “masochistic epistemology” – the belief that whatever hurts is true, and it must be true because it hurts. This is, to use the technical term, bulls--t, and you should seriously examine the agenda of whomever told you that any of this was valid. Whatever it is or was, I can promise you: it wasn’t a deep and abiding commitment to truth or scientific rigor.

Good luck.

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