DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a 50-something married guy who as a result of medical issues has permanent erectile dysfunction (pills don’t work, injections don’t work) and as a result of a lot of dating trauma, has huge self-confidence issues. I have no problems making friends, I’ve got lots of them, but I’ve had a lot of trouble finding and sustaining romantic connections.

I mean, yes, I’ve been married for over 20 years, so arguably I *have* sustained a romantic connection, but my wife, always less interested in sex, basically just gave it up about five years ago, and I decided, after listening to a fair amount of Dan Savage and discussing with my wife, to try polyamory. I found a welcoming community, but getting into polyamory just for a sexual connection your wife abandoned was frowned upon, and it turns out that I’m largely attracted to/attracted by people who are demisexual and often on the ace spectrum.

So I dated a few people, and I met and fell in love with someone else. But her needs for polyamory changed, and what was a loving, sustained relationship dissolved into a lot of fighting as she realized what she needed had changed quite a bit from when we first got started. She needed a nesting partner and a dad for her kids, and much as we loved each other, I can’t do that without a divorce I don’t want and becoming a dad to young kids again, which I also don’t want. Finally, in the last month, I had to break my own heart and break up with her. We remain friends, but it’s really hard.

After all of this, I honestly just want to shut down dating altogether. I’ve always been terrible at it, I’ve already met two loves of my life, and at my age I don’t see any real possibility that I’m going to meet another. And casual dating is out, in large part, because I’ll have to break down my sexual issues to new partners, which is difficult to do with casual partners. I’m too much of an extra hassle for someone to have a one night stand or FWB relationship. As Dan Savage has often noted, dick is plentiful, and yes, I may be a kind and funny guy, but that’s not in that short of a supply either, as far as I’ve seen.

So the issue I have is that I have sexual and affection/physical needs that are not being met, and I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to get them met. I’ve even considered hiring sex workers, but given FOSTA/SESTA, I have no idea how I’d even go about finding someone ethically in a way that I can afford anyway.

I feel pretty trapped here, Doc. I think I’m a pretty smart guy, I think I’ve considered the angles, I’ve done the therapy, and I think I’m legitimately in a place where the only answer is to shut down those emotional and physical needs, and I’m not entirely sure how to do that.

Deal-Broken

DEAR DEAL-BROKEN: There’s a lot to unpack here, DB, but I think one of the most important things to focus on is how you’re defining things. I realize that you’re coming from a complicated relationship situation and you’re dealing with a freshly broken heart, so the pain and negativity is weighing down on you. This entirely understandable; it’s hard to have an upbeat outlook when it feels like you had to pull a Mola Ram and yanked your own still-beating heart out of your chest. But let’s look at it from a different angle, shall we?

To start with, you and your wife took a complicated situation – you want sex, she doesn’t, you both don’t want to get divorced – and found a solution that works for the both of you. This requires a lot of emotional intelligence, trust and clear communication, as well as maintaining a great deal of respect for one another. That, in and of itself, is commendable. The seemingly “easy” answer – get divorced – wasn’t right for you, and so you two found a way of making things work on your terms.

That’s something you should be proud of. Making this sort of pivot in a multi-decade relationship is difficult under the best of circumstances. Doing so when you also have other complicating factors – medical-related disabilities, erectile dysfunction, dating trauma – makes it even more complicated. So the fact that you two collaborated to find a solution and threaded that particular needle says a lot about the two of you. Even if your new relationship isn’t typical, the fact that you two were able to collaborate like this says a lot of good things about you.

Similarly, we have your recent break up. It’s rough, no question about that. But it was also necessary. You recognized that you were in an untenable situation, where your needs and your partner’s needs weren’t compatible, and you did the hard, but required thing: you chose to end it. It broke your heart, sure. But that heart break, as bad as it is right now, as much as it hurts right now, is lesser than what the both of you would’ve experienced if you had tried to force yourself to stay in this relationship. This was a quick, clean break, not a prolonged, dragged out ordeal. It sucked – it probably sucked than anything has sucked before for you – but it was the best decision you could make in a bad situation. You wisely, rightly, chose to cut things off. Not because you didn’t love her enough, but because you did love her – and yourself – enough to do the incredibly hard thing.

That’s not just admirable, that’s brave. And quite frankly, a lot of people wouldn’t have been able to make that choice. And honestly, making that decision will go a long way towards not just helping keep a good relationship with your ex, but it’ll help clear the path for your next relationship.

Because here’s the thing: you may love your ex, but ending the relationship was the most loving thing you could do for the both of you. You made the hard decision that freed the both of you to find the people who are right for each of you, as you are now. Instead of spending more time trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, you set her free… and freed yourself in the process.

Those are all good things. It doesn’t feel like it right now, to be sure. But it is. Because here’s what’s going to happen:

This pain will fade. It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you’re going to be living with this forever. But I am here from the future to tell you: you’re wrong. It will get better, with time and care.

What you need to do right now is give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to get out of the dating scene for a bit. You’re hurting and you need to heal. Facing the dating scene right now is very much like someone who just tore their ACL trying to compete in an Ironman race. You aren’t in any shape to date, not because you’re flawed, but because you’re injured. The injury isn’t self-inflicted so much as one that was necessary for the healing to start – like pulling debris out of a wound. It may hurt like the tortures of Lucifer and the entire infernal Host, it may have ripped and torn on the way out… but you couldn’t actually heal until it was gone. All that would have happened is that shard would’ve wedged deeper and deeper, doing more damage until you faced even more dire circumstances.

But now you’ve cleaned and debrided the wound, and the next step is to let it close. Taking a break from dating is a big part of that. Like the aforementioned athlete, trying to leap back into the race will just make things worse. Time off for recovery is precisely what the (fake) doctor ordered.

Now let’s get back to that outlook issue, shall we? You have medically induced erectile dysfunction on a mechanical level. That’s rough… but it’s not necessarily a disqualifier. It just makes you unique, and recognizing that uniqueness is going to be important. Because your uniqueness is going to serve as a super power: it’s going to filter out the people who aren’t right for you. If someone isn’t willing to take you as you are with all the quirks and oddities that make you you, then they’re out of your dating pool. Yes, this feels bad and makes you feel unwanted or unloveable. But consider this: someone who can’t take you as you are? They’re someone who is doing you a favor. You don’t want something casual, and they’re not someone who could hang for something serious or even semi-serious. So f--k ’em – or, don’t f--k ’em, as it were. They saved you time and heartache and you didn’t have to invest in them to find this out about them. That’s inherently a good thing.

The people who frowned on your reasons for entering the poly community? They’re a perfect example of folks who aren’t right for you. While I’m a proponent of polyamory or ethical non-monogamy (when its right for people), I tend to side-eye a lot of the organized communities I’ve seen, who just want to trade one series of restrictive and contradictory rules for another. But again: the folks who’re going to judge you for not having what they would consider to be “good enough” reasons to be poly are also people who aren’t good enough for you.

Now here’s the thing about having a mechanical issue when it comes to erections: that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to live a sexless existence. It just means that you’re going to get creative, and you’re going to want a partner who’s equally creative. As I’m often saying: your junk may not be able to get hard, but your fingers, hands and mouth don’t go limp. Neither, for that matter, do toys. Vibrators, clitoral vacuums, dildos… these will work on demand, without even so much as an inconvenient refractory period. You can even get toys that strap to your thigh or your pubic bone so that you can have the same thrusting action for PiV sex if that’s what you and your partner want. And erectile dysfunction doesn’t mean you have to go without orgasms either. There’re toys designed specifically for folks who can’t get erections – prostate massagers, vibrating sheaths specifically for folks with penises and more. It just means that one of your must-haves for any future partner – short or long term – is going to be on the creative and adventurous side of the sheets.

And, bonus! That sort of adventurous nature tends to be very good for the long-term satisfaction of your relationships.

But before that can happen, you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re defining yourself by your despair and your belief that your circumstances make you unlovable. Part of the issue here is that you’re only letting yourself see parts of the picture, not the whole. You’re not just your genitals, nor are you just a kind and funny guy; you are far more than the sum of your parts. Those components may be common… but the way they combine with the rest of you is part of what makes you, specifically, special and desirable.

That’s the part I think you’re missing. Your wife didn’t marry you for one thing, nor did your ex date you for some other thing. They were with you because you’re you. Anyone you date will be dating the holistic man. They will love and be into the entire person, the uniqueness that makes you you and not some other 50-something guy. The more you can remember that, the more you can lean into your uniqueness and specialness, instead of treating it like a net negative. Yes, there will be more folks who aren’t into you than are, but that’s a good thing. You don’t want to be everyone’s cup of tea, you want to be a few people’s shot of whiskey. A lot of folks who kind of like you is worth far less, even by volume, than a few folks who crave you, specifically.

So for now, take dating off the table and focus on healing and recovery. This will take time. It may take talking to a counselor or therapist for a bit. I would suggest that this is a good time to explore some of your options for sexual fulfillment – from toys, to working with a sexual surrogate to help with mechanical issues, to possibly even visiting some legal sex workers in Nevada. Feeling like you’ve got a handle and understanding of how sex works best for you and making it more normal for you will go a very long way towards making it easier to discuss with potential partners.

And hey, when you’re ready to get back into dating, then you may discover that the fact that you’re frequently attracted to demisexual people might well be the advantage you didn’t realize you had. After all, demisexual people don’t feel strong (or any) sexual attraction until they’ve built trust and an emotional connection with their partner. Taking this approach can take the pressure to perform away, especially right away. It gives you more of a chance to ensure that they’re actually someone who’s right for you and that the two of you are compatible, instead of causing you feel like you need to prove something from the jump.

Oh, and one more thing: you’ve had two great loves in your life, which is admirable. But what this means isn’t that you got your two and now you’re SOL. It means you have a great capacity for love, and at many stages of your life. Your age doesn’t mean you’re out of chances, it’s just a measure of time spent on this rock. People can and do find love – world-altering, life-changing, pillars-of-heaven-shaking love – at any age. Having had two at this point is just a number, a measure of experiences in this particular space and time. And if anything, it should serve as a reminder that after 20 years of marriage, you found love again. And if you did it twice? That strongly suggests that a third, or even fourth time are possible.

But again, this is for the future. Right now, you need to rest, heal and rehab your heart. Everything seems dark yeah, but you’re not facing the blackest night. The light is still out there. There’s still hope. I promise.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: How do I as a 26 years old male have a strong personality from your point of view? I currently have a weak one.

No Face

DEAR NO FACE: I wish you’d given more details, NF, because “strong personality” and “weak personality” can mean so many different things that it’s hard to make a recommendation.

I’d ask, for example, what you mean by a “weak” personality. Do you mean that you’re not assertive? That you’re afraid to take up metaphorical space in the room and cede ground to people who are more aggressive or determined than you are?

Or do you mean that you’re a push-over, who goes along with what other people want, even if it’s something you can’t stand, or that goes against your highest good? Do you sacrifice your needs for others because you can’t bring yourself to say “no”?

Or for that matter, does it mean that you don’t have a strong sense of “self” and your idea of “you” is so malleable that who you are and what you stand for varies depending on the room you’re in and the company you’re with?

I’d also want to know: how is this a problem for you? How does it interfere with your life? Does it mean that you’ve been pushed into things that go against your values, or had people violate your boundaries with impunity? Or is it simply that you’re more submissive and you feel like this is bad for you as a man?

I ask because the latter isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being submissive doesn’t make you less of a man, any more than someone being dominant doesn’t make her any less of a woman. That’s just how you’re wired, and it can be better to lean into it than to try to fight it. There’re women who like less-aggressive, less dominant men, just as there’re more soft-spoken and reticent men who’re more into aggressive and assertive women. If it’s about who’s the “alpha” (as it were) in the relationship, then perhaps the real issue is finding someone who’s compatible with you rather than needing to change something fundamental about yourself.

But if your having a “weak” personality is leading to negative consequences in your life – being bullied, easily pushed around, etc. – then part of the answer will be learning to be more comfortable with keeping and maintaining boundaries, saying “no” and meaning it.

Now to be fair, this is easy to say and less easy to put into practice. Some of maintaining boundaries comes down to practice; having friends who will roleplay scenarios, being willing to say “no” to small things so that you feel more confident saying “no” to bigger ones and so on. However, more of maintaining boundaries means learning to love and respect yourself enough that you allow yourself to believe you have a right to them in the first place.

Now I want you to notice very carefully that I’m framing this in terms of love and self-respect. There’s a natural – some would say understandable – tendency to think that shaming yourself or treating yourself with contempt will force you to shape up. But honestly, all that this does is make it that much harder to be a good or sincere person. The people whose assertiveness and drive for dominance comes from a place of self-loathing tend to be incredibly brittle. They aren’t strong so much as aggressive. They push and demand and make a scene, but it’s bluster; they’re more likely to be passive-aggressive and cagey, unwilling to take a direct stand. They’ll lash out at others and project blame, instead of having a sense of their own worth. It takes very little pushing before they shatter.

Loving yourself, however, and recognizing that you have a right to dictate who gets access to you and how, that you have a right to the space you occupy, is much stronger. It means that if you bend, then you do so when you choose to do so. It also means that you love yourself to know that there are times you need to prioritize yourself. It also means that you’re willing to face the consequences of saying “no” or to saying “I deserve to be here”. The people who are most likely to try to take advantage of your weak boundaries are the very people who are most likely to try make you feel like you’re bad for having them in the first place. Telling them “no” is hard… but it’s necessary. This is it’s important to remember that “no” is a complete sentence. Once your “no” becomes conditional on other people’s agreement, then you aren’t holding a boundary, you’ve entered the start of a negotiation… one you’re likely to lose.

So, absent other information, I would recommend you work on loving, supporting and encouraging yourself. It may mean repeating affirmations as you look in the mirror – cheesy, I know, but it works. It may mean learning to stop neglecting your needs or pretending you don’t have them because you think that having them is an inconvenience to others. Sometimes it may mean just treating yourself like you deserve good things, treating yourself with respect and with care, so that you’re able to accept it.

And in the meantime, gather Team You around you – the folks who love and support you and want the best for you – and practice being able to say “no” and standing up for yourself. The more you’re willing to take up space, instead of shrinking away for fear of inconveniencing others – or being noticed by them – the more you’ll discover your strength.

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 46 and genderqueer. I used to be active in the local BDSM scene. It’s where I met my last sexual partner.  It’s an old story: started as friends with benefits, I fell in love and she didn’t, and my heart got broken. I left the scene, not wanting to see her again. It hurt too much. ��Fast forward almost six years. I’d like to find a kinky play partner, but I’m terrified to get back into the scene. I’m afraid to see my ex-Mistress again. She might still be active.  The players have changed a lot, as we’re in a college town, so I don’t know anyone I can ask if she still goes to events. She hates my guts, because I was the one who walked away, and I’m worried about what she’s told people. Plus I’m pretty sure seeing her again would hurt. ��Do I suck it up and go to the next munch? Do I look for someone local through online dating instead?

(Is there even a good site to find local kinky queer women?  Fetlife seemed useless for that last time I was on.) ��Thanks for any help you can give me. ��— Frustrated in Florida

DEAR FRUSTRATED IN FLORIDA: So, funny story, FiF, but I’ve dealt with this situation more than once. I’m a nerd who primarily dates other nerds. That alone is a relatively interconnected community, which means that social circles tend to have a lot of overlap. Combine that with similar tastes in movies or music, and it’s meant that I’ve always had a high likelihood of running into someone I dated while out and about.

And a painful break up? That almost guarantees that I’d encounter an ex at the least convenient, most awkward time possible. And wouldn’t you know it: I would run into the ex as what broke my heart at times that would seem so contrived that if I wrote it into a script, editors would demand I cut it out for being too absurd. Going to see Flogging Molly in concert? Guess who I’d run into? Meeting up for a friend’s birthday? Guess who was also invited?

Turns out, the strongest force in the universe isn’t gravity, it’s dramatic irony.

But that’s also just the nature of being part of a sub-culture; you’re going to see a lot of the same people. And if you’re in a subset of a subset – queer and kinky, for example – then the chances that there’s going to be overlap between you and someone you dated is pretty close to 100%. So it’s helpful to just embrace that this is going to happen.

Now, I don’t say this to say “well, sucks to be you”. Rather, I say “consider this to be inevitable” in the same sense that the code of bushido says to accept that you are already dead; recognize as an inevitability so that the fear of the possibility doesn’t handicap you. One of the pernicious things about fear is the cliche of fear itself; we become so afraid of a possibility that we start to fear the feeling of that fear. As such we start to try to avoid the possibility of encountering things that might bring up that fear.

It’s almost paradoxical, but our attempts to avoid fear and anxiety just sere to make those feelings loom ever larger in our minds. We end up spending far more of our time, energy and emotional bandwidth trying to avoid things than we’d ever actually get back if we did avoid everything. And the attempts at avoidance don’t even help. All that happens is that we’re even less prepared for when the moment finally happens.

And let’s be real: even if you decide to avoid going to munches and focus entirely on dating apps and Fetlife, the number of people who you’ll be compatible with is going to be fewer than if you were cis and straight. The people who fit into the Venn diagram of having a queer relationship and being kinky is going to be similarly constrained. The overall size of the LGBTQ community and the kink community, individually or combined means that many, if not most of the folks you may want to date are likely going to have overlap with your ex’s social circles.

So, rather than try to avoid the moment that you’ll run into your ex, I would say “assume that it will happen and prepare accordingly”. Accepting this makes it much easier to face it; instead of spending your time trying to thread the needle of dancing around your ex’s existence, you can decide how you intend to handle it. Maybe you’ll prepare yourself to be polite, but distant. Maybe you’ll brace yourself for an onslaught of vitriol and bitterness. Or perhaps you’ll resolve to apologize when you see her and take ownership for leaving the way you did.

However, one of the important things to realize is that one of the possible outcomes of running into your ex may not be as bad as you fear. When I ran into my ex, it was awkward. It was an adrenaline surge. But it didn’t hurt, not the way I expected. By that point, time had passed. I was a different person and so was she, and while the break up wasn’t fun, it was well in our past. I’d made my peace with it. So had she.

So while I wouldn’t go seeking her out – or going around asking about her – I would say to not let the fear of encountering her rule you or dissuade you from rejoining the scene. Especially if it’s a core part of who you are as a person.

You left six years ago. That is a lot of time for people to grow and change and to give themselves closure. The way your ex felt six years ago isn’t likely to be the same way she feels now. The same is true for you; what you think you feel may be more the habit of feeling this way. But if you examine your feelings, you may realize that you feel differently.

And again, I want to be real with you: carrying a grudge for over six years because someone broke up with you is… well, there’s a point where it stops being about them and more just nursing a grudge for the sake of keeping it. This is especially true when the biggest crime you could reasonably be accused of committing is “not ending things with all possible grace”. You didn’t cheat on her with her dad, steal her inheritance, run over her goldfish or even blow your nose on the curtains on the way out the door. You ended things because the relationship became untenable for you. You wanted more than she could give and so you made what is ultimately a responsible decision: you decided to love yourself enough to know when to leave a bad situation. It may have hurt, and it may have pricked her ego, but sticking around would’ve been worse for everyone.

Yeah, it may not have been the world’s smoothest dismount, but it’s going to take a lot of sins to justify a burning hate for nearly a decade. And if your ex is carrying around a hate that burns with the heat of a thousand suns because you broke up with her six years ago? That’s very much a her problem, not a you problem. Especially if your biggest sin is “I may love you, but I need to love me more.”

So if your ex has greater emotional intelligence than someone who never outgrew 4chan, I think the odds are good that it won’t be nearly as bad as you fear.

But what if it is? What if she has been talking s--t about you? Well, first the odds that anyone who knew both of you has likely moved on – as you said, it’s a college town, which tends to mean a lot of turn-over. And if we’re being realistic, it takes a lot of energy to keep such a grudge going for six years that odds are good that it just wasn’t worth constantly stroking a hate-boner over a break-up; the odds that anyone new in the community has gotten all the dirty deets and stained sheets is low. The odds that they’ll connect that with you, newly returned to the scene, is even lower.

However, showing maturity and integrity is one of the best responses to angry rumor-mongering. If you run into her at an event and it’s appropriate, you can sincerely apologize. You can say “Our relationship was untenable and my staying would only have made things worse for both of us. I wanted something from you that you couldn’t give, and that wouldn’t be fair to either of us, but I could’ve left with more grace and for that I’m sorry.” Will it defuse her anger? Maybe, maybe not. But showing your own integrity and growth will show who you truly are. And sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.

If she’s poisoned the well that deeply, then yes, that can be a problem. But based on what you’ve said, I don’t know if that’s a realistic fear. An understandable one, to be sure… but not one that I think has a reasonable chance of actually happening.

As it is? I think you’re better to confront this fear head on, than to spend more unnecessary energy trying to avoid it. The uncertainty of the situation is almost always worse; even the bad outcome means that at least you don’t need to keep anticipating the worst. You can work on dealing with a single scenario, instead of trying to find solutions to a thousand different ones, each worse than the last. 

Personally, I don’t think it’ll be that bad. It may even be better than you fear it will be. But if it is, then at least it’ll be over, and you’ll know for sure.

Incidentally, if FetLife isn’t working for you, you can always look to more “standard” dating apps that cater to less heteronormative relationships, like Feeld and #Open. The crossover between groups like the poly community and the kink community is pretty extensive, and the likelihood that you’ll find someone who’s at least kink-curious is in your favor.

Good luck.

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