DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m hoping you can help me out. I’m 38, a self-professed geek, and sadly, very single. I seem to be having a problem involving meeting women, that I can’t seem to overcome. I also seem to have another problem in relating to them, once I’m involved with them.

First issue: I was recently talking with some of my fellow geeks, bemoaning the sorry state of my love life, and how I never seem to meet anyone who’d be interested in me, when they dropped a bombshell on me.

As it turns out, according to them, I’ve actually missed several opportunities to get to know women better, simply by dint of not recognizing that they were flirting with me.

Now, I didn’t recall any times when someone was flirting with me, but my friends insists they’ve seen this happen several times – and have also seen me be completely oblivious to it.

Now, I was willing to blow this off as my friends just messing with me – until I happened to mention the conversation to my mother – and she voiced the same concerns! Having your own mother notice something like this is uncomfortable, to say the least.

I’ve tried reading articles about how to tell if women are interested in you, but they don’t seem to do me any good. I just don’t seem to recognize any of the cues I’m supposed to see, when I do actually talk with women, which is admittedly, not very often. I am a geek, after all. It doesn’t help that I have ADHD, but I know that can’t be the entire reason for my problem.

Second issue: this involves a kind of long story, so please bear with me.

I was involved with a woman a couple of years ago. We met, got to know each other, and things progressed into a physical relationship pretty quickly.

We agreed, at the start, that neither one of us was looking for a serious romantic relationship. I was still smarting from a break-up a while before, and she had just gotten divorced. So we both stated that we were just looking for someone to have some fun with – “friends with benefits”, as they say.

Well, for a while, that’s exactly how things were between us. We’d get together, hang out, talk, and have fun. Just as often as not, we’d end up in bed together.

However, after about 6 months, things seemed to change. First, she unexpectedly bought me gifts. Then, she started wanting to go out with me more often.

This seemed a little strange to me, given the nature of our agreement, but I went along with it.

However, after a few months, I started losing contact with her. I stopped calling her, and she stopped calling me. Eventually, she moved away to another state.

I recently spoke to her online, and happened to mention how odd it was that things between us seemed to just come to a halt, and that’s when she told me something I apparently didn’t see for myself – that her feelings had changed, and she wanted things to be more serious and permanent between us.

She also stated that the reasons she left me were twofold: One, that it didn’t seem to her that I wanted things to be any more serious than when they started; and two, that she couldn’t truly tell how I felt about her. When I told her that I had genuinely cared about her, she was honestly surprised.

A few days after this online conversation, I mentioned it to a couple of friends of mine, one of whom is female, and she told me that the reason my FWB left me was the same reason my last girlfriend before her left – she just wasn’t sure how I felt.

So, my question is: for each of these problems, what would your recommendation be? I don’t seem to be having any luck improving things on my own, and thought a fresh insight could be useful.

Hopefully, I haven’t bored you to tears with this letter.

Thanks for your time.

Blind Guy

DEAR BLIND GUY: Ok BG, I want to start off with asking an odd question: you have ADHD, but have you ever looked into whether or not you’re on the autism spectrum? The two are often co-morbid, and there’re a few things in your letter that strike me as being similar to some of the ways autism manifests itself – specifically, missing some social cues and not recognizing underlying meanings behind actions that seem… kind of glaringly obvious to me and other people.

Now to be sure: that’s a diagnosis for an actual professional to make, not a loudmouth with an advice column. Don’t forget: Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor. But if you have the time and resources, it may be worth at least exploring that possibility. If nothing else, looking into it may give you answers and explanations, and having an official diagnosis can give you access to support and resources you might not have otherwise.

But for now, let’s assume that you’re the same flavor of neurodivergent as I am. And in this case, that means that you need to look inward and realize how much of this is coming from either an inability or unwillingness to look beyond yourself. Because if I’m being honest? The examples you give in your letter sound like you missed some rather glaring clues that things have changed in your relationships.

Now this sounds like I’m being unsympathetic, and I’m not. I’ve been there and done that, including missing when someone invited me back to her room for a hot cup of “f--k my brains out”. So I hey, I can completely relate and I absolutely understand how that could happen to you.

My own inability to look beyond my own needs and interests and my own self-limiting beliefs were a pretty huge stumbling block for me in the bad old days. I missed out on people who – like your former FWB – may as well have been waving flags like they’re trying to guide Maverick in for a carrier landing. And that didn’t change until I was willing to start changing how I saw myself, first and foremost.

That’s what’s going to need to change for you, too. Much of the problem is in how you see yourself, which in turn, affects how you see the world around you. Change that, and you are going to see some serious changes in how you and the women in your life relate to one another.

The problem is, however, is that this requires that you’re going to have to put in a pretty significant amount of effort. You’re caught in a series of self-reinforcing patterns that are ultimately not serving your needs. In fact, they’re actively harming your attempts to find relationships.

The first thing you need to do is get over the whole “I’m a geek, therefore I can’t/won’t/don’t talk to women” thing. This is a prime example of a self-limiting belief. You’ve defined yourself as “someone who women don’t like”, much the way I used to refer to myself as “The One Who’s Not Good With Girls”. While I realize this feels like you’re just being real with yourself – spitting those harsh truths, no illusions and all that – what this is actually doing is setting yourself up for failure. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle; you think women couldn’t possibly be interested in you, so you don’t talk to many, especially women you might be attracted to. When you do, the fact that you already think that women aren’t likely to be into you means that you ignore, miss or dismiss any indications that they’re attracted to you. Because you miss those signs, women assume you’re not interested, and since you already think that they aren’t going to like you, you don’t work as hard at trying to connect with them. So you end up missing out on the people who do like you or send the wrong message, focus on the rejections and treat this as proof that they don’t like you.

All of this is a form of confirmation bias; you’re seeing what you expect to see because you already believe that this is the case and write off the things that go against those beliefs as being wrong or irrelevant. So one of the first things you have to do is start to change those beliefs.

Now considering that you’ve had a few relationships under your belt – including one casual relationship that clearly was turning serious for her – this should be an easy lift. “But those relationships failed!” I hear you cry. Well, thank you, convenient rhetorical device, that sounds like the perfect segue to looking at precisely how those fell apart.

You and your FWB started off with a casual relationship. You were recovering break up, she was fresh from a divorce; it makes sense that the two of you wanted something low-key, low investment and low commitment. That part’s fine and dandy. You two clearly enjoyed each other’s company and had great physical chemistry. All of that was great.

Where things started going wrong was at the six month mark, when your pal started behaving differently. Between the unexpected gifts and the wanting to see you more often, it should’ve been a sign that things were changing for her. You even noticed this at the time. The first mistake was that you didn’t say anything; you just went along with it.

One of the important parts of being in a casual relationship – regardless of whether you’re friends or not – is the relationship, and maintaining a relationship means keeping the lines of communication open. It’s good to check in with your partner in general, but especially if your partner’s behavior seems to be changing or they start acting differently with you. Making sure that you’re both on the same page, or that your arrangement is still working for them (or you) are best practices for keeping the “friend” in “friends with benefits”. But if your FWB starts behaving more like a girlfriend and you just shrug your shoulders and roll with it while not otherwise changing your behavior with her? That’s going to send some mixed, and not terribly helpful signals to her. It’s not hard to see why she might not know how you felt.

But then you stopped calling. That is where s--t went off the rails but good. From the timeline, it seems like you were the first one to suddenly just quit talking. That’s not cool, my dude, especially if you wanted to keep some sort of relationship with her, platonic or otherwise. One of the biggest sins of a casual relationship is treating your partner casually. Ghosting someone is one thing if you’d only been on a date or two. If you two’ve been hanging out regularly and exchanging bodily fluids, then giving a heads up that you’re ready to end the arrangement is the least you could do. I’ve been on the receiving end of having a FWB suddenly end things without so much as a “hey, Iet’s talk about where we’re at with this” and I can tell you from experience, it hurts and it’s really hard not to take it personally.

Now to drag this back around to those self-limiting beliefs and confirmation bias, I can see how you might not realize that she was developing feelings. It’s easy to ignore signs that somebody’s feelings might be changing if you don’t believe that people could really have feelings for you or like you beyond friendship. And when you’re holding onto those beliefs… well, again, it’s easy to not really know how to express how you feel because hey, what’s the point? You’d be shouting into the void. But if you want a loving relationship – committed or otherwise – then you need to make sure that you’re providing some of that loving and caring, and in a way that they can actually receive. If you’re lost in your own head about it or don’t recognize that what’s glaringly obvious to you might not be as immediately recognizable to them… well, that’s where you’re going to get some serious miscommunication under the best of circumstances.

So what do you take from this, moving forward? To start with, start working on changing those beliefs about yourself. Being willing to accept that women do like you and want relationships with you is going to be an important step for you; if confirmation bias is going to make you focus on the things that align with your beliefs, you may as well choose to believe things that actually benefit you.

The next thing to do is to start paying more attention to the people you’re dating and erring on the side of communication. People aren’t mind-readers, nor are they telepaths; you can’t assume that you know what they’re thinking or that they’re able to read your intentions or feelings with perfect clarity. If you’re not sure how to read the scene or how somebody’s feeling – especially if their behavior seems to indicate that they want to be more than friends with benefits – then ask. If there are ways of communicating with you that help ensure you understand, make sure they know that too; communication only works if the two of you are able to actually understand what the other’s saying, after all.

But just as importantly, make sure that you communicate how you feel, and in ways that they’re going to understand. You don’t say anything about what you and your ex FWB talked about, but it certainly doesn’t sound like you ever told her that you cared for her and God knows your actions said the opposite.

I realize that talking about communication styles or regular check-ins can sound cringey and weird, like you’re an HR chat bot and not a person, but think of it as a “here’s how you can win with me” cheat sheet; you’re giving her the codes to get the good ending to a relationship with you and vice versa.

Even when you’re “just” friends with benefits.

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: There’s this girl I used to like and still do have a soft spot for. She and I are very alike and we have very similar interest and a lot of people comment on how much alike we are. We also bicker a lot but can go right back to being friends the next second.

Now the reason that she didn’t want to go out with me (as my best friend overheard her say) is that she’s taller than me. I could sort of understand if I wasn’t normal height and she wasn’t taller than average but it does bother me a lot.

Now after I heard all this I tried to nuclear approach. I cut her out of my life and even got a girlfriend in the time that she wasn’t there. Then things went bad with the girlfriend and we ended up breaking up (it happens, no biggie). But then me and tall girl started talking and hanging out again. She really made me feel like the biggest asshole for not talking to her for the couple months I was with the other girl. It feels like I can’t break away from her. This wouldn’t be as confusing if she didn’t get very jealous whenever I even talk to another girl let alone flirt and she doesn’t hide it. She storms out of rooms every chance she gets. Her friends tell me she’s “territorial” of me. Which I find kind of creepy to be honest.

But now the other day she texts me just to tell me that she’s “kinda seeing” a 28 year old guy (she’s 20). And I know that she did this just to attempt to make me jealous. Her “kind of seeing” anyone doesn’t bother me. Its her trying to mess with me that pisses me off and I really don’t want to give her the time of day anymore. But I feel like she’s going to go into the guilt trip again, I’m just not sure if I’m doing the right thing anymore.

Frequent Guilt Trip Flyer

DEAR FREQUENT GUILT TRIP FLYER: You already know what you want to do, FGTF; you’re just asking me for permission to do it. Well, permission granted: quit giving her the time of day. This is a bad scene and it’s only gonna get worse.

I was almost – almost – sympathetic to her for being angry that you cut contact with her; it can be hard to be on the receiving end of that, even if you know the whys and wherefores. Nobody said that taking the Nuclear Option was easy, just that it’s occasionally necessary for your personal protection. But it seems like her issue is less “you quit talking to me without an explanation and it hurts” and more “how dare you give me less than 100% of your time and attention”.

That is, needless to say, Not Good. And the rest of her behavior is worse, which is saying something.

Here’s the thing: people are allowed to date or not date anyone they want, for any reason. If your second-hand intel is correct and she doesn’t want to date you because she’s taller than you… well, that’s her call. We can’t control who we’re attracted to and socialization is a motherf--ker; women aren’t immune from toxic ideas about masculinity, especially when those toxic ideas also penalize women for not performing their femininity in particular and accepted ways. So if she feels as though she needs a guy who’s taller than her to be the right kind of feminine, that’s her business.

But her behavior suggests that this isn’t really the case. Her behavior says that she wants all the benefits of a relationship with you – the companionship, the emotional intimacy, and so on – but without the indignity, embarrassment or whatever of dating someone who’s shorter than she is. So what we have here is someone who’s willing to throw a potentially great relationship with a great guy aside because of a height difference. Again: her call… but to my mind, that just demonstrates that she isn’t worth your time.

The problem though, is that she’s trying to have it both ways. She’s demanding access to you and intimacy from you, but also throwing tantrums if you give even the slightest indication that you’re interested in someone else. Well, it sucks to be her, then, because she doesn’t get a say in who you date. Dating isn’t a democracy; she can have all the opinions she wants, but she doesn’t get a vote and she especially doesn’t get a veto.

I don’t care how “territorial” she says she is; you’re not her territory, and you’re 100% correct, that is creepy. She doesn’t get to claim dibs because you asked her out and she turned you down, and she especially doesn’t get to keep you on the back burner until she decides what to do with you. You’re not leftovers nor are you the last slice of pizza. You’re a person, with agency. Her wishes and desires don’t dictate what your choices are.

She had her chance the first time you asked her out, and if she wants a second chance, then she can woman up and actually say that she wants you.

This possessive “I don’t want you but nobody else can have you” s--t? Her weird jealousy plotline games about “kinda” seeing this older guy? That’s toxic, that’s unwelcome and you should be telling her to knock it the f--k off even and especially if it means ending the friendship with her. If she can’t get over her damage or social programming about the height issue, that’s a her problem, not a you problem. It’s not your job to stick around until she resolves it.

There’s a point where you have to be willing to say “I may care for you, but I love me more, and I’m not going to put up with this.” Your instincts are right: cut ties again, but this time, make it stick. She can’t guilt trip you into dropping your boundaries if she can’t get ahold of you. Her access to you and your company is a privilege, not a right, and the price of that privilege is to treat you with respect.

She’s not doing that. She’s treating you like a possession, not a person. Cut her off, cut her access to you, directly and through mutual friends and move on. She can be in your life again if – and this is a mighty big if – she can act like a genuine friend and a grown-ass woman, not a child throwing a tantrum that she can’t have a toy she wants.

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 know your slogan says, “helping nerds get the girls” but I’m bi and this particular question pertains to a guy.

My issue is that last year I dumped him; after he moved in with his mother I basically felt extremely emotionally separated from him. We had been semi-long distance ever since we met, as we met over an online program called “Second Life” and we are both gamers, huge nerds and both huge Spillios [Fans of Spill.com – Doc]. The issue is.. after the break up, we started talking again a few months later, and I’ve noticed that I’m still madly in love with him, to the point that I actually sabotage myself from getting anything else going with anyone. I’ve asked him back multiple times and all I’ve gotten is “maybe”  and “we’ll see” It’s driving me insane because even he admits he still has feelings for me; he even calls me when he needs someone to talk to, when he needs someone who understands him and backs him up. I do all of that.. and he even breaks down at times, apologizing for being such an “asshole” –  referring to him not taking me back. Which brings me to my question..

Knowing all of this, how can I convince him to stop being such a p--sy and just trust me again? Ya know.. take me back? I know his heart on a major level wants it and he sucks at hiding it but his pride is cock blocking (so to speak).

This is really a problem because until I close that chapter one way or another, I can’t move on, and trust me I’ve tried. It’s only going to be worse because he’s moving in with me, so he can further his career as an animator.

I’m afraid im gonna lose it or just end up treating him like s--t cause i want to protect myself.

Any advice on this?

The Heart Needs A Second Chance

DEAR THE HEART NEEDS A SECOND CHANCE: OK off the bat: let’s drop “p--sy” as a synonym for cowardice or weakness, huh? It’s like using “gay” to mean useless, pointless, disappointing or inferior; it’s equating having a vagina with being weak and that’s insulting at best.

With that out of the way…

I hate to tell you this, THNSC, but he’s given you an answer. You just don’t like the answer you got.

Those “maybe’s” and “we’ll see’s” you’re getting whenever you bring up the topic? Those are what are known as “soft no’s” – socially acceptable ways of saying “no” without saying the actual word. He doesn’t want to tell you “no” straight up for any number of reasons – you’re moving in together likely being the biggest – but he also is making it clear that he doesn’t want to have a romantic or sexual relationship with you.

“But wait,” I hear you cry, “he’s said he still has feelings for me!” I’m sure he does; feelings are complex and complicated beasts that don’t follow logic or reason the way we’d like at times. Breaking up with someone doesn’t automatically mean that the affection you had for them – or vice versa – has vanished or turned to hate. Plenty of people still have loving feelings for their exes and wish things could be different. But love isn’t magic. Loving someone isn’t a sign that you two are right for each other. Having strong feelings for somebody isn’t indication that you’re compatible or that you and they are right for each other. You can love someone until your teeth ache and your heart burns, but that doesn’t mean you and they could make a relationship work. And while love – or something like it – may motivate you to try to fix things or try to resolve the issues between you, it doesn’t clear the problems away.

Some things just won’t work, no matter how many ways you try to cram them together. Some gaps are just too wide to be crossed, some hurts are just too deep to be forgotten even after having been forgiven and sometimes you and they are on such different paths that there isn’t any way for the two of you to continue on the journey together without giving up important pieces of yourself in the process. And no matter how it may feel in the moment, love doesn’t mean that giving up those pieces won’t damage you and the relationship and risk curdling that love into something dark and ugly.

It’s like the song says: sometimes love just ain’t enough.

You know this already. You broke up with him because things had become untenable in your relationship. You had feelings for him, but you also had needs that weren’t being met, needs that he couldn’t or wouldn’t meet. And so you ended the relationship. And hey, that’s absolutely legitimate. That’s a valid and completely reasonable cause to end a relationship, despite how you felt.

But then there’s the fact that you can’t get over him. And it’s not that I’m not sympathetic – believe me, I absolutely can understand getting hung up on someone who just doesn’t love you the way you wish they did or a relationship that you wish hadn’t ended. But if I’m being honest? That’s more of a “you” problem than a “him” problem. And if I’m still being honest, that’s what you should be working on, not trying to change his mind.

Now, part of the problem is that I think you didn’t give yourself enough time to mourn the loss of the relationship and move on. This is one of the reasons why taking the Nuclear Option after a break up – cutting off all contact, muting, unfollowing or blocking on all social media, etc. – can be an important step. I tell people to do this not because they broke your heart AND NOW THEY’RE DEAD TO YOU, nor because it’s how you supposedly make them miss you and come crawling back. I tell people to do this, at least for a while, because it’s really hard to heal when you keep picking at the scab.

It’s hard to get over a break up when you don’t get the perspective and distance you need from the relationship so that you can see why the break up happened, come to terms with your side of things, make your peace and – hopefully – learn from it, so you can do better and be better. And as much as folks may genuinely want to be friends after the break up, sometimes that friendship can’t happen until you’ve both processed things… which can take months or years. Staying in contact or getting back in touch before you’ve really healed and given yourself closure is almost always about the absence of the familiar or not accepting the truth, rather than recognizing that maybe the break up was a mistake.

And this is especially true if things haven’t changed. If you’re a regular here, then you know that I have a series of questions for people to ask themselves before they try to get back with their exes:

Question #1: Why did you break up in the first place?

Question #2: Has the reason why you broke up changed?

Question #3: Why Now?

Question #4: Do you miss THEM, or do you miss what they represent?

Question #5: Are they right for you, NOW?

Right now, you’re at question #2: have the circumstances that caused your break up changed? There’s nothing in your question that suggests it has.

Your ex, on the other hand, is at question #5: are they right for you, now. And it seems pretty clear from their response that the answer is “no”. And honestly? I think they’re right.

Look at what’s been going on here. You’ve been asking over and over again for them to come back to you and they’ve given you soft nos and non-committal answers that are clearly meant to just end the conversation, and you won’t respect their answer. These conversations have gotten so fraught that they’re crying and blaming themselves for not wanting to be back in a relationship with you. That is, to be blunt, a deeply s--tty thing to be doing to somebody, especially someone you care about. And it betrays a lack of perception or self-awareness that you desperately need to make a relationship work.

I mean, you say “I’m afraid im gonna lose it or just end up treating him like s--t cause i want to protect myself,” but you don’t seem to recognize that this is what your ex is doing: protecting himself. He knows that the two of you aren’t a good fit and that it’s not going to work. He’s trying to protect himself from being hurt again.

Just as importantly though: you’re already treating him like s--t. You’re making him cry over this, my dude. That should be your “oh, s--t, maybe I’m wrong” signal. He’s trying to salvage what he can of your past relationship and you’re just saying over and over again that its not enough, you want more.

Well, you want more than he could give… that’s why you dumped him the first time, and that’s why he won’t come back to you now. The things that broke you up in the first place are still in effect.

Also, there’re a lot of different ways to protect yourself than treating him like s--t, and you shouldn’t be considering that as an option in the first place. Don’t want it to happen? Well that’s going to depend on you making choices, not just accepting that this might be an inevitability.

So what do you need to do here? Well to start with, I think he needs to find a different roommate; living together the way you all are now is a profoundly bad idea.

The next thing is that I think you need to stop talking to him until you’ve actually given yourself closure. Yeah, he’s reaching out to you for support, but the support you’re giving is coming with a price tag of “ok, but now I press my case for you to come back to me”, and that’s not cool. He needs friends who aren’t going to leverage his being in their lives as an opportunity to try to get back into a relationship with him. Tell him straight up: “look, I care about you, but I’m not in a place where I can be a good friend to you yet. The way I’m feeling and the way I’m behaving isn’t fair to you, and it’s only making things worse. I value you, but I need to step away for a while so I can get to a place where I can be the friend you deserve.”

And then you pull the trigger on the Nuclear Option. You don’t need to block or unfollow him, but at the very least need to mute or hide him and put as many inconveniences between yourself and getting in touch with him as you can. I think part of the reason why you haven’t been able to get over him is that you never fully accepted that the relationship was over. Being in contact meant that you could still feed the fantasy that you could make it work a second time around. But right now, clearly, you can’t. So put the possibility of it out of reach; accept that it’s not happening. Mourn the loss of that dream; it sucks and it’s painful and you should let yourself feel those feels. But part of mourning is to come to acceptance, which is where you need to be. The sooner you stop letting the idea of getting back with him hang in your mind as a possibility, the sooner you’ll be able to move on and find a partner who you can be with and can be with you.

But that can’t come until you let go of him and process your feelings and your behavior. So let this go, HNSC; it’s the kindest thing you can do for him and for yourself. As amazing as I’m sure he is, there will be others who are just as great. And, more importantly, you and they will be in a place where you’ll have more than just love to make things work between you.

Good luck.

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