DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Is it true that dating, attraction, flirting, initiating contact and escalating and knowing when to do them, etc. are skills and like all skills, require making mistakes in order to get better?

The reason why I’m asking is that, based on everything I’ve read, these are all skills you can improve at. Virtually all skills require you to make mistakes and learn from them in order to get better. However, making mistakes while learning these skills are almost certainly going to lead to awkwardness at best, anyone you attempted to attract fearing you or hating you at worst. Most likely, a guy who makes a mistake doing this is going to be labeled creepy.

It really feels like a hostile environment for any man trying to learn dating skills. It seems like the expectation is that men must be absolutely perfect from the start. Yes, I’m aware that women do this for their own safety, better safe than sorry, it’s better that they label a guy who meant no harm creepy than a guy harms them. Because I can’t prove a negative, that I’m not creepy, it just feels impossible to get better at this.

So am I completely off the mark here?

Don’t Wanna Be The Guy

DEAR DON’T WANNA BE THE GUY: You’re making a common mistake, DWBTG; you’re starting from a reasonable premise – dating is a skill, practicing a skill means making mistakes – and veering off into the entirely wrong direction based on fears, not facts.

The problem you’re having is that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t mean that you’re stupid or ignorant; it’s that you don’t know what you don’t know and you’re making incorrect assumptions because of it. Since you aren’t fully aware of what you don’t know, you’re filling in a lot of blanks based on suppositions and false premises. Worse, you’re taking those suppositions as given and drawing a lot of mistaken conclusions.

So let’s fix that, shall we?

Your first incorrect assumption is the difference between a mistake and failure. A mistake is a choice; failure is not. Failure can happen because you made a mistake, sure… but you can also fail without making a mistake, simply because you don’t have the actual skill or experience to do it correctly.

When you’re learning a new skill, you’re going to fail at it fairly often. But failing at something, especially because you’ve never done it before, isn’t a mistake. You just don’t have the experience to know how to do it correctly.

When you were learning how to walk, you fell over a lot. You weren’t making mistakes, you were just dealing with things you’d never experienced before and you didn’t have the muscle strength, coordination or proprioception to do it successfully. You developed those in time and now you’re walking without thinking about how mechanically difficult a feat you’re accomplishing.

But that’s for babies. What about when you’re a grown-ass adult? Or at least, someone who’s over the age of, say, 2. In fact, let’s say that you’re just starting to learn how to play basketball. You’ve never dribbled, passed the ball, never even played a game of Horse. If you try to shoot the ball and miss, you didn’t make a mistake, you just failed to sink the basket. If someone passes the ball and you miss, that is a failure, not a mistake. If you pass the ball to the wrong person then yeah that’s a mistake. But that’s often a failure of skill, rather than a poor choice – you’re not used to the chaos of a game, you don’t have the experience to know how to focus and spot the teammate who’s open… all of these things are accomplished through practice.

And skill and experience don’t prevent you from making mistakes. You can see people – incredibly skilled, talented people – make mistakes all the time. The fighting game champion who misjudged the timing of a block or combo, the concert pianist who got flustered and missed a note, the chess player who got out-maneuvered by their opponent or missed a critical opening. Those are all mistakes that even the best of us can make, because we’re all human and we’re all imperfect.

The second false assumption you’re making is that you can’t make mistakes when talking to women. This isn’t true at all, and it’s born out of the false premise that talking to women is like defusing a bomb – so much as look at the wrong wire and suddenly you’re created a massive faux pas and the whole interaction has blown up, messily and all over the place.

The corollary, of course, is that if you do everything perfectly then you’re guaranteed a date or for everything to go well. And that’s not true, either. As the man says: it’s possible to commit no errors and still lose; that’s just life. This works both ways – you can make mistakes and still win.

But for this to be true, that would mean that women are actively looking for reasons to disqualify you and that’s just not the case. In fact, that mindset is going to cause more problems than just assuming that people like you.

Here’s the truth: 99% of the mistakes you make are barely noticeable, and most people won’t even care. Certainly not as much as you do. And they’re certainly not actively looking for you to screw up.

Have you ever walked into a place and thought someone was waving at you, only to realize that they were waving at someone else? You probably felt like you wanted the earth to open up and swallow you whole when you realized, hand half raised.

Guess what? I can guarantee that nobody noticed, and if they did, they forgot the literal second you left their eyeline. And just about everyone can relate to that exact experience; they’re not going to judge you for having done it, because they understand exactly what you’re feeling in that moment and they’re going to empathize.

Nobody is expecting perfection and everyone’s made mistakes. If someone likes you, then they’re going to be a lot more forgiving than you’d think. But even if they’re someone you’ve just met, making a mistake isn’t an instant fail. Most of the mistakes you’re likely to make – especially when you’re learning – are pretty minor and easily overlooked. Trying to start a conversation with someone who’s not actually interested in meeting folks? Embarrassing, a bit of a sting to the ego, but not a big deal. Asked someone out and they have a partner? Or they’re not interested in men? Well, there’s literally no way to predict that, and most people aren’t going to be offended. Many will be flattered, most will be cool and all of them just want you to not be an asshole about it.

You have to make some pretty big mistakes to really be a creeper. It’s certainly possible to make a big mistake – and I’m speaking from personal experience here – but that tends to require actual carelessness or disregard for other people; the likelihood of your stumbling into making a major error by pure accident is so low that you’re more likely to be hit by space debris. Indoors.

Nobody is expecting perfection. Everyone understands that people trip themselves up. And part of the point of making mistakes when you’re learning is not just to learn how to not make mistakes, but how to recover from them when you make them. You’re going to make mistakes because you’re human, just like everyone else. If you think mistakes are an instant-fail condition, you’ll never accomplish anything for fear of the slightest error.

The final misconception we’re dealing with here is what actually makes somebody creepy. When we’re talking about someone being a creeper – an actual creeper, not the fantasy of “it’s only creepy if you’re ugly” hand-wave that dudes throw around – we’re talking about behavior that make people feel unsafe. If, for example, you were to show up unexpectedly and surprised someone because you saw something in their Instagram that told you where they were? That can be unsettling. If you made it clear that you could always find them based on what they post? That’s going to move it past “unsettling” into “yup, that’s creepy” – that suggests that you can find them at any time, and they can’t stop you. Are you consistently touching them in intimate ways and missing or ignoring their discomfort? Yeah, that’s going to be potentially creepy; you’re signaling that you either don’t recognize signs that they don’t want to be touched or don’t care that they don’t. The former is unnerving. The latter is creepy, because you’re stating that you don’t see their comfort or disinterest as mattering. That’s the point where you’re starting to be an actual threat.

Most of the things that make you creepy aren’t going to be casual mistakes, they’re going to be behavior that signals a disregard for other people’s comfort or security. The guy who tracks a stranger down over social media after having met her once is being creepy, especially when he does so in order to try to get a date or sex from her. The guy who turns every conversation sexual, no matter how other people feel? That’s creepy because he’s violating people’s boundaries; they don’t want to talk about sex with him and he’s decided his interests override their disinterest.

But let’s say you touch someone and realize that they’ve tensed up and aren’t comfortable with it. If you realize what’s going on, pull your hand back, apologize and – critically – don’t make that same mistake? You’re on much safer ground. It may have been uncomfortable, but you’ve demonstrated that it was an honest mistake, you regret it and you’ve learned. Made a comment or joke that didn’t go over, that tripped a particular issue for them or otherwise shoved your foot in your mouth? Same thing: apologize and learn from it.

Now, are there folks who will have stronger reactions to genuine mistakes than others? Of course – individuals will vary wildly for all sorts of reasons and it’s literally impossible to factor that into every interaction you’ll ever have. But if you follow some best practices – especially if you get in the habit of asking or using your words, rather than just guessing or plowing ahead without care – and you’ll be far less likely to step on a landmine you had no idea was there.

Do women live in a world where their safety is far from guaranteed? Yes. Do they experience danger in ways that men don’t? Of course. Does that mean they see every man as the enemy or see every slip-up as being a sign that he’s a serial killer? Of course not. Women have plenty of reasons to be on their guard, but there’s a difference between understandable caution and out-and-out paranoia. If someone starts to hate you because of an honest mistake? That tends to be an issue with them, not because you f--ked up that badly.

As you learn, yeah, you’ll make mistakes and you’ll have failures. You want to try to keep those to a minimum, but you also need to understand that they happen and that they’re not the end of the world. If you’re moving through the world with some compassion and empathy for others and act with actual understanding – rather than making unfounded assumptions – then you’re going to be doing better than most. Learn from the mistakes you make, apologize when you do, avoid making those same mistakes again and you’ll be ok.

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: Bottom line up front: cis bi man, 28, struggling with knowing how to even begin dating due to fundamentalist homeschooling.

So some background on me. I grew up home-schooled in an Evangelical Christian household. My opportunities to interact with peers were incredibly limited. My education was an utter joke, and that was at its worst on the subject of sex ed. I received basically no information (from my parents) until I was 16, and what they used wasn’t accurate sex ed but a “purity culture” resource aimed at 12 years olds called “Passport2Purity”, which spent 1 minute alluding to heterosexual PIV intercourse and the rest of it battering the audience with how we shouldn’t even think of getting close to doing that or we’d be defiled. I had more knowledge thanks to the internet but I was also punished for exploring this. Due to homeschooling I had no opportunities to explore even the rudimentary aspects of romantic experiences many others find growing up. I had a few crushes in the limited social spaces I had (youth group, theater, etc) but absolutely not enough experience with socializing to ever do anything. Also, homeschooling controlled my social opportunities so I wouldn’t have felt safe trying to date in my late teens anyway. The expectation I was taught was you must “date to marry” ONLY when absolutely ready to marry, and I unconsciously understood I “wouldn’t be worthy” most likely.

Over five years ago, I began “deconstructing” my upbringing and values. This was rather difficult, as I had been raised basically from birth in ways that my parents had intended to make this entirely impossible. My value and existence were supposed to be welded to Evangelical-fundamentalist Christianity and its demands on me. But I survived this, and am now an agnostic. I’ve even been able to join in and add to conversations on sites like Twitter where similarly-minded people discuss, analyze, and process that upbringing and where we go from here. Apparently I’m really good at dissecting purity culture for a non-specialist. A few years ago, I started doing therapy to explore the religious trauma (and what I now suspect is C-PTSD) from my high-demand upbringing. This has been helpful in a number of ways, but one aspect I have still struggled with is figuring out how to take action with exploring romantic or intimate relationships. This has been frustrating at times, as one of the things I never had agency over in my upbringing was my ability to explore these relationships, and now I still can’t figure out how to explore them even if I’m outside of that community.

The other major change since I began deconstructing occurred last year. I had enrolled in a bachelor’s program to finally try to complete a degree, and was living apart from my parents, but began to experience academic burnout, and a lack of community had a terrible impact on my mental well-being. I reached a point where I had to make a change, so I found an employment opportunity in the Pacific Northwest, and took a huge risk in moving cross-country to get a new start on my life. Through conversations online, I had formed friendships with several people in the area I was moving to. The dating opportunities situation still hasn’t really changed, though.

I’ve spent months trying to recover from the exhaustion of moving, and trying to make new communities and social groups is difficult. Attending meetups and other events on my own rarely goes well, as even with tools from my therapy, it’s overwhelming to try to navigate social spaces. I often rely on smaller gatherings of people I already know, so the growth of my social network has been slow. Also, a lot of the people I connected with through my religious deconstruction conversations are older than I am, and pretty much all have kids or are otherwise at a very different stage of life than I am. So far it seems unlikely I’ll find a dating opportunity through a friend of a friend right now. On dating apps – even with tons of work on my dating profile – I get virtually no interactions. I have tried multiple apps but at this point I’m so frustrated and burned out with the idea of them I don’t really want to try another one. They honestly feel psychologically harmful.

What I have been working on:

• I’ve done some therapy, mostly with DBT and EFT modalities, and I’m also researching ACT and NARM modalities (I am currently looking for a new therapist after my move).

• I have supportive friends who I can talk to about this.

• I’ve done a ton of reading and research on sexuality to make up for my parents’ silence/shame approach.

• Explored sexuality on my own as much as possible: varying my self-pleasure routines, exploring toys, ethical erotic media, fantasy, and realizing that I’m bi and capable of feeling attraction or desire towards more than one gender.

• I’ve attempted more mindfulness and loving-kindness stuff to get more comfortable with myself and what value I have.

• I am working on pursuing hobbies and interests, like board gaming: I’ve been building groups of friends and acquaintances to do occasional board games, and I’m trying to make a recurring thing of a few games I really like to develop more routine there

Right now, it feels like my biggest challenges are not knowing how to begin or start – seriously, like NOTHING ever seems to help. It really hurts to feel like I can’t figure out how to take action AND that everything depends on my actions and if I can’t “do something” then I just have to accept that I’m alone in this regard unless and until I can solve it. It feels like so much pressure, because I am just used to few people taking interest in me to strike up interactions even in normal social settings, and absolutely nothing at all when it comes to romantic or even flirty interactions. I also apparently don’t do well at communicating my distress or frustrations, or my problems are odd enough that few people I talk to have experienced them. I feel like the only advice I ever get is “use dating apps” or “go to meetups based on common interests and interact with a ton of strangers” – the latter I still find overwhelming and often disheartening, and the former I feel like I would rather cut a limb off than try again.

It has been really hard to always feel like, even after all this time, I still can’t solve this problem. I want to have some agency here, and explore aspects of intimate relationships as a whole that I have never had a chance to. But often it feels like I am also the thing holding myself back.

– (Seemingly) No Prospects in the Pacific Northwest

DEAR NO PROSPECTS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: OK, this is going to be said with sympathy, empathy and understanding: you slow your roll, NPPN. You’ve been through a lot of major life changes in a relatively short period of time, and I think you haven’t fully processed just how much is still in flux for you.

I understand that desire to make up for lost time. You’ve gotten out of a net that’s held you back and left you without some of the same experiences and lessons that a lot of your peers had, and you’ve been trying to rediscover who you are without the strictures and demands from your parents and your upbringing. And on top of that, you’ve pulled up stakes and moved across the country to a place that’s as far from your upbringing as possible and you’re trying to establish yourself there, on your own for what is likely the first time in your life.

That is a lot to deal with. Add in the likelihood that you’re dealing with C-PTSD and just the general AAAAAAAAAGH! of moving and making a home base for yourself and you’ve got more taking up your mental and emotional bandwidth than I think you realize.

This is why I think you’re trying to do too much, too fast and before you’re actually ready. You want to be ready, because you see so much that’s been denied to you and you want to finally be able to exercise the freedom you have. The problem, however, is that you’re not really ready yet. Much of what you’re feeling is coming from the disconnect between what you want and what you’re able to handle; the two aren’t in sync, and the disparity between the two is what’s f--king with your head.

I suspect that there’s also still a lot of shame and pain and confusion tied up in the dichotomy between your understanding of your sexuality and the spiritual upbringing you had, which only makes things harder.

To abuse a metaphor: what you have now is a house made of blocks all piled up on each other willy-nilly. Yeah, it’s standing up for now, but it’s incredibly unstable; there’s no underlying structure to support it and everything’s just shoved on top of everything else with no consideration for what might come next. It’s a hodge-podge of “OK, shove this bit here to hold this other thing up, now put this thing over here to counterbalance the sudden issue I created with that previous solution”, and a good stiff breeze would probably knock it over.

You’ve worked too hard and come to far to let it just fall over. But what you should do is slowly take it back apart and start from the beginning, rather than trying to get it done now. As frustrating as that may be – you’re 28 and starting your life for real! – starting slowly and starting with a sturdy, solid foundation and taking a more methodical approach to building your life is going to be faster and more efficient in the long run than running around trying to shove in supports and braces whenever a new issue crops up.

And to make matters more complicated, I think you’re trying to shove the wrong parts in to hold everything up.

Now what does this mean if we stop talking in metaphors and start talking practicalities?

Well, let’s start with taking dating off the table for now. Dating is the wrong solution for you right now, because you’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Your problem is that you feel isolated and alone… but right now, the isolation you’re feeling isn’t going to be solved by dating. It’s going to be solved by building a community for yourself and finding other people who get you.

This is why I think you should not worry about trying to date and instead put your energy into just focusing on getting established in the PNW. Moving is rough. Moving cross-country is rougher. Moving cross-country when you have very little of a support network is harder still. It’s no wonder that you’re exhausted and unable to really connect with folks the way you want. So give yourself permission to take dating off the table for a bit while you get settled. This isn’t forever, just for the immediate future.

Yeah, I know, that’s literally the opposite of what you want to hear. But trust me: you wouldn’t run a marathon when you have your leg in a cast, so don’t try to date when you’re still in the mental state you’re in. It’s not that you’re not strong enough or mature enough by any stretch. You’re incredibly strong emotionally – look at what you’ve accomplished so far! It’s just that your emotional resilience is almost entirely taken up by everything else in your life; you’re tapped out. Adding more to the pile will just mean you’re working with insufficient emotional resources.

So what do you do instead? Well, start with establishing that foundation. You’ve already made some good starts – finding friends in the area before you move is a perfect example. But that’s a starting point, and you still have more stuff that you need to address before you add relationships and dating to the mix.

One thing that you may want to prioritize is to find a community who do understand what you’ve been through. Feeling like you have other people – especially peers your age – who get you, who you feel can relate to what you’ve experienced is going to be important.

It can also be helpful to have that community as you try to heal the wounds you’re carrying around from your parents and your church.

Now I know you’ve said you’ve become an expert at picking these issues apart and you’ve moved to agnosticism, so I imagine what I’m about to say may raise your hackles. But I think one thing you may want to look into is what’s known as the Exvangelical community – people who, like you, are dealing with unlearning the things that they were forced into, re-examining their relationship with God, Christianity and their spirituality and deciding how faith fits into their lives now. To be fair: the Exvangelical movement tends to be more based around people who still have faith or identify as either theists or Christians of one sort or another. But having people who’ve been there, who can speak your language (as it were) and who can understand what you’ve experienced without needing a primer or intro course will be immensely helpful.

You might want to start with a couple podcasts. The Attached To The Invisible podcast is an exploration of faith and Evangelical Christianity from the perspective of attachment theory by a mental health perspective. That could be a good starting point for you as you work on separating yourself from your upbringing. The Almost Heretical podcast, likewise, features former Evangelical worship leaders, Biblical scholars and pastors who are re-examining Christianity from a progressive viewpoint and unpicking the lessons that they were brought up in. Even if you aren’t Christian any longer, hearing other folks from your former community talk about the problems can go a long way towards helping you feel more centered and understood, especially as a queer man from a repressive background.

I would also suggest finding a support group for newly out LGBTQ folks. As with trying to unlearn what your parents taught you is easier with peers who understand, being able to talk about the frustrations and confusion and heartache of trying to navigate your true sexuality with other people dealing with the same problems can help you feel less alone and less isolated. And the odds are good you’ll find more people who are closer to your age and better able to relate to your specific circumstances.

Feeling less alone and more understood will help take some of the stress and isolation you’re experiencing and give you more bandwidth to devote to other aspects of your life.

As a supplement to this, I’d suggest checking out Scarleteen and going through some of their resources there. Don’t let the “teen” part throw you; it’s incredibly valuable for adults too, especially when you’re facing a lot of this by yourself. I know you’ve been doing a lot of self-exploration, but having some guides and direction may help you answer questions you weren’t even aware you had or point you into other areas that will give you even greater insight into your sexuality.

While you do this, I’d recommend taking it easier with your social networking. Part of what you’re feeling is just pure overwhelm that’s leading to burnout by trying to do too much, too fast. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you don’t need to have a sprawling network of friends and peers by next month. If you give yourself to let things build slowly, carefully and at a pace you can actually maintain, I think you’ll find that you have more success and less stress. If you take away the self-imposed push to be READY, NOW, then you won’t feel compelled to speed-run your way to Complete Social Fluency. Just as importantly, taking things slowly means you won’t find yourself rushing into connections and relationships (platonic and otherwise) that aren’t a good fit for you. It’s easy to leap into relationships just because they’re there and you feel like you should be in them. It’s a lot harder to extract yourself when you realize that maybe they’re a poor fit or don’t actually meet your needs.

And then, once you do extract yourself from them, you find yourself back in that same lonely, isolated feeling as before, but with an extra layer of self-recrimination for messing up.

As the saying goes: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Go slow and you’ll make fewer unforced errors. Not zero errors – nobody can accomplish that – but fewer, and the ones you do make won’t set you back the way others would.

As you acclimate to this new life, heal those wounds and build your network, then you can give yourself permission to date. And just as you took your new life slowly, you should take dating at a measured pace. You’re exploring a new world, full of fascinating and thrilling experiences you’ve never had before. It’s going to be incredibly tempting to dive headfirst into it. But trust me: you don’t want to do that. Taking things slowly, without the pressure to reach any particular milestone – whether it be a kiss, sex, or a romantic relationship – will give you the clarity and confidence to pick experiences and opportunities that are right for you – ones that meet your needs, partners who are actually compatible with you and who will be able to be the sort of partner you need… not just the ones you want right now.

I know, I know, you’re finally off the leash that’s been strangling you and holding you back and you want to explore everything all at once. But if you slow things down, build the foundation first and then methodically, carefully build on that foundation, you’ll do much better. You won’t feel as overwhelmed, you won’t shred your self-esteem and you’ll meet a far more compatible bunch of people than if you rush things.

Take that slower pace and give building that foundation the care and attention it deserves, then work outward from there. Soon you’ll discover that you’ve solved those problems that’ve been holding you back… and you won’t have had to do it alone, either.

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: Several months ago, I (30M) had someone from my dance group take me to a different nearby social dance place. While I did know her prior to this, I really started to feel connected with her when I was going just with her and talking with her in the car. That made me actually start to really be into her.

I didn’t ask her out for four months, part of that wasn’t my fault, because very soon after that, she went home for several weeks, but even after that, I got too anxious to ask her out for a while. During this time, I built her up in my mind as pretty much the perfect girl, which I should not have, fantasized about being with her, all of that.

Eventually, back in October, while I was at a fall party she invited me to, I brought myself to ask her out. Then she told me that she’s gay.

We still are friends, I haven’t brought that up again. We keep inviting each other to things. I keep trying to think of her platonically, but sometimes, I fall off the wagon. Like, I sometimes start feeling the same butterflies thinking of her, getting all sad that I can’t be with her, and then I start beating myself up over me feeling this way. Like, I KNOW nothing is going to happen between us, through no fault of my own.

I still want to be friends with her though. How do I fall out of love with her?

Fool In Love

DEAR FOOL IN LOVE: I’m going to give you some advice, FIL, but it’s going to take some effort to put it into practice. I say this because the problems you’re having are all in your head. Not that they’re imaginary; what you feel is real. When I say that they’re in your head, I mean it’s literally a self-defined, self-perpetuating problem, one that’s born out of the way you’re thinking about this.

However, it’s important to recognize that the fact that this is all in your head doesn’t mean that this is something to beat yourself up over, to blame yourself over or otherwise punish yourself for. Instead, I want you to recognize this as an opportunity for some meta-cognition; I want you to think about how you’re thinking about things and how that’s affecting your situation. As the sage once said: there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

The way you’re thinking about this is what’s making you feel awful. Change how you think about it and you’ll change how you relate to the situation.

Let’s start with the obvious and address the labeling issue: you’re not in love with your friend. You’re attracted to her, certainly. You enjoy her company. But what you’re feeling is limerence, not love. The two are easy to mistake for one another, especially if you don’t have a lot of relationship experience, but they’re not the same. Limerence is the fancy name for “puppy love”; the intrusive thoughts, the all-consuming desire and the feelings of melancholy are part of the experience.

It’s important to recognize these feelings for what they are, because it becomes part of how you get these inconvenient emotions under control. When you’re describing these feelings as “love”, you’re creating a scenario in your head that makes this so much more. It focuses your attention around the idea that this is a great tragedy, that it’s a defining moment and that it will have a deep and abiding impact on you. Giving up this love will leave a hole in your heart that will never truly be filled; you’ll simply become numb to it over time.

In reality, this is a passing fancy. You had a moment of emotional intimacy with someone you find attractive – a platonic moment of intimacy, but intimacy none the less. That was exciting! It may be something you’re not used to! The novelty of it, the thrill of it… that set your mind and hormones off and got your engine humming. It probably felt incredible!

But it’s not love. You barely know her, you’ve only really interacted with her like this once and then your imagination filled in the rest with your idealized version of her that has very little relationship to reality. That is what you’re reacting to, not the reality of her.

The reality is… well, she’s not right for you. Not as a potential romantic partner anyway. And now the pain you feel is trying to reconcile these two different versions – the fantasy and the reality of her.

So the first step is simply to relabel this. It’s not love. It’s a crush, that’s all. It can feel intense, it can seem like it will last forever, but it’s a momentary thing. Labeling it when you feel these feelings – “yup, there’s my crush on her, again” – defangs much of the immensity of it all. People get impossible crushes all the time – crushes on people who aren’t attracted to the crushee’s gender, crushes on people in relationships, even on fictional characters. Crushes aren’t anything to be taken seriously; you experience them and then they pass.

Just as importantly though: crushes aren’t something to beat yourself up over. This is something to keep in mind because beating yourself up over having a crush on someone is kind of absurd. Leaving aside that liking someone who isn’t going to like you back the same way isn’t something deserving of punishment, what, precisely is beating yourself up going to do? How is it helping to hurt yourself over these feelings? You can’t shame yourself out of liking someone. You can’t shame yourself into not feeling things, nor is shame and self-recrimination going to make things better. All this does is reinforce that you’re somehow bad and deserving of scorn. Why? Because she’s gay? So? Because it won’t happen? Big fat hairy deal. You’re not bad, stupid or cringe for having a crush. It happens.

And not to put too fine a point on it: punishing yourself for having these feelings just serves to reinforce the fact that you’re feeling them. All you’re doing is reminding yourself that you’re attracted to her, centering the state of having this impossible, inconvenient crush in your mind. Focusing your attention on those feelings only makes them linger, even when it’s negative attention. You’re not letting the feelings drift; you feel them, you go into that cycle of attention and recrimination and spend even more time thinking about those feels.

But if you were to just not focus on those feelings, you might notice that they don’t actually last. Without your attention to keep them at the forefront of your mind, they’d blip in and blip out again, same as anything else. If you over-toasted your bagel in the morning, do you feel that disappointment or irritation all day? Or does that irritation vanish when you have something else to occupy your brain, not to be thought of again?

The same goes with your feelings for your friend. You don’t need to force them away when they come up, you just notice them and label them and just turn your attention elsewhere.

So instead of beating yourself up, forgive yourself. You got a little over-excited over what is ultimately you making a new friend and it got away from you. That’s perfectly natural and normal. It’s a bit embarrassing but the sort of embarrassment you can laugh at yourself over. So go ahead and do that. That rueful but affectionate laughter is far better for you than smacking yourself around because you got a harmless crush on a queer woman.

The final thing to do is to stop running from the good feelings. You and this woman are becoming friends! You’re doing stuff together! That’s all great! Punching yourself in the face, metaphorically, for having feelings for someone you’re having a good time with is counterproductive. Instead, you can reframe this in your head as “I’m making a new friend and that’s awesome! I’m excited that I’m becoming closer with this cool person!” and actually enjoy your time with them.

That’s going to be far more productive – and emotionally healthy – than beating yourself silly over this.

Forgive yourself for getting a bit over your skis’ in your excitement, recognize that what you’re feeling is just a crush and let yourself enjoy and appreciate what you do have as you get to know your new friend, rather than being upset that you fell for a fantasy born out of (understandable) enthusiasm. You’ll feel much, much better. I promise.

Good luck.

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