DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: First, let me say how much I appreciate your column. It’s been a beacon of sanity in the wild world of modern dating.

So, I’ve found myself in a bit of a conundrum. I started seeing someone a couple of months ago. Things seemed to be going well—we had a lot in common, laughed at the same jokes, and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. But then, out of the blue, they stopped responding to my messages. It’s been a week now, and it feels like I’ve been ghosted.

I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out if I said or did something wrong, but I’m coming up empty. Now, I’m torn. Part of me wants to reach out, ask if everything’s okay, and potentially get some closure. But another part of me wonders if I should just let it go, chalk it up to the vagaries of modern relationships, and move on.

Should I try to get some answers, or is it healthier to accept the silence and move forward?

Thanks for any insights you can provide,

Haunted But Hot

DEAR HAUNTED BUT HOT: This is a time when I wish you’d given more information, HBH. You say you have been seeing each other for a couple months now. Ok, what do you mean when you say “seeing each other”? Were you dating – as in, you actually talked about your relationship? Had you been going on dates regularly? Have you seen each other more than, say, three times in two months?

Similarly, how does their behavior now compare to what they’ve been like before? Have they always been slow to text back, or are they someone who has a Pavlovian reaction when a notification dings in? Do they have a job that requires a lot of their time or where their schedule is always somewhat chaotic?

In other words: is it possible that either this is within the normal parameters, the result of some emergency (personal or professional) that’s taking up all their available bandwidth, or is it inexplicable based on what (little) you know of them?

I ask about how often you’d been seeing each other in part because it gives a better idea of just how rude they’re being or the likelihood that something unexpected happened. It’s one thing if you’ve not met up in person and only chatted on the apps, or had a date or two. It’s not the best way to handle things, but ghosting is a part of the dating landscape these days and the only thing to do is learn to roll with it.

If you’d been seeing each other more often or you had actual conversations about this being more of a relationship… well, that’s where it gets weird and I’d have other questions. In the abstract, I find this to be rude. In practice… well, there’re often a lot of reasons why someone (mostly, but not exclusively women or AFAB people) might decide to ghost someone they’d been seeing, and most of them involve their safety.

As it is, the answers to those questions will ultimately tell you how you should adjust your expectations – regardless of the reason, your options are more or less going to be the same.

As a general rule, if someone is ghosting you, there’s not really much to be done. It’s a sign that they’re not interested in you, and there isn’t a magical technique that’s going to change their mind. Sometimes you can find a tipping point that might have changed things in a previous date… but unless you have access to a flux capacitor, you’re basically s--t out of luck. More often than not, it’s just a matter that you and they had different ideas about how things were going and they decided to peace out, cub scout.

Similarly, calling them out for ghosting isn’t likely to do anything productive. If they were going to be worried about what you’d think of them for ghosting on you, they wouldn’t have ghosted in the first place. You’re not likely to get a meaningful reply from them and you’re almost certainly not going to get anything resembling closure. Closure is something you have to give yourself.

As it is, there’s not much for you to do here. If you want to try to keep your options open, you can send a final text. I’d recommend something light-hearted, while still noting that you hadn’t heard from them – “Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while and I’m having to assume you’ve been captured by sewer pirates and you’re now working your way to taking over their fleet and becoming the Dread Pirate Robert(a). If that’s the case and your new armada is taking up all your time, then I wish you the best of luck, good plunder and watch out for the Rat King. If not, I hope to hear from you when things ease up and you’re free again.”

Then you leave it there; the ball’s very firmly in their court and they can reply (or not) as they see fit. Texting after this isn’t likely to help, but it can almost certainly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Otherwise, the only other thing to do is go on with your life, meet other people and possibly date them. If they do come back after you’ve functionally moved on… well, that’s their loss. But unless this is extremely unusual circumstances, your sitting with sandwiches by the phone as you wait for they to text you back is just going to be a waste of your time.

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 23 years old and have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) which is a mental disorder. I’ll come to this in a minute. I’m getting treatment for it but the treatment isn’t that effective and I don’t know why. I’m going to a psychiatrist and a therapist.

When I was 20, I learned about cold approach and at the age of 21, I met with a woman through it and she was 10 years older than me. After being together with her for 1.5 years, we broke up – due to a mistake that I made. After that, I kept cold approaching and got on a few dates, kissed 2 girls but nothing more.

What I wanted to ask you is this: Lately, since almost like a year, I’m not having any success on cold approach (even though I didn’t approach too often) and my OCD makes me think like, “What if you’ll be unlucky for the rest of your life? What if there’s some sort of a unluckiness/spell on you that’ll make you always get rejected and stay single for the rest of your life? Or what if you’re gonna find somebody at the age of 30 or 35 and stay single until that time?” My mind doesn’t work like a normal person’s mind therefore these are the questions and worries that I’m dealing with. I know that life and future is full of uncertainties but I’ve an intolerance towards it and it’s making me very anxious and obsessed with these thoughts.

I’m trying to be active on Instagram and some dating apps but they never worked for me and seem like they aren’t my type on meeting women.

I’m talking to my doctor and therapist about all this but they’re doing their best and as you know they aren’t gonna find me a girlfriend; that’s something that I have to do by myself but at this point my mind is full of all these worries, uncertainties, anxieties, obsessive thoughts, etc…

Could you please give me some advice? Am I going to find somebody eventually because it’s a numbers game? But what if I can’t? And if I’m gonna find somebody, how will I wait until that time with all this uncertainty?

Thanks.

Thoughts and Layers

DEAR THOUGHTS AND LAYERS: OK, TAP, I’m going to start by pointing out that Instagram isn’t a dating app and really shouldn’t be used as one. Similarly, cold approaches are pretty inefficient in general. It’s a good skill to cultivate, because there will often be times when you’re trying to meet people and you have no social support to work with, or you’re trying to build a social circle from scratch. But in terms of a good way to meet women? It’s a lot of effort with a very low return on investment.

This is especially true if you’re looking for actual dates. Part of what makes cold approaches inefficient is that you’re functionally trying to convince a stranger to be interested in starting a romantic or sexual relationship with you when they’ve known you for a span of 20 minutes (or what-have-you). That’s not how most folks meet their partners; more often than not, we meet our partners through shared activities (classes, sports, hobby clubs, church, etc) or mutual friends, with dating apps forming a close second.

So part of the problem is the way you’re meeting people. You’ll do better if you find ways to pursue your hobbies and passions that bring you in contact with other people who share those interests.

Even then, there is a numbers game to it. You need to be putting yourself in fortune’s path, as it were, if you want to get lucky. If you’re only seeing the same 5 people every month… well, you’ve basically limited your potential dating pool to those 5 people. Possibly less, depending on gender and sexuality. So going out and meeting more people gives you more chances to make connections that can lead to relationships.

However, I think that’s not really the issue you need to be focusing on right now.

If you’re a regular reader, I’m sure you’ve seen me refer to my position on the importance of being in good general working order when you’re trying to date. Recently, even. But it’s still an important part of dating in general and successful dating in particular.

I want to emphasize that not being in decent working order isn’t about being unattractive to women or not being able meet people – though those are factors. No, I bring this up because it’s important to your overall emotional health, the quality of the people you may actually date and your ability to actually make relationships work.

Your intrusive thoughts are actually a good launching point for talking about this, in no small part because they’re close cousins to what it’s like having rejection-sensitive dysphoria as a part of the ADHD combo meal. Imagine if, instead, the thoughts you had were “wait, is this person mad at me? They made a weird face when they said this innocuous thing, what does this mean, does this mean I’m about to get dumped? Oh God, I’m about to get dumped, aren’t I?” 

If – and I speak from experience here – you don’t recognize those thoughts for what they are and learn how to manage them (or medicate them into quiescence), this is the perfect set up for a self-fulfilling prophecy. You begin to believe that a break up is either in the offing or coming around the corner. When you see it coming, and RSD is very good at creating evidence, then you start behaving in response to that impending dumping. You start trying to get “confirmation” that its coming or you start trying to figure out how to ward it off, or (worse) you get anxious and clingy and your need for constant reassurance becomes intolerable.

Regardless… you end up causing the break up you imagined to actually happen.

In your case, your thoughts are creating a feedback loop where meeting people becomes impossible. Because you’re worried that you’re not going to meet anyone no matter what, you end up missing people who were very clearly into you. Because you can’t believe that someone might like you or that you might find someone to date, you just don’t see it. You rationalize it away, you dismiss it as being a prank or a trick or your brain lying to you or literally don’t perceive it – certainly not as a sign of interest.

And when you do meet people who are willing to push the case… well, a lot of times those can be people who you don’t actually want to date. There are people who will target folks who believe that they don’t have a chance to find a partner and have to take whatever the universe will give them, no matter what. And if you believe that this is your only chance, the only person to break through your anti-luck/anti-date curse or what-have-you, then you tend to cling to that relationship, no matter how bad it gets.

That’s not great – again, speaking from personal experience here.

This is why right now, getting your OCD under control is going to be pretty important; your intrusive thoughts and worries are going to actively sabotage you, often in ways you may not realize are happening at the time.

Now, I want to give my standard disclaimer: Dr. NerdLove is NOT a real doctor and I am in no way, shape or form qualified to tell you how to treat your OCD. That’s something you and your psychiatrist and therapist to talk about, especially if your current treatment isn’t working. It may be time to talk about alternative options or different types of therapy. Never forget that you know your brain and your feelings best. If, for example, a medication’s side-effects are becoming worse than the condition they’re supposed to treat, then you have every right to advocate for yourself and a different treatment. If you feel like your treatment isn’t actually helping, then you are absolutely within your rights to ask to try a different method.

One thing that may be worth asking your therapist about is cognitive behavioral therapy. A number of studies (and a hell of a lot of anecdotes from folks I know) suggests that CBT, even self-directed exercises from sites like MoodGym, is incredibly helpful at managing intrusive thoughts.

Once you get things managed – and I mean managed, not “cured” or “eliminated” – then you’ll be in a much better position to actually focus on meeting people. And to make things even better: you won’t be fighting through the filter of your own disbelief while you do so.

Think of it this way; right now, you’re trying to run a 5k with ten pound weights on each leg. Imagine how much faster you’ll be able to run if you reduce those to five pounds. Or two. Or take them off entirely.

When you get to that point, focus on building your social circle and look more towards warm approaches – meeting people that you already have a social connection with. This may mean classmates or having friends in common. Or it may mean that they’re fellow regulars at your favorite open mic night or amateur sports league or volunteer effort. That’ll go a lot further towards helping meet some amazing women without having to go make a dozen approaches a night.

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 almost 29 and a proud and out aro-ace guy. I like it, my friends know about it, my family mostly knows about it and everything is well in the world. Or so I thought. I was always a bit shy and introverted and had troubles making friends, but with the help of positivity and boundless awkwardness, managed to have a strong core of acquaintances. Thanks to the Internet, I have met people with the same interests as me and as we got older we transitioned from online fun and games to meeting IRL, having dinner parties and the like. Amidst all that, I was perfectly content with my situation, not needing any “special” relationships to meet my social needs. I had some platonic relationships, but my partners always evolved past my “I’m not interested in sex” line, and while I can perform, I’m not as uh… demanding as them and it ends up being a dealbreaker in the end. Well that’s too bad but once again, I’m not really “in” for that kind of relationships from the start.

So, my problem: I’m slowly getting close to my thirties, like most of my friends, but of course they aren’t all like me, they have partners, some are getting married (and I was best man for some of them), some start to have kids (and I’m a godparent to some wonderful kiddos) but as time goes by, we’re all kind of drifting apart. Sure I can call them, we have the occasional outing or the like, but I find myself being more and more of a third wheel, the guy stuck there during a double date or the nanny for the parents wine afternoon. And I while I can live with that for a time, after about two years of that, I’m kind of stumped.

I don’t really know what to do, I don’t want to look like I’m throwing a tantrum or ask for attention. But at the same time, I feel like I’m being left out, but I can see it’s not the intention. People grow and all that. I feel like the root of the problem is my aversion to relationships, my friends are either in couples or are dating with almost desperation.

What should I do? Should I try to make new friends? I like my current ones and I don’t want to lose them. Should I try to enter the dating pool? I’m not interested and I don’t see that endeavor going well for me. Should I accept this as my new reality and try to navigate this mid-life crisis ?

Thank you in advance.

Increasingly Tired Guy

DEAR INCREASINGLY TIRED GUY: As with so many cases, ITG, the problem you’re asking about isn’t the problem you have.

Let’s get this out of the way, first: no, dating isn’t going to solve your problems. Leaving aside that you’re asexual and aromantic, finding a partner isn’t going to be the solution to feeling left out of your friends’ lives. You aren’t being excluded because you’re not in a relationship, after all. There’s no wall of “only couples, throuples and multiples past this point” that’s keeping you out. It’s that your friends are older and have new and different responsibilities. This is just the march of time, and it comes for us all. With age comes responsibilities and obligations, and very few of us have the same free time (and energy) that we did when we were in our 20s.

That’s just life. It’s an annoying cliché that as you get older, you start having to make plans weeks or months in advance if you want to see your friends, but it’s a cliché for a reason, and it happens to pretty much everybody regardless of relationship status.

So, no, your aversion to romantic or sexual relationships isn’t the problem, nor is it the solution. At best, it’s going to be an intensely frustrating distraction. Now, if you just want to occupy your time and don’t mind that this is mostly just going to make you grind your teeth into dust… well, that’s certainly an option. But probably not one that’s going to actually help.

A lot is going to depend on whether or not the issue is you’re not able to see them very often because having kids and more responsibilities makes it more difficult, or these friendships are just reaching their natural conclusion. Not every friendship is going to last forever, just as not every romantic relationship will. Some friendships are of the moment, that window of time when you all are in the right place. As you grow and change, you may just grow apart. That doesn’t mean these are lesser friendships or that anything went wrong; it just means that some friendships are short stories instead of long novels or multi-book sagas. And that’s ok.

But if it’s a matter of needing to make time? Well, there’re a couple options.

What you’re going to need to do is two things. First: you’re going to have to be patient. This is, for all intents and purposes, a time-soluble problem. It’s just that the amount of time it will take is likely much longer than you’d prefer. As the kids get older and don’t require round-the-clock care and attention, your friends will have more time for things like “life”. If you all are tight and put in effort to keep the friendships alive, you’ll be able to get through this once the kids are older.

But the more immediate solution is that you’re going to have to change both your expectations and how you make plans.

One thing you can do is start seeing your coupled up friends separately, giving them some very much needed adult time while the other is on child care duty. You may be used to seeing them as a couple, but a little one-on-one time is going to be the order of the day for a while.

You may also consider inviting them along with the kid; that will limit some of your options, but entertaining at home means that they get time out of the house and to see friends, while not necessarily dealing with the expense of a babysitter or some other form of child care.

And while it’s not as satisfying, you can also have video hang-outs. Part of what helped me keep my sanity during the lockdown in 2020 was a weekly Zoom cocktail hour with my friends. Everyone who could make it that week did and, while it wasn’t the same as hanging out at some of our favorite bars, it had the same vibe.

But the other thing you’ll need to do is that you’re going to have to start planning your hanging out with your friends in advance – weeks or possibly months in advance. As much as it sucks that you can’t just have the same level of spontaneity that you did when you were all younger and more care-free, planning things out is going to become an increasingly important skill as you all get older and responsibilities accumulate like barnacles on a ship’s hull.

One thing that can help is having a regularly scheduled event. Having something on the books that happens every month (or bi-monthly or what-have-you) means that you (and your friends) will be incentivized to carve out the time to actually make it, rather than a last minute scramble of “well, next week doesn’t work, how about the Saturday after that?”

And yes, expanding your social circle isn’t the worst idea in the world. Making new friends is generally a positive. Just don’t get caught up in the idea that these new friends mean that you’re not also going to have to deal with the same accumulation of responsibilities and obligations that your current social circle has. That’s not just a matter of relationships and children, that’s a matter of time, and time come for us all in the end.

Yeah, it’d be great if we could have the same seemingly endless amount of free time and easy ability to hang out as we do when we’re younger. But time is a river that only flows one way, the universe is a hologram, life is just a dream and the door is a jar, and we all end up dealing with it as we go. The only real option is to learn to adapt and roll with it.��At least until the kids are in college and suddenly everyone’s free again.

Good luck.

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