DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I (23F) have been dating “Bill” (25M) for almost 6 months. I’ve always felt a little insecure because he’s a bit out of my league and I was the one to first ask him out, back when we worked at the same restaurant. He turned me down at first but about a year later, when we were no longer coworkers, he asked if I was still interested. Well, I was, BUT. In the time in between Bill dated and had a very bad breakup with “Carla.” Carla is a literal Instagram model, so I felt pretty anxious following her up. But I was still so into Bill I decided to give it a shot.

I thought things were going all right until I ran into Carla when I was out with other friends without Bill. She recognized me from online, asked if I was Bill’s new girlfriend and we got talking. She seemed like a nice person, she was happy to hear Bill is doing okay since their breakup. She said I’m lucky to have Bill, she broke up with him because he was too controlling and wanted to be monogamous when she’s not ready for that, but he was the best sex she’s ever had. She went on and on about how big his dick was (which is true), how great he was at oral and willing to do kinky stuff and spend all day in bed. All while I’m smiling and nodding like aren’t I lucky!

But the thing is… Bill has never once given me oral, even though I’ve given him plenty. I wouldn’t say the sex is not good with him, but mostly just because I’m so turned on by him, he seems happy to just quickly get off vanilla-style and has never brought up anything else. I thought that was just the way he was, and I was honestly fine with it. But now I feel like it’s because he’s not as into me as he was into Carla, he’s only with me as a placeholder until he can find someone else on her level.

At first, I had hope Carla was lying, that Bill was the same way with her, she just wanted to make me think he was more into her to ruin our relationship and get back at him. But when I told him I talked to Carla and what she said, he did NOT say she was lying, he just got irritated and said he had a different relationship with her, and I shouldn’t expect it to be the same because people are different. He said what he said before, that Carla was a slut who only cared about sex, which is why they broke up. Which fits with what she said, assuming they’re each going to make the other sound like the bad guy. But he would not deny going down on her when he’s told me he doesn’t like it. And when I asked if he’d want to do some of the other stuff she mentioned, he didn’t seem to at all, just got madder and quieter until I gave up.

That was over a week ago and I have not brought it up again. We’ve just gone on like nothing happened. But secretly I’m wondering where to go from here. Should I stay in a relationship where I feel second-rate? Or would it be spoiled and unfair to break up over this?

Second Rate Replacement

DEAR SECOND RATE REPLACEMENT: OK, I’m going to be honest: there’re a lot of points in this that sound like a creative-writing exercise that got sent to me instead of Am I The A--hole. But as I’m always saying: I’m not really concerned about replying to questions about fictional problems since a) most letters are basically theoretical to most readers anyway and b) there’s often a lesson to be taken from this that may well be relevant to others.

And boy howdy there’re a few things to work over in this one.

So, SRR, let’s start with the most important part: your Spidey-sense is tingling, and with good reason. The problem here is that I think you’re missing why it’s going off like a car alarm at 3 AM. And it ain’t because of how Bill feels about Carla. It’s not actually about Carla at all. It’s entirely about Bill. And to be blunt: Bill sounds like an a--hole.

One of the important lessons one can learn about dating is often the simplest: how someone talks about their ex (or exes) can be a useful insight into who they are as a person, as a partner and what you could expect if and when this relationship ends.

A person who has mostly good relationships with their exes, especially after a breakup, for example, tends to be pretty emotionally mature. While yes, there’s the occasional person who can’t get over them and let go, for the most part, someone who’s genuinely friends with people they used to date is someone who’s usually had good relationships and stuck the dismount when it came to the end of things. While the end of the relationship may have been tumultuous, they worked through their issues, were able to maintain respect and consideration, even affection for their ex and they’ve successfully transitioned to a new relationship with them. I would actually call that a successful relationship, even though it didn’t end with one or both of them dying in the proverbial saddle.

By the same token, someone who has a negative relationship with their ex isn’t automatically a bad person. A lot depends on how they view their relationship, how they describe it, if they understand where things went wrong and why, what their part in the breakup was and so on. If they’re someone who can take ownership for their side of things and seems to understand what happened and learned from it, that’s a good sign.

On the other hand, someone who seems to have nothing nice to say about any of their exes is giving you valuable information about them – at the very least, this is how they’ll be talking about you when you break up. Similarly, someone whose exes are all crazy tends to be someone who either has a very broken picker or – more likely – never takes any ownership for their own behavior and actions during those relationships.

And to be sure: not every breakup is mutual or an issue of “everyone contributed somehow”. Sometimes, one partner will be the undisputed instigator or malefactor. Sometimes nobody is the bad guy and there was just a fundamental incompatibility. Some break ups come screaming out of the clear blue sky with no warning, and some are entirely one-sided. But as I said: if that’s how all of someone’s relationships end… well, that’s often a very good reason to proceed with caution.

Which is why Bill calling Carla a slut who “only cared about sex” is going to be your first warning sign that maybe Bill’s not such a great guy to begin with. Especially considering that Carla seemed to have much fonder memories of her time with Bill and was actively talking him up to you.

Though to be honest, the part about Bill being controlling would be the sort of thing that maybe should make your Spidey-sense start to buzz a little.

Then there’s the fact that he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in your sexual pleasure. I’m not going to get deep into the weeds about how much oral sex is the minimum or that there needs to be perfect reciprocation or what-have-you; everyone’s got their own preferences for what kinds of sex get them off and what ratio they want or need in their relationships to be satisfied. The important part of that isn’t the number, it’s satisfied. And thus far you seem to be getting by on Bill’s hotness, and if that works for you for now, that’s great. However, I’m going to go ahead and lay my wager that as the NRE starts wearing off, so too will the novelty of bangin’ this really hot guy.

Humans are adaptable creatures and what is new and notable, like someone being a four-alarm fire of hotness, eventually becomes “just who they are”. Physical good looks are great and all, but to paraphrase the sage: it doesn’t matter if you’re with the hottest person in the world, after a while it’s not that different from f--king the couch. You can still appreciate their hotness and find them wildly attractive, but the benefits of the novelty of their hotness tends to fade alongside the initial dopamine hits you get from sex with them. It’s how they approach sex and your pleasure that’s going to make the difference about how good – or not good – the sex is.

It’s a lot easier for someone with a prostate and a penis to get off than it is for someone with a vagina and clitoris, and keeping things in relative orgasmic equity tends to require additional effort and attention for said vagina and clit. Without something that gets you revved up – like the novelty of a new partner, the thrill of banging someone incredibly hot – then a lot is going to depend on whether your partner is committed and concerned with your pleasure and satisfaction.

And when you reach that point in your relationship with Bill, you’re going to be with a guy who, while attractive, seems mostly to want to get off and go.

And therein lies the issue.

See, the important part here isn’t the lack of oral – not in and of itself. That’s more of a symptom than the problem. No, the problem was this part from your letter: “said he had a different relationship with her, and I shouldn’t expect it to be the same because people are different”, which was then followed up by this part: “when I asked if he’d want to do some of the other stuff she mentioned, he didn’t seem to at all, just got madder and quieter until I gave up.”

This is why your Spidey-sense is buzzing like you forgot to turn off the notifications on Snapchat. In the span of a conversation, he’s told you that he’s not interested in giving you oral sex, nor is he willing to discuss the matter. Instead, he’s just going to get angry and give you the silent treatment until you stop bothering him with your silly notions like “I’d like to feel appreciated and that my pleasure is a priority.”

The former is bad enough. Yes, every relationship is different, people are different, and what one person wants or needs can vary. Some people require very specific levels of pressure and stimulus to reach orgasm, and some are easier to get off than old shoes… but that’s very different from “Yes, I went down on my ex, but don’t expect it with you.” Maybe he could’ve phrased it better… but I doubt that the phrasing is the problem.

Now the angry freeze out part? That’s not great. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this is a significant warning sign that you should be paying attention to. If getting angry and freezing you out is something he’s doing when you’re discussing your sex life, I doubt that’s where it’s going to stay.

Now, maybe things with Carla were especially fraught and he’s got a lot of bad memories or pain tied up in their relationship. But even with that caveat, the way he’s behaving is immature at best and is actively discouraging you from advocating for your own needs and pleasure.

And honestly, I think you could stand to be more assertive about this. I don’t mean you need to pin him down, sit on his face and growl “I don’t get off until I get off” (though there’re more than a few folks who’d probably break down your door to be on the receiving end), but you should be willing to say “hey, this thing you’re not doing? That’s something I want,” instead of “would you like to do that with me?” If it’s something you want or need from your partners, then say that it’s something you want or need, rather than something that’d be nice every once in a while. You need to be your first and best advocate for your needs, especially if you’re feeling a distinct lack.

All in all, SRR, I don’t think the issue is that you’re a possible placeholder. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t… but that part’s not important. The important part is that you’re with someone who seems to be a Crouching Hot Guy, Hidden Douchecanoe, who treats your sexual satisfaction and your desire to feel appreciated and cared for as second-rate considerations at best. I don’t know if he’s killing time until he finds someone better, but you can definitely do better and probably should.

Give him a chance to shape up by telling him – not asking, telling him what you want and how you want it. Not because Carla got it before you, but because you want it. If he gives you the same line or the same silent treatment, it’s time to drop Bill like fifth period French.      

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: When I met my now-husband, I was very young ignorant and naïve. He wasn’t my first nor second though, I had this habit of changing boyfriends cos I didn’t know what I was doing. The relationship was no good at all, but I decided to stick to him cos I got pregnant. It was very very toxic, but I still moved in with him and we ended up getting married. By the time I began to know better, I realized I’ve never loved him. 

I had been with him 9 years and I had 3 kids for him so I left him. He ran after me promising to change and I took him back. Yes indeed he changed, miraculously, and now it’s been 6 years he’s been the best husband and father in the world. He loves me so carefully he meets my emotional needs. He gives his all to his family, but I have to put in a lot of effort to go on with him. 

It’s not like there’s someone else I’m in love with. I’ve never been in love, but I always wake up in the morning longing for someone else, like I have strong feelings and a strong desire for someone else and I don’t even know who it is, but with a partner besides me who’s all over me. No affection no connection and consequently no communication and no appreciation. I make him go through a lot sometimes I curse myself when I see him suffer, sometimes I beat myself when I show him that I don’t care. Then I go back again and start putting in efforts. His love alone has kept the marriage going but both of us are not satisfied and happy in the marriage. 

I sometimes wonder if I have an emotional disorder. 

What should I do?

He Loves Me, I Love Him Not

DEAR HE LOVES ME, I LOVE HIM NOT: There’s a saying that’s appropriate here: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”   

I’m a believer in giving things the ol’ college try, but there does come a point where continuing to try isn’t going to help things, and it’s almost certainly making things worse. And trying to force yourself to love someone when you clearly don’t – certainly not in the romantic sense, in any case – is one of those times.

Hell, this isn’t even as hopeful a situation as Meat Loaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”; at least in that case, you’d want him and need him, even if there ain’t no way you were ever going to love him.

Being aromantic – where you don’t feel strong feelings of romantic love for anyone – is a thing, but I don’t think that applies here, HLILMN. Nor, for that matter, do I think you have an emotional disorder. I think you’re someone who’s been trying to force yourself to feel something that you’re just not going to feel for someone. You said it yourself: you dated around a lot because you didn’t know what you were doing – as many people don’t – and then you got pregnant. Now, fifteen years and three kids later… well, you’re still in the same boat. And while it’s admirable that he seems to have turned his life around and become a sterling husband and father, there’s still the fact that you don’t love him, and you feel stifled by being married to him.

The answer is pretty clear: you should get divorced. Yes, companionate marriages are a thing, but companionate marriages have some sort of love connection at their core. It may not necessarily be romantic love, but there’re many different kinds of love… and those don’t seem to be at play here.

If love was going to grow – especially the kind of love that makes a marriage work – then it would’ve done so. After fifteen years together, I think you can say that you’ve got a definitive answer to whether things will get better on that end. It hasn’t and it won’t. You’re not happy and staying in this marriage isn’t going to change that. If you want things to be different, you have to do different things. That means that it’s time to admit that this isn’t working, not the way that it needs to for a successful marriage and family.  

Yes, he’s become a devoted husband and father and does everything for his family. That’s great… and he can continue to do so after you divorce. You can still be co-parents, even if you’re no longer bound to one another; his devotion is about his love for his kids, not about whether there’s still a ring on it or whether you’re financially and legally entwined. They’re still family, even after you get divorced.

Just as importantly, this is better for your children. Kids aren’t dumb or unobservant; they can tell when things aren’t great between their parents, and that affects them as much as it affects the two of you. Even if they’re reaching their tweens and teens, the level of tension and discord between their parents can be harmful. While I know people will talk about staying together “for the children”, the truth of the matter is that the children tend to be much happier and healthier when they don’t live in a home full of resentment or if their parents feel trapped.

And to be blunt, it’s kinder to your husband, too. Even if he loves you – and he clearly does, if he was willing to make such a transformation – staying with him when you don’t care for him like this is cruel. He deserves someone who’ll love him back… and that’s just never going to happen if you stay. If you care for him, even just as the father of your children, the kindest thing you could do is to free him to find someone who’ll return his love. And you can find someone that you can love.

Don’t stick with a mistake just because you took a long time making it. You’ve spent years on a bad decision, and it won’t magically become a good one if you throw more years at it.

It’s time to do the kind thing for everyone and let this marriage go.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve dealt with this pretty odd issue for years. Every time a woman shows that they’re attracted to me it always makes me feel uncomfortable, creeped out, or angry. My brain automatically finds some annoying feature or trait they have and makes me turned off by them.

Just recently I met a girl who I honestly found pretty attractive, but I didn’t really talk to her. I guess she found me attractive too because she was actively trying to sit next to me and inserting herself into my conversations with other people. Sounds nice, but the moment she started talking to me I realized she had a really nasty, grating vocal fry that made me hate listening to her. Just the most obscenely hammed up Valley Girl accent that was so fake sounding I thought she was doing an impression, but no, that’s how she really talks. She would ask me questions trying to get to know me and her voice was making me visibly ticked off (obviously I would NEVER confront her or lash out at her about something she can’t control). I just half-assed any interaction I had with her until she realized I wasn’t into her anymore and she stopped. I honestly feel like a dick doing that because she was a perfectly nice person.

There have been other cases where women I don’t know come onto me and I immediately get creeped out or disgusted at them even though they’re perfectly fine people.

On the other hand, I find myself becoming somehow more attracted to people who ignore me specifically. Like this woman at one of my clubs who talks to everyone but me enthusiastically, and I’m still attracted to her. Most of the time when I talk to her, she acts and sounds like I was inconveniencing her and sometimes just ignores me outright. Part of me is hurt when she does that for sure, but it also gets me thinking of her more and getting more attracted.

And yet I feel like there’s something else to it, because I get a bunch of odd mixed signals from her. It’s quite confusing because if she were just ignoring me, I would just leave her alone and forget about her. It feels so wrong that I still have more of a soft spot for her than any of the attractive, compatible single women that hit on me.

I guess my question is, what exactly am I experiencing and how do I stop? This absolutely can’t be healthy for me.

Sincerely, Lovers To Enemies

DEAR LOVERS TO ENEMIES: I’ve seen a lot of people get upset when someone they find unattractive is into them; they take it almost as a personal insult that this person thought they had a chance with them. It stabs them in their incredibly fragile ego, as though someone else’s interest was a marker of “this is the best you can do”, and so they take their inner insecurity and turn it outward, projecting their frustrations and fears and lashing out at someone who’s only “crime” was to think they were cute.

It’s not often that this happens when the person committing the heinous sin of “hey, I think you’re interesting” is someone they find physically attractive. But the reason for it is not exactly a mystery. But hey, let me ask you something: is this reaction only to women who show interest in you, first? Does it happen if they’re neutral or casually friendly, or do you only find that they turn creepy or develop these anger-inducing flaws if their behavior starts to seem flirty?  

For that matter, is this a permanent state? If any of the people who provoke this reaction in you remain in your social orbit, do you find that they become less aggravating or off-putting once they lose interest or start actively avoiding you?

I ask because, honestly, what you’re describing sounds a lot like bargain basement self-sabotage. As absurd as it sounds, a lot of people snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with the sort of glee that you’d expect from someone finding a limited-edition Magic card in a store’s “ten for a buck” remainder box.  People will find reasons to blow up even the vaguest possibility that someone might find them attractive or that they might actually be happy. Why? Because F--K YOU, THAT’S WHY. 

This manifests itself in a number of ways. The most common example tends to be getting crushes or finding yourself attracted to people who you know to be uninterested, unavailable or wildly inappropriate for some reason. Queer people may find themselves getting crushes on folks who are a solid 0 on the Kinsey scale, straight folks find they’re only attracted to people who are either happily coupled up or who are in a position where they can’t or won’t date and so on.

Your case – getting angry at people who seem to be attracted to you – is rather… let’s just say dramatic. Counterproductive, sure, falling in line with a lot of other self-sabotaging behaviors, sure… but angry? That’s a moment where things start falling into the “this isn’t just about other people anymore, is it?” territory.

It sounds to me like your issue is one of feeling like you don’t deserve to be happy or to find love. Maybe you feel like there’s some failing that you need to atone for. Maybe you simply feel like you have some irredeemable flaw or quality that you think makes you undateable. Or maybe it’s as mundane and as common as “I should have someone who’s ‘flawless’ and anything less makes me a failure” because you’re trying to prove something to the jerk voices in your head.

Regardless, the way you go about looking for flaws in the other person and then use that flaw to gin up pointless anger so that you can’t possibly consider them as a potential date is telling. So is the fact that you are drawn to the people who seem to, if not actively dislike you, don’t seem to regard you at all. There is a part of you that actively does not want to be happy or to have a relationship with someone who may actually like you back.

If this seems bizarre, that’s because it is. But it’s bizarre in a way that makes sense if you understand two important things. The first is that our brains evolved to keep us safe, not to make us happy. We have weird, seemingly Pavlovian reactions to things precisely because our brain has detected a threat and is trying to prevent us from being harmed by it, even if that means suffering from discomfort or even opening ourselves up to a different sort of harm.

The second is that our brains are incapable of telling the difference between what’s real and what’s made up. You’ve undoubtedly had dreams where someone in your life wronged you and you spent the day angry at them, even though you know, intellectually, that they didn’t actually do anything wrong. You have also unquestionably responded more to things you assumed to be true, despite having no evidence that it was, and often in the face of evidence to the contrary. That’s because we’re not objective observers of reality, nor are we aware of why we feel the way we do. Our brains take what evidence it can find – your heart rate and respiration, amount of adrenaline in your system, even how warm or cold you are in that moment – makes hasty conclusions based on assumptions and presumptions and filling in blanks with things that seem to fit the circumstances, and then decides to apply a reason to it.

As a result, what you’re often doing is responding to phantom fears and anxieties and self-limiting beliefs and treating them as if they’re actual factual dangers. And that includes the danger of allowing yourself to actually let someone get close enough to you… dangerously close, one might say.

This is the issue you have to address: figuring out what, precisely, is your major malfunction. Why do you feel the need to not just reject someone or decide you aren’t interested in them, but turn their mere existence into something that upsets you by zeroing on their supposed “flaws”? Why is this desire to push people away so strong that you have to preemptively salt the earth while you do it?

I think you’ve got some serious self-exploration to do, and the intensity of your reaction suggests to me that you should probably enlist professional help to do it. Finding a therapist for some dialectical behavioral therapy is going to be important for understanding yourself better and why you’re reacting to these experiences. Once you understand the underlying issues, you can start to change your responses, adjusting your behaviors and finding more productive means of settling these internal disconnects.

So hie thyself to the therapist’s couch and start digging in. This is almost certainly about how you feel about yourself and turning it outward. Find where that particular core wound is and you’ll be able to start the healing process. Then, when you do… well, you may have burned some bridges beyond repair, but at least you can stop burning new ones when you find them.

Good luck.

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