DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I went to a concert with a friend of mine, they invited me at the last minute. It was Poppy, an up-and-coming metal singer. My friend (a femme non-binary person) is a bit of a goth and they enjoy that scene while I am somewhat uninitiated.

We really had a great time. We talked a lot about life and our interests and the whole experience just flowed nicely. This was the first time I ever felt truly at peace being myself around someone. Normally I feel the need to kind of put on an act when I’m trying to connect with a woman but for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to. At one point I turned to them and hit them with the ol’ “I really want to kiss you right now.” They said they didn’t want to complicate our relationship and jokingly mentioned they were a “walking basket of red flags” and that they have too many mental issues going on to date. I am perfectly ok with this and in these situations I’d rather air on the side of respecting boundaries.

But the feeling is clearly mutual. We are very physically comfortable with each other; we don’t mind being in each other’s space and we still flirt and tease one another.

I guess I’m asking if I did the right thing. Should I have used the whole “she wants to jump in the pool, you just have to ease her into it” routine you have mentioned in the past? Or did I do the right thing by not pushing it?

Too Much Or Not Enough

DEAR TOO MUCH OR NOT ENOUGH: This one’s easy, TMNE: you did the right thing by not pushing it. You made the offer, she said “I appreciate it, but no, thank you.” That’s the end of the discussion.

Here’s the thing about flirting: it’s about having fun with a person while showing you’re attracted to them. But part of being good at flirting is recognizing where someone’s limits are. The metaphor I come back to often – how do you get someone to join you in the pool on a hot day – is about encouraging someone to do something they’re at least thinking about doing. That’s why, in that metaphor, I talk about “how do you encourage them to get in”; going over and metaphorically picking them up and tossing them in as they writhe and protest wasn’t one of the options.

Now, another part of flirting is that you’re checking for mutual interest. How someone responds gives you an idea of whether they’re feeling it or not, whether it’s a case of “I like the idea but not yet”, if they’re interested in flirting for funsies but without intent, or maybe they’re just not into the idea at all. This is why I talk about flirting in stages; you do some light flirting and see how they respond. If they respond by flirting back, you can escalate the flirting a little – I like the guide of “meet their energy + 10%” if you’re unsure.

If they don’t flirt back or you feel like the response wasn’t clear, you can try again at the same general level; if the response is still unclear or “no”, they’re not interested. If you escalate things a little but they don’t flirt back at that level, that’s likely your upper limit for now. That is to say: they like you and are enjoying flirting with you, but this is the level to which they want to take things; give them time to decide if and when they’re ready for more.

But if someone gives a “no, that’s not what I’m interested in” or “I’m not up for this”, then that’s that.

Your friend made it clear that they’re either not interested in something physical with you, or they know themselves enough to know they’re not in a place where that would be a good idea. That’s their final word on the topic for now. As it stands, you have to trust their judgement and to trust them to know whether this is something they want to or are able to pursue.��You put the option out there. If they change their mind, hey, they know you’re interested. Respecting that, and keeping things to the level where you’re both comfortable and having fun is the best thing you can do. It won’t ensure that when and if their circumstances change that they’ll want to pursue something with you… but trying to pressure them into changing their mind will almost certainly ensure that they won’t.

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 been seeing this amazing woman, “Maria” for the over a year now, and honestly, this is probably the best relationship I’ve been in. We click on every level I could want from a girlfriend or wife. She’s quite honestly the whole package. She’s smart, ambitious, creative, caring, stubborn as the day is long when it’s called for. I watched with awe as she went full mama-bear over the way the school seriously mishandled an issue with her son. I would crawl over broken glass for the privilege of doing her laundry. Because we’ve been together for this long and because I honestly think I’ve got something real and lasting with Maria, we’ve reached the stage where she finally introduced me to her son. He’s a great kid. Smart like his mom, imaginative, loves building things. He’s a little shy, but he and I are getting along well.

Here’s the thing: I knew that she was a single mom from the beginning. It never bothered me. But now that we’re moving into more serious territory and this is clearly more than a short-term thing, some of my friends have started making comments. When we were starting to date, nobody really said anything. Now, I’m noticing their attitudes change. At first, it was just the occasional joke. Stuff like, “So when’s your next PTA meeting?” or “Ready to trade your balls in for a minivan?” Standard ball-busting stuff on the surface, maybe, but now that I’m getting serious about her, the tone of the jokes have started changing for the worse.

Now they’re outright telling me I’m making a mistake. That I’m a fool for “raising another man’s kid,” that I’ll “never come first,” and that women like her are just looking for substitute dads, that I won’t be able to love a child that’s not biologically mine. Some of them even send me clips of these internet “alpha male” types who talk about how men should avoid single mothers at all costs, how we’re being conned or being taken advantage of. 

The worst part is, it’s making me question whether I’m making a bad decision here. Not about whether I really care about Maria and her son, but if I’m actually father material. I care deeply about Maria, and I think the world of her son. But now I wonder if I’m ready to be a father and what will happen if Maria and I have a child together in addition to her son? Will I unconsciously favor my child over him? And what if my friends are right, and I’m signing up for a life that will always come second? I also worry that maybe I’d end up hurting her son or doing wrong by him somehow, even unintentionally and I’d never want that.

I know this is irrational thinking and I hate that these thoughts are even in my head, because this relationship has been nothing but healthy, supportive, and full of joy. I don’t want to let toxic noise from the outside world sabotage something real. But I also don’t want to walk blindly into something I’m not emotionally ready for.

How do I know if I’m truly cut out for this? And how do I deal with friends who seem more interested in mocking my relationship than supporting it?

Sincerely,

Is This Shirt Made of Father Material?

DEAR IS THIS SHIRT MADE OF FATHER MATERIAL: There’s one surefire way to solve your problem, ITSMFM: you need a better class of friends, so you should dump this crew and trade up.

I’m being serious here. I don’t know if you’re dealing with a bunch of Peter Pan wanna-bes who never actually grew up or folks who’ve been huffing the fumes from a bunch of right-wing, men’s rights cesspools until it cooked their brains or what, but these aren’t your friends. They’re a bunch of people you’ve known for a while and there’s a difference.

Friends are people who love and support you and want the best for you. If there were legitimate reasons to worry – Maria behaved in questionable ways, you had a habit of leaping into relationships before you were ready, you were someone who didn’t have the maturity or sense of responsibility to manage your own life, never mind helping to raise a child… yeah, there might be cause for friends to say “hey, have you thought this through? Are you sure you’re ready for this level of responsibility?” They’d be giving you a reality check and asking you to put some real thought into this.

Instead, they’re coming at you with the sort of claims that a z-tier Joe Rogan guest would be ashamed to make and telling you that the woman you’ve been dating for over a year now is just using you to find a dad for her son. That doesn’t sound like friends or compatriots or people who want what’s best for you. That sounds like a bunch of people who’ve never had a thought that didn’t come pre-chewed by a bunch of people who sell drop-shipped dick pills, crypto scams, and courses how to use abuse tactics to keep women in line. The fact that they’re telling you that you can’t – not just won’t, but can’t love a child because you’re not biologically related to them tells me that they know next to nothing about love or parenting. I wouldn’t be relying on these guys to pick a movie, never mind relationship advice.

Hell, I don’t think I’d trust their opinions on cheese.

I’m sure that, at some point, your friendship with them must have been rewarding in some way. It sure as hell sounds like those days are long gone, and it’s kind of a question mark in my brain as to why they’re still around.

So let me ask you a serious question: you talk about standard ball-busting behavior, but when is the last time any of these guys have been even remotely supportive of you? I don’t mean in the sense of “bought you a beer when you had a long day” – though that’s up in the air too. I mean “when is the last time they’ve done something or said something that made a positive and meaningful impact in your life?” Have they ever encouraged you to pursue a dream that you had put on hold? Have they ever rallied around you when things were bad and you were in a low point?

I mean, sure, a lot of guys have friendships with a degree of brotherly antagonism and s--t-talk. But could you go to these guys – either one-on-one or as a group and admit to being scared or confused and needing support? If you had a legitimate problem – something that couldn’t be ‘solved’ with jocularity and booze – could you go to them and expect real or meaningful support? Would they have your back and cheer you on if you were going to take a leap of faith in your career, especially if it meant something like moving away? Would they be ready to rally around you if you had a devastating loss and needed help? Would they even be people you could turn to if you needed someone to dog-sit while you were out of town?

Or are these the kinds of friends where you might go to the bar to see the game with, but you couldn’t rely on if you needed real help?

Because it sounds to me like this is a bunch of people who would s--t-talk someone for trying to get sober and keep insisting that one beer never hurt anyone… even knowing that it would never stop at one beer.

There’re a lot of times when the people in our lives are only there because of inertia and/or longevity; they’re part of our social circle because we’ve known them for so long that it seems like we have to keep them around. I promise you: you absolutely don’t. If someone has become a genuine net-negative in your life, someone who doesn’t just bring out the worst in you but actively drags you backwards or pulls you down like a millstone around your neck? That’s someone who you can cut out of your life without worry… even if they’ve been in it for a while.

And it sure as s--t sounds like your friends have taken on that role with glee. So I think you should match their energy by cutting them loose with equal enthusiasm.

I’m going to be honest: I focus on the issue of your friends because that sounds like the real problem here. If it hadn’t been for them acting like all the most-divorced-man energy in your state wished really hard and became a real boy, I doubt you’d be having any question about your feelings for Maria or caring for her son. And while I know that the plural of anecdote isn’t “data”: I have known people personally who have been in relationships with single mothers, who have married single mothers and had children with them… and quite frankly I have never seen more devoted and supportive dads to all of their children. Whether by biology or by marriage, their boys are their boys and that’s the end of the story.

There are real things to be concerned about when it comes to having a serious relationship with a single mother. This isn’t one of them. Not for you, not for these circumstances and not for this relationship with Maria or her son.

Here’s the other thing to keep in mind: nobody knows for sure whether they’re ready to be parents. Even people who’ve read all the books, took all the courses, did all the prep-work they could… they worry about if they’re ready. And in a real way, they can’t be, because as the saying goes: man plans and the gods laugh. Nothing ever goes to plan, especially where kids are involved. But the people who make the best parents are the ones who resolve that they’re going to do the best job they possibly can, no matter what happens. The ones who’ve prioritized loving and raising their kids more than “being ready” or having their lives planned out.

Now, I do want to make a cautionary note: it sounds like you only just met her son. That’s a huge step in and of itself. Being in her son’s life on a regular basis is going to be a big change to his life. I think you should give more time before you take the next one. He’s going to need some time to adjust and you are going to need time to find your place in the family dynamic.

And that part is important. You don’t mention, for example, whether his father’s still in the picture and if so, under what circumstances. You don’t mention whether Maria is co-parenting with her son’s father, what her relationship is with his father, what her son’s relationship is with his father… these are all important things to take into consideration. Even under the best of circumstances, where everyone’s at least in a happy, respectful and supportive relationship, it takes time to merge into the dynamic without unnecessary disruption or confusion.

Don’t get me wrong: I think you’re doing a great job so far, and it sounds like you’re with a great woman. I also think a little apprehension and worry, especially for her son’s well-being says a lot about you. If you weren’t worried that you might make things worse for him… well, I’d be more concerned. But from the sounds of it, your heart and your head are in the right place.

As far as your relationship with Maria goes, I think the best thing you can do is give it time. You’ve reached a significant stage with them; now you need to let things settle a bit and the three (or four) of you will find your new status quo before it’ll be time for the next step.

But your friends? I think they’re surplus to requirements at best, an active anchor at worst. It sounds like you grew up and they just grew older. It’s time to cut them loose and find better ones. 

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 been stuck in my own head and I don’t know how to get out.

Until a few years ago, I was significantly overweight. There are all sorts of reasons – unhealthy relationship with food, eating my feelings, convenience – but ultimately it came down to my choosing not to do anything about it. Eventually, I got tired of feeling bad about myself and decided to make changes. I wasn’t aiming to lose a lot of weight, just to feel better about myself and my life, so I hit the gym hard, did my best to eat a healthier diet and ultimately lost around 40 lbs. Between that and putting on some muscle, I was in the best shape of my life. I felt like I’d finally clawed my way to the surface after years underwater, like I finally had control over my life and I felt amazing about myself for the first time ever, really.

That’s around when I met my girlfriend.

She’s smart, a brilliant writer and comedian and gorgeous. We’ve been together for over a year now and I guess you could say it’s getting serious. I could see her being my forever person and she says the same about me. We both agree: we can easily see ourselves still together in the retirement home as she makes me laugh with her jokes and stories and me making little toys and gadgets (I like engineering little 3d printed toys as a hobby). But lately, I’ve been struggling again. Work’s been stressful, it’s hard to eat perfectly when time is short, I’ve been skipping gym days and honestly, the pounds are creeping back on. Not a lot, but enough that I see softness around my middle and losing some definition that I had. I was never going to be a fitness influencer, but even so, the confidence I worked so hard to build is cracking.

Here’s my issue: my girlfriend works in the entertainment industry as a creative and as a journalist and she has a history of dating guys who are, frankly, next level. We’re talking former (and some still current) Instagram models, professional actors and musicians, that whole scene. She’s on good terms with most of them and some of them are still in her life, if not as friends, then at least digitally. Even if she doesn’t see them in person these days, she still follows them, likes their posts, communicates with them in DMs (she tells me, unprompted, about it) and from what I can tell, most of them still look like they were carved out of marble.

I know it’s not fair to compare myself to other men, but I can’t help it. When I compare myself to the kinds of guys she used to be with — guys who seem effortlessly perfect — I start to spiral. I wonder if she’s just settling with me or if she’s with me because I was at least close to their level of fitness and hotness when we met. I worry whether I’m the “nice guy” she chose after she got tired of the flashy ones and if she’s going to get bored with me if I’m not able to stay on their level.  And with my own body image issues resurfacing, that fear gets louder. I’m terrified she’ll stop being attracted to me. Or maybe never really was, at least not in the same way and she’ll want to go back to guys with perfectly chiseled cheekbones and washboard abs instead of a dude with a softening jawline and the beginnings of love handles.

I haven’t brought this up with her, because I don’t want to come off as insecure or controlling. I REALLY don’t want to police who she follows or what she does. But I also can’t keep pretending it’s not eating away at me. I just want to feel like she wants me like she did and isn’t wishing for what she used to have and, let’s be honest, probably could have them again. 

So here I am, asking you: How do I deal with this? How do I quiet that voice in my head that says I’m never going to measure up? And how do I talk to her about this without sounding like I’m trying to compete with ghosts from her past?

Thanks for listening.

—The Man in the Funhouse Mirror

DEAR THE MAN IN THE FUNHOUSE MIRROR: Your letter, MITFM, is why I tell people that changing their looks isn’t the cure-all they often think it is – at least, not the way most guys go about it. A person’s physical appearance isn’t the end-all, be-all of attraction, and changing that aspect of yourself – whether it’s a matter of losing weight, putting on muscle or going as far as cosmetic surgery to “fix” their face or even try to be taller – isn’t going to solve your problems. Not when those problems are mostly internal. External solutions never solve internal issues; it’s like painting the walls to hide wood rot. You can pretend that the problem’s not there, but it’s continuing to linger and to spread.

That is to say: this is very much a “the call is coming from inside the house” kind of issue. You’re not seeing actual signs that your girlfriend is losing interest. Her behavior’s not changing. She hasn’t demonstrated through her actions or attitudes that she’s shallow or focused on appearance. She’s not sneaking around or acting any differently with her exes. This really isn’t about how she feels about you; it’s about how YOU feel about you. This is anticipatory anxiety based around your self-image. And I don’t think your self-image has really changed from the one you had before you got swole.

And to be clear: I don’t think that it’s necessarily bad or a sign of anything that you feel this way. The issue is more about the way you’re dealing with these feelings and the way they’re making you feel about yourself. When you turn those feelings inward – whether blaming yourself for not “measuring up” or having them in the first place, you end up creating more problems and cause them to spiral out of control.  

There’re two things that I think you need to keep in mind here. The first is how much propinquity matters when it comes to dating and attraction. We are most likely to form relationships with the people who are around us the most often and the people that we see the most frequently. For someone who works in the entertainment industry, especially in industry towns like New York or Los Angeles or Vancouver, that’s going to mean other people in the industry. This is one of the reasons why celebrities tend to date other celebrities; it’s who they are around the most often and who they interact with the most. And when so much of creative work is for video these days, that means there’re gonna be a lot of pretty people in the mix.��I would also point out that the men she used to date – emphasis on used to – are in an industry where maintaining a particular look or build is literally their job. Even if they don’t have their employer footing the bill, maintaining those builds takes a massive chunk of their day and it ain’t fun. Just listen to Zac Efron talking about the s--t he had to endure to get and keep his body for Baywatch and other movies. 

But here’s the thing: beauty is as much about contrast as it is about aesthetics. When you see the same thing over and over again, it’s not unusual or different; it’s the norm. Strip club bouncers and DJs talk about the moment they realized that being surrounded by hot naked women didn’t phase them anymore and how little they noticed or even cared. When *everyone* is super-hot, nobody is. That’s kinda important. In fact, it’s so important that it is part of what brings me to my second point to keep in mind: It wasn’t the change in your looks that made this relationship possible.

This was very much a “Dumbo’s Magic Feather” moment for you. Your weight loss and all didn’t change who you were as a person. It just gave you permission to unlock and use aspects of yourself that were always there. She didn’t pick you because you looked like you stepped off the cover of Men’s Health, it was the confidence you felt. You felt better about yourself. You carried yourself with pride, you felt emboldened and braver. You were willing to take bigger swings because you felt like a million bucks. You took a chance with someone you felt was out of your league and as it turns out, she always was in your league because she liked what you had to offer. If looks were all that made this possible, you’d be in a very different situation. You wouldn’t be talking about getting serious after having been together for more than a year; the novelty of hooking up with you would’ve worn off long before then. If there wasn’t actual substance and connection, this would’ve been a fling, not a relationship.

The problem here is that you changed your body but not your mind. You’ve got the same beliefs about yourself and your value that you had before and you’re basing it all on your physical appearance. Believe me, I’m a huge fan of personal transformations and if losing weight and putting on muscle makes you feel better and encourages other positive changes, I’m all in favor of it. But you have to understand that just changing the outside doesn’t change the inside. If you don’t deal with your insecurities or recognize your worth is more than whether you can bounce a quarter off your abs, you’re going to feel like an unlovable dude whose pulling off a scam and you’re about to get caught.

(And trust me: being classically handsome and jacked isn’t proof against insecurity. Brendan Frasier, at the peak of his career in the 90s, did permanent damage his body because of the way Hollywood played on his anxieties and insecurities.)

While I won’t tell you not to do what you can about your diet or to get more exercise, I do have to tell you that this is ultimately a losing battle. Even if we leave aside what we’ve learned about how our bodies fight weight loss, nobody can defeat time. Entropy and gravity will get us all in the end. Metabolisms slow as we age, our ability to put on muscle decreases, fat distribution changes, hair falls out, skin loses elasticity and so on. Time makes fools of us all; this is part of why love is more than skin-deep. It’s about connection and what we bring to the table.

If you were to ask your girlfriend about why she dated the guys she did, I suspect that looks wouldn’t be the first thing that came up. I would be willing to bet cash money that what you’d hear about where how one guy made her laugh or how she and other guy had great conversations or this other person’s talent and so on. And the common denominator of all of it is how they made her feel. That’s why she’s with you: because of the way you make her feel and vice versa. ��So I think part of what you need is what I’ve told many a man dealing with insecurity: ask her to love you a little louder when those feelings come up and remind yourself about why the two of you are still together. Cultivate that sense of worth that’s inherent in you rather than contingent on your looks. You’re not worth any less just because you can’t maintain the insane fitness regimen you had when you were younger, nor because you have a body fat percentage higher than single digits.

You should treat yourself with more kindness than you currently are, especially if gaining a little weight back is throwing your self-esteem for a loop. You can’t shame yourself into being a stronger or more confident person; you can only make yourself feel worse. Trying to beat yourself into being “better” just makes “better” how you try to make the bad feelings go away. It doesn’t bring good feelings out or encourage you or make you feel stronger, it just teaches you that you can never feel completely secure or at ease.

Work out because it makes you feel good. Eat well because the body is a machine and it’s important to make sure it gets the right balance of nutrients and protein and carbs. But also build in a level of grace and forgiveness, because there’s nothing wrong with NOT being carved from marble. You’re just as loveable and just as wonderful even if you’re softer and hugging you doesn’t feel like hugging a statue. And honestly: food isn’t just fuel, food is life. Sometimes you gotta stop and eat some carbs and sugars and fats simply because they’re delicious and make life worth living. Sometimes your inner possum wants trash and that’s fine.  

Your girlfriend loves you for you, not for any muscle striation or vascularity. You should love yourself for the same reasons.

Good luck.

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