DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am 39-year-old male virgin. Thanks to blog similar to yours, but in my language, I started working about my mental hangups and, after almost 20 years, started putting myself out again. 

I met woman on dating site and after 2.5 months of talking to each other by communicator (1-5 hours a day, literally about everything, including flirting that edged on phone sex) we met in real life (weekend in rented place about halfway between our towns). Our physical relationship lasted all of 4 hours. We landed in bed less than 2 hours after we met IRL, and after some making out (I kissed a woman for the first time), we ran on a problem. She got into it hot and heavy, maybe faster than I was ready for. I wanted sex on that outing, had condoms, lubricant etc. but thought that we will get into it more organically, you know, cuddling, then kissing, enthusiastic consent and baby steps. As it turned out I misread the situation and my attempts at asking for consent or guidance were buzzkills. 

We started three times into heavy petting zone, and every time when I asked about how to do it pleasurably for her, she lost the mood. After the third time, she told me that next time I need scenario in my mind, and that sometimes lack of ‘no’ means ‘yes’. After that she left and gone straight into train home. I talked with her after that (after using rest of that weekend for recovery) and she tried to be supportive, but it included suggesting finding myself partner which have as much lack of experience as I (she suggested disabled and people with mental problems and I think she really saw it as being helpful). 

After that I am plagued with a question if we were simply not matched sexually or am I that bad in bedroom because of my lack of experience, that I need to patronize sex-worker to lose my V card and get remedial education in treating woman in bed before risking ruining another relationship?

Best regards,

Maybe I’m Not Ready For Sex

DEAR MAYBE I’M NOT READY FOR SEX: This is easy, MINRFS: this was a her problem, not a you problem. Yes, there were some things you could have done differently, and we’ll cover those, but those weren’t necessarily deal breakers and wouldn’t have been with the right person. Instead, this entire experience has absolutely nothing to do with your being a virgin and everything to do with her not being someone who was right for you.

Let me start off with something very important: you were 100% right to ask for consent and to check in with her. Asking if she were cool with things and wanting to make sure she wanted to keep going is a good thing. I will be honest: her saying “sometimes a lack of ‘no’ means ‘yes’” is enough to put my hackles up. While I’m sure she doesn’t mind someone just assuming or taking a lack of a “no” as permission, that’s not going to be true for everyone and treating it as a universal rule is a great way to set someone else up for failure. Even if we assumed that women were evenly split and it was a literal coin toss between “please ask” and “asking turns me off and I will end the date”, it’s better to err on the side of seeking enthusiastic consent simply because the consequences of being wrong are much higher for everyone involved.

If you ask someone who finds being asked kills their arousal, then all that’s happened is that your date ends early and in an unsatisfying manner. Sure, that’s disappointing, but disappointment is a very small consequence to face when you’re trying to make sure that your date wanted the same things that you do. On the other hand, if you don’t ask and the other person didn’t want to go further, now you’re potentially causing actual harm. Asking, even if asking would be a turn-off, is still the better choice. 

(Also: it doesn’t take much to make asking into something incredibly sexy. If someone’s really into you, it’s very hard to ruin the moment, and asking for consent isn’t going to hit that bar. However, by folding asking for consent into part of the seduction, you turn a simple question into something that can be very, very hot.)

What she says later, however, makes me think you that you dodged a bullet by not having sex with someone who sounds like a horrible human being. Telling you to find a partner who’s disabled or has a mental handicap because they’re more “your speed” is the sort of thing that makes me say “My dear sister in Christ, run that s--t by me again…” because my first thought would be “you can’t possibly have said what I think you said” and my second thought would be “what the actual pluperfect thundering F--K is wrong with you??” 

So, while I’m sorry you missed your chance to lose your virginity, and I empathize with how frustrating this was… my guy, you honestly lucked out because this was not someone you wanted to have sex with.

So what could you do differently? Well, to start with, I think it would’ve been good to talk about what you expected and what you might want or need, before you got together. It sounds to me like the expectation for both of you was that you were meeting up specifically to have sex. Even if that hadn’t been said explicitly and openly, the increasing flirting and near-phone-sex made it clear that sex was a strong possibility. In general, I’m a fan of what’s sometimes called the “Safe Sex Elevator Talk” – what you like, what you need, what your turn-ons are, what your turn-offs are, what you absolutely won’t do– basically giving them the “here’s what you need to know in order to win with me” guide.

The benefit to this is that it lays out information that a good sex partner would want to have. After all, someone who’s worth having sex with is going to want to ensure that you have a good time, just as much as they do. And in this case, I think saying “here’s how I’d like things to go” is entirely appropriate, especially since this would be your first time.

In point of fact, I think telling her that you’re a virgin and might need a little guidance would be a good idea. I don’t know if you told her you were a virgin before you met up, or whether it came up at all, but it’s information that would be worth her having. If she were someone who absolutely didn’t want to sleep with a virgin, it would give her an opportunity to say “ok, I don’t think that’s something I’m up for”, before you spent money on the hotel room or the Airbnb. But if she were someone who was interested in being your first, it might well change how that first night proceeded – especially if she were someone worth losing your virginity to.

Here’s the thing: while I don’t think someone’s first time “needs” to be special, I do think it should be worth it and with someone who’s likewise worth it. In an ideal world, you want someone who’s going to be caring and considerate, who’s going to be invested in your having a good experience overall. To be sure, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to be good for her – lots of people have had mind-blowing sex with a first-timer – but it would mean that things would likely have flowed more like what you hoped for.

(And, incidentally, saying “here’s how I’d like this to proceed” is absolutely something you can say. Don’t be afraid to speak up if there’s something you need or if something feels wrong or isn’t working for you.)

I think that her knowing that you were a virgin would also have changed her attitude towards your asking for a little guidance or encouragement. To be fair: sometimes the way a person asks can be a problem. But at the same time, context also matters, and the context of “I have literally never done this before” makes a difference.

Part of being a good lover is paying attention to your partner’s behavior and learning to read their reactions and responses – this gasp means “yes please keep doing that”, that gasp means “ow, I didn’t like that”, her grabbing your head and pulling it in tighter means “if you stop what you’re doing, I will absolutely murder you right now and no jury will convict me” and so on – and saying “do you like that” or “how does this feel?” can be part of it. But it can be irritating or a bit of a buzzkill if someone is constantly asking ‘is this good’, or ‘how should I do this’, like someone asking every couple minutes for help or instruction with a simple task, especially if they presumably know what they’re doing.

But as I said: you’re a virgin and this would be your first time, ever. If she knew that you were a virgin and was down to be your first, one would hope that part of showing you the ropes would be saying “do this” or “you know what I really like? When someone does this…” or otherwise giving encouragement and direction. So, while I can see how you might – and I stress might – have contributed to the buzzkill, I think the real buzzkill was her being a horrible person.

(Seriously, I’m not getting over the ableist s--t she suggested any time soon. Handicapped people and people with mental disabilities are people, not f--ktoys someone uses for practice what the s--t??!?)

Now as I said: I think this was a bad match for you in general and as someone to have your first time with. Would it be worth your time to see a sex worker for your first time? Well, let me ask you this: how do you think you would you feel, afterwards? Would you feel like you got an experience that you wanted, or would you feel like you “cheated” somehow or that this was ultimately a degrading experience or that it said something bad about you?

As a general rule, I’m pro sex-work and pro sex-worker, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your first time being with one (with the full that this is someone who’s doing sex work because they chose to and aren’t being coerced or trafficked, etc.). If anything, there’re some definite benefits: you’re guaranteed that the entire occasion is going to be focused on you, your pleasure and having a positive overall experience. But a lot of people have mixed or complicated or even negative feelings about paying for sex in general and for one’s first time in particular. If you’d rather not go that route because you know (or worry) that it’d make you feel awkward or bad, then it’s not for you and that’s perfectly fine.��So, moving forward, I recommend getting comfortable talking and being up front about what you’d like and how you see things going, especially if it’s going to be your first time. Keep in mind: this is intended as a dialogue, where your prospective partner also shares how she would like things to proceed. As you get more experience under your belt and especially if you’re dating someone or getting to know them, you’ll be better able to read that particular person and know “ok, yes, she’s down to do X” or “She’ll like it if I do Y”, but that’s something that comes with time and familiarity.

And more than anything else, let this be a lesson: just because someone is hot and horny doesn’t mean that they’re going to be someone you want to f--k. Make sure that someone you’re going to sleep with is someone who’s actually worth your time and that you’re both invested in everyone having the kind of sex they want to have.

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: Years ago, I decided to start journaling… I keep two journals, one for life and one for dating… I am about to hit 50 (bleh) and I realized something startling and went through my journals to verify…in my 40’s (an entire decade now), I went on one single date that I legit consider as being really fun. One. Over that span I went out with 35 different women on more than a hundred dates and all of one was fun.

While I imagine that I am older than average for your readership, I imagine this question has some universality to it.

Modern dating is often discouraging, dispiriting, emotionally destructive, expensive, time consuming and a host of other negatives but we do it because we hope to find a relationship that makes all of the pain and frustration worth it.

The problem that I am having is that it just isn’t any fun anymore. I paid for 3 months of a membership to Hinge and deleted it after 2 months because I was just tired of it. It’s the same rinse/repeat over and over and over again and nothing good ever seems to come from any of it.

Dating is a numbers game is all well and good but I feel like I am just numb from all the garbage that goes along with dating now.

And, I’ve tried, I’ve tried to re-route dates to play pool or mini-golf but all anyone ever wants to do is the vibe check drink and then no matter how I try to re-route the conversation it always ends back to “what do I do for a living?” and I am not sure how (or why) to go forward when the last decade has produced exactly one fun date.

(and fyi she and I went out a 2nd time, the energy changed because I stupidly got excited about her and we didn’t go out 3rd time)

 Where’s The Love Of The Game?

DEAR WHERE’S THE LOVE OF THE GAME: OK, this is going to sound like I’m setting you up to dunk on you, WTLTG, but I promise you, these are sincere questions, and I want you to put some thought into them: when was the last time dating was fun for you, and what made it fun? Second question: what has changed since then that is making it harder to find the fun?

I ask, because this can help zero in on precisely where you’re running into problems and what you might want to change or do differently. We’re going to come back to this in a moment, so just let the answers to those questions marinate.

To start off: yes, dating should be fun, and the whole thing becomes much easier if you can enjoy the process as much as the results. This is one of the reasons why I’m an advocate of trying to be outcome independent when you’re trying to meet people. Yes, obviously, you’re invested in the outcome – finding a relationship with someone you like and are compatible with – but when you get too focused on the end goal, what often starts as being fun becomes a chore.

It’s a little like getting hung up on a particularly difficult boss fight in a video game; the frustration ends up taking over because you’re having to do the same goddamn thing over and over again and not getting anywhere. Soon, you’re so focused on just getting past this fight that the things that made the game enjoyable aren’t fun anymore, especially if you’re having to repeat it so many times that you could practically do it in your sleep. You may even find that things get worse as you try to rush through the early stages of the fight or getting from the save point to the boss and start dying before you even get to the part you’re stuck on. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle – you’re frustrated and tense and so you’re not performing at your best, and so you make a stupid mistake and die, which makes you even more frustrated, which hurts your performance more, which means you make more stupid mistakes…

In those moments, what you often need to do is to break the cycle of frustration. Sometimes that means taking a break. Sometimes it means giving up on the ostensible goal – beating the boss – and f--king around a bit and refusing to take it seriously, so you try things you might not do otherwise, because who cares, it’s not like this attempt “counts”. The precise way you reconnect is less important than just finding the fun again, because it’s in those moments that you’re better prepared to play instead of grind.

So it is with dating. When you get hung up on the ultimate goal, you’re going to get frustrated, more often than not, because there’s no real way to rush it. You’re trying to balance a lot of factors – do you like them, are they a good match for you, is this the right kind of relationship for you, what about them are you willing to accept as part of the compromise that comes with every relationship – with someone who is trying to balance those same factors on their side. Because all potential matches come with variables that you can’t control for, there are never any guarantees. Even someone who seems perfect on paper or in their profile can be a poor match for you when you meet in person. Or they may be in a different place in their life right now. Or they may be dealing with other stresses and outside factors that are getting in the way. It’s entirely possible to meet someone who, under other circumstances, would be your perfect person but who isn’t at this particular place and time. That’s baked into the entire process.

Now, if we come back to those questions we asked: I’m willing to bet that at least part of the answer to both will be “you were younger”. For a lot of folks, dating as we get older often doesn’t feel the way it did in our 20s or even sometimes our early 30s. Sure, some of this involves the way dating changes over time – courtship expectations and “rules” vary and shift, what’s considered common sense or good manners in one era seems quaint, old-fashioned or even out and out wrong in another – but much of it is that we’re not the same people we were back then. We frequently don’t have the same level of freedom and availability that we did when we were younger; as we’ve grown and matured, we have more responsibilities, more obligations and more demands on our time. Our interests and lifestyles have frequently changed, which means that some of the ways we used to meet people aren’t as readily available; going to the bar or bouncing from person to person at the club is very different in your 20s than in your 40s after all. Hell, we often don’t have the same energy or stamina that we did back in the day; everything is easier when your knees don’t hurt, you don’t make noises when you sit down and you know that more than two drinks will leave you with a hangover that will f--k up your next three days.  

So, the way we date often has to change. Sure, it felt easier and simpler when we were younger, but that’s often because our lives were simpler. We didn’t have as many things to balance, and it was easier to find time for things because we had youth and a twenty-something’s metabolism on our side to help us pay the price of our choices and vices. So we have to take more things into account, which obviously can be limiting.

But being limiting doesn’t necessarily mean bad. As many a creative person can tell you, sometimes what you really need are some walls to bounce off of or restrictions you have manage in order to create something incredible. Having limits and concerns that you didn’t have when you were younger requires that you get inventive. You have to stretch your wings a bit, try new things, often even going off in directions you might never have considered when you were younger. That can end up opening up new options for you, broadening your horizons and giving you choices that you might never have even realized were possible before. And that effort and creativity can be a big part of what helps bring the fun back to dating – for you and for the people you’re taking on these dates.

Another factor is who you’re dating. There are many times when the issue is as more about the other person than it is about you. You can do everything right, but still fail, simply because the person sitting across from you is not right for you. What’s “right” for you isn’t necessarily “right” for them, after all. And if you have very different outlooks or philosophies on how you’re approaching dating, that can be an insurmountable obstacle. Someone who’s laser focused on “Marriage. Kids. Settling down NOW” isn’t going to be a good match for someone who simply wants companionship and good times, maybe feeling things out to see if there’s some long-term potential. That’s not your fault and it’s not theirs; it’s simply a matter of you two not being right for one another.

A third factor is how you’re meeting them. You mention being on Hinge and it sounds like the apps are how you’ve met most of the people you’ve been on these unsatisfying dates with. That’s actually part of the problem with things being less fun and more frustrating.

While there are profound benefits to having access to a pool of people who have explicitly opted in to meeting someone to date, quantity doesn’t necessarily have a quality all of its own. Dating apps multiply the amount of rejection you’re going to experience by orders of magnitude, simply due to their very nature. You are putting yourself out there more often on a dating app than you would be if you were meeting people in person, even at a popular singles bar. You can’t “approach” and carry on conversations with five different people at the same time when you’re in physical space; you can on the apps. This means that you’re setting yourself up for rejection far more often, simply because you’re trying to initiate a connection with more people. If you aren’t ready to let most of those rejections roll off you like water off a duck’s back, you’re basically paying for a subscription to a service designed to shred your self-esteem. That’s just the nature of the beast, regardless of the app, and it’s something that anyone signing up needs to keep in mind and be ready for.

But another problem is that dating apps – especially in the era of the swipe mechanic – encourage a mindset that’s counter to how we meet and connect with people. The way modern dating apps are designed helps reinforce a “need” for instant chemistry; you either both get hit by lightning right away or you move on. This creates a level of expectation that can be hard for most people to meet, especially with a relative stranger. Why give something more time when you can just move on to someone else? And the swipe mechanic helps create the feeling that there will always be someone else.  

To be sure, lightning can and does strike – people do meet long-term partners on the apps – but this approach means that there’re going to be a lot of first dates to nowhere. Part of this is simply because there’re factors that affect attraction that can’t be gauged without being in physical proximity of the other person. Again, this is often nobody’s fault; the necessary x-factor simply isn’t present.

But part of what can get in the way of the fun is that some of the dead-end first dates are connections that might blossom into something more if they were given more room to breathe and grow. But the instant yes/no decisions encouraged by the swipe mechanic and the incessant “hey, it’s RUSH HOUR, get on here and meet your special someone” or “it’s been 45 minutes since you were last on here, we miss you, come swipe on people” notifications encourages a feeling of “nope, too much trouble, keep looking for that instant connection”. So, if you’re someone who takes time to grow attracted to people, or you’re someone who’s strongly flavored, the dark patterns the apps encourage work against you.

So, what do you do about this? Well, one of the obvious options is to change how you’re meeting people. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been increasingly pushing folks to focus on dating slow – go out into the physical world, meet people socially, get to know them without the pressure of making that immediate “do you want me, yes or no” decision and let things build. Taking this approach may not lead to as many first dates, but it will increase the quality of the dates you have, simply because you won’t be wasting as much time on people who aren’t right for you; you’ll weed out many incompatible people long before you even think about asking them out on a date.

Another thing you will want to do is adjust your expectations to work with the facts on the ground. A lot of people, especially women who date men, are going to want a vibe-check date. It’s both for safety – they want to see that you’re who you say you are – but also to feel out whether a longer date would be an exercise in boredom or worse. Rather than fighting against the tide, it’s something you’re going to want to adapt to, simply because it’s become much more common.

Now to be fair, the vibe-check date is, in fact, something I encourage, especially if you’re meeting on the apps. The idea is that, rather than spending several hours with someone you haven’t even met yet, you spend around 20 or so minutes to have coffee or ice cream or some other low-investment meet-up that allows you to decide if you actually are attracted to this person. Sure, their profile pics were hot as hell and you had tons of chemistry when you were messaging, but you still aren’t going to know for sure until you meet in person. This way, at least, you’re ensuring that there’s enough mutual interest to spend an afternoon or evening with them. If there isn’t, then you’re out 20 minutes and the price of a latte. You can then plan your next date – assuming that you both vibe – to do the fun things like mini-golf or shooting pool.

You also want to be ready for questions like “what do you do?” Sure, you’ll meet the odd individual who is doing it because they’re looking for someone of a certain net worth and it’s rude to ask for a credit check on a first date. But more often than not, it’s an intro into who you are as a person. How someone answers this question can give a lot of insight into who they are. Leaving aside that there are folks for whom their job is their identity, the way you answer can tell someone whether you’re ambitious and driven or more go-with-the-flow. It may give them an idea whether you’re someone who’s responsible and focused, or if you’re a dreamer, a slacker or someone who is constantly moving from crisis to crisis. It may give them an idea of what your schedule would be if you were going to date, or how often you might have to cancel dates at the last minute because of work emergencies. Or it may even tell them if you’re at a job you love in a career you’ve always wanted, or if you’re feeling stuck.

So think of how to answer questions like this in ways that convey more about who you are and the sort of information you would want the other person to have. You might say “Well, I do X to pay the bills, but my passion is Y and I’ve been working towards doing that full time.” Or you might say “I’m doing Z; I’m not crazy about it but the benefits are amazing.” Or “I do A, B and F and I’m the luckiest son of a bitch alive because I love my job.”

The last thing I would suggest is to learn to be interested in people. One of the best things I’ve ever learned is how much simply being curious about other people, even folks I may not be interested in, makes life way more interesting. By assuming that everyone has something about them that makes them cool and trying to find it, I have ended up having some fascinating conversations with people and met all sorts of folks from all walks of life. Even when those encounters only last the length of time it takes to have a drink (singular), I rarely feel like my time’s been wasted or like I could’ve been doing something else. And as a bonus: if you make someone feel like they’re the most interesting person in the world, you become far more attractive to them. ��Just sayin’.

To be sure, dating can be a struggle, and it’s easy to lose sight of the why of it all. By remembering what made it fun in the first place, you’re better able to adapt and reconnect with that joy and make it a far less frustrating or irritating experience.

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:  Question about asking for reassurance, since you mentioned it in a recent column: how do you ask when you aren’t sure if the reassurance will be there? I (23f) know my boyfriend (21m) loves me, but he’s got major depression so a lot of the time he has no emotions. Half the time he just can’t say “I love you” back to me, because he’s not in a place where he can feel things or he doesn’t have enough energy to verbally/textually express himself. Mostly, I’m okay with this. I know that his love for me shows up in different ways and we have some substitute things he does like sending a heart emoji or squeezing my hand.��I don’t want to be dependent or make him responsible for my emotions when it’s things I should work through on my own like jealousy or insecurity. I also don’t want to make him feel bad for something he can’t control or isn’t able to do for me. Still, there are times when I desperately want to ask for reassurance that he loves me and wants me. I don’t, because when I’m vulnerable like that, it’d wreck me if he wasn’t in a place where he could. Instead, I do grounding techniques, journal, and try to remember specific times or look at screenshots I keep where he’s expressed a lot of love for me. If we’re together, I might ask for a hug. Despite all this, I still feel very lonely and sad at those times. I’m into words of affirmation, so maybe this is a love language mismatch I need to learn to accept — if so, how do I do that?��Additional context: both in therapy, first relationship for both, ldr for summer but same college, so once school starts we’ll be back together, dating for 6 months.

Sad Girls Need Love Too

DEAR SAD GIRLS NEED LOVE TOO: There is a lot here, SGNLT, and I realize a lot of it is coming from the fact that you’re both very young and very inexperienced, especially since this is your first relationship on top of the mental health issues.

First and foremost, I hope that, in addition to therapy, you and your boyfriend are looking at medication for managing depression. I honestly can’t express how important it is to treat depression from many different angles; talk therapy and CBT can be helpful, but depression is often as much about issues with brain chemistry and talking doesn’t change those. Finding an antidepressant that works for you, in the right dosage, tends to be more art than science, and it can take a while for the medication to build up in your systems before you start to feel the effects. This can make finding the right treatment an exercise in frustration, but when you do find the right meds with the right dosage, it makes all the difference in the world.

And as I’ve said before and elsewhere: sometimes, if the depression is resistant to other forms of treatment, you may have to look at options like ketamine infusion or other treatments. It feels like being on the fringe where actual science and medicine blends uncomfortably with woo, but there’re actual legitimate studies of how ketamine or ECT or some psychedelics help with treatment resistant depression.

The second thing is to understand that love is more than the giddiness and butterflies-in-the-stomach and racing pulse of infatuation. What you feel in the early days of a relationship – and at six months, you are very much in the early days – is what’s often called “New Relationship Energy”, where everything is incredibly intense and powerful and wild. Humans are a novelty-seeking species and our brains reflect that; being in a relationship with a new person causes our brains to produce hormones that go straight to the pleasure-centers. The excitement, the desire to be with each other at all hours, the constantly thinking about one another, the sheer joy of their presence is as much about the thrill of the new as it is about them, specifically; your brain is cranking out incredibly high levels of oxytocin and dopamine because of this new person and this new experience. You are, quite literally, getting high off one another.

Now, I bring this up because this feeling will fade. No matter how intense it feels now, it will start to lessen. This isn’t because you’re falling out of love, or you love each other less than you did at the beginning. It’s simply that humans are incredibly adaptable and any new experience – whether good or bad – inevitably becomes the status quo. With our partners, our brains simply don’t produce those happy chemicals at the same rate because it is now the known, instead of the novel. Those changes aren’t reasons to panic; it’s simply part of the biological aspects of love and relationships.

But that’s precisely what brings me to my next point.

It’s important to recognize that there’s a profound difference between being emotionally exhausted or numb or having a bout of anhedonia from depression and not loving someone. Think of it this way: the world being dark at night doesn’t mean that the sun is gone, any more than the weird demilight of a solar eclipse means that the sun is going out. It just means that the sun isn’t overhead; the world has gotten between you and the sun’s light. The sun is still there, the light is still there, the warmth it brings is still there; you just can’t see it or feel it the same way at that specific time.

So, if your boyfriend loves you, he still loves you even when he’s having bouts of alexithymia. The depression may be eclipsing things in that moment, but it’s still there. It’s important to recognize that, because there are going to be times in the future where some emotions are going to be more front and center than others, including love. You can, for example, love someone to distraction but also be furious at them. Or you can have other things going on in your life where the emotion you’re most feeling in that moment is more present and significant than others. That doesn’t mean that you don’t love someone in those moments; it just means that other emotions are louder or are more relevant.

I say this because his not “feeling” something at a specific instant – especially at a time when his depression is being very loud – isn’t the same as not loving you. He can still express love and affection for you; if he can’t say it, he can still demonstrate it in other ways, just as you can even when you’re sad or feeling low.

One of the things that you’ll learn over time as you get more experience in relationships is that we can still do the little things that help our partners and help maintain the relationship, even if we’re not necessarily feeling it in the moment. That’s not a lie or pretending; it’s simply an acknowledgement that love and relationships are complex and we do things for the sake of our partners because we love them, even if it’s something that’s hard or that we aren’t necessarily feeling in the mood for. It’s part of the give and take of being in a relationship with someone; if we only do the stuff we feel like doing for them when we feel like doing it, the relationship falls apart in short order. It’s not all cartoon birds and cherubs and singing flowers; sometimes it’s gritting your teeth and white-knuckling it and doing it anyway.��(There are obvious exceptions to this, especially when it comes to things that hurt you or leave you feeling violated, exploited or used, but that’s another topic all on its own.)

You should both also understand that depression isn’t a get-out-of-responsibilities card either. Yes, being depressed makes it hard to want to do things. It saps the energy out of you, drains joy from the world and often leaves you feeling either exhausted or just gray. But you still have obligations and responsibilities, including to one another. Sometimes you have to push through and do the thing anyway and if you aren’t thrilled to do it… well, it still needs to be done. And sometimes that means saying “yes, I absolutely love you”, even when you don’t feel much of anything at that moment. Because what you feel at that moment doesn’t mean that you don’t still love one another. Unless that has actually changed – and persists outside of those moments of numbness – then it’s still true and he should still say it. The same goes for times when you are feeling low and he wants reassurance.��Now, let’s talk communication for a moment. One of the important things about love languages and the like is that they’re a guide. They’re about knowing how to express yourself in ways that your partner understands and how they express themselves in ways that you understand. It’s also important to realize that there’s how you express love and how you receive it, which aren’t always the same thing. In your case, you receive love best when it comes as words of affirmation. While this may not be the way that your boyfriend expresses it naturally, that doesn’t mean that he can’t, any more than you could express love via touch or other ways. It may mean that he has to think about it first, or you may have to ask for it specifically, but that’s not the same thing as being unable to give it in that form.

You’ve already demonstrated that you understand this, as you recognize the ways he’s showing love via substitutes. That understanding goes both ways; if you can recognize the substitute, he can express it differently as well, and vice versa. That can be important at times when one of you needs that level of expression in the way that’s easiest to accept. Now, in those moments, what you want is to ask for what you need, in the way that you need it. So if you need reassurance from your boyfriend and you receive them best in words of affirmation, ask for them. If you’re so worried that he’s going to say he can’t tell you he loves you because his depression is waxing instead of waning, ask for affirmation in other ways. Ask him to tell you what he likes about you, what makes you special, things that may not be the exact words you want to hear but that you understand and can take on board because of the nature of them. ��It’s a little like the “I love you”/”Ditto” exchange in Ghost; once you recognize what’s behind the words, the intent rather than the specifics of it, it’s much easier to take it onboard.��If you do need those specific words, then ask for them, specifically. It doesn’t mean less or make it less special to say “I need to hear it right now”; the strength of your relationship isn’t measured by or predicated on your abilities to read each other’s minds or to express things spontaneously. It’s measured in the overall commitment you make to one another, in the ways you show up for one another. And if you need him to show up in a specific way, telling him so doesn’t lessen it, any more than saying “I’d really like my favorite meal tonight” makes it any less special than someone preparing it spontaneously. It’s your partner choosing to fill that need, because it’s something you want or require and he wants to provide it for you.

Yes, there’re times when it can feel perfunctory. There’re times when it feels like you shouldn’t have to ask. But doing something because someone asked doesn’t make it mean less; they’re doing it because you asked and because it’s important to you. If they didn’t think that it was important, they wouldn’t provide it. It becomes an issue if you only ever get it when you ask and never any other time. In that case, it’s worth asking if there’s a mismatch or miscommunication going on, or if there’s an underlying problem that’s going unaddressed. ��But when you need a little reassurance, even when he’s feeling low himself? Ask for what you need, in the way that you need it. If you can accept it in a roundabout way, great. But you need what you need, so ask for it in the way you need it. Otherwise, your only recourse is to date a telepath and unfortunately, Psi-Corps rounded all of them up already.

Good luck.

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