DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I recently had an experience that’s left me rethinking some deep-rooted beliefs about myself and my attractiveness and I wanted to share it with you, because I suspect I’m not the only one who’s been trapped in this kind of thinking.

For most of my life, I’ve trained and lifted weights, but I’ve never had the “Instagram body.” I’m strong, yes but more on the heavy, husky side. I don’t eat like a fitness influencer; I eat more like a guy who hits the gym and then grabs Wendy’s or Burger King on the way home. As a result, I’ve always believed my body was inherently unattractive. My dating app results seem to confirm it — I don’t get matches on Tinder or Bumble. I’ve internalized this idea that women just aren’t into bodies like mine.

Then, something happened.

A few weeks ago, I had my first experience with MDMA. It was a warm night, and I was at a party. At some point, with the music and the energy and that overwhelming sense of connection and joy, I took my shirt off and started dancing something I never would’ve done sober. But in that moment, I felt confident. I wasn’t thinking about whether I looked good; I was just being.

And then… I noticed something strange. Women were looking at me. Not in that judgmental, “look at that sweaty, drugged-up guy” kind of way. It was different — their eyes held something more like interest. Maybe even desire.

That moment shook me. For so long, I’ve believed my body is unattractive by default that if I’m not lean, cut, and chiseled, I’m not desirable. But under the influence of MDMA, I saw a glimpse of what confidence could do. It made me wonder: Have I been sabotaging myself all these years with a stupid belief? Have I closed off possibilities for connection and attraction because I was so sure I couldn’t be wanted as I am?

I don’t want to pretend that MDMA gave me magical insight or that I now suddenly love my body unconditionally. But the experience cracked something open. I’m starting to realize that maybe attraction isn’t as rigid as I thought — and maybe the missing ingredient all along wasn’t a six-pack, but confidence, ease, and presence.

I’m still unpacking what all this means. But I guess I’m wondering: How do I hold onto that sense of self-acceptance and confidence without needing to be high to feel it? And how do I start trusting that maybe, just maybe, I am already attractive in ways I’ve been blind to?

Thanks for everything you do.

Sincerely,

Some dude from Brasil

DEAR SOME DUDE FROM BRASIL: Alright, I’m going to give folks a little behind-the-scenes about how I work. Usually, a letter like yours isn’t one I would pull for the top-line in the column. However, your experience has tapped into something I’ve talked about for a long, long time and I wanted to highlight it: attraction is far more in the mind than in the body.

One of the regular themes of letters I get are from people who feel that not having a “perfect” body – for varying definitions of “perfect”, but always “different from what I currently have” – renders them absolutely unf--kable. They don’t look like $INSERT_CELEBRITY_HERE and therefore no woman could possibly desire them or want to climb them like a tree. And even though hordes of women have sung the praises of Jack Black, waxed rhapsodic about Matt Berry or talked about wanting to lick frosting off Paul Hollywood, they have convinced themselves that only single digit body fat and dehydration-enhanced abs can be the path to sexual attraction.

But – much like the “if you aren’t 6’ tall, you don’t rate” – this flies in the face of, well, life. It doesn’t take much to refute the idea that only dudes who fit a certain mold of conventional hotness get laid. If you step away from the computer – especially when the loudest voices telling you that you’re an unf--kable homunculus are grievance-peddling, bobble-throated slapdicks posing as “masculinity influencers” – and set foot outside, you will see perfectly average guys with girlfriends. You will see chubby champions and short kings with women you might swear on a stack of bibles are out of their league, and yet those women clearly are counting down the minutes until they’re going to bang like a screen door in a hurricane. And much of what they have in common is that those men have confidence and assurance that comes with loving themselves. 

That’s what you tapped into when you were rolling on molly, SDFB. You weren’t gifted with magic insight, and the drug didn’t transform you. What it did was turn off the part of your brain that said “you’re not good enough, nobody could like you” and for the first time, you were actually able to feel acceptance. You were able to feel love for yourself, in a way that was free from judgement, fear or care. The parts of you that kept telling you that you’re not good enough were quiet for the first time in God knows how long and you actually got to just be.

Small wonder that, for the first time, you felt like you saw women looking at you with desire. It wasn’t that MDMA magically made you sexy; it’s that for the first time you believed that you could be desired and you were able to see it in others. This is the other side of confirmation bias: you believed in your own desirability and so you could see evidence that it was true.

So, to answer your first question: yes, you have been closing yourself off to possibilities. It’s as I’ve said before and will say so again: you weren’t seeing them because you didn’t believe it was possible, and if you did see it, you would have any number of reasons to say that you were mistaken, that you were misreading things or that it was some sort of trip or trap. Even if someone were to walk up, kick your legs out from under you, pinned you to the ground and start to wiggle, you would have “reasons” why this couldn’t possibly be what it seemed to be.  

The drugs didn’t create this super power in you. This is a case of Dumbo’s Magic Feather, where something allowed you to tap into a power that was within you all along. The trick now is to not mistake the tool for the power. It’s far, far too easy to think that you need the external assistance. Creating and reinforcing that association between “I get intoxicated > I feel great about myself” can create a psychological dependency and encourage an unhealthy relationship with drugs or alcohol.

In fact, the first step towards your goal is to recognize that while the drugs may have shown you what’s possible, they’re a crutch at best. It may have opened your eyes, but now that they’re open, it’s on youto ensure that you don’t close them again.

Instead, part of what you want is to make the effort to look at yourself with those loving eyes – remembering how you felt when you were dancing and ecstatic, what it was like to inhabit your body and to love it the way that you did, as you look at yourself while you’re sober. You want to recall and invoke those feelings and even speak them out loud while you look at yourself in the mirror. It feels goofy as hell at first – complimenting yourself or saying nice things about yourself and repeating affirmations to your reflection feels like some cringe Stuart Smiley bulls--t. But that feeling of cringe is precisely what you’re trying to push past; it’s the voice of your jerkbrain that’s been keeping you down all this time. You’ve felt what it was like when you couldn’t hear that snide, s--tty voice. Now it’s time for you to learn how to consciously turn it down and tune it out.

The next thing is that you need to treat yourself with love and care. How we see ourselves is a habit, and we reinforce it with how we behave and how we carry ourselves. Consider how often you beat yourself up for not having the perfect Fitnessgram body; the comment you made about getting a burger after your workout instead of eating “clean” is a prime example. You may have been meaning to illustrate a point, but it’s impossible not to hear the veiled contempt for your supposed weakness or failure to follow through. And that’s precisely part of the problem: your beating yourself up and talking yourself down for not being “perfect”. It’s not even a case of needing to forgive yourself for eating “poorly” or making bad choices; it’s a case of needing to not beat yourself up for eating food. A Whopper or Dave’s Double may not be the “ideal” post-workout meal, but that’s ok. You don’t need to be perfect, and berating yourself won’t help.

You can’t shame yourself into a better life; all that the bile and venom does is reinforce the idea that you’re an unlovable f--k-up. Even if it motivated you to have more lean protein and greens after a workout next time, it still comes with the undertone of self-hate. There’s still that stink of “F--king finally, you soft-bellied loser”, the sense that failure and a feckless future is all but inevitable if you don’t perform perfectly for the rest of time. And since nobody can do that, it means that the next time you “slip up”, you will toss it all to the winds because you clearly can’t do it.

Treating yourself with love and compassion, on the other hand, means that you encourage yourself to see yourself in the same terms. Positive self-talk and encouragement – not even “that’s right, champions eat like this” but “Dude, you’re great, you’re fueling yourself for awesomeness” – is more productive, it makes you more resilient and encourages you to see yourself in a bright, positive light – the way you did when you were rolling.

Treating yourself with love also means allowing yourself to feel good, to let your worries fall away and to not care about the supposed judgement of others. You want to remind yourself that you’re allowed to dance and lose yourself to the music, even if s--tty people think you should feel ashamed. You’re allowed to dress in ways that make you feel like a sexy bad-ass, even if those grievance peddlers would tell you that you shouldn’t or haven’t “earned the right” to wear those clothes. You’re allowed to feel desirable and desired, even when s--tty people tell you’re deluded for thinking it was even possible.

The thing is: it’s hard to do this. It takes practice to drown out those thoughts and to let yourself love yourself the way you want to. You’ve spent a lot of time telling yourself and letting other people tell you that there’s something flawed and unlovable about you and you’ve let it become a habit. Breaking a habit takes deliberate effort and reinforcement, and it’s easy to backslide. But you’ve already seen that it’s possible. You’ve felt it, and you know for a fact that it’s inside you. So now, you’re going to put in the same level of effort and will that you’ve put towards things like building your physical strength. The only difference is that you’re building emotional strength.

So I want you to ask yourself: are you a bad enough dude to love yourself? Because if the answer is yes, then no matter how many blows you take, no matter how many times people leap out of the bushes to try to strike you down, you can power through. You can ignore those voices and turn up the volume on the parts of you that you felt when you were dancing and free. And if you stumble and those negative nutsacks and gibbering mouthers get the best of you momentarily? You have the strength to pick yourself back up and keep at it. It’s a setback, not a failure. You remind yourself that just because you got knocked down, you can get back up again and keep going. You’ll start realizing that you’re getting up faster each time and getting taken down less and less often. And you’ll realize that it’s much, much easier to let go and connect with that joy and love for yourself… which will make it that much easier to connect with the love and attraction others have for you.

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 read your articles. And I like to think I learn what I can from them. I’m just burnt out.

I am a 40 year old man. And aside from one not-so-good relationship in my life, it’s been nothing but failure.

I have been at it for over a year now, since said relationship ended. It has not gone well. It has been a cycle of “get hopes up -> feel good -> it blows up -> sink into depression and self-hatred”. This past week was a notably bad one, perhaps prompting me to write this.

To preface, I’m not here to blame women or any dumb s--t like that. I’m not that type by any means. All of the rejections were thankfully mostly respectful and I returned that gesture telling them “its all good. I understand. Hope you find what you’re looking for!” etc.

But they hurt bad all the same. Two weekends ago was a bad one. We talked for weeks. I was making her laugh, and we were having really great conversations. Then come the date time and I get a “something came up” message. I figured what was going on but I also thought “well hey s--t happens”, but the next morning she basically she said we were done and unmatched me. Another about a month ago was also frustrating, she seemed to spend the whole time playing with me, asking me questions about why I was choosing to work all the time instead of going protesting like her friends. I mean because I need a roof over my head. But I continued the conversation hoping something might turn up — she eventually got tired I guess and blocked.

I’ve had one relationship in my life. And, aside from maybe the first 5 months it was not a positive one. It went on for 6 years. Full disclosure I stayed because I knew I would never find someone again. But she was mentally abusive, berating me constantly and “challenging” me, ie. she would often ask me “what would you do if I cheated on you”, and towards the end of the relationship she likely did as she was telling me she was “just talking” to other men. She broke it off finally when I lost the job I had at the time. Intimacy was basically non-existent, even when things were good, she would refuse to even touch me and was only interested in her own pleasure.

So basically, I don’t even have much relationship experience which is also another strike against me.

I’m not particularly attractive. I am overweight, but more egregiously I have gynecomastia. I have been working on this and have lost 25lbs since last August, but it’s a slow burn. I take care of my hygiene, I groom myself and all, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re unattractive. Another strike.

I have social anxiety. I can have conversations just fine… as long as someone else starts them. There was a time a few weeks ago I saw a beautiful woman on my walk and thought “what would happen if I tried to talk to her”, and well lets just say my brain made a rock solid set of arguments as to why I shouldn’t. And I didn’t. I even felt wrong even looking at her anymore because of how beneath her I am.

How can I keep pushing through what feels absolutely futile? Like, I truly believe I’m more likely to win the lottery and be struck by a meteor on the way home than I am to have any kind of success in love. Are some people just not meant for it?

Thank you for reading and have a great day.

What’s The Point Of It All?

DEAR WHAT’S THE POINT OF IT ALL: Can I point out a slight flaw in your thinking, WTPOIA? You mention that your odds of winning the lottery are better than finding love… but you can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket first. Nobody – scams and grifters aside – is going to tell you that you won a contest that you haven’t entered after all.

The point is that everything is futile if you don’t even bother showing up and trying. If you’re hoping for someone to be so motivated to do the heavy lifting for you, you’re going to be waiting a very, very long time – and even then, with the mindset you currently have, you’re never going to actually be able to bring yourself to believe that it’s real and genuine.

On the other hand, buying a lottery ticket is ultimately an expression of hope. Yes, the odds are beyond long, but you’re saying “well… what if?” and giving it a shot. The same goes with actually talking to someone, instead of giving yourself a bunch of reasons not to or listing all your supposed faults.

Now, with a lottery, you can’t really change the odds of success – not in any way that’s feasible, anyway. Your odds are going to be the same regardless of your choices, your actions or your mindset. You can, however, change the odds of success with dating… but that includes changing them for the better or for the worse. And right now, you seem very determined to make them worse for yourself.

All those “strikes” against yourself are as important as you decide they are. If you decide that they somehow disqualify you, they absolutely will. Not because they’re objective measures of why you’re undesirable, but because you act like they are and that affects your behavior. You think that people couldn’t possibly like you and so you don’t put in the same sort of effort you would if you thought they did; after all, why bother trying if you already know it’s pointless? But because you don’t put in the same level of effort, things fall apart and so you chalk it up to more reasons why you shouldn’t bother in the first place.

But to make matters worse, it means that you’re not making smart choices. You’re playing things so safe that you aren’t taking chances for fear of messing up and, as a result, losing out anyway. You could’ve angled for a date much sooner with that first example, instead of talking for weeks and weeks first. Would that have changed the outcome? Impossible to know… but at least it would mean that a rejection would’ve come sooner instead of your having spent all that time just to get let down instead.

At the same time, you’re so worried about failing and about never finding love that you’re not only unwilling to take chances, but you don’t recognize when it’s time to cut bait and go. Your toxic ex is a prime example: you absolutely should have bailed on her long, long before she dumped you. You stayed because you thought this was your only chance for love. And believe me I am utterly sympathetic: I have been there, I have done that and I built my career out of trying to help people not make the same mistakes I did. But you have to ask yourself: did staying make you happy? Was it worth it to be with someone who treated you so abominably, just to be able to say “well, at least I’m not single?”   

But that second example was another case of staying for longer and trying to draw to an inside straight. If you thought she was just playing games, then that was time to say “you know what, I’m not feeling it” and dip. Similarly, comments about “why are you working all the time instead of protesting” were signs that you two weren’t a good match. Either she was giving you s--t – which isn’t something that you vibe with – or she was showing you her values and priorities, which clearly didn’t line up. It was a sign that the two of you weren’t compatible, and it was far better to say “sorry, I don’t think we’re a good match; best of luck with your search” and move on. You hung on because you weren’t willing to let go of even the slightest chance of a date, even when all signs were pointing to “it won’t happen and if it does, you won’t be happy.” You couldn’t cut this one loose because you were afraid that if you did, you were going to be cutting out your next-to-last chance. So instead, you rode it to the end, with nothing to show for it except more wasted time and energy.

This is why you’re burned out. To use an awkward metaphor, you’re like a poker player who’s playing in the worst way possible. You sit out almost every hand because you don’t think you have a chance (and won’t learn how to calculate pot odds) and the few times you do play a hand, you stay in it far too long precisely because you play so few hands. So, all that happens is that you bleed yourself dry, a few drips at a time and then in drawn-out bursts, then back to drips.

Now as I said: I’m sympathetic, especially to the social anxiety. But this is well beyond social anxiety and well into fatalism and self-destructive behavior. You treat all of these “strikes” as both self-evident and unchangeable – even when they’re not. You refuse to try, but then when you do, you stay in a bad scene rather than bailing. And then you use that as proof that your problems are inherent and unchangeable instead of being the way you’re going about your business.

This isn’t to say that the answer is to hit on every woman you see, nor to dip out at the first sign of trouble. The problem is that you’re not actually doing the things you need to do to get better. If you want to get better with women – to learn how to read signals, to recognize red flags or spot a bad match, even who is going to be compatible with you – you have to actually take chances. You have to talk to women, not just assume that you know this stranger well enough to know you’re “beneath” her.

Well, congrats, you’re right about it. And you will be right about it until you decide that maybe you’re wrong.

But before you can do that, you need to actually deal with the social anxiety and self-esteem problems. And that is going to require actual work – as in going to therapy. Talking to a therapist is going to be all about changing your relationship with yourself. You aren’t “meant for love” because you decided you weren’t. The “strikes” you describe are only strikes when you believe them to be. They’re only as unchangeable as you think they are, and right now you seem pretty determined to believe they are.

This is why change has to come from within: if you actually want to change, you first have to accept that change is possible. If you can’t do that, the rest doesn’t matter. You’ll keep making the same mistakes, missing out on opportunities and sticking with people who are clearly wrong for you and who mistreat you.

If you want to change your odds of finding love, you have to start with loving yourself. If you can learn to love yourself – to both accept yourself as being deserving of being loved and also to believe that you can improve – then the rest starts coming much more easily. You suck at playing the game – to return to the awkward poker metaphor – because you don’t actually play it; certainly not enough to learn the rules and strategies, and absolutely not enough to recognize that the way you’re going about it only makes things worse. You can read theory and watch videos all you want, but the only way you can actually improve is to put your ass in the chair and play.

And that starts with working on yourself. Give yourself permission to push away from the table for a while, and then hie thyself to a therapist’s couch and start working on your social anxiety and self-esteem. Get yourself in decent working order and you’ll be in a much better position to actually get better at dating because you won’t be fighting against yourself the entire time.

Give yourself a chance to get out of your own way, and things will get much, much better. I promise.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m 25, on the autism spectrum to a small degree, and have OCD — which, according to my psychiatrist, is treatment-resistant. I’ve tried therapy, multiple medications, and even ECT.

I had a relationship when I was 21. I met the woman through a cold approach – she was 31, we dated for about 1,5 years. Since then, I’ve been trying to meet women the same way, but I’m still single.

I’m needy, I have constant “what if” thoughts:

What if she doesn’t reply to my text?

What if we go on a date and she ghosts me after?

Because of these thoughts, I tend to text too much, looking for reassurance — wanting to know if the date is really happening or if she’s still interested. I realize this behavior can push people away though.

But at the same time, I’ve heard some people say that there are women who like needy guys. So, it confuses me.

Here’s the thing: I’m doing what I thought were the right things.

I go on dates.

I talk about fun stuff, I ask about their lives.

I smile and act warm.

I don’t try to kiss on the first date.

Sometimes, there’s a kiss on the second date.

Then… nothing. They ghost me, stop texting, or reply days later.

I don’t have bad breath, I’m not a bad kisser and I try not to come across as a creep. Dating apps don’t work for most men – I think I’m one of them.

I’m considering picking up hobbies, not just for myself but also to maybe meet women in a natural way. Any suggestions for hobbies that are both enjoyable and social? Also, how to meet women via hobbies? How to show interest there without screwing up everything?

My biggest fear is: What if I never find a girlfriend again?

That thought destroys me. I can’t cope with it. If you have any honest advice – I’d appreciate it.

Bad Brain, No Biscuit

DEAR BAD BRAIN, NO BISCUIT: Ok, BBNB, let’s get real for a second: this is a case of “there’s the question you’re asking, and then there’s the question you’re actually asking.” It’s a part and parcel of “the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have.” Your biggest problem here isn’t about how to meet women organically or what hobbies you should pick up. Nor is it about figuring out what you’re doing wrong on dates. I’ve written a lot about both, and you should check them out. But those aren’t going to answer the real question that you’re asking. And to be blunt, they’re not going to help until you actually address the real problem. Otherwise you’re just going to be writing back in with the same questions and same problems, just using different words.

Your problem is your brain is screwing with you and you’re trying to deal with it. What you’re ultimately asking is “how do I stop feeling afraid?” You’re doing what a lot of guys have done: you’re trying to find external ways to alleviate the worry and anxiety you feel. I should know; much of the reason why I got into the pick-up scene way back when was because I was looking for ways to never have to worry about getting hurt or – more accurately – how to avoid the fear of being hurt.

It’s the fear that gets you, far more than the reality. The anticipation of what it is going to be like, imagining the circumstances, your reaction… all of that is running through your head like the world’s worst earworm. But the thing is: the reality is never as bad. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck, don’t get me wrong; it’s just that it’s never as bad as you think it’s going to be.

Hell, once it happens, there’s almost a sense of relief, simply because it means now you don’t have to keep bracing for it. All that’s left to do is deal with it. This is one of the reasons why, according to popular myth, the samurai were supposed to consider themselves dead already; accepting the worst meant that they no longer had to fear it.

But more to the point, if you can let go of the fear for a moment and stop letting the anxiety of “what if” screw with your head, it becomes pretty clear that the actual answers to your worries aren’t all that bad. What if she doesn’t text you back? Nothing materially changes. If you go on a date and she ghosts you? Nothing materially changes. Your status quo hasn’t meaningfully changed, except that you now know this individual person wasn’t that interested in dating you again.

I mean, if we get right down to it, the answer to “what if I never have another girlfriend, ever” is “your life will go on and it will continue to be like it is now”. You’ll still have hobbies, your interests, your family and your friends. You’ll have things to do, things to live for and work towards. The biggest change would be knowing that the thing you were anticipating has happened and there’s nothing left to worry about.

Now if this seems cold or uncaring, it’s not meant to be. It’s just to point out that the things you’re afraid of honestly aren’t that scary. It’s the expectation and anticipation that is getting to you, the lack of certainty that means anything is possible, including increasingly baroque Final Destination-esque worst-case scenarios. Knowing means you can let go of the worry and just deal.

This is one of the reasons why the central tenets of philosophies like stoicism is the idea that a lot of our struggles are actually about our reactions to things that are ultimately outside of our control. We can’t, for example, control how people feel about us; as the saying goes, it’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose. But we can, however, change how we respond to those things. And part of making that change is to reckon with those outcomes honestly.

If someone you are interested in doesn’t text you back, it sucks. You’ll be sad for a little while. But you will recover – especially if you don’t treat it like the End of The World – and very little will have actually changed for you. The same with having been ghosted; you’ve been ghosted before, and you know that while it hurts a little, that pain fades quickly and very little has changed. It only becomes unbearable when you make it out to be more than it actually is… such as a referendum on how you’re supposedly unloveable.

That’s why you get so needy and pushy and ask for so much reassurance; you’re asking for someone to reaffirm that you’re capable of being loved. You’re asking them to make the uncomfortable feeling go away – to help regulate your feelings for you – and this pushes people away. People have enough on their plate dealing with their own lives; they don’t have time or the bandwidth to handle the problems of a relative stranger. And to be frank, you’re still a stranger to them, and these requests for reassurance are telling them that this behavior is going to continue if they get into a relationship with you.

You, on the other hand, are investing far too much importance and significance on someone that you don’t know and giving them far more control over your mood and feelings. It’s far, far too soon for them to be such a monumental figure in your life, and the only reason that they are is that you see them as your next-to-last chance. That’s part of the fear – that each unanswered text or date that doesn’t happen is a step closer to dying alone and unloved. It’s not… but that’s what Anxiety Brain is telling you.

This is why you have to learn to start recognizing your anxiety for what it is and start engaging with your fears instead of trying to avoid them. Part of this is to actually ask yourself “OK, let’s say she’s not going to text me back. What will I do instead?”. Not “what did I do wrong”, not “what does this mean”, but “what am I going to do?” You’re taking the uncertainty away and choosing to address the actual situation… a situation which, as I said, doesn’t actually change things for you.

If you can start controlling your anxiety and managing your fears, you’re going to need less reassurance and thus not be so quick to put such pressure on your dates. You won’t feel the need to text excessively and overwhelm them, which increases the odds that you’re going to have more successful dates.

Now a lot of this is easy to talk about but harder to accomplish. You mention that your OCD is treatment-resistant and that you’ve tried therapy. I wish you’d mentioned which therapies you’ve tried, because if you haven’t, I’d recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is known to be particularly effective for managing anxiety and OCD, in part because it teaches you how to recognize your triggers, how to relate to your thoughts and how to keep them from spiraling out of control. It’s very similar to Stoicism in that it asks you to really think about your thoughts and how to change how you react to problems – including asking yourself “what if it’s not so bad?”

Work on getting those feelings under control. You don’t need to be perfectly calm at all times or utterly fearless; you just have to know how to soothe yourself, reassure yourself and not let those problems turn into unending spirals. Do that, and your social life will improve massively.

Good luck.

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