DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I (23/M) met a woman, “Sally” (21/F) on Hinge a little over two months ago. We messaged for a week, had some solid banter, and eventually decided to meet up.

Our first date was drinks at a rooftop bar — casual, low pressure. We talked for almost three hours. Sally laughed at my jokes, asked a ton of questions, and even mentioned a second date before we’d finished our first round. The second date was a cozy dinner at a cute Thai place and a long walk in the park nearby afterward. we walked around for a bit, just talking about life and music and weird things we did as kids. At one point, she grabbed my arm while laughing at a story I told. Not just a polite laugh but full-throated, head-tilted back laughing. We had a good-night kiss when I walked her back to her car – a quick one, not open-mouth or anything. I thought it was going really well.

The third date was different. We went to a trivia night at a bar with some of her friends. I knew that it was as much a test of will I get along with her friends as it was a date, so I was nervous, but I tried to play it cool. I made a few corny team name jokes and maybe got a little too into the game (I really like trivia and I knew some of the topics really really well — it wasn’t a big deal, or so I thought). I was trying my best to charm her friends as well as have a good time with her, but I got the sense that something shifted that night. She seemed a little distant by the end.

The next day, I texted her thanking her for the night and said I’d love to see her again. She replied with: “Hey, you’re super sweet, but I think I got the ick and I’m not feeling it anymore. Sorry.”

That was it. No explanation. Just “the ick.” What am I supposed to do with this information?

I’d always thought that term was kind of silly, like something people say on TikTok when someone chews with their mouth open or wears socks with sandals. But now I’m obsessing over what I did that triggered it. Was I too into trivia? Was I trying too hard to impress her friends? Was it how I ate my pad thai on the second date? Did I talk about my job too much? Was my job too weird? I keep replaying everything, searching for a moment where I crossed some invisible line from “charming” to “repulsive.”

I know people are allowed to lose interest; I’ve done it too. But something about being rejected with “the ick” just feels… harsh. Like I didn’t just not click, but I actively turned her off. It’s left me feeling weirdly embarrassed and kind of gross, like there’s something off about me that I didn’t realize was off-putting.

How do you deal with rejection like that when it feels so personal and vague? How do I stop spiraling into self-doubt every time I go on a date now, wondering if I’m about to “ick” someone else?

Sincerely,

Trying Not to Overthink It (But Failing)

DEAR TRYING NOT TO OVERTHINK IT: What I’m about to tell you will feel like it doesn’t help, TNOI, but stick with me for a second: you will never know what you did that gave her “the ick”, nor is it something that you will be able to change. And this is important, because it doesn’t matter. Not a single bit. There is no need or reason to change it, because there’s nothing to change.

Here’s the thing: “the ick” is, at its core, the ultimate “it’s not you, it’s me”, without even being a polite fiction. When people talk about something giving them “the ick”, the trigger is always something that’s perfectly normal – even common – in the person who caused it, and the reaction is completely personal to the person feeling it. There aren’t universal lists of what causes “the ick” because if it were universal, it wouldn’t be “the ick”; it would just be stuff that turns people off. Smelling bad – especially cases of seriously bad breath – is one example. So is being rude to service industry employees or never actually asking their date questions about themselves. All the things that people will list as giving them “the ick” tend to be about their responses to innocuous behaviors that most people would never think twice about. It’s just something that, for some reason, causes the person experiencing it to get that full-body shudder of “uggh” that blows away even the slightest bit of attraction.

The reason for it can be variable. There’re studies that seem to suggest that there’re psychological reasons for it, and some experts that believe that it might be a sort of emotional self-protection; the person’s Spidey-Sense is being tingling about something, but they don’t know what, so they blame it on something they can perceive about the other person. It could even be a matter of taste or past experience; someone might have bad associations after dating a beer snob, so if you order an IPA or you’re a little too enthusiastic about a nice hefeweizen on a hot day, they might cringe. Sometimes it’s even just a misunderstanding – one writer talks about how she got the ick from a guy because he seemed to be a stereotypical ‘softboi’, but realized that his behavior wasn’t just performance and posturing.

But the point is that, at the end of the day, there was something that they didn’t like or that bothered them and that was that. It was something common, normal and innocuous, and that was a turn off for them and them alone.

The important thing to realize is that this is ultimately a them problem, not a you problem. Sally got “the ick” because of something that had to do with Sally, not with you. Maybe it was legitimately something you did, maybe it was how she interpreted things, maybe she was just flailing around for a way to say “I’m not interested” in a way that precluded the possibility of your arguing with her about it. But the “what” doesn’t matter. Neither does the “why”. It just matters that she decided she wasn’t feeling it any longer and that was that.

It’s entirely understandable that you’re feeling confused and upset. As far as you knew, things were going well, so having the rug pulled out from under you like this feels sudden and confusing. It feels like you must have made a mistake somewhere for the change to be this sudden and this severe. I get why you want to understand and what to fix it… but there’s nothing to be fixed.

You’re not supposed to “do” anything with this information, simply because there’s nothing to be done. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that her issue was that she thought that your enthusiasm at trivia was too much. Bar trivia and pub quizzes are things you love. Do you really want to be dating someone who thinks that the thing you enjoy – or the way you enjoy it – is cringe? Would you rather try to repress liking the things you like or to like them in a more “respectable” way (for suitably subdued and unenthusiastic definitions of “respectable”) in order to date her, or would you rather date someone who, if she doesn’t share your enthusiasm or enjoyment, at least appreciates that you do? Would you honestly be happy continuing to see someone who gets a sour expression, rolls her eyes and purses her lips until they look like a cat’s butthole every time you answer a question in a party game?

Probably not. So, in a perverse and not-terribly-pleasant way, she did you a favor. She self-selected out of your dating pool and now you’re free to find someone who isn’t going to have whatever hangup she had.

It’s frustrating, I know. But it’s important to understand that this wasn’t something you did wrong. It’s not something gross or off-putting, it was just something that she didn’t like, for reasons that were unique to her. Maybe she could have sat with that feeling a bit and analyzed it and figured out what bothered her and whether it really bothered her or just brought something else up. Maybe she could push past it, or deal with the underlying issue. And hey, maybe she did sit down and wrestle with it, and at the end of the day, it was an issue that was too deep-seated to root out quickly. But – and I can’t emphasize this enough – that still means that it’s about her, not you.

The way you feel is understandable. It’s ok that it bothers you. Rejection for any reason kinda sucks. You can acknowledge that this hurts and also recognize that this was her weird and petty issue. It’s one of those annoying little parts about dating that we’re all subject to, and sometimes the only thing to do is to say “well that sucked,” shrug your shoulders and move on. I know you liked her, but I promise: there’s a lot of fine ladies out there, and they’re not going to have whatever hang-up she did. Women clearly dig what you’ve got, so keep at it. False starts mean little beyond freeing you up to find someone who is right 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’ve never dated. In my twenties, I put myself out there a lot, going to parties and using dating apps, but I never seemed to get even the slightest bit of interest. I was just your typical young adult trying to figure things out – making mistakes, learning lessons, and often falling short. While I wouldn’t say I was in a terrible spot compared to some people, my mental health was all over the place.

To try and address my lack of success with dating, I’d go on internet forums looking for advice, post my photograph on Reddit to get a rating on my appearance, and even hired a dating coach at one point. The comments back were always the same: “You’re good-looking. You shouldn’t be having any issues. Go pick up a few hobbies and you’ll soon meet someone.” I tried everything, but nothing worked.

I felt invisible, and comparing myself to others only made it worse. It was especially hard when I saw even the most troubled men – those dealing with depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts, or even known abusers, still manage to get dates or take women home from a night out. Here I was, a genuinely kind and somewhat put-together guy, cracking jokes and generally being someone that people liked to know, and I couldn’t even get someone to have a coffee with me. Those people, in the midst of their despair, were worthy of love by simple virtue of being a human-being. So, why wasn’t I? I could never understand it, and to this day, I still can’t. Back then, it honestly felt like the universe had decided I was meant to be alone.

At some point, I resigned myself to my fate. I told myself that if things didn’t change by the time I reached my thirties, I wouldn’t bother dating at all. I figured if no one could love me back then, why would I bother trying to connect with someone after I’d “got myself together”?

So I shifted my focus to my career and cut out toxic people. I got fitter. After the COVID lockdowns were lifted, I spent time developing a few hobbies. Now that I’m in my thirties, life is the best it’s ever been, even with its challenges. I’ve had what people would call a “glow-up.”

My career and hobbies have put me in contact with a lot of women, but while things have shifted, they’re not in the way I’d hoped. Now that I’m older, most of the women I meet are either much older, married, or already in relationships. I do have good relationships with the women I know, and it’s clear that I’m respected, popular, and considered fun to be around, but the women who might be available don’t really make an effort to connect. At best, I might catch an occasional glance, but it always feels more like “I see you’re here,” and not “I’d love to get to know you.” Even if I thought someone was interested, I don’t think I’d make a move. I’ve gotten so used to being ignored or overlooked that I’ve started to doubt anyone would actually want to get to know me, or there’s resentment for potentially being a “last option”.

The truth is, I was just as lovable in my twenties as I am now. But after so many years of being invisible, it’s hard not to start questioning myself. I want someone who sees me – not just as a face in the crowd, but as someone they’re genuinely excited to be with. Someone who feels that spark, that chemistry, that desire to really connect – and to tear off my clothes in a bedroom. I want more than just lukewarm interest or, worse, indifference.

It’s frustrating. And it’s been painful, especially knowing that I’ve done the inner work to become a better person. I’m not perfect, but I’m real.

When Will They See Me?

DEAR WHEN WILL THEY SEE ME: Right off the bat, WWTSM, I’m proud of you for recognizing how much toxicity you were wallowing in and for pulling yourself out of it. That takes strength, and you should give yourself more credit for what you’ve accomplished – even more than your glow up. Because you’re right: you were lovable then, just as you are now. That’s a really important realization, and I’m thrilled that you made that connection. I want to see you keep that progress going by continuing on this path, not backsliding or falling back into negative patterns.

So, here’s the thing that’s tripping you up: it’s great that you’ve cut out so much of that toxicity and put so much effort into yourself, but there’s a lot of internal pain that you haven’t addressed yet. You’ve put a lot of time and effort into doing the external work, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve put a commensurate level of work into healing the wounds you’re carrying.

Case in point: you were looking at these troubled men, men who were still getting dates and relationships and seeing it as being “despite” their flaws – as though those made them (and by extension, you) less “worthy” or “deserving” of love. And that’s precisely the issue: the idea that someone is more “worthy” or “deserving” of love than others, or that love is a reward given to people rather than something built between folks. Because you were seeing these people who were “undeserving” getting what you wanted, while you still struggled, you took it as a sign that there was something worse about you. After all, if you were better than them, why were they succeeding where you fail?

But that’s the thing: there wasn’t anything worse about you, because love isn’t about “deserving” or being “worthy”. You thought there was, and you’ve held onto this for so long that you can’t really imagine life without it. But that’s precisely the issue. When you say “Even if I thought someone was interested, I don’t think I’d make a move”, you are so very close to seeing what the problem is. The issue isn’t that people don’t find you loveable or desirable. The issue is that you don’t believe they could, and that infuses everything you do. You aren’t finding those connections or feeling the possibilities in part because you don’t think other people could possibly like you. You’re holding yourself back because you think you’ve failed before you’ve even started and so you don’t even try. Why invest the effort if it’s doomed to fail? So, you don’t show people who you are, you don’t invite them in, nor do you give them a chance.

You’re hoping that someone else is going to be so motivated and so persuasive that they’ll overcome your doubts and convince you for you, but that’s not how it works. People aren’t going to fight your demons for you, especially not when you’re not fighting them first. People aren’t going to be so motivated to push past all the “not interested” signals you’re sending, nor are they going to take up sword and shield in your defense for you. And considering that you wouldn’t believe them even if they did – especially with that lingering sense of resentment you mention – then there’s no reason for them to do so.

This is why I keep hammering the line about how you have to love yourself first; if you don’t, you’re not going to give people the chance to love you and you’re not going to make it easier for them if they try. Asking someone to fight to show you love that you won’t show yourself is never going to work, especially if it’s going to be an impossible fight. If you aren’t willing to fight for yourself, why should they?

You need to start healing those wounds you’re still carrying around. I know I say “go to therapy” like I’m Carl Jung’s hype man, but the fact of the matter is that you need help addressing these issues. Nobody would expect you to remove your own appendix or set your own broken limbs; you would want help from a doctor or surgeon. Those inner wounds aren’t going to go away on their own and you don’t have the training or the perspective to see them for what they are. Getting help from someone who can actually help you, on the other hand, will make all the difference.

You’ve already proven that you have incredible strength of will. You’ve made titanic changes to your life already and brought yourself incredibly far, all on your own. I’m here to tell you that you still have further to go, because there’s still so much you haven’t addressed yet and haven’t even recognized as being part of the problem.

I know it feels like you should be ‘done’ already. I know it feels like you’ve had to move mountains and the idea that there’s still more to do is incredibly demoralizing.  But while there’s further to go, you don’t need to do this all on your own. You are allowed – and should – ask for help from people who are actually trained and ready to help you.

You are so close to being where you want to be that it would be a tragedy to not put in that last bit of effort to finally see and address those remaining issues. You’ve reached out to me, so you have the capacity to reach out to a therapist and get the help you need to bring you to the end of this journey. And I’m here from the future to tell you: at the end of this is someone who will be ready, willing and able to not just accept and embrace his own desirability, but to let other people see it, let them in and allow them embrace it too.

You’re almost there, WWTSM. You’ve got this.

All will be well.

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 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