DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m writing to you after having just ended another relationship, and I keep getting the same feedback from women I date: that I’m too intense, too argumentative and dismissive and that I always have to be right. This is enough of a recurring issue that I can’t seem to hold on to a relationship for more than a few months before my girlfriend and I end up having this fight.

For context, I don’t think of myself as combative, I just enjoy talking about ideas and challenging people’s opinions. I have always had a strong personality, I pride myself in my education, I like deep conversations, not small talk. But apparently, the women I date don’t see it that way.

One ex told me I always had to “win” every discussion. For example, we once spent an entire dinner debating whether streaming services have ruined music, and she got upset when I picked apart her points, pointed out that mathematically there’s a pattern to a pop hit and told her she “didn’t understand the economics of the industry.” I thought we were just having a lively debate, but she said it felt like I was trying to prove she was stupid.

Another woman said I was “judgmental” because I teased her about her taste in music and movies. She loved pop songs and romantic comedies, and I couldn’t resist pointing out how formulaic they were. I thought I was being funny and analytical; she said I made her feel small and defensive.

My most recent ex told me that I was always shooting down her ideas and treating her like she was stupid or foolish, no matter what she suggested. I don’t recall anything like this at all, if I’m being honest. 

I’ve also been told I come off as “intense” because I always have to be doing something meaningful—reading, learning, improving. If a girlfriend just wants to watch a reality show or scroll on her phone, I find myself asking why she’s wasting her time. I honestly don’t mean to insult anyone, but apparently that’s how it comes across.

So here I am, genuinely trying to understand: am I just dating the wrong people, or is this something I need to work on? Am I just, as my last ex accused me, an a--hole who needs to disagree with everyone?

How can I be passionate and thoughtful without coming across as condescending or exhausting?

Sincerely,

Too Much To Love (Maybe)

DEAR TOO MUCH TO LOVE (MAYBE): There’s a saying that comes up a lot around here, TMTL: if you meet one person who calls you a horse, you met a crazy person. If four people call you a horse, maybe it’s time to get fitted for a saddle.

You’ve had several exes calling you a horse in a row, and apparently for the same reason every time. Sounds to me like it’s time to go to the Feed and Seed and see what the fall dressage line looks like.

I’ll be honest, TMTL, whenever I hear someone describe themselves as having “a strong personality”, what I hear is “I bulldoze my way through life and then wonder why people don’t thank me for it.” 9 times out of 10, this isn’t coming from a place of self-awareness as much as a place of pride. Which makes sense in as much as it’s another example of “traits men admire in other men” that, strangely enough, women don’t appreciate. And frankly, it’s also a trait that men admire in other men… until they’re on the receiving end of it. Everyone loves the concept of the alpha male until they have to deal with the so-called alpha male, at which point folks understand that having every conversation be a fight for dominance is f--king exhausting.

That’s what’s going on here and why you’ve got a string of exes all singing the same song: you sound like you’re exhausting to deal with and, quite frankly, it sounds like you are completely unaware of how this comes across to people who have to deal with it on a daily basis. ��Some of this should be obvious if you think about it from someone else’s perspective, but I want to focus on one that I don’t think you realize you’re doing, first. It’s a little trickier to demonstrate, seeing as you’re apparently between relationships but do your best to think back: how many times have you dismissed something your exes suggested or brought up out of hand, without even thinking about it? No moment of consideration, no careful thought, just an immediate, knee-jerk response of “nah”, regardless of what the proposal was. And how many times have you actually taken your exes’ side in an argument or on an issue she’s having that doesn’t involve you?��The odds are good that you do this frequently and likely without realizing it – hence your own comment about how this isn’t how you remember things going down. In fact, many men don’t realize how often they do this until someone brings it to their attention. It’s behavior that’s so embedded that you (the general “you”) don’t realize that you’re doing it until you start consciously paying attention to how you’re responding.

It’s an insidious behavior that undermines your connection with your partner by making them feel like their interests, thoughts or experiences are constantly being dismissed by someone who should, in theory, have their back. It takes very time before dismissal starts feeling like contempt, which is one of the Four Horsemen of relationship extinction events.  

And believe me, this is very much a “yes, all men” kind of thing. I didn’t realize how often I’ve done this until I got called out on it, and damn that was an eye-opener.

But while we’re talking about self-awareness, here’s another question: how often have you ever conceded a point or “lost” one of the “lively” debates you’ve had with your exes? When is the last time, if ever, you found that your ex was right or made a better case for their opinion and you had to reconsider yours?

While you’re pondering that, let me explain precisely why your exes get tired of your “lively debates”: it’s that whole “dismissal turning to contempt” issue I mentioned before. There’s a difference between a lively debate between friends and just outright telling a person that they suck and their opinions suck. To indulge with a pop-culture comparison, it’s the difference between Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory in My Dinner with Andre talking about life and philosophy and their experiences, and Jack Black just s--tting on people’s musical taste in High Fidelity. Shawn and Gregory may not agree, but it doesn’t feel like Gregory is actively demeaning Shawn, who has a different view (and also, a much less lavish lifestyle). Jack Black’s character, on the other hand, just wants everyone to know that he is the Arbiter of Good Taste and if you listen to anything that is outside of his personal pantheon, you’re a loser and a sheep.

Even in the examples you mention, you aren’t saying “here’s why I don’t enjoy top-40 pop” or “This television show doesn’t hold my interest”, you’re saying “these things are objectively bad and you’re a lesser person for enjoying them.” Even when you allow for actual facts – streaming has been bad for music because of how bad a deal it is for musicians – you’re not criticizing streaming, you’re criticizing your ex.

The same thing with reality shows or rom-coms and the like. When you call them brain rot or formulaic, you’re accusing the person you’re dating of being stupid. The comparison you make about “relentless self-improvement” to “mindlessly scrolling” is a perfect example. What you’re doing is telling the other person that not being exactly like you is a moral failing. Leaving aside that being formulaic or following tropes doesn’t make something bad, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something mindless. I don’t know if you noticed but s--t’s pretty dire right now. The country’s sliding towards fascism, the world economy is in freefall, masked goons are snatching people off the streets and tens of millions of people are on the brink of starvation in the US alone. Finding an opportunity to relax and enjoy some brain candy isn’t wasting one’s time, it’s recouping. It’s giving oneself a chance to relax, re-energize and avoid burnout. S--t, even the hardest of hard-core gym bros understand that you need rest days in order to recover and not sabotage your gains.��Those moments of not needing to grind, hustle or constantly think about the trash fire we’re living in is part of how people are able to continue surviving and growing and changing things. There’s a reason why “morale officer” is a vital part of the armed forces. ��The fact that it doesn’t fit into your world view of “improvement” or “challenging yourself” doesn’t make it bad. The fact that it’s something that you don’t see as being “important”, “valuable” or “insightful” doesn’t make it worth less. That’s a classic example of “what you like is extraneous trash, what I like is important”, especially when it aligns with gendered stereotypes; it’s a little like how computer programing was considered “women’s work”… right up until computers came into wider use and were an important part of the economy.

But just as importantly, something doesn’t need to be practical to be valued or worthwhile. Enjoying something because it’s lightweight and fluffy hurts precisely nobody. You’re certainly free to not like it and to not engage with it. But the fact that you don’t care for it doesn’t make it ok to s--t on someone else for enjoying it. If you want to stop getting dumped for being a snobbish and argumentative asshat, you might want to consider adopting a stance of “it’s not for me” or “I’m not the target market” instead of declaring that it’s hot garbage for garbage people.

If you want to “debate” something or “challenge people’s opinions” on pop culture, maybe you should come to it from a place of curiosity instead – what do they enjoy about it, what about it speaks to them, what do they get from it? If you just want to talk trash about it, that’s fine – you can do that with like-minded friends. I enjoy having a Hallmark Christmas movie snark-a-thon with friends; I’ve even recorded live-react podcasts with friends about it. But I’m not going to go out of my way to tell my friends who unironically enjoy them that they’re dumb for watching it. The most I’ll do is share the sort of gentle, knowing ribbing from people who clearly love it – the difference between CinemaSins dumping on Star Trek and Lower Decks doing it. At least then, it’s coming from a place of affection, not disdain.

And this is the reason why you keep having these issues: you’re coming from a place of disdain and dismissal, telling people you supposedly care about that what they like is bad and they’re bad for liking it. If you want to actually have a relationship that lasts, start coming to things from a place of “It’s not for me, but I’m glad you dig it.” Otherwise, you’re just going to have more people pointing out how profound of an a--hole you’re being as they walk out the door. Again.

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 not exactly sure what term to use for myself. Broke off my last relationship because it was toxic almost 12 years ago.

And in that time I’ve just… given up. Still have a libido, still find some people attractive, but like, the thought of trying to start a new relationship from scratch is both exhausting and depressing. Is this being aromantic? It’s not Incel, b/c I’m not seething with rage that it’s everyone else’s fault & making this everyone else’s problem.

Probably culture and marketing but I feel like there’s this expectation that I ought to be structuring my life around finding a partner. And that just feels like one more expectation I’m failing at because I have no interest in trying anymore.

Is Aro the right label or is this just depression? Been unemployed several months and that’s for sure not helping, but I’ve been romantically checked out for over a decade.

What Am I?

DEAR WHAT AM I: Aromanticism and asexuality can be hard to pin down in part because they fall on a spectrum. Asexual people run a gamut from people who are actively repulsed by the concept of sex and sexual desire, to people who just don’t feel sexual attraction and never have, to people who feel it faintly, rarely, or in very specific circumstances.

The same goes for being aromantic; it falls on a similar spectrum from “never feeling it” to “only feeling it faintly” to “rarely and with very particular people or situations”.

But the thing that tends to define the ace/aro spectrum is the absence of a desire or emotion, rather than those being smothered by other feelings, the way you describe.

While it’s certainly possible that you’re ace or aro, WAI, I think it’s far more likely that you’re depressed. Feeling like there’s no point, a numbness or losing the desire for something that once had a lot of meaning or importance to you are common symptoms of depression. I wouldn’t be surprised if your toxic relationship was a trigger for this, but I think it’s equally possible �that the relationship and breakup exacerbated what was already there.

The fact that this has gone on for a decade doesn’t really surprise me; depression can be self-reinforcing, and it’s often easy to miss at first. Depression is insidious because of how it presents itself. We tend to think of it as having The Blues, but often it’s not feeling sad or melancholy so much as feeling numb and exhausted. The numbness is something of a tell; it’s not a lack of feeling so much as not feeling something that should be there. When your hand’s gone numb, you know something is off because you should feel something but don’t. Absence – like in many forms of asexuality – is more a case of “it wasn’t there in the first place”.

Just as importantly though, is that depression makes everything feel pointless and tiring. It’s that sense of “it’s too much bother to do X and X wouldn’t work anyway, so I’m not going to even try”, often paired with that sense of “…even though I want X”. So, there’s a sense of inadequacy or disappointment, like you’re failing at something that you should be doing even as you feel like there’s no point to it.

In fact, there are a couple points in your letter that really scream “depression” to me. The first is the sense of expectation that you mention, which often strengthens that sense of “I should be doing X but I’m not, so I’m a loser”. The other is the fact that you’re unemployed. This tends to depress people for obvious reasons, but men often feel that sting particularly keenly. If you’re unable to find a job or hold one down, after all, you’re “failing” at one of the ways men are taught to measure their worth. If you feel like a failure as a man in one area, that often tends to rebound to other areas where men are expected to measure up.

I think this is a case where talking to a doctor – someone who can actually prescribe medication – would be helpful. Depression can be a difficult beast to treat, because it’s often as much chemical as it is emotional. An antidepressant like Wellbutrin can help you feel closer to, if not normal then at least functional. That, in turn, makes it easier to address the emotional side of things with a counselor or therapist. It’s difficult, after all, to address the lingering pain of your toxic relationship if you don’t feel like there’s any point to it or hope for the future.

If you go this route, I will warn you that treating depression is more art than science. It takes time and patience to find both the medication that works for you and to find the effective dosage, so there’s an often-frustrating period of having to wait and see before moving to a different medication or form of therapy. As much as it sucks, treating depression frequently requires a willingness to white-knuckle your way through weeks of feeling like nothing is happening until the cloud lifts or you and your doctor agree that it’s time to either adjust the dosage or try a different medication.

However, one thing I strongly recommend that you be willing to advocate for your own needs while you’re finding the medication that works for you. A lot of antidepressants have unpleasant side-effects, including reducing your libido (or killing it entirely) or making it next-to-impossible to orgasm at all. If your medication comes with side-effects that bother you, tell your doctor that you’re not willing to continue with that particular medication and you want one that doesn’t have those effects. Sexual function and satisfaction are entirely valid things to prioritize, even when trying to treat your mental health, so don’t be afraid to speak up if the medication is interfering with those.

Hopefully, treating your depression will lift the fog you’ve been living under and you’ll feel more empowered and able to decide where you want to go from here.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been pursuing a woman, she’s Georgian, for a few months who I’ve gone to university with. I can tell she really likes me due to her obvious body language and since I’ve become more experienced as I’ve aged.

I have learned to be less pushy, be fun and easygoing and had been doing good so far. I did well with the hot and cold games, matched her texting, patterns, and stuff like that.

Here’s where I really screwed up and am wondering if I lost any chance of re-entering the game. Again, I know for sure she was interested, or testing me out, but I got impatient with her after she played another game with me. After too much hot and cold and her suggesting she just wanted friendship I jumped the gun. Her actions contradict that, and especially her body language, as I’ve never experienced so much sexual tensions.

Now, I’ll be honest, it’s quite possible she was just really attracted to me (but not interested) or I imagined too much in my head.

However, assuming I was right and she was interested I’d like to know how I should deal with my stupid mistake. I got angry and we had a long back and forth over text where I called out her (what I thought was obvious interest) and of course she denied it (as expected). It didn’t get too heated and mean but obviously it was a real dumb move and I’m worried I’ve blown any chance with escalating with her. On the plus side she didn’t tell me to get lost or block me, and I think her arguing back so much instead of doing those things and ignoring me means maybe she does have real feelings. Because in the past when I’ve been dumb enough to make such a mistake they usually don’t care and we rarely talk again.

She also forgive me really quickly and seems to have put it behind her.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I realize I made some rookie mistakes and I want an honest opinion if I’m toast, or if there is something(s) I can do to salvage this.

Reload, Restart, Quit 

DEAR RELOAD, RESTART, QUIT: If I’m being honest, RRQ, the way you salvage this is to get your hands on a flux capacitor, go back in time and slap the phone out of your hands before you could fly off the handle.

Yes, I fully understand that this isn’t the most actionable advice, but this is very much a case where the only move that works is to not end up in that situation in the first place. 

You’re not the first person to get frustrated when they feel like someone is “playing games” and feel like they’re not getting the response that they expect, and you won’t be the last. What you won’t be is the first person to successfully call someone out on it. This is something that has, quite literally never worked, and I think folks don’t truly understand the rationale behind their behavior.

The problem is that, when you dig down into the particulars, you will almost always find that this is an issue of crossed wires. Someone either has misunderstood the nature of their interaction, not understood the message behind the supposed “game”, or else has ultimately gotten an answer that they didn’t like and chose to ignore it.

However, because it’s not what they wanted or expected, they get upset and put the blame on the other person for misleading them. This, in turn, motivates some people to call the other person out on it, thinking that this was deliberate on their part.

This is something that I see a lot in dating advice for men, especially from a particular stripe of masculinity influencers: the idea that “calling women out” on their behavior is a good and smart tactic that will somehow get you what you want. It’s part and parcel of the concept of “s--t tests” or that women “secretly” want a guy to be dominant or “in charge” and who won’t “put up with their s--t”; women – or so the theory goes – are playing head games to ‘test’ whether you’re really dominant or alpha or whatever and want you to call them out. 

This works about as well as painting a giant tunnel on a cliff face and then trying to run through it, in no small part because the point of “calling someone on their s--t” isn’t to change their mind.  That sort of reaction isn’t about “passing” someone’s test or changing their mind. It’s about lashing out because someone pricked your ego and you’re trying to hurt them back. That’s it. There might be some part of you that thinks that this is going to snap them out of it and make them realize that they’re about to lose a good thing… but really, this is about feeling like you’ve been unfairly denied something you feel entitled to.

It’s a little like calling someone out when they say they have a boyfriend or husband but they don’t; it’s not as though they’re going to say “whoops, you got me, guess I have to date you now”. They weren’t saying “are you a bad enough dude to pass my test”, they were saying “I’m not interested, but men tend to respect that if I seem to be someone else’s ‘property’, so I’m going to run with that instead. “Calling out the deception doesn’t change the underlying message, it just further confirms the “no”.

Here’s the thing: it’s entirely understandable that you feel frustrated by this. If you two have been flirting – or at least it feels like you’ve been flirting – back and forth, it can feel like someone is just toying with you when it turns out that they aren’t interested in the sort of relationship you want. But calling them out on “playing games” or toying with you or wasting your time or what-have-you is never going to get someone interested in dating you.

When you decide to read someone the riot act for blowing hot and cold or only offering friendship when you feel like they’ve been hinting at more, you’re not going to change their mind. You can’t, because more often than not, “more” was never on the table in the first place. The odds are much greater that you were reading things incorrectly or that the other person wasn’t flirting with intent and assumed you understood that… assuming they were even flirting to begin with.

The issue here is that, once you’ve reached this point, it means that someone, somewhere in the course of your interactions, has misread or misunderstood the situation. It’s not that the other person is “playing games”, so much as the person getting frustrated has not realized that they’re not on the same page at all.

This is why I say that the only winning move is not to end up here in the first place; getting to this situation means that understanding has broken down somewhere along the line.

I suspect that, for you, this came from focusing too much on the form (matching her patterns, playing hot and cold) and not the function. The point of flirting is to send a message: you like them. Flirting can be fun in and of itself and people do flirt for the sake of flirting, but if you don’t actually take the next step, it’s not going to go anywhere.

The longer you go without actually taking that step, the greater the odds that it’s not going to happen. It’s a little like constant messaging back and forth on dating apps; the point isn’t to message people, it’s to go on dates. If you just keep trading messages back and forth, eventually the moment will pass and they’re going to go on a date with someone who did ask them out. You reach the point where it’s been going on for so long that someone isn’t going to want to risk the status quo, or they assume that the other person isn’t actually serious, or someone finds out that the other person wasn’t interested in more.

The reason why I always advise people to actually make a move, is so that your intent is known and understood. The longer the games go on, the harder it is to read things accurately because nothing is happening. The banter becomes banter for its own sake, not as a playful way of signaling interest and building tension prior to getting together.

Now, the reason why some folks get caught in the flirting/hot-cold loop is understandable; they’re trying to avoid rejection. They’re seeing flirting or bantering like this as a way of grinding out the social meter; get it to the right threshold and you’re ‘guaranteed’ a date. Make your move too early and they’ll reject you and that path is closed off forever.

The thing is though: this isn’t how people work and it’s not how dating works. There are no guarantees, simply because love isn’t something you can “win” through perfect play. There is no way to start a relationship without being vulnerable and opening yourself up to the possibility of rejection and disappointment. That’s baked into the premise, and you have to accept the risk if you’re going to try. If you try to avoid rejection, you’re still going to get hurt; the only difference is how much time and emotional energy you’ve invested when it happens.

And that brings us to where we are now, and the mistake you’re still making. You’re looking for some way to “prove” you were right, even as you concede that you could be reading this entirely incorrectly. More importantly though, is that I don’t think you realize that you’re telling this woman that she doesn’t understand her own feelings or actions and that you know them better than she does. There is, quite literally, no way for this to go well. The fact that she’s arguing with you, for example, doesn’t mean that you were right or that she really does have feelings for you. It means that she’s trying to tell you what her intent was and that you were mistaken. You, however, don’t seem to be listening.

It’s incredibly insulting to be told that you don’t know your own mind and that someone else does, and that’s not going to inspire feelings of affection and desire. It is, however, a great way to shut off any chance of pulling a friendship out of this.

The best way you could have handled this – that Hail Mary – I mentioned before isn’t to call her out, it’s to call out your side of things. You need to drop the games and the pretense and be both direct and sincere. You want to say “ok, hang on, I think I may be on the wrong page here. So we’re clear, I am interested in you as more than a friend and I thought our flirting meant you felt similarly. Have I been mistaken about that?”

The goal at this point isn’t to change her mind, it’s to gain understanding, so you understand what to do next. If they were interested but the moment passed, you now know not to wait so long before making an actual move, or to at least make your interest clear and known. If they weren’t interested or had reasons why they didn’t want to pursue things, then you can adjust your expectations and – if necessary – your behavior.

It also has the benefit of preventing you from flying off the handle at her over your wounded pride.

But you did and, since time travel isn’t an option, you’re going to have to accept the consequences of your choices. The only – only – move you have now if you want to keep a friendship with her is to apologize and to apologize correctly. That means you say “I want to apologize for the way I acted. I clearly misread things, and I got upset because I felt foolish and I lashed out at you about it. I regret what I said and hurting you and I can only say I’m sorry.”

To be very clear: this isn’t about saving your chances of getting with her or getting another shot. This is about trying to staunch the bleeding and not making things worse. After you apologize and, assuming she accepts it, you have to let her decide how things go from here and follow her lead. There’s no guarantee that doing so will mean you two stay friends or for long, but trying to push things will definitely push things away.

Going forward, do your best to learn from this, so you don’t make the same mistakes and end up back here. It’s better to establish where things stand early than it is to get to the point where you’re frustrated and feeling tempted to call her out. It’s easier to come back from asking someone out before they’re ready or sure they’re interested than it is to try to repair bridges after you set them on fire.

Good luck.

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