DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I wrote you two times (once in October 2020 – “Was This Sexual Abuse” – and I can’t find the second letter), so let’s make a trilogy out of it.

Current situation:

– 36 years old, employed, overweight.

– Suffering from moderate depressions, which get worse over the winter.

– Trauma from being sexually taken advantage of by another person, mommy issues (violent alcoholic), bad relationships (they tried to control me).

– Lonely.

Solutions:

– Get more exercise to lose weight. I know that, I plan to do that, but I don’t do it. It doesn’t help that I work in shifts and my sleep schedule is kaputt. So, changing the job is part of the plan.

– Depressions: got medicated and therapy. I can live with it and do my job in a good and reliable manner. For the first time in my life, I earn real money. I can’t handle it, but I get help for that from my father now.

– I got two cats for the loneliness and I love then very much. I even let it happen, that they love me back and I can feel how it changes my brain chemistry. Literally, I can feel the process in my head, when I cuddle with them.

The point is, what I learned is that you need to be active and relationships are something you find in the outside world and something that happen. I was very lonely and desperate but with the cats I feel loved and I genuinely love them back, without being afraid that I may not be enough or that something is wrong with me. Back then, it was all about desperately making the loneliness go away and I’ve even broke the hearts of three women. Not proud of that, but it showed me how this goes two ways.

On the other hand, without the desperate want for love I kinda lost my drive to pursue a relationship. I mostly tried online dating, since I live in a little town in the middle of nowhere, where there is no active party scene (not my scene) and the hobby community is very small (Tabletop gaming in my case). To be honest I’m used to being overlooked, getting a pass and one time a woman told me to my face would be boring without the beard. She didn’t mean it in a mean way, but it still haunts me.

I believe it’s stories like this and age that makes it harder for me to motivate myself. At university everyone was young and poor and I was afraid of being a loser that still lives with his parents. Now I’m a loser that still lives with his parents and I give less f--ks, but I still feel that want to connect, while knowing that age and working is everybody wearing down. Online dating isn’t an option anymore, because most profiles are fake or they live on the other side of the world, so we probably won’t meet anyway. The only solution is getting out there, meet actual women, get my heart broken and break a few till it sticks. Because I have my problems (see above), but I know people that are worse and they find partners.

So here is the question: how can I hype myself up that a relationship is something worthwhile? How may I lie to myself, that it is something that makes yourself feel good and isn’t only something that gives you tax cuts and makes sure that you’re not alone in your old age, because you’re both too tired to change? How can I think of it something good and not just another unpaid s--tty job, were you do all the work and she doesn’t even like you?

I have to admit, I’m a pessimist at heart and the future looks grim, with the environment being as good as death and humanity just running towards its doom. But I know suicide isn’t an option and I love my cats very much. I can change my medication and do sport and change my job, but where can I start with finding at least some literature to make me think, that I can build something that … I don’t even know what it could be. Maybe just being loved and desired by somebody and actually believing it. Or just coming home and somebody is glad to see me.

Just something.

Thanks

Grim Future Guy

DEAR GRIM FUTURE GUY: There’s a lot here, GFG, especially when we combine it with your previous history of sexual assault and all the rest. I’m not surprised at how much of a number that will have done to you. Nor am I particularly surprised that the current state of, well, everything can put you off, well… almost anything, really. I promise you: you are not the only person looking at what’s going on right now and is literally too depressed to f--k.��No, seriously, it’s a major problem for a lot of folks right now. A lot of people are having hardcore mental health issues because of the accumulated stress and pressure of just trying to survive in these unfortunately increasingly precedented times. 

But depression is quite literally part of your problem. As in, it’s the second thing you list as part of your situation. Speaking from experience, a lot of what you’re describing – that sense of pointlessness, the lack of motivation and interest in things that you would normally be interested in – are classic symptoms of clinical, chronic depression. Depression, after all, isn’t just “the blues”; it’s often more like grey numbness and apathy, where everything feels pointless if it feels like anything, and it’s hard to work up the effort to care even slightly. Hell, it’s even difficult to muster up the energy to actively s--t on yourself, as opposed to just waving a hand in the general direction of your supposed flaws and say “yeah, that stuff.”  

I think this should be your first priority, more than anything else. There’s a lot in your letter that I’m not going to address, in part because so much of it is being exacerbated by the fact that you’re dealing with depression. Trying to talk you through not feeling like a loser because you live at home is the dating equivalent of putting a bandage on a sucking chest wound – it’s trying to treat a symptom rather than the most likely underlying cause.

(You’re not, and multi-generational families are incredibly common, and getting more common with Gen-Z and Alpha; trust me, there’re more folks living like you than not…) 

But even if these problems exist independently of your depression, your depression is still the higher priority. Depression makes everything harder and bleeds into almost every aspect of your life. Once you start getting that under control, I think you’ll find that the rest of it starts looking significantly different than it does now. And even if those problems are still in play after your depression is managed, they’ll be much easier to fix.

Dealing with depression requires a multi-pronged approach. Depression – as in the chronic condition – is often chemical as much as it is psychological, and the best treatment modalities tend to approach it from different angles simultaneously. I highly recommend that you take that approach yourself – working on both the physical/chemical side of things and from the psychological side.

The most obvious starting point is medication. While I know antidepressants have a reputation for unpleasant side-effects, the latest medications are far, far better and more broadly tolerated. Wellbutrin, among others, doesn’t have many of the sexual side effects that a lot of SSRIs have, for example.

Exercise should be another prong in how you treat your depression. Multiple studies, including a meta-analyses published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and another published by the Chochrane Library respectively have found that moderate exercise is helpful in managing symptoms of depression. While both studies point out that this shouldn’t be taken as an indication that exercise alone is an effective treatment, it does suggest that regular vigorous exercise in addition to other forms of treatment is helpful. Since you already want to up the amount of exercise you get, it sounds like a good way to motivate yourself to get started.

Your sleep schedule is another thing that needs to change. You mention that you’re doing shift-work. Shift Work Sleep Disorder is a real condition, and it is known to exacerbate depression and mental health disorders. I’ve linked to a piece that talks about ways of managing SWSD, which will hopefully, help, but I think one of the bigger changes you might want to make is to look for work with more consistent hours if at all possible.

It’s not just about getting seven or eight hours, it’s getting seven or eight hours regularly, consistently and around the same time. If you’re having to change your sleep schedule constantly – a few weeks working the graveyard shift, a few working the standard 8-5, a few working evening – then I’m absolutely not surprised your mental health is taking a nosedive.

The last thing I would suggest on the physical side of things is to look into getting yourself a (suitably named) SAD lamp for the winter months. Not only will this help with the side-effects of your disrupted sleep patterns, but if you have seasonal affective disorder and the gloom of winter is messing with your head, 30 minutes or so of 10,000 lux light first thing in the morning (within an hour of waking up) makes a huge difference. There’re quite a few people on Reddit and elsewhere who have recommendations for ones that’ve worked for them; the Yale School of Medicine has a few they recommend as well.  

On the mental side of the equation, it’s time to talk to a counselor. I recommended this to you when you wrote in during the aftermath of your abusive relationship, and I stand by it. You really should be talking with someone who is familiar with depression and abusive relationships – emotional as well as sexual. You mentioned that your mother was a violent alcoholic; that’s almost certainly lingering in the background and tangled up with the sexual abuse from your previous relationship. Talking with someone who can walk you through the ways that you’ve been hurt and how to heal is going to be massively important.

Now, notice that I’m not telling you how to get hyped up and eager to get back out on the dating scene. That’s because you don’t need motivation, so much as you need to not feel like s--t. Again, speaking from experience, I can tell you that trying to force yourself to do damn near anything when you’re also dealing with depression is a nightmare. Even with all the motivation in the world, it feels like you’re trying to push your way through something thick and viscous. Trying to force yourself to go out, and to be social is already going to be hard. Combining that with the way depression screws with your head and lies to you isn’t just trying to play on Nightmare difficulty, it’s like you downloaded mods to make it an even bigger challenge.

Getting your depression under control will make all the rest much, much easier. You won’t have to fight to muster the energy to care, nor will you have to constantly push back against the voice in the back of your head telling you that there’s no point to it.

But just as importantly, you don’t want motivation. Not really. Motivation in and of itself is poor fuel for improvement and change. While motivation is great for getting started on a project or inspiring you to make a change, it doesn’t last.��If motivation is all that’s getting you out of bed and to the gym or the therapist’s couch, then you’re going to fall off the metaphorical wagon as soon as it runs out. And it will run out. Much like why folks abandon and forget their New Years resolutions, motivation doesn’t last long even when everything is going well. When you’re using it to fuel something that takes a lot of time, discipline and sustained effort, it burns out even faster. And if you’re dealing with depression on top of all of that?

Yeah, nah. That’s a bad idea all around. You’re more or less guaranteeing that you’ll bail on all of it at once.

So, I wouldn’t rely on trying to find “motivation” to go out and meet people. What I’d suggest right now is that you take the motivation to improve your general quality of life and treat your depression, and use it to start building routines that will help keep you going. Going to the gym sucks, but making it a routine – going every three days at 3:30 PM, for example – turns it into just part of your schedule; it’s a lot easier to maintain when it’s just something you do, instead of waiting for the burning desire to lift heavy s--t repeatedly.

Personally, I find it’s helpful to have things that I reserve for whatever routine I’m trying to build. For example, I love my TTRPG actual play shows, but I make a point of only watching or listening to them when I’m working out. If I want to find out what’s currently happening in Araman or Exandria, the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, or The Court of Fey and Flowers, I need to be exercising. If I can’t make it to the gym, t’s easy enough to put in my headphones and head out for a walk or do some body weight exercise routines at home. I may not want to get on the elliptical or do my Romanian deadlifts and goblet squats, but it’s that or get further and further behind in my stories.

Going to therapy is also helpful in this regard; it gives you someone you’re being accountable to, and paying for services is a pretty hefty motivator to ensure you’re actually getting your money’s worth.

Once you start getting your depression managed and you’ve been working with your therapist about the pain you’ve been living with… well, that’s when you’ll be better positioned to go out and build more of a social life. Not, mind you “go out and get a date”, but “build a social life that can lead to dates”. As I’ve been saying for years now: the best way to meet people who are right for you is to be out in the world around other people – people you would want to hang out with, whether you wanted to date them or not. Having people you care about and who care about you, who are on Team You, is a hell of a lot better for helping you be on the lookout for love than hoping to brute-force it through inspirational quotes and philosophical texts.

But that’s for the future. For now, the best thing you can do for yourself is to love yourself enough to recover and improve. Do that first, and the rest will come much, much more easily.

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

Doctor’s Note: Around the start of a new year, I like to look back and re-answer some older questions as I would if I had received them today. Whenever possible, I answer them without having read my previous response, to see and how my advice has changed in the intervening years.

Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove: Revisited for 2026…

Today’s letter was originally published on December 17, 2018

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a 35-year-old single guy who keeps attracting the wrong kind of girls. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad, just not my kind. They’re usually not into the same things I am or able to keep up a conversation.

I’m 6’2″ and bald and I used to be chubby but since I started working out, I have become quite broad. Since then, I seem to interest girls that love dominant manly men while I’m just a nerd; I went to university, play chess and love video games. Some girls even compared me with Vin Diesel. For now, I’m trying numerous things: starting conversations about university or video games, wearing nerd-shirts, wearing caps, growing a beard… but I can’t seem to find a good strategy yet to keep the wrong women at bay and get liked by the women I like, an intelligent witty girl.

Help?

Nerd In Jock’s Clothing

DEAR NERD IN JOCK’S CLOTHING: Hey NIJC, haaaaaaave you met Henry Cavill? Cavill is, unquestionably a nerd. He’s the kind of person who hotrods his PC to play games at the highest possible specs, who paints Warhammer miniatures for fun and who ultimately left his role as Geralt of Rivia because he thought that the showrunners didn’t keep true to how Geralt was depicted in the Witcher novels.

He’s also a six-foot something slab of beef with abs like phwoar and piercing blue eyes.

(This is possibly the first time in a long time that Cavill has been a point of positive comparison, instead of the yardstick guys are measuring themselves against. The irony, she is palpable.)

Caville may be among the pantheon of actors who play superheroes and absurdly jacked figures from myth, but he’s a diehard geek.

The same goes for Vin Diesel, for that matter. Among his many accomplishments in life, he not only has gotten Dame Judi Dench to play Dungeons and Dragons, but produced a vanity project based on his own D&D character.

The point is that geeks and nerds come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and body composition, because being a geek is in how you act, more than in how you look. Not every nerdboy or girl are going to look like Finn Wolfhard or Shannon Purser, after all, as attractive as they are. Some are gonna look like Joe Manganiello, Chris Jericho, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Aabria Iyengar, Erika Ishii and Deborah Anne Wohl.

But how we present ourselves does affect how people perceive us, and those assumptions are often going to be based on stereotypes. A tall, jacked bald guy with a beard isn’t necessarily going to scream “big ol’ nerd” at first glance. If anything, it’s going to say “this person watches a lot of MMA had has very strong thoughts about the NFL draft and knives in his every-day carry.”

If you look like a Joe Rogan fanboy, people are going to be quick to make assumptions about who you are, especially if you’re in places that aren’t as popular with your fellow geeks. You can certainly soften your appearance with, say, thick-rimmed glasses, or dress up your look in geek shibboleths (…says the man who wears a Green Lantern ring and rocks the mark of the Arashikage clan) to help set first impressions, but your demeanor and overall behavior will be even more effective in changing the way that they see you.

Consider Critical Role’s Travis Willingham as an example. He is a huge dude, and he looks like your typical jockbro… and he’s also exuberant, expressive, playful and even goofy. His physical presence suggests one thing, but his behavior suggests another entirely. Anyone who hangs out around him will figure out in nanoseconds that he’s as much of a dork as you might ever expect to find. So the way you carry yourself will help too – not just personal warmth, but a willingness to be a little sillier and playful will help give folks a better idea of who you are, especially if paired with a geeky tee or visible nerd signifiers.

Just as importantly though: if you want to find nerdy and geeky women, you’re going to have a lot more success if you go where they hang out. It’s one thing to try to find someone who knows the difference between a tiefling and a genasi, or an Asari from an aasimar, at a sports bar; it’s another entirely at GenCon or Emerald City Comic Con. If you’re looking to meet your people, you want to go where your people are. You may well find geek curious folks at bars or clubs, but the odds will be a hell of a lot higher at the coffeehouse in a college town that’s near the local comic store.

In fact, the best advice I have for meeting amazing women who are right for you is simply to engage in your hobbies and passions in ways that bring you in contact with other people who share those interests and passions. This can mean going to boardgame nights at your local gaming store, participating in public D&D events, going to makerspaces, renfaires, or other places where your fellow geeks and nerds also hang out. Become a regular in those spaces and at those events, network and make friends and become part of the community. This will help you meet the geeks of your dreams… many of whom will also be interested in a dude who looks like a jock but also understand why the Crisis on Infinite Earths was a more significant event than Secret Wars.

Good luck.

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

Doctor’s Note: Around the start of a new year, I like to look back and re-answer some older questions as I would if I had received them today. Whenever possible, I answer them without having read my previous response, to see and how my advice has changed in the intervening years.

Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove: Revisited for 2026…

Today’s letter was originally published on October 21, 2019

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Before I start, I just wanted to say it gives me hope to know that you started out not being that great with women, and here you are now dispensing probably some of the best dating advice I have seen in my life, so it gives me hope. 

I will give a brief description of myself: I am pretty young at 18 years old still in high-school during my senior year. I think I look pretty good in the face, but I am very skinny for a guy of my height of 6’4. To give a image, if I was any skinner I would probably look like one of those starved POWs in those war crime pictures in history books. I am not anorexic, but I am afraid that whenever I get intimate with a girl she will go “ew”. I haven’t had a problem with that with any of my exes, but I don’t know what they really thought in their minds… 

Anyway, enough about me and to the meat of my problem. Senior ball is in February of next year near Valentines Day. I missed my junior prom due to my most recent ex breaking up with me a few weeks before it. This girl I am talking to right now is a really sweet person, but I don’t know how to connect with her. Well, I have known her for a year, she has flirted with me before but I never really got around to asking her out since I usually dated someone, or she dated someone. We aren’t close friends in the same social circle. 

Well I decided to ask her out early in the year to senior ball, so I wouldn’t have to stress over it when the time approaches, and because I want to date her. Well she did agree to go with me. Everything seems fine right? Well no, because just because she agreed to do that doesn’t me we are dating yet. I am planning on asking her out pretty soon, but there is a problem… How do I know she likes me enough to date me? 

I am a pretty shy person doc, and you have probably heard this before, but it seems like there are FEW girls in my area that share my interest and that are decent looking. How many girls do you know that live in rural south that collect Warhammer 40,000 miniatures, while reading every 40k book that comes out? Not many, and while I don’t need a GF that likes 40k, I just can’t really relate to many of them besides personality. 

So in the recent days I have been texting her, and one time we were in a middle of a conversation about animals since she is a avid animal lover, and she just stops texting back. Granted it was late at night so she could have just fallen asleep, but its been a day since then and she hasn’t replied back even though she has been online recently. I just feel like she’s not attracted to me enough for a real relationship, and I really don’t want to go to the ball or prom alone this year, so I don’t want to push too hard too early and ruin that chance. When we talk in person it just seems awkward, probably because I am slightly nervous. There aren’t many people I am interested in, and the few that I am are either taken, or I have no idea how to approach them. 

I can’t make a move, I can’t think of what to do next, and I sure as hell can’t flirt. I don’t know what to do Doc. 

Sincerely,

No Game No Life

DEAR NO GAME NO LIFE: Let me give you the advice you need the most right now, NGNL: it’s time to stop thinking so much. Seriously.

Here’s the thing: all the overthinking you’re doing is understandable. It’s a form of self-protection; you’re trying to avoid getting hurt and avoid making other people uncomfortable, and so you’re trying to make sure you’ve got all the angles covered. That’s all completely reasonable.

The problem is that these sorts of self-protection can grow out of proportion to the actual need. They metastasize and spread until they no longer actually serve your needs; instead, they end up putting you into analysis paralysis because you’re looking not only at every possible angle, but examining details and data that are so granular and nitpicky that you can’t possibly control for all of them.

Case in point: the lovely young woman you’re taking to the prom. This is a win, my guy. If you go with her to the prom and have a nice time together and nothing else happens… it’s an unquestionable win. Which is why it’s such a shame that you seem to be about to overthink yourself into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

You’ve pointed out that she already was flirting with you; that’s a positive sign that yes, she likes you. Y’know, on top of agreeing to go to prom with you. What about when she stopped responding to your messages? You already have the most likely answer: she fell asleep. Things felt stilted and awkward the next day because you felt awkward, because you have been running through all the angles like you’re analyzing the Zapruder film. Why did she not text the next day? Probably because you didn’t say anything. It’s a new day; instead of expecting her to pick things up where they left off, just send a different text. It can be literally anything that you would text any of your friends over – a funny meme, whatever TikTok made you laugh that you think she’d like, anything. Now you’re chatting again, until it reaches another natural lull, as every conversation does.

None of this is nearly as complicated as you make it out to be, and none of it requires as much stress as you’re putting yourself through. The ruminating doesn’t help; it only makes you more anxious, and you attempt to relieve that anxiety by trying to think it through even further, when what you need to do is just… nothing. Just let it all go, relax and enjoy the moment.

It’s like Bruce Lee said: “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” Right now, you’re focused on so many things and so many questions, that you’re at risk of missing out on just having a good time at prom. You’re worried about things that come after prom. No, going with you to prom doesn’t mean that you’re dating; she agreed to go with you on a date. Focus on the date and just enjoying that. Will she want to date you? Possibly… but the time to ask is after you have a good time at the prom.

Showing her a good time may not guarantee a “yes”, but getting lost in your head about it – or, worse, making it a bone of contention before prom – runs the risk of her deciding not to go to the prom with you at all. So for right now, take the win and just be ready to enjoy the prom.

Then, either at the end of the night or the next day, that is when you ask her if she wants to date. You’ll be coming off the high of prom, having a great time and, importantly, you’ll be a hell of a lot more relaxed and at ease, so things won’t feel so stiff and stilted.

Will she say yes? Who knows? She may well still say “I’m flattered, but no.” But even if she does, you will have had a great time at prom, instead of wasting time worrying and anxious or, y’know, having not gotten to go to prom at all.

Take a deep breath, slow your roll and take the wins, my guy. It’ll all work out. 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