DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m not really sure how to start with my question here. Basically, I’m a 25-year-old man, going to be 26 soon, and I haven’t had a real long-term romantic relationship since when I was in college before the pandemic. In that time, I’ve switched majors, changed schools, moved states to help my parents settle in to a new home, moved back to my home state, got my first degree, got employed, got a Master’s, and am now currently job-hunting for a position that will help me receive a certification that is required for another certification that will help me advance my career.

I make 21,000 a year currently and am set to make less initially after switching jobs, but with that certification I can potentially make six figures. I have been job-hunting for three months, have filed over 100 applications, been through about a dozen interviews, and have not yet been hired. The main issue is that I don’t have this one specific certification that is difficult to acquire unless you’re hired by a company that will help you get it (basically a catch-22 type thing). I live with my mother and I don’t pay rent; still, I buy all the food and I put most of the money I make towards my student loans + car payment. Plus, they spend half the year in Florida so I have the house (mostly) to myself during that time. To get my certification, I will either need to retake several classes or spend significant money on a different program that will still take months to achieve.

All that to say, I have really just been focusing on myself for the last 5 years. I still really don’t have a whole lot to show for it and I will only be making a decent amount of money in 2-3 years after I get those two certifications. I cannot move out due to rent in my area being prohibitively expensive – the cheapest apartments are 2,000 a month. I am also five foot seven and losing my hair, though I’m on medication for that, I don’t think looks are my main issue. Despite all this I still want to try and date, as my ultimate end goal in life is to get married and have children someday.

I guess what I’m really struggling with is how to get back into dating after such a long break. The expectations are a lot different from when I was in college (only making 21,000 a year is a hard sell when I’m trying to find a woman to buy a house and have kids with) and I am not naturally meeting new people like I used to. Here is what I have tried so far:

* I have been on and off dating apps since I was eighteen and have never gotten a single real date off of any of them.

* My aunt signed me up for a professional matchmaking service two years ago and I have not gotten a date from that either.

* I have already asked my sister to set me up with any friends but she does not have any who are interested in me.

* I have tried church but the women there are either uninterested, older than I am, or already married.

* In-person approaches (bars, parties, etcetera) have failed.

My “public-facing” hobbies are mostly male-oriented (TCGs, TTRPGs) so I can’t really meet women doing them. (Women do come but they are usually already partnered. I have made friends but it hasn’t proven conducive to actually finding a partner at this point. I’m not particularly close with any of them at this point so asking them to set me up with any single friends they may have would just kind of be awkward.) Aside from those hobbies I spend most of my time reading. I have considered joining a book club but most of the ones in my area are women-only or only meet online, which does not seem very helpful in finding a partner.

I guess my question is, is it worth bothering trying to date with the position I’m in currently, or should I just dedicate my time to improving myself more? I think I will have an easier time of all of this relationship stuff when I’m thirty, out of the house, and more well-off in my career, but also, I really don’t want to wait that long to have a girlfriend again, I’m kind of going insane here.

Are there any other things you think I could try and do? I’ve considered doing stand-up comedy. I know you suggest this to everyone but I really don’t want to do salsa dancing, so anything non-salsa dancing-related would be good. I’m open to any suggestions but that.

Thanks for your time.

Full Of Potential

DEAR FULL OF POTENTIAL: I’m going to level with you: you spend a lot of time laying out info that I ultimately edited out because very little of it was actually relevant. I realize it all seems important to you, but it’s demonstrating an important issue here: you – like a lot of men in similar circumstances – are focusing on all the wrong things if you’re hoping to find a relationship.

Case in point: your salary, living in your parents’ house and your career ambitions are all important to you. However, they’re far less important when it comes to actually meeting women. They matter in as much as you see them as impediments, but the fact is that those are your concerns, not the concerns women have about potential partners. Your problem is that you’re so zeroed in on them that you’re not seeing what you actually need to work on. Most of what you’re thinking of isn’t just putting the cart before the horse, you don’t even have a horse to put the cart before.

Your biggest impediment right now, for example, isn’t the fact that you (currently) only make 21k a year. Yeah, that would make it a challenge to raise a family; people do, and do so successfully, but it’s a serious challenge. However, unless you plan on getting married within months of meeting someone, that’s not something you need to worry about yet. This is you putting unnecessary obstacles in your path, especially if you are on the path to a significant pay bump in the near future. Women aren’t looking for someone who’s going to sweep them off their feet and immediately keep them in a lifestyle to which they intend to become accustomed; they just want to date someone who’s not going to be a drain on their finances, credit rating or time. If you’re at all responsible with money, living within your means and staying up on your monthly expenses, you’re clearing the bar just fine. You’re demonstrating that you’re a responsible adult, rather than a potential leech. The fact that you have a clear and well-established path to advancing in your career (and thus financial security) is a plus, not a prerequisite.

Similarly, your biggest impediment isn’t even the question of whether you have the time to fit a relationship into your life. Don’t get me wrong: this is an obstacle. A lot of people don’t consider how much time is invested in not just meeting people or getting dates, but in actually maintaining a relationship. The investment of time and energy needed to get an advanced degree – including the certification courses you need to take – can be immense. This can strain even pre-existing relationships of long-standing. Trying to start a relationship just as you’re returning to complete your education can make it even more difficult. But again, this is getting ahead of yourself. 

No, your biggest impediment is very simple: do you have the skills to meet someone? Do you have qualities – besides looks or money – that would make you a good partner for someone? Do you know what you bring to the metaphorical table and why someone would value those qualities? Because right now, it sounds like you don’t. This is where you want to invest your time and energy, whether you’re actively seeking out a relationship or not. You’re not going to have an easier time when you hit 30 if you’ve neglected developing your social skills in exchange for career and financial development instead. You may have a nice bank balance and apartment, but that’s not going to help if you can’t talk to women or get them to like you.

This tends to be a blind-spot that a lot of guys, especially guys your age, fall into. They focus on the aspects they think that women want, and assume that these are all self-executing. When they’re working on self-improvement, they tend to be working from a mindset that if they get the right body, the right hair, the right clothes, job or hobby, then the rest will fall into place for them with minimal effort on their part. Then, months or years later, I’m getting letters about why they have everything women want but they’re still single.

It’s Underwear Gnome logic – first step, get a six-figure job; second step, ???; third step, girlfriend! But the fact of the matter is that there is no level of abs, teeth or bank balance that make up for a lack of social skills, nor for a lack of initiative.

A relationship requires a proper foundation in order to work, but that foundation isn’t your bank account or career path. It’s in having the things that make you a good partner to someone – things like kindness, personal warmth, agreeability, shared values, ambitions and interests, emotional intelligence, communication skills, generosity, mutual affection and mutual respect. These are all about how you make people feel, rather than what you can provide. Women aren’t looking for someone to pay their bills, they’re looking for someone they want to spend their time with. Someone who makes them feel good when they’re together, the person they would want to be with, even when they’re both dealing with the Venusian Death Flu and hacking up viscous green goo that looks like it should be demanding to be taken to their leader.

That is the foundation of a strong relationship and the skills you should be working on cultivating. It doesn’t matter what your career prospects are if there’s no there, there. No method of meeting women – dating apps, matchmakers, asking to be set up – is going to make a difference if you don’t have the foundation that will make people want to spend time with you.

So my suggestion would be to stop focusing on getting dates and instead to focus on being social and building relationships – ones that aren’t just about finding someone who’s marriage material. Case in point: you’ve got casual friends in your hobby spaces, but you aren’t particularly close with them. Well, there’s your starting point – strengthening your friendships with them, presumably you actually like them.

You’ve dismissed other options as seeming to be less than ideal for meeting women. But if you take “a place to find dates” off the table, do they become more appealing, or do they stay the same? The book clubs could be a great time and a place to make friends (not dates, friends) … if it’s something you want to do for its own sake. If not, then all it’s going to be is a drain on your time and resources, and you’ll start to resent going.

The same applies to doing stand-up. Do you want to do stand-up comedy? Is this something you’d pursue, even if it weren’t I the name of self-development and meeting women? If so, then by all means, go for it! But if it’s just about trying to hit imaginary pre-reqs, then again, it’s going to be a waste of your time, money and energy… and frankly, it doesn’t sound like you’ve got a lot of free time to waste.

Now, if you want to incorporate personal development into this, you certainly can. The key, then, is to look at what aspects you want to work on and how you could develop them while also meeting your primary goal of being good company.

Partnered dancing, for example, is an area where you can reap a multitude of benefits. On a social level, a man who can dance and wants to dance is a man who will be in demand, whether at a dance hall, a party or a wedding. On a practical level, it’s a great way to learn to be more confident in your body and in being physical with others. Whether you’re talking about ballroom, swing or Latin dancing, dancing with a partner requires strong non-verbal communication, awareness and control of your body. A good dancer needs to have the ability to pay attention to multiple different things at once, and to be comfortable with initiating and maintaining physical contact with another person. All of these help build and improve various aspects of yourself that come into play in connecting with and interacting with others, especially people you’re attracted to.

It’s also incredibly fun… and helping people have fun with you makes them like you.

Similarly, you could take classes in acting, improv or other performing arts and work on the courage and confidence to put yourself forward in front of strangers, how to influence the way people perceive you and be aware of the message that your posture, facial expression and vocal intonation send. It would also give you a creative outlet, and potentially help you make new friends. And – again – it can be incredibly enjoyable for you in the process.

Now, if it seems like I’m putting a lot of emphasis on making friends and social networks, rather than self-improvement or getting a girlfriend… well, that’s where you’re right. Because here’s the thing: the skills for making friends and getting dates are exactly the same. You’re meeting strangers, connecting with them, finding commonalities, spending your time, sharing experiences and building emotional intimacy. The better you are at making friends and meeting people, the better you’ll be at finding someone you want to build a life with.

And like all skills, these are skills that are developed and honed by deliberate practice. Unlike many aspects in life, the credits absolutely transfer; if you are capable of talking to a stranger and becoming friends, you’re fully capable of talking to some baddie and getting a date.

So do yourself a favor: put dating to the side for the moment and instead focus on building your soft skills. Make friends of all stripes – acquaintances and familiar faces to nod at, activity friends, drinking buddies, lifelong connections and sisters and brothers from other mothers. Live an interesting, well-rounded life that’s spent far more in the physical world than behind a screen. Have reasons to get up and attack the day that go beyond “have to go to work”.

Not only will it make you someone that people will want to date, it’ll give you the skills and the confidence that you need to meet those people and start something magical with them.

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: Thank you for your help last time I wrote in. Two years later, I’ve been happily in a relationship for quite some time now and I’ve found that I’m in my happy place in a dedicated, steady relationship.

I’m writing in though, so of course, there’s a “but.” She’s poly, I’m (probably) monogamous. That’s a pretty big difference to navigate, I know, and not one with a ton of room for compromise. But having never tried polyamory, I’ve been willing to see how this is going to feel whenever she finds another partner before I dismiss it out of hand.

One problem: we’ve spent this entire time functionally living in a monogamous relationship and I’m still waiting. I’m not racing to get any new partners (I don’t know where I’d even find the time and energy). And she hasn’t met anyone. Not even a hookup.

I get that you can’t force romance to happen, but I’ve been waiting over a year to see how this is going to shake out and the open question *does* make me hold back in the relationship. I worry what will happen if the relationship keeps progressing as it has until one day, three years from now, she gets another partner and it turns out I can’t hang with polyamory. I’d rather find the answer to this question before discovering it means getting my heart broken or having to find a new apartment in a hurry.

We talk about it from time to time, and both of our preferences seem to be rooted in this fear of losing the relationship. I prefer monogamy because I fear a situation where she finds a new partner, gets carried by the new relationship energy, and now suddenly I’m second fiddle to the new guy. She’s expressed in the past that she likes polyamory because if I suddenly fall for someone else, that doesn’t mean she’s going to get ditched for them. We both seem to have the same anxiety that we’re attacking from opposite directions.

Now, there are a few pretty big reasons why this might all just be in my head, which is why I felt the need to write. For one, she *does* have other existing partners, and nothing she does with them particularly upsets me. But when she talks about them, they sound less like active romantic partners and more like exes she’s still on good terms with. All of them are old flames, one will drop by and hang out with her once every six months for a few hours, and she’s always pretty quick to stress that they don’t have sex. And look, I’m not here to police who does and doesn’t get the partner label, but if there’s *zero* romantic or sexual attraction, that’s all it is. Not exactly the live-fire scenario I’m worried about when I picture polyamory.

For another, she’s been very clear that I’m her primary partner and she doesn’t really seem to even be looking for another one. When things were starting to get serious between us, she also made a point of deleting our dating apps, which doesn’t exactly signal she’s looking for anyone else. And she’s always been incredibly respectful with me and never given me any reason to ever distrust her, so I know there’s nothing happening behind my back either.

All signs point to the idea that she’s perfectly happy with how things are, I have nothing to worry about, and we’re just going to keep being in what I would call a monogamous relationship… except for the fact that she says she doesn’t want to be. And I believe her, so I assume that one day, that’s going to change.

So what do you think? Am I just hung up on buzzwords and bracing for a day that’ll never come? I feel like I can’t really progress this relationship any further until I see my girlfriend’s polyamory in action, but she seems almost actively disinterested in following through on it. So I’m kind of just sitting here in the middle treading water, and I’m not sure how to navigate this situation. But I also recognize that this may just be me getting worked up over nothing, this *is* her polyamory in action, and I have nothing to worry about. I’d appreciate a more experienced and nuanced perspective.

-Goldilocks in Love

DEAR GOLDILOCKS IN LOVE: I’m going to do something I don’t do very often and get a little behind-the-scenes on today’s letter. GIL wrote back not long later to say “hey, things worked out!”, saying that writing things out helped him get his thoughts organized. That, in turn, helped him talk things through with her to address his concerns, which lead to a productive discussion between the two of them and helped resolve things happily for the both of them. I’ll share the second letter – and my reply – next week.��Now, the reason why I’m still running this letter for the same reason why I will occasionally run a letter I firmly believe to be fake: because most of the time, the advice is as much for people in similar circumstances as it is for the person writing in. If there’s something that could be helpful for the readers as much as the letter writer, then that’s a net positive for everyone.

And to be perfectly honest; GIL’s situation isn’t unusual or uncommon, especially for folks who are either exploring polyamory and ethical non-monogamy for the first time or for someone who’s partner has expressed interest in opening up the relationship.

So, turning things back to the letter: one of the most frequently recurring issues that I see in discussions about polyamory and ethical non-monogamy is the potential threat to the current relationship. That is, the person who isn’t – or may not be – poly fears opening up the relationship because of what may happen. The “what” tends to vary, ranging from “I don’t know how I will feel when my partner starts dating” to “I’m afraid this will destroy our relationship”.

Now to be clear: these aren’t unreasonable or unfounded worries! It’s not just a case of “your feelings are real and valid”, but “yeah, there’s a non-zero chance that these negative situations could occur.” In fact, many times, there’s a bigger issue in how those fears get dismissed or disregarded.

The problem is that these fears come up, in part because of how we regard monogamy vs. non-monogamy. Non-monogamy makes those fears and worries feel more present and immediate because of how the relationship model directly challenges the myth of monogamy. We treat monogamy almost like a magic shield, where all the fears people have about non-monogamy couldn’texist in a closed relationship. But the fact of the matter is that people get jealous of their partner’s other emotional or social connections in closed relationships. Partners cheat, catch feelings for other people and leave to be with someone else, even when they’ve made a firm monogamous commitment. The only difference, possibly the most important one, is that in a closed relationship, people feel like they have permission to be upset or bothered by this. In an open relationship, there’s almost a sense of “well, you knew what you were signing up for, so suck it up, buttercup.”

That’s not true, but it is part of the cultural conditioning that comes with the cultural that monogamy is natural, superior and that we are all capable of executing it perfectly and effortlessly. Monogamy doesn’t fail people, people fail monogamy.

Needless to say, this doesn’t make for a productive place to actually deal with those worries. Behaving as though this wouldn’t be a problem if you just did $INSERT_RELATIONSHIP_MODEL_HERE correctly is a great way to blow up a relationship before you so much as see a storm cloud on the horizon.

The best way to deal with situations like this isn’t default to keeping the relationship closed until the wary partner is reassured, nor is it to say “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead to relationship anarchy”. It’s to dig into what’s actually behind those fears and address the cause, rather than the symptom. So, the first real step to resolving these worries is to understand precisely what the person feeling anxious is afraid will happen.

Most often, the issue is one of jealousy – the fear that someone else will be taking something away from the partner experiencing it. But even just stopping at jealousy and assuming that’s the root cause can be short-sighted. Jealousy doesn’t just spring up out of a sense of “someone touched my stuff!”; it tends to come from other emotional issues, fears or past experiences. Jealousy, after all, tends to be the emotional equivalent of a “check engine” light; it’s an indication that there may be a need that’s not being met. To deal with jealousy, you first have to address the cause – that trigger or unmet need.

Someone with an insecure or anxious attachment style, for example, may feel jealousy because they have never felt like they could trust that the people that love them won’t abandon them. They worry that their partner will stop caring for them, in part because they’ve experienced inconsistent care and love in the past. In cases like that, trying to explain that love isn’t a zero-sum game is unhelpful, because it’s not a case of “I feel like your loving someone else will mean less love for me”, it’s a case of “the people I love arbitrarily stop loving me”. It’s not a case of getting less pie, it’s about getting a slice of pie and then having it yanked back with no warning, and seemingly no reason.

You can’t exactly resolve this fear by saying “don’t worry, this won’t happen.” After all, from the perspective of the person experiencing jealousy, it’s not theoretical. It has happened before. It may not have played out the way they remember or experienced it – our emotions color and edit our memories, after all – but it sure as hell feels like it did. So saying “don’t worry, it won’t go down like that” doesn’t help, because that feels like a lie at best.

Now, another core part about what makes fear and anxiety, well… fear and anxiety… is the feeling of uncertainty. Not just not knowing whether it’s going to happen, but also the idea of not knowing that to do about it if and when it does. People, as a general rule, don’t like feeling out of control. It makes them feel helpless and powerless, at the mercy to the cruel vicissitudes of fate. The fear becomes a matter of “if this happens, then the Bad Ending will definitely happen, because nothing can stop it”.

The antidote to this anxiety is simple: rather than downplaying the possibility that Bad Things will happen, address the feeling of helplessness. It’s to give the person feeling that fear a sense of agency and control in the event that this comes to pass. If someone feels that they have the tools to handle the situation, they feel that they have actual influence over the outcome. So, while the event may still be deeply unpleasant, it doesn’t feel like an inevitable “game over”.

This is why my advice to people in GIL’s position – or in the position of GIL’s partner – is to have An Awkward Conversation about how they feel and what they’re worried about. The goal should first be to express what they’re afraid of happening and why they’re afraid of it. Not just “I’m afraid that you’re going to get caught up in the NRE of it and I get downgraded to secondary”, but why you worry about this. Is it, for example, feeling like you don’t have enough inherent value or worth that you would be a priority in your partner’s life? Is it a fear that their love and affection is conditional, temporary or, worse, a mistake?

Once you have an idea of the why of it, the next step is to discuss how you will deal with this problem when it happens. Discuss what, in an ideal world, would be the way to help ease your fear. If you’re afraid that your partner is going to leave you because they’re twitterpated over someone new, then what are the things that they can do to help you realize that this isn’t happening? Would it help, for example, for your partner to make a point of giving you a little more care and affection? Or would reserving a particular night or occasion for the two of you help you feel more secure in your relationship together? How could your partner demonstrate love in a way that you can both recognize and receive?

Knowing your receiving “love language” is key here, because it helps ensure that their reassurance comes in a form that you will see as reassurance. Do you respond more effectively to words of validation or affirmation? To quality time together? To physical affection and touch? The more you can guide them to the best way to reach you, the easier it will be when you have these moments.

Similarly, how can you signal to your partner that you’re having these feelings? What is a simple and easily-understood way you can indicate that you need them to love you a little louder? Is there a code word that you could use? Arranging a signal or sign in advance that you can easily put into practice can be reassuring in and of itself. Simply knowing you have a way of asking for help when you need it can ease the anxiety, even if you never actually use it.

Please note very carefully that I don’t use a conditional here; it’s not “if”, it’s “when” this comes up. Conditionals exist on the ideas that the thing you fear won’t happen, which isn’t actually reassuring. It risks the possibility that you won’t ask for help when you need it, because you feel like your asking for it would imply that you’re irrational or absurd for feeling this way. “When”, on the other hand, means that you have the tools at hand and you’re ready for this situation.

I also recommend “when”, because it puts the emphasis on the feeling, rather than on the thing you fear. It’s not “when you inevitably leave me for your new partner”, it’s “when I feel the fear that you will inevitably leave me”. Shifting this focus puts the attention on the worry, a reminder that feels are not reals. A feeling is just that, a feeling, not prophecy or a state of being. The thing you feel isn’t necessarily happening, it’s just what you’re afraid is happening. The fear is not the event, it’s just fear, and fear can be managed, diminished and ultimately dispelled.

Now, there’re a lot of people who feel like having these contingencies in place make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much like asking for a pre-nup, having plans for “what if this happens” can feel as though you’re saying it will happen – that you don’t have faith either in your partner, yourself or your relationship. But what this actually is saying is that you recognize the challenges and the potential pitfalls; much like home insurance, it’s something you put into place, not because you expect to need it, but because it means that if the worst happens, you’re ready. You’re not expecting failure or predicting failure, you’re putting a lesser effort in now in order to ensure that you don’t have to expend far more later on – effort and resources that you may not have and their lack could lead to worse outcomes.

The last thing I will suggest, especially if neither of you have experience in ENM or poly relationships, is to do your due diligence and research. While you can’t know how you will react or feel before it happens, having a roadmap of what you may encounter, the likely hazards, how to avoid them, how to manage them and the vocabulary to express yourselves is invaluable. There’re are a number of resources out there, especially as polyamory and ENM gain wider acceptance; personally, I recommend Tristan Taormino’s “Opening Up”, Dr. Liz Powell’s “Building Open Relationships” and Dossie Easton and Janet Hardey’s “The Ethical Slut.” 

(And as always, full disclosure: Dr. Powell is a personal friend as well as my co-host on the upcoming podcast “Do As We Say, Not As They Did”.)

So, if you’re in a position similar to GIL here, do your homework and make a point to talk it out. Set aside time to have the first of an ongoing series of discussions with your partner, lay out what you’re worried about and the ways you think would help you handle them. Let your partner share their feelings and suggestions too; a relationship is a collaborative partnership after all. You both may experience the fear or anxiety individually, but you’re in the relationship together. Solve it as a team and you make the team stronger.

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 recently been set off by a new T-shirt being sold at Target that literally says “Dump Him.”

Imagine if Target also sold a shirt that said “Dump Her.” There would be outrage. Articles. Think pieces. Corporate apologies. Probably a recall within a week.

But “Dump Him” is fine. It’s funny. It’s empowering. It’s a joke we’re all expected to laugh at.

And that’s kind of the problem.

This isn’t about one shirt. It’s about how casually and openly society accepts contempt for men in ways that would be unthinkable if the genders were reversed. Men are the only group where you can publicly mock, belittle, or generalize them and still be considered progressive, enlightened, or even morally superior.

We see it everywhere: “Men are trash.” “I hate men.” “Dump him.” Dating advice that is built on the assumption that men are defective until proven otherwise. There was literally an article from a couple of months ago that asked if having a boyfriend is embarrassing! No wonder the Human race’s birthrates are declining. It’s like Children of Men voluntarily…

And before the obvious rebuttal: yes, men have historically held power. Yes, misogyny exists and is real. But acknowledging those truths doesn’t magically make blanket hostility toward men healthy, productive, or fair, especially for young men who are growing up after many of the legal and cultural battles have already been fought. Why do I have to suffer for s--t that other humans did before I was born?

What’s frustrating is that this kind of rhetoric doesn’t help women either. It doesn’t create better relationships, more trust, or healthier dating dynamics. Instead, it just normalizes resentment as humor and teaches men that they should expect suspicion, contempt, or dismissal as a baseline, and thus creates more bitterness between the sexes. You keep telling people (such as myself in previous letters I’ve written to you) that people need to touch grass. Well, all the people on the metaphorical grass don’t want to even be talked to in the first place anymore, thanks to “jokes” like these, and when they do, they are already judging.

Then we turn around and ask:

Why are men withdrawing from dating?

Why are so many young men bitter, defensive, or checked out?

Why do men feel like they’re constantly auditioning for basic human decency?

When you grow up seeing your gender treated as a punchline or worse, as a problem to be managed, you internalize that. You either shut down, lash out, or become overly self-policing to avoid being labeled “one of the bad ones.” How do you think this will affect young boys between 8-13, seeing stuff like this?

I’m not asking for men to be coddled. I’m asking why we’ve decided that equality somehow includes the right to publicly sneer at half the population without pushback. Why is the cultural response to male loneliness, confusion, or frustration is so often “work harder” and be quiet instead of “let’s examine what we’re doing.” It’s like women still just want Gary Cooper (a Gary Cooper that has a broccoli haircut and drinks matcha).

At what point does “punching up” just become punching? And how do we course-correct without immediately being accused of defending sexism simply for wanting basic fairness?

What About The Men?

DEAR WHAT ABOUT THE MEN: Well, it’s been a while since someone’s tried to launder men’s rights talking points on here. I guess we were due for a letter like this one.

But man, I wish there was some actual originality or effort put into it. Or even an actual problem.

But hey, I’ve got deadlines to meet, word count to hit, and sometimes the question bucket gets a little low. So, y’know, send in your dating advice questions, folks, because the dead horse beatings will continue until question quality improves.

OK, so here’s how this is gonna go, my guy. We’re gonna break things down so you realize just how absurd this argument is, point out all the places that are rather clearly bulls--t, which ones are attempts at rhetorical tricks, answer some of the questions you clearly didn’t intend to be answered, and then tell you what the real solution is.��Strap in, readers, this is going to be a long one.

We’re going to start with the observation that if you’re honestly and sincerely triggered by a t-shirt that’s a throw-back to a shirt Britney Spears wore more than twenty years ago after breaking up with Justin Timberlake, and has been a staple of Millennial women’s Halloween costumes ever since, in a section of Target that you don’t shop in or visit, and are borrowing talking points from self-proclaimed Men’s Rights Grift^H^H^H^H Advocates on Instagram, then you have too few problems in your life and you should really go find a real issue to work on.

Which is to say: I don’t believe this actually bothers you. Sorry. I don’t. You’re looking for an axe to grind and you didn’t even find your own; you had to borrow someone else’s. Multiple somebodies, judging by the bouillabaisse of bulls--t you’re making.

Leaving aside that “Tu Quoque” is a hackneyed fallacy, I don’t have to imagine if Target sold “Dump Her” shirts, because Target and many, many other retailers have sold “Game Over” shirts showing cutesy stick-figures of wedding toppers where the man is either in hand-cuffs or wearing a ball and chain or in one memorable case, pointing a gun to his head for decades. Or variations of “I Support Single Mothers”, with images of pole-dancing women. Also, multiple versions of shirts showing guys shoving people aside for “sexier” women, shirts reading things like “FBI: Female Body Inspector”,” “No Fat Chicks”, “If you Can Read This, The B--ch Fell Off”, and for those of us who grew up in the 90s, a seemingly infinite number of iterations on “Big Johnson” jokes.

And that’s without getting into, say, advertising that questions the sexuality and masculinity of men who eat salads or who drink diet soda, advocates blowing smoke into women’s faces to make them fall in love with you, treating women like possessions or literal prizes, and telling you that a gun restores your manhood, especially when you’re feeling emasculated by a t-shirt that has been a staple of millennial women’s Halloween costumes for close to two decades.

Or, while I’m at it, the various posts online about how hard it is to be a man because you have to be a jacked millionaire in order to date someone who has a “body count” of 15, with the additional context that this is the work you have to do to get a “used” woman and the implication that a woman with even fewer past partners (or an actual virgin) is a feat of Homeric legend and not something that can be done by anyone other than a demigod. Or the far-too-many-to-count videos about why women don’t know their place, why it’s unfair that some men just don’t “get” to have children or why women have it so much easier in dating.

The problem here is that you’re not actually arguing with facts to back yourself up. The argument that “this is the only group that can be made fun of with impunity” falls rather short when fatphobia not only still exists but is actively encouraged socially, in pop culture and on social media, as do jokes about the poor and unhoused; when “edgy” comedians get Netflix specials specifically to make fun of anyone who isn’t straight, cisgendered and sufficiently “manly”; the richest man in the world uses his social media platform to mock queer people, people of color and immigrants; and the US government is making fun of “triggered libs”, using stereotypes that were stale and outdated ten years ago. Or did you miss the President, Vice-President and various cabinet members talking about the plague of “wine moms” at protests?

I would even point out that there are multiple high-profile podcasts and YouTube channels that exist specifically for angry young men to watch the hosts insult women to their faces and offer their listeners the opportunity to pay money for the privilege of having their insults read, either by the host or text-to-speech apps, before then putting said women on scales in order to compare their weight to their supposed rating on a 1-to-10 scale.

So, y’know, apparently your problem is mostly not knowing where to turn to find sufficiently anti-female, anti-queer and anti-woke material to counteract the supposed misandry, which sounds like a skill issue to me.

But hey, what’re a few bad-faith arguments between friends?

See, the problem here is that you’re mouthing arguments without actually understanding them, pulling out one-liners that you think win the argument for you with neither thought nor context behind them and otherwise letting other people’s pre-digested and pre-chewed rhetoric do the talking for you. 

After all, to say that the “cultural battles have been fought” would imply that said battles aren’t still going on, which is quite the belly laugh considering that the Supreme Court rolled back abortion rights in 2022, states implemented laws that violate people’s rights to privacy regarding sex and birth control, tried to revive the Comstock Act, attempted to restrict women’s right to travel and have imprisoned women for having miscarriages. Just a few random examples, completely off the top of my head.

And this is before we get into laws banning drag shows, prosecuting trans people for trying to exist, and multiple pundits, influencers, religious leaders, elected politicians and cabinet members who are not only actively rolling back women’s rights to serve in the military, but also to do things like vote, work outside the home or have a purpose outside of raising children. To be honest, I could save us both some time and just point you to the many places where you could read about The Heritage Foundations “Project 2025”, which lays out these goals in great detail.

See, the little rhetorical trick of saying “men held (past tense) the power” implies that this is no longer the case. But seeing as in 2023, only 32% of state representatives were women, 25% of US senators were women, 29% of the House of Representatives, and exactly one (1) woman who’s ever served as Vice-President and 0 as President, it doesn’t seem that women have overtaken the levers of power yet. Similarly, only 20% of Fortune 500 CEOs were women, and 30.4% serve on boards of said Fortune 500 companies and approximately 33% served as president of US colleges and universities. While a massive improvement over the arc of history, that still would seem to bely the idea that women now have the power – politically, socially or economically.

Now, I could answer the question of “why should I suffer for the s--t other humans (again, nice rhetorical trick here) did before I was born” by talking about how men benefit from systems set up and still in place (which, incidentally, the current administration would call “DEI” and thus “illegal”, which is the reason why they’ve pressured colleges, universities and private businesses from pursuing diversity initiatives that would bring more equity between the genders). But instead, I will simply point out that you’re using the past tense, as though the battles have already been won and done.

Except the problem with saying that these were all battles of the past would imply that it’s the long-ago days before our enlightened era would be the fact that women didn’t have the right to things like having bank accounts and credit cards in their name. Not, that is, until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974, a year which is still within living memory of your parents and grandparents. It was legal to fire women for getting pregnant until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and additional laws – including the Family and Medical Leave Act (passed in 1996) and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (passed in 2023) – were found to be necessary to close loopholes that employers were exploiting to discriminate against any employees who got pregnant or chose to start a family.

Oh, and spousal rape wasn’t illegal in all 50 states until 1993, and even then, not treated the same as non-marital rape until 2019 in some states, and many states – including Nevada, Mississippi and Idaho still won’t call it rape if it doesn’t involve “forcible penetration”.

So, y’know. It’s still an on-going problem, not something that happened a long time ago, in a far-away land. Which is precisely the problem with your “but what if things were reversed” argument. In a world where we had achieved true equity and parity between the sexes, then yes, it would be equally bad. Except we haven’t, and so these comparisons have to be made in the context of the world as it actually is. And in this world, s--t ain’t equal.

Especially when on one side, you have hurt feelings and the other, you have people looking at how to rescind the 19th Amendment.

Now, claiming that this sort of humor “doesn’t help women” is kinda funny, seeing as how “helping” isn’t the point. It’s venting frustrations that women feel, almost always to other women and people with similar experiences, and because the alternative is screaming. 

So, unless you want to try to insist that these aren’t things women actually feel or deal with (and if you do, please give me ample time to get to a safe distance first), you’re kinda missing the point of the humor in the first place. Unless you genuinely think that those aforementioned “No Fat Chicks” t-shirts and dudes paying literally thousands of dollars to hear their questions on “Whatever” are meant to help men.

The great irony of it all is that you could, in fact, make an argument about how the state of the world for men is bad. Because it is! It’s rather horrible for men, especially young men growing up right now. Except the reason why it’s horrible for young men is entirely due to other men �– the men who push, promote and encourage toxic, restrictive hegemonic notions of what it means to be a man and how men are supposed to behave.

Why does (supposed) dating advice presume men are “deficient until proven otherwise”? Well, because men have been taught, directly and indirectly, that emotional intelligence is for p--sies (a term I use deliberately, here), that sex enhances men but degrades women, that men can’t be friends with women because sex gets in the way, but also can’t be close friends with other men because that’s gay. That men have no value outside of violence or money, that social status is dependent on your capacity for both and that the role of women is to be the supporting character in a man’s story. That admitting to having problems or experiencing emotions like anxiety, fear or sadness makes you weak, that liking women makes you a “simp” and nobody actually respects women, they just say so to get laid and/or are gay.

What do I think the effects of growing up feeling like your identity is a punchline? I dunno my dude, I’m a straight, cisgendered white man; the entirety of my existence has been one of nigh-constant unearned praise and validation and often old-fashioned stolen valor. You should probably be asking people of color (particularly black men), queer people (especially gay and bi men and trans people) and women in general what it’s like instead.

Or you could actually pay attention to all the ways that boys 8-13 are insulted, belittled, mocked and told that the way they feel and behave is wrong and needs to be corrected or else and how that affects them?

Well, as it turns out… it causes them to have stunted social skills and emotional intelligence, few close friends and a reduced ability to make new friends or foster emotionally intimate relationships, reduced empathy, impeded ability to manage or maintain romantic relationships, increased incidents of violent behavior, substance abuse, sexual misconduct and poor mental health. This, incidentally, was all laid out in the documentary “The Mask You Live In”, which I highly recommend that you check out.

In fact, to answer some of the rhetorical questions you posit:

Men aren’t “withdrawing” from dating, they’re CHOOSING not to date. This isn’t even a “male” issue, it’s Gen-Z overall. Even the whole MGTOW schtick isn’t a thing anymore; it peaked in 2017 and has dropped like a rock ever since. And they’re not dating in part because boys are taught that “soft skills” are useless, given fewer and fewer opportunities to socialize freely with their peers, and also an entire generation had their formative years disrupted by a global pandemic that forcibly isolated them from friends and classmates.

Because men have been told that to expect status and power by following a particular social script that has been increasingly out of date and reliant on an economy and social structures that haven’t existed for more than 60 years, and are then being blamed for “failing” when they don’t manage to achieve said status or power. Moreover, they’re told that their status and power has been “stolen” from them or is otherwise being withheld from them by – depending on which bobble-throated slapdick you care to listen to – women, “feminism”, immigrants, “the Matrix”, or “The Globalists”.

Leaving aside that you don’t have a functioning definition of what you mean by “basic human decency”, they’re being held to standards of “be a goddamn person” and many of them are failing miserably, refusing to examine the suppositions and presumptions that lead them to fail, and are actively encouraged to blame other people for not following social norms that actively harm them and not existing in an economic system that hasn’t existed in over 80 years and was actually an aberration based on the fallout from World War I and World War II.

See the issue here is “misandry” in as much in that it’s disgust for men… it’s just coming from other men and the small handful of women trying to exploit a vulnerable audience. 

I mean, s--t, even you get in on the mocking and belittling men. You couldn’t even make it through your letter without making a joke about men with “effeminate” hair styles and drinks. And then you compound it by implying that the only response men could possibly have is to break down and fail in the face of not-having-all-the-praise, instead of, I dunno, examining what’s being said, seeing if it actually applies, working on the things that do and otherwise disregarding the s--t that doesn’t.

I mean, after all, you can’t possibly think that men and boys can’t recognize the difference between hyperbole and actual social criticism, nor tell when criticism applies to them vs. when it doesn’t. Right? 

You don’t even manage to get three sentences past “I’m not asking for men to be coddled” before making the comparison that this is “like women still only want Gary Cooper”. Ok, so? What’s the alternative? Demanding that women be into someone else, regardless of how they feel?

No, seriously, if it were true that all women only wanted One Type of Guy – it’s not, but let’s just roll with it – then there comes a point where you basically have to work on being that guy if you want to get a date. I hate to be the one to tell you this but if women only want to date Gary Cooper, maybe you need to get your Gary Cooper on.  If you expect to get jerked off by the Invisible Hand Of The Free (Dating) Market, you have to supply what people demand. 

You also do the very stereotypically “guy” thing of not actually listening when folks explain the problem with “the male loneliness epidemic” (it’s male in as much as everyone focuses on men and ignores the women who are ALSO experiencing loneliness and isolation at record levels) and act as though being told that the answer is “stop treating emotionally intimate relationships with other men as being sus, and stop demanding that women solve the problem for you” as “sit down, shut up and stop complaining”.

The answer IS, in fact, “work harder”, because the work men need to be doing is develop their social skills, cultivate their emotional intelligence, talk to more people and have friendships with other men that actually encourage closeness and intimacy without fear of being called “fag”.  

Oh, and also to recognize how often you do the “sneer at other people with no social pushback” yourselves; you just pat yourself on the back for being edgy and iconoclastic for doing so, as though there were penalties besides other people thinking you’re kind of a dick for doing so.

(And to forestall the inevitable, I will point out that Louis CK is touring and headlining comedy festivals, Dave Chapelle had two Netflix specials and raved about how much crowds in Saudi Arabia loved his trans jokes, Bill Cosby is out of prison, Kill Tony has approximately 2.2 million subscribers on YouTube alone and the Comedy Mothership exists. So, cancelation and social pushback only seems to count if you’re Roseanne Barr.)

The issue isn’t women getting free reign to hate on men, my guy. The issue is that you don’t like feeling as though you’re being treated the way that men treat women. Moreover, you’re upset that not only are women saying “hey, this sucks and most of the way society is set up is actively harmful for us and men”, but also that women are looking at what they’re being offered and saying “nah, thanks”, because we’re at a point in history where women’s survival isn’t dependent on being in a relationship with a man.

More to the point, however, is that you’re complaining about social rules and standards that have been handed down to you by men, enforced primarily by other men, and that only benefits certain men. When people try to make changes to the system to make it more equitable, men treat it like an affront – complaining about men in dangerous jobs while simultaneously preventing women from doing those jobs, just as an example. Kinda hard to complain about how men do all the fighting and dying in wars when the current Secretary of Defense is busy trying to purge women (and people of color) from the military entirely.

You are, quite frankly, being exploited by the very men who benefit from this system the most, who want you angry and confused and upset, because that allows them to manipulate you and sell you bulls--t cures that don’t actually work. I would point out to you that “patriarchy” doesn’t mean rule by men”, it means “rule by fathers”, and most men will not be ALLOWED to become the fathers. Unless you think that Andrew “I scam everybody” Tate honestly has your best interests at heart.

If you want s--t to be better, then you’re going to have to be one of the people fighting to make it better. It means recognizing that you were sold bulls--t and told that it was steak, the fact that it isn’t steak is your fault for not being sufficiently manly, and the only way to turn it into steak is to eat it up yum yum and then man even harder than before.

The path to things being better means leaving those toxic, hegemonic ideas about masculinity behind, fostering greater emotional awareness and fluency, stronger social bonds, pro-social values and actual genuine equity… without complaining that it’s unfair that you have to do so in the first place. It may be the system that you were born into, but that doesn’t excuse you or me or anyone else from ending that system and building one that’s better for everyone.

But sure, blame it all on a t-shirt. That doesn’t make you sound unreasonable at all.

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