DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been involved in a relationship for the past 7 years with a man to whom I kept at a distance for 5 of those years. Once he moved in with me I noticed he had a bad addiction to alcohol.

Most of the time, things were fine. He worked, he helped with the bills and we were still close. We danced on the sidewalks, we sang together we played together, but the problem is that his drinking spun out of control.

While I was in the process of remodeling my home, his drinking was at a all time high. He hit me, then swore he would never to do this again. I believed him.

Two months later when cooking in the kitchen, the dark side took over he grabbed me by the hair threw me to the ground and choked me to the point that I saw white and feeling like I was passing out and losing control. During this I bit his finger as hard as I could, and pinched him until I drew blood. Once he let go I got up and had three blows to the back of my head. I called the police and had him arrested.

How could all of this come from someone I loved?

The thing is, he was drunk off his ass when he did this to me. He spent 3 months in jail. He is now in treatment and has not drank a drop since then. He is in therapy and doing great. We can speak on the phone, we can text, but the courts have a partial no contact order.

My older kids have stated they will not speak with me if I give this man another chance. I love him, and he is doing great with rehab. When he’s sober, he’s the great guy I have known him for over 30 plus years — since high-school, really.

Do you have any suggestions in this regard? I feel torn and confused.

Lisa’s Being Torn Apart

DEAR LISA’S BEING TORN APART: Yes, I have a suggestion. You delete his number, his email, block him on every form of social media, put everything of his in a box and ship it somewhere else, and then get the ever-loving hell away from him. You hop the Nope Train to F

kThatSh*tVille with stops in OhHellNo and ByeFelipe and be grateful he didn’t hurt you worse.

It’s very sweet that you’re such a forgiving soul. I try to be as well. I like to believe that people can change. But, I’m sorry: I’m glad he’s doing great with rehab but when someone is trying to choke you to unconsciousness (IF NOT, Y’KNOW TRYING TO KILL YOU) and hitting you in the head, he’s out of chances.

That’s a “get the hell out of Dodge” clause right then and there. Do not pass Go, do not believe his promises to be better. Assault, battery and attempted murder are all relationship extinction level events and I don’t care how good he is now that he’s sober again.

I would suggest buying yourself a copy of The Gift of Fear and Why Does He Do That? and read up on abusers and abuse tactics. There’s almost always a honeymoon period (or several periods) after abuse – especially if it involves things like court-mandated rehab and jail time – where the abuser promises things are better and is the same person you loved before.

Is he truly better? Well, in an infinite universe, anything is theoretically possible. But not only am I severely inclined to doubt it in this case, it’s also a case involving horrific assaults on top of everything else. I’ve seen folks who’ve acted like that and made a big hew and cry about how much better they were. Guess what? They were still manipulative bastards afterwards and kept at it.

Thank your lucky damn stars that you’re no longer with him, and get him out of your life and never look back.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been working at my current company a little over a year, and basically developed feelings for this coworker. I had thought initially that she was interested in me as well, which is what resulted in me asking her out to coffee.

Well turns out, she didn’t like me, and nicely rejected me by saying that she was “talking with someone else” and didn’t feel like it was fair to me to go out with me as well. I was pretty stunned, as I had been pretty sure that she was indeed interested in me (She had asked about me, if I was in a relationship e.t.c).

Regardless of the reasons, or what was there or wasn’t, I got rejected, and that should’ve been the end of the story. There was a bit of awkwardness between us for a few days, but we relaxed back into just friendly coworkers.

I actually started to move on, joined a dating site, and began looking elsewhere (as one should). Now here’s where one of my most stupid mistakes to date happened.

See, this coworker of mine, was on the site as well, and turned up as one of my best matches. I was perplexed, confused, and had the stupid idea that maybe the thing with the other guy hadn’t worked out.

So I asked her out via the dating site messaging… again.

Yeah…

In retrospect that was the most bone-headed move ever, and it got about the same result as you’d expect. Turns out the the rejection before had just been a “soft” no (as you’ve talked about at length here), rather than her just not being interested in me at all.

To say I felt ashamed and stupid was putting it mildly. I had basically failed to take the hint the first time, and just unintentionally badgered this girl a second time.

She nicely said no in her message but her attitude at work changed quite a bit. She’s now completely ignoring me and everything to do with me. Which is problematic because we’re both kind of in the same area, albeit on different teams. There is a pretty evident source of anger, avoidance and just flat out annoyance it feels like now.

And the thing is I get why. I messed up, I realize that, but what I’m confused about is what I should do now. I can’t exactly leave my job at the moment or transfer to another department, and my instincts are telling me to just apologize to her somehow and fix this.

She clearly DOES have a problem with the fact that I asked her out twice, which, you know, fair enough. But I’m not exactly sure how to resolve this.

Do I ask her for a second of her time and just promptly apologize in person? Do I send an e-mail? We’re friends on Facebook, should I apologize there?

Or… Should I just leave everything alone and just try and deal with it. It’s getting exceedingly uncomfortable and awkward, to the point where it’s starting to not only look odd, but is bothering me as well.

What should I do Doc? I really am at a loss for what to do? I don’t want to make things worse and make her want to call HR or something like that. I’m decently experienced with turning people down and being turned down, but this workplace thing has me really confused.

I’d appreciate some of your insight on the matter.

Regards,

Trying to Fix This

DEAR TRYING TO FIX THIS: Dude. Things were fine when you asked her out and she turned you down. It was a little awkward at first but you acted like things were no big deal and everyone was happy.

Then you had to go and screw it all up by trying again, this time via a dating site.

Not gonna lie man: that sort of thing can feel a little less like “boneheaded mistake” and more “are you trying to find me everywhere I go?”

Yeah, I know you didn’t mean it that way. You know you didn’t mean it that way. But you have to look at it from her perspective: you didn’t take “no” for an answer and then went out of your way to ask her out somewhere else.

The biggest issue here is that you’re co-workers. You see each other every day. Imagine if you hadn’t seen her on Tinder or Plenty of Fish or whatever but you ran into her at a seedy singles bar and hit on her there. That’s going to feel uncomfortable to folks, like you’ve been putting on this persona at work but now that you’re not there, rules change. You didn’t even bring it up in person, just sprung it on her out of the clear blue sky.

The fact that you approached her online was just a little weird, even if you didn’t have that first rejection under your belt. So now it’s a little like “hey, found you here!” and “so, now that I know where you hang out, how about that date?”

So what do you do?

Well, you just let it go. I get that you want to apologize, but part of apologizing means doing it in a way that doesn’t make things even more uncomfortable and awkward. What she almost certainly wants, more than anything else, is to put this whole uncomfortable situation down the memory hole and pretend it never happened. The kindest thing you can do for her is do just that: pretend it didn’t happen and just give her space.

While you and I both know that this isn’t your intention, there are plenty of sketchy dudes out there who’ll use apologies – especially very profuse, over the top ones – as ways to make the person getting the apology feel guilty or as a way to continue bugging the person they’re supposedly apologizing to.

You know it was weird. She knows it was weird. Trying to make up for the weirdness is only going to make it weirder and even more uncomfortable. Give her the room to be uncomfortable. Be friendly, but a bit distant. Let her decide when she’s comfortable again and make the move to talk with you again – if  she decides she wants to, in any case.

The rule for avoiding weirdness is “Don’t start none, won’t be none”. So now you’re going to just have to go back and pretend like you didn’t see her on there and hadn’t had this awkward moment. Don’t bring it up unless she does specifically. Not “hints at it” or “says things that may be related to it” but specifically says “hey, it was a bit weird when you approached me on OKCupid” or whatever. Until then: it never happened and the two of you are cordial co-workers.

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: How does one distinguish between a person signaling an interest in platonic friendship and a person signaling an interest in a romantic relationship?

It seems to me that many of the behaviours that signal a person is romantically interested could be fairly interchangeable with someone with whom you get on really well as a friend (e.g., teasing, Duchenne smiles, remembering small details from previous conversations). And logically, that makes sense, since flirting and friendship are ultimately about producing/reinforcing some sort of emotional bond. Granted, there’s the physical proximity thing, but even that can get a bit muddled as I often find that I’ll sit quite close to my friends or lean into them while looking at something on their phone – and to make matters even more confusing, because I suffer from social anxiety, I actually tend to instinctively increase my physical distance, face away, and avoid eye contact when I am attracted to someone, because I get painfully nervous. I imagine the same may go for others dealing with the lovely anxiety beast.

In the past, I’ve misinterpreted signals from people I thought were ‘just friends’, and I’ve also long been quite petrified of misreading a guy’s ‘just friends’ signals as something more. So:

1) How does one distinguish between ‘friend’ signals and ‘potential romantic partner’ signals?

2) How does one determine whether someone is flirting/interested when communication is mainly online? I’ve noticed that despite the increasing prevalence of people forming friendships and romantic relationships online (particularly in the nerd/geek community), the topic of ‘reading signals’ from online behaviour is rarely addressed.

3) What happens to flirting dynamics when you’re *both* socially anxious/awkward/generally terrible at the whole dating thing?

Thanks again for a great resource!!

– Avoiding False Positives

DEAR AVOIDING FALSE POSITIVES: As a general rule, the biggest difference between “friend” signals and signaling romantic or sexual interest is, well, sex. Attraction is, after all, a mix of emotional and physical chemistry; if all you you are doing is trying to build an emotional connection while neglecting the physical aspects, then you’re going to have a platonic relationship instead of a sexual one.

Touching is one of the biggest differences; while touchiness and comfort with physical proximity is highly cultural, there are differences in how you touch someone who you’re interested in getting to know as a potential BFF and someone you’re hoping to see naked. For example, while we may let friends into our personal space, we tend to move closer – or allow others to come closer – to us than we would friends and acquaintances; this is known as “intimate” space and it’s usually reserved for very close friends, family members and lovers.

Generally, the more interested someone is in you physically, the more likely they are to move touch up the intimacy ladder. For example, you’re unlikely to sit with your legs pressed against a friend’s legs unless you have no room to space out; however, to a couple looking for some quality naked time, putting your leg against the other person’s – more-so, if you’re sitting across from one another – is a flirting signal. Even the way you lean in can make a difference; a friend isn’t likely to lean into someone in such a way that it presses her breasts against the other person unless the two already have a comfortable and intimate friendship. Similarly, friendly hugs are usually an a-frame – strictly upper body contact while keeping the lower bodies apart. As a general rule, lighter touches, such as gentle brushes with the fingertips, tend to be flirtier than the palm of the hand firmly on the shoulder.

Someone who’s flirting or interested in another person as a potential romantic or sexual partner will also tend to preen and show themselves off a little. Both men and women will make points of adjusting and straightening clothes when they’re interested in someone, as an attempt to fluff up their appearance in hopes of impressing the other person. The hair-toss is a classic sign that women give – not always consciously – because it draws the eye to her face and neck. A man will stand up a little straighter, puff out his chest (and suck in his gut).

Flirting and antagonistic teasing also tends to have more of a sexual edge than basic friendly ribbing. Flirty teases tend to be more challenging rather than just ego-poking; the unspoken message is “show me that you’re worth it” or “I dare you to try”. One of my go-to’s for absolutely intense flirting is to watch Vesper Lynde and James Bond square off on the train to Montenegro in Casino Royale; the tension between the two of them is palpable even as they jab one another.

But the key to picking up on signals is to watch for clusters of signs – signals that come either directly on top of the others or occurring in close proximity. One sign could be anything, so you want to watch for groups of three or four; this is known amongst body language experts as the “rule of four”. This helps you sort the signal from the noise and cut down on false positives. For a geeky example, watch how Han Solo and Leia Organa act and react around each other all throughout The Empire Strikes Back – you’ll see how their teasing is more challenging, how Han closes the distance from social to intimate and how Leia responds to him.

But if you’re unsure or you and the person you’re interested in are both anxious and feeling awkward about the whole thing? Toss subtlety out the window and just use your words. It’s a lot harder to be misunderstood when you tell someone you really like them and want to go on a date/make out/what-have-you.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I’m 27 years old and I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ve always been nervous about pushing for anything more than friendship, and to be perfectly honest, I was actually okay with that… Until recently.

I met this woman a few months ago, having relocated to find work, and I feel completely lost. Suddenly, I’m focused on losing weight and exercising, I’m trying to develop better interests, and I spend a lot of time thinking about starting a family.

The problem? She has a boyfriend.

I feel like I’m genuinely in love, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to act. I see her and her family a lot, since my best friend is married to her best friend. I’ve always been fairly negative about myself, but when I’m around her, that all just disappears. She makes me want to be a better person, but I’m also terrified that it still won’t be enough. I think she likes me well enough as a friend, but I don’t know if I should tell her how I feel, or if I should just keep these feelings bottled up unless she just happens to break up with this guy?

For that matter, having been really overweight when I initially met her, am I just kind of doomed to always fit that initial first-impression?

– A Helpless Romantic

DEAR A HELPLESS ROMANTIC: Dude, you know what’s up here. You’re just hoping I’m going to give you a different answer. She’s got a boyfriend and she’s not giving you any signals. Telling her how you feel isn’t going to change anything except make things unnecessarily awkward and hanging around just “in case” she breaks up with him is a deeply sh

ty thing to do to somebody who thinks you’re her friend.

Look, I get why you’re doing this, even if you’re don’t: you’re chasing after somebody who’s unavailable because they’re safe. You don’t have to worry about having to measure up to a relationship or screwing up and getting dumped because you know on some level that this isn’t going to happen.

Living in hope without expectation of actual fulfillment is considerably less intimidating than having to actually be in a relationship. But being a Nice GuyTM isn’t the answer. If you want to find a relationship, then you need to let go of this unrealizable crush and take some risks, pursuing women who are not just available but actually interested in you. 

Let this one go, man. Holding on is only going to bring you pain and hold you back from achieving your true potential.

You’re on a good path right now, don’t screw that up by getting hung up on someone you know isn’t into you. You can be better than this.

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 am utterly in love with the geek of my dreams. It’s the kind of romance I’ve always dreamed of. We met on a dating website and within five minutes of meeting in person we were chatting as though we had known each other for years. We are equally happy going out to dinner or spending a night in playing video games. We both fell hard and fast and have recently started to look at engagement rings. He is extremely socially awkward and I have a temper, I’m an extrovert and he’s an introvert so the two of us have our share of arguments, but we always manage to work it out. It’s not a perfect relationship, but I tend to describe us as perfect for each other since we balance each other’s flaws exactly as we both need. All in all I’ve never been happier with a partner.

I’m giving all this background because with how excellent things are, I am currently feeling like the worst person in the world. I have a crush on someone that I have only ever met online.

This other person is very different from my boyfriend. Self employed musician and indie comic book publisher. He’s smart and funny and we have engaged in some very light flirting via FB posts. I’ve never seriously hit on him, in fact I’ve flirted harder with my male friends in front of my boyfriend (he’s very secure in the fact that I love him and just happen to have a flirty personality), but the fact that there is this mildly sexual edge made me feel like a douchebag after it happened. I almost feel like it’s safe to flirt with him because we’ve never met in person, but since he is a musician he has invited me to several of his gigs. I think he might not even be aware of my crush since he says when are you and your man coming to see me play? Even if I brought my boyfriend with me I feel like actually meeting this guy in person would be a form of betrayal.

I have no intention of ever cheating on my boyfriend. I love him and am absolutely committed to starting our life together. So why do I have a crush on this other guy? And more importantly how do I make it go away?

The Worst Girlfriend Ever

DEAR WORST GIRLFRIEND EVER: I object to your use of pseudonym, WGE, because honestly? What’s going on here? It’s no big deal.

I want to say this again just so you get it: it’s no big deal.

Back away from the ledge, WGE. You’re not destroying your relationship, you aren’t betraying your boyfriend and, critically, there’s nothing wrong.

You’re dealing with a very popular misconception about love and romance: that being in love with someone, especially being monogamous, means that you don’t ever look at or think about or have sweaty pants-feelings about somebody else. We’re taught to believe that love is all-consuming, that if you love someone you never ever ever think of anyone else at all forever period the end. And that’s just not how humans are wired. Loving somebody doesn’t make you blind and deaf or illiterate and it doesn’t lock your junk up in a room that can only be unlocked by one specific set of genitalia.

You’re still going to see other people and think they’re hot. You’re going to realize you’ve got crazy chemistry with people. You’re going to get inconvenient crushes on other people. That’s part of the glorious human experience. Monogamy just means you choose not to sleep with other people; it doesn’t say a damn thing about not wanting to.

But because we have this social narrative that says being in love means you only ever think of your lover (singular, I might add), as soon as our primate hindbrains rear up and says “hey, that person over there is pretty hot!”, people freak out and assume that something must be drastically wrong with their relationship. Why else would they suddenly be having sweaty naked thoughts about that hot guy at the office? Or, in your case, the hottie you’ve been talking to on Facebook?

Well, like I said: that’s just being a mammal with a libido. That has absolutely nothing to do with the state of your relationship and everything to do with being alive. It happens.

Moreover: just because it happens doesn’t mean that it’s any sort of betrayal. Even if you were to indulge in a little self-lovin’ thinking about this guy, that’s not a betrayal. What goes on in between your ears is yours and yours alone. The only time this becomes an issue is if it’s actually materially affecting your relationship – not in the sense that you’re feeling guilty but in the sense that you’re actually neglecting your relationship with your snugglebunny to give priority to your crush. And from the sound of it: that’s not what’s going on.

I think you’ve got an overactive sense of guilt plaguing you right now and that’s making things worse. In a lot of ways, it’s a self-reinforcing situation; you’re enjoying the frisson of a crush, but you’re feeling guilty about it which makes it taboo and making it taboo makes it even more appealing, which makes it even more enjoyable so you feel even guiltier. The more you obsess about it, the worse it gets because you keep thinking about it.

Here’s what you need to realize: crushes go away on their own. You go about your daily business and you start to realize “hey, I haven’t thought about wozizname in a while. Huh.” And then you keep going about your business.

So what do you do about it? Well, this is going to sound weird but: enjoy it. Crushes are fun. Crushes are harmless, as long as you’re not trying to actually do anything about it. You’re buzzing with energy that only makes things worse by trying to bottle it up when what you should be doing is using it. Take that sexual energy and excitement and channel it back into your relationship. When you’re feeling all keyed up because you’ve had a flirt-session with the musician, grab your boyfriend, drag him back to the bedroom and bang his brains out. Trust me: you two will have some of the most amazing sex of your lives. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Well. Except for your crush. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, if you’re really worried about things (you shouldn’t be), then dial things back a little. Be less flirty, be less available on IM. You don’t need to cut him off, just turn it back a notch.

And hey: take your boyfriend and go see one of the dude’s gigs. Then drag your boyfriend into the bathroom and have incredible, nasty concert sex. You’ll both love it.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:   am a 25 year old successful man in a progressive city in America. I’ve been on a few dates (more in the future) with a girl I am very interested in. She is 26 and we connect on large number of things! She is very intelligent, driven, beautiful, etc…

The thing is, I find myself getting really excited about the possibilities, and worry I will become too interested too quickly. Our dates are long 2-4 hours each, and she never cancels postpones, or leaves future dates “open” in terms of scheduling.

My problem: Our dates are pretty infrequent by my previous experience. She’s available once every 7-10 days and is not someone who texts much or talks on the phone. I want to make sure things move in a healthy positive direction, but don’t know how to walk the fine line of being interested but not desperate/too available. Should I just take it easy and let things figure themselves out? Is it wrong that I want to see more of her after 3 dates that went well?

- Overthinking Oliver

DEAR OVERTHINKING OLIVER: Stop overthinking this, my dude.

One of my personal pet-peeves is the idea of “(s)he who cares less, wins” in dating. It teaches people to play bulls

t head games and pretend to be less interested than they actually are because relationships are about power instead of, y’know, feelings. Worse, it makes people confuse actually being interested in someone with being needy and clingy and they end up coming across as “not interested at all”. And it sounds like you’re caught up in that particular trap.

I mean, let’s go over what you just told me. You’re going on long(-ish) dates. You’re having an amazing time together. You’ve got crazy chemistry and you’re connecting on an intellectual and emotional level. She’s giving you every indication that she totally digs you and has fun with you… what in pluperfect hell is the problem again? She sounds awesome. Why wouldn’t you want to see more of her? You should want to see more of someone you’re having an incredible time with.

And trust me: it’s a little difficult to be “too available” when your schedules only synch up once a week. Too available is when you’re clearly dropping everything – even things you should be doing – in order to be with her whenever she wants. When there’s literally only one day a week that both of you are free, that’s not being over-eager, that’s just scheduling. 

Now, I can see the differing communication styles potentially being a problem but hell, that’s how those of us olds who grew up before texting and Snapchat had to date.

Seriously: you’re freaking out over nothing. Take a deep breath, pour yourself a tall glass of chill the frack out and realize that everything is fine. Now that you’re calmer, you know what you need to do: use your words. You want to see more of her? You want to take this someplace more serious – or at least see if it’s got potential? Then you need to use your words. It’s important to make sure you’re on the same page; if she’s thinking this is a casual thing and you’re not, then you need to sort that out sooner rather than later.

But seriously. Calm down. Have a quick talk with her, take it all one date at a time and you’ll be just fine.

Good luck.

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