DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:  Long time lurker, first time writer here. I’m a college boy dating a fellow student that we’ll call Jackie. I’ve dated only a few times in the past, mostly out of shyness, but never consistently until I met her. We’ve been going out for a bit more than a year now, and I’ve never been happier. She’s the kindest, smartest, most caring person I know, and I love every moment we spend together. But a few years ago, before I met her, Jackie was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable disease that has a number of awful, sometimes visible side-effects including hair loss, facial rashes, mood swings, and joint pain. Most of the noticeable side-effects have lessened in severity with a combination of time and medication, but they’re still there, and will always be a part of her life. Add the fact that one of her old medications made her gain some weight that she’s still working on losing, and it understandably left Jackie with very low self-esteem.

We’re both in the same major and she does consistently better than most of the students, including myself, in every class we share, but she tells me that she’s not that smart, or that she’s just a good guesser and didn’t really deserve the good grades she’s earned. Whenever we start to get intimate, she always apologizes profusely for her inflexibility and stretch marks, things that I honestly couldn’t give a flying f

k about when she shoves me onto my bed with that irresistible, wicked smirk and starts riding me like a Harley. And when I tell her as much, she says that I don’t have to pretend not to notice them to make her feel better, but thanks me for trying anyway. Recently she told me that I’m too good for her, that she doesn’t deserve me, and that she’s just waiting for the day I’ll get tired of her problems and leave her. I have no idea how I stopped myself from crying when I first heard that, and I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t even sniffle by the fourth time Jackie said it.

I will never, ever claim to know what this horrible disease has put her through, but I have dealt with my own self-esteem issues before, so I have no delusions that I can just “fix” her in a week with the power of love and compliments. But Jackie isn’t broken, she isn’t a failure, she isn’t a problem, and even if she did lose her hair again, I would still think she’s just as beautiful as she is today. I guess what I’d like is some way to help let Jackie see herself the way I see her. Not to “cure” her of her low self-esteem, but just to let her know that I love her, and that I think she’s a charming, sexy, intelligent, and just overall brilliant woman, no matter what her stupid immune system has to say about it.

Thank you,

Livin’ La Vida Lupus

DEAR LIVIN’ LA VIDA LUPUS: Damn it, LLVL, this is the first time I have the opportunity to make a “It’s Not Lupus” joke and you have to undercut me by making it a serious, emotionally tense issue.

But. Y’know. It’s not lupus. It’s the way that society teaches women that they’re only valuable when they’re beautiful and sexual and to downplay their own accomplishments, lest they seem immodest.

Let’s take Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, for example. Part of what made her a revolutionary character in YA fiction isn’t that she’s brilliant; it’s that she’s brilliant and doesn’t hide it. She’s smart, she knows she’s smart and it’s just how she is. Girls are taught over and over again that being visibly competent is a bad thing and that things like intelligence or talent are things to be apologized for or hand-waved away. Hell, you can see it right the hell now with all the bulls

t about Rey from The Force Awakens being a Mary Sue because she’s following the exact same arc as Luke Skywalker.

Having flaws are acceptable as long as they’re minor or quirky. Serious issues like, say, hair-loss – and not “gives you a beautiful shaved scalp” hair loss but “falling out in uneven clumps in the shower” hair loss – are hard to accept. Doubly so considering how much stock is put in gender presentation for women by having long, flowing locks of hair.

Your girlfriend has, in all likelihood, been hearing bulls

t all her life about not showing off or being a know-it-all or being too proud or vain. And when she’s suddenly “deficient” (for suitably bulls

t definitions of deficient) in the areas where women are supposed to excel (but it’s better if they don’t realize it – looking at YOU, One Direction…). Mix that in with the difficulties of dating in general when you have a chronic condition, the literal pain of said condition, already existing low-self-esteem issues and… yeah, it’s going to seriously mess up somebody’s view of themselves.

But you know all that already. The big question right now is: what do you do?

Well, part of it is: tell HER all the things that you just told me. She needs to hear all of that. But you also don’t – and shouldn’t – pretend that her flaws aren’t there. She knows you see them, and pretending they don’t exist (which is what she thinks you’re doing) doesn’t help. Instead, acknowledge them but point out that they’re part of her and part of what makes her the person you love. She wouldn’t be who she is right now – the person you have chosen to be with – without all these component parts that add up to a bigger whole. Tell her this. Tell her this regularly, not just with words but with your actions and behavior. Holding her and telling her you care, quietly helping when she needs it, being her support when times are difficult, giving her space when she needs that instead… all those little ways of letting her know you’re there for her add up over time.

The other thing is to NOT lie. She believes you’re lying to make her feel better when you say that you’re OK with all of this. And just to be honest: yeah, dating somebody with a chronic condition can be hard. It can be frustrating. It can be tiring. And you feel like an a

hole for feeling that way. But the fact is, even for those times when it is frustrating or exhausting, it’s ok because she’s worth it all to you. Hearing that moment of honesty from you might help it sink in that you’re not sticking things out until you can find an exit strategy, you’re in it because you want her, specifically.

I know that the traditional response is to quote Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, but I think that a better idea might be to acquaint her with the concept of kintsugi – repairing lacquerware and pottery in such a way that illuminates the breakage and repair instead of hiding it, usually by filling the cracks with gold or silver. It treats the process of repair as part of what makes the object unique and special by acknowledging its history. Your girlfriend isn’t broken by any stretch of the imagination, but she feels like she is. She has a condition and it sucks and pretending that it’s not there doesn’t help… but it also doesn’t make her less beautiful or desirable or special.

You know this. I know this. SHE needs to know this. Tell her.

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 think need some advice. I have problems with my self worth when it comes to “after dating situations”.

In the past I had a few relationships but none of them lasted for more than a few months. I realized I was a nice guy and started to fix it (and stumbled upon your blog at that time). There were many dates since then, but they always ended the same. We would go out once and then she gradually stopped responding to my messages (even calls in one case), without any explanation and I’ve never heard from her anymore. Even though the date seemed fine, I tried to learn from every rejection and avoid mistakes I’ve made before I felt like I’ve failed.

Since I saw these rejections as failures it accumulated somewhere inside me and I started being anxious after every date. There were thoughts like “What if she won’t respond? What if it will end as usual and I’ll get rejected? What did I do wrong? She’s online and she saw my message, why hadn’t she responded already?”. My mind comes up with catastrophic scenarios and I worry about things that didn’t even happen.

Sometimes it comes to checking my smartphone every now and then which is the behavior I wanted to avoid and which makes me even more anxious.

Basically my self worth drops and the confidence I felt during the date is nothing but dust.

Recent example: I went out with a woman, everything seemed well. I decided to stay cool, enjoy the evening and spark the interest in her. There were some minor fuckups but she was fine with it. During the evening she briefly told me about a guy she’s going to meet which was enough to start doubts in me (why did she do that in the first place?). When I was paying for her after the dinner (first date) she objected but then she was like “I’ll pay when we’ll meet for the next time” (which ignited the hope for the next date in me and that she was interested). She responds to my messages after that evening although I’m almost always the one who initiates the conversation. My anxiety and negative thoughts intensified when I saw a post from that guy (and her response to it).

My question is: How to deal with these thoughts and catastrophic scenarios and how to maintain my self worth?

Worst Case Scenario Vision

DEAR WORST CASE SCENARIO VISION: Alright, WCSV, I want you to go back to a letter I answered last week about why a friendship was fizzling out. Do you see what I just said to Nukes and Friendship about relationships? A lot of that applies to you, too. The issue you’re having here is that you’re emotionally over-investing in these dates with people you barely know. In many ways, first dates are like a sample from the deli or the ice cream parlor: you’re trying to decide if you’re at all interested before you commit to buying a full order. Getting hung up on someone you’ve only had one date with – even if it was a pretty good date – is how you set yourself up for unnecessary heartbreak. You don’t know this person well enough to warrant giving them so much importance that checking your phone is enough to give you anxiety. The truth is that they’re still functionally a stranger to you. A hot stranger, quite possibly. A stranger that you had a good time with. But still a stranger.

The goal of a first date is simple: you want to connect with them and see if there’s enough mutual interest and chemistry to warrant seeing each other again. If there isn’t, then it’s a shame… but there are millions of other potential partners out there. This was just one that didn’t work out.

Now it sucks that things haven’t worked out with these women you’ve been dating, but most of what you’ve been learning is that these are women who, for whatever reason, you’re not compatible with. A lot of that is simply out of your control. Dating is a numbers game; you do what you can to maximize the odds that the people you’re meeting are right for you, but there’s always going to be that element of unpredictability when people are involved. Sometimes you get lucky right off the bat. Other times you have to search around for a while. You may meet the wrong person… or you may meet the right person at the wrong time. The only thing you can do is make sure you’re working on your side of the equation.

Part of that is making sure that you’re taking the right lessons from these dates. It doesn’t do you any good if you’re going on these dates and assuming that, for example, you need to overcompensate for your Nice Guy past and be a snarky asshole. On the other hand, you could still be acting TOO nice and coming across less as a potential partner and more as a pushover. You might be spending too much time trying to impress your date and not enough time trying to connect with them.

This is why I recommend that guys who what to get better at dating should keep a journal. Whenever you go out and approach people or go out on dates, write down as much as you possibly can about what happened — what you said, what they said, how they responded, how you felt in the moment, etc. Try to keep as strictly objective as you can; report what happened without judging or analyzing or making assumptions about how the other person felt or what they thought. This gives you data, and lets you look for patterns that may indicate particular sticking points.

The same goes with examining the aftermath of said dates. If your conversations are regularly trailing off, see if you can pinpoint exactly where the shift seems to occur and if it’s happening at more or less the same time. It could be, for example, that you’re a little over-eager and that’s putting people off. On the other hand, it could also be that they just weren’t feeling it and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Which is a difficult truth: sometimes there isn’t anything to find. Sometimes the issue isn’t anything that you’re doing but the people you’re dating.

That’s why ultimately, the answer to getting better at dating is… to go on more dates and try doing things differently. You can study the theory all you want but the only way you can gain those levels in dating is to go out and grind ’em out in the field.

And incidentally: don’t sweat getting ghosted so much. As much as I wish it wasn’t true, ghosting has become part of the dating landscape. It’s rude and it can be disheartening, but at the end of the day, it says far more about them than it does about you. The only thing you can do about it is be the change you want to see in dating.

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: My question is about dealing with the aftermath of confessing romantic feelings to a close friend and dealing with his rejection while not losing that friend and going the nuclear option.

Long story short, I’m a late bloomer in her early 30s with limited experience (had a first kiss and sexual experience when I was 30, only one relationship, and had sex only 3 times in my life). So, the last summer I have developed a crush on a very close friend who I knew for 2 years by that time. The problem was that he was about to leave the city to move across the ocean in 4 months. Despite of this, I still wanted to pursue a short-term relationship with him, I felt like having even a short-term intimate experience with him outweighed the fact that it’s going to be a relationship with an expiration date.

So, being a firm believer in direct communication, I asked him if he would be interested in us dating each other and I let him know that I realize that most likely it’s going to be a relationship with an expiration date and if he doesn’t feel that he is into that he shouldn’t be afraid of saying ‘no’, I can take it. He answered that he was also thinking about us dating each other but he was afraid he doesn’t have time to date someone in the next 4 months (he was supposed to travel quite a bit for work reasons before leaving the city). Anyway, he said that he will think about it. Three days later we got together for drinks with another woman who is very closest friend of mine. I couldn’t stay long and left, the next morning I got a news from her that things escalated after I left and they decided to play a variation of truth or dare game by stripping off their clothes and telling each other crazy sex things they have done (but they didn’t touch each other) and that I should have stayed that night to join them. Honestly, I felt horrible upon hearing that news, even though there wasn’t any reason. Several hours later he messaged me saying that he doesn’t have any secrets from me and I’m free to ask about his crazy sex experiences that he confessed to a friend of mine while naked, but he needs to be in the right mood, so I shouldn’t push him to tell about them.

A month later the three of us were hanging out (he still didn’t tell me those stories) and I was being playful with him put his hand on my back to have back massage. The next day he wrote me that he was actually considering having an intimate relationship with me despite the limited time we have, but because of this ‘hand thingy’ (that I didn’t ask him for his consent), he decided that he is going to change his mind. This came out of the blue (I hadn’t brought us being together since the last time I asked him) and I was devastated, had to take a sick day off work. I slowly recovered after that, but the fact that he was keeping secrets (the things he told the other friend) was slowly eating me. Several weeks before he left the city I told him how I felt about him having those secrets from me. He revealed those secrets, via a text message, not even face to face, and it felt like it wasn’t genuine.

Those secrets turned were the facts that he practiced some BDSM activities several years ago and that he was embarrassed of them. Now, here is the thing, I’m also into BDSM (never practiced but I know I want to do it), so I told him that those things he shouldn’t be ashamed of and I find them amazing and that I’m also into them. During the last week we were talking a lot about them, and several day after he left the city he said that he might be up for trying some of them with me, 1.5 months later when we were supposed to share a hotel room for a week during a music festival in another country. However, when we actually met, he felt a bit distant and irritated (I don’t know what caused it, but he was stressed looking for a job in another continent), at some point at this event he said that he prefers going for dinners with other people and not me (before that we were having dinners together and planned on celebrating New Year’s eve together at the festival). He also said that I should change my plans of visiting him across the ocean (fortunately I didn’t book my flights yet). The rest of the event was quite depressing for me.

After all of this I feel still have hard time processing what have happened (that naked night with a friend of mine after he told me that he doesn’t have time for casual sex, the fact that he was hiding his interest in BDSM while telling me that he trusts me and doesn’t have secrets from me, or his weirdly distant behavior at the festival). I feel depressed and have a hard time sleeping when I think about all of this things that happened between us the last year and I think about them almost every day. Am I overreacting and just need to get mental help? The thing is that I really value his friendship and I still keep contact with him. But sometimes I think if I should go full nuclear option? But I’m afraid of losing a close friendship with him and that doing the nuclear option and losing contact with him would do more mental damage rather than keeping a contact with him.

Thanks a lot for any feedback!

Nukes and Friends

DEAR NUKES AND FRIENDS: This is a little complicated, NaF, because I think there’re a few issues colliding here.

The first is that this guy seems to have issues with actually saying what he thinks or feels. I mean, it’s pretty clear to me from his actions that he’s just not interested in you and – for whatever reason – can’t seem to bring himself to say it directly. Maybe he’s worried about hurting you. Maybe he’s just really passive aggressive. It could be that you weren’t as clear about the nature of the relationship you wanted with him and he thinks you want something more committed than he is up for. Maybe he likes dangling the idea of the two of you getting together over your head like he’s dangling string over a kitten. Who knows. But what’s clear is that the issue isn’t that he doesn’t have time for casual sexy games… it’s that he doesn’t have time for casual sexy games with you.

And hey, that sucks. It can be incredibly painful when it feels like someone is telling you that you’re just not good enough to bang. I don’t think that’s what he’s actually saying, but you’d be forgiven for taking it that way because he’s acting really goddamn weird about it.

Take the whole “give me a massage” fracas. Now it’s fair that some folks don’t necessarily like being grabbed or feeling like they’re being made to touch someone they’d rather not touch. I think we can all think of times when we’ve been forced to give someone a hug or kiss when we didn’t want to – even when it’s just Aunt Matilda. Everyone has the rights to their boundaries and it’s certainly not impossible that you crossed one of his. But for him to tell you the next day “hey, I was totally going to hook up with you but you tried to make me give you a massage, so nevermind,” is… questionable. It comes across as a weird and needlessly cruel way of punishing you for a transgression you had no idea you had made. If that was genuine, then I really question the need to bring up the idea of dating, as opposed to simply saying “hey, I wasn’t cool with your grabbing my hand like that.” That’s the sort of thing that makes me wonder about his emotional intelligence or social calibration.

And if it wasn’t genuine and just a way for him to get out of having to turn you down (for a question that you asked a month ago) then he’s being a games playing dick.

Same with his weirdness about travelling with you for the music festival and deciding that he’d rather eat his meals with other folks. Again: if that came out of the clear blue sky, then this is a guy who’s become the emotional equivalent of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and you’re better off not dating him.

All that having been said however: I think you’re also making a bigger deal out of a lot of this than is actually warranted by the circumstances or the relationship. It sounds to me like you were far more invested in this guy than you should have been, all things considered. It sucks that he was more willing to fool around with your friend – even if nothing happened – than you. But feeling betrayed that he had interests and a history that he hadn’t shared with you? That’s a little much. Friendships, even close ones, aren’t depositions; people aren’t required to share every single detail of their lives and histories, especially details that they may be embarrassed by or ashamed of. That’s not “keeping secrets” from you, that’s just him having a right to privacy and not needing to disclose every little thing he’s ever done.

Now I get that you feel left out by the fact that he told your friend about this during wacky naked time… but honestly, that’s his call to make. It’s understandable that you’d feel hurt that he didn’t trust you with this information, but again: that’s his absolute right. If he wants to tell someone he’s flirting with about his sexual history but not you, that’s up to him.

And to be honest: with as put out as you sound about it, I think part of the conflict here is that you were so put out about all of this that it became a bone of contention between the two of you. And if you were bringing it up on the regular with him as a problem with your relationship… well, I can see how he’d start getting annoyed by it.

I don’t think you need mental help, NaF, I think you’re inexperienced and overinvested in someone you liked. It’s the sort of thing that we all do when we’re first trying to navigate sexual and romantic interest beyond puppy-love when we’re kids. A lot of us go through this in middle school and high-school. Some of us do so later in life. It sucks, but it’s part of the learning experience and unfortunately, some learning experiences involve falling on our faces and collecting some bruises. But as much as it may sting, that’s how you build up your hit points in the long run.

So I think for now, I think it may be better for you to let this guy go for a while. Whether this dude is less emotionally intelligent than one would hope, you let a crush overwhelm your common sense or both, I think you need some distance and perspective. Unfollowing his Instagram and Snapchat, muting him on Twitter and Facebook… these are all ways that you give yourself space to heal and get over somebody. It’s difficult to let things go when you’re constantly tempted by the opportunity to check his Instagram or see if his relationship status has changed, after all.

Give yourself a break from this guy, go and collect new experiences, fall in love again and again. Let your heart heal. If the two of you are as close as you say, that friendship will be waiting for you down the line when all of this is just a somewhat embarrassing footnote in your history.

Good luck.

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