DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I know this is a strange topic, but I hope you can give me some advice. It’s not easy for me to say this but I’m scared of girls. Like, terrified. Back in high-school almost every girl in my class used to make fun of me, call me names, say how ugly and disgusting I was, how my parents hated me, that I would be better off dead, they would point and laugh at me and so on. I don’t know what I did wrong, since I was the quiet kid sitting in the back with his two or three friends and never really bothering anybody and I was never like bullied by other boys.

So, what do I mean with scared? Well, for example, if I’m walking on the street and a woman or a group of women around my age (I’m 24 btw) or younger are walking towards me, my heart starts pounding, I sweat, my legs shake and I feel like at any point she or they will laugh at me or say something like what girls in my class used to say. It’s worse when they are two or more, because it’s feels like they will surround me and just tell my how much they hate me. I try

to avoid women as much as possible, I try to not look or talk to them unless is strictly necessary and every time I feel like I should apologise for my mere presence and for daring to talk to them.

I want to believe that not every girl I meet hates me but it’s very hard. Every time it feels like they’re faking it and when I’m gone they openly talk about how hideous and stupid am I. I know it’s not very manly, but believe me I’m really scared and it’s hard for me to just being outside and is messing with my life and work. How can I get over this? Or things are just like this?

Thanks in advance!

Scared and Ashamed

DEAR SCARED AND ASHAMED: I’m sorry you went through that SaA. It can be confusing and terrifying to suddenly be the target of bullying that seems to have come at you out of the clear blue sky and it can leave some lasting scars. So let’s talk a little about just what happened and how you can start to let go of this fear.

Here’s why you were targeted: you were there. That’s it. High-school couldn’t have been better designed to be a cauldron of bulls

t and misery if people had gone out of their way to create a factory to produce anxiety, neurosis and sheer balls-shrinking terror. And that affects everybody because high-school is hell for pretty much everyone. Everybody is sleep-deprived because schools are still clinging to a system devised around a farming community’s schedule and not the biological needs of teenagers. Everyone’s a bundle of anxiety and confusion because everyone’s dealing with massive physical and social changes that’re met by society telling them that they should already have a handle on things instead of providing the tools to actually manage themselves. Everyone is encouraged to be unique individuals, but then deviations from the norm (whether in gender expression, neurotypicality or sexuality) is punished — often with the tacit approval of the people in authority.

Folks are alternating between mirroring their parents’ beliefs and values and trying to figure out their own, nobody understands what’s going on and everyone’s clinging to any sort of structure that helps make sense of the chaos and confusion. Part of why high-school turns into a massive stew of cliques and drama is because we run schools like they’re medium-security prisons and everyone’s just trying to survive. People will lash out because… well, that’s one of the easiest ways to assert yourself and try to force a place into the social hierarchy. And — as with toxic masculine values — there’re few ways that are more efficient at gaining status than taking it from someone else.

And unfortunately, you drew the short straw. No rhyme or reason, just people dealing with their own trauma and bulls

t by inflicting it on other people who happened to be handy and they got away with it. And the saddest thing is how few people will realize just how s

tty they were to others back in the day.

But there’s the thing: that s

t is over. You are goddamn free. You can look back on your time in high-school as a nightmare that you have finally been able to wake up from. Now is the time to start shaking off the remnants of that nightmare and remembering that you’re in the real world now, with people who are (mostly) done with all that drama and heinous f

kery most foul.

Realizing that, however, doesn’t make the scars go away. That is going to take a combination of therapy, grit and experience. The good thing is that you can start getting that experience now, in low-stakes ways. You can start by simply just existing in public spaces where you’re likely to encounter women. Sitting in the park with a book, walking around the mall, sitting at the counter at a restaurant or bar and just minding your own business is a start. You can even take those opportunities to low-key eavesdrop on the conversations around you. One of the first things you’ll discover is just how little the people around you are going to care about you. This sounds cold or cruel but it’s not; it’s not that you’re unimportant or unnoticeable, it’s that everyone is so wrapped up in their own drama that they’re not going to pay attention to you the way you think they do.

Back in my PUA days, I used to think that if I flubbed an approach, then everyone would notice and I’d be laughed out of the bar. In reality, what would happen is that people would basically forget I was even there as soon as I left their eye-line. As weird as that may sound… it was actually incredibly freeing. Once I realized that most people would never notice my worst mistakes, I didn’t have to spend as much time worrying about complete strangers who wouldn’t even remember me in the span it took to get another beer.

Once you recognize that you aren’t being weighed, measured and judged by all and sundry, you can start to up the ante by attending mixed group events and meet-ups. Find something that interests you, like a MeetUp about one of your pa

ions or a volunteer opportunity and just go be part of the group. You don’t have to be Mr. Social, but you do want to participate. As you do, you’ll find yourself coming in contact with women of all ages and backgrounds… and you’ll start to realize that no, they don’t hate you. They aren’t talking about you, they aren’t gossiping about you… they’re just there because they’re interested in the same things you are. Over time, you may even discover that you’re becoming friends with them. This is good; the more female friends you make, the more you’ll recognize just how aberrant your high-school experience was. The issue wasn’t that they were girls who hated you because you were a subhuman, the problem is that they were f

king a

holes.

And frankly, life is too goddamn short to let the a

holes win.

But even if you do start to work on desensitizing yourself, don’t forget to find a counselor or therapist, especially one who deals with phobias and CPTSD; the level of anxiety you’re feeling is the sort of thing that often requires the help of a trained professional, not just a loudmouth with an advice column.

You’ll be OK. I promise.

All will be well.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long time reader, first time writing in. My fiancé (22) and I (23) have been together for a lovely 5 years, have never had a single fight and have been fairly good at communicating. Our wedding is scheduled for mid next year and we have of course got into the intensive planning phase. 

She knows I’m tight with my money and don’t like to spend carelessly, but she’s always had a dream of a fancy (and expensive) wedding. I always thought that people that spent $20k-$25k or more on a wedding were insane and wasteful, especially in a world where people have so little. However, I was ok with picking a venue that costed $15k (which included the space, food, open bar, etc.) even if it was beyond my original budget (my attempt of compromising). 

However, we got a price estimate for changing the chairs to a nicer style and the total cost for switching the chairs would have added over $1000 to the wedding price. My red alert goes off as this is a complete scam, why would we pay for this? I make my feelings known and she agrees to not do the chairs…until later that night she is crying (literally) about how the wedding isn’t going to be everything she dreamed of already and she misses her dad (who passed away when she was young) makes me feel terrible so I let her decide on whether she really wants the chairs. 

This is really nagging at the principled part of me though that looks at how much time and energy I would have to spend to make $1000 just for chairs, and how so many people around the world barely have anything. She’s paying for a majority of the wedding (with money from her father’s passing) so I keep trying to tell myself, “It’s her money she can spend it however she wants.” The other part of me can’t believe that she’s just like, “well we have the money so we can spend it.” 

Am I thinking to much about this? Is this standard marriage stress getting to me? Or is the principled part of me right to think that $1000 for chairs that no one will care about besides her is ridiculously wasteful? 

Thanks for your advice,

Stereotypical Wedding Issues

DEAR STEREOTYPICAL WEDDING ISSUES: This is a problem with layers, SWI. Because, as with many issues I see come across my desk, the fight you’re having isn’t the fight you think you’re having.

Let’s start with the absolute surface issue before we get into the underlying problems.

So I’m someone who had a fairly spiffy wedding with no regrets SWI, but I’m on your side here: weddings tend to be vastly overpriced affairs that often leads to unnecessary fights, conflicts and drama — not to mention debt. And you aren’t wrong that weddings bring out not just the price gouging but also the upselling. I suspect that if you were to go and price out everything — the same venue, the same decorations, etc. — and called it a family reunion instead of a wedding, you’d see a significant difference in price.

Now here’s the thing about weddings: you won’t remember 90% of it. Years down the line (hell, months, even), you’ll look back and say “Wait… we had chairs?”  But what you remember and what your fiancé will remember are two very different things. Part of the way to make getting married a (somewhat) less stressful mess is to pick the things that you’ll know you’ll remember and push for those. I couldn’t tell you the color scheme of mine, what the cutlery or dishware looked like or what flowers we had because I wasn’t concerned about those things. I knew that I would remember the food, the ceremony, the cake and the music, so those were the areas where I pushed the hardest. If the chairs aren’t important to you and you can afford them… well honestly, I don’t think that’s a fight worth having. I think you can let that go in the name of nuptial bliss.

But that isn’t really what this fight is about. You and your fiancé are having two entirely different fights. This is coming from a place of what’s important to you, what aligns most with your values and what this wedding means to you. You are seeing this as a frivolous expense and one that’s costing money that the two of you could be investing in your future together ($15k could be the down payment on a house! Or a car!) while your fiancé is seeing the chance to live a dream that she’s likely had since childhood. While I agree, I think $1000 is a hell of an upcharge for chairs, this isn’t about the chairs to her; this is about what they represent. She’s not upset about the chairs — y’all didn’t know they existed until the venue upsold you on them — but whether or not she’s going to get one day to live in a fairy tale. A fairy tale that is already a little bittersweet for her, considering that her father passed away and won’t be there to see it.  So in this case, the question you need to ask is whether or not $1000 is going to make that much of a difference, or whether that’s a small price to pay for a dream.

So, no. On a strictly practical level, I don’t think this is a fight you need to have. While I agree that this is money that you could probably use to better effect elsewhere, if this isn’t going to mean the difference between being able to pay the rent or disrupting your plans for the future together, then it’s something I think you can give on.

But with all that having been said, there’s a third layer to this whole conflict and frankly that’s the fact that the two of you are getting married when neither of you are old enough to rent a car yet. That’s going to be a bigger issue, especially in the long run, then however much you spend on this wedding. To be perfectly blunt: I think getting married this young is a mistake. You two are at a stage where you’re only just starting to develop as adults. This is, in many ways, the chrysalis stage; school starts the process, but your early 20s tend to finish it. You’re going to be facing challenges and experiences that will change you and make you realize that you who are and who you think you are can be two entirely different things. That can change your outlook on a whole lot of issues… including your values, and your relationships. What is important to you now is likely not going to be as important to you three, four or even five years down the line… and they won’t for your fiancé either. That often takes a toll on relationships and marriages. In fact, marrying young tends to correlate with getting divorced young.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not telling you that that divorce is inevitable and that you should break up. What I am saying is that you should put things on pause — especially while you can still get the deposit back. What I would recommend is a long engagement… possibly even until you two hit 25, which seems to be the sweet spot for marriage. This has a number of advantages for the two of you. To start with, it gives you both firmer footing to start a life together; you’ll have more of a chance to establish yourselves financially and emotionally as adults. You’ll have more time to decide just what is actually important to the two of you and more perspective on whether you would rather have the big fancy party or just nip off to the courthouse and use savings for a vacation, a new house or an investment in a future business venture. And if you do decide to have the big party with the cake and the food and all the trimmings… you’ll have a better idea of just what will really matter to the two of you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

No Game No Life

DEAR NO GAME NO LIFE: First of all, NGNL, do yourself a favor and do an image search for Sid Vicious. Notice that he’s heroin-addict skinny? (Understandably, seeing as he was a heroin addict…) That didn’t stop him from being sex on legs to a very large audience. There are a lot of women who love them some tall, lanky guys, just as there’re women who dig them some bears or otters or just about every other body type under the sun. By all means, eat healthy and exercise so your hip bones aren’t going to poke somebody’s eye out, but don’t stress the skinny, especially since, y’know, you haven’t actually had that problem.

Besides, if a woman wants to sleep with you, by the time the shirt comes off, it’s pretty much fait accompli anyway. They’ve already got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

But let’s get to your question, NGNL. You’re pretty deep into reading the tea leaves and looking for answers and that’s not going to help you. There’re all kinds of plausible, even likely reasons why she dropped off the conversation and hasn’t been responding, most of which have nothing to do with you. If you spend too much time trying to what-if your way into her head, you’ll drive yourself insane.

But there’s a simpler answer. Here’s the DNL all-purpose guide on how you find out if someone’s interested in you: you grab yourself by the balls or the ovaries, depending and ask them out. While women can and do give a number of signals about whether they’re interested or not, the longer you wait and try to read the tea leaves, the harder it gets to just pull the damn trigger. The question starts to loom larger between the two of you, making you feel awkward and nervous because you don’t want to throw away your shot but you don’t know. Meanwhile, the longer you wait, the greater the chances that someone else will ask her out first and – well, she may like you, but you’ve never given her any real sign that you like her that way, y’know?

So ask her out. Either she says yes, and blessings on you both, or she says no and now you don’t have to ask whether the cat in the box is alive or dead. You’ve gotten your answer and now you can move on with your life instead of being stuck in this perpetual state of “Well maybe” and “What if”.

And on a personal note: trust me when I say that prom’s fucking overrated. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve skipped most of my school dances and gone and played Lazer Tag with my friends instead. Would’ve had way more fun too.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a thirty-five year old male virgin, and I have no idea how to go about changing that. Looks-wise, I think I’m fairly average — pudgy without being significantly overweight, anyway. My main problems are inside my own head. I’ve struggled my entire life with depression, anxiety, low feelings of self-worth, and difficulty with making human connections. I know all that indicates I should work on myself first, and that having major relationships would be more likely to fuck me up more than anything… but I’ve been trying to do that my entire adult life, and I haven’t gotten nowhere. So I don’t know what to do with myself.

(Before you ask — no, I’m not an incel. I own my shit. I know better than to blame my failings on women being choosy or conspiracies or evolutionary biology or feminism or whatever. The root cause of my problems is me. And I refuse to put the onus for that on anyone or anything else just to salvage my own ego.)

Anyway, let me try and get to the point here. It’s hard to pair down an entire lifetime of issues into just a few questions, but here’s my best attempt:

– How do I overcome my insecurities about my lack of experience with love and relationships for my age? Is there still hope for me at this point?

– Is there any way for me to get where I want to go without pretending to be someone I’m not?

– How do I avoid sabotaging myself? I have a long history of only developing attractions to women who are clearly out of my league. Any advice on how to stop doing that, and how to stop my brain from nitpicking or expecting a perfect match?

Big questions without any easy answers, I know. But that’s where I am right now. That’s where it feels like I’ve always been.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Lost, Alone, and Frustrated

DEAR LOST, ALONE, AND FRUSTRATED: The first thing I want you to do is go back and read my response to Volcanic Sacrifice on 10/17, because many of your issues overlap. I want you to pay attention to how the many of the answers you are looking for can be found by addressing the core anxieties surrounding the way that you’ve adopted “OLD VIRGIN” as an identity. Like I told Volcanic Sacrifice: the fact that you’re a virgin doesn’t say anything about you as person. Your virginity isn’t the source of your problems; if anything, it’s a symptom of a lifetime of dealing with anxiety and depression. It has nothing to do with your worth as a person, it’s a side-effect of your struggles to love yourself and to connect with others. I also want to drive this home: you’re not alone; I’ve known virgins of all ages and all over the gender spectrum; straight, gay and bi, cis and trans. And you know what? There has been hope for every single one of them.

And there’s hope for you too.

The first thing that I would suggest is that you read the excellent article “Embracing Newbiehood: How to Approach Dating and Sex in Your 20s With Little or No Experience” by Cass Bell over at Scarletteen; they have a lot to say that’s relevant to you. One part that I think is especially relevant to you is that you don’t want your being a newbie — or feeling like you’re “behind” — to push you towards relationships where you don’t bring your whole, authentic identity to the table. Your being a virgin isn’t something that you need to hide or be ashamed of; it’s simply one part of who you are, and not even an important part. But if you’re approaching relationships as though it’s something that you need to hide, then you’re going to be coming to them from a place of fear and anxiety; you’re always going to be waiting for that sword to fall, and I can tell you from experience: that’s no way to go through a relationship.

Similarly, you’re allowed to be discerning in who you choose to date or what relationships you choose to pursue. Some folks — especially guys — will pursue toxic or even abusive relationships solely because they feel like that’s “all” they can have; it’s their “best” or “only” chance to lose their virginity, so they’ll grin and bear it and suffer through it because they think they have no other options.

Other folks — like you — will chase after inappropriate partners, people who are ultimately unavailable because they’re unavailable. It’s not that they represent an impossibly high standard so much as that they represent guaranteed rejection. People who take this path do so because they feel like they don’t deserve happiness, and so they kneecap their own chances before anything could possibly happen.

And while I’m on the record as saying that you don’t necessarily have to tell people that you’re a virgin… I think it’s far better if you do. It takes a lot of courage and strength to be vulnerable to others, but in doing so, you’re living your authentic and genuine truth. That’s important, both in what it tells others… and what it tells you. It lets others know who you are and filters out people who are clearly wrong for you. But by the same token, it reminds you that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a virgin. You have nothing to be ashamed of LAF; you haven’t done anything wrong, you’re not deficient, you’re not broken and you’re not lesser than someone who has had sex.

I think you would do well to think of yourself less as a virgin and more as a newbie. You’re not deficient, you’re simply new to sex and sexuality and that’s fine. You have just as much of a right to discernment, to have and maintain boundaries, to advocate for your own needs and pleasure as someone who’s had one partner, ten partners or a hundred partners.

And like I’ve told many other folks who’ve been in your position: if you decide you want to just get it out of the way, then that’s cool; that’s as equally a valid choice as wanting to lose your virginity in the context of a long-term, committed relationship. But however you decide you want your first time to go, make sure it’s with a partner who’s compassionate, caring and giving — someone who’s invested in your experience and who’s willing to listen to you.

Good luck.

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