DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Thank you for the awesome work that you do. So many of us don’t have people in our corner that truly understand family dynamics.

Here is my issue I need feedback on: I grew up in a poor family. Neither my mother or father were there for me growing up. If it weren’t for my grandparents, I don’t know what would have happen to me.

I remember as a child I would ask my mother why she refused to get a job and her response was downright ridiculous. As I grew up and remained in school, I managed to get odd jobs starting at age 15. Every dime I made was saved for college. I put myself through college. Now in my late thirties, my birth mother only calls when she wants money. I never had a relationship with her because I despised her laziness and condescending ways.

In my early twenties and through my thirties, I use to have nightmares about her (in every dream I was bickering with her). These nightmarish dreams caused sadness during my waking hours. Since my teenage years, my birth mother always tried to pen her responsibilities on me, and this infuriated me. After I moved away for college, got married a few years later and had a child, not once has my birth mother offered to visit to help with my baby nor has she been a sounding board just to talk. I realized who she was years ago, which prevented me from seeing her face in over 14 years. And, no I don’t miss her (she is now 70 years old).

However, she still calls and ask for money, as if I owe her for giving me life. The last time she called, I told her to stop calling me and that I owed her nothing. I felt bad after the phone call, but I still feel resentment towards her. However, not talking to her somehow brings me peace.

Unfortunately, I think about her everyday, my thoughts range from ‘how can a mother not support her children…or ’why she thinks its ok to not do anything to enhance her life or her children lives years prior……or ‘why she thinks its ok to think someone owe her something.’ I am 37 years old and honestly, I am tired of thinking about my birth mother. Over the years I have consulted with several psychologists because of the anxiety and resentment I have towards my birth mother. Now, I just want to stop my brain from thinking about her.

I know I need to forgive and let the pain go. Am I wrong for walking away, never to have anything to do with my birth mother? Am I wrong for feeling the way I feel? Your thoughts and opinions are welcome with gratitude.

I (Don’t Wanna) Remember Mama

DEAR I (DON’T WANNA) REMEMBER MAMA: There was a movie that came out a few years ago about a young man coming to terms with his relationship with his biological father. Over the course of the film, he goes from having a fantasy of who his father was, being thrilled to find his real birth father, to realizing that his birth father was a legitimate monster… and that while the two had a contentious relationship, the man who actually raised him was far more of a parent than his biological father ever was.

Like the man said: “He may have been your father, boy, but he weren’t your daddy.”

Your mother may have given you half of your chromosomes and your DNA. Your mother may be the reason you exist in this world. None of that obligates you to break yourself into pieces on her behalf… not when she’s treated you as an afterthought at best and a resource to be exploited at need.

As much as “I didn’t ask to be born” is the war cry of angsty, frustrated teens and tweens the world over… it’s also true. The fact that you were born doesn’t obligate you to allow your birth parents — or anyone else for that matter — to treat you badly. Being biologically related to someone isn’t a binding contract.

Just as importantly, family isn’t just about blood. The fact that someone gave birth to you may make them your mother, but that doesn’t make them family. You can have a family of origin and a family of choice. Sometimes they’re one and the same. Sometimes they’re not. The fact that someone is related to you by blood doesn’t obligate you to keep them in your life, especially not when they only treat you badly. You have every right to decide whether or not someone is a part of your family, just as you have every right to decide whether or not someone has access to your life. Or, for that matter, to cut someone off.

It’s entirely understandable that you feel bad about cutting her out of your life so completely, I(DW)RM. It’s also entirely understandable that you resent her and what she’s done (and hasn’t done). Those feelings are real and valid. But cutting her off was the right idea. One of the most important things you can do in your life is to establish and maintain firm boundaries, especially with people who only try to use you or to force you to take on responsibilities that aren’t yours. Denying toxic people your time, your attention or even just access to you isn’t something to feel bad about. It’s one of the kindest, most caring things you can do for yourself. You are refusing to let someone who abdicated their responsibility to you as a child have a single toehold in your life. The only thing that’s sad about it is the necessity of it.

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’m a 21 year old girl, and I’ve known I was asexual since I was about 17. I’m pretty aromantic as well, though the most accurate label is probably gray demiromantic — I’ve only ever had romantic feelings about two people, both of whom were my close friends. I’m not even sure that they were really romantic feelings, because they occurred very, very infrequently (like every 1-2 months). I would say the primary feelings I remember identifying were kind of a glowy, warm feeling, wanting to sit a little closer, and an overwhelming sense of “wow, I’m so, so incredibly lucky that this person is in my life”. But I don’t know whether those types of feelings count as any sort of attraction, because I don’t really have any other experience to compare them to.

Anyway, there’s a couple different things going on. My great-grandma is 96 and in memory care right now, and we can’t see her for pandemic reasons, and the whole experience of worrying about her has had me thinking a lot more about my own mortality than I ever had before. Not in the sense of wanting to die, but in the sense of realizing that my subjective perception of reality will just suddenly stop one day, and anything I don’t do/feel/experience in the next seventy-odd years is something I’ll never experience ever. I won’t ever know what it’s like to not be aro or ace, so I’ve been thinking that I should start trying to find ways to create the life that I want for myself, regardless.

I’m pretty sex-neutral, and while I’d be enthusiastic about trying it at some point with the right person (provided they were cool with the fact that I don’t experience sexual attraction the same way they do), I wouldn’t be too bothered if I never had it.

But romantically, I’ve been feeling not so great recently about the fact that my brain can’t really seem to fall in love. I’m not even that lonely—I love my friends, and I’m a pretty self-sufficient person with plans to maybe go the ICI/sperm bank route when I’m older and settled in my career. But I grew up really, really loving romances in books and movies and other people’s stories about their lives, and it’s been hard for me to accept that I’ll never know what that’s like for myself.

A bit of background: the friend who I most recently had a “squish” (ambiguously aromantic crush-ish thing) on is another student at my small arts school. We’ve been friends for three years now, and become really emotionally close. It’s been a rough three years for both of us—I had never been away from my family before college, which did a number on me, and she had a TON of s

tty, traumatic experiences, one with a creepy, borderline harassing/emotionally abusive professor, and one where her roommate stalked her and made death threats against her.

(When another friend and I talked her into going to administration about the roommate, my friend had her entire reputation dragged through the mud, the other girl spread a bunch of straight-up lies about her to the rest of the student body, and after being briefly suspended, this other girl is now back at school and basically free to keep hurting my friend.)

I am almost constantly furious about the way she was treated and is still treated, but every time we try to call out the perpetrators (for example, a kid in our creative writing class posted a nasty essay about her to the whole class), they react even more violently, whether or not we involve the authorities.

The point is, after all this s

t, we’ve become SUPER emotionally close, closer than I’ve ever been with someone who isn’t part of my family. She says she loves me and calls me her “North Star” friend because I’m someone who was always there for her and never doubted her. So my tiny, intermittent possibly-romantic-maybe-not feelings for her are really, definitely off the table. My common sense is telling me that that is in NO WAY WHATSOEVER something that she needs from me, what with all the stress in her life right now. I care a lot about her, and I would feel incredibly terrible if I ever did anything that hurt her. And there’s no good reason to try to tell her that I’ve been feeling this way, because I’m actually really happy with the current extent of our friendship. It’s not like I secretly really want to try kissing her or something—emotional closeness and occasionally sitting together on the couch is pretty much all I need or want from a relationship, at least for now.

But the fact that I’ve even BEEN recently having recurring feelings for her that I could characterize as possibly romantic (the other time was much less strong, and only once) has made me wonder about possibly trying to develop that for myself. Not with my friend, obviously—see above. But I want to try to see if “falling in love”, or whatever my brain chemistry’s version of that is, is something that might work for me once I’m not quarantined with my family and it’s safe to see other people again.

So my question is, how do I go about that? I don’t really even know what to look for. Everything I’ve felt that I could categorize as romantic attraction has been towards someone I already knew super well, and I just literally don’t experience sexual attraction. What little I know about romantic interest indicates that it’s generally based on reciprocity, by which I mean that two people subtextually communicate that they find each other cool/hot/compatible/ whatever and mutually agree to try it out. But I don’t know how to navigate that for myself, because I don’t even really feel like I know enough to have a “type”, if that makes sense. It doesn’t help that I have a sensory processing disorder and get really overwhelmed in large groups of people!!

I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by expressing an interest that I’m not sure exists. But I don’t know how to find someone I might be interested in without somehow expressing interest myself. Writing all this down, I’m thinking my best option might just be to accept that I don’t feel romantic attraction and that’s okay, and maybe one day I’ll meet another aro person and have a queer platonic relationship (QPR). But I’m scared that if I only look for aro people, I won’t be able to find someone whose interests and emotions are very compatible with mine.

I don’t have any delusions about asking for exclusivity. I know that what I have to offer in a relationship is basically nil compared to an allosexual person, and that anyone I was partnered with would probably have romantic and sexual needs that I wouldn’t be able to completely fill on my own, no matter how willing I was to try. I’m prepared and happy to make compromises, whatever they will need to be. I feel like I have things to offer as a potential partner beyond sex and romance (and I want to be able to DO both sex and romance as well, I just know that I don’t feel either form of attraction very strongly/at all, so people would probably generally rather be with someone who “feels that way”). But I give good cuddles, I listen well and care a lot, I love discussing all sorts of weird niche things, and I’m super loyal and devoted to the people in my life. I just want to know how to get started finding people who want that from someone and are willing to look past the ace/aro thing!!

I have a thick skin and I’m not afraid of tough truths. Whatever I need to hear, I’ll listen, and any insight/help you can give would be really, really appreciated.

Thanks for your time, Doc!

Sincerely,

Best Friends Forever

DEAR BEST FRIENDS FOREVER: A lot of times I get a letter where the problem the writer has isn’t the problem they think they have. More often than not, the problem that they think they have is a symptom, rather than a cause and the answer is to address the underlying issue. In your case BFF, your problem — such as it is — is that you don’t actually have a problem so much as an issue with expectations and definitions.

Let’s tackle the most obvious issue head on: you’re somewhere on the asexual/aromantic spectrum and you’re wondering whether you can essentially “force” yourself to fall in love with someone. The issue with this framing is that love, like sexual attraction, isn’t really something you can force or learn to do. It would be one thing if, for example, you weren’t letting yourself open up to people. There are plenty of folks who are incredibly guarded, who don’t allow themselves to be vulnerable and emotionally open with people. They focus on shallow or non-committal encounters because they have a fear of rejection, being hurt or otherwise putting themselves in a vulnerable position with another person.

(This is in contrast to folks who just prefer shallow or non-committal encounters; no shame in folks not wanting more…)

That’s something that a person can learn to overcome, with therapy, with work and self-exploration. By putting in the work, they can get to a point where they feel empowered or  brave enough to actually open up to the possibility of a committed relationship. But that’s not the same as simply not being in love with someone or not being attracted to them. People have tried to force themselves to feel — or not feel — for others and it never works. Similarly, folks have tried to force themselves, or have had others try to force them to be attracted to people they aren’t attracted to. This has almost always ended badly for everyone involved.

Even people who aren’t aromantic can’t force themselves to fall in love. God knows people have tried; there’s a veritable mountain of books, products and snake-oil salesmen that all promise that they have the secret to “making” someone fall in love with you, and they all work about as well as you might think.

But the thing is: love’s goddamn complicated. Love isn’t just emotional, it’s chemical; it’s oxytocin and dopamine in the brain, firing off because we’ve got a head full of wiring that loves novelty and new experiences. But those same chemicals fire off when we have sex or achieve orgasm — part of why people can mistake REALLY liking to bang someone with love, only to discover that they don’t have any of the other qualities that they need to make a relationship work in the long term. Similarly, we can have intense emotional connections with people… but have absolutely no sexual attraction to them whatsoever. Those connections aren’t any less romantic because they’re platonic; they’re just what you might call a romantic friendship. Those sorts of friendships used to be far more commonly accepted than they are today; in fact, there were a multitude of people who believed that those friendships were more important than love, which was often seen as being fleeting and capricious.

And there are many kinds of love, too. There’s eros, or love of the body. There’s agape, or love of two souls and philios, the love between siblings and family, whether a family of blood or a family of choice. A person can experience these types of love separately or with the same person; they may never experience one of them but experience the others. Love is goddamn weird.

But our culture doesn’t just hype up romance, it hypes up limerence. The focus is on the early days of a romance, when it’s more about the chemical rush and excitement of New Relationship energy. And while that’s unquestionably a fun part of falling in love with someone, it’s not the only part… hell, it’s not even the part that lasts. The early, giddy, butterflies-and-isn’t-the-way-they-chew-their-food-adorable stage fades, and faster than we’d expect. But we’re trained to think that this is the only part of love that counts. We have damned few examples of romances that go beyond the early days of falling in love. Most of our love stories tend to end with marriage and just assume that it’s all going to sort itself out in the long run. Very few love stories are about long-term relationships, and most of the stories we see about couples in long relationships tend to be about when it all goes horribly wrong.

Hell, even Han Solo and General Leia didn’t get the happy ending we were promised at the end of Return of the Jedi.

But all of that pop culture celebration of love creates an unrealistic and unfair portrayal of what love is and what forms of love “count”.

So honestly, I’d say you’ve already been in love. You love your friend; I would go so far as to say that you have a romantic kind of friendship. Frankly that’s as real and valid and valuable as anything you might read in a romance novel or see celebrated in TV or movies. And to be perfectly honest, I kind of wish we saw more relationships like that; while I appreciate the desire for more queer representation in media, shipping has a tendency to erase platonic friendships and perpetuate the myth that emotional intimacy is the same as — or the precursor to — sexual intimacy. This has the result of accidentally devaluing the idea of a romantic friendship or a platonic lifemate, whether straight or queer.

Will you ever experience the cartoon-birds-and-cupids kind of love that people write s

tty pop songs about? I can’t say; in a world of infinite possibilities, the only answer I can give is “maybe?” Can you “learn” to feel that? Probably not. You can certainly do the things that generate oxytocin in the brain — physical touch, laughter, great conversation, even sex if you want to give that a try — but that’s not going to “make” you fall in love with someone. The only advice I can give is this:

First: let yourself be open to possibility. It’s possible that you’ll meet someone who’ll be that rare person who actually flips the switch and gives you that movie kind of love. It’s also possible that you’ll meet someone for whom a sexual connection isn’t necessarily important. Plenty of people have companionate marriages and relationships, where their relationship is based around mutual respect, companionship and yes, love… just not sex. Sometimes one or both partners will have sexual partners outside the relationship. Sometimes they won’t because sex just isn’t a priority for them. That’s as valid and valuable of a relationship as one where folks are banging out on every flat surface in the house.

Second: don’t devalue or ignore the love you do feel. Just because it’s not the “lone figure in front of crashing waves” kind of feeling doesn’t mean that it’s not love, that it’s not real or that it’s not important. The feelings you have for your friend are love, they are passionate, even if they’re not sexual or intense in the way you’re told they should be.

Third: don’t forget that you’re young. It may be hard to find someone who isn’t also on the ace/aro spectrum who wants a committed relationship while you’re in your 20s; you may not find it until your 30s, 40s or older, when your peers are more in tune with their own desires and interests. A lot of those companionate marriages I mentioned are often between people who are older… but not always. Again: there’s a world of near-infinite possibilities out there. Don’t close yourself off to the opportunities that may come your way, but don’t despair just because your ideal relationship may not be one that you’ll have in your 20s. Love isn’t any less meaningful when you’ve aged out of the 18-35 demographic, and romance isn’t any less romantic when you’ve got some gray in your hair. Love comes in its on time and in its own way. The best thing you can do is be ready for it when it arrives and in whatever form it comes in.

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 have been following your page for a while now, at least sporadically and would at first like to thank you for the work you are doing to help others.

Unfortunately, I have utterly failed thus far at managing to fulfill any of your advice and after some introspection I believe the reason for that is that I am utterly terrified to look at my dating (nonexistent) dating life.

I am a 26 year old university student and a virgin. Never had sex, never been on a date, never kissed someone, never flirted with anyone. A lot of the time, even thinking about this can be paralyzing. Like, I have wasted an entire DECADE of my live and the decade other people use to explore themselves and their sexuality, that is supposed to function as the basis for following healthy relationships no less. It’s to the point where even thinking about it feels like staring into an abyss.

What is worse is the fact that it feels a lot like I am on a deadline. I will graduate med school in two years and then enter into an incredibly stressful and time intensive career. If I have already failed to solve my problems in university, with plenty of time and ease of social interactions, how can I possibly hope to have any success when trying to find relationships as a resident doctor with a 60 hour work week?

In addition, it often feels like my not really working on the problem is a way to give myself a cop-out. Like “yes you never had a relationship but you never REALLY tried”. Paradoxically, this KEEPS me from trying. Because the idea of a woman even being attracted to me is basically inconceivable to me. And if I DO try to work on myself and follow all the tips and nothing changes, I would have to admit that I really have lost too much time and just f

ked up my life.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Love,

Tried Nothing and All Out of Ideas

DEAR TRIED NOTHING AND ALL OUT OF IDEAS: This is a topic that comes up a lot, TNAOI: late bloomers who feel that they’ve missed some nebulous window of opportunity to cram in all of the education, experiences, adventures and other miscellania that they’re supposed to achieve in order to be awarded their Functioning Adult Certificate. And what’s kind of fascinating is how wide the range of ages can be; I’ve heard from teenagers as often as I’ve heard from literal 40-year old virgins, all of whom think that they missed their shot and now they’re afraid that there’s nothing left to be done.

What’s equally as fascinating is how many of them feel the way you do; they’ve done nothing to fix the problem and they’re fresh out of ideas. Worse, they’re actively afraid of trying to do better.

On its face, you’d think this was absurd. How could you possibly be afraid of… checking my notes here… making your life better? Oh no, I might have a robust social life full of friends and people who care about me! Can you imagine the terror of having a loving relationship and a satisfying life with a worthwhile career, engaging hobbies and physical fitness? The horror, the horror…

But in reality, that fear is very common and very understandable. One of the things that folks often don’t realize is that while the fear of rejection can be bad, the fear of success can almost be worse. Rejection, after all, means a return to the current status-quo. Yes, it’s painful… but it’s a familiar pain and one that just serves to reinforce the worldview you already have. The possibility of success, however, can often be almost pants-s

ttingly terrifying. Right now, the relationships you dream about are just that: dreams. They’re fantasies that you can control to the most minute detail. You know exactly how every second will go because it’s all in your head and you’re controlling the actions of everybody involved. That date, that kiss, that first time having sex can all be exactly as perfect as you want it to be. If you get rejected — or if you do nothing, for that matter — then nothing changes. Those fantasies stay fantasies and remain entirely under your control.

But if you were to try to realize those fantasies… well, now things are different. If you were to ask somebody out on a date and they said yes, now you have to actually go on that date. You’re in a place where you have no control, where mistakes are real and have consequences. And while rejection may sting and doing nothing may leave you feeling despair, at least you can cling to those fantasies. Dating someone in real world means facing the possibility of having hope and having it snatched away.

Worse: it means facing the possibility of being right: that you are a hopeless case and you’ve wasted all that time and there’s nothing left for you to do.

Thing is: all of that? It’s bulls

t. It’s just your jerkbrain dripping poison in your ear, telling you that you’re worthless and that there’s no hope for you. It’s your own mind playing tricks on you, repeating your worst fears to you in your own voice, so they feel so much more real.

Because here’s a truth: there is no window. There is no time limit. There’s no point in time when you were “supposed” to accomplish everything. The idea that there’s some Universal Standard Narrative that every guy, gal and non-binary pal is supposed to follow is beyond ridiculous, an artificial construct so flimsy that it falls apart if you so much as stare at it too hard. Everybody’s life is different, shaped by forces and circumstances that are entirely outside of anybody’s control, and as unique as a fingerprint. The young man from Kentucky who joins the military at age 18 is going to live an entirely different life than the young man in Surrey who had to drop out of high-school in order to help support his family. The child of privilege from Los Angeles is going to have an entirely different life than someone living in the favelas of Rio De Janeiro or in Harlem or Rotterdam. None of them are going to have the same experiences, the same social development or the same milestones. Trying to measure your life by somebody else’s is the definition of madness; you’ll make yourself miserable trying to contort yourself to fit into the silhouette of someone else’s existence.

Part of your issue is that you’re looking at all of this as “a problem to be solved” instead of “a life to be lived”. You don’t have a problem, you just have things you haven’t done. Some of them may have been left undone due to circumstance, some due to fear and some due to choice… but they’re just things you haven’t done yet. None of this is a puzzle or a dilemma so much as a call for action.

Take the idea that you had to have “solved this problem” by the time you leave university. Do you seriously believe that, as soon as you have your diploma in hand, you will be rendered incapable of learning? Do you honestly think that the moment you’ve left university that your brain has shut down and you’ll no longer be able to process new experiences, learn new skills, develop new habits? No, of course you don’t; the existence of literally every human on earth disproves that. So it’s not that you’re incapable of growing or changing.

But what about trying to do this when you’re doing your residency? Won’t that make things impossible? Hardly. Residents and interns make friends. Residents and interns date. They have relationships, they have sex, they have social lives. It can be difficult — free time comes at a premium under the best of circumstances in the early days of being a medical professional, and you’re about to graduate as a doctor during one of the worst pandemics in modern history. But difficult isn’t the same as “impossible”. Nailing Jell-o to a tree is impossible; everything else is merely hard.

What about if you do everything and nothing changes? This is a false premise; the fact that you have done anything means that things will have changed. The only way things won’t change is to continue proceeding exactly as you are. What you’re afraid of is trying new things and failing. Except not only is failure not the end, failure is one of the most important ways of learning. Making mistakes doesn’t mean that you’re a failure, it just means that you did something the wrong way. It doesn’t mean you’re incapable of success, it shows you what you need to learn in order to succeed.

Part of what’s holding you back isn’t the fear of failure so much as the fear of not succeeding on the first go. But, much like trying to contort your life to fit into somebody else’s narrative, this is an exercise in foolishness. Nobody is a success, right from the start. Even people with all the natural talent in the world had to practice and put in the work. Michael Jordan wasn’t born knowing how to play basketball; he ground out the experience points through constant work. Bill Gates wasn’t born a computer genius; he had to learn and study. Some people may have advantages, some may have disadvantages, but nobody gets to be successful without putting in the effort. The only reason why it seems like some folks are socially successful without even trying is because you didn’t see them when they were learning. You weren’t there to see all the mistakes, all the tears, all the frustration. Yeah, you’re gonna suck at it at first. But as a wise man once said: sucking at something is the first step to being good at something.

You’re worried about actually trying and then finding out that you had wasted your time. Here’s my challenge to you: what if you’re wrong? What if you are utterly, totally and completely wrong about having “wasted” your life? What if all those fears you have about being truly helpless, f

ked by the fickle finger of fate were just nothing but your own phobias? What would happen if you let go of all of those fears and discovered that you were capable of so much more than you ever gave yourself credit for?

Which would be worse: taking a chance to discover your true potential or losing even more time to fear and regret.

Because here’s the thing: you already know you can do this. If you’re able to make it to put in all the hours of study to get through pre-med and med school, pass the licensing boards and become a doctor, then you have what it takes to improve your life. You’ve got the will, the drive and the determination to learn the skills it takes to date,

Maybe other folks started earlier than you… but that’s their story, not yours. You can only live your story, and that story starts now. All that it takes is that you have to dare to be all that you can be. For all your introspection, you need to look deeper and find that place in you where your dreams survive; when you do, you’ll understand that it’s calling you on to victory.

The only thing holding you back is the belief that you are destined to fail. And the only thing you can say to that is “but what if I’m wrong?”

Your fears have been holding you back for far too long. It’s time to unburden yourself of all the things that hold you down — the fears, the doubts, the worries. It’s time to let go of your earthly tethers and fly.

You are capable of more than you believe. You have more potential than you give yourself credit for.

You can win if you dare.

Good luck.

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