DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been beating myself up for ages, because like you used to be, I am “The One Who Girls Don’t Like Like That.” I think I’m pretty friendly, and most people don’t seem to be against the idea of spending time with me, but in terms of romance or sex I’m completely dead in the water. I actually have to pretend I have experience in both of those areas to even be able to survive even a simple conversation, since most of them revolve around those exact things.

Considering I’ve got a minor autism thingie going on (like so mild that you can’t tell at first, I’m not Forrest Gump or Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man”), I’ve gotten very good at “bulls--tting,” where I essentially craft a backstory about myself that is so radically different from what I really am. Essentially, I’m just a likable Jewish kid from New Jersey who’s saving himself for marriage (because pretending you’ve gotten laid repeatedly is annoying, and I’ve been found out more than once), who personally dislikes the taste of alcohol and drugs (seriously, pretending to be religious is a godsend for the socially awkward) and what not. I’m not quite as distressed about this as I used to be, since I’ve got a way better mental image of myself than I used to, considering that in high school I was convinced that I was obese and wanted to kill myself. But that’s old news, and I’m better than that. And I’m only 17, so I’d assume that most people would laugh me off and say “Oh don’t worry, you got time, kid.” 

The problem this creates is that even if people believe that I’m an abstinence nut, albeit one that seems strangely fine with other people having sex, it still doesn’t explain my complete ineptitude with the opposite sex. As a platonic friend I’m tops, because I’m nonthreatening, very sweet towards women, blah blah blah. This bothered me in high school, but I’m not so mad about it now. Point is, even a guy pretending to be a religious nut can have a girlfriend. And I don’t, nor have I ever had one. I won’t go down the “forever alone” line of complaints, but I’ll admit that I’ve considered that I might be like that. 

Back to the platonic friend crap. I don’t mind it so much anymore since I’ve left high school, and the only female friends I have now are ones that I am not sexually interested in. 

A new problem I think I might have is that it’s a possibility that I might be more attractive than I thought and some women may have liked me after all, and that I either didn’t know or, when I found out, lost interest completely. I’m suspecting more and more that I’m only attracted to women who don’t like me back, on purpose. The second they express interest, I lost interest. It’s as if I need all that pain and heartbreak of the friend zone to even want to bone her, much less be in a mutual romantic relationship with her. And that’s bad, much worse than my initial “I’m really ugly” belief. Even now I know that I’m not better than average appearance, which I can live with, but if this theory of mine is true, then I am royally screwed.

Case in point: I casually start talking to this girl online (not even for romantic reasons). When I eventually see a picture of her she took for me, holding a sign with my name on it, I notice that she is HOT. Not even cute or adorable like most of the women I encounter, but so attractive that I’m shocked that she’s still talking to me. She knows what I look like too, I’m not one of those insecure morons who gets a picture of some “Magic Mike” looking guy online and pretends to be that. We keep talking, and I eventually admit that I’ve got feelings for her, and amazingly enough, she apparently feels the same way. So what, she lives in California or something, so it would be great if she lived where I do, but too bad. The problem is, the second I hear it from her, suddenly all of that mad attraction I was feeling just went away. This is not the first time this has happened, I think. 

So essentially, to sum it all up, I’m just wondering if you’ve ever heard about anything like this before, and what could possibly be done.

Lost In Jersey

DEAR LOST IN JERSEY: As with many of my other readers, there are a few issues in here besides the one you’re asking about. And frankly, most of them revolve around the fact that you’re 17.

To start with: the whole virginity/lack of romantic experience thing – I think you’re more hung up on it than most of your friends and acquaintances are. You say that you have to fake experience in order to “survive” in conversations that revolve around sex or relationships. In reality, a lot of it is in your head. I get that it feels like you and your friends are talking about sex all the time. I realize it makes you feel like you’re the Last American Virgin.

But here’s the thing. First and foremost, the number 1 rule of being a teenager is to remember that most teenagers talk a whole lotta s--t. At that age, there’s a LOT of lying on one’s resume; everyone’s confused and insecure and will exaggerate or straight-up lie about what they’ve done and with who in order to seem like they’ve got a handle on this whole “sex and relationships” thing. That can make it feel like you’re the only one who HASN’T had all kinds of crazy sexual adventures… and you’re not. You’re 17; being a virgin at 17 is neither terribly unusual or something to be ashamed of.

Hell, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 19. I was entirely convinced I was going to be able to drink before I had sex.

As I’ve said before, losing one’s virginity is given more importance and significance than the actual act has. The biggest physical difference between being a virgin and not being a virgin is basically non-existent and physically meaningless. Psychologically – assuming that you didn’t have a traumatic or exploitative experience – you’re the exact same person you were before; you just have a new set of experiences that you didn’t have before. High-schoolers make a big deal about sex because it’s supposed to be the dividing line between childhood and adulthood and by having sex they’re really more mature or somehow better than the ones who don’t… but that’s almost entirely ignorance and insecurity talking.

You’re doing yourself a disservice by putting up so many fronts as a way of saving face or justifying why you haven’t had more experience; by doing so, you’re reinforcing your own belief that being a virgin, not being interested in alcohol or drugs is something to be ashamed of. Yes, there are a--hats out there who will give you s--t for it… but why give a damn about what an a--hat thinks? F--k ’em, they only have the power over you that you let them have.

Plus, the way you’re crafting this fake narrative about yourself is only serving to sabotage your own progress. These false fronts you’ve been putting up have a lot to do with why you lose interest in women who might actually show interest in you.

You are doing something that I used to do back in the bad old days; you don’t believe that you’re actually desirable or worthy of having a girlfriend and as a result, you’re sabotaging yourself. It’s a perverse way of protecting yourself against emotional vulnerability and the pain of being rejected – by setting yourself up for failure, you know in advance that you won’t have to put yourself in a position to be hurt. The heartache and drama that comes from going for unavailable women doesn’t “count” because you know subconsciously that it’s not “real”. It’s not the same as if you went for someone you actually cared about and invested in emotionally. That would run the risk of real pain, not these phantom pains from being friend-zoned when you knew in advance that it would never go anywhere.

Let’s look at the example you provided: you’re talking with someone online, someone who lives across the country from you. Right there, you have two layers of insulation against the idea that the two of you could have a relationship.  She’s “safe”. OK, so you realize she’s really smoking hot… but you don’t know her in person and she’s thousands of miles away. Still safe. It’s ok for you to be attracted to her, because you know in the back of your mind that it will never happen. So you allow yourself to have feelings for her.

And then she drops the bomb that she likes you too. Suddenly, she’s much less “safe” than she was before. Now, even though she lives in California, even though you’ve never met in person, she represents actual risk. This is a relationship that COULD actually happen. You, however, still believe that you aren’t capable or worthy of having one… and so you subconsciously shut down and pull away rather than risk actual emotional intimacy and the pain of rejection and genuine heartbreak because this can’t possibly work.

I’m not surprised that you’re having problems with the idea that maybe you’re not actually a hideous goblin. You have built up this mental image of who you are; finding out more and more that it just isn’t true and that’s causing you anxiety. Realizing that you were wrong all of this time means that having to accept responsibility for your decisions – you’re not single because of a quirk of fate, you’re single because of choices you’ve made – can be terrifying. It removes all of your carefully crafted rationalizations and defenses and forces you to look at them. It shows you all of the missed opportunities, all of the things you could have had and screams “This is all your fault!”

It’s easier to believe that your life is out of your hands than to look at all of the wasted potential and have to accept that you are where you are because you put yourself there. But as I said: you’re 17. Everything feels huge and out of proportion when you’re 17 – love is more epic, the pain is deeper and the losses are more tragic. To be a teenager is to have absolutely no sense of proportion and to think things are much worse than they really are.

For example: You think that if you’ve been wrong all this time, then you’re screwed. Except it’s not true. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. By realizing now that you were wrong, that you aren’t an unlovable troll but someone who is actually sexy and desirable, you have the opportunity to change and take control of your life – to have the relationships that you clearly want but keep denying yourself. The sooner admit to yourself that you were wrong and accept that these self-limiting beliefs of yours are bulls--t, the sooner you can open the door and let the future in instead of living your entire life looking backwards and wishing that things could have been different.

You’ll have that voice in your head telling you that you’re ugly, that women couldn’t love you. Shout it down. Shut it up. Remind yourself that it’s wrong. You have all the evidence to the contrary, so now it’s time to act on it. The past is merely prologue. Forgive yourself for having been wrong and for everything that you’ve missed out on. Then resolve to go out and live your real life.

It’s time to quit playing it safe and take some risks. Fortune favors the brave, after all. 

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: So, I’m not sure what the start of my issues are. I know I lack romantic confidence, but have no idea how to build it, especially since the pandemic. I’m not really timid in the rest of my life (anymore) and even confident at times, but when I actually try to meet someone it’s like a switch flips and I can’t stop feeling like I’m unwanted and harassing a woman, even just to ask her out. I know this kills any chance I might have had, but it’s like I’m not the one driving anymore and just shouting from the backseat. I also seem to have a lot of “downtime”. If I get rejected it can take months for me to try asking someone out again, and even weeks to feel any sort of attraction again. I know it’s partially a numbers game, but when people say move on, what I hear is give up on weeks to months of invested feelings just so you can be in the position to allow the process to happen all over again.

This makes me wary to hear a first real relationship probably won’t last. My first instinct that if I find myself in a relationship, I should end it as soon as possible because is probably doomed and I might as well minimize losses (I know this has no basis in reality, but my emotions keep running with it).

All in all I know I’m still a mess, and I’m working with a therapist (which has been marginally helpful), but I don’t know how to get experience to be less of one.

Bless This Mess

DEAR BLESS THIS MESS: A couple things in your letter leap out at me, BTM. The first is the idea that you need to give up weeks or months of invested feelings, and that it takes you weeks to feel attraction in the first place. The way you phrase this leaves things a little ambiguous; do you mean that you take weeks to develop an attraction to an individual, or do you mean that if you’ve been rejected, you take weeks to feel any attraction to anyone afterwards? If it’s the former, that sounds a little like being demisexual — someone who doesn’t develop strong sexual attraction to someone without getting to know them or having a strong emotional connection to them first. If it’s the latter… that sounds more like depression. Obviously, this distinction makes a rather crucial distinction as to the best way to move forward.

(And if it IS the former, then I suggest you check out the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network at asexuality.org. They have resources to help you learn more about what demisexuality means, as well as suggestions to help you navigate dating without pressuring yourself into trying to force yourself a mold of sexual performance that doesn’t actually match who you are.)

Similarly, mentioning giving up weeks or months of invested feelings sounds like you mean that you’ve spent weeks and months building yourself up to the point of trying to ask someone out. If that’s the case… well, that’s part of your problem. By spending that much time before actually making a move, you’ve invested far more in a person than is actually warranted. You end up making that person — someone you often barely even know — so important that their turning you down could destroy you emotionally. Needless to say, that’s far more power than a relative stranger deserves over you. Part of the way that you avoid this is fairly simple: you don’t wait that long in the first place. Being more proactive and not waiting for weeks, trying to get 100% assurance they’d say yes or trying to find the “perfect” moment, you don’t invest so much in any one person that they can wreck you with a word.

But if we’re being perfectly honest, I think that’s a lesser problem right now, and not the problem you should be trying to deal with. Yet.

When it comes to trying to fix one’s life, I like to focus on the order of operations. After all, it doesn’t do you any good to work on being more proactive about meeting women and asking them out when a single rejection is going to put you out of the game for weeks at a time. So that is where I would suggest putting your focus for now.

Now, I want to preface this with the reminder that Dr. NerdLove is NOT a real doctor and the acknowledgement that I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, so a lot of the co-morbidities of ADHD are in the forefront of my mind. With that being said: what you describe sounds a lot like rejection-sensitive dysphoria to me. Rejection-sensitive dysphoria is an extreme response to the pain and anxiety of being rejected by someone or feeling like you’ve failed someone important in your life. It can lead to people anticipating rejection and trying to avoid it at all costs — to the point of turning into a social phobia, and causing them to stop even trying anything that might lead to rejection.

Like, say, approaching women they’re attracted to.

Now, if that sounds like you,  then that’s something I would suggest you bring up with your therapist the next time you talk to them. Your therapist is in a better position to determine whether this is a possibility for you and, if it is, recommend potential treatments. They may adjust your therapy to help you find coping strategies, or they may suggest medication that can help address the problems.

Getting that under control will make it easier to work on other issues, such as your feeling that your being attracted to someone is inherently unwelcome before you’ve even said anything. Each step forward will make each following step that much easier for you.

You’re in a tough place, BTM, but you’re taking the right steps. Focus on that order of operations, take care of those underlying issues, and you’ll get through to the other side and be all the stronger for it.

You’ve got this.

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: I am not currently in the mental state to be in a long term, committed relationship, but I would like to be intimate with a woman/women. But I have no idea how this even happens. How does it start? And especially, how does a guy even bring up this idea without being labelled a douchebag/creeper/f- -kboy?

I’ve asked similar questions to this online on multiple sites, just simply asking how a guy looks for this without being creepy, and have had answers along the lines of “it’s impossible, because FWB is creepy”, or “you’re basically asking how do I do this creepy thing without being creepy”, or “you don’t think she’s good enough to date but you’d still f--k her, you don’t see her as a person”. I don’t think I said anything to warrant this kind of reaction, so it seems to just be that they don’t like the idea. It would be one thing if this was just a matter of personal preference, but they seem to carry the implication (or in some cases, explicitly remark) that any guy who would want this or look for this is creepy, predatory, misogynistic, and awful.

So it seems like, when finding someone, that I have to be lucky enough to:

1. Not have any hangups about the idea, not think that it’s inherently creepy,

2. Not have any hangups about me in particular asking

and that’s in addition to

3. The whole thing with approaching in general, that she has to be fine with both my approach and the venue.

And of course, there’s no way of truly knowing any of this without asking in the first place. And these three things are just what I need to not be seen as a reprehensible creep for this, not even to actually FIND a FWB. At this point, it seems less like finding someone and more like playing the lottery.

So, how does this happen, and how does a man do it without being seen as evil?

Benefits Package

DEAR BENEFITS PACKAGE: The way you find a friend with benefits is pretty simple, BP: you put yourself out there and make it clear that you’re looking for a casual relationship, rather than something committed or long-term. The easiest and most reliable way to do this is through dating apps. After all: the people on dating apps are there specifically to find potential partners, including women who’re down for something casual and non-committed.

Different dating apps offer you different ways of indicating what kind of relationships you’re looking for. OKCupid, for example, offers a number of “looking for” options, including “short term relationships” and “casual sex”. On an app like Tinder or Hinge, you might point out that you’re not looking for a committed relationship, that you’re not in the market for anything long-term or that you’re not “The One” but lots of fun… there’re a lot of ways to be creative while still making it clear that you’re not offering anything more serious than a casual relationship.

The apps also let you filter for folks who are also looking for what you’re looking for, or who might be open to it. This is far easier than, say, rolling into the club and saying “hey, I’m looking for a FWB, you down?”

Now I have to admit: I would be very curious to see where and how, exactly, you posed this question, BP. I suspect that has far more to do with the responses you got than a universal truth that “all women think dudes looking for FWBs are creepazoids”. The truth is that, far from being a hive-mind, LOTS of women would be down for casual sex. The problem is that a) women face a disproportionate amount of physical and emotional risk when it comes to finding sex partners than men do, b) the sex is very rarely worth the risk and c) dudes have a tendency to immediately turn around and call women sluts afterwards.

But the way you framed this hypothetical search makes me think that you’ve got a fairly fundamental disconnect between what you want and what a friends-with-benefits relationship is. You seem to be coming to this from the angle that you propose an FWB relationship to someone you’ve just met which… isn’t really how it works. Especially if you’re trying to meet people off a cold approach, and doubly so if you’re meeting them some place outside of, say, a bar, club or dating app.

Because here’s the thing: the key word in “friends with benefits” isn’t “benefits”. It’s “Friends”.

To be clear: I’m a big believer in establishing the kind of relationship you’re looking for early on, especially when it comes to casual or no-strings relationships. But dropping the “so yeah, I don’t really want to date, mostly I wanna hang out, drink beers and f--k” right from the start is… not a great look. What you’re going to want to do is actually go on a date or two, see if you two are even compatible at all, and then — if there’s chemistry and mutual interest — discuss the kind of relationship you actually want. Like I’ve said elsewhere, the script is fairly simple:

“Look, I’m going to be straight with you: I’m not looking for/ do not want/ am not interested in having a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. I’m a good friend and a good lover, but I’m not available for commitment beyond that. If that’s what you’re looking for, that’s not a problem, but I’m not the person who can give it to you.

Here’s what I want from this relationship and here’s what I have to offer.

How about you?”

That “How about you” is important. A lot of people feel awkward discussing the exact nature of what they’re looking for when it comes to dates and relationships. In fact, a mistake a lot of people make is that they never explicitly say what they’re looking for and hope that everyone just happens to be on the same page. This… works about as well as you might think. Which is to day, disastrously. By stating exactly what you want, what you’re able to give and THEN saying “and how about you?”, you’re modeling the type of communication that you want and giving them permission to be as open and forthright about what they want from a partner.

And if they say no — which they very well might — then you thank them for taking care of themselves, wish them all the best and move on; you’ve discovered that you and they weren’t right for one another.

But I want to highlight another issue I think you’re gonna run into BP: I think you don’t quite get what’s involved in a friends with benefits relationship. You aren’t interested in relationships right now, just sex. That in and of itself is fine. The problem is that I think you’re assuming that an FWB relationship is sex-on-tap, and it’s really not. Like I said: the key word in there is “friends”. These are — or should be — people you are friends with, who you enjoy spending time with and, in an ideal world, you would still want to hang with if sex weren’t on the table. They’re not people you just call up whenever you decide that yes, some oral sex WOULD be nice tonight. Nobody, even women who’re down for hooking up with a guy they met that night, likes to be treated like an ambulatory Fleshlight.

Unfortunately, that attitude is really common. The reason why a lot of folks, especially women, are down on FWB or casual relationships is because a lot of dudes tend to use the label “causal” as a reason to treat their PARTNERS casually. I can’t count the number of women I’ve heard from who’ve had casual relationships with dudes who were cold to them or felt like they had to keep reminding them that this was just a sex thing… as though they had to be assholes to keep those “soft-hearted ladies” from catching a bad case of feels.

(I’ve run into far more dudes who’ve caught feels for their casual partners than women, for the record…)

You mention not being in a mental state for something long term. While an FWB relationship doesn’t come with the expectations of monogamy or long-term commitment, it’s still a relationship, and one that requires care and maintenance. If what you’re looking for is more about casual sex, possibly even one-night stands, you’d be better off focusing on that. An FWB isn’t someone you can bang and ignore until you’ve got the itch again.

If you’re looking for a friend who you also occasionally bump uglies with… well, just realize that friendships come with obligations and responsibilities too.

Good luck.

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