DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I never paid much attention to the love-related side of your internet work, but now that I’ve found myself in a bit of a situation you were the first one that came to mind when I thought of where to get help. 

I met this girl a little over a year ago through a forum that we were both a part of. It wasn’t an online dating site or anything, just a casual forum. We got to know each other through the group that we were both a part of and on a whim I started sending her messages several months ago. Eventually we realized we had the same tastes, personality and sense of humor, and I started having long conversations with her almost every day. At first we just talked about anime and music, but after a while we started talking about our personal lives, and we would vent to each other about stuff that was bothering us whenever we could. We’d frequently do Skype video calls with our longest conversation lasting four hours, and consider each other good friends and speak to each other as such, with a majority of our conversations consisting of us throwing joking insults at each other. As far as I know, I’m the only one she does this with as well.  

As you probably guessed, I’ve fallen for this girl, though it embarrasses me horribly to admit it. While I have had some female friends in real life, I never felt like I could connect with them or talk at length with them the same way I could with this girl. I really do feel like we can say whatever’s on our minds to each other with zero consequences, and I want to talk to her 24 hours a day if I could. It’s gotten to a point where I’ve felt the need to force myself into the conversation whenever she shows up or is even mentioned, and whenever I go out my mind sometimes drifts to what she might be doing right now or whether or not she’s talking to someone else. I realize it’s incredibly pathetic to think that way about someone you don’t even really know but I just can’t help myself. 

The problem is that we live in entirely different continents with any chance of meeting each other in real life being incredibly slim, making a relationship a pipe dream to say the least. Plus, we frequently make fun of another internet guy who creeps on her and she makes it clear that she thinks the concept of having feelings for someone through the internet is ridiculous. I’m worried that if I tell her how I feel, she’ll come to view me the same way as the internet creepers and passive-aggressive friends who have confessed to her for stupid reasons in the past that she frequently complains to me about. However, ever since I’ve fallen for her, I’ve started “jokingly” flirting with her as a way to express myself, which never seems to bother her at all. When I insinuated I was being serious at one point, she told me that the reason she was okay with those jokes was because she knew there was no way I would ever like her, since she’s too “s--t-tier”. This makes me feel really uncertain on what her reaction would be if I told her the truth. 

Doc, I’m fairly thick-skinned when it comes to criticisms, so I’d like you to be honest. Am I creepy or pathetic for falling for a girl this way? Should I tell her how I feel? I don’t want a relationship or anything like that since I know it’s pretty much impossible, but I just can’t stop thinking about her. Is there any way to move past this while still being able to talk to her like normal? I’m a 17 year-old with pretty much no experience in this kind of thing, so I’d really appreciate some help.

– Only An Ocean Away

DEAR ONLY AN OCEAN AWAY: I don’t think you’re pathetic or creepy, OaOA.

I do, however, think that you’re setting yourself up for a fall. I think you’re good friends and have a great deal of emotional intimacy, and from the sounds of it, she’s the first person who you’ve really been able to relate to this way, and it’s heady stuff! It’s also “safe”, in a way that your female friends aren’t because you’ve got an entire ocean between the two of you. It allows you to feel more secure and confident because that distance means that you don’t have as much at risk; you know that a relationship is impossible because, hey, you’re in opposite corners of the world!

But I’m going to draw the line at saying that “yeah, you’re in love with her”. You’re basically dealing with what’s known as “limerence“… basically a crush. That obsessive, constantly thinking about her? The way you kind of clam up when you think about trying to actually tell her how you feel and the nervousness about your feelings not being returned? These are all classic symptoms of a crush, and these can be made all the more intense when there are obstacles in the way. Like, say, an entire ocean. In short… you’re crushing on someone and it’s kinda making you crazy.

So I’ve got good news and bad news. And I’m going to give you the bad news first.

The bad news is: I think you’re kind of screwed on the relationship front. To start with, there’s the long-distance issue. Long distance relationships when you’re in the same state are difficult enough. Long distance relationships when you’re in entirely different countries are harder by orders of magnitude. Long distance relationships when you’re in entirely different countries AND there’s a global pandemic that means that most countries won’t let Americans in… well, that’s an even BIGGER complication. The level of effort and expense it takes to maintain a trans-continental relationship is immense. Now to be sure, it can be done. In fact, I oversaw the wedding of a couple of friends of mine who were living halfway around the world from one another… but part of what made that work was that one of them had already made plans to pull up stakes and emigrate. Knowing there’s a definite end-date to the separation can help keep the relationship alive and ease the tensions that arise from the distance.

This is magnified by the fact that you’re 17. You’re still riding out the emotional and hormonal equivalent of Space Mountain, which means everything is crazy intense. The constant hormone flux mixed with the f--ked up prison-system lifestyle that is high-school means that half the time, you have no idea whether you’re coming or going. So you’re now stuck with these crazy feelings you barely know how to handle and no real way of releasing them and you don’t really know what to do. Then there’s the fact that you’re within a year of graduating from high-school and (presumably) heading towards college. High-school relationships rarely survive the transition to college for many, many reasons. College is the first time you’ll be truly on your own and surrounded by people your own age – all of whom are there for the same reasons you are. You’re going to be watching your social circles change as your identity starts to mature and shift and you find out who you really are… or at least who you’re trying to be. This would test any relationship… but you’ve got an extra wrinkle on yours.

Namely: you’ve never actually met in person. And no, Skype calls don’t count. This is the thing about online-only relationships: they’re not the same as ones where you meet in person. Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t have a legitimate emotional bond with someone who you only know online – over the years I’ve made more friends than I can count that started off as text in a forum and I’ve watched more relationships and marriages that began online than you’d believe.

But what made them work was that they weren’t actually “dating” until they met in person. You can have an emotional bond with someone, sure… but that’s not the same as romantic love. We like to think that love is pure and about the soul and the mind but in reality… it’s as much about the body as anything else. Not just in the sense of visual attraction but in the myriad little ways that we’re barely aware of – the way they smell, the way they feel when we touch their skin, even the way they taste when we kiss. There’s a physical, even pheromonal component to attraction and without a meat-to-meat meeting, it’s just not going to be the same.

It would be one thing if you were in a position to possibly visit in person… but at age 17, there’s a hell of a lot of barriers in the way. And before you think it, going to college in her country is not advisable.

So I’m sorry to drop all of this on you, and I know it sucks.

The good news though is that this is going to be fairly easy to get over. I don’t recommend getting out of contact with her – you’re legitimately friends – but I do recommend that you don’t treat this as a potential relationship. The two of you are close and that’s a good thing; it’s an amazing thing to have such a tight bond with someone. But right now, the way you’re going about things is going to keep you from finding other, just as amazing relationships in your town, and passing over those for a future relationship that is mostly fantasy at this point is a bad idea.

So here’s the Doc’s advice. Live your life. Keep your friendship going.  You may find that over time, the two of you may drift apart… it’s sad, but it happens, especially at your age. Pursue relationships in your area. Get ready for college and the adventures that’s going to bring.

And after you’ve got a couple more years of living under your belt… well, maybe you can save up some cash and take advantage of the student travel programs that’ll be available 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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I (27M) met this woman on Bumble a few months ago. We met each other in person for a low-key meeting to see if we vibe together, and we certainly did. We had similar interests, shared values (which is pretty rare in the rural southern place I live). There was one big problem: that meeting happened a few days before the COVID-19 lockdown. Obviously, we weren’t able to go on any real dates after that.

We kept texting throughout it, but it slowed down, because she works at a hospital lab, and she volunteered to process the COVID-19 tests, and we live in a state that was hit particularly hard. I figured “fine, these are unprecedented times, dating is definitely going to be different, that pre-relationship anxiety of ‘oh god, am I doing something wrong’ is going to be extended by default.” I’ve heard about how much stress medical workers go through, and the fact that she’s doing the tests means she’s definitely at risk of exposure to the virus, and she mentioned that she lives with her high-risk father.

So I figured that her being slow to reply to text messages was a pretty normal thing, since she was diligent in replying to text messages eventually, and she gave pretty substantial replies, and we would even have deep conversations sometimes. I would suggest FaceTiming/remotely watching a movie, she mentioned not having a lot of time. Once, we eventually talked on the phone, we talked for two hours, I was really happy, she sounded really happy. A bit later, she apologized about how she was dodging my invitations to talk or video call, and mentioned what I suspected, that she was really busy and stressed. I didn’t think much of it, until a couple of weeks later, my friends told me that I seem to be obsessing over this, that this is clearly causing me anxiety, that they think she’s unintentionally leading me on, not being upfront about what she wants.

And now this is making me think, is she? So how do I proceed?

Thank you.

On The Back Burner

DEAR ON THE BACK BURNER: I half agree with your friends, OTBB: you do seem to be obsessing about this and it’s causing you stress and and anxiety. That’s not great, and that’s something you need to work on. But we’ll get to that in a second.

Where I disagree with them is the idea that she’s somehow leading you on.

As a general rule, whether we call it back-burnering, bread-crumbing or whatever new cutesy buzzword folks want to toss out there, leading somebody on tends to follow specific patterns. The person who’s doing the leading has no interest or intention of starting a relationship or going on a date with the other person. However, they do like the attention or get a charge from the fact that they know someone likes them. Sometimes they like the validation of knowing that someone’s interested in them, even if they don’t return those feelings. Other times, they get off on the feeling of having that power over somebody else. Still other times, they like knowing that they have a backup plan, a “break glass in case of sex emergency” in their back pocket. And occasionally you’ll find someone who will keep somebody around as an orbiter because they can trade off that person’s crush for favors or gifts or what-have you.

So what they end up doing is giving just enough attention to keep the other person on the hook. They’ll send flirty but non-committal texts or posts or give just enough attention to keep the other person around without actually moving the relationship forward. They make a point of giving the bare minimum to keep somebody’s hopes up without giving so much that it could be seen as an actual invitation or commitment of some sort. So while they’ll be happy to send something vaguely flirty or enticing, they won’t commit to an actual date — or often even more than a very brief conversation. If they sense that their target is starting to slip out of their grasp, they might dial up the intensity so as to give the appearance of a chance and keep them around, but they’ll always have reasons to flake or ghost on them. Usually at the last minute.

Now it’s important to note: this isn’t always conscious. Some folks don’t necessarily recognize that this is what they’re doing, or don’t think of it as trying to keep them hooked. But it doesn’t change the fact that they only give just enough to make sure that their target doesn’t do something like, say, start talking to somebody else. Somebody who might, y’know. Actually show up for a date with them.

From what you’ve described, that doesn’t sound at all like what your crush is doing. She’s not doling out her attention like precious drops of nectar that you only get rarely. She’s not having brief, non-committal text exchanges or only giving you just enough to whet your appetite. You’re having substantial conversations, including a two-hour phone call, but you aren’t having any sort of date.

Keep in mind: she’s a healthcare worker, which means that she’s on the front lines of not just a global pandemic, but one that is steadily getting worse in parts of the country. She’s also helping process COVID tests, which are in such demand that a lot of labs can’t keep up. And on top of all of that, she’s living with someone who’s in the high-risk category for COVID infections and complications.

With all of that in mind, which seems more likely to you: that she’s callously keeping you on the hook because she likes having you dancing in attendance, or that she’s in an incredibly stressful and time-consuming job that takes up most of her emotional resources and leaves her with very little energy afterwards?

NerdLove’s Razor: don’t attribute to manipulation that which is equally explainable by not having the time or energy. It seems fairly clear to me that the issue here isn’t that she’s back-burnering you, it’s that the pandemic is taking everything she has to offer right now. Which sucks, yeah… but that’s one of the risks of dating someone in health care. Their time is rarely their own, and it puts a LOT of demands on them that often leaves them with very little bandwidth for anyone else.

Now the bigger problem here isn’t with her; it’s with the way you’re approaching this. Quite frankly, you’ve overinvested in someone you barely know. Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure she’s a lovely and amazing woman… but you’ve only hung out with her once. You haven’t gone on any dates, you don’t have a relationship with her outside of texts and occasional phone calls. The level of anxiety and stress she’s causing you is far out of proportion to what the situation would call for.

Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you to basically put her on the back-burner yourself. Keep texting and having calls, sure… but don’t put all your hopes, your time or your energy on trying to get her on a date. Get back on Bumble, match with other folks, flirt with them and see if you can have some socially-distanced, COVID-safe dates.

But considering how much anxiety this is causing you, I think you should seriously consider talking to a counselor or therapist. You’ve mentioned that you have similar anxiety issues regarding dating; if this is a regular issue for you, then it may be better to put dating aside for a bit and address the anxiety instead. Most therapists these days will see patients via telemedicine, and many will work with you if you have a hard time affording them. If you can’t find a therapist or counselor in your area, you might look into an app like Talkspace or Betterhelp or even something self-directed like Mood Gym. But getting your anxiety under control will serve you far better in the long run than going through this pain every time you try to meet someone new.

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 24 year old man, dating a 27 year old woman. As it happens, I am an avowed secularist, and I very much consider that an important part of my identity, and I ultimately have little respect for religious belief. I generally view it as a social ill, and yet, I ended up in a relationship with a religious woman.

I absolutely don’t consider her bad, or mean, or what have you for that; in fact, she’s amazingly kind and sweet, and is a very level-headed and empathetic person; we also share a lot of other tastes, and she doesn’t really consider many mundane interests “sinful” either, so that’s not at all the problem. The issue is more with how the disconnect in beliefs is making me feel.

We didn’t discuss beliefs at first, but I mentioned my stance in a story while we were chatting about a week ago, and we discussed it up to a minor point, where she said that she was raised in a fairly traditional Evangelical Christian family, but doesn’t really know much about her tradition. By contrast, I was born into a sort of progressive, “social gospel” Mainline Protestant family, but after a lot of thought in terms of the sciences, philosophy, and ethics, decided that I could never be religious again. As it turned out, she is fairly okay with LGBTQ+ people, has severe doubts as to the existence of hell (and I would have broken up with her had she answered otherwise), and is also fairly sexual and not against sex before marriage. That being said, she still holds a lot to anti-science views, and that is something I feel uncomfortable with as well. She has had little occasion to question those views, and I want to bring it up, but her words are a bit ambiguous as to whether she’d be receptive to much discussion of that at all.

This does matter to me, quite a bit, because I believe that one must reconcile scientific findings and realities with their beliefs, and that it is wrong to deny things like evolution, modern geological science, etc. because these things absolutely impact our daily lives and ignoring them is a way of getting screwed over on a personal and also systemic level.

The other issue I have here is that, as mentioned before, I have severe issues with Christianity as an ideology, for multiple reasons, which I don’t have time to go over here, and while I can deal with it in family who still believe, after all, they’re family, I have reservations about letting a new person into my life with those beliefs. I fear if I only try to talk about the anti-science stuff, then that will create the impression that that was the only problem, and leave the root somewhat unaddressed, only to cause more problems later.

With all that in mind, once again, it seems to me that she has simply never been confronted with much in the way of doubts or objections (that she is from a much rural area than me is another factor in that, no doubt), and I wonder if a frank discussion about my views and my path there may be productive; she is also quite level-headed, caring, and understanding (she had no objections to me not believing, she told me). I very much want to dissuade her from beliefs that I am firmly convinced are making her life and the world as a whole worse, but I’m not so sure that’s what I should want…

So, what do you think? How should I approach all of this? Should I try to see if I’ll accept a compromise? Should I broach the topic at all?

-Oath-breaker

DEAR OATHBREAKER: Here’s my question, Oathbreaker: what’s the actual problem here? Thus far, it seems that she’s fairly open-minded and non-dogmatic. While I’d be a little concerned with “is ok with LGBTQ people” (depending on what, exactly, “ok” means in this case), it doesn’t sound like she’s of the stripe that wants to force others to live by her rules. If her relationship with God and Jesus is just that — her relationship — and she’s cool with other folks doing their own thing, then where’s the conflict? I have a number of religious friends of many different faiths and traditions — pagan, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu — and while I may find some aspects of various beliefs to be… well, let’s just say, not something I would believe in… we don’t really have any conflicts in terms of what we do or don’t believe.

To be fair: most of what we discuss tends to be in the abstract; we’re all in agreement on things like religious belief doesn’t get to dictate who gets rights and who doesn’t. We may discuss whether Jesus actually fulfilled the prophecy of the Jewish messiah or not, or the validity of the gospel of Paul, whether “druidic” traditions are a scam or not or if Nordic pagan traditions are suspect because of the intersection of white-supremacists… but we’re also cool with the fact that they may believe one thing that the others don’t, and vice versa. Much as people will say “your kink is not my kink and that’s ok”, their faith (or lack thereof) is not MY faith (or lack thereof) and that’s fine.

(Now debates about cuisine are another matter; gotta be careful there, or you’re gonna have a fight on your hands. Food is serious business.)

I mention this because going by your letter, it seems like your only real issue is, well, that she’s Christian. Not that she’s tried to impose her beliefs on you or others, not that her faith has interfered in any meaningful way with your relationship or even that you’ve argued about how to raise your kids. Just that she’s religious and holds some anti-science views. Which, hey, potentially problematic, sure. But what is she doing with those views? Is she, say, refusing to mask up when going out? Does she protest against teaching geology or evolution at school? Or does she hold these views without actually trying to impose them on others?

If it’s the former, yeah, I can see that as being an issue. A lot of people who are anti-science are helping COVID have it’s surge here. If it’s the latter, then while I can see it as being annoying or frustrating, I don’t know if it’s that big of a deal. Someone can not like vaccines or think they’re bulls--t and I’ll side-eye the hell out of ’em for it, but if they and their kids get their pertussis and MMR jabs anyway, then side-eyeing is as far as I go.

If I’m being frank, you sound a little like an evangelical atheist, and those always stick in my craw. Trying to compel someone out of faith isn’t any less obnoxious than someone who keeps badgering you to find Jesus; the only real difference is which team you’re on. And while we could go on about the evils that people have done in the name of faith and dogma… if the issue is just that she has beliefs you don’t approve of, then that’s more of a you problem than a her problem. And while I can understand wanting to draw someone away from something you fear may be harming them, that’s literally the same rationale for preaching the gospel.

Not to mention, you really don’t seem to be taking her feelings about it into account. If belief in God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, the Tao, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or the Lion Turtle from the age of Ravaa brings her comfort, security or happiness, trying to argue her out of it because you don’t approve is a pretty presumptive and kinda s--tty thing to do. Especially if she’s not pushing her beliefs on others. She’s respecting your choice; why shouldn’t she get the same courtesy?

The way I see it, you have two choices. You accept her faith as part of who she is — and what made her into the person you fell for, I might add — and agree to live and let live. Maybe over time, her faith will change (without your direct prompting). Or maybe it won’t. Either way, she may not have problems with your not believing now, but if you keep trying to change her faith, she may well start having some.

The other choice is that you end things now, chalk it up to a fundamental incompatibility and find yourself a nice atheist to settle down with.

Good luck.

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