DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a straight, non-monogamous male. I have a friend with benefits, X, who has been my lover for two years now. She’s also one of my best friends overall and even though a traditional relationship escalator-type thing is not on the table, we are planning long-term a co-housing project on a farm. X has never been my type physically, and even though I’ve enjoyed making love with her, she’s rather shy and passive in bed which makes the sex just average, not the awesome sex I’m aspiring to.

Now my attraction for X has been going steadily down lately because she’s been taking quite a bit of weight. I know society judges this as being fatphobic because most people believe that we have no influence on our weight and it’s not supposed to affect our attraction for others, but I can’t seem to help it. I look at X and even though I’m very fond of her, the sight of her stimulates my libido less and less as she is gaining more and more weight.

This problem is exacerbated by a new FWB I’ve been f--king, Y, and she’s not only more of my type physically, she’s totally GGG and I’m having the best sex of my life with her. This doesn’t affect the strong feelings I have for X but it does make the sex with her seem even less interesting.

Where the situation gets delicate is because X has low self-esteem problems, she’s self-conscious of her body and has a hard time accepting it. I’ve always been careful to make her feel beautiful by having very sensual sex with her and telling her she’s pretty, and I never made a single comment about her weight. I believe people should choose how to manage their body and others don’t have a say in it. My philosophy is that my choice is limited to taking people as they are or not taking them at all, and I shouldn’t ask nor expect them to change for me.

I think our relationship is heading towards phasing out sex from it but the problem is that I don’t want to exacerbate her self-esteem problem, I don’t want to make her hate her body even more and make her more self-conscious about it. So I don’t want to tell her that I’d rather stop having sex with her because I’m not attracted to her anymore. I don’t want to lie to her. And I’d rather not have sex with her that I don’t feel like having, just to please her. And above all, I don’t want to jeopardize our friendship and our project.

What should I do, Dr. NerdLove? Is it me who’s wrong and I’m not supposed to be any less attracted to her even though she’s taking weight? If so, what am I supposed to do about it? If not, how can I detach my lowering interest for sex with her self-esteem issues?

– Seeking Humane Answer to Lowering Libido for Overweight Woman

DEAR SEEKING HUMANE ANSWER TO LOWERING LIBIDO FOR OVERWEIGHT WOMAN: Alright, SHALLOW, there’s a lot going on here, but there are two that stand out as being the most significant. The first is that I think you might be misattributing your loss of interest solely to X’s weight. The second is that you’re giving yourself a false dichotomy here. But there’re more than a few issues that’re getting tangled up in all of this and making things worse.

As with a lot of complicated issues, let’s roll it from the top, shall we?

To start with: I’m kind of wondering how attracted you were to X in the first place. I mean, right from the jump, you’re telling me that she’s never been your physical type to start with and that, while you like getting laid, the sex is mediocre to average at best. That doesn’t exactly make your loss of attraction to her much of a surprise; it seems rather like it was more inevitable, rather than something that’s caught you by surprise. This is especially true when you’ve started hooking up with Y who not only is your type, but also has the kind of sex you want. Not only do you have all that New Relationship Energy crackling in your brain, but you’re banging someone who you’re actually in tune with, sexually, instead of going through the motions because an orgasm WOULD be nice tonight. This is why I don’t think her weight gain is the root cause of your loss of interest. I don’t think it’s helping in this case, but I strongly suspect that it’s the easiest thing to latch onto. You weren’t that hot for her to start with, and these changes were enough to snuff out the last of your interest.

Now I get that X is your best friend and you love her… but the way you describe things makes me think that you made the mistake a lot of straight guys make: you bought into the idea that men and women can’t be just friends. One of the most pernicious myths that straight dudes believe is that sex always gets in the way between men and women — the old “yes, your guy friends all want to f--k you” bit from When Harry Met Sally. This alone makes it hard for guys to have honest and emotionally intimate friendships with women. But then there’s also the fact that, because society encourages men to be detached from their emotions and we equate emotional intimacy with sexual intimacy, men tend to confuse an emotionally close friendship with romance. As a result: you get a lot of guys who mistake friendship for romantic attraction and who try to make a relationship work with someone they’re not actually attracted to.

And that’s generally a good way to end up with a lot of hurt feelings and unnecessary pain.

I don’t know if it was just a case that the two of you had a one-night stand and decided to make a go of it, that one of you kicked things off with the other and it just kind of spiraled from there or what but it sounds to me like this is a relationship that’s had an expiration date from the get-go. And, in fairness, that’s the case with a lot of FWB relationships. As I’ve said before, friends with benefits tend to end one of two ways: either you quit having sex, or you quit being friends. Sometimes that means you quit being FWBs and move to something more committed, or the friendship falls apart. And frankly, SHALLOW, I think you’re going to end up with both if you’re not careful.

But here’s the thing: your choices aren’t “lie to her about why you don’t want to f--k her any more” or “destroy her self-esteem by telling her you think she’s too fat”. Nor is it to continue having maintenance sex because you’re trying to boost her self-esteem with your penis (which, incidentally, doesn’t work). What you should do is be honest: you’re feeling the nature of your relationship changing and that it’s shifting more to the “friends” side of the equation than the “benefits” part. She’s still very dear to you and you love her, but for you, the sexual side of your relationship is coming to an end.

And then leave it at that. This is, in fact, a normal part of relationships; plenty of folks have transitioned from FWB to friends without benefits. Sometimes it’s because one or the other has decided to pursue an exclusive relationship. Other times, it’s because that attraction faded over time… like it often does. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her or the relationship, it just means that part of the relationship reached its natural conclusion. If you’re going to make that leap yourselves, then telling her “Bee-tee-dubs, I wasn’t that into you into the first place, but putting on a few pounds killed that dead” is the last thing you should do. The important part of “friends with benefits” isn’t the “benefits”, it’s the “friends”.

So let her down gently, SHALLOW. Make sure she understands that this isn’t about her, it’s about you and the nature of your feelings. She has done absolutely nothing wrong, this is just how things have progressed for you. Then continue to treat her like a dear friend… that you’re not f--king.

And in the future, be a little more mindful of your feelings and don’t try to round a friendship up to something more. Especially when you’re not that attracted to them or sexually compatible in the first place.

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 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