DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Shortly before the quarantine, my best female friend kissed me, but she ran away afterwards. Not like in movies and stuff, more like she was embarrassed and walked away in awkward silence. I think she might have been embarrassed. I tried to text her, but she won’t answer.

The thing is, I like her but I don’t want to blatantly tell her that. I want to talk about it first. This isn’t the only time she’s acted like this. Once she got drunk and tried to… make a move on me but since I was designated driver, I drove her home and put her to bed, then drove back to the bar, since I had other friends who needed to be driven home. I thought nothing of it, because she was drunk. I don’t know what to do about this, and I was hoping you could help me.

Twice Shy

DEAR TWICE SHY: First: you made the right call of getting your friend home safe, then heading back to the bar to take care of your friends, TS. That speaks well of you. So, for that matter, does quietly pretending that nothing happened and letting the matter get shoved down the memory hole. We’ve all had nights where we’ve had more drinks than we should have and did things that would make us cringe so hard that our skeletons would pop out of our bodies and vacate the premise for a less embarrassing home. So good on you for letting your friend keep the shreds of her dignity.

But as the saying goes: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action a message. And it seems that your friend has been trying to send you a message for a while, culminating in this latest event.

That’s why I’m not entirely sure where the conflict is here, TS. She pretty clearly likes you. You pretty clearly like her. She hasn’t been sending signals so much as flares, even if she’s feeling shy and awkward about it all. Frankly, I don’t get why you wouldn’t to straight up tell somebody that you like them. I’ve seen far too many people who seem to think that actually being up front with their feelings is somehow “bad” or “weak”; not suprisingly, they’re also the ones that either end up stuck in The Friend Zone1 or complain about how women are impossible to understand.

So I’m not entirely sure what there is to discuss besides “hey, it seems like you’re into me, I’m into you, how about we go on a proper date and see what happens?” Because frankly, the only way she could be demonstrating her interest any more blatantly would be to hire skywriters.

Just ask her out on a date. Not “hang out some time”, not “get together” but a date. Then see where things go. Either she’ll be relieved that you finally got the message, or you’ll find out that no, she’s not that interested in you after all and this has all been a wacky misunderstanding. Somehow. With makeouts.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I’m in a bit of a pickle and I’m just gonna dive right in: My boyfriend’s birthday, Christmas and our anniversary are all within a month of each other. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

I’m a broke, unemployed 25 year old guy, so I can’t afford to buy him a gift for each occasion. I tried to tell him that last year, and he of course threw down the sob story that he only ever got one present for his birthday and Christmas growing up and how I must not love him as much as I say I do if I’m not willing to break the bank for him during the month of December.

Also, anytime I put my foot down with him, I am “yelling” at him, which is super annoying and not cute.

Help!

–One’s Enough

DEAR ONE’S ENOUGH: While I have sympathy for your boyfriend, OE, their situation’s hardly unique. There’re plenty of folks whose birthdays fall near or around holidays, who often have to deal with the “burden” of sharing their celebration with other events and occasions. And while it’s kind of a shame to be getting slightly fewer presents than others… that’s also hardly unique. Plenty of folks don’t get tons of presents for birthdays or holidays because the people in their lives can’t afford to give them lots of presents. That’s a reality of life.

Under other circumstances, I’d suggest picking one event to celebrate with presents and find something special to commemorate the other occasions that don’t involve spending a lot of money. This could be anything from a sweet (but inexpensive, or even free) date, a romantic (and simple) dinner or other experience. Hell, it could be reserving the night to have a marathon of favorite movies on Netflix or Hulu.

But that would be when you were dating somebody who didn’t act like an entitled little s--t about how many presents he gets.

While it’s somewhat understandable to have a vague sad about a Christmas-adjacent birthday, throwing a hissy fit makes me wonder just how mature your boyfriend is. His telling you that you must not love him if you’re not expressing it in presents you can’t afford to give makes me think that he’s either spoiled or an asshole or both. And the fact that he gets pissy when you try to lay down a line or set a boundary is a sign that he’s not relationship material.

Quite frankly, he doesn’t sound like someone who respects you, your boundaries or the fact that you’re broke as hell and is demanding that you shower him with things you literally can’t afford to give. Now maybe this is something that could be fixed with a come-to-Jesus talk about how inconsiderate he’s being, the fact that you literally can’t afford to do the things he’s demanding and that his trying to emotionally manipulate you is both unwelcome and f--king crass.

But honestly, this sounds more like a “kick him to the curb with the rest of the garbage” situation and find yourself a good guy who understands the realities of your situation and also doesn’t measure affection by material goods. Because frankly, I can’t imagine a world where this dude is so amazing at sex or great in other areas that his whiny bulls--t is worth it. And you deserve better than this, OE.

So if you think it’s possible, then I’d say sit him down and read him the riot act and make it clear that you don’t appreciate the way he acts. But otherwise? It may well be time to draw the curtain on this dude and to use this Christmas to find yourself an upgrade to something better.

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: Found you years ago back when I was a high school student and here I am now writing to you as a college student.

Here’s a backstory leading up to my current situation, which all started back in January this year. I transferred to an out-of-state university as a junior during the spring semester, and was a little concerned about having no friends in school once again.

Luckily, my cousin goes to this college and was able to introduce me to her friends in Smash Club. While I was a filthy casual when it came to Smash, they all took me in pretty fast seeing how I was a cute girl who wrote them notes daily, baked cookies on occasion, and speed-ran HuniePop during club meetings when I lose in bracket.

I met a boy who I’ll call Ludwig for this story. Let me tell you, the moment I offered him my duck umbrella during a rainstorm and he commented about how cool it was, I was infatuated. I can admit it was a unhealthy crush, almost bordering obsession, and I’m glad I was able to let go of those feelings and find closure despite it taking 5 months soon afterwards paired with quarantine.

I haven’t allowed myself to fall in love for someone for years since I was always planning to move away for school and I know I can’t do long-distance, which is why I fell as hard as I did at the time. At the same time, he broke up with his girlfriend shortly before I met him, but that was due to him still having strong feelings about his high school ex who also attended this college with us. Thus, you could guess when I inevitably confessed to him that I liked him, he rejected me and told me he wasn’t ready for any relationship.

Ludwig and I still kept in regular contact throughout these months, from January to August. Whether it was through Discord group calls or texting each other privately, it was always nice to have affirmation that he still wanted to be my friend and did look out for me. We actually did have a small misunderstanding that lasted from late July to early August, but we have since reconciled. We also discovered our initial confusion would’ve been solved faster and easier if a mutual friend didn’t interfere and asked Ludwig to not reach out to me, while assuming the worst from me and thinking I actually had it out for Ludwig from our mix-up.

However, I think it made us stronger as friends and once again reaffirmed that we want the best for each other and we still want to be positively involved in the other’s life. It was shortly after this when he opened up to me about his still present feelings for his high school ex.

Knowing full well I wasn’t the first person he’s talked to about this but also respecting his privacy enough to have never asked about his relationship troubles with any of our friends or himself in any point in the past, I had to tread carefully in a conversation that lasted until 3 in the morning. I thought it would be good to validate his feelings to a point, but bring him to reality when he talked about he felt she was the perfect one for him and other things relating to that train of thought.

Ludwig was still defensive to a degree, but he was still reluctantly open enough to tell me how he was scared of going to sleep due to him having good dreams about her and waking up into a reality without her.

It would be fair to say that my opinion of Ludwig went down a little after telling me he’s carried a torch for a girl that he hasn’t dated in years and still prioritizes her despite her ghosting him regularly. However, I didn’t let that conversation affect our friendship negatively, because why would it? After that conversation, he began to ask if I wanted to hang out with him in person, and our meet-ups grew more frequent throughout the month of September.

I slowly started developing feelings for him again, but they were a lot healthier in comparison to my first run. I didn’t let my crush get in the way of my other obligations or promises or priorities. I also made a conscious decision to not pursue it, seeing how it’d feel like I’m beating a dead horse and how he literally talked about his ex the previous month.

However, he grew increasingly more affectionate and started confiding in me a lot more than he previously had in the past. This should have made things obvious to me, but I didn’t want to read into it at the time or give myself false hope. Ludwig eventually did confess to me after we watched a stupid movie and drank two bottles of wine. I was shocked and told him flat out that I was shocked before telling him that I’m really happy and that I returned his feelings.

After that, we started dating after both talking about how we want to take things slow. He wanted to take it slow because it felt a little weird to be dating a good friend versus someone he wasn’t friends with prior and I did because it’s been years since I dated seriously and I was still relatively inexperienced.

If you ask me, I believe our relationship is really great and I’m fortunate to have as strong as a foundation we had to begin with. We both value communication and quality time and I know he’d never do anything that would intentionally hurt me. As an example of this: Ludwig told me he wouldn’t have taken a chance on us if he didn’t see us working out, as well as admitting his feelings for his crush were dying out and also getting replaced with feelings for me.

However, my main dilemma is that even though we’ve been through quite a bit platonically, Ludwig still feels incredibly anxious about our relationship and we’ve been keeping it a secret from our entire friend group minus three people. I didn’t mind at all at first because I cared and respect him and I still do. However, both our families eventually found out and now know about our relationship and I found it weird that it was still a secret from our friends. I brought it up to him and suggested we can surprise our friends on Halloween, which he seemed receptive to at the time.

However, when a friend of ours recently found out in a private hangout thanks to my lockscreen being a picture of Ludwig sleeping with my dog. I texted Ludwig about it and I think he freaked out before telling me as calmly as he can about how he still wants our relationship on the down-low because he still feels anxious about us and he wants me to understand that a little.

I told him right afterwards that I’m glad he was open to me about his feelings and that we don’t have to go public on Halloween if he’s not ready. I then reassured him that I’ll be here for him no matter what and reaffirmed that I like him and I like us. We then had a calm conclusion afterwards, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bummed about the aftermath.

I know his anxiety isn’t going away anytime soon, but neither will I and I always tell him that. I know he’s upset at himself about his anxiety throwing a wrench in an otherwise good relationship. We’re both happy with each other, but I always wonder if there’s more I can do for him to ease his concerns about us. Is there anything I might be doing wrong with my approach or reaction? Or is there something I could be doing more? How can I be a supportive partner to Ludwig and for him to truly recognize that?

A Former Lonely Sonnet

DEAR A FORMER LONELY SONNET: “Found you years ago back when I was a high school student and here I am now writing to you as a college student.”

Cool, cool, pardon me while I disintegrate into a pile of dust and blow away…

Alright, AFLS, you’ve got quite the tumultuous history with Ludwig. And you’re not wrong: it’s been my experience that having a strong friendship first can lead to an incredibly rewarding romantic relationship. That shared history together is, in some ways, like getting to skip some of the more awkward parts of dating — the getting to know you stages where you you have to learn to accept or tolerate the quirks that aren’t cute and endearing and/or get on your nerves — while still having the thrill of the New Relationship Energy. You also have that baseline of shared history and shared experiences, which can be pretty significant.

However… I want to caution you that 10 months off and on is not as long as it may feel to you. If you and Ludwig had just started dating and hadn’t had those months where you were just getting to know each other, I’d be reminding you that you’re in the honeymoon stage of the relationship. It may feel like everything is perfect and you and your beau clearly have a Love To Last The Ages, but the truth is that you’re still very much in the early days of dating. This is the time when the oxytocin and dopamine are flowing pretty hard and you are both literally getting high off each others’ presence. While all that feels abso-goddamn-lutely amazing, it also means that you’re not exactly the most objective when it comes to them. That dopamine rush is a hell of a thing, and it means that you’re often going to overlook potential red flags because you feel so damn good and hey, everything about him is cute and charming and THE POWER OF YOUR CONNECTION and so on.

Red flags like, say, the fact that he wants you to keep your relationship on the down-low.

Now, I can kind of understand why he might want to keep things quiet. Y’know. If I squint. A lot. You’ve already had one “friend” who got up in the mix of your friendship, and that lead to you and he being convinced that you didn’t like each other. College can be a giant drama factory, and there’re plenty of folks — full of enthusiasm but absolutely no experience or perspective — who’re more than happy to light the fuse on drama bombs and lob ’em into the laps of the people around them. And I can see other reasons why someone might want to keep a relationship on the q.t. — usually because it involves physical threats, legal issues or family drama that could blow the whole thing sky high.

But frankly in this case… this doesn’t really pass the smell test. The fact that he wants to keep it a secret (or as much of a secret as it can be when at least three people already know) because he’s “anxious” about the relationship? The relationship that he wouldn’t have taken a chance on if he didn’t think it would work out? That smells fishier than the dumpster behind a Long John Silver’s, if I’m being honest.

I suspect there’s another reason why he’s a little more concerned about keeping things quiet. I think he may not have been entirely straight with you when he said his feelings for his ex have faded. While I don’t think he’s trying to date you on the side until his ex comes back around… I don’t think he’s necessarily going to strenuously object if she does. Keeping the illusion of still being single means keeping up the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’s going to change her mind and decide she likes him again. No, it’s not logical. But feelings rarely are, especially when you’re young and you’re still thinking about The One That Got Away.

I think you and your ex need to have an Awkward Conversation about just what he’s anxious about and why he wants to keep this a secret. Part of the problem when one person wants to keep a relationship a secret is that he’s not the only person who has to lie; he’s asking you to join him in that lie. You’re having to monitor everything you do in hopes of not accidentally giving the game away. And that doesn’t just mean avoiding PDA or not using the cutesy nicknames you have for each other. It means trying to avoid things like, say, having people notice that he’s on your phone’s lock-screen.

And quite frankly… the secret’s already out. I mean, the whole thing about “three can keep a secret if two are dead” is true, and three people already know. Four, possibly, if your friend who clocked your phone wasn’t one of them. At that point… unless you’re going to make them sign some hellacious NDAs, the game’s up already. If they haven’t told someone else, then it’s just a countdown until they do. So at this point, you and he may as well talk this through and try to get to the bottom of just why he’s trying to keep you all a secret.

But even if it’s not because he’s trying to keep word from reaching his ex, it’s still a s--tty thing to do. It puts an unnecessary strain on the relationship, it means you have to keep a running tally of who does know, who doesn’t know and how much they know. It means having to obfuscate, if not outright lie to your friends. And that ain’t cool.

If you two want this relationship to work, you both have to be coming to it from a place of integrity… with each other and with your friends. And that’s not happening here.

So block out some time, sit him down in person, and hash this out.

If you care for him, if he cares for you and you both honestly want this relationship to work? You need to talk this through. Maybe it won’t end with his agreeing that yes, you don’t have to keep this a secret any more. But at the very least, you’ll understand where he’s coming from and why. And that will make it easier to decide how you want to proceed with things.

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 want to know the propriety of doing something I’ve been thinking about. Back in 2011 when I was in grad school, I met a very charming man at a bar. We met up for drinks the next night and we ended up casually dating a bit. He was in a different field and funny and smart, but I was not looking for anything serious at the time. We hung out a few times, he introduced me to his friends, we had a few sleepovers, and he even mentioned that he normally didn’t do sleepovers with women with whom he wasn’t in serious relationships. All that to say, I think he was more into me than I was into him, but I still liked him.

One day he texted me to hang out and I responded (or thought I responded) that I couldn’t, I was sorry, but I was busy studying. Anyhow, I never heard from him again. This was the second time in a row I think I had declined an invite to hang out and frankly, I thought he was upset with me about it so I never reached out to him again. It was only – literally – a couple of months later that I discovered that my phone (a blackberry at the time) was glitching and many of my texts were never getting out and I wasn’t receiving some incoming messages and I immediately went back to this incident and wondered if he ever got my message and if he thought I had ghosted him.

Anyhow, I’ve never stopped thinking about how I may have accidentally ghosted this man who was so nice and really didn’t deserve that. He unfriended me on facebook but every so often I thought of him and wondered if I should reach out, explain what happened and apologize if he never got my message and I accidentally ghosted him and for failing to reach out earlier (and also, potentially, open myself up to humongous humiliation if it turns out that he actually got my message and essentially ghosted me). I am not looking to start anything new (I am married now with a kid). My desire to reach out stems mostly to ease my conscience after talking to some friends who have told me how painful it was to be ghosted. It has been 8 years. Is this completely (or only partly) stupid? Is this worth the hugely embarrassing predicament I could find myself in? Do people care at all?

-Maybe Accidental Ghoster

DEAR MAYBE ACCIDENTAL GHOSTER: You’re not wrong, MAG: getting ghosted sucks. But there’re degrees of suck and there’re degrees to getting ghosted. It’s one thing to be ghosted by someone who you’ve maybe seen once or twice and they either start getting non-committal or just straight quit responding to your texts and calls. It blows, and while it’d be nice to get a “hey, this isn’t working for me, peace out, cub scout” final message… well, a lot of folks just don’t these days. And, in fairness, there can be good reasons for that. There’re a lot of folks — especially women and trans and non-binary people — who have good reason to worry about men Hulking out over getting rejected and so they choose to ghost instead.

In your case though, it seems like you had quite a bit more going on than just a couple dates that didn’t work out. You were casual, yeah, but not only had you been seeing each other for a few weeks, but you’d also slept together, including sleeping over. If things are gonna end, that merits a discussion — ideally in person, but at least via email. Going completely radio silent and just never responding is rude as hell. So your friend was (and possibly still is) justified in being more than a little pissed that you did him dirty like that.

Now you didn’t intend to ghost him; you where having technical issues and had no idea that he never got your text and possibly never got any other texts from him. Unfortunately, that’s life, especially dating in the modern era. I’m sure if Seinfeld were still going on, there’d be episodes about Jerry or Elaine accidentally breaking up with people because of texts that went to the wrong person or getting left on read. It’s the sort of thing that happens and we have to factor it in whenever we have an “OH GOD WHY HAVEN’T THEY READ MY MESSAGE” anxiety attack.

However, while s--t does, indeed happen… well, there’s an unfortunate confluence of events and then there’s leaving it for more than eight years.

The thing is, you discovered a couple months later on that texts hadn’t been sent or received. That was the time when you should’ve reached out to the guy and said “Hey, I know you’re probably still upset but I just wanted to let you know, I never intended to ghost you. My phone f--ked up and I never realized that you didn’t get my response telling you I had to study. I don’t know if it will necessarily make a difference, but I wanted to clear the air and make sure you knew that you didn’t deserve that and I never intended to leave you high and dry.”

It probably wouldn’t have changed much — I mean, it was still two months later; that’s plenty of time for someone to stew about being ghosted — but at least you could’ve wiped that particular slate clean.

But this far down the line? This is where reaching out to say “heeeeeeey” is going to just feel weird. I mean, I’ve had dates who ghosted me, even brief flings who vanished. If one of them came back years later to say “so, just FYI, I disappeared all those years ago because I didn’t realize my text didn’t send” is going to seem not just random but borderline Dadaist. Hell, depending on the timing and circumstance, it could feel like a really weird attempt at trying to re-establish contact in order to get back together.

Or someone hitting step nine in AA, I guess.

Regardless, it’d be one thing if the two of you had overlapping social circles there was an organic opportunity to be back in contact. But hearing from you from the clear blue sky to say “soooooo… about when we ended things…” is going to feel strange.

And honestly: while you did him wrong (accidentally, to be sure), as far as dating sins go, this is a relatively minor one. If he’s still dwelling on this after all this time, that doesn’t say great things about him. I suspect that, if he’s a grown-ass adult with a decent amount of emotional intelligence, he’s well over it. You got relegated to the category of “well that was f--ked up,” and possibly a story to bring out about how dating can suck and then relegated to the memory hole. Reaching out isn’t exactly going to reopen old wounds, but it’s going to at least be a “ok that’s weird” sort of moment.

I think the best thing you can do is just accept that this was a f--k-up, recognize that you should’ve made an attempt to reach out when you realized what happened, and then try to put this behind you. And if this guilt is still pricking your conscience? Then consider it your penance and a reminder to be a little more careful and considerate in the future.

Good luck.

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