DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This is a pretty minor problem compared to a lot of the ones that you deal with, but I’ve really valued your advice over the years, so I thought I’d send it in anyway.

I was very nervous and awkward as a teenager, but I have spent the last decade working actively on my social skills. I’m proud of how far I’ve come! I’ll always be a bit dorky, but I am able to have conversations with a wide range of people. I have an upbeat personality and really like getting to know people, but I am also a bit over accommodating.

This leads to a dating problem—I feel like I lead guys on. When I’m on a date I tend to smooth over any conversational rough spots, get enthusiastic about their interests, and actively listen to the things they want to rant about. If someone isn’t engaging with me and I have to carry the entire conversation, I can and will do that. I can tell that a lot of guys leave our dates feeling like they’ve really connected, only to be completely blindsided when I reject them. I feel like I’m the woman on the other side of every story about how “I thought it was going so well, I just don’t know what happened.” Rejection hurts, and it especially hurts when you didn’t see it coming. I’m sure all women experience this to some extent, but my I-Don’t-Want-To-Date-You conversations can get super messy and make me feel like the bad guy.

I’m not trying especially hard on dates and never promise anything–it’s my default conversational style that’s the issue. I really want people to have a good time, and don’t know how to do “lukewarm.” To a lesser extent this is also a problem in my friendships, as it’s become a pattern that other people get much more invested in me than I do in them. I think sometimes by trying to be nice in the short term I end up hurting people in the long term, and I feel awful about that.

Do you have any advice on dialing it back? Should I learn to let awkward silences hang and invest in a resting bitch face? I know that there’s got to be middle ground between “what I’m doing now” and “actively being mean” but for some reason I’m finding it hard to navigate. Or should I just accept that part of life is sometimes accidentally hurting the almost stranger that you are eating a giant plate of tacos with? I don’t want to close myself off to other people.

Thank you for your time!

Feeling Rotten About Unrequited Desires

DEAR FEELING ROTTEN ABOUT UNREQUITED DESIRES: This is one of those weird times when I can understand what you’re going through, FRAUD, but man I can empathize with the folks you were on dates with. It can be really frustrating  and confusing when it seems like you were really vibing with someone and having a great conversation only to find out that… well… they weren’t actually feeling it. Now you’re left wondering just what the hell happened, when all signs pointed to everybody having a great time.

But while I can see why there would be dudes who feel like you’re leading them on, the problem is, ultimately, one of discomfort in the short term.

You mention that this is an issue that you have with your friendships too, which I think is a bit of a clue as to where the problem lies. The fact that this tendency towards over-accommodation seeps into your entire social life suggests that you have issues with being a people-pleaser. On the surface, that’s the sort of thing that sounds like a non-problem; what’s wrong with wanting to make sure people are having a good time? Well, it comes down to the cost of paying so much attention to other people’s emotional states. One of the problems that people-pleasers have is that this desire to accommodate others’ needs comes at the expense of their own needs. Giving so much to others often means that either the people-pleaser is missing out or giving up resources that they might need, whether those are material resources or intangibles like time or emotional bandwidth. So someone may agree to take up responsibilities at work that tax their ability to get their own work done. Or they may agree to so many things that they don’t have time or energy for and run headlong into burn-out.

And of course, people-pleasers tend to be a magnet for toxic people who love to take advantage of them.

In your case, your behavior is giving the impression of being far more invested than you actually are, leading to lopsided — or non-existent — relationships. I have to imagine that there’s also a psychic cost to this as well; dealing with the constant mistaken impressions or imbalances in your friendships must get exhausting under the best of circumstances. And that’s before we get to the (understandable) guilt at feeling like you’ve lead people on.

I absolutely get why you feel like you need to carry the conversation. There’s a strong sociological aspect involved here; even in this day and age, women are socialized to prioritize the feelings and emotions of men over their own… even when that hurts them. And let’s be real: those awkward silences or the inability to keep the conversation can be uncomfortable, even anxiety-producing. So I get why you feel like you have a duty to carry on the conversation. But — as you’ve noticed — the end result is a problem of its own.

So my first suggestion is that you start to interrogate just why you feel the need to be the person who makes sure everyone has a good time, no matter what. Does this come from a sense of a lack of self-worth? Are you trying to prove your value or justify your presence in people’s lives by being a people-pleaser because you don’t feel like you have any value on your own? Do you feel like you need to take on the responsibility because someone told you this is what you need to do? Do you not feel like you have the right to just hang back and not carry the entire conversation on your own? Or is it just as simple as feeling like someone needs to do something about that uncomfortable moment and you just end up always being the one to step up?

The more you can understand just why you feel compelled to do this, the easier it will be to dial it all back.

Notice I say “dial it back”, not “be mean”. There’s a vast difference between the two. You don’t need to overcorrect from being too accommodating to being mean or contemptuous.

That’s why my second suggestion is to do less. I realize this seems like a duh-George answer, but I think if you look at your life, you’ll see many places where you go above and beyond the call of duty, to the point of absurdity. By choosing to do less — to embrace the concept of choosing not to fill the emptiness — you carve out more time and emotional bandwidth for yourself. So, rather than rushing to fill in the conversational gaps yourself or carrying the entire conversation on your own shoulders, simply… hold back. Let the silence or the awkwardness be, instead of trying to fix it. This has two benefits. First: it means that the other person is going to have to take responsibility for their end of things. Dates — and conversations, for that matter — are collaborative exercises. The whole point is for mutual engagement and mutual connection. When one person is doing all the work, it’s no longer a partnership. At best, it’s a lecture. At worst, one person is doing all the work and the other person is alternately reaping the reward or sitting there in increasing discomfort. That ends up being lose/lose for everyone. The second benefit is that it ensures a more genuine connection with the people you’re dating. One of the mistakes a lot of people make is that dating is supposed to be easy. If you’re struggling to connect with someone, for example, that’s often a sign that there’s a fundamental incompatibility at play.  You may have incompatible interests or personalities. You may have a clash of values, or they may simply be uninterested. Forcing the issue by carrying the entire conversation on your own creates a false sense of connection because, well, one person’s trying to paper over that incompatibility by themselves.

(It’s worth noting: there’s a notable difference between an awkward but genuine connection and a lack of compatibility. It’s the emotional difference between trying to figure out what side of the USB plug faces up and using the wrong plug entirely.)

My third suggestion is that you get comfortable with discomfort. If you don’t fear an occasional awkward moment or lull in the conversation, you won’t feel the need to fix it. Every conversation has its peaks and valleys. Sometimes those moments where the conversation dies off aren’t signs of something being wrong; it’s just the natural rhythm of the interaction. If you can learn to be comfortable with momentary discomfort, you’re in a better position to tell the difference between companionable silence and signs that the two of you aren’t connecting. Plus: it means that you won’t be forcing yourself to prop up somebody’s entire emotional state on your own.

Don’t be afraid to prioritize your own comfort or your own lack of interest, especially on dates. You’re seeing if you and that person are a good match, not acting as a cruise director. Take a step back and let other people carry their end of the interaction. You’ll have much stronger connections with the people you do like, and you won’t end up accidentally leading on the people you don’t like.

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: Back in december 2019, I joined a twitch channel to help develop my skill at a certain VR game and ended up sticking around that channel up until now. The person doing the streaming is an absolute sweetheart of a girl and helped me a ton with my life. Her small acts of kindness and genuine acceptance of my person gave me back my self-love, my self-worth and managed to get me out of a very long depression. We hanged out a lot in her discord server, she’d open up to me with her problems, with some of her desires and we would also play games together.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, I started to have feelings for her. At first, I didn’t really pay them attention, thinking it was not a real possibility because she lives so far away from me and kept that attraction buried. After around 10 months hanging with her and other friends of the community she created, the feelings grew to more than simple attraction, I was longing for her. I tried to approach her for a potential long distance relationship but it didn’t end very well. She said she wasn’t ready and that she’s a physical person and a distant relationship was not a possibility for her. I then spoke about it to someone else and it got her really angry about the whole situation but we managed to get over it and move on from it.

Now here’s the thing, that whole situation just showed me that it was more than just a longing for a relation. I am totally in love with her. True love level of love in fact. I’ve never felt feeling as strong towards anyone than what I feel for her. So I confessed those feelings to her at the end of november, that it’s actually love that I feel for her, not just attraction. She repeated that she’s not ready for a relationship, that she does not feel that way for me either. Still, I did something really stupid and I pushed it. I thought that the distance was the problem and that if I was willing to come to her (which I am), then maybe it could work. I asked her to give me a chance, I told her that love can grow between two persons. This caused her to actually burst into tears as she didn’t want to hurt me but really don’t want a relationship. She really do care for me but not in a romantic way… Seeing her hurt over this made me slam on the breaks, or rather, it made me divert my course into a brick wall rather than keeping hurting her. I love her with all my heart and it’s stronger than the very desire of being with her, I’d rather suffer than see her suffer from this…

The whole unrequited love made me have several mental breakdowns in the following day, I went into heavy crying for several hours, several times, silent screaming from heartache. The pain is very real and the only time I’ve felt something as intense is from the death of a dear one.

That said, I still want to be with her very badly, I don’t know if there’s any path for me to take that could result in that situation without her getting wounded in the process. She still want to be friends (very much so) and don’t want to end that friendship but was pretty clear that if needed, it will happen. I totally get that she wants to be left alone in that regard and I am not gonna make any direct move in that direction. I’d rather stay her friend than have her disappear from my life. Is there a chance she can eventually love me? How?

Is my love situation hopeless?

Thanks

Does The Heart Get A Second Chance?

DEAR DOES THE HEART GET A SECOND CHANCE: I see that it’s that time of year again when I have to talk about not just parasocial relationships, but online-only relationships as well.

Parasocial relationships are, put simply, one-sided relationships that people form with individuals who they see in media. Because we see or hear somebody so often — whether on TV, YouTube, podcasts, Twitch or in the movies — we start to feel as though we actually know them. And for many, that sense of familiarity can feel a lot like a personal connection. While this phenomena is practically older than steam — people have formed these sorts of connections on silent film stars, after all — it’s especially prominent with the advent of podcasts, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and other forms of digital media. First there’s the fact that creators are incentivized to push out as much content as possible. Podcasts, come out on a weekly basis, YouTubers and Twitch streamers will often post multiple times a week, often with videos or streams that run for hours at a time, and short-form digital media like TikTok encourages a veritable deluge of videos. The literal weeks of content that come out from creators on a regular basis can accelerate that sense of familiarity and connection like someone attached a NO2 injector to the engine.

Then there’s the fact that a lot of digital content creators — especially streamers and YouTubers — have financial incentives to create a sense of community and intimacy with their audience. Giving people this feeling that they’re on a first-name, intimate basis with their favorite streamers or podcasters or what-have-you encourages not just emotional investment but financial investment… either indirectly through views or directly through merch sales or crowdfunding.

(And we will pause to appreciate the irony of my saying this while I very pointedly do not look over at the Patreon and Ko-Fi links on my site…)

As the medium and the industries have progressed, this sense of community and access has grown to include private online communities like Discords, where people feel like they have even more direct access to their idols and favorite creators.

(Again, very pointedly NOT looking at my Patreon…)

And hey, I get it. One of the things that’s been keeping me sane as an extrovert in lockdown has been going for long walks while listening to episodes of Rebel FM, Behind the Bastards, You’re Wrong About and Critical Role; having those regular voices with me as I go through my day at least partially scratches my need for company. I can completely understand that sense of “yes, my friends, I know them well.”

However, even when you’re a regular on their Discord, it’s not the same as actually getting to know them or having an intimate relationship with them. They may be fairly open with their lives, even willing to talk about s--t that’s going on… that’s not going to be the same as an in-person friendship.

But hey, maybe there was a chance a real friendship could come from this. That can happen.

Speaking of in-person, let’s talk about the other side of this particular problem: namely that you’ve never actually met them in person.

Now I freely admit: am an Old Man of the Internet. I got on the Internet proper before The September that Never Ended, at the birth of the World Wide Web. Even back then, there was a lot of hue and cry about people falling in “love” over USENET and email and MUDs despite having never met in person. But here’s the thing: 99% of the time? Those relationships didn’t survive meeting in person. Because the truth is that — even when people were exactly who they said they were — there’s more to attraction and chemistry than how well the two of you get along in a textual medium. For that matter, there’s more to it than how you attractive you find someone when you’ve only seen their pictures or seen them on video. As the sage once said, love isn’t brains children, it’s blood. There’re hosts of physical and social cues that affect who we’re attracted to, in ways that we can’t consciously perceive. And, just as importantly: we can only determine those cues in person. It’s not just how they look or how well the two of you get along online or chatting, it’s in how they smell, how they taste, the timbre of their voice, even little social clues like how they treat others (such as, say, the waitstaff at the restaurant or bar). Without those… well, you’re making your best guess and hoping that the rest actually falls in line. And a lot of times… it doesn’t.

So here’s the thing: you had a parasocial relationship with her that turned into a crush. And hey, crushes are great! Crushes feel amazing. But you don’t need to act on a crush and you don’t want to round a crush up to “love”, especially when you don’t know that person as well as you think and you’ve never met in person. And — I hate to say this — but intensity isn’t the measure of the depth of feeling. You may have intense feelings for somebody, but that’s not the same thing as “true love”, my dude. What you have is limerence; it’s a type of crush that’s marked by intrusive thoughts about the crush-object and a deep, almost obsessive emotional fixation on the other person.

Trust me: damn near everyone reading this is nodding along at that description. Just about everybody has gone through this, especially when they’re young or relatively inexperienced. It’s incredibly common… and it always fades with time. The problem is that the intensity and the obsessive nature of it makes it feel like it’s much more than it actually is.

So the good news is: you’ll get over this. At some point in the near future, you’ll realize those feelings are starting to fade and down the line, you’ll be embarrassed about it.

The bad news is: no, there isn’t any way forward with your crush. Those times when she said “she wasn’t ready”, that “she wasn’t a physical person” and “doesn’t do long-distance”? Those were all what are called “soft no’s”, ways of turning someone down without rejecting them directly. People — women and femme-socialized folks especially — use these because it’s seen as being less direct and less hurtful (and, frankly, less dangerous) than just “no, I’m not interested”. The problem is that you either didn’t recognize these for what they were or take them seriously. The issue was never the distance, it was that she just didn’t like you that way, wasn’t going to and isn’t going to.

And while taking the rejection well wouldn’t have saved your chances… bringing it up to other people and pushing the issue was only going to piss her off at best. Dragging other people into your drama made it more embarrassing. Bringing it up again and ignoring her “no, thank you, not interested”, to the point of telling her “look, you could grow to like me” was telling her that you weren’t actually listening and weren’t going to listen. Don’t get me wrong: this wasn’t a crime beyond redemption or even anything terribly egregious. It’s that you handled a situation badly, it reflects badly on you and it put her in an incredibly awkward and uncomfortable place.

So, no, my dude. This was never going to happen, there was no path forward and you’re lucky that she’s still willing to be friendly with you. Your only path forward, such as it is, is to let this go. There’s nothing to be done here and, frankly, the amount of time and effort that you’re willing to spend to try to win her over would be far better spent finding someone who’s close by, who is available and who, critically, is interested in you, too.

The best thing to do here is to just chalk this up as a learning experience and get ready to cringe when you think about it in the future. You haven’t lost on the love of your life. This was just a strong crush that got intensified by the nature of digital celebrity (for suitably shallow definitions of “celebrity”), and you tripped over your dick. You’ll recover, you’ll do better in the future and the worst that’ll happen is that you’ll try really hard to change the subject if it ever comes up in the future because your embarrassment at your past self will make you want to dig a hole in the ground and pull it in after you.

Learn from this, and you won’t make these mistakes 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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m not sure if this is the kind of question to take on, because it’s not about me specifically, but about my brother (30) and his girlfriend (29). They’ve been in a relationship for about five years and to be blunt about it, my brother is a horrible person. I really like his GF, she’s cute and funny and a great cook. But my brother’s relationship with her is terrible, he clearly has no feelings for her, and instead only wants somebody to bully / cook and clean for him / have sex with.

One of the most concerning things that has happened recently was a short (2-3 day) breakup due to the fact she is putting on weight. I think it is important to state up front that my brother is a weightlifter / bodybuilder and he works hard and is very vain about his own looks. He boasts about how easy it is for him to up or down his weight at will. The girlfriend is not incredibly overweight, maybe a little chubby and she dresses well and always looks cute. Not long after his break-up, get-back-together routine, we spent a weekend together soon after at my mother’s house and I couldn’t stand watching the way he was controlling her life in relation to her weight. We all went out for a coffee and it was brought out with a cookie on the saucer. He took it away from her and gave it to somebody else. Whenever we went out to eat, he dictates what she orders, and throughout the trip he forced her to go on walks. A few years ago a mutual friend of ours had bariatric surgery and for dinner they’d only eat a can of tuna. He once told her to start eating a single can of tuna for dinner too, stating “If they can do it, why can’t you?”

Another thing which was concerning during the trip was the constant negging. If me and my mother complemented her, he’d tell us (in front of her) not to, so we don’t give her an ego. If something ever went wrong (he didn’t pack a jacket for the trip) he’d blame her (even though he’s working at home and she’s working onsite). He’d constantly be ridiculing her and putting her down – it was an incredibly difficult thing to watch.

Not long ago, I looked after his cat and he said that his GF would cook me something to thank me. I told her that ‘despite what he says, that wasn’t necessary’. But she went and snitched on me, and I got a message from him that said something like “She’ll do what I tell her to do.”

I honestly don’t know what to do. I’m afraid that if I approach her again about it, I’ll get a similar result as last time, and I may end up burning my relationship with him. But they’re starting to talk about marriage and to be frank – she deserves better. How do you think I should approach this?

Third Wheel

DEAR THIRD WHEEL: You know, TW, you mention that one of the possible consequences of getting involved in this mess is that you’ll burn your relationship with your brother. But if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure why this is a bad thing. Yes, he’s your brother. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years — especially recently — it’s that family isn’t about blood, it’s about choice. Just because someone shares some DNA with you doesn’t mean that you’re obligated to have them in your life. And frankly, you’re right: your brother sounds like an awful person. He’s not directing it at you, but as many, many people point out: the true test of someone’s character is how they threat others. The guy who’s sweet to his date but is rude to waitstaff or store employees is revealing who he actually is. And in this case we have someone who may be ok with his family, but treats his girlfriend abominably.

But let’s talk about what you can do about this.

Unfortunately, the short answer is: not much.

One of the most frustrating — even maddening — truths about toxic and abusive relationships is that there’s very little people on the outside can do about it that’s actually effective. The problem is that, as an outsider, you have an entirely different perspective than the person who’s in the relationship. This is part of why we have the constant, wrong-headed discussions about “why don’t people leave their abusers?”

(This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is “how do we learn to recognize abusers and abusive relationships, and how do we prevent them in the first place”.)

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems incredibly clear cut: this is horrific, grab your s--t and get the hell out. But what’s crystal clear to people on the outside looks vastly different to people who are in the relationship, and that’s where things get murky, confusing and difficult. To start with, there’s the fact that they may disagree that this is actually abuse. A lot of people — including people who are in abusive relationships — picture abusers as cartoon villains. Their concept of an abuser looks like Sensei Kreese in The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai — a thuggish, violent bully who just lives to inflict pain on everyone at the drop of a hat. Their concept of an abusive relationship means plethora of physical violence — smacking somebody around, for example. And while there are plenty of abusive relationships that are exactly like that, abuse is often subtle and insidious. Many forms of abuse are strictly emotional and psychological… constantly belittling someone, controlling them and dominating every aspect of their lives.

Such as, say, what your brother is doing.

It’s often hard for people to recognize that this is a form of abuse because it doesn’t line up with what they picture as abuse. Worse, because it’s emotional and not physical, it’s much easier for abusers to gaslight their victims into thinking that “it’s not so bad”, that “they’re overreacting” or even that their abusers care, they’re just “doing this for their own good”. And honestly… it’s distressingly easy to see how somebody could buy into that. It’s all too easy to see someone saying “wait, all he does is yell at you about your weight? And you’re calling that abuse?” If you combine that with the fact that some people deal with physical abuse and someone can get caught up in what’s known as the Fallacy of Relative Privation. This is when somebody compares something to a worst-case scenario in order to diminish the the thing being compared. An example might be: “My father used to get drunk and beat me with a broomstick, so what you’re going through isn’t abuse”. But the fact that other people were physically abused — or faced other forms of abuse — doesn’t change the fact that the victim of emotional abuse is still being abused.

Another common difficulty is that people often don’t want to believe they’re being abused. Just as we have that mental image of abusers, we also have ideas of what victims of abuse look like. This is where the “why don’t they just leave” discourse gets extremely troubling; because it seems so obvious to us that someone is being abused, there’s a tendency to see victims of abuse as being stupid, weak-willed or just so beaten down and pathetic that they no longer have any agency of their own. Not only is that actively insulting to people who’ve survived and escaped abusive relationships, but it also causes people who are being abused to deny that they’re being abused. They don’t want to believe that they’re someone who could be abused, that they’re not like the mental image of a victim of abuse that they carry around in their head. And since they don’t want to believe they could be someone who would “let” that happen to them, what they’re experiencing can’t possibly be abuse.

It’s also incredibly important to recognize that abusers make it very hard for their victims to be able to leave. Many people who are in abusive relationships stay, not because they don’t recognize what’s going on or because they want to stay but because they can’t. Their abuser may have restricted their access to finances or resources that they’d need to leave — not just money, but transportation, medication, even things most people take for granted like driver’s licenses or identification. They may stay because their abuser has threatened to harm someone else, like a child or a pet. Hell, some abusers will threaten to harm themselves, making subtle or even overt threats of self-harm or suicide if their victim leaves them.

At the end of the day, a victim of abuse is only going to leave when they’re ready and able to do so, not before. And unfortunately, there’s no way for concerned friends and family members to make that happen before they’re ready.

Now all of this sounds like I’m saying to leave it alone. And I’m not. What you can do is help create the circumstances that will empower your brother’s girlfriend to be ready to leave.

To start with: talk to her. One of the worst things about being a victim of abuse is the sense of isolation. Abusers are excellent at convincing their victims that they’re alone and that nobody will help or believe them. Talking to her and saying “you know, you don’t deserve to be treated the way that he treats you” and “The way he talks to you is unacceptable,” let her know that you see what’s going on, that you recognize it for what it is and reaffirms that what he’s doing is wrong. Affirming her situation, that it’s real, that it’s wrong, and that she’s not alone is hugely important. So, for that matter, does acknowledging that this is abuse. Having someone else affirm that yes, it is bad enough to call it abuse, can often be what starts them on the path of getting out.

But you want to be careful in how you phrase and frame things. Saying something like “why do you let him treat you like this” can inadvertently reinforce the idea that she’s helpless or weak. This could cause her to get defensive — “I’m not weak” — or humiliate her by implying she should be doing things differently. By putting the emphasis on his actions — “he’s treating you abominably” — you’re telling her that you recognize and acknowledge what she’s going through. You’re not putting blame, however unintentional, on her. You also have to be careful to be non-judgmental and to avoid criticizing her choices. This can trigger feelings of shame and guilt and make her retreat from you, instead of him. What she needs is affirmation, support and someone to listen. Being the person who says “I’m ready to listen to you” is huge.

Similarly, encourage her to reach out to her friends and family for support. One of the things that helps somebody decide they’re ready to leave a toxic or abusive relationship is knowing that they have a network of support that they can turn to. And that network is important. If there’s only one person in her corner — you — then there’s also a single point of failure. It’s easy to cut someone off from one source of support; it’s much harder to cut them off from multiple sources.

I would also recommend putting her in contact with other resources that can help her. The National Domestic Abuse Hotline (1-800-799-7233) has a number of ways that she can reach out to them. They have trained volunteers who are ready to listen and to help, whether via live chat, a free 800 number or texting. If she’s not comfortable talking to you, then she might be more comfortable talking to a non-judgmental stranger.

What you don’t want to do is tell her what to do. You can’t tell her to leave him or “rescue” her. Part of abuse, whether physical, emotional or psychological, is about removing control from the victim. The last thing you want is to play into a similar dynamic; if she feels like you would be equally controlling, then she’s likely to pull away. Instead, let her know that she can reach out to you and that you’re ready to help or support her in the way she needs. That may mean being the shoulder to cry on and to listen quietly when she needs to talk. It may mean giving her a place where she can work through her incredibly complicated and difficult emotions and feelings regarding her relationship with your brother. In time it may mean helping her figure out how to end things with him… but that’s got to be her choice and on her timeline. Supporting her decisions, providing her with reassurance and affirmation is going to be far more important than trying to get her to agree that it’s time to go.

You also don’t want to give up over her “ratting you out”. As I said: toxic and abusive relationships are tricky things and sometimes people will refuse help or cling harder to their abusers. If that’s the case, then let her know you’re there to listen without judgment if she ever wants to talk, and leave it there. If she’s not ready or doesn’t want to talk, then don’t push it. Just keep the lines of communication open if she ever needs them.

Now I’m of two minds about whether confronting your brother will help. On the one hand, openly calling out his s--tty behavior in the moment reinforces both that his behavior is wrong and that people recognize what he’s doing. Social opprobrium is a powerful tool and it takes away from his ability to minimize his treatment of her. Similarly, telling him that he’s talking about and to her disrespectfully or that the way he treats her is unhealthy can possibly start the chain of events that would lead to his getting help and changing his ways. It’s a very slight chance… but it’s there.

However, it also runs the risk of causing him to isolate her further… especially from you. One of the ways that abusers will cut their victims off from their networks is to claim that the people who’re speaking out against them have ulterior motives. He could, for example, tell her that of course you’re talking s--t about him; you’ve always been jealous of him and you try to sabotage his relationships because you’re a hater. Or he could come up with some other reason why you would try to sabotage their relationship.

(This, incidentally, is another reason why it’s good to encourage her to reach out to friends and relatives besides you. Even if he successfully makes her think that you’re just doing this because you want to get into her pants, it’s harder to pull that same move on her entire social circle. Not impossible, but harder).

It could also just cause him to change his behavior in public, while being just as awful to her in private.

Incidentally: you may want to contact the Hotline yourself. They have resources for friends and family members of people who are in abusive relationships, and having someone who can guide you through best practices may be helpful for you as well. After all, this is your brother you’re talking about. That level of complication can make things feel more daunting. Having people who are specifically trained to help and can point you towards resources you may need will be invaluable for you as well. Plus, dealing with this situation and navigating the thorny issue of his being your brother can take its toll on you. You need to take care of yourself too; it doesn’t do his girlfriend any good if you burn yourself out in the process.

I realize all of this is frustrating, TW. But I want you to know: you’re being a good friend to your brother’s girlfriend. She needs someone like you on her side. Give her the help and support she needs and hopefully you and her support network can help her realize this is a s--tty situation and it’s time for her to leave.

Write back to let us know how things are going.

Good luck.

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