DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: first of all thanks in advance for all your work, I’ve recently found this column and YouTube channel and I’ve been finding them extremely helpful in many ways.

My question is related to how to deal with the internal pressure to be funny. I can trace the roots of this to my middle – early high school days where I was bullied for my looks. This lead humor to be this thing that got me into the in-group and thus stopped bullying. As long as I entertained others I was safe. It was also my main (and only) way to get and keep attention from girls, and I attribute all the relationships I’ve had to being funny alone.

Now I’m 24, finishing college, and this is taking a very big toll on me. Reasons:

1. I’m seen as the “funny guy”. No intensity, no sexuality, nothing. People have told they see me as an “intelligent creative clown/comedian”. I also hate it when people go “Shh guys let me hear what he has to say, I bet it will be really funny”

2. I’m not always in the mood to be funny. Sometimes I just want to talk but I feel I’m not allowed because if I stop entertaining I will be abandoned. And forcing myself to joke when I don’t feel like it will result in bad or offensive jokes.

3. I can’t make a bad joke. If I make a bad joke and get silence or eyerolls I will take that as a personal rejection and it will ruin my mood for the rest of the day. I also feel my relationship with the person is ruined and I’m on damage control. Gets worse if this happens multiple times in one interaction.

4. I compare myself to other guys. If someone laughs at their joke, in my mind that person is now interested in them and I have to one-up them with a better joke if I want that attention back and be seen as the witties guy in the room again.

5. I can’t compliment people because they will take it ironically. I also can’t create a deep connection because all the conversations will revolve around jokes and getting the other person to laugh.

This causes me a lot of stress. The thing is, reading articles and books only supports this belief. Take your video on how to be a high value man, for example. Making others laugh is the first thing on the list when it comes to bring value to others.

I feel like this email is already too long so I’ll cut it here. Any ideas or suggestions on how to break this? Thank you once again and happy new year!!

Funny Like I’m A Clown?

DEAR FUNNY LIKE I’M A CLOWN: There’re a couple of things going on here, FLAC.

The first is that you’re dealing with something a lot of folks experience. You found a defense or coping mechanism that got you through a traumatic period of your life… but the problem is that you overlearned this pattern and it’s gone from something that helps you to something that actively causes you distress. This is really common, especially with folks who come from backgrounds of bullying or abuse. People pleasers are a classic example of this; they’ve learned (or convinced themselves) that as long as they’re “useful”, then people will accept them. If they aren’t useful or, worse, have boundaries, then their friends, coworkers, classmates or even partners will abandon them.

The same goes with humor or being The Funny Guy. It gets you out of trouble, it even helps you make friends. But it can also get to the point where you let it become your dominant personality trait, and it’s what most people know you as because… well, you never turn it off. Because, in no small part, you’re afraid that if you do turn it off or spend a second NOT being The Funny Guy that your friends will somehow wise up and abandon you.

Which actually goes to the second issue: it’s been Your Thing for so long that it’s crucial to your identity. Which means that if you make a joke and it goes over like a lead balloon, that becomes a threat to your identity. You’re terrified that if you aren’t always funny, then people will go back to bullying you or just straight-up ditch you. And if someone else is funny or funnier than you in that moment, they’ve somehow usurped your station as the Alpha Funny Guy and now you’re in danger of being abandoned by the pack.

So now the thing that used to help you brings you nothing but anxiety. You’ve built your life around this aspect of your personality, so you’re terrified to abandon it. But at the same time, that identity causes you stress and the drawbacks to trying to maintain it have started to drastically outweigh the benefits…. leaving you in a perverse catch-22.

Look, I get it. I have been there and very emphatically done that. I have been the class clown because of how it protected me through middle school and high-school. I’ve done the “I’m not good looking but at least I’m hilarious” thing, especially when I was out trying to meet women. And I know exactly how soul-crushing it can be when people think that you’re a joke vending machine, where they can drop a quarter in and get some bon mot out of you… especially at times when you’re not feeling particularly funny or don’t like having to perform on command.

And I understand how it’s served you well over the years but like the man once said: “I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while.”

A lot of what you’re dealing with the result of always being on; that’s both the reason why people don’t take you seriously when you’re trying to be serious and why they treat you like a joke machine. And while being funny and making people laugh can feel great — and make others feel great — the problem is that if you don’t turn it off, it gets really tedious. I mean, Robin Williams was one of my personal heroes, and I’m deeply sad about the fact that I will never get to meet him in person. But as much as I loved and admired him and thought he was one of the funniest and smartest people on the planet, that manic “four days into a five day coke bender” energy and humor can go from charming to “oh sweet Jesus make it stop” very quickly.

When you’re just the Funny Guy, it gets harder for people to take you seriously. One of the things I dealt with, especially on when I was working on getting better with women, was learning how to be funny effectively.

(“Great! When are you going to start? OH HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!”)

To give an example: while humor is incredibly valuable when it comes to flirting and building relationships — it’s actually a highly desirable quality in a romantic partner — it’s easy to use it in the wrong way. One of my early hang-ups was that I would go for the laugh when talking to women instead of trying to connect with them or show actual interest. Getting the laugh was easier and felt safer, but it also created a barrier between me and them. They were never getting to know me, just my sense of humor. And worse, because I was going for the joke so often, I wasn’t coming off like I was flirting or even interested. Every woman loves a guy who can make her laugh. What she doesn’t love is the guy at the bar who feels like he’s workshopping his tight-five for the open mic night next week.

The same is true for your relationships with your friends and potential partners. You’ve created this persona that doesn’t feel like a person so much as a walking, talking Night at the Improv. You never turn it off and be sincere or real with people and so they never expect it or believe it when you do. And of course, they assume that you’re just there to be funny because… well, that’s all you do.

The problem is that to break this pattern, you have to do the hardest thing possible: you have to stop being The Funny Guy. Not cold turkey, mind you; you don’t need to be StoneFace McGee or Paddy O’Solemn for the rest of your life, but you do need to stop relying on this crutch that you’ve kept around long past the point that you needed it. You have to be willing to just drop the humor for a while and be real with people. Horrifically, terrifyingly, pants-s--ttingly real and vulnerable.

And trust me: I get it. My humor had become such a crutch for me that I was terrified to let it go. I was convinced that my success, what little there was at the time, was going to crater if I stopped being the dancing monkey. But it was either break that routine or never actually improve so I had to drop the metaphorical act. I had to let go of this thing that I thought I needed and I honestly believed that it meant that I was going to go back to being a lonely loser.

But the thing is, by doing this I learned two important lessons. First, I learned that being able to make people laugh wasn’t the only value I had. I could connect with people in an authentic and genuine manner because I wasn’t convinced that I needed to define myself so narrowly. Second, I learned how to use comedy and humor the right way. Humor is great for setting an initial mood and getting people interested in talking to you. It’s also an incredible way to build and break tension; a well-timed joke or comment can provide a massive release that, rather than ending sexual attraction, actually enhances it. Because you subvert their expectations and create this sudden release of tension — especially while flirting — it not only helps generate dopamine and oxytocin in the brain (causing them to feel pleasure at your presence) but creates a sort of vacuum that they, in turn will try to fill.

Similarly, when you use your ability to make people laugh more precisely and in a more targeted manner, it helps people realize when you’re being sincere and when you’re being funny. It also helps you learn an important lesson: irony doesn’t work when it comes to flirting. While teasing is a great flirting tool, you want to use it in such a way that you don’t bring people down. If you’re always using humor in a cutting way — only ever building someone up so that you can undercut them with the punchline — then you teach people that your compliments are a prelude to an insult. If you only ever tease about meaningless or insignificant things, things they don’t take seriously, then it’s much easier for folks to recognize that you’re being sincere.

So here’s what you need to do.

First: dial things back. Cut back on the jokes, cut back on the gags, goofs, put-downs and the like. Just drop ’em. If anyone asks, just tell them that you want to be real with them instead of just trying to keep up the stream of humor.

Second: use your humor carefully and strategically. Don’t chase the laugh, especially to the exclusion of all else. If you can make someone laugh great, but let that be part of how you relate and vibe with them, rather than the end-goal. By being more sparing with your humor, you actually increase its potency. You aren’t shotgunning it all over the place and making weak contact, you’re driving it home like a perfectly aimed stiletto. Less is often more this way; the well-timed joke gets a better effect than just constantly filling the air with verbal flack.

Third: be aware of how you use your humor, especially with people you’re attracted to. Humor that builds people up works far more effectively than humor that insults them or negs them. Similarly, you can give someone a sincere compliment but use humor to undercut you rather than them. This actually lets you both be sincere and create an amount of tension, with a release that doesn’t negate the tension or insults the person you’re flirting with. Craig Ferguson is the master of this; his disqualifying jokes are aimed at him, rather than the person he flirts with.

Fourth: sincerity is your greatest weapon when it comes to flirting and complimenting others. By not making a compliment a joke, you help ensure that your friends understand that when you’re telling them something you admire about them or that’s great about them, you’re being real. Never underestimate the power of “oh, I never joke about X” when it comes to paying compliments.

Fifth: work on having boundaries. The more you can say “hey, I’m not just a vending machine” or “look, I really don’t feel like giving the Funny Like I’m A Clown show right now”, the more you’ll help people realize that there’s more to you than just being a joke dispensary.

I get that this is all intimidating. It requires that you pull down a shield you’ve spent a lifetime building. I get that you worry that if you do this, your friendships will dissolve. But I am here from the future to tell you: they won’t. People may need a little adjustment period, but they will adapt and, in all likelihood, appreciate this new, more vulnerable and more sincere you. And if they do leave you because you don’t want to be The Funny Guy all the time?

Well… that’s a pretty good sign that those were friendships that needed to end in the first place.

Trust me: it’s hard, it’s scary, but it’s worth it. Letting go of that crutch will help ease the stress you feel, let you not obsess about other dudes out-joking you and help strengthen your relationships.

And as a bonus? It’ll make you funnier than ever.

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: First, I’d like to say thanks. My boyfriend and I used your sex advice to save our relationship. We were long distance, and both inexperienced, and when we found your site, it made all the difference. So, thank you.

Unfortunately, this sexual awakening has bred some new problems. I’d like to underscore the fact that I am happy. I am in love 100% with him, and though we occasionally hit our road bumps, we have a very successful relationship based on equal partnership and respect. We’ve been together almost a year and a half (a year of which was long distance), and now live closer which has only strengthened our commitment. I’m writing to you because, despite my conscious brain agreeing that all is good, my subconscious brain seems to be fixated on cheating.

About 6 months ago, I started having vivid dreams every few weeks that I was cheating on him. At the time, I thought it was because of our poor sex life, but then we started fixing that and the dreams only got worse. Usually, in the dream, I’ll be with a group of people who may or may not be strangers. One of the people in that group will look or have the same name as a guy I know, and we will start conversing. Things escalate, and suddenly… well, let’s just say “sex” is putting it mildly. After we’re done, in the dream, I’ll become aware that I have a boyfriend, and that I’ve cheated. My reaction in the dream ranges from crippling guilt to promising myself to keep it secret. Sometimes, I’ll see my boyfriend in the dream afterwards, but I always wake up before he suspects anything. The real problem comes after I’m awake. I’m overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and self-hatred for my actions in the dream. Logically, I know it’s a dream and that I can’t really control it, but I’m still wracked by feelings of disgust and horror.

When they first happened, I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want my boyfriend to think I was anything but devoted. Then they started happening more regularly, and when I woke up (on occasions we were together) I couldn’t look at him. I decided to talk to him about it, and he’s been nothing but supportive. I have a dark history with sex dreams (stemming from something that took place in my childhood), so they’ve never been good, but these are really hitting me hard. Their persistence is making me doubt my own happiness, and the strength of our relationship, neither of which I want to do. I know you aren’t a dream psychic, but is there anything I can do to make it stop? It’s driving me insane and making it hard to be the girlfriend I want to be.

Thanks, because I wish I was,

Dreamless In Dallas

DEAR DREAMLESS IN DALLAS: I’d like to welcome you to what those of us in the love biz call “having a sex drive.”

This is something that a lot of people get wrong about monogamy: being in a monogamous relationship means that you choose not to have sex with other people; it doesn’t mean you won’t WANT to. And that desire for other people? That is entirely, perfectly and utterly 100% normal. It doesn’t mean say anything about the strength of your relationship, the depths of your devotion or how happy you are. It just means that you’ve got a libido and your libido is doing what libidos do: perking up whenever someone who hits your buttons comes by. People in relationships get crushes. People in relationships get concrete-busting erections and screaming thigh sweats for other people all the time. All it means is that you’re human, with all the weird little quirks that comes with it.

Similarly, dreams aren’t always deep and dark reservoirs of hidden truths that your subconscious is desperate to reveal. Sometimes dreams are just your brain clearing out the mental bandwidth and offloading the experiences and thoughts and anxieties of the day. The thing that frequently makes dreams so disturbing is that they form their own little worlds with their own rules and histories that may well have nothing to do with reality. You will have memories in dreams of things that never happened. You’ll do things in dreams that you would never do in real life – sometimes they’ll be horrifying, sometimes they’ll be thrilling, but how you feel in the dream is frequently just in the context of the dream.

But more importantly: dreams are not reality. The things you do in dreams do not count. If they did… well, I’ve lost track of how many goddamn zombie apocalypses I’ve lived through, T-rexes I’ve hunted, Balrogs I’ve fought, Disney princesses I’ve dated (DON’T JUDGE ME!), times I’ve discovered the secret of flight, times I’ve forgotten the secret of flight and could only glide, monsters I’ve become, hands I’ve lost and times I’ve beaten the s--t out of my brother because he snagged the dream girl I wanted. Yes, dreams can be incredibly intenssse. They can feel unbelievably real, and in the liminal space between dreaming and waking, it can be incredibly easy to confuse dreams for reality. But – say it with me now – dreams are not reality.

Now, could it be that your subconscious is working through some issues? Oh, sure, it’s possible. But is it that you’re longing to cheat on your boyfriend?

No, probably not.

Now, were I to play armchair psychologist (remember: Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor), I’d say that perhaps the dreams are about your sex life – in the sense that you want more – but you don’t feel like you’re allowed to have it. The maybe/maybe not strangers may well be a way of stepping outside yourself and becoming someone who does have permission to do these things. Your overwhelming sense of guilt (remembering you have a boyfriend) could be coming back to “you” instead of this other person who has the permission to do these wild and crazy things, and that guilt you feel is a way of punishing yourself for wanting more than you feel like you’re “allowed”. And perhaps these feelings tie into that something that happened in your childhood. I don’t know. Like I said: armchair psychologist. Not even remotely close to the real thing. Take any of my interpretations with heaping tablespoons of salt.

But let’s get back to the practical level: the dreams don’t mean that you’re not devoted to your boyfriend or that you don’t love him. It doesn’t mean that you’re not really happy together. It just means your brain is firing off neurons that tie into your libido. Dreams don’t count as cheating, no matter how vivid and intense they are. Your imagination doesn’t count as cheating. Whatever goes on between your ears is your business and yours alone; fantasy is not only harmless, but a valuable way of venting a little libidinous steam on occasion. And lusting after someone else – even when you dream about banging them like a screen door in a hurricane – doesn’t mean that you don’t love your boyfriend or want to jump his bones.

Are there things you can do to not dream? Well… nothing healthy. Dreaming is an important part of your mental and emotional health and trying to skip REM sleep is a great way to do damage to yourself. If you’re really determined, you can look into lucid dreaming – essentially learning how to wake up while in your dream and take control of it. The easiest way is simply to learn to question reality and look for dream signs – indications that you’re dreaming. The most common signs are that reading is impossible and clocks never tell the same time twice when you look away and look back. You may also want to start keeping a dream journal and writing your dreams down in as much detail as you can remember as soon as you wake up – these help you become more aware of your dreams in general, and being more aware may make you more likely to recognize these dreams when they happen.

But honestly? The best thing you can do is to learn to relax. The more anxious you make yourself, the more anxiety dreams you’re going to have. By constantly dwelling on these dreams – what do they mean, what does it say about your relationship – the more you’re bringing them to the forefront of your mind. That, in turn, is going to make you more likely to have these dreams again – they’re taking up so much mental bandwidth, it’s not really surprising that you’re having them again when your brain is firing off neurons while you’re in REM sleep. Accept that yeah, they’re a little freaky but they’re just dreams and ultimately they don’t mean anything.

And hey: if the super-crazy sex in your dreams is still intriguing to you when you wake up… maybe you should have a conversation with your boyfriend about how to incorporate some of it into your waking life.

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 currently browse through your articles a little bit and I find your advice very good, especially when I compare it to other self-help sites which I find even toxic. Now, I don’t even know if I am the type of person for this community (the so called nerds), but I will post this anyway so I can write things off.

A bit about me, I am an engineering student in his early 20s. I don’t want to say that I am struggling with dating, since I have never been on a date, but I want to get better at it. First, I can tell you that my self-worth was very low and that I was a bit awkward around people, but I changed it completely. In short, I decided that, you know, a lot of people are unsure of themselves and so they don’t even look at you. Furthermore, if they are trying to put you down, then you know that they are not even happy with themselves. I am now capable of making new friends, just by showing genuine interest. I can even tell you that, around men, I am very popular. Both at school and in the gym as well as in everyday life. They like to invite me and come to me, probably because they can be themselves and I don’t judge them and we laugh. It’s not that I only attract weirdos, but also other popular men.

Yet, still I don’t really know how I can attract women. I do talk to some of them, but I don’t know what to say that makes them attracted to me other than being friends. Furthermore, I find it difficult to develop the so called abundance mindset. I can tell you that at the engineering department there are just very few women. My hobbies are also typically things men do, like electronics. I am also very sportive, but again this is all with men. I am not active on Facebook or Instagram. I don’t know if this is better or worse, since I know some men who are attracting women by those platforms. To me it looks like everyone is texting each other constantly and if you don’t do that than you’re a loner when it comes to dating. I really don’t see how going after your purpose leads to attracting women naturally.

Now there is a woman I see at the gym who I find attractive, but as I said earlier I think I lack flirting skills. It’s not that I am not attractive enough, I worked on that as well. Coming from a low place of abundance I may act needy, which I can understand is not attractive. I don’t know how our conversation can lead to exchanging numbers.

My questions: “How can I talk to women, so that it doesn’t bore them out?” , “Do I need to get out more, to other places (after Coronavirus)?”, “Should I become active on social media too?”, “What else can be the problem?”

Kind regards,

Just Another Nerd

DEAR JUST ANOTHER NERD: Can I be honest, JAN? You sound exhausted. It feels to me like you’ve been running around with a lot of these worries and feelings, and you’re kind of getting to a point where you’re not just worn out but feeling more than a little hopeless. I mean, you even say “I will post this anyway, so I can write things off.” 

And man, I can sympathize. I know exactly how tired you can get when it feels like you’re struggling to swim upstream while everybody else seems to have these sweet boats and jet-skis and s--t. But here’s the thing: a lot of this seems to be because you’re struggling with a lot of internal ideas about what dating and attracting women is like, rather than the reality. And — again, I speak from experience — it’s hard to succeed when you’re mostly wrestling with ideas that you came up with, rather than actual people and experiences.

Here’s the thing: those skills that help you bond with guys and make new friends? Those are the exact same skills that help you meet women and start relationships. The way you connect with guys is, at the end of the day, really no different from how you connect with women; the only difference is the direction you take things.

I suspect part of the problem is that you’re looking at friendship as the fail-state of attraction, when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, making friends with women — platonic friends, not putting yourself in The Friend Zone — is a huge bonus towards meeting women you would want to date.

(Standard disclaimer: There IS no “Friend Zone”. There are just people who don’t want to date or sleep with you.)

One of the things that most men never realize is how huge of a resource female friends can be when it comes to dating. A woman who likes you and thinks you’re cool but may not be into you romantically is far, far more likely to want to help you meet someone awesome. This could range from introducing you to her single friends, to inviting you to social events where you could meet other women to even being your wingwoman while you’re out and about. Plus, their presence in your life is like a testimonial: they’re letting other people know that you’re an awesome guy. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t want to hang around with you.

Making that shift in your headspace will go a long, long way towards helping you develop that abundance mindset. Once you realize that having awesome women in your life is good overall, you’ll become far less worried about each individual interaction. If you get a number or something comes of it, great! If they’re just interested in being friends, also great! And if ultimately nothing happens… well, that blows, but it’s just one person in a world filled with people who are just as awesome and hot, if not more so.

That having been said, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work on connecting with women, flirting or trying to get dates. It’s just about learning not to treat it as an all-or-nothing issue. And part of is is going to come with changing your outlook on how you go from having a conversation to getting her number.

I realize that people think that flirting is this arcane skill that generates attraction, but ultimately all it is is just connecting with people. It’s a way of telling someone you’re into them and inviting them to explore things with you. Flirting, especially early on, as being about playing with uncertainty and interest. Think of someone who’s interested in going down a waterslide, but they’re not entirely sure, or they’re curious to check out a particular book or movie but they don’t know. The process of flirting is gently encouraging them to give it a try, being the facilitator of fun and playing with that sense of uncertainty so that it’s exciting, not scary. And there are a lot of ways of flirting, each as valid as the next. Part of learning to be successful with women comes down to finding out the ways that are most congruent with who you are. It may be silly, it may be banter-y, it may even come down to just being open and direct: telling someone “hey, I’m doing X thing on Y day and time and I’d love to take you” or “I’m really enjoying talking/hanging out with you; I’d love to take you out on a proper date.”

So yes, I think you definitely should go out and do more things (when it’s safe). Not only because it helps you be a more well-rounded person, but it helps you expand your social circle. Finding ways to enjoy the things you’re passionate about that bring you in contact with other people who also love it is a great way to make new friends. Plus, as a bonus, it can meet folks who may not be the woman of your dreams, but will help introduce you to her.

Now as for social media? Yeah, I think it’s helpful. These days, people who aren’t on social media are a rarity, and it can make some folks feel like maybe you’re a little suss. But just as importantly, it can be a way of celebrating and sharing the things that make you happy or the cool s--t you’re doing with your life. At the very least, it can be a way of showing them what life with you is life and serve, in its own way, as an advertisement for you as a person. Plus, social media can be a great way to make new contacts, find new friends or even plan events that’ll help you bring awesome folks together and into your life.

Plus, being active on social media makes it easier for your friends who’re already more active on there to introduce you to folks or invite you to things.

You’re actually doing really well, JAN. You’ve made a lot of progress and you should be proud of yourself for that. And the progress that you’ve made with making friends and connecting with guys is also what’s going to help you meet women. It isn’t going to be nearly as hard or exhausting as you think; it just feels that way because you’re not used to it yet. Keep up the work, apply it towards just talking to women and connecting with them and I think you’re going to be amazed at how well things will go for you.

Good luck.

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