DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am recently in the process of leaving my toxic job with a little bit of savings and no concrete plan for what’s next. I can’t even think about work and job stuff without feeling dread, anxiety, depression, etc. because not only am I leaving a bad environment after 5 years, but I also feel my career in tech and engineering no longer fits my life. I have no idea what my future holds and I’m absolutely terrified. I just turned 30 years old, male, straight-ish but identify within the queer community, and I am feeling so stuck with trying to get out of the toxic masculinity, “high-performance-male,” “life purpose or bust” mindsets.

I am in the slow process of seeing a career counselor and I am also on the ADHD/ASD spectrum. I have a lot of dating experience and good social skills, but the career aspect of life is just so painful for me and contributes to horrible feelings of low self confidence and failure to live up to my potential and expectations (I am a self-taught musician, avid reader, good friend and ally, and have a lot of positive social feedback, but I just don’t know how to pull these all together into a career that can pay the bills and still have free time to prioritize relationships). I am also terrified of going back to school for exploring interests in psychology, social sciences, arts, etc. because of not only post-pandemic uncertainty, but also if it’s something I’ll actually maintain long enough interest and executive functioning to succeed in without having mountains of debt for nothing (I consistently seek treatment for ADHD, but it’s a constant struggle because my brain might be treatment-resistant to most medications and there’s a lack of alternative resources in my area. I need A LOT of reassurance and support just to feel that I am succeeding and worry that I may need too much support that would be unattractive for a “grown-ass-man”).

So anyways, back to what I want to ask. In case I am unfortunate to experience long-term unemployment, failure, etc., what is my possible outlook for finding partner(s) who are okay with dating an unemployed man in his thirties or potentially forties? How can I still feel attractive and “sexually valid, wanted, etc.” without thinking too much about job uncertainty and potential financial dependence on others? It personally doesn’t bother me about not fitting the traditional stereotype and role of a man in today’s society, and I actually am not interested in children. But I am very worried about other people’s unconscious beliefs from society blocking me from finding loving, sexual, and fulfilling relationships (which I have found WHEN I was working, but never had the experience of finding them during unemployment, and I do not want to live with my parents). I know that I would never fall into a co-dependent hole of binging on weed, drinking, video games, porn, etc. if I ever found myself in a relationship as an unemployed person, but how can I portray that while dating or explaining to others about my circumstances? Would it still be attractive to call myself a potential “stay at home boyfriend?”

Thank you for your time and support,

Potential Stay-At-Home Boyfriend

DEAR POTENTIAL STAY-AT-HOME BOYFRIEND: There’re a lot of questions tied up in this, PSAHB, but a lot of false assumptions too. But as with a lot of apparently complicated and thorny issues, it helps to start with just one thing and working outward from there. Because, quite frankly, sometimes the reason why folks get tied up in knots is because everything stems from an initial underlying issue. Address that and everything else starts falling into place.

So let’s start with your leaving your job. First and foremost: congratulations on recognizing that you’ve been in a s--tty situation and taking steps to get the hell out of it. That alone is some huge progress, and you should be proud of yourself for doing this. It’s also entirely understandable why you’re having complex and weird feelings about it. You’re making a choice to step away from something that not only have you invested a lot of your life into, but something that also lines up with toxic and restrictive ideas of what it means to be a man. So not only are you dealing with the sunk cost fallacy, but you’re deliberately choosing to push against a lifetime of messages that tell you that this is what you’re supposed to want and what you’re supposed to be. That’s really, really goddamn hard to do.

We live in a culture that equates “productivity” with morality. A culture that confuses “being busy” with “being a good worker”, and one that consistently tells folks that if you aren’t hustling and grinding and breaking yourself to pieces, you are lazy and worthless. In a very real way, we are taught that our job is supposed to be our identity. This is especially true in the tech and startup industries, where there is a very real push to see yourself not as a worker but as “part of a community”, subsuming your identity as an individual into the company. The whole “we’re a family”, “be part of something bigger” mythos that gets pushed on folks is all about giving up everything in your life in the name of providing value for someone else, for benefits that you will never fully receive. You are being expected to sacrifice your life — and often your emotional, physical and mental well-being — in the name of “being a team player”. But what this tends to end up doing is causing burnout, breaking people and wrecking their lives. If you look at the various exposes about the way employees have been treated at various game companies and the toll that “crunch culture” takes on people, you can see just how much this attitude damages people. And to make matters worse, the very people who are broken by these practices are then shamed for having been broken. They’re told that giving your entire life to a job is a privilege, or that they don’t have the grit for “the hustle”. They get told that reasonable hours, non-abusive working conditions and living wages are unreasonable asks, things that you should be willing to give up in the name of Being Part of Something.

Rise and Grind Twitter and LLC Twitter will tell people they’re doing something wrong for wanting unreasonable things like “work/life balance” or not trying to become a CEO of something. The whole “we all have the same 24 hours” mantra gets repeated like gospel truth instead of bulls--t hype that only gets shared because it fits on a bumper sticker. Not everyone wants to be a captain of industry, nor do they need to. Not everyone wants to run a business, nor do they need to make everything in their life about making money. People feel pressure to somehow monetize their hobbies or casual interests, turn things they enjoy doing for its own sake into a “side hustle” because… reasons. And as a result: they get stressed because they aren’t living up to an ideal that not only doesn’t appeal to them, but doesn’t actually exist in the first place.

And in a real way, it’s worse for men because there is still the pressure of “a man isn’t a man if he’s not a provider”. This ties very firmly into the belief that a lot of men have that they have to be needed because they can’t be wanted. The push to be The Provider comes from a place of “this is the only way women will want to be with you,” turning relationships from something built of mutual respect and desire into a commodities exchange. It bolsters and encourages the idea that Women Only Want “High Value/High-Performance” Men because they don’t believe that women could be interested in men for who they are as individuals. It also denigrates the value of “soft” skills like communication, emotional support and engagement, positivity and warmth and domesticity. As a result, you get generations of men who think that the only way to find a partner is to break themselves into pieces in the name of trying to fit into a cultural expectation that not only doesn’t exist, but is virtually impossible to achieve.

(Everybody can’t be the highest performer, everyone can’t be the top-earner or climb the ranks to the top of the industry. The feel-good motivational stories you read are exceptions, not the rule, and most of the “role models” people point to have advantages that 99% of the world doesn’t.)

So it’s not surprising how much this choice is weighing on you… but I think you don’t realize how much it does. You say that you aren’t bothered by not fitting into the traditional stereotype of men’s roles, but those are the very anxieties you’re describing in your letter. The fear of not being a high-performance male, the fear or finding a relationship while being unemployed or under-employed… that’s all part and parcel of those fitting into those roles. It’s very much the story of the mahout and the elephant; you are more powerful than the things that hold you back, but you have been told to believe this for so long that you don’t see it yet.  You are making the choice to step outside of what you have been told you “need” to do and society pushes against that. Those doubts and fears you are having are born from trying to go against the grain. It’s the voice of a culture trying to force compliance, terrifying you into falling into line.

As the saying goes: before you diagnose yourself with depression and anxiety, first make sure you haven’t surrounded yourself with assholes. You’ve been neck deep in a toxic environment that has been sapping away everything about you and being told that you were defective for being harmed by it. Simply taking that first step is going to feel like you’ve made a tremendous difference. You will have made a choice that says you know your own worth and that you have chosen to prioritize that rather than giving everything to somebody else.

You are afraid of needing more support than is ‘seemly’ for a grown-ass man… but the issue isn’t needing that support, it’s where you’re getting it from. Everybody needs support. No man is an island, nobody is such a rugged individualist that they’re completely self-sufficient. Everyone needs somebody they can rely on and lean on. If you’re putting all that weight on one person then yes, that’s a problem. But if you distribute your support by working with a therapist, having a strong support network of friends and loved ones that you can rely on, that’s an entirely different scenario. It’s the difference between a thousand pounds of pressure on one square inch versus a thousand pounds of pressure spread out over a wide area. One punches straight through, the other spreads the load to the point that any individual portion barely notices.

But here’s the thing about your current job, the stress of leaving it and your anxieties for the future: so much of what you’re dealing with — the stress, the anxiety and so on — is because of your job. We all have only so much emotional bandwidth, and when most of it is taken up by a job that you hate, in an environment that’s profoundly toxic for you, it’s going to leave you with virtually no room for anything else. You aren’t leaving those negative feelings behind when you clock out; they’re with you, all day, every day, bleeding into everything else you do. Just by leaving this job and not subjecting yourself to that continuous treadmill of misery, you will be cutting off the source of so much anxiety that you’ll be astounded. It will be like shutting down applications that are using all your processing power and RAM, defragging the hard drive and clearing your emotional cache. That alone will make you feel like you’ve dropped a burden you never realized you were carrying. While it certainly won’t cure any conditions, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if you find that it alleviates them. As somebody with ADHD, I can tell you from personal experience: you have no goddamn clue how much what you’re dealing with are compensating behaviors and how much they take out of you until you don’t need them anymore.

By freeing up that bandwidth, you’ll be in a much better position to decide what direction you want to take and what new career path you’re going to want to follow. You may even discover that you want something that isn’t as “prestigious” or “glamorous” but speaks far more to your soul. You may discover, for example, that you’re a facilitator, not a leader or driver. You may realize that you’re happiest being someone who makes things run smoothly or who helps people do what they need. In gaming terms, you may well discover that you’re best role is support, not carry or pusher. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s not only valid, but valuable and undervalued by folks who think that everyone needs to be the aggressive go-getter.

You know who’s one of the most beloved and — in a real way — desired characters in pop culture? Samwise Gamgee. He’s a quiet man who doesn’t want to change the world, he doesn’t want to be all-powerful or an influential leader of men. He wants to work in his garden, grow his vegetables, cook and clean and generally live a very quiet, domestic life. He’s there for his friends and will help quite literally carry them through Hell… but his greatest ambition is a quiet, calm life with a nice house and a nice family. And there are many many women who want a partner like that.

One of the things people tend to not understand about relationships, especially when it comes to questions of “being the provider” is that people in general, and women in particular, aren’t looking for someone who’s going to be covering all the costs and paying all the bills and anyone who can’t keep up gets seen as a mooch and slacker. What they want is someone who contributes, who doesn’t take more than they give. Being a provider isn’t just about money or material goods, it’s equally about labor and effort, including emotional labor. A guy who pays all the bills but treats this like they don’t need to do anything else for the relationship isn’t giving equal value for what they’re taking. The cost of the labor and effort they are demanding from their partner isn’t equivalent to just covering expenses.

The obstacles you’re imagining and the complications you’re afraid of aren’t based in the value of being domestic while under-employed, they’re based in the way you’re diminishing that worth. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at dating men, women or non-binary folks; they’re all are just as caught up in the day to day grind of capitalism and trying to squeeze life into a workday as everyone else. They’re struggling just as much as men to try to figure out how to do basic life maintenance while also trying to live up to a world built around an 8 hour work day while demanding 10 and 12 hours from workers. A guy who’s going to keep house, cook and clean and do the domestic stuff is gonna be huge for folks who feel overwhelmed just by trying to do the day-to-day business of life. Taking those stresses off their shoulders is a goddamn gift.

But all of this? This is all what’s known as “borrowing trouble from the future”. This isn’t what you’re currently dealing with, these are all things that you’re anticipating. You’re worried about whether telling people that you’re a stay-at-home boyfriend will be unattractive when you haven’t even decided what your next career steps are. You’re still in the beginning stages of retraining, not dealing with having been unable to find a job for months. Trying to deal with a problem you may never encounter is a way of tricking yourself into not making actual progress. You’re giving yourself the illusion of forward motion — “Hey, I’m alleviating this worry, so I’ll be ready to start looking for a new career” — but that’s all it is: an illusion. You’re devoting energy to a problem that doesn’t exist yet instead of the problem that does: getting out of your s--tty environment and taking the steps to starting a new career. That is where your energy should be directed. The worry of “will people find me attractive as a partner if I don’t have a job” is answered by “yes, because my value isn’t in my paycheck”. Boom, done, now you know how you can deal with it if — not when, if — it comes up.

Focus on your immediate steps. Get out of work, realize how much it’s going to free things up for you and how much better you’ll feel. Take a moment to rest and and let things settle before you leap back into the pit, so you don’t trade one source of burnout for another. Getting out of a s--tty environment can feel weird at first and you are going to want to adjust. Just because you put the weight down doesn’t mean you aren’t ready to pick up a lighter one; you need time to recoup your energy. Then, as you feel your strength and energy return, focus on your next immediate step: looking towards retraining or going back to college. Focus on the step in front of you, not the one that may be there 45 steps down the line where you can’t see yet.

Take it one step at a time, one milestone at a time and let the future take care of itself. Trust in yourself and your own value to carry you through if, IF, unemployment intersects with finding a relationship. That’s not a worry you need to expend your energy on. That’s not a thing that exists yet. You are here, in the present. Be in the now. Take care of the now, and that future will just be one more day that never comes to pass.

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: My question is, honestly, is it truly possible for men to actively seek out casual sex or hookups without being creepy? Now, let me clarify some things about this question. Theoretically, of course, the answer is obviously “yes”, but practically? How does a man even bring up the idea without ever creeping out a woman? Many women seem to be repulsed by the idea. Some may like it, but only with certain men. Of course, it’s impossible to know if a woman would like hooking up with you, or even if she wouldn’t be utterly repulsed by you asking, without asking in the first place, so even finding out that vital part of the equation seems impossible to do without creeping a woman out, unless you’re ungodly lucky and every single woman you happen to ask just happens to not be repulsed by you asking.

Another thing is even approaching. Ask on Reddit about it, every single possible venue has its detractors.

“Don’t ask me at the store, I’m just there to shop.”

“Don’t ask me at class, I’m there to learn.”

“Don’t ask me at salsa lessons, I’m there to dance salsa, and I’d be uncomfortable dancing with guys who ask me.”

“Don’t ask me at the coffee shop, I’m there to read/work.”

“Don’t ask me at the bar, I’m just there to drink with friends.”

“Don’t ask me at the club, I’m just there to dance with friends.”

It would be one thing if these were just framed as personal preference, but these always carry the implication that any guy who would do this is probably predatory. And God help you if you DARE ask any follow-up questions about any of these. If you do, it’s obviously because you want to invalidate her opinion or you think you’re entitled to women’s time. Just about the only uncontroversial venue is Tinder. But for many men, that’s just a self-esteem destroyer, of constant one-sided swiping and ghosting.

Some may say that the best thing to do is through social circles or activity groups. But because of everything else I mentioned, I REALLY do not want to do that. If I creep out a stranger, that sucks, but there’s likely no more negative consequences than that. The fact that she even would meet me again is slim to none. But if I creep out a friend or a friend or someone else in an activity group, that’s just terrible. She could tell others about how I creeped her out, my already existing friends would be more suspicious of me, any future interaction with any female member of the group would be tainted, I might even get shunned from the group. That makes me never want to look to friends or activity groups.

So basically, how is it even possible for a man to look for hookups without being creepy? It sounds like he’d need ungodly luck. First, the woman has to not be offended by a simple approach. Then, she has to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up, and then, to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up with him. None of those are knowable without asking in the first place. But to ask requires approaching in the first place. And then if he asks, she would then know he thinks of her like that…

Seeking Something Casual

DEAR SEEKING SOMETHING CASUAL: As is so often the case, SSC, the problem you have isn’t the problem that you think you have.

People — guys, gals and non-binary pals — regularly find folks who are looking for one night stands, friends with benefits and partners who are just looking for sex without the strings or complications of a committed relationship. And no, it’s not just about hots finding thots, nor is it about the Mythical 20% of Twitter exercising droit du seigneur over 80% of the women. They’re just people, same as everyone else, putting themselves out there, shooting their shot and finding people who are of like-minded interests.

Despite what folks would tell you, women are as interested in sex as men, including an interest in casual sex and no-strings hook-ups. Barrier that folks frequently run into is that women who sleep with men face disproportionate levels of risk than men do, the sex that they find — or are offered — is often not that good, and a lot of times, the men they hook up with prove themselves to have a nasty case of Crouching Nice Guy, Hidden Douchebag afterwards. When guys try to get someone to f--k them and then turn around and shame women for doing exactly what they were asking for, that tends to disincentivize women from being as up front or open about wanting to bang.

But when you mitigate the risks, including post-coital slut-shaming, women are emphatically down for it.

The issue that you are having, SSC, is that you’re coming at this from the angle that women don’t like sex or find casual sex repulsive, that men’s — or rather your — sexual interest is inherently unwelcome or intrusive and that the only way to find a sex partner is to creep on women until someone says “ok sure”.

Some of this is ignorance, some of it is inexperience and a whole lot of it is a combination of low self-esteem, listening to the wrong people and a heaping helping of confirmation bias.

So, let’s take this in reverse order.

Part of why you’re struggling with this is that you’re coming to this discussion under the assumption that casual sex is, by definition, mostly unwanted, unwelcome and hard to find. When you start from a base of “I want this but there’s no way to find it without being a creep,” it’s very easy for confirmation bias to seep in and cause you to give far too much credence to random people. Seeing folks on Reddit say “ewwww, no” seems more impactful because it already lines up with what you believe; you’re much more likely to take what they say as gospel, rather than seeing it as one person’s opinion.

(This is, in fact, a common issue on Reddit, where non-representative samples are regularly held up as proof of random bulls--t…)

Despite the seeming size and authoritative nature of r/relationships or what-have-you, subreddits aren’t a meaningful sample of the population at large. You’re seeing individual people’s opinions about specific circumstances. Even if those get massive upvotes, that’s still opinions, not facts, nor are they universally held.

And to be clear: they’re very circumstantial. While I’m certainly not going to claim that there’s a Brad Pitt exception or something, there are going to be plenty of folks who will say “well, that’s how I met MY FWB”, and they’ll be telling the God’s honest truth. They did what they weren’t “supposed” to do according to your sample and yet still found success.

Which is actually leads us to the next issue: a lack of experience. Your interpretation of this seems to be predicated on the idea that finding a FWB or casual hook-up is primarily a meet-someone-and-hit-on-them scenario that leads to them going home with you that very night. And while this does happen, it’s not the most common occurrence. This is more how people tend to think it works, rather than how it actually plays out. That’s part of why you’re finding (and overvaluing) the resistance to this idea.

Here’s part of why so many of the women you bring up are very much against dudes asking them out at whatever venue: because they’re picturing the typical “nice shoes, want to f--k” approach that some folks seem to think will get them laid. It would be tempting to say this is an unfair stereotype or straw man if it weren’t for the fact that lots of dudes legitimately and literally act like this — both on dating apps and in person. But this goes back to why women frequently aren’t (openly) into casual sex: because the guys who are offering it the most often have all the social calibration and awareness of a brick. A particularly horny brick.

The issue with a lot of the examples that you listed is that approaching women for sex goes against the social contract. One doesn’t generally go to the gym, the grocery store or class in order to hook up or even expecting to. Now, you’re far more likely to meet someone who’s at least open to meeting and talking to strangers at a club or a bar; the social contract of being in those places is that this is a venue where people frequently go to socialize and meet new people.

(This does, admittedly, depend on the type of bar. A singles bar in the entertainment district is gonna be very different from the local watering hole or an Applebee’s.)

Now just being in those venues doesn’t mean that someone’s interested in being approached by all and sundry. It just means that you’re far more likely to find like-minded folks.

With that being said, let’s get back to social calibration and experience. There are ways that it’s possible to meet and even hook up with people in all of the theoretical situations you bring up. What it requires is being aware of not just the social norms, but paying attention and knowing how to read social signals. Someone who is at a bar to drink or dance with her friends is going to be giving off far different vibes than somebody who’s open to talking to people. The same is true of folks at the coffee shop, at the book store or in class. You want to give your attention (and time) to folks who are open to or actively interested in talking.  Somebody at Starbucks who’s got their headphones on and is staring intently at their laptop is giving off the nigh-universal “don’t talk to me” signal. On the other hand, if you and they are both waiting around for your orders, it’s very easy to use a general observation or comment to start a conversation.

The same is true for someone at a bar. If she’s oriented herself towards the room, you and she make eye-contact and she gives you the look-away-look-back-and-smile or other indications of interest, then she’s signaling that yes, she would like to talk to you. On the other hand, if she’s in a group of friends and they’re all standing around in an inward-facing cluster, then she’s going to be far less receptive to somebody rolling up on her.

By that same token: nobody appreciates a guy who treats a MeetUp or a dance class like a singles bar. Dudes who cruise those like horny sharks make the experience a misery for everyone. However, folks will frequently talk with other regulars that they see often; those are the folks who’ve demonstrated that they’re not there to hit on people. They’ve built up trust and social capital and — critically — they aren’t just hitting on folks. And while they may start flirting with someone or ask somebody on a date, that is far more often the culmination of previous interactions and conversations, not necessarily the first time they’ve ever spoken.

So no, you wouldn’t just hit on somebody in the middle of your conversational Spanish class. But you might go up to them afterwards — especially if they’re not rushing off to another class — and ask them about the reading. And if you and they have more than a five word conversation, it might lead to asking them if they’re free and would they like to grab a quick coffee at the Student Union? And as you and they talk, you may find that you both have a lot in common, you find that you’re laughing and joking and having a good time… and this may lead to your asking them for a date. Or it may lead to getting dinner, drinks or even eventually going back to your place or theirs’.

Yeah, the women in the examples you bring up probably don’t want a dude who just asks them if they’d like to f--k. But if you were to ask them if they would be open to talking to somebody who was nice and funny or charming and warm… they would very likely say “ok, in that case, maybe.”

(Obvious disclaimer is obvious: this is not the same as “all women would be down for this type of approach”.)

The difference here is that the guy who has the most success isn’t shotgunning an approach at everyone who he finds vaguely attractive. He’s paying attention to the people who are most open or interested in talking to somebody. He’s not hitting on her, he’s having a conversation. There’s flirting, yes, but it’s flirting with an eye towards whether she’s interested in flirting; if she isn’t, then he dials it back. By paying attention, being appropriate to the moment and the location and being mindful of her interest and comfort, he doesn’t have to worry about being creepy.

This same approach applies to people in your social circle too. You don’t start from a position of “hey wanna f--k,” you start from a position of paying attention to folks, seeing who is or isn’t attracted to you and might be interested in more. You talk, you flirt, and if there’s mutual interest, see about a date.

“But what if they’re not interested?” I hear you cry. “Wouldn’t that lead to everyone getting weird and destroying your friendships?”

I’m glad you asked, convenient rhetorical device. The answer is “no, not if you don’t make it weird first”. If you and a friend were vibing, and you were to say “hey, I really enjoy what we have, but I’m curious to see if there’s more. If you’re interested — and it’s absolutely cool if you’re not — I’d love to take you on a date,” that’s not a friendship killer in and of itself. If they were to say “thank you, but I’d really rather be friends” and you respond with “I totally understand, not a problem,” and continue to act like a friend? Then things are gonna be fine. It’s only going to be weird or uncomfortable if you don’t take “no” with good grace or make your entire friendship about “BUT WHYYYYY WON’T YOU F--k ME?”

And, incidentally, the same approach applies to dating apps. First and foremost: much of why dudes have less success on dating apps is completely down to how people use those apps — bad pictures and profiles, engaging in behavior that downgrades them in the algorithm, poor messaging behaviors and treating each potential match as the end-all-be-all of dating. But even when you do match with people, you don’t want to lead with “so who’s up for a little f--ky-f--ky” — which, I hate to say, isn’t an exaggeration. Even women who are actively looking for NSA sex don’t appreciate being treated like a foregone conclusion or a human Fleshlight. You come to that first meeting with an attitude of “let’s start by seeing if we have chemistry in person”, not “it’s all done but the squishy noises”. Meet up for 15 minutes for coffee or ice cream and see if you have as much of a connection in person as you do over text. From there plan an actual date and see where it goes from there.

Just as importantly though: you need to be willing to own your interest and what you’re looking for. If what you want is a casual relationship without an expectation of commitment, then you have to be willing to put that out there. Yes, people who aren’t into this will say “thank you but no”. That’s good. That’s what you want. You want people who are on the same page as you. Pretending that you might be open to a relationship or looking for something long term just to avoid chasing people away will only lead to heartache and annoyance. It also means that you stop casting your interest as something unfortunate or to be hidden or that makes you undesirable. That outlook will make it next to impossible for you to actually find a partner because nobody appreciates an offer of “um, I know this is going to disgust you and you’re probably going to say no anyway but if you can stand it, would you very much mind having sex?” Not only will you not be able to act with confidence, but you’ll be seeing the world through a filter of “nobody could possibly want this” — which means that you’ll miss the folks who are interested in what you have to offer.

Now, I’ve written a lot about casual sex, about flirting, what women look for in a casual hook-up relationship, how to approach women… I suggest that you check out my books or go through the archives and read up.

But here’s the thing: all of the reading and study in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t put it into practice. This is where ignorance and inexperience comes into play. The only way you can actually succeed is to get in the game in the first place. There is no reward without risk, nor is there any way of getting what you want without taking a chance at being rejected. The way you learn is through trying, making mistakes, learning, trying again and succeeding and learning from that, too. If you’re going to spend all your time looking for a way to get a 100% guarantee of success… you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

As I’ve said: don’t come at this from a place of trying to get laid off the bat. That is unquestionably part of why this freaks you out. Take it step by step, not trying to get a place on the varsity team on your very first time on the field. Come at this from a place of having conversations and getting to know people. If there’s a vibe, then go on a date. The more experiences you have, the more your skills will develop. The more you develop those skills, the more success you will have.

And seriously, stop looking at subreddits as proof of anything but the opinion of that person on that subreddit… and half the time, not even as that.

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: My partner is an adjunct instructor of Sociology at a local community college. He is a brilliant social scientist and a great teacher, but he is terrible at the bureaucratic side of things: he loses track of emails, has a crazy disorganized mess of files on his computer, and struggles to navigate online systems to double check his work and connect with his colleagues and supervisors. I don’t think this is a terribly unusual persuasion for a professor-type, but the early stages of his career coupled with the digital demands of the pandemic have really brought this issue to the forefront lately.

Last spring, there was a huge problem when he failed to keep track of emails about an online certification program that his school was requiring. It almost resulted in him losing his job. He has missed notifications for in-service dates (and subsequently failed to show up), missed emails from supervisors and submitted the wrong copy of forms. So far he hasn’t suffered any lasting consequences, but that’s mostly because of the patience of his supervising staff. Those same supervisors are becoming increasingly (unsurprisingly) frustrated, and I worry that this could easily derail his career.

This would all be a problem within itself, but it’s doubly stressful because of his struggles with mental health. My partner suffers from body dysmorphia (a delusional disorder that affects all-over self esteem, not just body image) and anxiety. While he takes medication and mostly manages these issues, when a “crisis” arises (usually as a result of him missing an email or important date) he flies into a downward spiral. Instead of being disappointed and frustrated like any of us would be, his self-esteem plummets off a cliff and he starts talking about what a failure he is as a human and how he should just give up and resign. Sometimes this nears suicidal-levels, or includes a generalized rage which he doesn’t direct at me, but which makes it impossible to talk to him and sometimes results in rash actions like sending unprofessional emails to supervisors or throwing his phone down and breaking it. 

I am also a disorganized person, but I’ve realized through trial and error that I can head off these kinds of crises by forcing myself into habits. I keep my work email open on my computer 24/7 to ensure I don’t miss emails, set alarms for important dates, and always place my belongings in the same spots so I don’t lose them, etc. I’ve tried to offer advice to help him avoid these issues in the future, but he mostly refuses. In the moment he thinks it’s totally hopeless and he should give up altogether, and later he seems to pretend the issues never happened. He claims he’s trying to be more on top of things, but I don’t see any evidence of that. As it is, I have to exist in a constant state of fear that his failure to keep track of his professional life will send our household into chaotic crisis mode at any minute.

How do we get to a place where he can cope with and prevent these mishaps? Is there help he can seek out for this kind of tendency to screw up the “mundane” tasks of his professional life? 

Sincerely, 

All Crisis-ed Out

DEAR ALL CRISIS-ED OUT: This is a tough one ACO, in part because it sounds like your partner is refusing to deal with the underlying issues. If some form of disruption causes him to fly either into a deep depression or unfocused rage and he refuses to talk about things afterwards… well, that makes it really goddamn difficult to solve anything. It gets especially bad if he refuses to either admit that there’s a problem or to actually deal with it in a meaningful manner.

So with the obvious caveat that Dr. NerdLove is NOT a real doctor, I am of a mind that this needs a two-prong approach: a practical one to deal with the disorganization, and a systematic one to deal with the underlying causes. If the disorganization and consequences thereof are a major trigger for these outbursts or breakdowns, then getting that under control may make it easier for him (and for you) to work on his anxiety and dysmorphia.

I’m like you, ACO; I’m incredibly disorganized under the best of circumstances. I’ve got ADHD, which means that — amongst other things — I have a bad case of “out of sight, out of mind”. This has required a host of compensating behaviors and systems, including calendar alerts on top of alerts and automating everything I possibly can. So I get where you’re coming from with this. However, I can also tell you that things can slip through the cracks, and it requires being on top of things in a way that can be really difficult without outside help on occasion. Thus far, your partner hasn’t been willing to set up a system like yours, or to accept your help in setting one up. I suspect that, even if he does accept your help or sets something up, he’ll still have things fall through, resulting in more crises for him and more stress for you. That’s why my suggestion is to take the American approach and outsource the organizing to somebody else.

One of the benefits of our increasingly connected world has been the rise of virtual assistants — people whose job it is to take the scutwork you can’t deal with or that you struggle with and take care of it for you, even without being physically present. Having someone who can, for example, help with filing paperwork, making sure bills get paid, organize your files and so on, can be a huge benefit both to your emotional and mental health and to your overall productivity. Having the metaphorical weight taken off your shoulders — along with the time and stress of dealing with all of these small but critical tasks — can free up your time and your mental bandwidth. And in the case of your partner, this can hopefully help keep his triggers at bay by helping everything run smoothly, which will give him the bandwidth and motivation to treat his condition more effectively.

The other benefit is that these services are often far more affordable than you’d realize. You can find a licensed and bonded assistant for anywhere around $15 – $30 per hour on services like Care; a few hours a week could make the difference between career-threatening lost emails and keeping everything running smoothly. That means less stress for the both of you, on top of the time saved trying to get everything accomplished and putting out the fires that crop up.

Now the second approach is going to be harder. It sounds like your partner is seeing a therapist and is getting treatment, which is great. However, the behavior you mention and his triggers make me wonder if there’s another condition that’s either co-morbid with his dysmorphia or may be masked by the conditions you already know about. Or it could be that the current course of treatment isn’t working as effectively on all aspects of his dysmorphia and anxiety. Regardless, he really needs to talk about with his doctor about how easily stress triggers a spiral and how much it’s been disrupting his life and work. There’re a lot of ways that he can learn how to manage his emotions and try not to let things rage out of control, but triggers are rarely rational and can hit a lot harder and faster than people can respond in the moment. Even if it’s just a case of running out of cope, the fact that the reactions are this extreme and this disruptive means that they run the risk of having profound consequences to his life and yours. It may be an awkward or even embarrassing thing to talk about, especially if his dysmorphia is f--king with his self-esteem, but it’s necessary.

In both cases, I suspect a lot is going to come down to how you present these options to your partner. Sometimes the difference between stubborn refusal and a willingness to listen all depends on how you pitch it.

The virtual assistant may actually be the easier lift, particularly if you frame it as “how about we find someone who can take these things off your plate and make it so that you don’t have to worry about it anymore?”  While I wouldn’t suggest hiring an assistant for your partner, it may be worth checking out some of the profiles in the link I provided in advance and interviewing some potential prospects. If you are able to present your partner with specific examples of what a VA could do for your husband, it may be easier than saying “hey, have you considered hiring somebody to take care of all of this?”

Alternately, you could hire someone to help with your organization and then be able to wax rhapsodic about how much they’ve done for you. At that point, you both win.

Getting your partner to talk to his doctor may be a little harder, especially if he’s resistant. That is a talk you may have to structure like an Awkward Conversation, where you lay out why this has been concerning you, what you think would help (talking to his doctor) and how this would make things better (less anxiety, less depression, less rage, less risk to his career).  Then he can share his side, including why he may have a hard time discussing these things or why he has a hard time bringing them up.

Now, I’m not gonna lie. It’s going to be a struggle. Men in particular tend to be resistant to dealing with issues that strike their anxiety or sense of competence and self-esteem. The shame of feeling like you can’t handle life like a grown-ass adult can be immense and paralyzing. But at the same time, having an actionable solution and one that you can lay out on a cost/benefit ratio may help him get over that particular hump and start the process of making his life (and yours) easier, happier and less stressful.

Good luck.

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