DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a man in my early thirties. Growing up throughout my adolescence and, until I was around 25, I didn’t had any kind of sexual or even a casual relationship with any woman. I didn’t go to parties or any kind of social events, my job was menial and going nowhere and I didn’t have many friends. At that point I had just given up and had decided that sex, relationships and love was not for me. However, around that time I met a woman which basically did all the heavy lifting involved at the beginning (flirting with me, asking me out, inviting me to her house, go for the kiss, etc). We started dating not long after and it was with her that I started becoming a grown man (losing my virginity, learning to plan things, learning to drive and move through the city, go to parties, etc).

I never thought of my girlfriend as ugly, but I didn’t find her very attractive either. Everything was so new at the beginning that I didn’t think much of her looks. As time passed I started noticing other girls and me being a more mature, social and responsible man, girls started noticing me too. I’ve never stopped loving my girlfriend but the physical attraction was eventually gone and my desire to be with other women was increasing, so eventually we had an amicable break up.

Over this past few years I’ve been attending therapy and working on several aspects of myself that need improving both mentally and physically. Even though I can’t say I am a fulfilled man, I can really see a difference from the man I was when I was 25 years old, but the issue I have now is that I don’t really know how to establish a connection with women I am attracted to. When the person is very attractive, I don’t really behave like myself but I pretend to be different. Fortunately, this is I problem I have identified by now, but I don’t know how to resolve it. Being myself around attractive women makes me very nervous and anxious, even if my real self tends to be very likeable by other people. 

Over the past few years I have only been with a handful of women, and with all of them at most I felt some mild attraction. The problem is I can’t really build any kind of relationship with these women because I am unable to have sex with them. This is in part because I don’t find them very attractive and partly because I masturbate a lot just to unload all this sexual desire that I have in me.

I know that part of the solution is to stop masturbating so that I have enough of libido to have sex with real people, but since the only people that like me are not very attractive I can’t really find the motivation to stop.

As I final note I want to say that I’m really desperate at this moment and I really would like to find a woman to have a relationship with, which unfortunately is something that some women are able notice and obviously drives them off. I know this part would be resolved by working on some personal or professional goals but unfortunately I’m really apathetic towards life in general, I don’t like anything and I don’t care about anything, I haven’t given up but I don’t expect to find the answer soon and I would like to not be alone until I do.

So my questions are:

How can build a connection with people I do find attractive?

How can I look past physical attractiveness and have a relationship with a woman I don’t find very good looking but is funny and kind?

How can I stop being so desperate about having a relationship?

How can I stop masturbating if I am not having sex either?

Thanks,

Lustful, Lonely and Lost

DEAR LUSTFUL, LONELY AND LOST: Alright, Triple L, you are in one the rare position of having actually zeroed in on the problem you’re having, but you have completely overshot the mark where it comes to why you have this problem.

Here’s a hint: it’s not because you’re masturbating too much.

Masturbation is one of those topics that keeps coming up (er… as it were) as the cause of — and solution to — all of men’s problems. Jerking the turkey gets a bad rap primarily from sex-negative scolds, folks who drastically misunderstand the human endocrine system, and people who mostly want to exploit folks who buy into the myths the first two pump out. Trying to blame masturbation (and porn — the two go together like hand in… glove) for all of men’s woes, from depression to a lack of motivation and ambition to not being able to form relationships is honestly not that far off from blaming ptomaine poisoning on ghosts and telling you to do cocaine about it. And yet, people keep insisting that bashing the bishop is somehow at the root of all evils of modern society.

It’s not. There’re precisely three ways where masturbation is a problem: if you have an idiosyncratic masturbatory technique (aka The Death Grip) that makes it difficult for you to ejaculate during sex with a partner; if you are masturbating so often that you’re causing physical damage to your genitals; and you rub one out either at times and places where it’s inappropriate or in front of folks who didn’t already agree to see you jerk it. Masturbation is healthy, it’s fun, and more people should see it as something other than something shameful that you do when you’re between sex partners.

While masturbation can lower your libido temporarily or the satiate immediate need to have sex, jerking off too often isn’t the cause of your problems. You’re not unable to have sex with these women because you jerk it too often to be horny for them; you’re masturbating because you’d rather do that than sleep with these women. If you were to suddenly go No Contact with your junk, your issues wouldn’t go away, because the problem isn’t that you need your balls drained, your problem is that you’re not attracted to the women you’re dating. At best, all that would happen is that you’d be horny enough to say “enh, I guess you’ll do”, have sex that would likely not be that pleasurable and make you feel bad or unsatisfied in the aftermath. The refractory period would become a period of reflection where you try to figure out how you can slip out and go home because you are just not into the people you’re dating. 

The issue isn’t whether you’re masturbating too much, nor is it that you’re being shallow and not appreciating the women you’re dating for more than their looks. While it’s noble to want to see past the physical, the issue isn’t about shallowness or just wanting a hot girlfriend. The problem is that that you’re pursuing women you aren’t into, rather than ones you are attracted to, because you see those women as “getable”. They’re ones you feel like are somehow on “your level”, rather than being who you’re actually into.

(And before anyone asks: yes, personality, interests, etc. make a huge difference, as does getting to know someone as a person. The more you get to know somebody, the more attractive they tend to become to you, and men find as wide a range of women attractive as women do with men. But all that requires seeing them as a person you want to get to know, not “this is someone I should date because they aren’t ‘above’ me” and then backfilling why you should be attracted to them after the fact.)

You may have come a long, long way since your first girlfriend and made progress towards being a grown-ass man in terms of being able to handle life as an adult. But there’s a part of you that very clearly thinks that you haven’t grown or changed at all.

And that’s an issue.

You kind of trip over the problem when you say that you pretend to be someone else when you’re around women you’re into and that being yourself around women you’re attracted to makes you nervous and anxious. The problem is that, at your core, you don’t think that you’re “worthy” of dating someone that you find attractive. You feel that their attractiveness gives them value or status that you don’t have and that your attraction to them is somehow an inconvenience or affront to them. As a result: you try to fake being someone you’re not with people you’re into — which is off putting at best — and pursue women you don’t find desirable because you feel like they’re the ones who’ll accept you.

Now it doesn’t exactly take a genius to point out that this almost certainly started with your first girlfriend. While I don’t doubt that this was a meaningful and fulfilling relationship for you, and I don’t want to take away from that, it seems pretty clear that there’s a part of you that is still stuck on “but she wasn’t that hot to me.” This seems to have set the tone for you and what you think you deserve or are worth; it set a ceiling for you that honestly should have been a floor. I know we all want to believe we’re enlightened beings and that the mind and soul are more important than the body. I know we live in a world that has commodified a specific standard of beauty, especially for women, and that people all too easily focus on conventional looks instead of compatibility and connection. But we aren’t just beings of pure spirit and intellect, we’re sacks of meat and chemicals being piloted by horny ghosts, with all that entails. Sex is a big deal, and people should treat it like one. You may love someone for their mind, but you want them for their ass.

If you’re going to have a romantic relationship that also entails a sexual connection, then you need that core of attraction and desire for the relationship to work at all. Not prioritizing desire and sexual compatibility doesn’t make you a more evolved person, it just drastically cuts the lifespan of the relationship and increases the emotional pain for everyone involved.

And I do mean everyone. You should be in a relationship with someone you desire and who desires you… and so should the women you’re dating. Dating women you’re not into isn’t fair to them, either; it’s keeping them from being with someone who does want them and who gets harder than Russian differential calculus at the thought of them.

Now, the solution here isn’t to just stop jerking it until you’re horny enough to use someone as a human-shaped Fleshlight, it’s to learn how to see and internalize the value in yourself. You’re pretending to be someone else around people you’re attracted to because you think they’re better than you somehow. You’re trying to impress them with this fake version of you… and that’s a mistake.

First and foremost: they can tell you’re faking being someone else. Trust me: been there, done that, watched a s--tload of folks literally drive themselves crazy in the process.

Second: when you’re trying to impress someone, you’re treating her like your opponent, not a potential partner. Women are your collaborators in a relationship; you’re both working together to build something that’s greater than the sum of its parts… even if that something greater is just some squishy noises and creaky bed springs. Treating her like she’s above you or that you need to win approval, especially to just be in her presence, gets in the way of all of that.

Third: you’re not even trying to connect with her, you’re trying to connect with your idea of her. Treating someone as having more value, more importance or more status than you because you think they’re attractive means that you’re not seeing the actual person. You’re performing for an imaginary person in your head, not the person who’s actually right in front of you. And no, putting a woman on a pedestal isn’t a compliment, it’s an insult. It’s literally dehumanizing, and it’s all about what you think, not about who she actually is. She’s a person, like everyone else. She farts, picks at her zits, snorts when she laughs, stubs her toes and stumbles over her words, the same as you and everybody else does.

Fourth: you’re not only responding to an imaginary version of her, you’re denying her the chance to get to know you. You have already decided — on the basis of no evidence — that she couldn’t possibly like you, and therefore you put on this act that you think she would like instead. You haven’t just pre-rejected yourself, you’ve denied her the chance to meet someone awesome, someone she very well may have been looking for.

So here’s what you need to do.

You need to drop the wishy-washiness about who you date. “Not really attracted to” or “kind of attracted to” isn’t doing you or your dates any favors. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. It’s time — for now — for a “f--k yes or f--k no” mindset. Are you hot for them? Are they your exact flavor of yum, the kind that makes you go “f--k yes”? If so, those are the women you should be trying to date. If the answer is no, then it’s “f--k no”, and don’t date them. Treat them well, be friends with them… but don’t insult them by dating them when you aren’t into them.

The next thing is that you need to stop treating women you are attracted to as anything other than people. There’re a lot of ways of doing this — most of which will probably have to wait until you’re vaccinated and the lockdown is over — but for now, you can start by taking dating off the table. The hot women you encounter aren’t potential dates; they’re just people you’re going to have conversations with. Your job is to get to know them, have a good conversation and find out something fascinating about them. This could be anything: they may be a great soccer player, they may be a molecular biologist or they’re the only person who can actually sing “Ghost Love Score” at karaoke. By taking the possibility of sex and dating off the table, you no longer have to worry about impressing them. You’re just two people talking. The more comfortable you can get with this dynamic, the more you can realize that the women you think are hot are just people. It means you’ll worry less about trying to “prove” yourself and be able to put more emphasis on whether they are right for you.

And finally: talk to your therapist, TripleL. This lack of self-worth and the feeling that you aren’t “good enough” is the sort of thing that they can help you unpack and work through. You’ve put a lot of work in and you’ve come really far; don’t let all of that effort go to waste because you still have these self-limiting beliefs buried inside. The first person who needs to treat you like you’re worth a damn is you. Know your own worth so you can go out and get what you’re worth my dude. This will make you happier, it’ll help you find stronger, more fulfilling relationships, and it means you won’t be beating yourself up over beating off.

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: This might seem like a weird question, but it is something i’ve been thinking about. I apologize if my phrasing is awkward, English isn’t my first language.

I consider myself a feminist and I am sympathetic to the situation that men put girls in. You often talk about how women feel the need to give a “soft” no,  or not to reject at all, but to give a false hope since they might be afraid of the consequences if the reject too harshly. Everything from name-calling to physical abuse and such.

Consent and eagerness to go on a date is important to me. If they’re not stoked on going on a date, I don’t want to go on that date. However, when asking girls out I sometime get the “How nice! However I can’t that day since I am doing XYZ”.

Even though this is a rejection the fact that she said that it was nice/used another positive adjective, I feel like she didn’t reject cause she necessarily didn’t want to, she just couldn’t that particular day.

However, if a girl were to reject a guy as softly as possible, she would probably frame it as not being able to, rather that not wanting to. So how do I distinguish between those scenarios? I would hate to be a pushy guy, who doesn’t take no for an answer.

Thanks,

Nervous Scandinavian

DEAR NERVOUS SCANDINAVIAN: Before we get into this, NS, I just want to make a slight correction for clarity’s sake: women aren’t giving “false hope” when they use a soft “no”. A soft no is more about providing a plausible reason why that person (guys and non-binary folks will use soft no’s too) can’t do the thing. This way, it’s easier to believe that they aren’t saying “no” out of disinterest but because circumstances outside of everyone’s control won’t allow it. This means that the person doing the refusing doesn’t feel rude for saying no (or doesn’t feel at risk by doing so) and the person being refused can save face and not take it as a rejection of them, personally.

As a general rule, people generally recognize a soft no when they hear one. Most of the time, when we question whether that was a soft no or a genuine impediment, it’s because we don’t want to take it as a no, and so we latch onto the conditional. However, there are times when it may be hard to tell.

How can you tell the difference? Well, a good rule of thumb is that someone who is into you will make an effort to see you. If someone would like to go on a date with you and has a conflict of some sort — they’ve got an appointment that day, for example — they will usually make a point of suggesting an alternate day or time. If you ask someone on a date and they say “I can’t that day because XYZ, but I’m available next week…” then that’s not a soft no, just a scheduling conflict. If all they give is a reason why they can’t, then it’s almost certainly a “no, thank you”.

Now the way that you can be someone that women feel comfortable refusing or turning down is to take rejection with good grace. The more you can take a “thank you, but I’m not interested” like a gentleman and not get upset or change how you behave, the more comfortable people will be. And there are ways that you can signal in advance that it’s ok to say no. While I’m not a fan of pre-rejecting yourself, you can always invite the no; “Hey, it’s totally cool if not but would you like to…”

Of course, if I’m being honest, I’m not a huge fan of this approach for most things as it tends to come across more as “It’s ok if you don’t want to go out with me, I wouldn’t want to go out with me either.” However, if it’s a large ask — finding out if a platonic friend is open to going on a date, for example — then inviting the no is telling them in advance that you’re going to be cool if they turn you down, which can help diffuse potential awkwardness.

But let’s say you’re in a position where you get “I can’t, I’m doing XYZ that day” and they don’t propose an alternate day… but you’re genuinely unsure whether that’s a no or not? Leave the ball in their court. Tell them “Hey, no problem. Let me know if you change your mind,” and then just move the conversation on to something else. If you do this, it’s important to not keep circling back to ask “Well, how about now?” You’ve made your interest known; if she decides she would like to go on a date with you, she presumably knows where and how to find you.

And here’s the thing: being able to take “no” in stride means you’re more likely to hear “yes”. It doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to turn that person around and get a date, but it does mean that you’re the kind of person people feel comfortable with. And that, in turn, means that those people will be more likely to want to pursue something with you. Attraction can’t exist without comfort and safety, after all.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I wanted to write in with an update to my situation. I wrote in previously about a new friendship that felt like it was falling apart (July 2019, “Why Is This Friendship Fizzling Out?”). Your advice was to not assume it had anything to do with my worth, and I really appreciated that. It helped put things into perspective and let me see the situation clearly.

That friend I wrote in about did turn out to be a bit of a narcissist after all (I don’t throw that term around lightly). However, I did manage to meet another person in that group who has turned into a genuine and long-lasting friend. Not only did he validate what I was experiencing with the original friend, but he also treated me like I would expect a friend should – being emotionally engaged and attentive, friendly, kind, having good boundaries, a 50/50 back and forth, etc. Not only that, but it sounds like that original friend group completely imploded recently and I’m grateful I wasn’t in the middle of it all.

So thank you for encouraging me to take a step back! It gave me the opportunity to put energy into a better connection which is ultimately what I wanted out of the entire situation. Plus this new friend brought along a separate but smaller and quite lovely group of people. Slowly I am building up my social network and it feels very wholesome and good!

No Longer Sick and Abandoned!

DEAR NO LONGER SICK AND ABANDONED: Thank you so much for writing in and letting us know how you’re doing NSLA! I always love to hear back how things have been going for folks who’ve written in before.

Glad to know that you’re doing better and building a stronger social network! Here’s to building stronger boundaries, better communication and better friends.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This letter was spurred by your recent column about letting folks down gently. My question is related but separate: how do I keep a relationship platonic when the romantic interest is mutual?

For some context: I’ve recently met this lovely person with whom I have a great deal in common, including stated romantic interest. However, for reasons unrelated, I (though poly) am not open for new relationships at this point, and falling in love would cause serious harm to both myself, this new friendship, and to my already established relationships.

We’ve spoken about this explicitly and seem to have a good understanding of each other’s positions, but I want to make sure my actions match my words here. It’s a precarious situation.

So. How do I maintain a platonic relationship with my new friend, while minimizing the risk of catching feelings? Emotional intimacy is a major aspect of all my relationships, and I want that to be true for this new friendship as well, to the extent that I can manage it.

What advice do you have for navigating these deep waters? What are your do’s and don’t’s for not falling in love?

Love Fool

DEAR LOVE FOOL: This is one of those times where I feel like an oracle in Greek myth, except my answer would probably be “You realize that by asking this question, you’ve more or less ensured the fate you’re trying to avoid is going to happen, right?”

The sad thing is that I’m only partially joking.

I’m, gonna level with you, LF; you can’t really force yourself to feel or not feel something, and trying to do so usually makes things worse. It’s rather like folks in monogamous relationships who get bothered by the fact that they’ve developed a crush on someone. The more that people try to force their feelings away, the stronger and more intense those feelings tend to become. Trying to bottle up your emotions or force them away is more akin to a pressurized gas in a fragile container; you may have it contained for now, but the odds are good that things are gonna blow up and make it everybody’s problem.

So, under normal circumstances, I would say you don’t need to worry that feelings are inevitable. After all, people are complex creatures, capable of multitudes; just because someone is friends with a person they’d be into doesn’t mean that sex or romance is automatically going to get in the way. Folks are quite capable of being happily platonic, no matter what When Harry Met Sally says.

The problem is that you and your bud already are attracted to each other. You both know it. You both are trying to avoid it… but you both know it’s there.

That can be an issue if the two of you aren’t very good at compartmentalizing. There’s only so much “oh but if things were different” you can do before you start thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you indulged this a little. Especially when you, LF, already prioritize emotional intimacy in your relationships. While I’m very firmly of the position that emotionally intelligent folks can tell the difference between emotional intimacy and romantic attraction… the two tend to go together like nitro and glycerin when both parties are already into each other.

Does that mean that this friendship is doomed to fall under the weight of your mutual attraction? Not necessarily. A lot is going to depend on how disciplined you can be and how much you’re willing to sacrifice some of the emotional intimacy that is so important to you and your friendships.

A big part of how you can try to decrease the odds of falling in love is to try to try to avoid subjecting yourself to unnecessary temptation. I realize sounds like a sex-negative religious group telling men to block women with bikini pics on Instagram, but stick with me for a second. Human willpower is, in a way, a limited resource. Think of it like a muscle; you have a fairly finite amount of energy, and the harder that muscle has to work, the faster you burn through that energy supply. The less it has to work, the more energy you have overall. With willpower, the less you have to utilize it, the less likely you are to run into a scenario where you no longer have the willpower to resist a particular temptation. If, for example, you’re trying to cut sodas out of your diet, not having any in the house means that you don’t have to expend willpower to choose water instead of Dr. Pepper. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you’ve expended your willpower on other things — maybe you had an awful day at work — and you know you’ve got an ice-cold can of God’s own nectar in the fridge that would taste like pure happiness.

The same general principle applies to dealing with relationships. One of the things I suggest to folks who want a casual, no-strings relationship with a sex partner but want to avoid things getting more emotionally entangled is to avoid the trappings of romance. Get-togethers that feel particularly date-y — things like quiet, intimate restaurants, long walks on the beach watching the sunset, and so on — carry connotations and emotional associations that yell “WE ARE WORKING TOWARDS ROMANCE”. Similarly, getting deeply emotionally intimate in conversation, talking about future plans together…. the sorts of talks that people who are moving towards romance do also carries that connotation of love and emotional entanglements. Avoiding the sorts of behaviors that carry those connotations and implications helps keep the likelihood of developing feelings to a manageable level.

I realize that talking about framing and connotations sounds weird, but humans are bad at lying to ourselves and understanding why we feel the way we do. Our brains don’t rule our emotions; more often than not, our brains take their cues from what our bodies are doing and assign a reason for it that lines up with what it’s experiencing. When we do things that we associate with a particular behavior or emotion, our brains assume that we’re feeling that emotion. It’s part of why actors who play couples or whose characters fall in love will often end up dating; they’ve been imitating being in love and their brains said “oh, must be real, then.”

This sort of “brain follows the body” result is hard enough to shake. But there’s also the fact that you and your friend are already into each other; having those intimate moments together — especially alone, with physical intimacy or in a romantic atmosphere — makes it harder to say “we probably shouldn’t do this.” I mean, falling in love feels amazing; that new relationship energy makes our brains kick out the jams and dump dopamine and oxytocin into our systems. That increases the likelihood of hitting a point where you and your new friend aren’t going to be as able to pull things back a little.

And of course, it’s made that much harder when you’re constantly thinking “ok, can’t let this go too far, can’t fall in love, can’t let myself get too into this.” Much like trying to not picture a purple elephant — or, say, Bea Arthur wearing a strategically ripped Deadpool costume — the effort of not doing so just ensures that it will be on the top of mind. So it becomes this little reminder of how you feel that gets harder and harder to ignore, like a metaphorical rock in your shoe.

So as unpalatable as it may be for your usual relationships, having to keep this one a little at arm’s length until things have time to fade may be the key to not catching feels.

Now with all that being said… the problem isn’t falling for your friend, it’s what pursuing a romantic relationship with them would do. After all, catching feelings for somebody doesn’t mean that you have to do anything with them. You can realize you’re in love with somebody and not act on it. Emotions are just that — feelings; they’re not commands or obligations. You can be in love without doing anything about it.  As I’ve said before: crushes, even romantic and sexual attraction are like a fire. As long as you don’t add more fuel, they burn out and fade on their own over time.

Rather than dwelling on it or pining away, you can note those feelings, name them, and just let them be. Rather than damming them up or taking them as a call to action, you can just let them flow through you. When you become aware of it, you say “ah, yes, that’s my affection for %FRIEND” and allow it to just be there while you do other things.

Of course, it helps if those other things aren’t, y’know, deep and meaningful conversations over a candlelit dinner or something.

Does this mean you can’t pursue a friendship with them? No, of course not. It can certainly work; it just means that the two of you will have to be mindful and willing to not act on this attraction. If you can manage that — or if you can keep this relationship at a bit more of a remove than you might prefer — then you can have a great and meaningful relationship. If you can’t… well, then you have to ask yourself whether this relationship would be worth the effect it would have on the other aspects of your life.

Just be aware that aspects of this friendship will be more difficult than they would be otherwise. Go into this understanding that and you have a better chance of things staying to a level you would prefer.

Good luck.

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