DOCTOR’S NOTE: Today’s column involves discussion of abusive relationships.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m looking for some advice. I think my best friend is in an emotionally abusive relationship, but I don’t know how to talk to him about it. I don’t know if he just doesn’t see it, or if he’s choosing to ignore the red flags for some reason.

Let’s call my friend Gary and his girlfriend Amanda.

They’ve been together for about 4 years now. At the time, they were both doing their degrees at the same university. They hit it off and at first things seemed good. When he brought her to meet our friend group, everyone hit it off quite well, she seemed nice. My wife noted once that she thought that Amanda was a bit controlling when we were playing board games once, but that was really the only negative interaction that any of us had noticed.

We first started to notice issues after they moved in together, about 6 months into their relationship. Gary started to disappear from our social circle, little by little. Of course some of that is to be expected with a new relationship, you want to spend more time with your new partner, but this seemed extreme. He basically dropped out from any kind of online gaming entirely, unless we pre-scheduled the game a few weeks in advance. Even then, sometimes he would bail on pre-planned games at literally the last minute. He also gained a curfew. Whenever he would actually make it to our weekly board game night (and not bail at the last second), he had a set time he had to be home by, lest he get in trouble. Once, Gary had to bail on a “pre-approved” game night we were having because every time he went to leave the house, she would start crying until he agreed to stay.

About a year into their relationship, Amanda got accepted to a Master’s program in Canada, and Gary was unable to go with her. They decided to try a long distance relationship, but she agreed only on the condition that he move in with her brother as a roommate. To this day, we’re still not fully sure what that was about. Once she left for school Gary became, well, Gary again. He switched his major and seemed to really enjoy his new school program. He also stopped bailing on events and hangouts at literally the last second. He would still disappear whenever Amanda came to town to visit, but that made more sense since they hadn’t seen each other in person for months at a time.

The one time I really got any insight into his home life with Amanda was one time when we were out drinking. We were talking about video games, and he asked what my wife thought of my gaming. He seemed somewhat surprised when my response was “She doesn’t really mind, so long as I don’t spend literally all my time playing”. This was when I learned that apparently gaming, and many of his other hobbies, were essentially verboten when Amanda was around. He basically had a small list of things that were “approved”, and she had to be involved in every single one of them. After I expressed some surprise/shock at this, he quickly changed the subject, and has never really brought it up since.

Once her Master’s degree was finished 2 years later, Amanda got a job in another city in our state. At this point Gary only had one year left in his new degree. He dropped out of school to move with her to the new city, and has not finished his program since. We play online board games from time to time, and his video game time seems to have increased somewhat (I don’t know if this was a concession for moving, or what), but it’s basically back to the way things were when they were first living together.

And that’s basically where we are now. I know I’m not the only one in our friend circle who is concerned about his relationship with Amanda.

So, thoughts? Amy I reading too much into this? I get that every relationship is different, but some of the restrictions she places on him seem extreme. I just want my friend to be happy, but part of me wonders why he’s putting up with all this. How do I talk to him about this, to see if he’s actually happy in his relationship? Is it even my place to do so?

Thanks,

Worried About My Friend

DEAR WORRIED ABOUT MY FRIEND: Well s--t, this sounds familiar, WAMF.

No, seriously: I was in a seriously toxic relationship back in the bad old days and a lot of the things you’re describing were things that I experienced as well. My girlfriend didn’t “approve” of tabletop RPGs like D&D and Mage, so I wasn’t “allowed” to play them. This, of course, meant I couldn’t see my friends nearly as often as I would’ve liked. On the day I got “approval” to spend playing in my friends’ campaign, she came and quite literally pulled me away on an obviously flimsy pretext. When we were apart, I had to call at various points of the day and I was not “allowed” to go or hang up until she was ready to end the call.

Many of my friends, in fact, pointed out how visibly I’d change when I’d get a phone call and realize that it was her. “Like watching a beach ball deflate,” as one of my friends put it. There were a lot of things I was either not “allowed” to do — which is to say, were highly discouraged and enforced with threats (implied and otherwise), but would be held up as my “choice” because I could still do them. Just. Y’know. If I were willing to risk she might decide this was the night to go find someone who would “treat her right”.

Needless to say, my emotional and mental health improved rather dramatically after we broke up.

So, yeah, WAMF,  I would say that at the very least, Gary is dating someone incredibly toxic at the very least. Is it possible that he’s dealing with full-fledged abuse behind closed doors and just isn’t saying anything? Yeah, I’d say there’s a definite chance of it. Men in particular tend to be unwilling to talk about just how bad things are when they’re in an abusive relationship. The idea that men could be abused, mentally or physically, by women is considered laughable by many; if you admit to how bad things are, you may as well admit to not being a “real man”. This makes it much, much harder for guys in horrible relationships to reach out to others.

But that’s if you can get them to recognize that they’re in a toxic or abusive relationship in the first place. Speaking for myself, if you’d told me that I was in a toxic relationship, I wouldn’t have believed you. I would’ve had any number of excuses; you don’t know what she’s like, it only seems bad from the outside, she has her reasons to be jealous/insecure/controlling/whatever. In many cases, it’s not even “When A Man Loves a Woman”, it’s The Offspring’s “Self-Esteem”. After all, the more you suffer, the more it shows you really care… yeah?

That desire to deny what’s going on, to not want to admit that you’re the sort of person who gets “stuck” in these kind of relationships goes bone deep, especially for men. It’s bad enough to feel like you’re being dragged around by the nose by your significant other; accepting that it’s toxic or you’re being abused stabs directly at your ego and concept of yourself as a man. And the feeling that you could stop this at any time but don’t… well that makes it even more humiliating. In a very real and perverse way, it’s easier to just pretend it’s not bad and you’re ok with it than to face the ego-destroying truth.

This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why being on the outside looking in is so frustrating. You feel like you should be able to do something. You want to talk it out over beers, stage an intervention, hell, you want to subject them to the full Ludovico Technique to force them to see what the hell is going on. But all that you get is pushback from the very friend you’re trying to help. And that’s if you’re lucky; there’re plenty of times when their partner will catch wind — or he’ll tell them directly — and they’ll act to isolate them from you entirely. After all, the last thing they want is for you to have more influence on your bro than they do.

And unfortunately, one of the hard truths is that you can’t do anything… not directly. The harder you push, the harder they’ll push back. People don’t leave until they’re ready to, and that can take a long goddamn time. Even if their partner isn’t holding something hostage — parental rights, the life of a pet, whatever — people have a hard time pulling the trigger and ending a relationship, even when it desperately needs to end. Until that day comes, there isn’t much you can do about it.

However, there are things you can do to, if not speed that day along, smooth the process by which Gary will start being ready to leave. First and foremost: don’t call what he’s going through “abuse”, not yet. It seems stupid, but that word’s going to be like saying “Niagara Falls”; it’s going to trigger an immediate shutdown. The same goes for talking s--t about Amanda; this will just put him on the defensive, and it’ll work into any “of course they’re talking s--t about me, they never liked me” narrative she decides to spin. No amount of insulting her, denigrating her or calling her out is going to help, it will only hurt. He’s going to be resistant to the idea that she’s awful — even if she objectively is — because of both the time he’s sunk into this relationship and what it says about him that she could be this awful and he’s with her. Getting on his case about her is just going to end up setting a frame that will make him worry that you think badly of him because he’s still with her. That means he’s going to not trust you or feel comfortable coming to you when he’s ready to leave. You need to avoid this at all costs. He needs an ally he feels safe coming to and opening up to, and that will never happen if he thinks you either look down on him or that you’re going to bust his balls over this.

What you can do, however, is lay some of the groundwork. You can tell him that hey, it seems like he’s not happy these days. You notice he doesn’t get to hang out with you (virtually) the way he used to and that he seems like he’s just not himself and is everything ok?

Is this going to make him sit up and take notice? No, probably not. What it will do, however, is at least let him know that other people are noticing a change in him and that change is worrying them. It might — and I stress might — plant a seed that will start to bloom and help him realize how bad things are. But if he pushes back and says “no, everything’s fine, we’re fine, we’re all fine here, how’re you…?” then just say “OK, well, we felt like maybe things weren’t ok and we were worried. And you know if anything’s bothering you or you feel down or you just need to talk, I am always ready to listen, no matter what, no matter when.” And then just let the topic drop.

The key bit of information that you are conveying isn’t “hey, you’re being abused”. It’s “hey, I am explicitly on your side, I am ready for you to confide in me when you feel the need. I will listen without judgement and be the safe person you can talk to about this who won’t mock you,  question you or make you feel bad about yourself over this.” Because what he needs more than the senses-clearing dope-slap you want to provide is the knowledge that he can open up about this without getting s--t for it. He needs to know that you are on his side no matter what. And if that day comes — and it may be a long goddamn time — you’ll be there to be his support.

And that’s the important thing to remember: you’re the support class in this scenario. You’re there to buff him when he’s feeling weak, carry him along when he needs the hand and make sure he’s got the resources he needs to get clear. But the only person who can pull him out of this relationship is him. Make sure he knows you’re always there for him, make sure he always has some way of contacting you and when that day finally comes, make sure he knows that you’re ready to help haul him out of the fire.

Here’s to hoping that day’s sooner, rather than later.

Write back to let us know how things are going with Gary.

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: Recently my boyfriend got into a discussion about the future of our relationship. He has mentioned in passing at the very beginning of our relationship that he didn’t want to do long distance, and today it came up that when I graduate next year, he would break up with me.

I remember him telling me about how he couldn’t do LDR when we started dating a year ago, but I hadn’t thought about it like that. To be honest, I’m so so hurt. I would be willing to do an LDR, I love him but he’s set on this. To be fair I dont think he thought ahead that far either, I think he realized as we were talking that that’s what would happen when I graduate. But it hurts. I don’t know what to do. I love him but it hurts to know that no matter what it ends next year. Now I don’t know.

Should I break up now or accept that our relationship has a deadline and stay?

Thank you for your help

The Final Countdown

DEAR THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: So before we get started, I want to take a quick sidebar: part of what I think is underpinning your issue is the idea that this relationship seems destined to be short-term. How short seems to be up in the air — end it now, or wait until graduation — but for now it seems pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a long-term thing.

But that’s actually ok. One of the things that I think causes unnecessary grief for folks is the idea that relationships have to be or should be long-term to be desirable. TAs I’m often saying, a relationship ending doesn’t mean that relationship was a failure or one that didn’t succeed. he idea that “if this doesn’t end with one or both of you dying in the saddle, it’s a failure” has caused a lot of people to pass on what could have been rich and rewarding relationships just because they weren’t going to last for years or decades. There’s value to be had in relationships that flare like a comet, brief but oh so bright and meaningful for it. Not every relationship needs to be an epic poem, nor are they meant to be. Some are meant to be a short story. Some are meant to be a dirty limerick. And those are all valid and wonderful relationships. I think embracing the value and worth of a relationship that isn’t meant to last forever — and everyone involved recognizing that fact — would do a world of good for many, many people.

Now as to your question, I feel like that the first thing we need to do is underline something important here: your boyfriend told you early on that he doesn’t like long-distance relationships. One of the most reliable ways that people blow up a great relationship is that they don’t take what their partners say to heart early on. Sometimes this comes because somebody doesn’t take it seriously and assumes that it doesn’t apply to this relationship. Other times, people go into the relationship under the assumption that their partner didn’t mean it or that they could change their partner’s mind or outlook. And of course, sometimes folks end up in this situation because they weren’t looking at what lay ahead or thinking about what this might mean.

This is one of the reasons why I think it’s important to recognize and embrace the value of a short-term relationship, rather than to go in assuming that all relationships should be long-lasting or (ideally) life-long. It’s much easier to manage expectations and avoid unnecessary pain when you recognize things from the jump.

Case in point: when you and your boyfriend got together, the future was vague and nebulous and seemed so very far away. Graduation was some distant dream, too insubstantial to have any real meaning or impact on your relationship. And then suddenly… it wasn’t. And now the thing that you were hoping might never be relevant has suddenly come front and center, along with everything that this knowledge entails.

This is understandably rough, TFC. It can be hard to look at a  relationship and think “well, this is going to end, so what’s the point?” After all, why subject yourself to the heartbreak of ending things down the line? Wouldn’t that mean that it’s better to just rip the bandaid off now? Or better yet, not get involved in the first place if it’s going to end this way?

In fairness, I can empathize with that argument: why subject yourself to the inevitable pain of the ending if you don’t have to? I lost my cat at the beginning of the year, and I’m not quite at the place where I can look at the possibility of getting another pet and see more than just the tragedy that having a pet means you sign up for. It’s entirely understandable why you would want to spare yourself that hurt.

But here’s the thing: when you only focus on the end, you miss all of the rest of it. Yeah, you spare yourself the pain of the ending, but you are also missing all the joy, companionship and love that comes with it. Is your life going to be that much better or happier for giving up the time you could have with your boyfriend going forward? Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t be better off for having him in your life and the time you get to spend with each other, even if you know that there’s an end point to it?

But then again, are you able to be in the present with him, instead of spending the time you have now focused on the ending? Are you able to put that ending out of mind and savor what you have now? Loving someone — a person or a pet — comes with endings built in; there’s no getting around that. It’s just a question of when and how it ends. Most of the time, we’re able to push that away and not think about it… and, honestly, we have to. You can’t enjoy any what you have if all you do is think about how it’s going to come to an end. In fact, in some ways that makes things worse; now not only are you unable to enjoy the time you have, but you taint those memories by only associating them with the end that you spent all that time dreading.

So in a real way, that deadline serves less as a memento mori and more of a memento vitae; yes, the end will come but that makes it all the more important to live and to live in the now so that you are able to consciously enjoy things to their fullest.

Yes, this means that the endings still hurt. And maybe continuing that ending wouldn’t hurt as much if there wasn’t so much more coming to an end, than if it were to end now. But then again… wouldn’t you just wind up morning the relationship in potentia, and all it could have been if you had chosen to continue it?

I mean, I faced a lot of losses over the last year and change — friends and family, some of who died suddenly and without warning, while with others I had to watch the end approach, knowing there was no stopping it. Losing Guinness ripped a hole in my reality, one that will never be completely filled. But I would never trade all the time I had with him to avoid it ever happening in the first place. It may have broken my heart, but he made my life better for having been part of it.

So it can be with relationships. If things are going to end at graduation, then yes, you can take the pain now to spare yourself the pain down the line. But doing so means that you miss out on everything you would also be getting by staying in this relationship. By the same token, are you able to commit to living things to the fullest with your boyfriend instead of dwelling on the inevitable ending and letting that color everything you do together?

You have to be the one to decide whether what you would be giving up is worth the cost.

Oh… and one more thing.

Graduation means an ending. It doesn’t mean the ending. Just because things may end now — because you and your boyfriend can’t do a long-distance relationship — doesn’t mean that circumstances can’t change later on. There’s nothing stopping the two of you from circling around and reconnecting later on, when life means that the two of you won’t have to do long-distance. And it’s a lot easier to reconnect when you don’t treat the end of this relationship as a sign that it failed… just that this one ended, and put you both in a position where you could begin a new one down the line.

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: long time reader here. I think I have an unusual problem. I’m a cis, straight, white guy who during my teenage years (I’m 22 now!) used to be a Nice GuyTM, didn’t care about presentation and didn’t have many (if any) female friends. I want to make emphasis on how much some of your advice has helped me to grow as an individual.

Nowadays, I pass the Grimes Test with flying colors. I dress properly and regularly go to the barber. I joined a D&D group with strangers who turned out to be some of my best friends. I have deep, intimate friendships with both men and women. I don’t panic anymore when talking to women. I’ve read a lot of feminist literature that literally changed the way I saw a lot of things for the better. You could say that I’m peaking, and the best part is that I’m constantly growing and developing myself.

The one thing that I don’t really know how to solve is, what’s next? I would really like to find a meaningful relationship, but I don’t have a clue about how to go about it. I tried Tinder, meeting friends of friends, and most of the times people just ghost me. I also don’t know how to flirt, I’m scared of saying or doing something that might be wrongly interpreted. Also there’s the fact that we are living through a pandemic, which doesn’t help. I know dating is sometimes a numbers game, so if anything, I wanted you to know that I owe some of my growth to your column.

Thank you for all these years, you’ve been killing it-

Completed the Tutorial

DEAR COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL: This is something a lot of folks wrestle with CTT. There’re a lot of folks who’ve taken the lesson of “create an awesome life and become someone people want to date” to heart. They have actually put in the work to become their best, most polished self… and then they realize they’re still single. Women, as it turns out, aren’t beating down their door because they heard a rumor that a real catch is there. So… now what?

Well, you do the work. Becoming a good guy isn’t the end of the journey; it’s the beginning. While yes, building up an awesome life and becoming a good guy is a reward in and of itself, you’ve also built the foundation for everything that comes next. You go out and start meeting people and turning those connections into dates. Now, one of the things I’m always telling guys is that they don’t need to do this in serial fashion — step one, step two, step three, now you’re ready to date. You can work on your personal life and your social life in parallel, treating your personal development like a web or network, rather than a linear process. By treating “… and now you’re ready to date” as the end goal, you run the risk of constantly kicking “being ready” down the road. There’s an infinite supply of reasons why you might decide you’re not “ready” yet.

They’re not good reasons, mind you. But they exist.

However, there are some benefits to taking things in the order that you did. Think of The Karate Kid and the classic “wax on/wax off” scene. The whole point of those exercises was how they taught Daniel the basics without his realizing it, helping him develop the muscle memory that would allow him to respond without thinking. Those seemingly unimportant tasks and busywork made it easier for him to actually translate those movements and responses into action as needed. So it is with the lessons you learned as you were building up this awesome life you have. Without realizing it, you’ve cultivated the very skills you need to date.  Now it’s a matter of applying those lessons.

Case in point: you’ve cultivated your confidence and self-esteem. You know you that you’re a prize because hey, look at how great your life is now. That’s the outlook you want when it comes to dating: “I have an awesome life full of passion, friendship and satisfaction. The only thing that could make it better would be sharing it with someone.” You know that a relationship will be a complement to your life, not the keystone. That means that you’re developing an abundance mentality; if this person isn’t right for you or doesn’t fit, then that’s fine because they’re not necessary for you to be happy. Better to find someone who is right for you, instead of hoping that there’s some way of making one specific person like you.

Similarly, you’re confident in talking to women. You know that it’s not some impossible task that only some people can do — you just talk to them, like you would to anyone else.  You also know you can walk into a room of strangers and make them lifelong friends. The skills you use to strike up friendships and connect with people who you’d love to hang out with are the same skills you use to connect with people you want to date. The only difference is how you apply them and what your end-goal is.

No, seriously. Dating and making friends are the same skillset. You’re taking a relatively weak connection — you just met, you’re still getting to know each other — and turning it into a relationship through communication, sharing passions and spending time together. The difference is the message you’re communicating. With friends, you’re checking for and signaling platonic interest. With people you want to date, you are showing that you’re interested in them as potential lovers and partners and you want to see if they’re worth your time and attention. The skills you use to cultivate those relationships are the same, just applied slightly differently.

Case in point: you want to find women to date? Consider how you made new friends as an adult: you went and found people with shared interests. You talked, hung out, made plans. That’s the same process you go through when trying to meet potential partners: you seek out folks you are compatible with, strike up conversations and make plans together. The biggest difference between Tinder and meeting someone through your social network or even just a serendipitous moment is the context; people on Tinder are specifically looking for relationships, whereas that cute woman browsing the stacks at the bookstore may not be. But then again, that’s something you run into when trying to make new friends.

The same applies to flirting. You already know how to flirt. Flirting is, as I’ve said many times before, letting someone know that you like them and engaging with them on an emotional level. You do this with your friends already. You presumably have inside jokes with your friends that you share. You let them know you think they’re awesome and that you enjoy hanging out with them. You almost certainly poke gentle fun at one another or engage in collaborative jokes where you build on what has been said before.

Those are the fundamentals of flirting. The difference is that with someone you are attracted to, you also are conveying that interest goes beyond just enjoying their company.

Now you mention that you’re worried about saying or doing something that could be interpreted the wrong way. That’s a common worry… but it’s a self-inflicted one. The truth is that most of the time, this comes from a place of feeling like any attraction is inherently fragile or that your interest in someone is unwanted; the idea that you have to phrase things exactly right is a way of trying to control that anxiety. It’s treating flirting like a magic spell — frame thing like this, say it like that or else it all falls apart. But that’s not how attraction works. Hell, that’s not how most conversation works. While people can and do say stupid s--t or shove their feet into their mouths — been there, done that, built a career out of it — the vast majority of people are actually incredibly understanding and forgiving. Let the one who has never stumbled over their own words, said the wrong thing or wished they could dig a hole and pull it in after themselves cast the first stone.

The truth is that while there’re ways to make it less likely of being misunderstood — being clear and straightforward in your interest, not playing head games or pretending to be less interested or available than you actually are — you can’t control how other people hear things or think. The only thing you can do is trust yourself enough to be clear and, in the event of a misunderstanding or mistake, apologize and clarify. If someone’s into you, they are much more likely to give you some leeway to clarify things and realize you were speaking in good faith. And if they don’t… well, it sucks, and it’s going to feel embarrassing as hell, but you will survive it. This is now something you can learn from for the next time, and something you’ll laugh about ruefully down the line. Again: been there, done that, got my black belt in it. But as scary or painful as it may feel when you imagine it… it’s not nearly as bad as you worry it will be. It won’t ruin your life or destroy your chances of dating someone. It just means that you’ll deal with some discomfort, them move on. And when you realize that this is all that is, you realize it’s not something to fear.

That’s how you build confidence after all; confidence is the result of fear + survival.

What about the numbers game and ghosting? Unfortunately… that’s part of life, really, particularly when it comes to dating apps. One of the issues with dating apps is that what looks good on paper doesn’t mean it works in person. There’re so many signals and clues that control who we are or aren’t attracted to that we can only perceive when we’re together in physical space. These can range from everything from timbre of their voice to the way they treat the waitstaff at the restaurant to things you can’t consciously perceive… and that’s all information that can’t be  conveyed in emails, texts or even video chats. So you often get first dates that go nowhere because there were those subtle, even subconscious keys that meant you two weren’t mutually compatible. And while that may mean that there’re folks you like who aren’t into you (and vice versa), finding this out early on means you’re now free to find someone who is right for you.

And if they ghost you on the app… well, they weren’t that into you in the first place and that’s ok. Again: there’re best practices that help minimize the odds — including getting off the app and meeting up in person ASAP — but you can’t control other people. You can only control yourself and your reactions. So you just recognize that, again, this was a sign that they weren’t right for you, dust off your shoulders and move on.

Here’s the thing, CTT: you’ve made a lot of progress. You’ve done the work, you’ve build a great life and you should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished. Not only is your improvement a reward in and of itself, but you’ve laid the foundations for the social life you want. What comes next may be a challenge, but it’s not nearly as hard as you might fear. You already know what to do. You just need to apply it in new ways.

Good luck.

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