DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Long-time reader, first time writing in. My problem is quite minor, and not technically a “dating” issue, but it’s been weighing on me regardless and I’m hoping you’ll have some insight.

The short version is that many women I pass by in public places seem to have very strong negative reactions to me, and I can’t figure out why.

It usually goes like this: I’m walking through town in the daytime to work or to get lunch or meet friends or what have you. A woman comes walking the other way or exits a shop or something. Our eyes meet by chance (inevitable when you’re keeping an eye out for cars and bikes or whatnot), and the woman in question violently jerks her head away, turns her body away from me, and starts walking faster. She’s using her whole body to signal: “Ew, no, go away.”

Here’s the weird part: I never have any intention of interacting with these women. I’m just going about my business when they enter my line of sight. I don’t say anything, I don’t leer or stare or ogle, I don’t catcall, I don’t look at them for more than a second. I just notice them, and keep walking.

Obviously, women have every right to be cautious around unknown men (or unknown male-looking NB people, in my case). These women are also all young and attractive, so maybe they’ve had to become hyper-vigilant even beyond the standards of other women. It’s just that this reaction seems to fly right past caution and straight into immediate, visceral fear.

A more specific example will illustrate what I mean (and was also the catalyst for this letter). I was at work, returning to my desk from the bathroom. A woman I had never met came through the door I was heading to. Our eyes met and she flinched with her whole head, like my gaze was a slap to the face. Her body language became panicked, her eyes darted around the room, and finally she ran through a side door in a completely different direction to the one she’d been going before. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept walking.

Some extra context: this was in the middle of the day, in a crowded building, in a brightly-lit room that saw a lot of foot traffic, and I obviously worked there.

So with all that background, I guess I have two questions I’m hoping you can help with: firstly, how can I clearly signal to women that I’m not going to approach them? Secondly, what is it about my appearance that triggers such a rapid and extreme response? It’s happened too often now to write it off as a few very traumatised women; it really feels like it’s something about me.

I’m honestly stumped as to the second question. I’m not physically imposing, I dress conservatively but well, I’m young, I’m fit, I don’t have resting bitch face, I’m not ugly, and I’m meticulous with my grooming and hygiene. In short, I feel like my appearance is totally inoffensive. The fact I’m Māori might be a factor, but it feels unfair to just assume all these women are racist. My female friends are as confused as I am.

This problem has been getting me down because I don’t want to be a source of stress for anyone else, and also obviously because it really hurts my feelings when it happens. Plus, what’s going to happen when I meet a woman I do want to approach?

Before I sign off, I should reiterate: I’m not demanding that these women talk to me or smile at me or welcome me approaching them or anything like that. I just want to be able to go about my day and mind my own business without being treated like a landmine. And if this letter sounds like it’s trivialising the struggles of women who get harassed and catcalled, it’s really not my intent. I understand the world is dangerous for them; I’m just sick of being perceived as the danger.

So yeah, that’s my letter. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!

Sincerely,

Innocent Bystander

DEAR INNOCENT BYSTANDER: This one’s a tough one, IB, in part because… well, because sometimes you’re running into an actual issue and sometimes your brain is lying to you.

See, the problem tends to come down to a fallacy known as “confirmation bias” — something I’ve talked about rather extensively. The short version is that we all have a tendency to give more emotional weight or credence to things that confirm what we already believe, and discount the things that contradict those beliefs. This manifests in a lot of different ways. If, for example, you buy a car or a particular pair of shoes or something, you’ll often start seeing that car or shoes everywhere. It’s not that there was suddenly an explosion of popularity at the exact moment you handed over your credit card; it’s just that up until then, you didn’t give any special attention or importance to them. Now it has more significance to you, so you notice them more often. The same goes for times when you walk under streetlights at night and you notice a couple flicker or turn off after you walk under them. This doesn’t mean that you’ve suddenly developed powers or your personal AT Field is disrupting electronics, it just means you’re paying more attention to the lights that flicker and miss all the ones that didn’t change when you walked under them.

So it goes with trying to interpret how women are responding to you. If you have some pre-existing belief about your own ugliness or undesirability, you’re much more likely to notice moments that feel like women are reacting to you. You aren’t seeing the women who are completely indifferent to your presence or, for that matter, who are actually interested in you. There’s also the fact that the women you notice probably aren’t freaking out about you. Our brains are filters and our beliefs and attitudes directly affect how we interpret events; how we feel and what we think changes the meaning we assign to behaviors or actions. A poor first impression, for example, can change how people see literally anything somebody does within the context of that first meeting. If  somebody came across as an arrogant and entitled jerk the first time you met them,  you’re much more likely to see everything they do in that light… even if they’re rescuing kittens from trees, bringing toys to orphans and paying the college tuition of under-privileged youths. If you think you’re ugly or that women are horrified by you, then you’re much more likely to interpret everything that they do as proof that you’re horrifying and should go about ringing a bell like a medieval leper.

But the reality is that often how people respond has nothing to do with you. That woman you see walking towards you who supposedly violently jerks her head away may have done nothing of the sort. Making eye-contact and looking away quickly is incredibly common; we all meet folks’ eyes and look away all the time. Sometimes it’s a “do I know you? No, whoops, ok that was embarrassing” moment. Other times it’s acknowledging someone’s presence but not wanting to look so long that you invite a conversation. Or other times people will look away quickly because they’re afraid of giving the impression that they’ve been staring. I’m sure you can think of times when you’ve done all of the above. None of it had anything to do with your liking or disliking the other person; it’s just part of how we navigate the world, especially if you’re in a culture that prioritizes or gives heft to eye-contact.

So the odds are good that a lot of what you’re seeing is coming through the filter of feeling unwanted and undesirable, not that you’re actually repulsing people. I suspect that, were this the case, you would be hearing commentary about this from your friends as they notice it happening. Like I said: you’re not noticing the folks who aren’t appearing scared or horrified by you.

Now to be fair: there are a lot of legitimate reasons for women to react like this to men in general — not you, specifically. The background radiation of women and femme-presenting folks’ lives includes men who think that being (or presenting as) female in public is an invitation. This can range from pestering women for conversation, phone numbers and dates to just straight harassment and cat-calling. Think of times when you’ve walked down a busy street and you’ve seen the various folks holding clipboards soliciting support or donations for their projects or folks trying to get you to take their mix-CDs. Making eye-contact for longer than a half-second inevitably means dealing with them until you find a plausible excuse to leave. A woman who makes eye contact and immediately looks away may well be trying to avoid being stopped by somebody who may or may not decide that this means she wants him to take her in a manly fashion in the Starbucks bathroom. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the bulls--t other men have done.

That same general behavior carries over to women interacting with men in professional settings; lots of guys will take the presence of women in service-industry jobs — whether it be store clerks, waitstaff, bartenders or other, similar jobs — as an invitation to flirt or hit on them. Being brusque or avoiding contact is a way of avoiding somebody trying to hit on them at a time when they may not be able to leave or make a fuss.

By that same token, the average man or male-bodied person tends to be larger, stronger and outweigh the average woman or female-bodied person. Being a woman or a femme-coded person means being aware of the physical danger men can become if they so choose, and it’s not unreasonable that suddenly seeing a man in close physical proximity can cause a moment of panic. They have to do a lot of very fast mental calculations, trying to figure out whether or not he’s a threat, and there’re a number of things that can be seen as weighing the equation to the “potential threat” side. These can include things like facial expression, height and build, style of dress, presentation and hygiene and, yes, race. Some of these may not be conscious reactions, but we all live in a society where racism and racist ideas are baked in, and that s--t is really hard to uproot and can show up in ways someone might never expect. If someone’s been swimming in a culture that equates skin tone and class with crime their entire life, they may have visceral reactions that have nothing to do with how they feel about BIPOC and everything to do with messages they’ve been fed since birth.

So what do you do about any of this? Well, there’re a couple things you can do — both to adjust the vibe you give off to others but also the way your brain interprets things.

To start with, there’s simply being mindful of how you come across and adjusting things as best you can. Little things — like adjusting your body language, smiling with your eyes (particularly while masked up) and giving physical space — can make a huge difference.

To use a personal example: I’m bearded, built like a linebacker, covered in visible tattoos, if I’m not careful I default to “resting murder face”  and my style is often best described as “well-heeled Metallica roadie”. At 5’8″, I’m a smidge shorter than the average cisgendered American male but the rest means I can come across as far more intimidating or scary than I actually am. I know I’m harmless but that doesn’t mean anyone who doesn’t know me knows this. As a result, I try to make a point of being very visibly non-threatening;  I try to make sure my body language reads as “friendly, open and cheerful”, make sure that I’m giving a friendly and genuine smile and move smoothly and deliberately. If someone’s walking towards me, I try to move to the side to give room to get past without needing to get too close or may turn away if they have to get within personal or intimate space. If we make eye contact, I’ll smile, nod, and deliberately look away — my intent is to signal that I’ve seen them, acknowledge it and then show that’s as far as it goes. If we talk or interact — “oh, excuse me, here, let me get past you” — I’ll often pitch my voice slightly higher than my natural register. This may not completely eliminate any lingering feelings of potential danger, but it helps lessen the likelihood that I come off as a threat. It kinda sucks feeling like folks may see me as threatening, but then again it sucks worse to be in a position to always have to be doing that calculus.

The next thing you can do is start learning to hack your confirmation bias. This sounds like woo-woo-biohacking bulls--t but it actually works. What you believe changes how you see the world, so you may as well choose beliefs that actually help you. What you believe is as much habit as it is a reaction to actual experience. More often than not, the things we believe are a post-hoc interpretation of events, and often based on the reactions of others. It’s like a child who fell over, then looks to their parents. If their parents are scared or upset, they start to act upset and hurt. If their parents don’t react or are happy and encouraging, they’ll often just get up and keep running around. As adults, it happens the same way; we experience something, base our interpretation of it on others and then turn those beliefs by repeating them to ourselves.

Changing those beliefs is a matter of breaking old habits and consciously choosing new ones. I realize it sounds absurd, but consciously challenging and reinterpreting how you see things is the start of how you build mental muscle memory. Recognizing, for example, that someone who rejects you when you approach is often reacting to things that have nothing to do with you, helps you not take rejection personally. Consciously reminding yourself that you are attractive, that women do find you desirable and that you’re a hunk and a half, helps retrain your brain and the way you interact with the world. It changes your confirmation bias; you become more conscious of the folks giving you positive attention and give less importance to the ones who don’t. The actual numbers haven’t changed, you’ve just changed which reactions you find to be more important or significant. Not only does this teach you to stop seeing normal or unremarkable behavior as being a judgement on you, but it’ll make you more aware of when people are interested in you.

It will also help you with women you want to approach. Because you believe in your own desirability, you’ll be more aware of when women are signaling that they’re interested in talking to you or would appreciate your coming over to talk to them.

Now, part of how you can avoid accidentally scaring people or coming off like a creeper when you’re looking to meet someone is to pay attention to the social context; there’re places where it’s understood that part of the reason why everyone is there is to meet new people, where approaching strangers and starting conversations is expected. This can be anywhere from MeetUps to communal tables in food courts, classes and parties and mixers. The whole point of these venues or events is to be social; everyone is there with that in mind. That creates an entirely different dynamic than, say, planting yourself in front of a woman walking down the street when she’s just trying to get through her day.

And one more thing: sometimes the key is to be the one giving the approach invitation, rather than doing the approaching. While the overall dynamic with regards to hetero dating still tilts towards men doing more of the initiating, it’s worth remembering that there’re lots of women out there who’re just as shy, unsure or anxious about talking to guys they’re into. Giving someone you’re into clearance to come talk to you can be a gift; you’re letting them know that their presence would be welcome, not an intrusion. Focusing on being approachable and giving someone the (metaphorical and literal) nod means that you’re making it safe for them to come to you if they want, rather than risking startling them and starting things off on the wrong foot.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a 29 year old man living in Texas. Growing up and even in my early 20s, I kept getting rejected by women. I was pissed this kept happening so I decided to do something about it. Because look, if I’m the common denominator, the problem is ME.

First, I focused on self-improvement and striving a decent person. I still had ZERO success. And I didn’t even get matches on Tinder.

Then my best friend introduced me to this company called RSD (Real Social Dynamics) and I followed the teachings there. I’ve had multiple girlfriends since, and it’s crazy because I did everything people previously suggested such as do a hobby, work out, be interesting on dates, etc…yet I’m seeing women were into me way more when I started acting like more of an a--hole.

Why is PUA stuff like RSD derided when it clearly got some guys like me results? The advice there was much more helpful than ANYTHING I see in the mainstream. Also, when people say this is just manipulation, it’s also on the counterparty because they SELECT for this type of behavior. When I was “kind and decent” I only got rejected and heard “women don’t owe you anything because you’re a kind person”, so I just adapted to what I noticed women I liked responded to.

Really, what’s wrong with doing what works? I sometimes think all these people who never gave me good input and are suddenly expressing outrage with PUA should stfu because they have no business chiming in now.

Thanks,

Socially Dynamic

DEAR SOCIALLY DYNAMIC: Alright SD, I’m gonna be real with you. It would be easy to just throw this out here so I can get some easy dunks, collect a lot of approval from the commenters and Twitter shares about how savage I eviscerated someone who wants to talk about how great PUA is. But that would be dishonest of me. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve got a complicated relationship with the pick-up artist scene and complex feelings about the whole thing; after all, I was neck deep in it myself for a while. It’s a pretty important part of the Secret Origin of Dr. NerdLove. I’m fairly open about how I learned a lot of important lessons frsom studying pick-up back in the day and it was an incredibly important part of what made me who I am today.

Unfortunately, finding those lessons often meant trying to find nuggets of gold in an absolute mountain of s--t. Mountains of toxic, performative, restrictive bulls--t, including a lot of lessons and attitudes that I still have to be mindful of to this day. Some of it was obviously s--t. Other aspects — such as the concept of “freeze outs”, for example — were things I didn’t recognize as awful at first and wouldn’t until someone else pointed out just how f--ked up it was. The same with the concept of dealing with “Last Minute Resistance” or how to handle somebody’s “bitch shields” or treating somebody’s bad behavior as something to manage and overcome rather than a sign that no, I should dump this person, not try to frame-control them into less-s--tty behavior.

And one of the important parts of unlearning a lot of the toxic s--t that I picked… up… (ahem) from Pick-Up was recognizing what actually worked vs. what worked despite what I was being taught and — importantly — why.

But as with many issues, your question is one with layers. So let’s start with the top: why do people get upset about your using PUA techniques when all the advice people gave didn’t work? Well, on the purely surface level, it’s because most PUA techniques are performative at best, manipulative at worst and pick-up artistry tends to teach guys to treat women as objects to be handled rather than people with agency. It encourages a conflict model of relationships, where you and the women you date are in a contest for control in a zero-sum game, pushes stereotypes of women and what women find attractive in men and creates the idea that All Women Are The Same. It also trades in restrictive, reductionist and malignant ideas about masculinity and manhood that ultimately makes it impossible for men to ever relax and trust anyone; other men are your competition out to steal “your” stuff, women are out to get what they want without giving anything in exchange and you will never, ever be good enough. And, there’s also the fact that people bounce pretty hard off the “F--k YOU NORMIE/AFC” attitude that tends to come with it and that you’re kinda displaying here.

But there’s also a mistake embedded in this question: the idea that people were either giving you bad or rote advice that they should know didn’t work. Here’s the thing about that: most of the time when folks give pat or cliche advice like “just be yourself” or what-have-you, it’s not because they’re peddling lies… it’s because they don’t have an answer for you. Sometimes it’s because they just don’t have the information they would need about what you’re struggling with. And honestly, without following you around like David Attenborough studying human mating behaviors, there’s no way to be able to say “Well THERE’S your problem!” with certainty. They’re relying on what you’re telling them and what you’re asking them about and you’re not necessarily the most reliable narrator. That’s not a slight on you personally, SD; it’s just that we all have cognitive biases that color how we see things and interpret the world around us. So, many times they default to broad cliches because… well, because that’s what seems to fit. Other times, what they’re trying to do is just gracefully exit the conversation because there isn’t a polite or easy way to say “f--ked if I know, chief” or “have you considered that maybe you think you’re being a nice guy but you’re actually acting like an entitled bag of dicks?”

The fact that they didn’t necessarily know how to help you or advise you doesn’t mean that they also aren’t going to think that manipulative bulls--t is, in fact, manipulative bulls--t.

But to dig down another layer, there’s the assumption that you were Doing Everything People Suggested and it didn’t work, but learning all the s--t you did actually produced results. But — and I mean this honestly — did you, did it not, and did the new stuff actually help? Or is it that the issue wasn’t what you thought and your success is despite what you’ve been taught?

To pull from my own life and my own experiences in the PUA scene: learning routines, openers and canned material like “C’s vs. U’s” meant that I suddenly had much, much more success approaching women I wanted to date. But was this because there was something magical or deep psychological insight into asking about jealous ex-girlfriends or rambling on about the shape of people’s teeth? F--ck no. What it did was give me a sense of structure — something that I could follow that let me feel like I knew what the hell I was doing. Feeling like I had some secret arcane knowledge combined with talking points ready to go made it that much easier to just go up and start talking to people. It was, quite literally, the PUA version of Dumbo’s Magic Feather; all it was doing was letting me unlock what I could always do. Having those routines locked, loaded and ready to go just gave me permission to do what I was always capable of but too scared to try. The problem, though, is that unlike Dumbo’s Magic Feather, the folks teaching me this thought it was actually magic. It was all about “embedded DHVs” and “frame control” and “forced IOIs” rather than “no, seriously all you need to do is start a conversation with somebody, it’s far less intimidating than you’d think.” Ironically enough, using all that material actually held me back. It was abundantly clear how much I was basically running a routine vs. talking like a human. Once I started ditching the routines and just started learning how to talk to folks like they were people and not targets, I actually had far, far better results.

The problem is that the s--t that actually worked — “here’s how to get a conversation started, here’s how to recognize signs that someone is interested in talking to you, here’s how to keep a conversation flowing” — was buried in all of this toxic manipulative crap. She wasn’t cold because I didn’t display enough value, she was in a s--tty mood and didn’t want to talk. She didn’t have her bitch shields up because I didn’t neg her properly, I was the tenth guy to try to hit on her that night. All my stories about my model girlfriend and the embedded DHVs or whatever weren’t triggering attraction switches; when they worked it was almost always because I was telling a funny story and people like folks who make them laugh. But nobody believed I had a girlfriend who was a model because she got her jaw rewired or whatever.

(And as an aside: I strongly suspect that I wouldn’t have felt the need to go into Pick-Up if I’d gotten my ADHD diagnosed and under control much earlier. Much of what I needed from pick-up were masking techniques to try to deal with rejection-sensitive dysphoria… and the irony of THAT acronym isn’t lost on me.)

The same goes for the idea that “women like a--holes” — a meme that not only has been around forever, but has mutated into the incel bulls--t about Chads. No matter what evo-psych gloss you want to throw on it, this is rank bulls--t. No woman out there gets up in the morning and thinks “you know what really gets me wetter than monsoon season? A dude who treats me like s--t, holds our relationship hostage through ‘dread game’, never engages with me emotionally and also f--ks my sister.” Leaving aside how often “bad boy” or “a--hole” really just translates to “dude who’s f--king the woman I want to f--k”,  the reason why “bad boys” are supposedly popular is because of specific kinds of behavior — specifically, things like “dressing well”, “displaying confidence”, “making a move”, “not being afraid to express interest”. It has nothing to do with the Dark Triad or the Halo Effect (which, incidentally, fades outside of lab conditions) and everything to do with putting in effort and not coming to approaching women with an attitude of being pre-rejected and needing to justify why they should un-reject you.

Now, in fairness, it’s easy to adopt those behaviors by also becoming a selfish prick. The line between “confidence” and “overweening entitlement” isn’t exactly thin, but it’s easily blurred and overlooked. It’s far easier to exhibit confidence or not give a s--t about rejection when you don’t give a s--t about someone as a person. If you condition yourself to see people as objects whose purpose is to fulfill your needs, you don’t worry as much about being shut down… nor do you care as much about trying to use manipulative or high-pressure tactics to wear someone down and get them to give in.

But as the sage once said: “Stronger? No. Faster, more seductive, the Dark Side is.” If all you had taken away from working with PUAs was “ok, here’s how to be more confident”, “here’s how to dress well”, “here’s how to approach people and start a conversation” and “here’s why you don’t need to be afraid to express interest” while otherwise staying the same as you were before, you would almost certainly not only have had success, you would’ve had far more and more reliable success than the whole “I’m an alpha male, grr. I wear leather and put product in my hair!” thing.

‘Cuz here’s the thing that people don’t realize about “bad boys” and “a--holes”: they have very shallow appeal. Whether they get dates or girlfriends is almost immaterial; it’s a question of how long those dates and girlfriends stick around. As is so often noted: the bad boys tend to go through women very quickly. Not because they got what they want and discarded them, but because women don’t like a--holes and it takes very little time for them to get fed up with the dude’s s--t.

Which brings me to my next point. You say that you’ve gotten more girlfriends by acting like an a--hole than you ever did by being a Nice Guy. Serious question: how long have those relationships lasted? I’m not asking this to just dunk on you, it’s to highlight a point: quantity isn’t the same as quality. It’s shockingly easy to get short term, temporary success. It takes far less effort than people realize to up your game, especially if you don’t worry about actually maintaining a relationship. But those successes don’t last; the women tend to leave with a quickness because the magic runs out very fast and they realize that a) they’re being treated like s--t and b) there’s no there there. Much of why PUA doesn’t “work” — or rather, works badly — is because of how much it means crafting a Potemkin persona, a false front that looks good from a distance but falls apart as soon as you apply any real scrutiny to it. This is one of the reasons why just about everyone I knew in the pick-up scene — and also folks like Neil Strauss and Erik Von Markovik themselves — had breakdowns. You can only fake something so long without any substance before it tears your soul apart. Humans aren’t good at lying and doing it for long enough f--ks your head like you wouldn’t believe.

Just as importantly though: part of the reason why people get upset at your using PUA techniques isn’t just that they’re often inherently manipulative, they’re frequently abusive. A lot of concepts like “dread game”, “frame control” and rules about how often and the way you communicate with dates and partners are actually about intermittent reinforcement: mixing neglect, criticism or abuse with moments of approval or affection at seemingly random and unpredictable intervals. This isn’t “something women select for”, it’s using a psychological technique to try to get someone addicted to brief hits of dopamine from the rare occasions you treat them well. This is, quite literally, the same s--t that casinos and iPhone games use to get you to spend obscene amounts of money without meaning to. It’s also why people stick around in abusive relationships for as long as they do; their partners are using the brief moments of pleasure to get them to endure the abuse.

When you go on about how “well, women didn’t like me when I was nice, so now I just do whatever I want to get what I want”, that doesn’t make them look like fools for giving you s--tty advice. It doesn’t make you look like someone who threw off the shackles of being an average frustrated chump in order to become The Champion of F--king. When you say this, what you’re doing is telling people “yes, what I do is abusive and I’m ok with that because it gets me what I want”. This, needless to say, may not be what you intend… but it sure is hell is what you’re saying. It’s not exactly a surprise that people don’t react well to this. They’re not getting upset at you because you’ve hacked The Matrix or broke the Rules of Society, they’re getting upset because you’re telling them “I’m an a--hole and that’s great!”

And honestly, my dude, if you hear “women don’t owe you anything because you’re a kind person” and your takeaway is that the problem is being kind? Then you were missing the point entirely. The problem wasn’t “being a kind person”, it was the idea that “being kind” or “being nice” was anything other than the baseline. It’s not going above and beyond, it’s meeting minimum expected standards. It’s kind of like how “this food didn’t give me ptomaine poisoning” isn’t the high-point of a restaurant, it’s the barest f--king level for staying open in the first place. The issue with “women don’t owe you anything” is that it’s true, they don’t. Being a good guy doesn’t entitle you to people’s attention or affection. It makes it easier to get their attention and to maintain their affection. But it’s not owed to you, simply because you were Not The Worst.

But the final layer to this — and my final question — is very simple: are you actually happy right now? Because honestly? It sounds like you’re not and you know you’re not at some level. As a general rule, folks who are satisfied and confident with their chosen path don’t feel the need to angrily justify it to others or dress it up in rejection of others because they didn’t give you what you wanted. It sounds like you’re looking for someone else to validate your choices because you are recognizing, at some level, that you may have benefited from learning pick-up (nobody is saying that you didn’t) but it came with a lot of poison too… and that poison is eating away at you.

And look, I have been there, done that, had the long dark nights of the soul about it. I have been where you are. And I know exactly how upset it made me.

Ask yourself: how often do you talk to your friends about anything other than pick-up? How often do you actually relate to women as friends rather than potential targets? How often do you look at everything in terms of value, status, alpha vs. beta, cuck vs. bull? How many of your guy friends can you actually trust to be open and vulnerable with? How many could you admit to being scared or upset to without being afraid of mockery? How many women could you open up to and cry in front of? How many relationships have you had where you felt like you had to perform everything perfectly or they would lose respect/attraction/interest and leave?

These are all questions I asked myself when I had my breakdown leaving the bar the night I left the PUA scene. And just between you, me and everyone reading this: I really didn’t like those answers. I didn’t like who I’d become and what I was doing. Hell, I didn’t even like most of the people I was sleeping with and the few people I truly did like, I let go in part because having a steady relationship was less important to me than seeking external validation from banging as much strange as I could.

I think it would do you some good to take a long, hard look at yourself and ask yourself those questions. And when you do have answers… well, I think you’ll start to understand why people react negatively when they hear about pick-up or using PUA tactics. And when you understand… well, I think you’ll have some choices to make.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ll start from the beginning. I am a sophomore in college and during my freshman year, I was in a abusive relationship. It got extremely bad and there were legal issues so we broke it off. The guy was taking a lot of drugs and so he eventually had to go to a psych ward around December-January.

I recently got into a relationship around February and my boyfriend is a great guy. He is everything that I’ve ever wanted, in terms of compassion, and kindness. He is not possessive but restricts me from doing things at parties. In my previous relationship, my ex would be okay if I kissed other girls and just had fun. But, my boyfriend now doesn’t approve and would get mad that I kissed my best friend. I feel restricted because of this and I just want him to be okay with it and how I am.

Also, my boyfriend and I got into a bad argument because he was mad about me kissing my best friend (this was two weeks later). I thought he got over that, but he was so disrespectful that it started feeling like my old relationship. He kicked me out of his apartment at 3AM, when we are in a long distance relationship. I live around 3 hours away driving so I did mind going back home. But for those two days, I felt like I was reliving my previous relationship because of the lack of communication.

I found out my ex got into a psych ward around January (he called me to tell me) and my boyfriend was extremely supportive about the situation. Now, my ex wants to hang out and talk after he completed his meds. My boyfriend and I were okay with this at first, but now, my boyfriend doesn’t feel comfortable with it anymore.

For some reason, I don’t think I should be in a relationship.  I feel restricted, but I care about him a lot. I want to be able to have freedom, but also have him by my side. I know I should not hang out with my ex, but why do I feel so restricted?

Thank you!!

Quietly Questioning

DEAR QUIETLY QUESTIONING: You have a classic BUT letter, QQ. That is, it starts out with “everything is great…” and then there’s a “but” that goes to undermine everything you just said. In this case, it’s “my boyfriend is a great guy who’s everything I ever wanted in terms of kindness and compassion, BUT he also dictates my actions and controls what I am and am not allowed to do.”

I mean that’s a “call 1-900-Mix-A-Lot” situation, because that’s a REALLY LARGE but.

And frankly, other s--t you bring up makes me wonder just how kind and compassionate your new boyfriend is. I mean, kicking you out of his place at 3 AM when you were presumably staying there (since you mention this is a long-distance relationship) is not cool at best. Neither is having a yelling fit over how you behave with your best friend. Like I was telling Lines Lines, there’s a difference between saying “hey, I’m feeling a little insecure, I would appreciate some TLC and reassurance” and “I demand that you never do X, Y or Z again because it displeases me, even if it was what you were doing before we started dating.”

Telling you how you’re allowed to behave, what you’re “allowed” to do at parties or how you interact with your friends not cool and, honestly, it’s a big ol’ red flag. It would be one thing if, say, you had asked for his help making sure that you didn’t accidentally drink too much and act a fool at parties. It’s another thing entirely for him to say that you’re only permitted to do X or Y but not Z, because he’s in charge and he doesn’t want you doing those things. Or, more to the point: he can want things but he’s not in a position to demand them. Especially when these are things that were part of your life beforehand.

Now in the name of fairness and consistency: context changes everything, and there’s context we’re missing here. You mention that he has issues with your kissing your best friend. What kind of kissing are we talking about here? Are we talking about an affectionate peck, or are we talking about open-mouth sloppy make-outs? If it’s the former, then he’s definitely being a controlling dick and it’s a big goddamn warning sign. If it’s the latter… well, I could understand why this would bother him if he was expecting a monogamous commitment. But at the same time, that’s the sort of thing that needs to be talked out in advance. One of the reasons I tell people to really discuss what monogamy and infidelity mean to them during the Defining The Relationship talk is to avoid these precise conflicts. Everybody has different ideas about what “monogamy” means and what is or isn’t permissible; assuming that your partner is on the same page as you without actually discussing it is a great way to blow up a relationship. It’s also the time that you establish what you are or aren’t willing to give up for your partner. If being physically affectionate is part of your friendship with your BFF, demanding that you give it up for someone else’s insecurities is a pretty good sign that you and they aren’t compatible. And if they’re dictating how you conduct friendships that existed before you and they got together, then that’s a good sign to take off like all of hell and half of Hoboken were after you.

(I will say that I’d be uncomfortable with your hanging out with your ex too. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where I’d be comfortable with my partner hanging out with an abusive ex who either got committed or sent to court-mandated rehab. Not, mind you, because I’d be worried about their cheating but more about their physical and emotional safety.)

Like I said to LLEAL, it’s good to trust your gut, as long as your gut is trustworthy. Right now your gut is telling you that being in a relationship is a bad idea. I think in this case, you should listen to your gut. To start with: you leapt from one emotionally fraught (and potentially traumatic) relationship straight into another with what sounds like very little time in between. If things were as bad as you say — and you hint at things being pretty goddamn bad — I think it would’ve benefitted you to have time to recharge, heal and process everything that happened. Taking the time to just recover is incredibly valuable, and helps make sure that you don’t go from one awful relationship to another, just because it doesn’t immediately resemble the first awful one.

Y’know. Like you did with your current beau.

Like you said: you’re feeling incredibly restricted and held back by your boyfriend. I think you should listen to that feeling. That feeling is trying to warn you that this isn’t a relationship you want to be in. I know you say he’s everything you want, that he’s kind and compassionate. But compassionate people aren’t known for having weeks-long tantrums that culminate with throwing people out in the street, nor do they insist on dictating what other people are and aren’t allowed to do in their lives. And let’s be real here: abusers and toxic s--theads don’t go around wearing signs that say “Hi, I’m a Toxic S--thead!” Quite the opposite really: they’re Crouching Nice Guy, Hidden Douchebags, hiding their s--ttiness behind superficial charm and love-bombing their targets. And to be frank, that sounds like your boyfriend. The little you’ve shared may be missing details that could change things, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that he’s setting off my Spidey-Sense pretty damn hard.

My advice: go with your gut and dump him. You should be single for a while — both to give yourself time to recover from your ex, but also because your current boyfriend doesn’t sound like a prize either. Taking some time to figure out what you want in a partner and — importantly — what you are or aren’t willing to put up with is going to be incredibly important for you. If your being physical — to whatever degree — with your best friend is important to you, then you don’t want to date someone who’s going to have a problem with that. If going to parties and getting wild is important to you, then, again: you want to date someone who’s cool with that. You’re a sophomore in college; you don’t need a babysitter and it’s incredibly presumptive (AT BEST) for a guy you’ve been dating for a handful of months to take it upon himself to “protect” you from your own choices. That’s clearly not something you asked for, nor something you want.

So my vote is wash your hands of him. Dump him with the quickness and live your life. But I also would say that you should kick the other dude to the curb as well and ignore his requests to get back in contact. Both of these dudes sound like a world of harm that you absolutely don’t need;  better to let them both get taken out with the trash and you go on to live your best life without either of them in it.

Good luck.

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