DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My partner (he/him) of five years violated the boundaries/understandings of our monogamous relationship by receiving a one-way sex act from a friend of his. While I’ve agreed to stay and try to move past it, I haven’t decided the long term and taken off the engagement ring. I’m having a having a really f--king hard time moving past the intrusive thoughts and the wanting to really understand why. Please help me?

Some context: my partner and I (she/they) are both queer, but ended up in a hetero relationship with each other. I am very sex positive but struggle with polyamory as a choice for myself because of certain past traumas. I actually see the benefits and could maybe come to an agreement after some targeted therapy and lots of communication. But for now, monogamy is what feels safe for me. My partner, at the beginning of our relationship and throughout, has said he feels the same. And consent-based relationships are incredibly important to me. My partner had a friendly acquaintance who is a professional barber who has cut his hair for about 7 years, the barber (he/him) is gay and very openly sexual with everyone. When we’ve run into out in public like at a restaurant, he’s treated me the same as he treats my partner (on the surface), which is to talk openly about his sex life and ask questions if they’re welcomed. I had no issues with their friendship until earlier this year but thought my partner respected my wish for him to not to put himself in situations that would be weird/inappropriate with the barber or accept his sexual advances (which came pretty frequently but I never felt much jealousy because I thought my partner wasn’t interested or at least wouldn’t agree to any of it).

The infidelity and messy aftermath: First the timeline that I know now, then how I found out. We moved from our apartment to a house in August last year, and some problems both old and new surfaced, but I thought we were working through them. Back in late September/October, the barber started asking about my partner’s plantar fasciitis that he mentioned during his last hair cut and saying that he had some sort of massage/reflexology training (the barber is just a barber, not a massage therapist) and thought he could help and offered a foot massage. My partner took him up on it, and they me. Sometime between that initial “let me help you” kind of offer and his next haircut in October, the barber offered him a happy ending along with the foot massage. My partner went over to his apartment after that haircut, stripped down to nothing (including underwear) and got in the barber’s bed. The barber then gave him a foot massage and then a hand job. My partner was supposed to be picking up groceries that time, and I called/texted asking where he was at some point (he’s not the type to stay somewhere longer than he has to). He said he got caught up at the store but was on his way home, and was home 45 minutes later. Didn’t think anything more until late March. We share a car, and he dropped me off to get a beer with a friend while he went to his hair cut appointment. He got his hair cut then, went to the barber’s apartment for a repeat of last time, stripped down and got on top of the covers, except this time it was a full body massage and a hand job. In between these two incidents, there was some flirtatious texting and an exchange of homemade porn (not featuring any of them, but some of the barber’s acquaintances) and a text discussion about the porn a month or two after the first incident.

He was supposed to meet me somewhere after his hair cut after the last incident in March, and we ended up fighting because he blew me off and didn’t answer his phone for an hour when I left where he was supposed to meet me and walked to the barber shop (I was taking up a whole table at the bar by myself and I didn’t know where else to go because he was my ride). He said at first that it took longer than he thought it would and that he had been looking for parking. I told him I walked past too many open parking spots for that to be true. He then admitted he went to the barber’s apartment after his hair cut but said it was just to fix his bike. He said he lied because he thought I wouldn’t have been comfortable with him going to the barber’s apartment alone. He said it was just to fix his bike and he was sorry for blowing me off. I told him the whole thing made me uncomfortable and I’d prefer if he found a different barber. He said he wouldn’t and that I needed to trust him to set boundaries.

After our fight, he turned down the barber’s next request for a naked happy ending massage and then later told him outright that he would just be getting hair cuts. But then I found out after seeing messages on our shared iPad that were incriminating that a massage had been involved and that the barber had seen my partner naked (I didn’t snoop. I was trying to add recipes to an app, the messages came up all at once when I turned the iPad on and I saw weird stuff on the display before reading the whole exchange to confirm I wasn’t crazy). Then, he told me it was just a massage, he was covered the whole time, only happened once, and he didn’t do it again. Then the barber sent me a DM that was apologetic to me but made it clear more had gone on. I told him to tell me everything, or that I would leave. Only then did I find out all of the above.

The lying is obviously an issue, and even if he’s done the “right things” since it all finally came out, I told him that’s the hardest part to get past and the part that is going to be the biggest obstacle for whatever decision I make in the long run. But that at least seems to make sense to me. He lied, I don’t necessarily trust him the way I did before. If he avoids lying to me in the future, I could learn to retrust.

But I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the why, even after several very open and honest conversations in the last couple weeks. He said he’s finally seeking therapy for self esteem issues and said he never initiated, but followed through because the attention made him feel good when things weren’t going well with us and the massages were genuinely fun, felt good and helped his feet (I asked him to be completely honest). Specifically what I’m having trouble getting past is the fact that he blew me off and took that risk of getting caught (why was it worth the risk, especially when he hates being late?), that he seemed proactive in enabling himself to do this by doing things like telling me he mixed up his appointment time so it would take longer (if you’re just passively accepting the attention, why be so proactive in deceiving me and setting things up so he could?), why he wanted to keep seeing the barber for hair cuts (if my partner says he’s just someone who pushes boundaries and cuts his hair, why can’t he just cut contact?) and that he knew on some level that it was wrong but let it go on for almost a year (started talking about the first massage in September, maintained sexual interactions a couple times in person and several times over text between October and the end of March, drunkenly called the barber at the beginning of June and then decided to cut it back to completely platonic.

I don’t know. I can acknowledge he’s genuinely been trying to fix it for the last few weeks, and it was honestly pretty seriously out of character for him. And if I haven’t reflected that in the paragraphs above, I am always deferential and want to believe people. And I want my partner to have meaningful, deep, affectionate connections with people that aren’t me. But that feels like a minefield of anxiety now. And how do I get past this deep wanting ache to really understand why, when he’s already answered for that for the most part?

Cuts Like A Knife

DEAR CUTS LIKE A KNIFE: Hooo boy, there’s a lot to cover here, but before we get to your partner, let’s talk about the barber for a second. I get why you’re upset at your partner, but goddamn if his barber isn’t as up to his neck to blame here. It’s one thing to be flirty, even aggressively flirty and even open about your sex life, but your barber seems to think that boundaries are for other people. I’d be willing to believe he’s the type to realize that maybe some folks aren’t interested in hearing about an acquaintance’s sex life and would dial things back… if it weren’t for the fact that he had absolutely no problem moving on a dude in a monogamous relationship. And it’s not like he can claim ignorance of your existence or your partner (presumably) failed to inform him that you two didn’t have an open relationship or a DADT thing; he knew, he didn’t care and that, to me, seems like a pretty good reason to kick this dude clear out of your lives.

(Also, if he didn’t have permission from the folks involved to share their porn, then the barber’s crossed a whole lot of lines with a lot of folks, and that makes everything even squickier.)

Now, let’s get into what’s up with your partner and where you go from here. The first thing to know about infidelity is that logic rarely enters into it. Very, very few people approach affairs and infidelity from a place of logic. While there’re definitely folks who could give less of a s--t about monogamy and fidelity and will actively pursue affairs regardless of their relationship, when most folks cheat, it’s usually a crime of opportunity.  It’s rarely something planned, especially the first time. More often than not, it’s a matter of impulse, a moment when temptation presented itself and they failed their Wisdom saving throw.

Now there are people who go out of their way to make it possible for that “oops, I tripped and fell inside of you” moment happen. They want the plausible deniability of it being a momentary lapse of willpower, but they’ve also cut the emergency break and set the stage that’ll allow for that “oops, look what just happened” to occur. They may not have actively planned to cheat, but they were at least open to the possibility if it was offered… and they sure as hell made sure the likelihood of it happening was high.

Which, if I’m being honest, kinda sounds like what your boyfriend did. It sounds like he was at least willing to take a disadvantage on that saving throw and was cool with at least going along with circumstances that would allow it.

Everything after that, however, comes straight back to the fact that logic doesn’t really get involved here. If it did… well, fewer people would cheat; the risk vs. reward ratio is rarely in favor. It’s an uncommon person indeed who sits around, does the math and tries to plan things out to maximize opportunities to cheat and minimize the odds of getting caught in a lie. But then again: a lot of infidelities aren’t about sex. More often than not, they’re about other issues, and sex is either the symptom or the outcome. Sometimes affairs happen because our biological makeup dictates that the passion that we feel early in a relationship ebbs as time goes by; it’s part of the human condition. When somebody new expresses interest, that feeling of being desired can be powerful, and the surge of dopamine folks get from a new sex partner is intense. Other times, it’s a way of addressing internal issues; if someone has low self-esteem, knowing that somebody else is into them acts like a temporary balm. Or they may address that sense of low self-esteem by pursuing folks in closed relationships, getting off over being so desirable that they’re able to bang someone else’s partner. Still others may like the risks involved and get a thrill from the chance of getting caught or feeling like they’re pulling something over on folks.

But again: it’s not logical. The logic is usually a post-hoc understanding; in the moment, folks tend to be reacting to the emotional and hormonal charge they’re getting from it.

Case in point: why your partner took so many risks, and why those risks kept escalating the odds of his getting caught. He wasn’t thinking straight or logically; he was thinking about how exciting things were. In all likelihood, the reason why he was so sloppy about explaining things was because he was taking advantage of those stolen moments with the barber whenever the opportunity arose, rather than planning out assignations. There was an opening in his schedule, he could dart over to the apartment and “oh s--t, what have I done” would wait until the post-coital regrets, when the prolactin surges and the desire rolled back. Now he was in more of a mindset to realize “oh f--k, I’m gonna get caught” and had to figure out how he was going to frame things so that you wouldn’t question him too closely.

Now as I’ve said many a time before: I don’t think all infidelities are equal, and I don’t think all of them are automatic relationship-extinction level events. There’s a difference between someone who, for example, gets drunk on a business trip and hooks up with a coworker, or who goes and gets a massage with a happy ending and someone who couldn’t care less about how their actions affect others, as long as they gets theirs. That having been said: everything depends on how the person who did the cheating handles things after being caught or coming clean, and how (or if) they take responsibility for their actions.

In the case of your partner, it sounds like this was closer to somebody who got caught up in something exciting and taboo and let it go to his head. I don’t think he was malicious or that he didn’t care if it hurt you, just that he wasn’t thinking until after the deed was done. That doesn’t make what he did hurt less, mind you, nor does it make it less of a violation. It just offers insight into the why of it all. The thrill, combined with whatever else he was getting from this (assuaging self-esteem, feeling desired, etc.) carried him along until after he got a load off, and then regret would set in and he’d try to avoid the fallout for it all. But then after time passed and he felt like he got away with it, that feeling would come on him again and… well, here we are.

So where do you go from here?

Getting therapy is a good start; often if folks don’t deal with the underlying issues that lead to them cheating, then at best all that happens is that they find a different way to self-medicate. But he needs to do more. This isn’t a case of his being on double-secret probation and his next screw up means he’s out. It’s not going to work if this is just you monitoring him and imposing boundaries from the outside. Under the best of circumstances, this just breeds resentment. At worst, it means that he’s got incentive to find new ways to be sneakier and get around whatever strictures you put in place. He needs to actively be earning your trust back.

That means that from here on out, he’s going to have to be the proactive guardian of your trust and your comfort. He’s going to have to be going out of his way to be trustworthy, to not just resist temptation but to avoid the circumstances that caused it in the first place. That doesn’t mean not having close and intimate friendships with folks, nor does it mean that he no longer has a right to privacy. It does, however, mean that he’s going to be the one to establish boundaries and maintain them. He needs to be going out of his way to let you know everything is on the up and up. How that’s going to work is going to depend on you and him, but he’s going to have to take the lead.

Now the one thing that I would say is critical to all of this is something that I didn’t see in your letter: that he’s ended his relationship with his barber. Not just the personal, after-hours one involving hand-jobs and amateur porn, but professionally, too. Like I said: it takes two to tango and the barber in this case has demonstrated that he doesn’t give a s--t about other people’s relationships or who might get hurt. While I don’t automatically lean towards “cut the affair partner out of your life like a tag off a shirt”, in this case it’s definitely necessary. Continuing to go back to him is going to be like an alcoholic keeping a bottle of vodka in the freezer; it’s too easy to fall back into old patterns. If your partner wants to prove he’s worthy of your trust, that dude’s gotta go. I promise you: there’re other barbers in town who can give a good hair cut… without all the extras.

And for you? Well, I’d recommend talking to someone too. One of the things that’s important to realize is that you’ve been hurt and you need time to heal. Talking things through with your partner and getting everything out in the open is a start; that’s how you debride and clean the wound. But it still needs to heal, and that can take work too. If you aren’t already, then talking to a relationship counselor is a good idea. Not only will it help you and your partner work things through, but it’ll also be helpful for finding ways that you can recover and that your partner can help facilitate that healing. This would also go a long way towards helping assuage your anxiety and addressing those intrusive thoughts.

But also, in the course of healing, you’ll have a better idea of what you want to do next and where you go from here. It’s hard to know if you can trust again when you’re still in pain; a lot of times the pain of the past can obscure the reality of the present. But as you recover, you’ll know whether you can trust him again, or if the wound is just too deep and too scarring. It’ll take time — more than a few weeks — but you need to be willing to give yourself that time and the grace to give yourself the self-care you need. You’ve been hurt, and badly. You should acknowledge that, and that the betrayal is what hurts so much.

In the meantime, I’d also suggest reading Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs. These can go a long way towards answering the “why”, and possibly give you the language you need to help process your feelings… or at least, to ask the questions you need answered.

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: Thanks as always for your tireless service! You are definitely still the best purveyor of dating advice on the internet. I think I have an issue that I haven’t seen you talk about before…

I (30, cis, straight, F) have been single for a *long* time, and in general I find that when I meet someone cool whom I’m interested in, I tend to be the one who does most of the heavy lifting (i.e. suggesting meetups, initiating contact, etc). That may or may not be a sign that I’m just setting my sights on people who aren’t actually interested – definitely a topic for my therapist but that’s not really what I’m writing to you about. The point is that I’m not shy to make the first move as a woman but am having zero success so far.

The issue is that I’m living in an area where people in general are quite restrained and well-behaved; everyone is friendly and kind and welcoming, but it rarely goes beyond that. People don’t really flirt or open up to you unless you really make an effort to get to know them properly, and even then it is borderline impossible to tell if someone likes you or *likes you’-likes you. There also isn’t really much of a vocabulary surrounding dating (the people here don’t speak English); there are no phrases for saying “Want to go out sometime?” or “I’d love to invite you on a date if you’re free next week” and so on. I asked a friend what they might think if someone up-front asked them on a date, and they said that sounded “way too direct”.

Generally this therefore means that I am in a pattern of inviting cool people for ‘drinks’ or ‘dinner’, only for them to interpret that as a literal invitation to go and consume food or liquid as acquaintances and then go home. I can’t think of an elegant way to make clear that I mean ‘drinks’ like ‘romantic flirty drinks’ rather than ‘two people ingesting beer in the same general area’. And because men here are very respectful of women’s boundaries, they sit politely on the other side of the table and keep their hands to themselves regardless of what kind of signals I try to send over. I think they are often quite nervous about potentially offending women by overstepping. I don’t want to violate their boundaries either so I don’t push it. We have a nice drink or dinner, go home, and nothing *ever* happens. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I guess I am wondering how I can make it clearer in my communication and body language that I am interested in these people so that things don’t just end up stuck in neutral like this. If anything, it would be good to get to a point where I can get an honest rejection from them so I at least know that I can move on and stop wondering. As it is, because I never get the up-front rejection, these things tend to stretch on for months and it can be quite emotionally draining.

Some people say that part of the problem is that guys don’t pick up on subtle signals like hair-touching and all that other stuff that women are told to do to show someone that they are interested. Is this true or is this just part of the usual ‘lol men are so oblivious’ genre of crap dating advice?

Ultimately the questions are:

– how do I make it crystal clear to someone that my invitation to meet up is a romantic move and that therefore they should say no if they’re not romantically interested?

– what are some things I can do as a female human to signal my interest, clearly enough that someone would get the message, without coming across as creepy or desperate? Or – worst of all – *intimidating*?

– what are some things I can do on these meetups to loosen up the vibe and encourage the other person to sit closer/reciprocate a touch/relax a bit and possibly even engage in some light flirting?

Thanks so much!

Why Don’t They Get It

DEAR WHY DON’T THEY GET IT: There’s a lot that can be frustrating when it comes to dating, but few are more aggravating than trying to parse whether something is a date or not. A friend of mine recently told me about the dating dilemmas in her social circle, including friends who were in the quantum wave of both “on a date” and “not on a date”, and how difficult it was to tell which it was this time.

As I recall, the answer was “if he’s wearing aftershave, then it was a date.”

Unfortunately, the “is he wearing aftershave” question doesn’t really work, especially when one person thinks it is a date and the other either thinks it isn’t or isn’t aware it’s supposed to be a date. And while this can seem like the set up for all sorts of wacky sitcom hijinx, the fact of the matter is that this ambiguity isn’t just frustrating, it’s a waste of everybody’s time. If you’re trying to date someone and they think that you’re either just interested in being friends or they’re unaware that you’re interested in them, romantically or sexually, then you’re setting yourself up for heartbreak. Especially if the unsuspecting person discovers that they were on a date that they had no interest in going on; many women in particular have been shocked or upset to discover that someone they thought was hanging out with them as a friend saw their hangouts as steps towards sex or romance.

It also doesn’t help that, yes, men are often bad at catching how women flirt or the signals they send. But then again… people often mistake the signals men send too. God knows that I’ve had times where I missed out on the fact that someone was asking me up for a hot cup of “f--k my brains out” until weeks or months after the fact.

This is why one of the things I can’t advocate enough is the value of being direct about your intentions and communicating exactly what you’re looking for. It not only means that everybody is on the same page, but everyone understands what you’re intentions are and what you’re actually asking for.

Unfortunately, this often bumps up against social mores in countries where people are more indirect, women being socialized to not initiate or to do so incredibly subtly and the tendency for men to react badly when women make the first move. So it does become a matter of a weighing the risks and taking your chances.

Now with that in mind, let’s talk about your situation. You’re in an area where not only are folks fairly indirect, but also where there’s a language barrier and folks are incredibly reserved. This seems to be the perfect set-up for two people to be crazy for each other… but not have any way of actually letting the other person know. And in situations like that… well, somebody’s gotta be the one to break the “rule” first. So it may as well be you.

I wouldn’t worry too much about being coming off as creepy or intimidating. While it’s certainly possible for women to be creepy or excessively forward — I’ve had it happen to me — the physical differential between the average man and average woman means that women are rarely a physical threat to men the way men are to women. If you accept a “no” or even a “not picking up the clue you just dropped” with good grace, you’re less likely to come across as creepy or desperate except to people who are going to see that no matter what you do. And as for intimidating… well, again, unless you’re flirting like Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender, I think you’re better off not dating folks who think you’re just too much by virtue of making the first move.

Depending on where you are and what the culture is like, you may be in a position to take advantage of the “Oops, the foreigner doesn’t know the rules” gambit; being more straightforward may be unusual, but could potentially be worked as “it’s just what makes you quirky and different”. While it might be seen as being forward or unusual, playing the “oh, I’m sorry, that’s’ how we do it where I’m from” might give enough permission for both you and your potential beau to break “the rules” and relax just a little. I think there’re worse things that you could do than to say “Hey, listen, I like you and it’s totally cool to say ‘no’, but I would love to go do $COOL_THING with you next week. What do you say?”

Failing that, I would suggest dropping hints that are only just this side of punching them in the shoulder and pointing out that you’re hitting on them. If, for example, someone is sitting across the table from you, you could mention that they seem so distant and wouldn’t they like to sit closer so it’s not so awkward or weird with all the stuff between you? You could reappropriate some of the old PUA routines of “rings on fingers” or palm-reading or whatnot to invite and encourage some mutual and flirty physical contact. You could mention that you’ve been in town for X days/weeks/months without having gone on a date and say very pointedly that you wish someone would ask you out. You could even get meta about it and ask what flirting looks like in their culture and ask them to show you and hey, wouldn’t the best way to do that would be to flirt with you?

But even those run the risk of being too subtle or too understated for folks to catch… which just leads back to “well, just tell ’em straight up.” While yes, that runs the risk of being incredibly forward, somebody’s gotta make the first move if anything’s going to get started. And like I said: may as well be you.

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: Longtime reader here. I’m a 24 year old male with limited dating experience who’s gotten dates here and there over the past few years and would like to think I’m getting better at them, though I’m still nervous about initiating physical contact, sex, etc. This is especially the case right now, as I currently am living with my parents, both of whom are immunocompromised. I am looking next year to move out to a different part of my state, but don’t have enough money yet saved up from my job to do so right now.

I had a date with a girl from Hinge at a local brewery that went really well yesterday, and of course afterward my jerk of a brain started going “Well if you go on more dates and become physically intimate, you’ll bring COVID back and accidentally kill both mom and dad”. It’s worth noting that my mom almost died from an acute liver failure a few years ago, so the level of guilt I would feel if something happened to her because of my reckless actions would be enormous.

There’s also the fact that both her and I live with our parents, so I wouldn’t even know where to go to be intimate right now.

I realize I’m getting waaay ahead of myself, as a time and place for a second date hasn’t yet been established (but she is open to it). I just feel this burden on my shoulders and want to do everything I can to protect those I care about while still staying sane (therapy has been a big help for me with the latter).

Do you have any tips or advice?

Thanks.

Want to Avoid Infection Terror

DEAR WANT TO AVOID INFECTION TERROR: The first rule of any anxiety-provoking situation is simple, WAIT: don’t borrow trouble from the future. When you get spun up about things that aren’t even on the table yet, you end up getting so worried about a theoretical future that you can’t appreciate the present. Never mind that you’re nowhere near the point that you have to worry about this; if you can’t relax and be in the moment, you won’t get there in the first place. So all you’ve done is stress yourself out of any potential happiness.

Now that being said, the answer is simple: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. If you aren’t vaccinated already, then for the love of whatever gods you believe in go get your shots. Thus far, the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines are all highly effective against the current strains of COVID, including the Delta variant. While the science is still out on whether boosters will be necessary in the future — particularly for the non mRNA vaccines — all of the vaccines available in the US provide not just high resistance to COVID but incredibly powerful protection against hospitalization and death. It’s telling that pretty much all of the deaths and new infections in the US are unvaccinated people; while there are some break-through infections, the numbers are a very small percentage of the total vaccinated population — well within the expected range.

All signs and science also indicate that folks who are vaccinated are functionally COVID-sterile; that is, it is very difficult to be an asymptomatic carrier of the virus. The science strongly indicates that uninfected carriers don’t spread the virus, and the odds of breakthrough infections — even with Delta — are very much in your favor; you’re in greater danger by getting in the car to go on your date.

Similarly, get your parents vaccinated, if they aren’t already. While there is still some question of the strength of the immune response in immunocompromised people, any increased resistance is better than none. The combination of your immunity and any partial immunity that your parents get from the vaccines means that you will have put significant barriers between you and any chance of infecting them.

By that same token, if you’re fully vaccinated — both shots, 14 days out from your second shot for maximum immunity — and your date (this woman or any other dates in the future) is also fully vaccinated, then you’re at greater risk of being eaten by a shark than bringing COVID home with you. Both you and your date are inhospitable hosts for the virus; if the virus can’t infect you, then you both are unlikely to be asymptomatic carriers. If you want to take a belt-and-suspenders approach to this, you can also make sure that you prioritize dates in open air or well-ventilated areas, avoid crowds and mask up when possible. This will help minimize the chances of exposure and reduce the likelihood of a breakthrough infection to virtually nil. While it’s still not absolute zero, you’ll have better odds of winning the Powerball.

It’s also worth remembering that all of life involves an element of risk; we just are comfortable with some risks over others. While all the available vaccines don’t offer 100% immunity to COVID, the odds of two vaccinated people contracting the disease and passing it on are far, far lower than the risk of being killed in a car crash… and yet we get in cars and drive every single day without thinking about it. We take what steps we can to mitigate and minimize those risks and then measure the potential risk vs. the reward. Most of the time — such as with driving — we decide that the reward is at least worth the risk. There are no guarantees in this world, so everyone has to decide just what level of risk they’re cool with. If you want to date, then getting your shots and only dating other fully vaccinated people is gonna be part of how you manage those risk levels.

And in the meantime, if you can’t be intimate at your place or your date’s, look into AirB&Bs or apps like HotelTonight. While you may not be able to be as spontaneous as you would be if you had your own place, you’ll still have access to places where you and your special lady can go and have yourselves a romantic evening together.

Good luck.

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