DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: An almost 28-year old man here with a lot on his mind he’s trying to get sorted out.

I have always been a hopeless romantic with a tendency to fall head-over-heels for women, especially those I feel compatible with and it really feels like it’s something I can’t control. It gets very frustrating thinking like this and then realizing I may never find the right woman for me. It’s a habit I’d really like to break because it’s very painful to want romantic love so bad and realize nobody may ever love you as much as you love them, if they even love you at all.

I am still a virgin who has never been in a mature, adult relationship for a variety of reasons. I never felt like it was the right time after I graduated college and did a series of temp jobs, and I had a serious mental illness that went undiagnosed for over a decade and led to a couple stays in the psychiatric ward before we could get me onto proper medication and treatment that has significantly reduced my symptoms. Even still I had to resign from my last two jobs because my illness interfered with my ability to work as part of a team or meet workplace standards.

As I write this, I am currently unemployed, having just resigned from my last job 5 days prior. I’m taking some time off to try and understand myself better so I’m not in a situation like this again where the symptoms of my illness are aggravated to such a point where I fly off the handle and hurt, scare, or offend my coworkers, even unintentionally. I’m trying to find a therapist to work through a lot of these issues with, but it’s so frustrating because they all seem to have no openings for new clients.

In the meantime, all I can think about is how I’m getting older, how women older than me (who I am open to dating) want someone more mature who is making money and is in a stable place in his life and how women younger than me probably want a man with more experience than I have to offer and may not want to date someone even a couple years older than they are .

I have tried to reframe my situation but I always seem to fall back in the same rut – “no woman I have feelings for will ever have feelings for me”, “I am past my prime/expired goods”, and “if a woman stays in a relationship with me, she will leave at the first sign of trouble/when she realizes how much baggage and trauma I carry”.

When I think about dating someone, thoughts like these fill my mind, and I know that having those thoughts could very well end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy because I might be more likely to date women who do act in those ways, leading to a vicious cycle.

And then, there’s another “issue”. I do not ever want to have children, and I would rather be single for the rest of my life than with a woman who wants kids. But I feel like childfree women are few and far between and likely have a more independent streak and no desire for a relationship. I don’t know very many childfree women, but that’s just the stereotype in my head.

All these things come together to create a lot of mental trouble for me. “You’re too needy”, “Why can’t you quit daydreaming of the perfect woman for you?”, “You’re damaged goods”, “You have too much against you and not enough for you”. And so it goes.

It’s not like I don’t have a good life. I have an amazing and supportive family and close friends. I travel and I am a photographer. I love animals, music (I am an avid vinyl collector and singer), road trips, and sampling as much food & drink as I can get my hands on. I consider myself an intelligent, kind, generous, thoughtful, and relatively mature person who does his best to treat others with dignity, respect, and love.

I have personal and professional goals and ambitions – chief among them to start my Master’s degree next year and eventually get my doctorate and become a college professor and mental health advocate & researcher. Personally, I want to get married, buy a house, build a man cave, and potentially foster and adopt cats and dogs.

It just feels like I’m starting out very late and with the fact I don’t want kids my dating pool is pretty low already, so I am also feeling a lot of pressure to pick the “right one” as quickly as I can.

So, If I had to sum up the main question of my piece that I’d like you to answer, it’s this: How can I reframe my situation and what actions can I take to make things better?

Very Respectfully,

The Virgin Murray

DEAR THE VIRGIN MURRAY: OK TVM, this is going to sound harsh, but this is very much a self-inflicted problem.

There are two things that are contributing to the issues you’re having.

The first is relatively simple: you’re putting far too much importance on what are ultimately transitory crushes on folks and rounding it up to love. What you’re feeling is what’s known as “limerence” — a sort of puppy-love that tends to be incredibly intense and include almost obsessive thoughts and fantasies of starting a relationship and having those feelings returned.

Now this is entirely understandable: you’ve rounded up love and romance to being both of dire importance and to being perpetually out of reach. So now, when you have a momentary infatuation on someone, often someone you know very little about, it becomes symbolic of both your desire and the impossibility of fulfilling it. In a very real way, falling for people you know won’t return your feelings becomes a sort of perverse self-preservation; you don’t feel like you’re worthy of love or that love is possible so you subconsciously choose people who are “safe”. People who won’t return your feelings or who you have minimal contact with.

The problem, of course, is that this sort of “protection” only tends to make the person being “protected” more miserable. But then again, our brains don’t care about our happiness; they only care about safety, predictability and reliability.

The second problem is that you — like so many others — are making assumptions about other folks based on your beliefs, not on reality. You’ve invented women in your head who reject you because you’ve convinced yourself that nobody could want you. And so, rather than actually talking to women or finding out what they want, you’re reacting to what you think they want.

It’s a trap entirely of your own making and one that only serves to reinforce your current status quo. And part of what makes this so difficult to escape is that these beliefs prioritize inaction. You aren’t putting yourself out there, talking to women, making connections and trying to find folks you might be compatible with. You’re creating scenarios — again, entirely in your mind — that are giving you reasons to not make progress. And as I’m so often saying: if you want things to be different, then you have to do things differently.

However, it sounds like part of the issue here is getting yourself in a place where you can date. If you’re currently dealing with symptoms that make it difficult to hold down a job, then treatment and management needs to be your top priority. It doesn’t do you any good to try to date if you’re dealing with severe emotional dysregulation on top of everything else.

You already know that. The difficulty you’re having is that rather than seeing this as “I’m getting myself into emotional shape” or “setting myself up for future success”, you’re framing this as “this is why I don’t deserve to be happy” and “I’m running out of time.” And neither of these are true. All of that is just the voice of anxiety speaking, your jerk-brain dripping lies and poison in your ear.

Because the truth is that no, you’re not running out of time. People fall in love and find relationships — even lose their virginity — late in life all the time. You don’t have a life crystal embedded in your hand that’s going to start flashing when you’re out of time, nor are you going to end up in a place where you’ll be excluded from dating because you didn’t have enough parters by age X. Trying to rush things or force the issue, however will screw you over, because it’ll exacerbate the problems you’re already having.

Instead I want you to think of it this way: slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Taking things carefully, getting yourself taken care of and in a good place may feel slow… but slow means that you’re doing things carefully and methodically, which will smooth out your way. And if you smooth out your path, then you’ll have fewer hang-ups, make fewer mistakes and create more opportunities for success, than you would if you try to bulldoze your way through in order to “beat the clock” as it were.

So rather than engaging your confirmation bias by looking up (inaccurate) numbers of women who are child-free or making up people to be rejected by, focus on yourself. You aren’t losing time, you’re making sure that you’re ready and in position to find love and affection. You are clearing away obstacles, setting yourself up for success and making sure you know what you want and what you aren’t willing to accept in a relationship.

Now, I get the frustration of trying to find a therapist and a psychiatrist, especially at a time where not only is the population at large dealing with PTSD and anxiety from COVID, but therapists are also dealing with PTSD and burnout. But frustrating isn’t the same as impossible; it just means that you may have to look a little further afield or think outside the box. You could, for example, find ways of dealing with those obsessive thoughts through some self-directed cognitive behavioral therapy, guided via apps like MoodGym. There are also a number of therapists and counselors who work with clients via Zoom, Skype or other forms of telehealth. Even organizations like Hims have started offering remote talk therapy, which can help give you structure and direction to getting your condition under control.

But again, the important thing to remember is that this isn’t “losing time” or “wasting time”, it’s “getting set up for success”. If you were to find the woman of your dreams today, you wouldn’t be in a good place to pursue things. But by making sure that you’re in mental and emotional shape, you’ll be putting yourself in a place where, when the opportunity arises, you’ll be ready, willing and able to take full advantage.

And trust me: it’s much better to wait to pursue something when you are actually in a position to do so than to try to force something when you aren’t ready. That’s how you end up in relationships that seem ok at first and quickly turn to something far less acceptable down the line.

So taking time to focus on yourself and your mental health is the best thing you can do for yourself. You’re doing the right thing and it’ll work out far better for you in the long run. Take care of yourself; love will be ready and waiting for you when you’re ready. There is, in fact, time enough for love.

You’ll be ok, TVM. I promise.

All will be well.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So let me preface this with: I think I’m pretty average. I know this and try REALLY hard to make conversations exciting and fun. I don’t get a lot of matches, so I try not to waste it with boring conversation. I have to prove I’m worth spending time with, right?

So I usually start my conversations with something fun and different, like wanting a domesticated raccoon in a support animal vest. Usually these conversations go for hours. Some have even lasted 3 days. I get pumped up, and excited. We talk about music festivals, hobbies and things we do for fun. Sometimes we’re literally messaging each other at the same time. Before we finish typing (you know, those little three dots saying someone’s typing).

Suddenly they’re gone. No more responses. I’ve showed friends my conversations and they all agree I never said anything weird or red flagged. It’s disappointing. And I’m usually bummed for an hour or two and shrug it off and move on.

Recently I messaged my friends that I was disappointed after a really great, highly engaged conversation about music went the way of the dodo. My friends and I messaged back and forth and I realized I was less hurt by being shot down and more hurt that they left me hanging. I can deal better with a flat out no, but leaving me on Read just irks me. 

My friends told me I’m asking too much for a close on a conversation. But I’ve always felt it’s impolite to just leave people waiting for a period on the conversation. We got in an argument. They all teamed up on me and, maybe they didn’t mean to, but it felt like an outright attack. I refuse to talk to them about dating now (they’re all happily in marriages and relationships). \

I feel lost. Like it’s not even worth trying anymore. I feel like a window of opportunity has closed on me since I have basically no more close friends who are single to go out with.

So I guess as a TLDR: 

1) Is there a place I can go where conversations might actually last? Am I asking too much for wishing people would end conversations like normal?

2) Where does one go to meet people when they’re the only single one in their circles? Do people go to bars alone? Is that weird?

Thanks in advance,

Tired of Flying Solo

DEAR TIRED OF FLYING SOLO: So, there’re a couple of things here, TFS.

The first is that if you’re consistently having conversations dry up, then the odds are good that part of the problem is that you’re taking too long to get to the dating part of “dating apps”. The point of talking to someone on a dating app is get the conversation off the app. Conversations and interactions have their own momentum, and NerdLove’s First Law is that emotional momentum fades… unless it’s acted on by an external force. That means that the longer you are chit-chatting on the app and not moving towards meeting in person, the greater the odds that the momentum and interest are going to bleed away. Especially if they’re also talking to other people on the app — folks who do ask them out on dates.

Your matches can’t go out on dates with you that you don’t invite them on TFS, so you have to make your move.

If you and your match are getting along well and having good conversations, then I highly recommend moving things along. Again, the first — and possibly easier — step is to just move the conversation off the app. This, at the very least, moves things up the intimacy ladder; it carries the implication that you’re moving towards actually meeting up in person and possibly going on a date.

The easiest way to make this happen is to say “hey, I’m really enjoying talking to you, but I find messaging on here to be frustrating/annoying/gets lost in the churn. Do you have Kik/WhatsApp/iMessage/whatever?” or “Hey, I’m probably deleting the app soon but I really like talking to you and I’d like to keep this going; I’d love to move this to text. My number is 555-55555…”

Similarly, you can also propose a pre-date date: that is, a brief meet up in person for coffee or ice cream or something. Again, the procedure for this is very simple: “Hey, I really like talking to you and I’d love to see if we’ve got chemistry in person too. I’ve got some free time between appointments/meetings/whatever; would you like to meet up for 15 minutes for coffee at the Starbucks of your choice and see if we get along?” This tends to be a relatively easy lift; in a worst case scenario, if you just don’t vibe or they aren’t who they presented themselves as, you’re out 15 minutes and the price of a grande coffee.

Now, the second thing is that yes, people just leave you hanging. It’s annoying, and it’s a pet-peeve for a lot of folks, but that’s life these days. While you can and should model the behavior you’d like to see or experience to others, ultimately, you have to to just roll with it. There really aren’t other options unfortunately; all you can do is just shake your head at it and roll on.

It’s also not worth taking personally; it happens to everyone, and it’s just part of the culture of online dating. If that’s something that drives you nuts… well, then maybe online dating isn’t for you. And hey, that’s valid!

Now as for your second question: yes, folks go to bars alone all the time. Nobody is going to notice that you’re rolling solo unless you call attention to it; people just aren’t paying that close attention to you or who you’re talking to.

However most people don’t meet their partners at bars or clubs. Most folks meet their partners either through shared activities like classes or hobbies, or through friends. And while your friends may be partnered up or married, that doesn’t mean that they can’t help you out.

First: your friends can still come hit the bars with you, even if they’re not on the hunt themselves. They can provide moral support or wing for you as needed, even if they’re not trying to get some themselves. But again: most folks don’t meet their partners at bars.

That’s why there’s a second, superior option: ask them if they’ve got any single friends that you’d get along with. Tell them that dating apps aren’t proving to be your thing and you’re looking to meet awesome folks, so if they know someone they think you’d vibe with, you’d appreciate an introduction. You can even host events — a barbecue, a house party, a backyard NERF war — that they can bring single friends to, so that it feels more organic and less “set-up-y”.

But again: you have to be willing to take the initiative here. Your friends may know you’re single, but unless you ask for what you need — in this case, help in meeting some sexy singles — they aren’t going to know that this is something you want.

Oh, and one more thing: your friends weren’t ganging up on you. They were just trying to tell you that conversations die on the vine and that’s just how folks roll these days. I get that you find it rude or kind of insulting… but it’s just how things are these days. Railing against it isn’t going to do anything other than get you worked up and more upset; the only thing you can do is accept it and try to be the change you want to see. So lead by example, TFS; maybe you can cause a new trend.

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: So I was in a relationship for 6 years. I had step-kids I love and I thought everything was going well. At least, until my now ex-fiancé decided to cheat on me with my 2 “best friends” and a girl he knew I didn’t like. I ended up leaving him, getting back with him a few weeks later, leaving again a year later for a year, and then going back for 4 months to leave him again. We are completely over now but I am left with SERIOUS trust issues and major self esteem issues.

Recently I started dating a friend I’ve known for a few years. I moved across country to be with him and we’ve been living together for about 7 months now. Because of the trust issues, I went through his phone and found out that he was on FB Dating. I confronted him and he deleted it. Or so i thought. He was previously in an 8 year long super toxic relationship too, so he has some issues from it.

I looked at his phone again and found him messaging several women on FB Dating AGAIN. I confronted him again and he said he was just “giving me something to find” since I want to be disrespectful and look thru his phone. But here’s the thing… If he never gave me a reason to be suspicious in the 1st place I wouldn’t have done it. And regardless, he’s still actually talking to other women and COMPLETELY disrespecting our relationship and me personally. And he’s doing it to play a game, basically. I don’t respect a liar or a cheater, but I feel like maybe that’s all I’m worth. I’ve always been cheated on so maybe there is something wrong with me… Maybe I’m not good enough to be loyal to.. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I am really sad. I’m very confused. I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted, and I could really use some advice. If I leave him, I don’t even have anywhere to go. I have no family here and I’m new here so all of my friends are his friends. Please try to steer me in some direction. Please! I’m so anxious and so lost.

I’m Just Not Worth It

DEAR I’M JUST NOT WORTH IT: Well, not gonna lie IGNWI, this didn’t go where I thought it was going to.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but honestly I’m not sure you shouldn’t just throw the entire suitcase out.

Before we get into it, I want to point out that my default stance is that snooping is always wrong. While I understand that you have deep-seated trust issues, and I’m entirely sympathetic to that, having trust issues doesn’t justify violating someone else’s privacy. Having trust issues is a “you” problem (that is, the generic “you”, not you, specifically, IGNWI), not a “them” problem; it’s on you to resolve those issues, not for other people to solve them for you or for them to manage them for you. So while your trust issues are entirely understandable… that’s something you should be working on during all of this.

Now, the thing about “snooping is always wrong” is that sometimes — not often, but sometimes — it can be justified in retrospect. Such as, say, when you find out that your partner in a monogamous relationship is messaging people on dating apps. And while there are people who will get on apps just because they like being reminded that hey, they’re sexy and desirable and get a charge from flirting with strangers they have no intent to see, finding that your partner is active on the apps does justify the snooping after the fact.

You caught him, he fessed up and deleted everything. Ok, that’s a start. This is, nominally, where he would need to start re-earning your trust and demonstrating that he’s worthy of it. But s--t goes entirely off the rails with what happens next: you caught him again. His excuse is “I’m giving you something to find” is… special. It’s also bulls--t. The idea that he’s only flirting with women in order to give you something to find is f--king absurd on its face. What exactly is the logic here: you’re worried he’s betraying your trust and so he’s going to resolve this by… betraying your trust? Potentially blowing up his relationship with you for a goof?

You’re not a bomb-sniffing dog, IJNWI; this isn’t an exercise to help keep your training sharp and get you a treat. This is someone who’s straight up lying to you in hopes of flipping the blame around on you. And quite frankly, even if he is 100% sincere and he really was just leaving something for you to find, then this is a deeply damaged relationship. That’s not the act of a guy who treats his relationship or his partner with respect.

So, frankly, I don’t think there’s really anything to save here. I think you’re going to be better off exiting this relationship at speed.

But before you do, I want to address a couple other things that come up in your letter. If I’m going to be honest, this isn’t a relationship that should’ve started in the first place — certainly not at the  “move several states to live with him” level, anyway. You may have known him for years, but you’ve been dating for seven months. Under your circumstances, that was just too soon for moving across country, never mind moving straight in with him. I’m a big believer that if you’re going to move to be with someone, you should get your own place for a while first, if only so you can establish yourself in your new city first. Having your own social network and base of support can be incredibly important, especially if you’re moving to a completely new city.

However, more importantly is the fact that you’ve already been through the wringer with your ex. Several times, even. While I don’t think every bad relationship merits talking to a therapist, the level of hurt your previous partner caused merits putting things on pause while you heal. Having deep trust issues is the sort of thing you should work on resolving before you get back out on the dating market, if only to avoid unnecessary pain and heartbreak.

And that’s part of what’s hitting you so hard right now; you’ve barely had any time for the previous wounds to scab over before your new partner ripped them open again. So I’m not surprised you’re feeling like you’re “not good enough to be loyal to”; you’ve gone from pain to pain with very little time to heal in between. That’s gonna do a number on a person.

But here’s the thing: you’re asking the wrong questions. The question to ask isn’t “why am I not good enough to be loyal to”, it’s “why are you letting toxic people stay in your life?” If you’ve been dating people who have cheated on you consistently, then you should be digging into why you date those particular guys. Not because it’s “your fault” that they cheated — it isn’t and you shouldn’t think that — but because if this happens so consistently, then the odds are that there’s something about them that draws you guys like this.

It may be a particular personality type that you vibe with, a need that’s going unfulfilled, or possibly even some self-sabotage going on. A lot of people — guys, gals and non-binary pals — will date people who are wrong for them or bad for them because they believe on some level that they “deserve” it or that they aren’t “worthy” of being happy. But as the saying goes: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action your subconscious sending you a message.

So I think right now, you need a three-fold plan of action.

First: dump the dude. Either he’s cheating (or getting ready to), or he’s playing stupid games, and deserves to win stupid prizes.

Second: hie thyself to the therapist’s couch. You’re carrying around a lot of pain and some pretty hefty scars, and you need to heal. Between your trust issues and the way this is making you feel, talking to a counselor or therapist should be a top priority. Your next serious relationship should be with yourself, while you heal and recover and get yourself to a place where you’re able to trust and to date someone with integrity and who treats you with respect. it’s much easier to find guys like that when you aren’t carrying around the burden of what previous, s--tty exes did to you. You deserve to be treated better — by future partners and by yourself.

This will also help you figure out what it is about these s--tty guys that drew you to them and either address it, or find ways to fulfill that need with guys who are actually worth your time and trust.

Third: if you’re going to stay in your new city, build yourself a life that’s entirely separate from your ex — or any future partners. Go out and make new connections, make friends and find things that speak to your soul. Find the things in your new city that make it your city, rather than the place where you got mistreated by your ex. Living well and leaving him in the dirt is the best revenge; it means that you’re not just leaving him behind but rising above. Thriving and having an amazing life where you never waste any more brain cycles on him is the best way to move forward.

And if you decide you’d rather move back, then hey! That’s completely valid too! But just keep in mind: this doesn’t mean that you “lost” or “failed” or “weren’t good enough”. You, like so many others, loved not wisely but too well, and you were hurt by someone who took advantage of your desire to trust again. You took a chance in good faith and your faith was misplaced. That’s not failure, that’s just another Crouching Good Guy, Hidden Douchcanoe, and they’re distressingly common.

I know things suck now, but they will get better. Get out of this relationship, get yourself a support crew of friends and take care of yourself mentally and emotionally. Everything will feel better in time and you’ll realize that your feelings of “not being worthy of being loyal to” are bulls--t that they’ve dumped on you. Guys cheating or treating you like s--t is about them, not you. And when you can learn this and internalize it, you’ll be in a better position to kick them to the curb where they belong.

Good luck.

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