DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: It occurs to me to write for your input because of both of your interests as a nerd and a (former) PUA. For many, those two interests don’t go hand-in-hand, yet you seem to have found a comfortable balance.

So here is my trouble. I have many different hobbies, interests, and values that can group me into many different categories: jock, nerd, metalhead, hippie, cat-lady, clubber, crafter. Now, I feel that as I grow and develop, I am learning how to find balance and I happily pre-game for hockey with a Bud Lite, while dancing to bubblegum pop as I pick out fabrics for my next quilt (really, I have done this on a Friday night). However, I am finding it difficult to find people who can share all of these interests with me.

Of course, I don’t expect to find anyone else who enjoys the same mix that I do. The problem is that while interests can be a common ground for bonds, it can also be divisive. For instance, friends that I met in school for my Environmental Studies degree (hippies) do NOT listen to metal. They actually make fun of me for it. In a friendly way, but aside from telling them I listen to metal, I can never actually talk about it with them. This makes my social life exhausting and incomplete. I can never be my full self with any one of my friends. I have to always be aware of who I am with and how we are friends, and tailor my actions accordingly.

Therefore, my question to you breaks down to two parts:

1. Given that I currently have many awesome friends whom I love and respect, how can I start to act more fully myself? Is there a gentle way I could break them in? For instance, find a way to share my passion for quilting with my hockey teammates after a game, and NOT get laughed out of the bar?

2. How do I meet new people who will be more open to someone with so many identities? Do I just keep on keeping on, making friends at each different activity, and hopefully find the random few people cool enough to enjoy the whole me?

Then there is the solution that I will never find anyone who is open to all of my interests. That social awareness is a good thing, and I should hone my ability to have appropriate conversations according to other people’s interests. Like maybe, the guy at the club doesn’t want to hear about how cute my cats looked snuggling together, and he definitely doesn’t want to see the pictures. That could be good awareness, on my part. Or do I show the pictures anyway, and if he has a problem, I’ve selected him out of my dating pool?

This might seem like I’m a myriad and interesting person. But I’ve found that people only want interesting to a point, and then they no longer identify with you. I just want to be able to stop censoring myself because I feel like it’s the only way to keep from aliening others.

Thanks!

-Feeling Two-Faced

DEAR FEELING TWO-FACED: I’m not entirely sure I’m seeing a problem here, FTF. I mean, what I’m seeing is that you’re a well-rounded individual who has diverse interests and tastes. This is a good thing. The big issue is how you’re looking at it.

Have you ever heard of the Geek Social Fallacies? These are social misconceptions that are especially prevalent in the geek community – mostly because of the way that we’ve seen friendship portrayed in various forms of media. Right now, you’re basically evidence of a 6th Fallacy: friends are all into the same things in equal proportion. This is comes up a lot more often than you’d think; we tend to think that people should be all things to us and be able to share everything together. The problem is that people – like you – are complex and have varied identities. With anyone you’re going to be friends with, you’re going to have some interest overlap – those commonalities are part of how we make friends after all –  but you’re also going to have differences. Even your your closest bae or BFF isn’t going to be a perfect circle on a Venn diagram; you’re both always going to be into things that the other just doesn’t grok.

You’re looking for someone who’s into all the exact same things you’re into… and unless you happen to find a mad scientist with an interest in cloning, people who are exactly as into the things you’re into is pretty thin on the ground.

(And honestly, if Orphan Black has taught us anything, it’s that clones tend to go off and do their own thing, no matter what the original donor was like.)

But that’s not a design flaw, that’s a feature. One of the keys to a successful long-term relationship – platonic or romantic – is having interests outside of that relationship. You are complex, you contain multitudes, and no single person is going to match up with those multitudes perfectly. So it’s totally cool that you have friends who are interest-specific. There’s nothing wrong with having friends that you can geek out over Ronnie James Dio albums and argue about whether the Kevin Smith revival of Masters of the Universe on Netflix is a tribute or insult to the original, and other friends that you go bootie-shake to some top-40 and still others that you meet up with at a Maker Faire and try to find new and inventive uses for a 3D printer. You’re not being fake or not being your true self around them, not unless you’re actively pretending that you don’t have these other sides of you. You’re absolutely being yourself – you’re just indulging in one particular aspect over the others. Your hippie friends are no less your friends because they don’t like to throw up the horns and rock some Slayer.

Let me give a personal example: in my circle of friends, I’m one of the few guys who’s ever been into anime outside of Hayao Miyazaki movies. They’ve given me playful s--t for it over the years (anyone who listened to The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen may remember Harris’ Anime Corner), but they totally respect that I like it, even if they don’t. I may not geek out over Psycho-Pass with them, but I would with my friends who are into anime. One of my friends does a wrestling podcast. I’m not into wrestling, so I don’t listen to it, but I do geek out with him over mutual unironic love of b-movies.

Now if you are feeling like you have to repress certain sides of you when you’re with them – not just “not focusing on it” but actively denying that it exists – then you have a problem. See, our friends and lovers don’t have to be 100% into the same things we are, but they do have to at least respect our interests and passions if the relationship is going to work. So if your hockey buds are mocking and insulting you – as opposed to playful ribbing – for being into quilting or loving cute cat pictures, then you should seriously ditch them like a warm beer and finding better friends.  If people don’t respect that you have this wide and varied identity, then they’re not people you want to associate with. Again, from my personal life: back in the early days of my time in the PUA community, I would occasionally go hit the bars with someone who thought my being a geek was going to make sex vanish into thin air and would rag on me for liking comics. Since he wouldn’t accept an “agree to disagree” armistice, I quit hanging out with him. I didn’t need someone who thought that that side of me was something shameful that I needed to pretend didn’t exist.

But hey, just because somebody’s not in to the exact same things you’re into doesn’t mean you can’t talk about them. One of the best things you can do is simply explain why you like the things you like. What do they mean to you, why do they make you happy, what do you get out of them?

Don’t censor yourself. If you feel like you have to, then you’re hanging out with the wrong people. Friends respect you as a whole person, even if they don’t dig everything you’re into. Be your authentic self. People who can’t handle it have self-selected out of your pool of friends or potential lovers.

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’d love some advice on a little bit of an embarrassing situation. I feel in crush with a Twitch streamer over quarantine. I realize that the relationship (not really a relationship) is completely one-sided and parasocial, though he knows my Twitch identity and the details about that identity that I’ve divulged in Twitch chat and Discord. He’s not too big of a streamer (recently about 20-50 views a stream at a time) but he is professional.

I’m actually on the older side (I’m 26 y/o and he’s 25) and am used to going for things that I want without fear of rejection. I want to confess my crush at some point because I feel like not doing so would always give me a small sense of remorse. There will also be a “what if” in the back of my mind. I know I will get rejected because he is a professional streamer, and he literally just doesn’t even know me. Not to mention that I can’t even envision a future in the possibility that he would be remotely curious (we live in different states and are still navigating our careers). But still, I want to confess my crush at some point.

If I should do it, I’m not sure what my best ask would be? A request for an online date conducted on Zoom? A request for a date if he is ever in my state? Or should I be waiting for an opportunity to meet him in person? Or should I use DM’s to see if he might be receptive to more casual chatting not in the context of a public Twitch chat?

Would love to know what you think!

Best,

Hopeless Online Admirer

DEAR HOPELESS ONLINE ADMIRER: I see it’s that time of year again.

Every so often, I get letters from folks who have developed a one-sided crush on a celebrity — whether it’s a podcaster, Twitch streamer, YouTuber, porn star or someone from TV, movies and so-on. The problem is… well, like I said, they’re all one sided. This is what’s known as a parasocial relationship — that is, a one-sided relationship born out of feeling like you’re connected to someone because you’ve consumed so much of their content that you feel like you know them personally. This is an issue that is practically older than steam; as long as there’ve been celebrities, there’ve been folks who’ve developed one-sided, even borderline obsessive crushes on them. Silent film stars like Rudolph Valentino had people proposing marriage to him in letters. Hell, the term “Liztomania” was coined in 1841, when composer and conductor Franz Lizt’s fans would mob him in hopes of getting hair, bits of clothing and even his backwash from his coffee.

And this was in a time when mass communication was next to non-existent. With the advent of the Internet and social media, we all are mere clicks away from talking to and interacting with our favorite celebrities and content creators; hell, these days, you can have some of your favorite lower-tier celebrities send you a personalized message through services like Cameo or enter charity auctions to hang out with them.

But while Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et. al may allow you to have contact with some of your faves, there’s still a certain level of remove between you and them; after all, who knows if that’s actually Mark Hammil posting to his Twitter account or his social media person?

(Yes, I know Mark’s pretty hands on with his social media accounts; I was pulling a name at random.)

The modern forms of celebrity — and the way that content creators are encouraged and incentivized to interact with their audience — however, blurs the lines considerably. There are powerful financial reasons for creators, actors, musicians and the like to foster a sense of community and connection with their fans. This not only helps solidify the connection the fan feels to the creator’s work — helping encourage them to be a long-term fan — but also to create a sense of familiarity, even investment in that person and their works. It’s one thing to ask someone to buy your content; it’s another to encourage them to subscribe to your Patreon or OnlyFans or what-have-you because it offers them greater access to you and fellow fans.

(…I say while very pointedly not looking at my Patreon or Ko-Fi accounts and coughing awkwardly.)

Livestreaming, likewise, blurs the lines between fan and creator. These are times when you often are interacting directly with your favorites — you may even get direct shoutouts from them or replies to your comments in the chat. And, again, this helps create a sense of connection between you and your favorite streamers… one that often helps spur on that sense of “we have a connection”.

Except… honestly, you don’t. Part of what makes something a parasocial relationship is that it’s inherently one-sided and — critically — a fantasy. You don’t actually know that person; you have only seen so much of what is a carefully curated part of their lives that you feel like you know them and have a connection with them. It’s a feeling that — deliberately or not, calculated or not — is encouraged by the nature of the medium and how creators support themselves in this day and age.

And unfortunately, this leads to a lot of inadvertent heartbreak when folks realize that their inconvenient and unrealized crush is exactly that: unrealized. And likely to stay that way.

Now in your case, HOA, there’s a level of self-awareness here. You’re aware that yes, it’s one-sided. Yes, it’s completely parasocial. Yes, he’s aware that you exist in as much as you are a regular in his streams and he recognizes your username. You’re also aware that he’s gonna say “um… thanks” at best.

That doesn’t actually change the math on this.  In fact, in some ways, it makes things worse.

Here’s the thing: being aware that what you’re doing is a bad idea and doing it anyway doesn’t magically make it a good idea. It’s just a bad idea compounded by your choosing to ignore the warning signs and barreling headlong into the “find out” half of the equation. And, speaking as someone who has friends and acquaintances who have various levels of celebrity and who’ve dealt with fans having crushes on them… it’s almost always uncomfortable as s--t. In fact a number of folks have talked about how uncomfortable and awkward it was to find out that people they  matched with on dating apps turned out to be fans. There really isn’t a good way to say “thanks but no thanks”, especially publicly, to a fan that isn’t going to make things feel painfully weird.

Rather than asking “what’s the best way to tell them,” I think it’s better to ask yourself what the point of telling them is, especially with the knowledge that it’s not gonna go anywhere. This feels a lot less like “shoot your shot and see what happens”  so much as “well, this will guarantee that senpai will notice me,” and getting that extra bit of validation of knowing that your fave now knows exactly who you are. And if that’s the case… well,  honestly, that’s not a great look on anyone.

But even if that’s not the case and it really is the “look, it’s a one in a million shot but people DO win the lottery,” well… considering how uncomfortable this tends to make people, I’m still pretty firmly on the side of “nope”. Going through with it with the full understanding of just how this tends to make folks on the receiving end feel is kinda selfish at best.

And honestly? That feeling that “well, if I don’t, I’m always gonna wonder?” I am here from the future to tell you that in this case, throwing away your shot won’t be one of the great regrets of your life. Odds are that the feeling of “but what if…” is going to fade into the background faster than you can imagine, especially after the inconvenient crush on your fav fades and becomes vaguely remembered cringe.

Do yourself a favor: put your energy towards meeting someone else. Someone who actually lives close by, who’s looking for a relationship and — importantly — who actually knows you and wants to date 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: I recently met a man on a dating site. He’s younger but I think I’m over that part. When we first started talking, when I asked his last name it sounded familiar and I asked if he had relatives near where my son lives. I mentioned my son’s name, and he said he knew him and his wife. And one of his grandkids went to school with my grands.

Fast forward to more intimate talks. Namely, a three way. After his divorce he had one. Not a problem for me, anything before me is none of my business. It’s who he had it with that is my problem. It was with my son and my daughter-in-law. So I’m having a BIG problem with that. Shocked isn’t the word for it. I would have thought they were the most vanilla sex people I could think of. According to the new guy they are on several hook-up sites, etc.

I haven’t seen them since I found out, that is going to be hard. I’m not bringing it up but just knowing is going to be strange.

Now back to the guy. I’m beginning to really like him. But how do I have a relationship with someone that slept with my family? We have agreed that the subject never comes up again. I’ve been a widow for 3 years, I’ve had a few dates in the last year but this is the only one that seems like it might go beyond dating.

Stuck In The Middle With Ew

DEAR STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH EW: Alright, let’s address a couple issues right off the bat.

First, if this situation seems familiar it’s not just because “banging my son/daughter’s partner” is a popular theme in porn but also because recently Dan Savage fielded a question regarding a man discovering that his boyfriend had a threesome with his parents and wasn’t sure how to deal with it. So apparently this is a thing…

Second, my standard position for potential fake letters and scenarios is simple: I’m not terribly worried about them. While yes, there are folks who use advice columns or subreddits for creative writing exercises (or to get their jollies), most fake letters are pretty self-obvious. Of ones that “get through”, my feeling is that if there is potential utility for my readers that can be taken from reading a letter that may or may not have actually happened, then there is value there, regardless of whether the author is sitting back going “gotcha!” And, just by virtue of the nature of advice columns, most letters sent in are theoretical exercises for the rest of the readership anyway, regardless of the objective reality of the events depicted.

Now with those out of the way, there seem to be two issues at play here.

The first is dealing with the shock of finding out things about family members that you may well have preferred not knowing. I’m of the opinion that one of the most important gifts you can give family members is the gift of Not Knowing S--t You Don’t Need To Know. There are a lot of things that people in general don’t need to know about the lives of their parents or of their children, especially when it doesn’t directly involve folks not involved. Now for a lot of people, this is an area with a lot of nuance. Knowing that your family member is polyamorous or involved in a poly triad, for example, is one where it may be useful knowledge. It makes it easier to understand family dynamics, realizing your baby isn’t cheating on their partner (or being cheated on) and could well involve issues like notifications, next of kin or powers-of-attorney in the event of emergencies. On the other hand, it can also be an issue if one’s family is hostile to anything other than strict orthodox monogamy and heterosexuality.

However, “your child and their partner are kinksters” is almost always a “S--t You Don’t Need To Know” and often will be “S--t You’re Happier Not Knowing”. These are things that don’t involve or require that parents (or children, for that matter) to be aware of and, in most cases, involve things that parents or children would prefer not to have in their heads. Even sex-positive folks don’t necessarily need to or what to know what their kith and kin get up to behind closed doors; being cool with their choosing to do so isn’t the same as knowing about it.

Unfortunately in this case — and for once, through no fault of the letter-writer’s own — you’ve found out things about your son and daughter-in-law that you’d rather not know. Unfortunately, as far as their sexual proclivities go, this isn’t something you can unknow, without sci-fi technology, experimental brain surgery or big sips of Unsee Juice. However, the good news is that this fundamentally changes nothing for you or for them; it’s not something that affects your relationship with them, nor is it something that’s inherently harmful or negative in their lives. If anything, it’s apparently a net-positive for them; having sexual adventures in their lives is actually good for the strength and longevity of their relationship. So while you have been burdened with extremely cursed knowledge, you can, at least, recontextualize it into “this is something that enhances their lives and makes their relationship better and so good for them.”

And then stuff that particular awareness as far down the memory hole as you possibly can.

Now, as for your new beau… well, if I’m being honest, this all comes down to lines and what lines can and can’t be crossed for you. This is going to have to be a very personal matter and one that can be difficult to untangle for folks. It’s an area where it’s kind of difficult, if not impossible, to have a universally applicable stance. To give an example: I am firmly on the record as saying that “you don’t get to call dibs on other people”, which includes dictating who can and can’t date your ex, your friends’ exes, your siblings, etc. However, I, personally, would find dating someone who also banged immediate blood relatives of mine to be a step too far. Having a sex-partner in common with folks you may know socially is one thing; having one in common with family reaches a level of “um… yeah, not for me” that I have a very difficult time imagining being cool with. Especially if said family members were my parents or (theoretical, non-existent) children. That’s a moment when crossing the streams seems like a great way to induce full-protonic reversal.

So, unfortunately, I don’t really have an answer for you in this case. The potential for things going Real Goddamn Bad when — not if, but when — your son and daughter-in-law learn about your new prospective boyfriend seems higher than what I would consider an acceptable level of risk, especially if you, your son and daughter-in-law don’t have the kind of relationship where you can talk frankly and openly about sexual experiences. It would also involve being able to compartmentalize the s--t out of things so that everyone involved (with, apparently, the exception of your match) can deal with the “I Don’t Want This Image In My Head” factor which is, likewise, pretty goddamn high.

If you and they are able to sit down and actually talk things through and get to a place where this won’t be a barrel of squick for everyone involved… well, blessings on you all. My personal feeling on the matter is that there’re thousands upon thousands of other eligible singles out there, and most of them won’t be looking to “complete the set”, as it were. As lovely as I’m sure this guy is, there’re others out there who are equally as awesome and haven’t had threeways with your immediate family. I’d recommend finding one of them.

Good luck.

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