Doctor’s Note: Today’s letter deals with discussions of self-harm.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I don’t know how to explain this, so I’ll give some background. I’m a 25 guy who never kissed a girl or held hands and so on. I’ve been rejected all my life and in many mean ways, always being told I was too ugly, hideous, disgusting, etc. Of course that hurt me a lot back then and destroyed what left of my confidence and hope that maybe someday someone would like and love me. Now I can imagine myself trying to approach someone again, because I’m scared to death that they will say something like that again and I don’t want to bother them if I’m just not good enough.

That’s normal I guess and I would be somewhat ‘fine’ if I just never tried again talking to girls in a romantic way. However, for some reason I keep repeating myself those words and phrases and keep hurting myself emotionally. I tell myself ‘you’re hideous, no one will ever love you’ or ‘you’ll never get a girlfriend and you’ll die alone’ or ‘why you’re so ugly? kill yourself’ and so on. Or, for instance, at night I listen to romantic or some songs that remind me about girlfriends, love and relationships and I search ‘cute couples’ on google images and I spend hours crying and feeling awful and depriving myself of a good sleep (and the next morning, when I’m sleepy at work, I feel even worse for wasting time on that). Sometimes I go as far as texting myself awful things, just to make me cry.

I don’t know how or when I got this habit, but it’s something I deal on a daily basis. I’m going crazy? I’m just broken? This is a side-effect of my loneliness and being unlovable? I don’t know what to do. I can accept and being ok with people being mean to me, maybe I deserve it, but why on earth I hurt myself?

Bad To Me

DEAR BAD TO ME: Hoo boy. This is one of those times where I need to remind folks that Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor, and when you’re dealing with forms of trauma and self-harm — even emotional self-harm — you’re better off talking to a mental health professional.

But look: you’re here, you’re asking me and you’re clearly in pain. So hopefully this will help you get some clarity and get you to a place where you actually go to a therapist.

What you’re doing here is a form of emotional self-harm. It’s like psychic cutting, in a way. A lot of folks who engage in physical self-harm will tell you that doing so gives them a sort of release or euphoria immediately afterwards. Some do so because they’re emotionally numb and they’re trying to feel anything, or they’re trying to release emotional tension. Some will tell you that their harming themselves is because it’s a way of communicating or expressing themselves, usually because they are feeling incredibly strong or intense emotions that they don’t feel that they can express in any other way. Still others do it as a form of control; they feel powerless in their lives, but they’re able to affect their world in this small way… even though it is literally hurting them.

And some do it to punish themselves. They don’t feel like they’re good enough, that they’re “worthy”, or because they’ve committed some egregious “sin” or made some mistake that they don’t feel they can undo, fix or atone for.

I strongly suspect you’re the latter.

You’ve said that you were rejected in cruel ways by people, possibly bullied by them as well. At the risk of making it sound like I’m over-inflating things, that sounds like it was traumatic for you — especially if it’s still affecting you to this degree. Now what you don’t say is when this happened — what age you were, whether this was middle school, high-school, college, etc. Considering that you’re 25, you say this was “all your life” and that it was especially cruel… well, I’m guessing this was likely high-school. And considering how high-school can be, especially in the age of weaponized social media and mass communication… yeah, that s--t can be really goddamn intense.

For all that would-be tough guys like to mask their own emotional wounds with bravado and toxic bulls--t, bullying can be traumatic. It can leave scars — physical and emotional — that can stay with us for a long, long goddamn time. And teenagers are, in a lot of ways, the most vicious because being a teenager is one of the most f--ked-up times in our lives. Everyone’s confused and feeling off-kilter all the time because their bodies are in flux, they’re in a state of trying to figure out who the f--k they are, how societies and relationships work, trying to figure out their place in the world and make decisions that they’re told, over and over again, will affect the course of the rest of their lives. The adults in their lives are often of no use, especially if you’re someone who stands out from the norm — particularly if you’re LGBTQ or neuroatypical — because their own bulls--t and prejudices mean that they either don’t know how to help or won’t.

And unlike when I was a high-schooler, lo more years ago than I care to think, at least s--t at school would stay at school. It’s capacity to follow you home was next to nothing. Now the folks who torment you are able to reach you wherever you are, at any time.

Oh, and it’s also supposed to be the best time of their lives.

Now the tricky thing is that part of growing up and maturing means learning to let go of the past. Not pretending that the past didn’t affect you, but learning how to not let the folks who hurt you keep occupying space in your head, rent-free. In an ideal world, we recognize that the folks who most abused us were s--tbirds and that life is too damn short to give any remaining brain cycles to what assholes think.

(OK in an ideal world this wouldn’t be necessary, but you take my point.)

You learn to make peace with your past self, recognize that your scars mean that you’re a survivor and realize that living well and never giving them another moment of your time is the best revenge. You clean up, you heal and you remember that they don’t get to define you. But the problem a lot of people have is that learning how to reject their reality and substitute your own means that first you have to reject it. And that can be really goddamn hard.

It gets a lot harder if you’ve internalized it and — worse — validated their beliefs by adopting them yourself.

And I think that’s what you’ve done, BTM. I think you’ve taken on their bullying — not rejection, bullying — and internalized it. You, at some point and some level, decided that they must be right. Rather than saying “f--k you, f--k your friends and f--k your thoughts with a big s--tty stick,” you took those beliefs and made them your own. That’s, unfortunately, not uncommon. A lot of victims of bullying or abuse will internalize what their abusers say and blame themselves for the abuse. It’s f--ked up, but it’s a perverse way that people will try to protect themselves. They don’t want to believe that they’re someone who would be abused, or that people could hurt them like this and so they take the responsibility into themselves.

I strongly suspect this is what happened to you, BTM and why you continue to hurt yourself emotionally. It may be about punishing yourself for being abused by them and not standing up for yourself, or it may be that part of you took their bulls--t on, but either way: you’re continuing the abuse by hurting yourself. You’re punishing yourself for the sins of others, sins that were inflicted on you.

And unfortunately, just knowing this doesn’t fix it. Emotional and psychic injuries are harder to heal and take longer, especially when they’re part of a negative pattern in your life that you keep reinforcing. But as I’m often saying: harder isn’t the same as impossible. And while healing isn’t always quick, the sooner you start the process, the sooner you start to get relief.

The first thing you should do is address the symptom; it’s hard enough to heal when you keep reopening the wounds. Dealing with the intrusive thoughts and behaviors is likely going to be the first step. As the old joke goes, if it hurts when you go like this, then stop doing that. Cognitive behavioral therapy is especially useful for dealing with frightening, painful or obsessive intrusive thoughts. Self-directed exercises, like ones available at Mood Gym can go a long way towards helping get those thoughts under control.

However, it’s important to note that while this is a start, it’s not a substitute for therapy. And let’s be clear: this is the sort of thing that you should be talking to a real doctor about. Finding a therapist, especially someone who’s good with intrusive thoughts and self-harm is going to be vital for unpacking and unwarping the s--t that your bullies did to you. You’ve got some wounds that’ve never fully healed, and it seems like there’s debris and infection to boot. To let those wounds finally close, you’re gonna have to debride the wounds and clear the infected tissue. That’s not fun, and it can be a process. But it’s also a necessary one.

But one of the most powerful and important things you can do is to take away your bullies’ power to hurt you. And to do that… you need to forgive yourself. You’re continuing to punish yourself for things that were done to you. They weren’t done because you deserved them, nor were you bullied because you somehow brought it upon yourself. You weren’t targeted because you were lesser or repulsive or what-have-you. You were bullied and abused because people can be cruel and because people will lash out at others in order to secure their own status in a chaotic and turbulent world. They weren’t right, they weren’t justified, and they weren’t telling the truth. They were hurting you for the sake of hurting someone.

It’s time for you to stop carrying their bulls--t for them. And to do that, you forgive yourself. You forgive yourself for giving them validity. You forgive yourself for the things that you think you could have done but didn’t; that wasn’t your fault, but it’s something you’ve clearly taken upon yourself anyway. So you forgive yourself for what you didn’t do; you made the best choices you could at the time, even if you wish you’d done things differently now. You forgive yourself for taking their bulls--t onboard, so that you finally have permission to toss it all aside. And you forgive yourself for the ways you’ve been hurting yourself since. You were hurting and you directed that hurt inward and caused more harm… but you can stop now. You can let it all go. You just have to forgive yourself so that you can give them all the double middle-finger as you walk backwards into a better life.

A life where you don’t punish yourself for the misdeeds of others. A life where you allow yourself to love yourself the way you deserve to be loved. And a world where you throw aside the words and jibes of assholes, because life is too goddamn short to give even a second’s consideration to the opinion of assholes.

And then, as you’re cleaning off your mental slate… hie thyself to the therapist’s office.

It’s time to cleanse the wound and let the healing begin.

You’ve got this, BTM.

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: Long-time reader, first-time writer. I have the privilege of teaching improv comedy for a living. My students are all adults. Sometimes I get a vibe that a student might be interested in me, and sometimes I find a student attractive. I’ve always been wary of pursuing anything with a student as I’m aware there’s a power-dynamic, even though we’re all adults and the subject matter requires playful teaching. Also, I don’t want to complicate a happy client relationship.

However, these classes also tend to be an intense bonding experience, and with being a parent it’s not like I have tons of time for other activities where I can meet people.

So my question is this: at what point would it be alright to express personal interest in a student, and how? After the class is over?

Thanks,

Making It Up As I Go Along

DEAR MAKING IT UP AS I GO ALONG: Alright, MIUIGA, this one’s tricky.

The idea of power dynamics and power differentials is one that gets thorny very quickly, in part because… well, the definitions and ideas about how they change and influence relationships gets twisted up very quickly. One of the biggest reasons why power dynamics can cause problems is when they can be used to manipulate or pressure people into doing things they don’t want to do. A teacher, for example, often has direct influence over their student’s future; they could use the promise of better grades (or the threat of poor ones) as a way of pushing a student into a sexual relationship. Even if it’s not overt, the dynamic is still there; the student could feel the need to do things they might not otherwise consent to because they feel like refusing might negatively affect their grades, even if their teacher didn’t say anything.

Similarly, part of the reason why we have age of consent laws is to prevent unscrupulous people from trading on the inexperience or immaturity of minors. Even when the relationship is seemingly consensual or based on mutual attraction, a lot of people in their teens don’t have the maturity to be an equal partner or have the experience to be able to judge whether a particular relationship is good or bad for them. Nor, for that matter, are they as likely to be able to advocate for themselves, maintain necessary boundaries in the face of pressure from their partner or other be able to extricate themselves from the relationship. The case of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau is a great example of how this can play out. For all that people make it out to be that Fualaau was “lucky” and how they were “in love” this is a story of a woman who continually pushed herself into a 13 year old boy’s life, who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and who would ignore restraining orders and demand that he let her see him. That’s the sort of pressure that a 13 year old is very susceptible to, and unlikely to be able to push back against.

Now in the case of a teacher and student in an improv class… well, that’s a little different. To start with, as you said: everyone’s an adult and presumably fully capable of standing up for themselves and agreeing to do things even though it might be a bad idea. On top of that, most improv classes aren’t exactly a graded experience. One rarely “fails” an improv class, nor does one need a passing grade to advance or further their academic career.

However, a lot of improv classes are part of a series; you have to take level 1 to take level 2 and so on. Plus, many are often tied to specific troupes; classes with The Groundlings or the Upright Citizens Brigade, for example, are often taken with an eye towards hopefully graduating to becoming a member of the troupe. This is especially true for groups like UCB, which are often a launching pad to a career in comedy and show business. So in those cases, there is a distinct level of power or influence that comes into play; the teachers there do have a direct influence on what may or may not happen in the student’s future.

(And while yes, relationships happen and people in the scene will use sex or the offer of sex in hopes of influencing others — teachers and students alike — the potential for squickiness is high.)

But power dynamics aren’t the only consideration here. You may not teaching classes that’re seen as being the first step in getting cast on Saturday Night Live, there’s the simple issue of comfort. Even if these are classes that a person is taking on a lark or because they want to sharpen their social skills, the teacher flirting with them or hitting on them has the potential to make things feel awkward and uncomfortable. They didn’t sign up to find a partner or to get laid, they signed up because they want to learn improv. And there’s also the matter of the improv scene being relatively small and insular; if word gets around that one of the teachers was hitting on the students, that can negatively affect the classes and the program, even if it’s otherwise on the up and up.

There are other complicating factors as well. As you said, the fact that it can be an intense experience, which means feelings might feel stronger or deeper than they actually are. That can make a minor crush or passing attraction feel much more than it is… only to have it deflate when the experience is over. So while that’s not necessarily an ethical complication, it is something to keep in mind. Part of the reason why so many actors and celebrities hook up while working together and break up soon after the project is done is because of that amplification effect. And that effect can also make it a little trickier to judge mutual interest; it runs the risk of being dickful thinking on steroids.

So with all of this in mind, my general opinion is that this runs a little too close to functionally sticking your junk in a beehive. Whatever rewards you’re likely to find are drastically counterbalanced by, y’know, getting the s--t stung out of your junk. If this were something that you were to actually pursue, I think your best option would be to let your student make the first move after the class is over and you’re no longer their teacher. While this may well mean that a student who’s interested won’t make a move for fear of being turned down, at the very least it keeps the current status quo and doesn’t negatively affect the class, your reputation or any client relationships.

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: whenever I’m out and see someone that I like, the three man things that come to my head are:

1. “She probably been asked out by many guys, better not bother her like the others”

2. “She is just being nice and I’ll just make it weird, better not bother her”.

3. “I read that it’s unacceptable to ask someone out in this location, better not bother her”

I unfortunately have Aspergers Syndrome and never been in a relationship or had sex. Not that it makes me less of a person but I often feel undesirable which would be understandable due to my ASD. It never bothered until last year, I don’t know why. To be honest if there was a pill or a procedure that would get rid of my desire to be in a relationship/have sex I would take it instantly (unless they had a cure for autism of course).

I often read experiences as well as hear the women in my life say that they often get a lot of unwanted attention when in public which is understandable. I’m not scared of rejection, I’m scared of creeping someone out because people have called me that a lot when I was younger with my weird quirks. I tried online dating and made an effort with the profile, even showed my male and female friends but have little success. I would stop but I feel like it’s the only ethical way to date because at least most people are there with the purpose of hooking up or to get to a long term relationship.

I don’t want to date my friends because whenever I become friends with a woman, I immediately lose attraction and see them more as a sister and it seems weird and desperate to ask if they have single friends.

Work is off the table since I will be working in management and would be unethical and wrong to date coworkers. On top of that all my hobbies are solo/male dominated and wouldn’t feel right asking a woman out in those environments because they likely had many annoying guys approach them.

Fortunately I have improved and can talk to anyone platonically, over the years I managed to completely change my personality through a trial and error process so can (for lack of a better term) appear normal and act like a functional human being. I am doing well professionally and academically so I’m not completely defective.

I know that this sounds like one of those asking for permission to give up posts but I looked statistics that showed that ASD men are more likely to remain single and never be in a relationship (can’t remember source but it was from an official autism organization). Worst case scenario it’s not the end of the world if I never experience a relationship or have sex, I’ll keep trying but if I can change my personality then surely I can find ways to cope with this. I acknowledge that I am not entitled nor deserve a relationship/sex and it’s not on women to alleviate my insecurities that are insignificant in comparison to their daily experiences of harassment.

Thanks in advance,

Defective Homo Sapiens

DEAR DEFECTIVE HOMO SAPIENS: There’s a lot to parse here, DHS, but let’s put this one right up at the top: you’re not defective and you should stop describing yourself that way. Immediately.

To start with, this is a classic case of nominative determinism. You’re assigning yourself a label that doesn’t describe you or define you, but it does describe how you feel about yourself. The magicians of old were right: names have power, and what we name ourselves has the most power of all. The way you talk about yourself, the way you describe yourself, even the things you tell others about yourself… all of these things affect how you see yourself and how you see yourself changes how you see the world and interact with it. When you label yourself as “defective”, you’re telling yourself — and the world — that there’s something wrong with you, something broken at your very core and that’s unfixable by definition. You’d be a great person… except you’re “defective”.

Bull.

S--t.

This is very much in the same vein as people who make joke-y jokes at their own expense; occasional self-deprecating jokes are one thing but it takes very little before those go from being jokes to just describing yourself. Our brains tend to start to believe things we hear over and over again, and that includes the things we tell ourselves. You can only make so many comments about being a worthless piece of s--t before you start believing it about yourself. To paraphrase Vonnegut (badly): we become the things we describe ourselves as, and so we must be careful how we describe ourselves.

Second most of all: being autistic doesn’t make you defective, it doesn’t make you broken, it doesn’t make you lesser and it doesn’t make  you weird or creepy. Your brain works differently from other people’s and you may struggle with things that other folks seem to understand or grasp intuitively… but that doesn’t make you broken or defective, it just makes you different. Different isn’t bad, it’s just different; it makes you uniquely you. Normal isn’t the norm; it’s just the most common. Does being neurodivergent mean you’re going to have challenges other people don’t? Yes. It may — not will, but may — make it more challenging to date than it would if you were neurotypical… but a challenge is very different than impossible.

Now, you say that you’ve learned how to appear neurotypical to others — a process known as masking. For a lot of folks this can be a mixed blessing; while this can make it easier to function socially in a world that can be hostile to neurodivergent folks, many autistic folks find that masking is emotionally and mentally draining and it increases anxiety and stress. I think part of the problem, in your case, is that this may have reinforced your feeling that being autistic is defective or a condition that needs to be cured. It’s not, and believing that about yourself is a far greater problem than actually being autistic.

However, I want to point something out: if you’ve learned how to mask yourself like this, it demonstrates that you can learn other skills. Not, mind you, ones that hide or disguise that you’re autistic but ones that will help you navigate sex, dating and romance as an autistic person. Case in point: let’s look at the way your jerkbrain promotes your own anxiety with meeting women.

The examples you mention all seem to be in the context of a cold approach — that is, approaching someone that you have no personal or social connection to. So, a stranger waiting for the bus, for example, or walking down the street as she runs her errands. Like I’ve said before: that’s not how most people meet their partners. Most people meet their partners through shared activities and interests, through mutual friends and dating apps.

This is why it’s not desperate or weird to ask your friends for help. There’s nothing weird with saying “hey, I’m single and looking and dating apps are such a trashfire. If you happen to know someone who you think I’d click with, I’d love to meet them.” In fact, I’m willing to bet a lot of your friends would cheerfully help you out if they can. The only reason why people think it’s weird or desperate is because people have a self-limiting belief that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and it’s not. Nobody — not neurotypical folks or neurodivirgent folks — can reasonably expect to get what they need if they don’t ask for it. Hoping people will instinctively notice and volunteer their help unprompted just means that you end up waiting a long time.

Which is part of where the overemphasis on cold approaches becomes a serious drawback. While cold approaching is a valuable skill to cultivate and has applications beyond trying to get dates or get laid, people put far too much emphasis on its importance. Cold approaches tend to work best in context-sensitive conditions; that is, in places where it’s considered the norm to approach strangers, especially with an eye towards sex or dating. You (the general you, not you specifically, DHS) would have better luck cold-approaching someone at a single’s bar or a networking event specifically for people looking to meet folks to date.

However, there is an incredibly underrated skill that is related to cold approaches, and one that you could cultivate: simply talking to people. Starting conversations and seeing where they go. If you look around, you’ll find there’re opportunities to start brief conversations all the time. My favorite example is making small talk with folks standing around with you when you’re waiting for your coffee at Starbucks or Peet’s or your local coffeeshop. Making a general observation or comment will often prompt someone else to reply; respond to what they say and boom, you’re having a conversation. This doesn’t need to be long or involved, and that’s ok; it’s just an opportunity to practice getting comfortable talking to folks. Sitting at the counter at a restaurant or bar and making chit chat with the folks around you is another opportunity to practice talking to strangers. It’s low investment on everyone’s part; nobody is expecting this to mean anything or to lead anywhere, and if folks aren’t interested in talking… well, it’s no big deal, either. It takes more to weird folks out than you’d think, especially if you accept their disinterest with good grace. It isn’t even terribly embarrassing; you’re not going to see them again so hey, no harm, no foul.

But if things go well and you and the people you’re talking with hit it off, then hey, bonus! You take a moment and say “oh hey, I’m being rude; hi my name is…” and introduce yourself. You may have made a new friend — and if so, you can always ask if they want to connect on social media or invite them to connect with you — or you may have just had a good conversation with someone. And like the sage said: a conversation with a fascinating stranger is one of life’s great pleasures.

Developing this skill will serve you well in life on many levels; it will help you become more fluent in social signals and reading the scene, it will help you feel less awkward and uncomfortable in social situations and it’ll remind you that you’re an interesting and fun person. That will help you build your confidence and help you remember that being autistic doesn’t mean you’re weird or broken or defective. And building your confidence will help you learn that you don’t need to apologize for being who you are or acting like it makes you “off” somehow. You’re autistic, yes, and you live in a world that is unfriendly, even hostile to autistic people. But rather than trying to pretend you’re not autistic, it’s better to work with it and around it, so that you can understand and be understood. Being more confident, for example, will help empower you to actually ask for what you need. If, for example, you’re unsure about what someone means, it’s better for you to ask for clarification than to try to puzzle it out and hope you get it right. Likewise, you will feel more empowered to ask friends and partners to communicate with you in the way that you can understand.

That confidence will also go a long way towards helping you meet and date awesome women. Rather than suffering under blanket anxieties of creeping people out, you’ll feel better about just talking to folks without an agenda beyond getting to know them and seeing if they’re cool or not. After all, you don’t know anything about them except that you find them attractive. And while that’s great… that’s all you know. Just because they’re cute doesn’t mean they’re a good person or that they’re even your type. For all you know, their idea of fun is trolling people on Twitch or playing mailbox baseball or something. Talking to people and finding people interesting means that you put the focus on determining whether they’re right for you, rather than focusing all of your energy on worrying whether you’re “good enough” for some stranger you may never see again.

By that same token, this approach will help ease your worries about whether someone has been hit on by tons of guys. You’re not hitting on them; you’re just interested in meeting cool people. A lot of the folks you meet at your meetups or events, for example, aren’t there to find dates… but most of them are open to making new friends and talk to cool people. If you’re just enjoying the conversation for its own sake and you have no agenda, then it’s that much easier for you and them to be relaxed and authentic, to vibe and have a good time talking. If the conversation goes well and you think you’ve caught a vibe, you can say “hey, I’ve really been enjoying talking to you; would you be interested in grabbing a coffee next week?” If they aren’t, then all you have to do is say “Cool, no problem,” and continue to chat with them like you were before. In that case, you’re not some rando hitting on them like a creep. You’re someone who asked them out on a low stakes, low-investment date and took “no thank you” with grace and continued to be a good guy who’s fun to talk to.

Because here’s the thing: the randos who creep women out aren’t you. They’re guys who aren’t interested in her as a person; they’re shotgunning their interest and hoping something hits somewhere and she happened to be convenient. Their actions and behaviors indicate that she’s an object before she’s a person, and her personhood is often contingent on her returning their interest. A guy who isn’t cruising around like a horny shark, who is polite and a fun conversationalist is a very different beast.

So my advice for you is to reframe your situation. Start with changing how you describe yourself. You’re not broken, you’re not defective and you’re not inherently weird, creepy or what-have-you, and defining yourself like that only works against you. That definition of brokenness infects everything else. It’s why you believe that your interest in other people is an imposition, it’s why you believe that you’re doomed to singledom and it’s why you believe your wanting love and a relationship is something you need to eliminate. You’re different than the majority, sure… but different isn’t bad. It’s just different. You have challenges, yes, but again: challenges aren’t the same thing as impossible. And you’ve proven that you can take on and overcome other challenges already. The problem is that I think you may have taken on the wrong challenges or in the wrong way.

So instead of believing you’re broken, recognize you’re different and unique. Shift your emphasis from cold approaches to being comfortable talking to folks and being someone people like to talk to. That will go much further and have benefits in your entire life — professional, social and, yes, romantic.

You’ve got this, NON-defective Homo Sapiens

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