Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Is it true that flirting and attraction are skills, and like all skills, require making mistakes and learning from them?

It seems based on everything, these are skills that can be worked on. However, all skills require making mistakes and learning from them so the person learning doesn’t do them again. However, unlike most skills, flirting and attraction have the very real risk of hurting women when learning them, things like sexual harassment, bringing up trauma, or just being creepy is definitely possible. These can lead to, at the very least, a worse reputation, ostracization, or worse. I’m pretty sure if dancing had these kinds of risks, and the people who did these kinds of things to people who were still learning dancing weren’t just seen as assholes, there would be a lot less people who are into dancing.

But when it comes to flirting and attraction, that seems to be the one skill where people expect perfection from the beginning when trying it. So how is a man supposed to get better at it?

Beginner’s Nerves

DEAR BEGINNER’S NERVES: Gonna level with you BN: what you’re doing here isn’t jumping to conclusions so much as vaulting past them and ending up in different territory entirely.

Yes, flirting, knowing how to connect with someone and understanding how to build chemistry and attraction are skills. This is, literally, why they’re called social skills. And yes, as with all skills, you improve them through deliberate practice. There are no skillsets that are built or improved without practice, and the way you practice those skillsets is through using them.

The disconnect that you’re having is that you’re assuming results that are not only not typical, they’re edge-cases at best. This is akin to someone being worried that if they take a chemistry class in high-school, the logical conclusion is that they’re almost inevitably going to blow up the lab if they make the slightest mistake. You’re not looking at the logical extension of the situation, you’re looking at worst-case scenarios born out of anxiety. The things you’re imagining — sexually harassing someone by accident, causing trauma, getting ostracized — are all fears, and it’s blown so far out of proportion that you’re looking at a funhouse mirror version of reality.

I think part of the issue here is that you seem to have a distorted idea of exactly how one learns how to connect with women, how to flirt with them or otherwise get to a place to start dating. It seems that you’re expecting to have to go full-tilt boogie from the jump, charging into the dating scene like an oversexed Pepe LePew, latching yourself onto the first attractive woman you see and begging them to come with you to zee Casbah.

(Nevermind that this is a reference to the movie Algiers and the line is never actually said by anyone…)

Now, if that is how you’re practicing flirting, then yes, you’re far more likely to get into trouble. But honestly… that’s not how it works. That’s not how folks learn how to flirt, nor is it how folks ask people out for dates. Flirting is conversation. While there are many, many ways to flirt and many different styles of flirting, at its core, all flirting is just letting someone know you find them attractive in a fun and engaging manner. That’s it. Can you pay your friends a compliment or tell them that they look good today? Can you make jokes with people without offending them or pissing them off? Then guess what? You can flirt without worrying that you’re about to get a visit from the Slap Fairy.

I think you’re having two issues here.

The first issue is simple: you’re assuming that flirting is relentlessly sexual to an absurd degree. And, in fairness, there’re dudes out there who think that the key to flirting is to constantly be bringing up sex, steering conversations towards sex or turning everything into innuendo a la Austin Powers. However, those are people who tend to be bad at flirting. The folks who are good at flirting, even incredibly sexual flirting understand that flirting is about having fun and keeping things light and playful. You don’t go hammer and tongs with the sexual aspect; you use it incredibly lightly and sparingly and in ways that allow folks to either build on it or ignore it. Craig Ferguson is famous for his sexually tinged flirting during interviews, but part of what makes him fun instead of creepy is that he reads the room. If you watch some of the clips of him interviewing various actresses, you’ll notice that he’ll either make a mild innuendo or ribald joke and then wait for the other person to respond. If she gives a positive response  — especially if she flirts back — then he’ll build on the moment. If she doesn’t, then he drops things and moves on. That allows his interactions to have a playful give-and-take, one that is premised on everyone having a good time and being in on the joke.

You’ll also notice how rarely he flirts in a way that makes someone uncomfortable. He never comes across as the horny guy, nor are his comments about how much he wants to dick someone down. It’s often either about how awesome the other person is or an intentional comedic misunderstanding.

Another key to understanding flirting is that, in a real way, flirting is about creating a permission structure for someone to do something they want to do. As I’ve said before: think of being at the pool on a hot day. The pool is nice and cool, but someone isn’t sure that they want to get in. Flirting is how you persuade someone that they should get in. Maybe you talk about how nice and refreshing the water is and how great it is to float in the sun. Maybe you encourage them to get into a splash-fight with you. Or perhaps you use a joking form of reverse psychology, telling them that it’s like ice and they’d be miserable if they got in so it’s better that they stay out in the sweltering heat.

And flirting doesn’t even need to be sexual. One of the best examples of non-sexual flirting I’d seen recently was someone who jokingly asked his Hinge match if she’d want to steal his comfiest hoodie and whether she’d prefer the olive green or burgundy one. When she said the olive green one, he responded with “Sweet, I’ll wear that on our first date. Speaking of, when is that?”

His match was impressed with the smoothness of the line and the humor. He got the date.

What makes this work is how low-key and low-stakes the interaction is. To start with, he’s flirting with someone that he met in a dating context — so a place where flirting isn’t just normal but expected. Similarly, it’s clearly playful, based on the common experience of women “borrowing” their boyfriend’s hoodies or sweatshirts and keeping them. By framing the situation as a hypothetical — would she be interested in stealing his comfiest hoodie — he’s creating a mini role-play game, where she’s already his girlfriend and thus likely to abscond with his sweatshirt. By playing along — saying yes she would, saying which she would rather take — she’s engaging him at that level. By playing along, she’s demonstrating her own interest and building on the scenario he created. The pivot at the end — “I’ll wear this on our first date”  — is both a display of confidence and underlining his romantic interest in her. By saying “which is when, again?” he’s now making it clear: he’s asking her on a date, and doing so in a way that lets her say “yes” or “no” as she chooses.

The second issue you’re having is that you’re assuming that your interest is inherently unwanted, offensive or otherwise an imposition on others. You’re coming to this from a place where you think that you have to work to get yourself out of a hole and hope that you can build to “neutral” before actually getting to “attracted”. This isn’t an issue with flirting or even learning how to flirt and everything to do with the belief that you’re undesirable or that people would be offended by your being interested in them. And while I can understand that anxiety — been there, done that, built my entire career off learning how to overcome it — it’s still just anxiety. Part of learning how to build your social skills is understanding that being attracted to someone is inherently neutral. It’s what you do about that attraction that makes the difference.

If you talk with someone, vibe with them and then ask them on a date? Then odds are that the worst you’re likely to experience is someone saying “thank you, but no.” People don’t sexually harass folks unintentionally, and being a creeper tends to involve being almost willfully oblivious to the other person’s comfort or lack of interest. The folks who end up being creepers are the folks who ignore someone’s disinterest or treat it as something that they can get around. The guy who keeps taking “no” for “try harder”, the guy who thinks it’s appropriate to track someone down on social media after she swiped left on Bumble, or who gets inappropriate on social media? Those are folks who are being creepy; they disregard someone else’s disinterest because they feel entitled to her time and attention. If you can read the room, prioritize people’s comfort and — importantly — take “no thanks” with good grace? Then you’re gonna be fine.

And here’s the thing to keep in mind: most of the time, the mistakes you’re going to make aren’t going to be the world-enders you’re imagining. If you realize that you’ve stepped on a metaphorical landmine, touched a nerve or otherwise said or done something offensive, then you apologize.  You don’t give a non-apology or a passive-voice “sorry you were offended” apology, you say “oh, hey, I’m sorry” and then you don’t do it again. People, as a rule, are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and interact with you in good faith. If you demonstrate that you recognize that you made a mistake and step back from it, then they’re usually going to accept that apology. It may mean any chance of a date is gone, but it’s still not the disaster that you think it’ll be.

You’ve almost certainly made jokes with your friends that fell flat. It’s not the greatest feeling in the world, but a moment of “ugh, that was awkward” isn’t going to destroy you. More often than not, everyone moves on and the moment is forgotten. That’s what most mistakes are like when you’re developing your social skills; momentary awkwardness that’s soon forgotten. Flirting with someone who turns out not to be interested? Not that big a deal, certainly not going to lead to your getting kicked out of society — assuming that, again, you take “no thank you” or “not interested” with grace and move on.

If you’re making incredibly offensive, hurtful or obscene comments, jokes or gestures or becoming Captain Bad Touch, then yeah, you’re going to get bounced. But most folks, especially people trying to polish their social skills aren’t doing that. They’re just talking, trying to ping for interest and asking people out on dates. So, seriously: turn the dial down a few notches, king. You’re inventing trouble where it doesn’t exist, based on exaggerated fears and unrealistic ideas about what flirting and socializing look like. Focus on just getting comfortable talking to people and find the flirting style that works with your personality. Everything else is just conversation.

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, first time writer and not a native English speaker so please excuse any mistakes. You sometimes tackle the topic of friendships instead of romantic love so I wanted to get an outsider’s perspective on my situation. 

For context, I (29/f) attended private schools throughout my childhood thanks to different scholarship, but that meant I was smart, nerdy, of lower economic status than my peers, extremely shy and, to top it all off, my body started to develop early (which lead to insecurities about my body that I haven’t quite managed to overcome). Needless to say, I was bullied mercilessly. I have no experience with male bullying but female bullying is… I guess I’d call it insidious. I had instances when sometimes other girls pretended to be my friends only to gossip behind my back and I was isolated and lonely. Now that I’m an adult, I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t care what others think about me but, at the time, I was naïve and trusting. So, tl;dr: I didn’t have any friends at all for several of my formative years. 

When I was about 12 years old, a new girl joined my school and we hit it off right away. We developed an extremely close friendship and she became my first true friend. All the way until I moved to college we stayed in constant contact and I considered her my sister. I moved to a city not too far away, (about 3 hours) and I went back to our city 2 or 3 times a month to visit my parents so I absolutely tried my best to keep in touch. I sent her e-mails weekly talking about my experiences and asked her to respond, I scheduled lunches and tried my best to keep her in my life. Even with all of my efforts, we started to grow apart and, when she married, she invited me to the wedding but I was not included in any part of the planning. I didn’t demand anything and was always open to help in whatever capacity I could, but it hurt me deeply that she just wasn’t working at all in our friendship. 

I was so emotionally involved with her as my friend that some people though I was in love with her or that we were in a romantic relationship, however that wasn’t the case at all. For the longest time, I even thought I was asexual and aromantic (I’m married myself now to a wonderful guy). She is an active poster on social media but I don’t like social media sites and I’m of the idea that if someone wants me to know something, they should tell me directly, otherwise relationships lose that personal touch. So, over the years we lost contact. She stopped responding to my messages and I couldn’t bear the idea of stalking her on Facebook or Twitter. It is very difficult for me to form close attachments, so to this friendship I gave it my all, tried to be supportive of her even if sometimes I disagreed with her (example: even though I believe her husband was not the best option for her I kept most of my opinions to myself after ). In the end, I let if fade away and moved on with my life. 

There was a few years ago a situation in my city that made it to the news and she sent me a message through FB to check on me but I didn’t respond, first because I didn’t see it right away and then, because I was hurt by the radio silence and wanted to get back at her (petty, I know). Some more years pass until last year she sent me a message again asking if we could talk. I answered her and we started discussing the usual, how was I, how was my family, her family and such. I learned that a close family relative of hers passed away (maybe that was the reason she contacted me again in the first place) and eventually, we started to talk about our friendship and the reasons behind our distancing. She told me that when I moved to college, she became jealous of me and my new opportunities and that that was the primary reason behind her closing off and excluding me from her life. The comment cut deeply and opened wounds that I thought had closed. I started crying and trying to understand where we went wrong  and in the end she promised to keep in touch because she wanted to rekindle our friendship, she told me that she missed me and that she didn’t have any other friend that knew her as well as me.

She didn’t keep her promise to contact me again at the time. She sent me a message again a few months ago so petty me decided to not answer in a futile attempt to hurt her back because obviously she doesn’t care as much about me if she can’t keep her promises. So, after the novella-length letter, my question is: Is it worth it to try and rekindle the friendship? Should I try to contact her again?  Should I open myself to further heartbreak if this doesn’t work? I miss her a lot and she knows things about me that very few do. And, apparently I haven’t gotten over this issue as much as I thought if months pass and I still think about what to do. She lives in a different country now so meeting in person would be difficult, it would be a long-distance friendship. 

Thank you for your time reading my rambling letter.

Best regards, 

Broken Friends Forever

DEAR BROKEN FRIENDS FOREVER: So, some thoughts on friendship…

For all that we as a culture focus so much of our time and attention on romantic relationships and what it takes to make them work, we tend to neglect friendships and the fact that those require care and maintenance too. Friendships can be just as intense and meaningful as romantic or sexual relationships — even moreso in some cases. It’s all too easy to forget that friendships don’t “just happen”, nor are they self-maintaining.

And, unfortunately, like a lot of romantic relationships, not every friendship is going to last. Some friendships are inherently temporal; they are relationships of the moment, based around who you are at this particular place and time. As you grow and change, those friendships tend to fade away — not because they were never “real” or “true”, but because you and your friend are no longer who you were when you started as friends. You, for all intents and purposes, outgrew your friendship. Others… well, others whither and die from neglect. Sometimes that neglect is intentional. Sometimes it’s accidental, like getting too distracted to remember to water a plant. But regardless of the reason, the effect is the same: the friendship falls apart.

And sometimes… well,  sometimes it’s a mixture of all of the above.

Case in point, BFF: the way you and your friend lost touch. There was always going to be some strain on the relationship as you and she went off to college; much like romantic relationships, a lot of middle school and high-school friends tend to find that they’ve drifted apart. This isn’t terribly surprising, honestly. At college — or moving away from home, or other transitional periods of life — you’re meeting new people, having new experiences and trying new identities… you are becoming your new, adult self. And because you’re doing so without your old friends around, you’re growing and changing in ways that may well be changing how well you and they can mesh.

That, it seems, is at least part of why you and your friend started to drift away. Her jealousy of what you were experiencing clearly made her worry that you were going to leave her behind; rather than deal with the seemingly inevitable friend-breakup, she decided to distance herself first. It’s not the most mature decision she could have made, nor a kind one, but one can at least can understand the reasoning behind it.

Y’know.

If you squint.

But unfortunately, that is what ultimately set the stage for the two of you falling apart, because that’s what seems to have set off a pernicious and honestly kinda petty tit-for-tat afterwards.

Now, remember what I said about growing apart and the people you are no longer meshing? That’s part of what happens next. What we have in your letter is a classic case of failing to meet someone where they are. Social media, for all its sins, has become a cornerstone of how we connect and maintain interpersonal relationships. Your friend lives a lot of her life on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter… that’s part of who she is. Maintaining a connection with her means that social media would be part of the price of entry. That seems to be a primary point of contact for her — as it is for a lot of folks these days. So if you want to interact with her, then you’re gonna have to be on the Instabooktoks. Preferring to keep social media out of your life is a fine choice and, going by what Facebook has done to the world, a smart one. But that means having less of an opportunity to find out what your friend is up to.

The fact that you prefer that someone tell you directly what’s been going on, over reading their posts or pics? That’s a choice. It may be right for you… but that choice also means that you’re going to have less contact with your friend. That doesn’t mean that you or she are in the wrong; it just means that you and she aren’t meshing the way you used to.

However, it’s what happened afterwards that more or less drove the nail into the coffin. There were a number of times where your friend reached out and you ignored it. Her reaching out to you after the incident in your city was a bid for your attention. By trying to get back at her, you rejected her bid. You functionally told her “I’m not interested in communicating with you anymore”. This is part of the problem with giving folks the silent treatment; they don’t know what you’re doing or why. They just know you’re ignoring them. Absent any other information, they’re going to assume that this means you don’t like them and you don’t want to talk to them.

Small wonder, then, it took years for her to try again. And even then: you made the same decision. You ignored her again, even after you and she had that conversation where she tried to clear the air and — importantly — was making another bid to try to reconnect with you. I’m not surprised that you don’t hear from her; the times she’s tried, you’ve rejected her.

It’s understandable that you’re upset and somewhat resentful of the long stretches of time where you never heard from her. But it seems that, especially after the first attempt to check in on you, you haven’t made any effort to connect with her. You can say that you’re upset that she wasn’t putting in as much work as you were, but honestly, by this point you’d sent enough “f--k off and die” silence that I’m not surprised she didn’t try harder. You were functionally punishing her for doing the things that you wanted; small wonder the message she took from this is “BFF doesn’t want to talk to me.”

In an ideal world, when she reached back out to you — either when she checked on you after the incident, or after the “can we talk” message — you would’ve taken this as an opportunity to start a new friendship with her. It would’ve been one colored by your shared history, sure, but so much time had passed and you two had changed so much that this would be a new friendship for all intents and purposes. And one of the uncomfortable truths is that, especially in the early days, some folks are going to be putting in more work than others. Not every relationship — platonic, sexual or romantic — is perfectly balanced, and especially not at the beginning. Some folks tend to do more work than others and then an equilibrium is found.

You and she never found that, in part because you were nursing those grudges about feeling abandoned.

Which brings us to now. Can this friendship be saved? Honestly… I don’t know. If I’m blunt, I don’t think it can, in part because you keep letting your ego get in the way. You keep wanting her to “learn her lesson”, but all you’re doing is saying “I don’t want to talk to you.” Nor, for that matter, are you willing to bend and meet her where she is. If your view of “second or third hand knowledge is bad” is more important than keeping up with her… well, that’s a choice. But it’s one that’s going to keep you and her from being friends again.

If you want to be friends, then you’re going to have to address the pain you’ve been feeling ever since you went off to college. However, at this point it’s self-inflicted, self-sustaining pain, because you never let the wounds heal and you pick at them whenever she reaches out. That’s work you are gonna have to do for yourself.

The other thing you’re going to have to do is accept that, for now, you’re going to have to model the behavior you want to see from her. That means being willing to shove the whole “she’s not putting in as much effort as me” feeling aside and recognize that you burned the bridges you’re trying to rebuild here. You may not have realized that’s what you were doing… but the bridges got burned regardless. So if you want that friendship back, you’re gonna have to put in a lot of work until she realizes that you do want to be friends again, that you do want to reconnect and that you’re sincere in trying to stay in touch. Until and unless you do that and she can get over the hurt you have likely caused her?

Well… then the only thing you can do is let this friendship go.

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’ve got this ex, and we’re friends. We’re exes because the stars didn’t align for us, and that’s it. We’ve been close for ten years, on and off, and I really love her. We’ll call her Amber.

Seven years ago, her boyfriend, we’ll call him Cory, ghosted her (but didn’t block her or unfriend her on Facebook) when she violated his trust. Five years ago, she stopped reaching out to him. She always talked about him with regret, but lately it’s been turned up to eleven. She’s been speculating about how serious he really was about removing her from his life. She started watching his semi-popular livestreams, and she even sent him a harmless message anonymously. I check out my crush’s Insta every once in a while, so I don’t think I can judge.

And then it went to twelve. She decided she was going to send him a letter. At first, she was going to write and not send it, but as time went on, she became more determined to send it. I told her that he made it clear he didn’t want to hear from her, and she responded that maybe he did want to get in touch with her, and he just needed permission. I decided I was going to help her write the letter so it didn’t come across as pushy or threatening. She sent it. Surprising no one but Amber, he didn’t respond. I thought the matter was settled.

The amp goes up to thirteen, folks, because now she assumes that he changed his email, and he never got the message. Now she wants to comment, as herself, on one of his livestreams, the prospect of which is making me queasy in the stomach region. He’s going to have to be polite to her because he has to, and she’s going to take that as confirmation. At this point, I used the word “obsessing” and “unhealthy” to her, and she said that she would simply stop talking to me about it, matter settled. I feel sorry for the guy, but it’s not my problem anymore.

She publicly vaguebooked about how when someone tells her not to do something, she’s more inclined to do it because “nobody tells me what to do.” Taking this as a personal attack (which it was), I publicly responded that she sounded like an anti-vaxxer, and now, suddenly, I feel like it’s my problem again.

I’m really, really worried about her. This obsession of hers is unhealthy, and, as someone who has his own stalker, I really feel for this guy. I’m also thinking about walking away from her for a while and letting things develop without me. But I keep going back to, the fact that, for seven years, Cory has not acknowledged the existence of Amber, and now suddenly he gets an email from her, and a message on his livestream? What would be going on in his head for this. Would he get scared? I would. And, more importantly, what does this mean for my relationship with Amber. Is this going to be the hill our relationship dies on?

What am I supposed to do here?

Sincerely,

Leaps and Boundaries

DEAR LEAPS AND BOUNDARIES: There’s the snarky part of me that wants to ask if this is related to the last time I got a “I want to date my favorite Twitch streamer”, but that’s not terribly helpful.

So there’re two parts to this. First is the question of “how bad is this, really,” which I think needs to be addressed — both on her end and what her actions are, or might be doing to Cory.

Part of the problem I have with calling her behavior dangerous or obsessive is that there’s a distinct lack of detail in your letter. You don’t say why Cory ghosted her — just that she violated his trust. That’s one of those things that would be an important detail that could explain why he would just ghost her instead of having a proper break-up. “Violated his trust” covers a wide range of possibilities or actions; some would be heinous and make it clear that Cory peaced-out because he felt it wasn’t safe to confront her, while others would make Cory the asshole for just up and leaving without a word. Nor, for that matter, do you mention how long they were together; weeks, months, years, etc. All of that adds context to her actions and makes it easier to tell just how bad things are or aren’t.

That lack of detail and specificity, likewise, makes it a little difficult to say “yup, this is bad.” Since you don’t share what the first draft of her letter said (assuming that there was a first draft before you got involved) or what she wanted to write that might have seemed threatening or pushy, it’s hard to make any sort of judgement call. Without that sort of info, it’s more or less impossible to gauge how potentially threatening any of this is or how bad it’s likely to be — especially for Cory.

Similarly, you don’t say that she’s acting in ways that seem untethered to reality in dangerous ways or that her attitude towards him has become vengeful or threatening or anything other than… well, painfully awkward, honestly.

Looking at  things from Cory’s end, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I would round up to being dangerous or likely to cause him to feel threatened. Thus far, what we’ve got is “sent an anonymous message” and “sent an email”. Even if she decides to comment in the chat… I dunno, her behavior doesn’t seem to be escalating in dangerous directions or in ways that would make him feel under threat. Mostly this comes across like someone’s ex who’s full of regret and Wild Turkey messaging them at 2 AM going “Hey, WYD?” or occasionally sliding into their DMs and trying to flirt awkwardly.

Now to be fair: there’s a gendered aspect to this. While women can and have been stalkers and 1 in 17 men have been victims of stalking, according to the CDC, as a general rule women tend to present less of a threat to men than men do to women. This doesn’t mean that s--t can’t go badly or that he can’t decide that yes, he does feel threatened by her behavior. But what you present in your letter doesn’t sound like she’s dangerous, threatening or causing stress, emotional or mental harm to him right now.

I should say: she’s not exactly covering herself in glory here. While it sucks that she got ghosted by her boyfriend… dude ignored her attempts to get in touch for two years straight. What I’ve said about online dating applies here too: no reply is a reply. It’s the other person saying “I’m not interested,” and as much as folks may not like hearing that, the only real choice is to accept it and move on. And unfortunately Amber doesn’t seem to have absorbed that particular message. But while she seems willing to ignore the glaringly obvious — if he’d changed his email, she would’ve gotten a bounce back, not echoing silence — this sounds more like an awkward attempt to get closure on her terms than some Fatal Attraction-esque “I will not be ignored, Dan!” escalation.

The same goes for her whole “nobody tells me what to do” schtick. If I’m being honest, this mostly sounds like kinda cringe “Yas queen/girl-boss!” self-aggrandizement by someone hoping that their friends will have her back and justify her making what she knows is a stupid decision. That doesn’t come across as “We were meant to be together and I’ll stop at nothing until he’s mine”, it sounds more like someone getting upset that her friends told her that she needs to dial back on the drinks when they’re out on the town.

Does any of this mean that things can’t or won’t escalate to dangerous levels? Of course not; it’s certainly a possibility. Is it likely? Well, ye olde magic eight-ball says “signs point to no”. Not with the information that you’ve presented, in any case.

Which brings us to the second part: what do you do about this?

Well, to be blunt, the wise answer would’ve been to say “not my farm, not my pigs,” and wash your hands of the whole mess long before it ever got to this point.

I’m not entirely sure why you decided to get neck deep in this. It’s one thing to say “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Yogi.” It’s another to, y’know, be directly involved to the point of helping her write her letter to the dude. While I get that you’ve got a stalker of your own and I sympathize… your actions weren’t exactly de-escalating things. If anything, it could be argued that you were enabling her by participating to the level that you did rather than shutting her down and telling her that this was a horrible idea.

Similarly, you had an out. She got pissed that you were telling her to knock it off and she said “fine, I’m not going to talk about this with you.” And hey that was it! You were free! You could have moved on from this! But responding to her vaguebooking about you instead of, I dunno, rolling your eyes and just muting the thread, seems to have given you reason to get involved in this s--t again for reasons that I just don’t get.

But quite frankly, you’re not helping here. You’re not helping Cory, especially as you’re making unfounded guesses on his mental state, nor are you convincing Amber to make like Elsa and let it go. You’ve functionally inserted yourself into a situation that is ultimately causing you more stress, but isn’t otherwise doing any good for anyone.

My take on this is simple: it’s time to peace out, cub scout. You’re not in contact with Cory, so you’re making assumptions on his behalf. You’re not changing Amber’s mind or otherwise getting her to change course here. All you’re doing is working yourself up into a froth over this and apparently reopening your own emotional wounds which ain’t good for you. And honestly, I think you’re transposing your own feelings about your experiences — which are awful and I’m sorry you’ve gone through that — onto Cory. Unless Amber’s behavior is escalating or is threatening, I think “my ex just popped up in the comments” isn’t going to cause Cory great distress.

If you want Amber to think twice about what she’s doing, then let her pay a social price for it. Drop her like fifth period French and tell her that it’s because her actions to Cory are too close to what you went through with your own stalker, so that she understands why you’re cutting ties. She can reach out to you if and when she’s let this go,  gotten over things and gotten some help. If things are actually escalating to the point that she’s causing Cory emotional harm, then hell yes this is a friendship-termination offense. This is a hill that relationships should die on. Why in pluperfect f--kery wouldn’t you end this relationship if she’s acting in a dangerous or threatening manner?

Unless it really is just someone being a bit cringe because they can’t accept a bad break up, even after seven goddamn years.

Now, if you have reason to believe that this might actually be stressful or harmful to Cory, then you could drop him — or his chat moderators — a line and let them know that Amber’s planning on doing this and to give them a head’s up. This way the mods can be on the look out for her and head her off before Cory has a chance of seeing it. This also would give Cory the opportunity to weigh his own options, as well as start a potential paper trail for a TRO, should things ever get to that point.

But again: that’s assuming that there’s reason to believe that Amber is going to escalate to dangerous levels or that Cory is likely to experience harm from this.

Otherwise, though? Cut Amber loose, let her know why you’re doing it, and then tap out of the whole situation.  Not your farm, not your pigs.

Good luck.

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