DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have (or had, I don’t know anymore) this friend who I was deeply in love with her, but for personal reasons, I just wanted to be her friend and for a while it worked. We had good times and bad times, several times we had fights that seemed to end things, but we always came back stronger than before… She was my best friend.

But recently, everything has been getting weird.

I knew she was interested in another guy. I never brought up my feelings for her, or got clingy with her and always gave her time as she wanted. At the same time I was available when she needed it. This guy was a complete asshole to her, always treating her badly, making fun of her to the point that she was sick of him… During all of this, our friendship got even stronger. However, I never crossed the line of friendship and angling for a relationship, because her friendship was very important to me.

Well, lately I’ve been going through a complicated situation in my life. I’ve been dealing with cancer of a close relative on top of the pandemic, and I started to want to be more alone for a while.

But my friend started to think very badly of me, forcing me to pay attention to her, threatening that if I didn’t look for her, all our friendship would die and other things. Besides that, she made a point of being furious with me when I really went after her and asked how things were, or insisted a little in wanting to have her around.

One day, when she offered me help in something I was doing, I started to notice that she was distant, with short answers. Basically she was giving 100% attention to this other guy, who’d come back into her life while helping me.

Well, here comes the fun part: after seeing that she wasn’t very interested in providing help like she said she would, I simply replied with a grump. Believe it or not, she became furious with me and started saying hurtful things. I apologized, saying that wasn’t what I meant, and she did not reply, so I left it there and simply walked away from things…

After a month, she reappeared and tells me that she would never know what I wanted from her, that I cared more about my asshole friends and that she was sick and tired of it. At that very moment I became completely lost about everything… I already said to her that she was my best friend several times, that I cared for her and that wasn’t the first time when we’ve had these fights.

Well… I had no choice but to declare that I loved her in the most anguished way possible, and in the end I was received with silence.

One month later, she returned apologizing to me, saying that she screwed up with me, that I was just a brother to her and that she was dating the guy. I was extremely sad but I still wanted to have her as my friend, even she told me several times that if I wanted to leave, she would understand.

After that, she would pop up one time or another, asking how I was, if everything was ok. Sometimes we could talk something or another but it was getting weird, different… I felt that she was getting further and further away. She kept making a point of telling me about her relationship (even if I tried to avoid the topic) until one day she asked me to draw a picture for her and her boyfriend.

I was furious and said that she was going over the edge, she apologized and said it was just for her…

Well, things were getting more and more complicated, until a day that I was tired of everything and asked her if she wanted me to be gone from her life. She basically freaked out saying that I was mad about her relationship, that it was the only good thing that had happened to her, that she was full of problems (yes, she kept looking for me, saying she was in trouble, and when I asked what was happening she would not tell me).

I tried to reaffirm that she was my best friend, that she was a sister to me and that she could count on me and basically she sent me away after all that. Now I really don’t know what to do…

Please Dr… Help me…

– Caught In A Trap

DEAR CAUGHT IN A TRAP: Jesus CIAT, this woman has really put you through a ringer and I’m so sorry you’ve been through this.

Now, I’m going to level with you, man: I’ve read through your letter a few times and, if I’m being honest, I can’t really see why you would want to be friends with this woman. It’s understandable that when folks write in with a problem, they focus on the problems and not the good parts. It can create a specific picture of the relationship, which is understandable. But going by what you’ve written here, it sounds like this entire relationship is just one long parade of red flags and s--tty behavior from your friend.

Here’s the thing: while it can seem cold to describe it in these terms, but relationships — including friendships — are a two-way exchange. You give, but you also receive. In an ideal world, these exchanges would be roughly equal in terms of value. Yes, it’s rare that any relationship is perfectly equitable, but on the whole they should balance out if they’re going to last. When they don’t… well, that’s when things fall apart. 

And quite frankly, your friendship seems to have been walking up to the edge of breaking up, constantly. You talk about the demands she made on you or how she held the friendship hostage to your dancing in attendance on her, but you don’t mention anything you got in return. No real support, no intimacy, no real return on your emotional “investment” in her. It seems like your entire relationship was predicated on your being her on-call not-quite boyfriend, where you were expected to provide all sorts of emotional intimacy and attention and in exchange you got… well, I’m not sure. You got to keep your crush in your life and nurse that unrequited attraction for her, I guess.

Frankly this sounds more like masochism than friendship.

Even giving her the benefit of the doubt, she sounds like a really s--tty friend. There you are, dealing with the stress of the pandemic and dealing with the heartbreak of a loved one’s battle with cancer and looking to do a little self-care by withdrawing a bit and marshaling your strength. And here comes your bestie, telling you that if you don’t keep giving her your time and attention RIGHT NOW then the relationship will die and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT. And later, when you ask for something from her, she half-asses it. She can’t bother to pretend to be present with you, and when you get up set over that… well, she blows up at you over it. That’s pretty f--ked up, dude.

Worse is that she comes back later and then continues to blame you for everything going wrong because… well, I’m not entirely sure. But again: it sure as hell sounds like she’s telling you it’s your fault that she’s not a better friend to you because REASONS. Even after you end up confessing how you feel, she seems to treat you more like an accessory than a person. Worse, she seems to think that your boundaries are optional at best. You say you didn’t want to hear about her relationship but she’d keep bringing it up anyway. And while I can kind of understand the reasoning —  she’s driving home that she’s with this other guy, she’s not interested in you and isn’t going to date you — it’s still something you don’t want to hear about. Not to mention, hammering it constantly means it goes from being “I just want to be clear about what you and I have together” and more about keeping you in your place.

Yes, it can be a little dickish to try to pretend that somebody’s partner doesn’t exist, especially when you have feelings for that person. But that’s not what you were doing. You weren’t trying to pretend that she didn’t have a boyfriend, you didn’t want to have it rubbed in your face, constantly. There’s really nothing wrong with drawing a boundary and saying “look, I respect you and your relationship with X, but I don’t want to hear about it or him,” especially when it’s causing you pain. He may be a part of her life, even an important part of it, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be willing to sandpaper your soul just to be friends with her. You’re allowed to draw lines and say “this bothers me, and I’d rather keep this aspect out of our friendship.” People who tell you that you’re not allowed to do so are telling you that you’re not allowed to prioritize your own emotional well-being over their desire to share things that are painful to you.

You can accept a person in their entirety without needing all the details. Everyone goes to the bathroom; being someone’s friend doesn’t mean you need to hear about the size and shape of it.

Look: the way she treats you is a recurring pattern, my dude. She makes demands and holds the friendship hostage if you don’t accede to her demands immediately and only on her terms. If you have needs, those needs are ignored or become reason for her to be pissed at you. This ain’t no way to conduct a friendship and, honestly, I don’t get why you stick around.

Well, actually, not true. I get why. Part of the problem is that it doesn’t seem like you ever tried getting over your crush on her. You don’t mention whether you dated anyone else or attempted to find someone who would actually like you back while also not being ten pounds of drama in a five pound sack. That exacerbates the problem. While I don’t doubt your sincerity in wanting to be friends and nothing more, I think you let your desire for her cloud your thinking. Your feelings for her meant that you kept excusing her bad behavior and the abominable way she’s been treating you. And it seems like she took your continued presence as license to just take and take without ever giving in return.

I know this isn’t what you were hoping to hear but I’m gonna be blunt: this isn’t going to get better. It’s only going to keep getting worse and it’s only going to keep twisting the knife in your heart. The best thing you can do right now is to finally prioritize yourself and leave. You may be her friend, but she sure as s--t isn’t yours. This friendship is toxic, my dude, and it’s far past time to call it quits. Yes, I get that you love her and want her in your life. But her presence in your life is causing you nothing but pain, and it’s not going to get better. Even after you’ve told her how you feel, she’s continued to just make demand after demand and get mad at you when you say “hey, could I get a little friendship in return?”

There’s a line from a song that I think is relevant here: “I may love you, yeah, but I love me more.”

Ending a relationship, even a friendship, can be a radical act of self-love and self-care. It’s well past time that you love yourself to let this relationship go and find both friends and lovers who actually live up to the role.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I lived very happily being single for some time – and I also had my quota of serious relationships in the past. But after some time being single, I met this girl in my home country that I really feel comfortable with. Then, fate happened: I moved to another country on another continent. Although I was still feeling comfortable by myself, after some time dating at a distance and a few very expensive plane tickets, we decided that it could be cool to live together here: at least as a test… we never lived with a couple before so it was a new experience for both of us. It was really a pain to bring her here, because of COVID  bureaucracy, the fact that she came with her cat (and I had mine)… but we finally made it.

So, it’s already been a year since she arrived, and I’m still comfortable with her. The thing is, I’m really missing the fact of being single: particularly in the fact of dating other random women.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel really sexually satisfied and happy with her right now, but I do miss the fact of getting out there, trying to seduce other bodies, other voices, other personalities; even if that sometimes derived in a not-so-satisfying sexual encounter, the fun was in all the process.

We had a very short conversation about “opening the relationship” but she was 100% against it, so clearly “going rogue” would definitely hurt her a lot. But I really feel very tempted…

Any suggestions here?

Cheers,

Abroad Guy With Single Thoughts

DEAR ABROAD GUY WITH SINGLE THOUGHTS: Right off the bat, AGWST: what you’re feeling is normal and damn near everyone experiences it to one degree or another. One of the tropes about relationships and dating that is my continual pet peeve is the idea that monogamy is simple, easy and everyone can do it. It isn’t, it definitely isn’t easy and no, not everyone can. That’s not a moral failing; that’s just human biology. We are a novelty-seeking species, and one of the most powerful forms of novelty is sexual novelty. Even folks who are ostensibly monogamous still indulge in sexual novelty; folks who watch porn don’t just watch one movie or one particular porn star, after all.

The fact that you’re attracted to other women doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong in your relationship. The fact that you kind of miss going out and hooking up with new people is natural; it’s that thrill of the new. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that your relationship is failing. It just means that you’re a primate with a sex drive, same as everyone  else. While some folks may feel the urge at different levels and some may have an easier time pushing it down, it’s something that hits pretty much everyone. Monogamy just means that you’ve chosen to not sleep with other people; it doesn’t say a damn thing about not wanting to.

However, at the same time: just because things are natural doesn’t mean they can’t f--k up a perfectly good relationship.

Here’s the thing: every relationship comes with a price of entry. It can sound cold when you look at it dispassionately, but every relationship is subject to a cost/benefit analysis.  No relationship, no matter the relationship style, the person, the country or any other condition you care to name, occurs without compromise. If you are in a relationship with someone, you are giving up something. Many times, what you’re giving up is sex or romantic relationships with other people. Other times, it may be a particular type of sex. You may be letting go of dreams of having kids, traveling to exotic locales, working a particular job because now you need to support a family… there is always a compromise being made. The key is that while you may be giving up something that you want, what you get in exchange is so awesome and makes you so happy that you can accept not getting the rest.

Case in point: you like the thrill of meeting someone new, the process of getting to know each other, the build up of attraction and tension to the moment where you and they fall into bed together. That’s both very common and very normal, and for a lot of folks, that’s something that they can’t live without.

However, that’s something you can’t have in the relationship you have with your girlfriend. While some folks are cool with non-monogamy — if they aren’t non-monogamous themselves — others aren’t. Your girlfriend has made it clear that she’s one of the folks who isn’t. Being in a relationship with her means that the price of entry is that you are giving up the thrill of the new. Cheating on her — not “going rogue” or some other euphemism, cheating — will likely destroy her trust in you and your relationship in short order. And while I know my view of infidelity is nuanced, what you’re describing as “very tempting” is a deliberate betrayal of that trust. That’s not “I had a couple too many drinks and failed my Wisdom save”, that would be choosing to do something that you know would hurt her.

So, you’re asking for suggestions. If I’m going to be honest, AGWST, my suggestion would be that you shouldn’t have committed to a monogamous relationship when you started dating her. If that thrill of the new is something that you know you need, then agreeing to a monogamous commitment isn’t a great idea. That’s not something that you “get out of your system” or “goes away in time”; it’s part of who you are and what you need in a relationship. Trying to force yourself to not feel something only ends up making it stronger.

I would also say that moving straight from long-distance to living together wasn’t a great choice. The dynamics of dating when you live in different cities or countries is different than when you live in the same place. Leaping from an LDR straight to living together means having to adjust to a lot of differences very, very quickly, and that can put a pretty significant strain on the relationship. When that leap involves moving to an entirely different country adds a lot of pressure on the relationship; they’re in a place with very little social support or connections besides you. That can make it very hard to deal with the usual stresses that come up in every relationship. Now the stakes involved in resolving your issues are much, much higher than they might be otherwise.

That can put a serious strain on relationships, especially if you’re already feeling like you’re missing being single. It’s harder to have those awkward, necessary conversations when you know that breaking up has vastly different stakes for them.

But all of that would require having access to a Flux Capacitor or a TARDIS and since none of us have those things, the only way we can move is forward.

So under the current situation, you have a choice. You can either decide that what you don’t get — dating and sleeping with other people — is a compromise you can make because what you get in exchange is so worth it. Or you can decide that this isn’t a price you’re willing to pay for your relationship.

It’s certainly possible that she’ll change her mind about opening up the relationship, and there’s nothing saying that you can’t circle back to that discussion down the line. Not every relationship starts off open, and some couples come to ethical non-monogamy after having been monogamous for a while. Some come to it even after having rejected it out of hand previously. However, this usually takes a lot of time while you build up the level of trust, security and communication needed for her to feel ready to consider the possibility.

At the same time, though, she may never get to that point no matter what. Going further into this relationship on the assumption that you will change her mind later is a bad idea. If this is something you knew about yourself from the jump, then you would have a better time saying “I am willing to be monogamous with you for now, but I’ll want to reopen this discussion later,” at the beginning. So if you’re going to go forward with your relationship with her, then you have to do so recognizing that an ethically non-monogamous relationship may never be on the table.

If you do decide to stay with your girlfriend, then I would suggest making a point of keeping the thrills in your sex life a priority. While you can’t keep the initial novelty of a new partner alive forever, you can keep the excitement and adventures together alive. Beyond the biological component, part of why sex and passion fade in relationships is because people fall into ruts. They quit doing so many of the crazy things they did at the start of a relationship — including all the wild sexual encounters — because they’re starting to settle in. When you’re having sex the same ways, at the same times… well, it gets a little repetitive. It gets dull. Part of making a relationship work in the long term means continuing to shake things up, try new things and to avoid falling into patterns. So, in your case, part of what might make monogamy more acceptable as a price of entry would be to put the effort in to keep the sexual novelty and adventure going. Whether it’s exploring kinks together, creating artificial barriers you have to overcome together or stepping up your Gomez Addams game, keeping the spark alive and vital will be an important part of making this relationship work.

And if you still need a little strange on occasion? Get yourself a couple Tengas or Fleshlights, subscribe to some Fansly or OnlyFans profiles and jerk one out.

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’m a 42 year old woman who has had one long term relationship in my life, that lasted about 10 years but ended over 10 years ago. Other than that it has been a series of dates here and there, but generally the guys just ghost or tell me that they aren’t feeling a spark. And this has been the case my entire life. I didn’t date in High School because nobody would ask me out even though, in the years since, a lot of my former friends from that time told me they had crushes on me, but they were intimidated. My one boyfriend broke up with me because he felt like I didn’t really need him, and that I would be better off without him. (I guess he was sort of right, after the relationship ended I quit the job I hated, but kept because it worked with his schedule, and went to law school and became an attorney).

I want very much to be in a long term monogamous relationship, hopefully marriage. I am on dating apps. I try to always look cute even if I am not conventionally attractive anymore (but I was very hot as a teenager and I still couldn’t get dates, so it can’t just be my looks). I am in therapy to work on the grieving process I feel about not being married by now (and the fact I probably won’t be able to have biological children) and he has had me ask my friends and family about why they think I’m having issues in this area. The thing that keeps coming up is that I have a big personality, have carved out this full life for myself, and that I am always doing lots of stuff to stay busy, and that guys are scared by that because they don’t see where they would fit in my life.

Is that something guys need? It doesn’t make sense to me because if I meet a guy who seems to have a “girlfriend shaped hole” in their life it freaks me out. I don’t want someone to be auditioning me for a part they already have written to see if I fit, I want someone to get to know me and build something with me. Is that unusual? Do guys need to feel needed, and if so how can I build that life so that I need someone who may, or may not, ever exist?

Running Solo Build

DEAR RUNNING SOLO BUILD: Congratulations RSB, you asked a question without realizing that this was an ‘insert quarter, receive essay’ topic for me.

So there’re two things going on, RSB and they all come down to one thing: society has really f--ked men up.

The first is the classic issue of The Intimidating Woman — someone who is just too “intimidating” for guys to ever feel comfortable getting into a relationship with. This is an issue a lot of women face, especially growing up; they’re ambitious, they’re focused and driven, they’ve got passions, goals and a future… but no dates. Meanwhile, guys are out there saying that they want someone who’s focused, ambitious and driven… but they’re not dating the women who embody those very qualities. And if you were to ask them why, they’d tell you: those women are a little too intimidating for them. Instead, they end up dating women who seem to be the opposite of what they say they want — women who’re less driven, less ambitious and often less successful in areas that those men feel are more “their” province, particularly in terms of careers or financial status.

The second issue actually ties into the first: guys who feel like they need to be needed by their partners in order to have a relationship. If a woman has her life together… well, then why would she possibly need him? So the woman who may not Have It All, but at least Has Quite A Lot — women who’re successful, who have big or forceful personalities or who live a fulfilling life often find that men… just don’t feel comfortable approaching or dating her.

So I want to be clear here: this isn’t a you problem. This is a systematic issue with society as a whole and the way that men have been damaged by the way we’ve been socialized. This has little to do with your accomplishments and everything to do with the whammy that toxic, confining and restrictive ideas of masculinity have put on men’s heads.

One of the issues I’ve brought up a lot around here is how emotionally and socially isolated men tend to be. Men have fairly few close emotionally intimate relationships — far fewer than women do, and very few with other men. This is in no small part because we’ve been socialized to see emotional intimacy as being the same as, or a precursor to, sexual intimacy. This didn’t used to be the case. Throughout history, men had very close, emotionally intimate and significant relationships with other men. If you were to look at old photos of men and their friends, you’d be shocked by the amount of closeness and physical contact between them. You’d be forgiven, in this day and age, for thinking that these were lovers, not good friends. But the truth is that, until recently, men were freer to have that level of casual physical and emotional intimacy with other guys. We were more comfortable with casual touch and physical affection with one another and treating our friendships as significant and meaningful.

And that all changed as social narratives surrounding masculinity started to curdle. Homophobia, the fear of being perceived as “gay” and idea of masculinity as social dominance came to the forefront and started to change male friendships and leaving men more isolated and alone. And to be clear: this is learned behavior. You can see this today in the friendships that boys have in childhood; they’re much freer to express themselves, more affectionate and more connected to their friends. This starts changing by the time we turn 10; social narratives about what is or isn’t acceptable “guy behavior” start getting enforced and boys start taking those lessons onboard. By the time they’re 13, those friendships have altered drastically, if they survived the transition at all. Boys become more closed off, less warm and expressive and far more concerned with not being seen as weird, weak or “faggy”, and those lessons follow us and are reinforced for the entirety of our lives.

(Yes, even in 2021, we have boys growing up afraid of being seen as queer and we still have queerness weaponized as an insult.)

Now, the reason why I bring all of this up is because of the knock-on effects that this changes brings.

One of the biggest is the fear of weakness or being perceived as weak or less dominant. Because aggression and dominance are emphasized as masculine virtues, not being dominant or in charge is seen as a failure as man. This weakness means you’re going to be forced down the social ladder by other men; after all, dominating others is one of the fastest and easiest ways for men to establish their manly bonafides. And so we equate not being dominant or in charge as a form of failure to be a “Real Man”. That, in turn, means that we’re weak, vulnerable even… and thus more likely to be dominated by others.

This leads to one of the reasons why you run into guys who say one thing — “I want to date a driven, ambitious, successful woman” — and do another. It’s not that they don’t want to date someone who’s driven and ambitious, it’s that silent, unspoken addendum: “…who’s not as driven or ambitious or successful as I am.” It’s one thing to date somebody who has her s--t together and is going places. It’s another entirely to date someone who might outclass or out earn you. And as silly as that may seem in the modern age, the fact of the matter is that a lot of men who earn less than their spouses have higher levels of anxiety, insomnia, depression and erectile dysfunction. Not being the primary breadwinner is literally emasculating to them.

Another effect of this change that men face is the emotional isolation it brings. Because emotional intimacy is seen as either a prelude to or synonymous with sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy is thus forbidden except with people you might conceivably f--k. So — leaving aside how this conflation of friendship and sexual intimacy perpetuates the whole Friend Zone myth — part of what happens is that men’s friendships with other men are incredibly limited in scope and connection. Meanwhile, their only acceptable outlet for emotional intimacy and vulnerability is with women.

Now, here’s where the “need to be needed” part comes in: that emotional isolation also cuts us off from forms of validation and self-expression. Consider the typical friendship between women. It’s said that male friendships are side-by-side while female friendships are face-to-face. What this means is that male friendships tend to be activity-based; our friendships are focused around doing things together, where any sort of bonding is secondary to the activity. Female friendships, on the other hand, tend to be about bonding, intimacy, validation and sharing; women get together with their friends to see their friends. And a significant part of those friendships involve validation, vulnerability and support. This is something women in general and young girls in particular develop early on, and it creates a very different dynamic between how women are socialized to see themselves and how men are.

If you were to look at girls’ Instagrams and other social media, you would see how often their friends hype them up; they have their squad telling them how great they look, how cool they are, and so on. Boys, especially straight boys, don’t have that sort of social support from their friends. And that takes its toll in a lot of ways. And one of the most profound — and relevant to your question — is that it leaves men thinking that they’re not desired or desirable. And this is a problem on many levels; after all, not only do men and boys crave intimacy and validation as well as emotional connection, but one of the toxic ideals about manhood is that a man’s status is, in part, measured by how much sex he has.

But if men aren’t desirable… then what are we supposed to do to raise our status? Well, it comes down to the issue you’re facing: because men don’t feel wanted, they feel like they need to be needed instead. If they’re needed, then at least there is a value-for-value proposition; they provide value in the form of “being a provider”, particularly financially, and are rewarded with sex… which then raises their value and status.

However, there’re a number of drawbacks to this. Well, drawbacks beyond “wow, that’s a really toxic and s--tty thing to believe about yourself,” anyway.

To start with, the idea that our value is predicated in part on our ability to provide creates a sort of arms race, where those who can provide more are thus more valuable. So we instill the belief that our value — and commiserate ability to acquire “valuable” women — is in part predicated on our financial and material success. So someone who has more — more money, more success, more stuff — is thus a more desirable partner. This creates a cult-of-success mentality where you need to have a consistent and rising amount of financial success in order to be sufficient to date and to ward off your supposed competition.

It also creates an antagonistic relationship between men and… well, literally everyone else. Other men are seen as our competition and believed to be likely to pounce if there’s even a hint of weakness. Meanwhile, if a man’s value is in what he can provide, then his value is inherently unstable, especially in the current economy where job security is the career equivalent of The Loch Ness Monster. Worse, under this system of belief, there’s (theoretically) no reason why women shouldn’t always be on the lookout for a higher-value man. If women, in this scenario, are attracted to a man’s ability to provide, then they’re motivated to trade up whenever possible. And worse, because women “control” men’s ability to raise their value by controlling the access to sex, it creates an antagonistic relationship between men and women. Men are incentivized to get sex at any cost, while women are incentivized to withhold sex until they get the highest value they possibly can… creating a situation where someone is going to lose.

And just to make matters worse, this idea of “man-as-provider” was predicated on a time when women simply didn’t have the same financial opportunities or security that men did. Most women had to look to men, not for love or connection or companionship but for survival, because the alternative was starvation or worse. But in this day and age, as society continues to narrow the economic gap between men and women, and women have unprecedented financial security and freedom, women aren’t reliant on men for survival any more. The economic “need” is functionally rendered moot. Worse still, as women become more empowered to handle their own affairs, capable of doing “men’s work” in their lives and otherwise being able to survive and thrive just fine on their own… the areas where men are “needed” grows smaller and smaller.

So if you’re a guy who doesn’t believe that he has worth outside of what he can do for someone else on a material level… well, you find yourself to be a rapidly depreciating asset. This gets made worse by things, like, say, not wanting a woman who’s “needy”  them because they want to be able to live their life as though they were still single. Managing someone’s emotional needs is difficult when you barely have a grasp on your own emotions and needs, so they want a woman who doesn’t “need” them”.

(A lot of the men who don’t want “needy” or “clingy” women also are hoping to be able to keep f--king around until they find one they’d rather have, but that’s a different issue entirely.)

This creates a situation where men get stuck; they supposedly want a particular type of woman, but as with many areas in life, there’s the vast difference between “wanting something” and “dealing with the reality of having it,” that is — as so many things in this modern age are — best expressed in meme format.

Man: “Man, the last thing I want is some clingy girl. I want to date a woman who doesn’t need me.”

Woman: “OK…”

goes off and lives her life.

Man: “Wait, not like that…”

So you end up with these competing desires. There’s the desire to be wanted, which they think they aren’t, and instead gets sublimated to the desire to be needed. However, they want to be needed in a very specific way. At the same time, they want a woman who matches certain criteria, but can’t be honest enough with themselves to admit that either they don’t actually want that, or they want it in a way that leaves them feeling superior and in control. So either they can be ‘needed’ or they can be needed. But as more and more women don’t need men — not in the limited way those men tend to think — and the delineations between “men’s stuff” and “women’s stuff” gets erased, men find themselves in increasingly untenable positions.

And thus we come back to your dilemma, RSB: you want to date, but you also live life out loud and don’t “need” a man. Thus you end up with guys who find you “intimidating”. So what do you do about it?

Well… ultimately you have two options. The first is that you live your life and look for a guy who can actually meet you where you are. This may be someone who’s a little softer and less caught up in traditional, restrictive forms of masculinity, or it could be someone who’s confident enough in himself that he doesn’t need to be “needed” by someone to feel desirable or worthy of love. However, this means accepting being single for a while, likely longer than you might prefer. Sometimes the issue with waiting for guys to catch up to you means that you’re going to be waiting for quite some time. While there’re more and more men who are becoming comfortable with shucking the restrictions of coercive forms of masculinity, socialization is a motherf--ker and it can be difficult to uproot all of it. So you may well meet dudes who seem like they’re able to meet you at your level — or who are cool with being the support class to your front line character — but who end up having issues with it, a la your last boyfriend.

The other option is you can choose to change, to make adjustments so that some guy would feel like there’s “room” for him in your life. But, to be blunt: a lot of times, this means making yourself smaller for the comfort of others… sanding off bits of you so that other people aren’t as scared or feel less intimidated by you. The trade off for having a relationship means that you had to reduce and limit yourself so other people wouldn’t be as afraid or intimidated by you… and that can chafe. A lot. And it sounds to me that, despite not having romance in your life, you have a pretty good and satisfying life.

You can also try to carve room in your life for someone to fit. But that can be difficult, especially when you love your life, and when you want a guy who can meet you at your level and on your terms. As I’m telling guys all the time: you want someone who complements your life, not completes it, who adds something to it rather than fills a hole. Because, honestly: that hole isn’t there because someone was missing. The hole is there because there’s some part of you that’s missing.

Now in my opinion, I think you’re making a lot of the right moves. Talking to a therapist to process your entirely reasonable feelings of loss and regret is a good start. So too is living a full life. One of the unfortunate truths of this world is that love and companionship don’t always happen on our preferred schedule, and sometimes the love of your life needs to be the love of your life. Having a life full of friends, family and meaning is important. And while yes, love is important too… sometimes giving up that life for love means finding a love that doesn’t fit, or a love that doesn’t match who you are.

Does that make the loneliness any less or the sense of loss for what children you may have had any easier? Not always. But there are ways of dealing with both. What there isn’t, however, is a way of dealing with the special kind of loneliness that comes from being with someone who isn’t right for you. Being lonely because you’re with the wrong person is like having a void that can never be fully filled or closed; you can ignore it or distract yourself from it, but the feeling is always there just at the edge of your perception.

I’m not gonna lie: looking for someone who can actually match you or complement your life can be frustrating. You may be looking for a while. But as the saying goes: nobody ever said that it would be easy… just that in the end, it will be worth it.

Good luck.

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