DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Last year, I got into a FWB situation that got really messy, and I’m having a hard time moving on. I met this guy through an app, we hit it off, and hooked up. The sex was surprisingly good, because even for just a hookup: he was really interested in my pleasure, and it was the kind of sex where you really feel connected with your partner. Since that was the vibe I got just with a hookup, I was very interested in finding out how that got better with time, so I pursued him. We talked about what we were looking for, etc, he said he wasn’t ready for a commitment yet, but was definitely looking for something more casual. I was coming off a divorce, so I was in the same spot, and we agreed to friends with benefits. Simple enough, right? Well, turns out…not so much.

Shortly after this, our area upped the pandemic lockdown measures as case rates rose. Since we both wanted to be cautious, we agreed to be “COVID monogamous”: there wasn’t an expectation of monogamy, but if we were going to do anything (romantic or otherwise) that would up our risk level, we’d let the other know so they could make informed decisions with their health. All very adult and reasonable. But…turns out having amazing, highly connected sex with one person exclusively, on top of great hang-outs and conversation…it’s not easy to keep things casual. I was vulnerable with him about my needs and how I was feeling. And, eventually, I told him I was falling in love with him. He was pretty obviously shocked by this admission, but didn’t say much of anything. We had sex again, but that’s when things started to feel off. During the act, amongst other sexy-talk, I whispered “I love you” and he didn’t say anything back, just…went at it with more ardor. When we finished, he kind of shuffled me out the door with an “I’ll call you later” because he had therapy. Admittedly, I’d decided to tell him on a day he had therapy because I thought it would be a good chance for him to unpack his feelings. When I had previously been vulnerable about my feelings, he said he “wasn’t ready for a relationship yet” so I wanted to give him a chance to dive into what exactly it was he wasn’t ready for, talk that through with his therapist before responding to my admission. Based on the connection we shared, I thought he was falling in love with me too, and the problem was that we were both scared of some aspect of defining a “serious relationship” between us. 

Apparently I was way f--king wrong, because he told me the next day that he wasn’t falling in love with me. At all. He wasn’t holding himself back, he’d just straight-up never even felt butterflies for me in the 5+ months of sex.

F--king ouch.

It turns out, I’d been reading him all wrong. The connection I was feeling wasn’t mutually falling in love, it was because, basically, he liked to roleplay being in love during sex. He just never told me it was a sexy game for him, and I thought it was the real deal. So all this time, when I was getting mixed signals out of the bedroom, I was blithely ignoring the pink flags while figuratively singing “It’s In His Kiss”: Sure, he didn’t seem as excited to see me as I was to see him, but he always seemed so reluctant to leave! Sure, he wasn’t returning my vulnerability in kind, but he’s just scared! Sure, he said he wasn’t ready for a relationship, but there was always a “yet” tacked on the end! There weren’t any completely red flags, he always was honest (seemingly) and sung my praises and treated me well, even if it wasn’t with the same enthusiasm as how I treated him.

In the conversation that finally ended it all, he admitted that he knew he’d been treating me unfairly. That trying to pass what we shared off as “just FWB” was dishonest of him. That having me act in a loving, adoring way was actively a turn-on for him: when I confessed I was falling in love, it made him hard even though he knew he didn’t feel the same way. He intentionally withheld his true feelings with the excuse of “I don’t want to hurt her” but really because he was having fun, hot sex and was adored by a wonderful woman and he liked it all enough that he didn’t want it to end (these are his words, paraphrased). Ultimately, I let him know how hurt I was, broke things off with him, and haven’t talked to him since. 

Now for the issue itself: this situation combined with good old-fashioned ADD rejection-sensitive dysphoria is making it feel impossible to move on. I can’t get it out of my head, the ADD just wants to dwell on it. And I feel like I can’t trust myself. I used to think I was a great judge of character. Hell, my job relies on it. But I thought a guy was falling in love with me when I never even gave him butterflies. How could I miss that? 

I tried to move on, date other guys (yay vaccine!). But hooking up has been a mistake because instead of mediocre-to-fun decent sex to help me forget, I’ve had disappointing-to-“he tried to stealth me” bad encounters (for readers: stealthing is taking off the condom without getting consent from or even telling your partner, and it’s rape). Not trusting myself has led to either being over-accepting or over-paranoid, and I feel like I have no ability to accurately figure out if a guy is genuinely interested in *me* or just wanting to take literally any woman who will put out. It makes me scared to pursue guys I’m really interested in, because I know if they’re not the one chasing me from the start, I’m going to want an impossible level of proof of their interest.  And, in the process of falling in love with him, I did a lot of work to figure out what scared me about relationships, what was holding me back, so intellectually I felt better prepared to approach figuring out the definitions of a relationship. But now that’s putting the cart in front of the horse, because I’m too spun-up about the butterflies thing.

My therapist and social support circle don’t really understand the ADD/RSD part of it, so they try to point me in the direction of “these are irrational thoughts”/”he’s an asshole” respectively. I know both of these things, but it’s not stopping the RSD. Sitting with my feelings doesn’t really help, because my brain is happy to turn that into ADD spinning out of control and hyper-focusing on the bad feelings/upsetting parts/parts I can’t control. And I don’t want to keep trying to date like some s--tty romance movie character who’s just waiting for The Right Guy to come along and See Just How Special She Is. I’m not a teenager in a vampire romance, I’m a successful, smart, fun, funny, full-grown thirtysomething woman: I know I’m special, and I know I deserve better. I deserve mutual butterflies. But how do I get past this all enough to trust myself to find something better?

-Friends Without Butterflies

DEAR FRIENDS WITHOUT BUTTERFLIES: Oof. That’s pretty goddamn brutal, FWB, and I’m sorry you went through this.

Now, before I get to your question, I want to zero in on a concept for the rest of my readers: the idea of rejection-sensitive dysphoria. This is a term that refers to an unusually high level of sensitivity and emotional reaction to the perception of rejection and criticism that’s a frequent symptom of mental conditions like ADHD, borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s not that folks who suffer from RSD are too sensitive or less able to handle criticism, but more that their brain’s tendency towards hyperfocus latches on to the fear and pain of rejection and amplifies it to an absurd and unrealistic degree. In many cases, it can cause social phobias, damage relationships or result in maladaptive behaviors in an attempt to ward off rejection.

So imagine the worst break up of your life and then apply that feeling to when someone uses a period in a text instead of an exclamation point. Or when someone takes longer than normal to text back because they’re busy at work.

What I’m saying is, it’s a goddamn party when you have it.

Now with that out of the way… holy hopping sheeps--t FWB, that’s not just your RSD hitting you particularly hard. What you’re feeling isn’t out of proportion to what happened, what you’re feeling is an entirely f--king understandable response to a dude’s f--ked up kink. It’s understandable that you got your wires crossed with this guy.

On the one hand, yes, you were getting caution flags from this guy and I’m sure that there was more than a little wishful thinking going on. I mean, who hasn’t gotten a little twitterpated when the sex is mindblowing? Especially at a time when our emotional bandwidth is occupied by the stress of survival during a pandemic and you’re basically locked into a relationship with this person. Under other circumstances, I would tell you that yes, you read a little too much into this situation and got in over your head. And while that sucks… well, it ain’t like that isn’t something I’d done back in the day myself. Sometimes we let our hopes and dreams color our reality more than we reasonably should, we miss the glaringly obvious and we get ourselves hurt in the process.

However, while there may have been a little wishful thinking there’s also the fact that apparently the dude was, y’know deliberately acting like he’s in love with you during sex. You know. For grins and also because it made his orgasms that much better. For five months.

Like ya do.

And this is not a case of post-hoc rationalization or interpreting the facts in the most positive light on your end. The dude straight up told you that he was doing this. He said — specifically — that he knew what he was doing was hurting you but damn it, his dick just got so f--king hard that he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

So I’m willing to lay down my not-an-actual-doctor card here and say that no this isn’t RSD turning everything up to 11, this is “having a very reasonable reaction to a very unreasonable situation”. It’s not that you are having irrational thoughts or fears. An irrational fear is the way that turbulence makes me try to hold a plane in the air by sheer willpower, despite knowing that everything is fine and no crash has ever been caused by bumpy air pockets. This is something that happened to you. If you’d been bitten by a shark while swimming, you would have a very understandable reason to be afraid of going back in the ocean.

This is a dude who — depending on how you want to interpret things — either actively lied to you or at least knew how his actions were making you feel and allowed you to believe things that weren’t true. Either way, your inability to trust and fear of being lead on is entirely reasonable.

The part where your RSD rolls into the picture is in the hyperfocus on the past and worst-case scenarios. It’s the inability to quit seeing it or to push past those fears and give people a chance. And that part gets tricky because… well, unfortunately, part of the whole point of RSD is that it’s baked into your condition. It’s hard to deal with because it tends to come at you like a speeding train and knocks you on your ass for a while and keeps you there until things subside enough that you can get back up again.

Now speaking strictly for myself: medication has been a huge help for getting things under control. The same meds that let me control my ADHD have turned the volume on the attendant RSD way down. If you’re not on a medication to address your ADD symptoms, that might be a good start. It may also be worth talking to a psychiatrist about a supplemental medication; I’ve seen reports that suggest that an alpha agonist like Guanfacine can be effective in dealing with RSD symptoms, especially in folks who can’t take stimulants for ADD and ADHD.

However, another part of moving forward is recognizing that part of what is likely f--king with your head is that you ignored your instincts.

One of the problems with “trust your gut” is that sometimes a person’s gut isn’t trustworthy. A lot of folks have a hard time relying on their intuition, their gut, their Spidey-sense, because it’s miscalibrated. Sometimes out of trauma, sometimes out of cultural issues, sometimes because they bought into s--tty beliefs about love and sex.

But for a lot of people, their intuition is spot on, as long as they listen to it.

It’s like you said: you were getting pink flags and a lot of his behaviors were telling you that s--t was hinky. You ignored them in part because hey, mindblowing sex but also because he was actively deceiving you. But the important part is that your Spidey-sense works as intended. You had reasons to believe that this wasn’t love and that it was still just an FWB situation, you were just incentivized to ignore them. So the lesson here is trust your Spidey-sense. When you start getting that tingle that tells you that something’s wrong, listen. Take a moment and take stock of the situation, as rationally as you possibly can. Take a step outside yourself and ask: if someone was coming to you with this problem and these suspicions, what would you tell them?

It sounds stupid, but that’s actually a pretty solid way of short-circuiting your RSD; it’s not your situation, it’s a friend’s, and so that fear of rejection doesn’t come into it.

The third part of going forward is… well, it’s just time, really. Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels. Taking a break so that you can let this f--ked up situation fade into the past is a viable option. When things aren’t as fresh and you’re feeling ready to try again and to (cautiously) trust again, then it’ll be easier to see folks as potential partners and not just another s--tty dude who literally gets hard playing mind games with people.

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 love all the amazing life lessons you give. I hope you can help me with my dilemma. My issue is less of a problem and more me being confused.

First, the back story: in high school, I had no issue talking or communicating with girls; in fact my best friends in the world are girls. I feel the closest to them and have had sleep overs and get togethers, something that I have not done with my guy friends in years. A while ago, they brought up that they think I could be gay or bi. Their reasons for this were my calm, sweet and feminine like personality, my best friends are all girls and other small points.

At first i dismissed it, but as the weeks/months went on, I started to wonder if there was any truth to this. I know I’m not gay because of my attraction to girls, but could I be bisexual? Or is the only reason I’m thinking of this because they brought it up?

With this being said, my second question is, how can a guy like me, who is described by quite a few people as a cute feminine guy get a girl? I spend most my time with girls, and I don’t want to send the message that I am a girl so stay away. I know this is not a normal question but I was hoping u could help with your usual dose of helpful advice. 

MaybeBiShyGuy

DEAR MAYBEBISHYGUY: So, this is one of those times when I need to qualify my advice with the fact that I’m a straight, cis man. My perspective is — by definition — not going to be the same as an LGBTQ person’s, and so there’s always the possibility of missing something critical or an angle I wouldn’t have considered.

This is why I would like to that my LGBTQ readers chime in with their thoughts and experiences regarding how they came to understand their sexuality and sexual expression. Reading their stories and experiences could help shine a light on some of your own.

Now with that in mind: it doesn’t sound like you’re bisexual, MBSG. If we go by what you’ve written, then I’d feel pretty secure in saying that you sound like you’re straight.

You’re comfortable around women and have mostly female friends. That’s not inherent to any form of sexuality; guys can relate more to their female friends just as women can relate more to their male friends. That doesn’t say anything about who you want to bang, just who you are more comfortable with.

Similarly, being a feminine guy – either in looks or personality – isn’t an indication of sexual orientation. Gender is, after all, a social construct. You can be less traditionally “masculine” in presentation or in behavior and still be straight. Being softer-spoken or less assertive doesn’t make you any less male or straight. Neither does being more nurturing or less aggressive or domineering. Those are just different ways of being a man. You can be a soft, gentle straight man, you can be an aggressive, dominant gay man or any other combination you care to imagine. You can have camp straight men and straight-acting pansexual men; the behavior may be associated with one form of sexuality, but that doesn’t make it exclusively tied to it.

By that same token, the fact that your friends think you might be less than 100% straight doesn’t mean that they’re right. Women are just as capable of having weird ideas about sexuality as straight men are. You all sound VERY young, so if I were to hazard a guess, it would be that your friends most likely think you’re gay because a) you’re less masculine presenting than other men they know and b)you’re not actively trying to f--k them the way that they seem to assume most guys would.

Well, either that or they have some really odd ideas about what being bisexual means. But then again, who knows; you may just be a straight guy who gives off a gay vibe. I’ve known plenty of guys whose behavior has given false pings on people’s gaydar; they’re straight, but because they don’t perform their masculinity in stereotypical ways, they confuse some folks at first. As people get to know them, they realize that no, that’s just who they are and it’s all part and parcel of the wondrous variety that is the human experience.

The only person who could really say whether you’re bi or pansexual is you. You’ve said that you’re attracted to women, and the only reason you even think about it is because they brought it up. While that doesn’t mean that you definitely aren’t bi, you don’t seem to have given any reason in your letter to say that you are.

Of course, one of the things to realize is that sexuality is a multi-axis spectrum, not a line where you have to be equally split in your attraction to men or women to be bi. You can be primarily attracted to women, but there’s just the occasional guy who hits that exact sweet spot for you. You could be sexually attracted to men, but are only romantically attracted to women. Or you could find yourself into a wider variety of people including folks who are non-binary or otherwise gender non-conforming.

So COULD you be bi? Hell if I know, you tell me. One of the better indicators of where your interests lie is who you think about when it’s just you, your hand and your imagination. If you find yourself imagining Oscar Isaac or Li’l Nas X — and honestly, who could blame you — on occasion when you’re masturbating, then sure, I’d say you would qualify. But again: a) I’m a straight dude and b) my feelings on the subject ultimately don’t matter. Yours do.

Now as for how a feminine looking dude can get a girlfriend… well, can I assume you’ve never heard of the phrase “pretty boy” or “bishonen”? For that matter, have you seen how people respond to Timothée Chalamet or Harry Styles? Or when David Bowie was in his Ziggy Stardust phase of his career, with god-given ass?

Androgynous or feminine looking guys are like catnip to a large portion of the female population… and that segment is growing in influence. While there will always women who like their men hairy-chested and square-jawed, there are also many who like men who are softer, slimmer or otherwise less traditionally male. And there are more than a few who like their men to not just appear more feminine but to be more feminine in behavior as well.

Like I said: it’s all part and parcel of the diversity of the human experience. Some straight guys want amazons, some straight women want pretty boys.

Spending time with women or having a more feminine presentation isn’t going to keep women away, just women who aren’t compatible with you. You want the women who dig what you have to offer; if they think your being less traditionally manly is a problem… well, all that’s happened is that they’ve let you know that they’re not people you want to date.

(And if they’re s--tty about it or have awful opinions about LGBTQ folks, then they’ve doing you a favor by staying the hell away.)

The only thing I would suggest is to make sure that you’re not the passive guy that ends up being folks’ platonic BFF. Regardless of your sexuality, your gender or the way you express either… be an active participant in your own life. Don’t wait for other people to make a move for you. Make your interest known and ask people out when you’re into them.

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 trans guy venturing out into dating women for the first time since I started transition. One of the advantages of being a trans dude is that we can tailor our genitalia to our partner’s preferences via the magic of prosthetics.

Enter my sense of humor. None of my prosthetics look like a normal penis. There are tentacles, tongues, and weirder appendages. 

It occurred to me recently to wonder at what point I should maybe mention my terrible sense of humor? Do I wait until we’re discussing what acts are even mutually agreeable and then bring up that I think tentacles are hilarious? Do I just assume that if I’ve gotten that far with someone that she knows about my sense of humor? Do I pick up a couple more normal prosthetics just in case (how boring)? I have consulted both Debrett’s and Miss Manners, but neither offered any guidance.

Help me doc, you’re my only hope! 

Cthulhu In My Pants

DEAR CTHULHU IN MY PANTS: I’m not gonna lie: the first thing I thought of when I read this is one of my favorite fan works from Stjepan Sejic, where Lois is reminded that Superman is still an alien.

But putting the pincers aside…

This is actually an interesting issue, CIMP, because it touches on a number of issues surrounding bodies, sex and worrying about what our partners will think when they see us naked for the first time. Bodies are inherently weird, and everyone has things about theirs that they think are inherently unattractive or off-putting. For some it’s cellulite or stretch marks. For others it’s scars from injuries or surgeries. Some folks have large or inverted nipples, gynecomastia or sunken chests. People have hands, feet or limbs that may be different than normal or who have limited mobility or other issues. There can be too much hair in places you think there shouldn’t be any, or not enough in others. Some feel that they’re too fat, others far too skinny. Still others have moles, birthmarks, asymmetries or countless other little quirks and differences that stand out like a glaring red light when we look in the mirror.

And this is never more true than when it comes to our junk. Some folks have pensises and clitorises of varying sizes and shapes — some that curve in odd directions, some that are much larger than normal or much smaller than the average. Same with vulvas, labia, scrotums… all of these come in such wide varieties, and almost everyone is convinced that theirs is weird or unattractive somehow.

But here’s the thing: by the time we’re at the “getting naked” stage of things, it’s almost always fait accompli. When someone’s ready to start peeling your clothes off during furious makeouts, they’re already all-in; they’re into you as the holistic person you are. Whatever thing you think is a disqualifier is rarely going to turn them off or make them change their minds. As it turns out, it’s really hard to ruin the mood when you’re with someone who’s into you, specifically. Most of the time, the things that are unmissable to you are barely noticeable to anyone else, and when they do notice, they usually don’t care.

That having been said, if things go to extremes — such as, say, pulling out a prosthetic or a strap-on that looks like an outtake from Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife — there may be some moments of “wait, WHAT?” that will need to be worked through. After all, here’re a lot of sex toys, prosthetics, dildos and vibrators out there that are as much for the “What the Cinnamon Toast F--k is THAT?” factor as they are about function. Toys from companies like Bad Dragon are impressive to see during a cam show, but may be a bit much for somebody who wasn’t expecting them. Sometimes they can be absurd, sometimes you are convinced there’s no way that thing would fit, sometimes they look anatomically impossible to use, and sometimes they make people go “Wait, why does that have a bicep??”

(If you know, you know.)

But then again, part of what’s made sex toys — penetration toys in particular — more broadly acceptable has been getting away from looking like body parts. Part of why vibrators, penetration toys and insertion toys like Fleshlights got a rap for the perverted or terminally lonely was because they looked like disembodied genitalia.  These days, a lot of penetration toys don’t look sexual at all, but more like objet d’art, when function is allowed to dictate form. So pulling a tentacle or other unusually shaped prosthetics out of the drawer may not necessarily be the showstopper you might worry about.

As a general rule, I’m a big believer that the more likely an issue is going to come up — especially during sex — the sooner it should be brought up to the other person, if only so they can adjust their expectations accordingly. The odds are, by the time you’re at a point where you and your future snugglebunny are at the “your place or mine” stage, they’ll know about your sense of humor. But just as knowing my love of awful jokes doesn’t stop my friends from rolling their eyes at me when I make them, knowing that you think tentacles are hilarious doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily going to expect to see something they last saw in Urotsukidoji when you get together.

In this case, I think that during discussions about your yes’, no’s and maybe’s, your must-haves and hard limits, bringing up that most of your toys are from the exotic or novelty end of the spectrum is a good idea. fIt’s much easier for things to flow smoothly — as smooth as a first time can be, anyway — when folks know more or less what to expect. While it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, you may have to deal with giggling fits or questions like “how does that even work?” that could slow things down.

Not, mind you, that giggles and happy laughter is a bad thing. It’s just that if they know what they’re likely in for in the first place, then you might still be getting the giggles, but it becomes part of the experience, rather than having to pause while she catches her breath.

Now, speaking strictly for myself, I’m a big believer in preparing for as many contingencies as possible. Having a more standard prosthetic as an option, while not as hilarious, may be a good thing to have on hand. They may not necessarily want that one, but it does mean that you have choices if it turns out that the Black Goat With A Thousand Tongue isn’t what they were down for that night. At the very least, it means that people who are a little more standard-issue when it comes to sex will be a bit more comfortable at the start.

But then again, who knows? Your pulling out the Dread Cthulhu Lies (Wet) Dreaming out of the drawer may not even be the weirdest thing she’s seen that week.

Good luck.

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