Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:

I am in a long-term and very happy relationship. My boyfriend and I are happy, our sex life is great, and we are both still very much attracted to each other. We still go on date nights and have lots of fun together in whatever we do. We’ve both never cheated on each other and trust each other so much.

My question is why then so I sometimes dream about being with other men?

Yes, these are usually men I am attracted to in some way, but it has never crossed my mind to ever cheat on my boyfriend. Some of these dreams we’re just kidding, but other dreams it goes all the way (I do also still have dreams like this with my boyfriend, too!)

What is wrong with me?

Get Out of My Dreams

DEAR GET OUT OF MY DREAMS: Nothing’s wrong with you, GOMD. You’re just a person with a brain and a sex drive.

There’re two things to keep in mind here.

The first is that while dreams may be influenced by our thoughts and emotions, they are ultimately – to misapply some Shakespeare – a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. We assign meaning to dreams because we’re a pattern-seeking species and we ascribe meaning and significance to randomness all the time. Yeah, we have dreams that correlate to things going on in our waking lives… but we also have dreams that are completely and utterly random, with no more meaning or significance than our brains hitting “shuffle” and throwing all sorts of weird imagery at us while they dump the RAM cache at the end of the day.

One night you’ll find yourself being chased by dinosaurs that’re destroying your city, another night you may find yourself having sex with someone who you would never have sex with in real life. It’s chaos, it’s illogical, and it means very little. And this is before we get into the various things that affect our sleep and how well or easily we access REM sleep.

It’s worth remembering: our dream imagery is fueled by our culture. So many dreams feel universal – “going to class and oops I’m naked”, “I have an exam and I haven’t studied!”, “My teeth are all falling out”, etc. – because they come from the same cultural template. It’s easy to assume that dreaming about X means Y because we’ve already got those associations; public nudity is shameful and taboo, failing exams have dire consequences and so forth. So the things we see when we dream have far less to do with our subconscious trying to send us messages so much as cultural imagery that lines up with specific emotional states or anxieties.

(There are, interestingly, some things that are more common than others, such as snakes and teeth falling out. But then again, there’re snakes on every continent except Antarctica and teeth are inherently connected to general health, so it’s understandable that those would crop up so frequently.)

The second is that the strength and happiness of your relationship has nothing to do with your desire or attraction to other people. You can love your boyfriend to pieces and the two of you can bang until you have orgasms so hard your eyes pop out of your head and you can and will want to bang other people. That’s not a sign that you’re weak, that you don’t love your boyfriend or you’re not satisfied with everything. It’s a sign that you have a libido. Not even an unusually active libido, just one at all. No one person can be all things to another person, nor is anyone so “enough” that you never find other people attractive or think lusty thoughts about them. That’s not how we’re wired as a species. We can – and do – choose whether or not to act on those thoughts or attractions. We make arrangements with our partners about if and how we can act on those feelings, if at all. But the state of being in love or being in a relationship doesn’t mean that we quit having them. Blaming yourself or accepting blame for having them is just pointless masochism, and trying to force ourselves to not have them is an exercise in futility.

So if you have dreams about banging someone who’s not your boyfriend? It doesn’t mean anything other than “you had a dream that you banged someone who wasn’t your boyfriend”. Maybe you find them hot, maybe you don’t… there’s really not any meaning to it other than what you bring to it. My advice is to just shrug your shoulders and say “huh, that was weird” and then move on about your day.

And if the dreams leave you feeling horny and unfulfilled when you wake up? Sounds like a good opportunity to take that energy and plow it into your boyfriend. That’s way more enjoyable than playing Freud and forgetting that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

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 appreciated your advice over the years and I’m wondering if you can help me with the issue I’m dealing with currently. I am a straight woman in my early 30s, and everyone involved here is also in their early 30s.

The whole story is long, but the short version is I messed up about a year ago. I have a long-term acquaintance, G. G had a girlfriend for most of the time I knew him, A. Last year G and I slept together. Before we hooked up G told me he and A had broken up some time ago and were on good terms. I was foolish enough to just take what he said at face value.

After we slept together G told me that he and A were more “on a break” than broken up and she would “freak out” if she ever found out about us. A few months later G and A got back together and even though I asked him not to, G told A about the hook up. A has not freaked out (at least not at me) but she very clearly dislikes me. G, A and I have never really been friends, just friendly acquaintances, but we have a ton of mutual friends through a niche shared interest, so I see them all the time.

I feel stupid and embarrassed about the whole thing, and have a lot of anxiety when I go out now that I did not have before. I don’t think either G or A has told anyone else but I am constantly afraid one of them will as a way to get me excluded. Though my community claims to be progressive the reality is slut-shaming is still prevalent. I have a close group of friends who would stand by me, but the larger group I’m not so sure about. I know G is a f--kface, but still I feel like this whole thing is all my fault and I deserve whatever consequences I face. Like I should have known a guy like him would basically say anything for the chance to get laid, and I should have put a stop to it.

I’ve had moments after being around them where I’ve considered giving up on our shared interest altogether, but that would mean losing a huge part of my identity. I have not dated or slept with anyone since G and I don’t think I will anytime soon. I often feel like I want to date again but then I remember the embarrassment and betrayal I felt after G and decide I need more time. I feel like I’m constantly fighting to “prove” that I deserve to be part of this community both to myself and to G and A. At least half the time I feel like I’m losing.

And I guess that’s where I could use your help, proving to myself that I do deserve to be part of this scene and not letting all the bulls--t impact me the way it has so far. I feel like there has to be a better way of putting this than “proving I’m worthy” but that’s the only way I can think to phrase it at the moment. Any advice would be appreciated.

Heartbreak Motel

DEAR HEARTBREAK MOTEL: Let’s be clear from the jump, HM: this is a G problem, not a you problem. In fact, I think the biggest issue here is that you’re taking on blame that’s not actually yours and the folks who know you (and G, and A) should understand this.

So, let me point out what I see, as someone who has no connection to the social circles you three run in: you slept with someone who lied to you about his relationship status. Or, “was less than clear” about their relationship status, if someone is inclined to nitpick or try to lawyer their way out of trouble.

(We’ll come back to that in a moment, I have thoughts on this.)

He then revealed to you, after the fact, that he wasn’t completely honest about his relationship status and oh hey, now he needs you to keep his secret for him because his girlfriend would freak about it. Of course, he then went on to tell other folks after having asked you to keep his secret and now you feel like s--t.

Seems pretty open and shut to me, quite frankly. Dude lied to you, you believed him because you didn’t expect him to lie to you… that’s a pretty clear-cut case of him being The Asshole here and you’re in the clear.

“But Doc,” I hear  you cry: “I know G’s a f--kface and would say anything to get laid. I should’ve known better!” To which I respond: he lied to you. So answer me this: if one person lies and the other person believes them, who’s ultimately at fault? The person who lied, or the person who they deceived? We don’t – or shouldn’t – hold people to a standard where we expect them to conduct interviews and due diligence investigations before we believe them, especially when they’re talking about their relationships or being single. Taking the blame on yourself for believing a liar is holding yourself to a nigh-impossible standard. After all, even chronic and habitual liars don’t lie about everything… and the best liars mix enough truth into their lies to make them that much more convincing. Unless G goes beyond “f--kface” and into “if he tells you there are 24 hours in a day, you should go check” levels of lying, it’s not unreasonable that you took him at his word that he and A broke up.

But they hadn’t and at best he’s playing semantic games with you – and definitely in such a way that lead a reasonable person to believe exactly what he wanted them to believe. Even if we accept that he didn’t technically lie to you and just framed things in such a way that you could infer one thing when reality was another… it’s still on him. He actively deceived you and then waited until after the fact to reveal the truth in such a way that you feel complicit and are required to keep this a secret because it would screw up his life. That in and of itself would constitute what many of my lawyer friends would refer to as a “consciousness of guilt”.

And here’s the thing: I can see ways that this would be less of a breach of trust. If, y’know. I squint. There’re ways that I could see that things happened in good (ok, decent) faith that then became the paving stones in the proverbial road to hell. I could see, for example, a world where G and A agreed that they were “on a break”, but had very different ideas of what that meant. After all, there’s a reason why the “We were on a break” argument became a cornerstone of Friends; it’s a conflict that resonates with a lot of folks. One person’s “break” means “this relationship is done, we are effectively single with an option to get back together”,  while it means “we are not seeing, talking or interacting with each other for a period of time, but our relationship is still in effect” to another. And, of course, if you didn’t define terms, it’s somewhat understandable that everybody might have a different idea of what it meant.

So, it’s not impossible that he could, in good faith, have assumed that “on a break” was synonymous with “break up” but slightly less permanent and only afterwards realized that this might have been a mistake. People – men and women both – have made dumb decisions under the influence of being incredibly hornt up. It’s not impossible that, in the cold light of “just got off”, he realized that A would lose her s--t if she knew the two of you slept together. I could see him scrambling and making what was ultimately a bad call in a moment of panic when he wasn’t thinking clearly.

This happens more often than people realize, even with folks who have the best of intentions. This is why I’m a big believer in Hanlon’s Razor: never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity. We like to assume that we’re all rational actors, but many times we end up making choices out of anger, fear, ignorance or just plain old fashioned dickful thinking. We’re are flawed humans, brains are just electric tapioca soaked in random chemicals and what we think are reasoned choices are usually made by our emotions and we retcon the logic we used to get there after the fact.

Of course, that also applies to you, too. The idea that you “should have” known better, that you “should have” realized what this was and that you “should have” put a stop to it? That’s all post-hoc rationalization; you made a decision with the best information you had at the time. Now you have new information that would’ve affected your decision… but you’re treating this as though you had that information this whole time and you didn’t.

Now all of that having been said: while I could see a world where this is the result of poor choices being made in good faith, I kinda doubt it. Especially since your timeline here makes it sound like the sheets hadn’t even started to cool before he told you “oh, by the way…” It would be one thing if, days later he realized that he made a mistake and was in low-key damage control mode. But from the way you lay things out, it sounds like it was almost a “roll off one another, take a deep sigh and then saying ‘so, did I say ‘broken up?’ I really meant on a break.'” But even if it were only a day or two later, it certainly sounds like he decided to come clean only after he got what he wanted because he knew that telling you straight up would mean that he didn’t get laid.

But it’s still a “him” problem, not a “you” problem. Your blaming yourself like this with those after-the-fact “shoulda woulda coulda” reasons sounds to me like you’ve already bought into what other people would say if they knew and that you ultimately agree that this is somehow your fault. So, while I can understand why you might feel like you need to give up your community and shared interest because of this, it’s coming from a place where you’ve assumed that you’ll get the blame and that they’re right to blame you for this instead of his for being deceptive.

This is why I want to be clear: sleeping with someone you probably shouldn’t have – and I stress, in good faith that he was telling you the truth – does not mean you don’t “deserve” your place in the community. At worst, you’re “guilty” of believing someone who lied to you. That’s it. Anything beyond that is to reach to a level of responsibility that nobody could measure up to. If, for example, it were your fault for believing G and not automatically assuming he’s a lying liar who tells lies... shouldn’t that mean that A is also at fault for being in a relationship with a lying liar in the first place? How does A get off the hook for believing a liar when you don’t? After all, at that point, doesn’t the “fact” (and please note the big sarcastic quote marks around ‘fact’) that he’s a liar and a cheat mean that she’s partially responsible for being cheated on? Or is she somehow absolved from the responsibility of investigating all of his claims?

To be sure, I’d be a liar myself if I didn’t say that it’s certainly possible that people would see it that way; people are irrational and will freely ascribe blame based on vibes rather than on facts and logic, especially if they don’t want to examine those actions too closely. But if – if – your friends and community is that hypocritical, that is a sign that you need much better friends and a much better community. It would sting like bullet ants on your tender bits, yeah… but it would also mean that ultimately you’d be leaving s--tty friends and a s--tty situation behind.

So you want my advice? Stop trying to “prove” anything here. You don’t need to be “worthy”, either to be believed or for you yourself to believe that you were done dirty here. It’s not as though bad s--t doesn’t happen to the “worthy” (for whatever weird definition of ‘worthy’ you want to use) as much as the “unworthy”. That’s a pure intellectual fallacy. You have nothing to prove because at the end of the day, one of two things happened: either G made a bad call and realized it afterwards, or G lied to you and you and A are the wronged parties here. Doubly so if G also played fast and loose with the story he told A about what happened. And, frankly, I don’t think that’s a stretch.

So my advice would be to hold your head up high and realize that this isn’t on you. If he made a poor choice, that’s unfortunate and he’s going to have to deal with the consequences and try to do better next time. If he lied to you (or “was less than forthcoming”), then it’s his fault, not yours. And if G is so known as a lying liar that you should never have believed him, then it’s equally true that everyone else shouldn’t believe him if he says this is all your fault somehow. And if they do believe him and blame you for believing this known liar? Then that’s also on them, and their selective skepticism says more about their bulls--t than about anything you did.

By all means, take time to heal from this. The pain, humiliation and betrayal you’re feeling are all real and valid. That’s all an understandable feeling; you’re a reasonable person who went through some unreasonable s--t. However, the blame for it lies on him, not you, and taking that on just makes you feel worse for no reason. Get space from G – even if it’s just being polite, distant and elsewhere during events where he and A are around – forgive yourself for making a decision you wouldn’t have made if you had more information and give yourself closure. This wasn’t your fault, it was his.

And one more thing. While I’m sure there’re folks who would have suggestions about how you could “get out in front of” any gossip or revelations, I don’t think that’s helpful. Unless he (or A) has or is likely to start sharing this around, trying to get out in front is as likely to backfire and drive attention to the gossip as it is to deflect or redirect. I think the best thing you can do is live your values and your integrity, rather than take on blame that is not yours. The people who know you and know you to be an upright woman of integrity will understand that you aren’t about chasing other people’s boyfriends. And the ones who would think that you’re a lying Jezebel? That’s their bulls--t to deal with.

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 this isn’t necessarily about dating, but I’d like to get your two cents, nonetheless. Strap in because this one’s a doozy.

So, I broke off a relationship of three years with my ex, Darren, at the end of October. We still love each other immensely, but neither of us were getting our needs met and I thought it wise to cut my losses and end things.

Towards the end of our relationship, I started getting massages from our mutual friend, Nick, who is also gay and is married. We’ll call his husband Jacob. Now, without going into too much detail, it was THAT kind of massage (iykyk), which my ex was fine with. After a while, my ex started getting massages from Nick as well.

Fast forward to a few days ago. After months of not speaking to Darren, I decided I was ready to resume a friendship with him. So I called him up and after telling him that I’d like to be friends, he stopped me and said “Before you decide you wanna be friends, there’s something you should know.” At first, I wasn’t worried. I thought he was about to tell me he’s f--king someone new or he’s got a new boyfriend, which I would’ve been fine with.

I wish it were that simple.

So, after telling me “there’s something you should know,” he proceeds to tell me that he is in a relationship with Nick and his husband and will be having a baby with them, which he will be carrying. (Darren is a trans man who still has a female reproductive system, meaning he could still carry a baby.)

Needless to say, I was speechless.

So, after processing everything, I asked Darren, “Let’s think logically about this for a minute. Nick and Jacob are married. You’re just their boyfriend. Have you considered the possibility that you have this baby and they bail?” To which he responded, “Yes.” And I said, “Okay, follow-up question: Let’s take Nick and Jacob out of it for a second. Do you, and you alone, think you are 100% ready to be a father?” And he said, “Yes.”

Now, I have zero doubt that if Darren really commits, he could be an amazing father. I just hope he realizes what a commitment it is. And I only say that because when we broke up just under six months ago, he was nowhere near ready to have a baby.

Now, Darren’s grandfather is the only family he has left. His grandfather is not the most involved person ever. If it doesn’t affect him, he couldn’t care less. I asked Darren what his grandfather thought of the situation and he thinks Darren is crazy, but he doesn’t put much stock into what his grandfather says. Now, Darren doesn’t really have any friends either, so once he told me that, it started to make sense to me why he’s going through with this. I think I might be the only person in his life, whose opinion he cares about, that’s expressed any kind of disagreement with this situation.

Obviously, Darren’s a big boy and he’s gonna do what he wants but I care about him a lot and I just don’t wanna see him dig himself into a hole so deep that he can’t get out. I’m just scared that if he goes through with this, he’ll be in WAY over his head.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the situation.

Sincerely,

Speechless

DEAR SPEECHLESS: Well Speechless, I think my opinion is kinda irrelevant here. I don’t know Darren, Nick or any of the others, so while I have my general opinions (six months is way too early for anyone to be making plans to have kids together), I simply don’t have enough information to make any sort of judgement call here. And honestly, I think you’re asking the wrong question. Or rather, I think you don’t realize the question you’re asking isn’t the one you’re actually asking.

What I think you’re actually asking is: what do you do when you think a friend is making a huge mistake?

This is something that almost everyone has faced at one point or another. It may be that a friend is getting ready to get back with an ex who was absolutely wrong for them. Or they might be engaged to someone who’s just awful. Or – as in your case – they’re thinking of having a baby with someone they barely know. You may know that they’re tap-dancing on the edge of a volcano, but they seem incredibly unaware of it. And if you reach out to warn them or to try to yank them back, then you know you run the risk of driving them over that edge and ruin your friendship at the same time. But even so…

So here’s a harsh truth: unless you have some sort of direct leverage over someone – maybe you’re paying for their schooling or apartment – you really can’t force folks to do things differently, or even to listen. People will make mistakes freely, even eagerly, and of their free will. At best, you can offer your opinion… but unless they actually asked for it, they’re not as likely to listen or take that opinion on board. So to start, you’re going to have to understand that saying anything means that you’re going to be facing an uphill battle. If you want to have chance for achieving the best possible result and keep lines of communication open, then you have to handle things carefully.

To start with: realize that you aren’t going to win any discussion with facts and logic. You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place. Nine times out of ten, they didn’t come to this decision by means of logic; like most people, they likely decided on emotion and found reasons to support that choice after the fact. Everybody does this; we make choices based on vibes far more often than facts and then dress it up with logic later. But we’ve convinced ourselves that our choice is reasonable and logical and that makes it much harder to persuade us with other facts. You persuade emotion with emotion.

By the same token, if they’re emotionally committed to that decision, your pushing against it – even if you’re making a reasoned and logical argument – may invoke a sort of backfire effect that will make them commit harder to their choice. Worse, that may even make it harder for them to back out, even if they might want to. Because they made a decision that’s important and impactful, they need it to be their decision. Allowing someone else to change their mind would be damaging to the ego; it risks making them feel weak or pushed around about something this important. If they could be pushed out of it, wouldn’t that mean they could have been pushed into it? Since people often don’t want to believe that they’re someone who could be fooled or tricked in such a significant way, they’ll end up refusing to change their mind, even when they know they should. Doubling down and forcing away doubts is a way of reinforcing the idea of “I chose this, ergo it MUST be the right decision because I MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS.”

This is why, if you want to have any hope of influencing them, you need to let them think that they changed their minds on their own… not because you pushed them to do so. It’s easier to rationalize why your previous decision was right but now you need to do something else when you don’t feel humiliated for doing so. People will do all sorts of stupid s--t if it means not feeling embarrassed, even if said stupid s--t is demonstrably against their best interests.

In order to achieve this, you need to frame your opinion as wanting to be reassured by them. You’re not telling them “this is a bad idea, here’s why”, you’re saying “hey, can you walk me through your decision? Because I’d be worried about X, Y and Z thing if I were in your shoes…”. It’s a subtle but significant difference, and one that leads them to have to think about things they may have glossed over in the decision making process.

You want to ask questions – leading questions – that ultimately serve to plant a seed that hopefully lead them to think differently. In your case, instead of asking “have you considered that they could break up with you after you have this kid”, you might want to say “I don’t know if I could do something like that with folks I don’t know that well. Aren’t you afraid about what might happen if you all break up?” This emphasizes couple salient points; that Darren has only just started a relationship with this couple and that this isn’t a solid arrangement.

Darren would likely have any number of responses to that. Whatever they may be, you don’t want to push back against them, not directly. Attacking his rationale will invoke that backfire effect. Instead, you want to draw him out. “Ok, but like, giving birth and raising a kid is risky and expensive as hell, especially if you’re doing this as a surrogate. Are they supporting you at all through this? I’d be afraid of being left high and dry…”.

Again: let Darren explain these things while you ask questions from a place of seeming benign confusion. Get him to explain his logic and why this isn’t a mistake. You’re almost certainly going to hit on things he hadn’t thought all the way through. While this won’t magically change his mind, at the very least you leave things that will make him think more about his choice.

Now, with all that having been said: there’s one thing I noticed in your write-up of the situation. What you haven’t told me is whether you actually trust Darren to know his own mind or to make good decisions. That part’s kinda important. It’s one thing if someone’s making a mistake because they’re prone to making similar, life-altering mistakes. It’s another if it comes down to disagreeing with their choice or, and I hate to say this, if there’s some jealousy involved.

One of the things I see crop up fairly often is that after a break-up, the ex goes on to do something that they would never have done with their previous partner. If, for example, you were interested in having a family with Darren but they weren’t feeling it, seeing him planning something like this could trigger some complicated emotions. It’s hard to look at your ex making decisions they’d never have made with you. It’s harder still to realize the main reason why they chose not to do those things wasn’t because they didn’t want them but because they didn’t want them with you. That’s the sort of revelation that hits like a fist straight to the self-esteem and it’s hard not to take it personally. It’s much easier to say “they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re making a mistake…” than it is to say “ok, we weren’t right for each other in this particular way.”

So it’s worth taking a moment to figuring out if this is something you’re honestly worried that Darren hasn’t thought through… or if it’s because he’s doing these things with someone else.

But one last thing: regardless of whether he’s thought this through or not, regardless of whether you’re legitimately worried that this is a mistake or just very complicated feels, it’s important to keep lines of communication open. Remember what I said about how folks will do stupid s--t to avoid feeling humiliated? That goes double here. One of the reasons that people will stay in a toxic relationship is because they worry that their family and friends will shame them for having not left sooner. It may not make sense to stay in a bad situation just because you don’t want to hear “I told you so…” but people do that all the goddamn time.

If the worst does come to pass – Darren ends up having to raise a kid on his own – he’s going to need friends. He’s going to need support. He’s much more likely to reach out to you for that help and support if he knows that he can come to you and know he can do so with no risk of judgement and no questions asked. That means making it clear to him that, even though you disagree, you support him and you will continue to do so whenever he needs. So if you are worried about him, make sure he knows that no matter what, you’re ready to listen and you’re ready to help.

At the end of the day, however, Darren’s a grown-ass man. He’s allowed to make his own mistakes, even if they’re potentially disastrous. The best you can do is give him the room and grace to change his mind and be the friend he may well need.

Good luck.

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