DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Over the past year, I have been making an effort to get out more and be more social / make new friends with people and have found my place in a group that I hang out with often now. I kind of came in at just the right time for one of the women in the group, and managed to be of good help to her. Just before we met she underwent a toxic breakup with a boyfriend, I and the rest of the group had to help her come to realize was abusive and had her previous social circle collapse soon after. She was in a pretty bad place and needed some friends who could lift her up and be a set of open ears. Come Christmas, she even left me a handwritten note thanking me personally for everything I’ve done for her this year. I’m glad I was able to help her through all this.
Advertisement
Now after a few months of getting over everything, she’s moved on from her ex and just started dating a new guy. This should be great and I want to feel happy for her, but I can’t help but feel jealous at her almost instant-seeming success. I’m someone who’s always been cool with making friends with women but have never been able to land a date, much less a relationship. She’s a very attractive girl while I’m a pretty below-average guy that’s been slowly trying to get in shape and better groom myself. I had gotten pretty vulnerable with her while hanging out and opened up to her about my own struggles with loneliness, isolation, and depression, and while she didn’t really have anything new to say she was very kind and reciprocating in lending an ear to me. Now that she’s had her success and my own jealousy has set in, I worry about falling into the “crabs in a bucket” mentality since talking about her problems with her brought me a strange sense of peace. It was nice in a way to have someone I could help and listen to who was having problems in a similar ballpark as me, but now she’s fixed many of those and I’m still here trying to pass the starting line.
I know some might see this as me having feelings for her, but it’s genuinely not the case. I was attracted to her when I first met her but realized soon that things wouldn’t work out for us in that context. She wants to feel “protected” by her partners, wants a more stoic guy, and likes being the receiver/responder in a relationship as opposed to the initiator. I’m not that guy and I (imagine I’d) like more assertive partners as well, so I let all of that go a good while ago. Still continued to meet new people and ask others out, but still no luck.
I just want to figure out the best way to deal with these emotions and don’t want to hurt her after she’s come so far.
Thanks!
Is This Envy?
DEAR IS THIS ENVY: Here’s a question, ITE: what are you afraid that you’re losing, here?
I’m not asking to put you on the spot or question your position that this isn’t about your having non-platonic feelings for your friend, I’m asking because it’s good to zero in on precisely what you’re worried about that’s causing these feelings.
As a general rule, jealousy and envy are like check-engine lights – a sign that there’s an underlying need that isn’t isn’t being met. Sometimes that need is one in the relationship; you’re feeling distanced from your partner, you aren’t getting the level of connection or affection you are used to, and so on. Other times, it’s a need within yourself, and often one that you were looking to an outside source to fulfill. When we feel that the fulfillment of that need is in danger, that fear of impending loss tends to manifest as jealousy.
But jealousy or envy don’t actually tell you what the problem is. Just as the check engine light could be anything from “your engine’s about to fall out of the car” to “you didn’t tighten the gas cap”, feeling jealous or envious can come from a multitude of places, many that aren’t immediately obvious. You want to get in under the hood and figure out what made the light come on.
From your letter, it sounds like at least part of it is that sense of not being alone in your struggle. Having a comrade in arms, as it were, made you feel more connected and less isolated, like there were other people in the world who could understand you. Her success, then, would seem to diminish you, leaving you alone once more.
But maybe the issue here is that having a comrade in the “not doing so great at dating” trenches isn’t what you need, certainly not long-term. I can’t help but suspect that the issue was the closeness with your friend. You bonded over your respective dating woes, sure, but that was the catalyst for the connection. Maybe what you’re missing isn’t someone who’s in the same hole as you but just that close, open and emotionally intimate connection with another person. Now that she’s dating someone else, you’re worried that this connection is in danger and you aren’t going to have someone that you can be vulnerable with.
I suspect that this ties into your effort to be more social and make more friends, more than your success in dating or lack thereof. A lot of straight guys, quite frankly, don’t have close friends. In fact, we’re especially prone to loneliness and emotional isolation. Straight men are actively discouraged, both subtly and overtly, from having close, emotional friendships with others, especially other men. We’re only “allowed” to have it with people we might potentially f--k, and even then it gets a bit of side-eye from folks. Chalk it all up to toxic masculinity s--tting in the punchbowl again.
While I’m certainly cheering for you to improve your dating life, I don’t think that’s necessarily the answer to the problem here. I don’t think that having more dating success would resolve the feelings you’re feeling; I strongly suspect that you’d find yourself in a similar boat, just with someone you were dating, instead of a friend. I think what you need more than anything else, are more friends, and closer ones.
Fortunately, you’ve already got a head start there; you found a pretty cool group that you hang with. You have opportunities to become closer with other people in the group. Sure, circumstances lead to your closer bond with one person, but honestly, this proves you can do it in the first place. I think, if given the time and opportunity, you could become closer with others in the group as well. That, I think, would be a good use of your time.
Now, what I don’t recommend is focusing on bonding with other folks over relationship struggles. While yes, that shared point of reference can be an easy way to bond with them, bonding over negatives has an amplifying effect. It’s been my experience that when the point of your connection is “well, we’re all stuck in this hole, but at least we’re stuck in it together”, this creates a sort of learned helplessness. The friendship becomes less about being stuck in the hole, rather than getting out of it at all. Then, when someone actually starts trying to get out – or worse, succeeds – it threatens the rest of the group’s self-identity as being stuck. Then you get the crabs-in-a-bucket effect, as everyone tries to drag that person down and reinforce the idea that you’re stuck and there’s no way out.
And if you let that go on long enough, the whole thing curdles and becomes toxic. And it’s not like we haven’t seen where that ultimately leads.
The other thing I would suggest is that you actively continue to be friends with your no-longer-in-the-struggle buddy. The fact that she’s dating again doesn’t nullify your friendship; your mutual travails were simply what brought you together in the first place. If you have enough mutual interests and (platonic) chemistry, then the initial catalyst doesn’t need to be the only thing that you base your friendship on. If you can see that her dating success doesn’t take away from your efforts, nor does it actually threaten your relationship, I think you’ll find that sense of jealousy will start fading away.
But again: that’s in addition to working on making closer friends and continuing to improve your dating life. The whole “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” thing may be a cliche, but its a cliche for a reason. Having a wider foundation of support is invaluable and leads to stronger, sturdier relationships over all.
So work on building that foundation, ITE; I think you’ll find that it makes everything in your life better, not just these complex feelings you’re having.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com