Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I had been with my ex for 8 years before we split. I wasn’t happy in the summer, I told her and it all blew up and we called it quits. I got back in contact 2 months later, saying I missed her and that I wanted to give it a go. She agreed to meet and we agreed to work on it together. I went away for 6 weeks with work, during which point everything was ok, spoke all the time. Got back and for 2 days it was great. Then after a weekend with our separate families, she came back saying she didn’t think she loved me anymore and that she didn’t think it could work, which I believe is from what her family said after she told them everything bad I ever did after the breakup.

This turned into another argument and ended in me getting angry and her leaving the house and claiming that I had scared her.

A month later, I reached out, as I still love her and want this to work. She is saying that she can’t forgive me getting angry and that she is scared of me. I’ve been to therapy to learn how to cope with my feelings and how to be a better person, but she’s scared I will be the same and is holding herself back from wanting to see me. Do you have any advice?

Many thanks

Hulk Smashed?

DEAR HULK SMASHED: Hoo boy. 

So this is what we in the dating advice biz call ‘a rich text’. What we have here, HS, is a lot of little nuggets that, when put together, paints the full picture as to why your ex isn’t feeling it anymore.

As regular readers know, I have a series of questions for people who are hoping to get back with an ex, questions that need to be answered before they make the attempt. They are:

Question #1: Why did you break up in the first place?

Question #2: Has the reason why you broke up changed?

Question #3: Why Now?

Question #4: Do you miss THEM, or do you miss what they represent?

Question #5: Are they right for you, NOW?

The reason why I have people ask themselves these questions is because things often haven’t changed. As a result, you end up going through the 12” dance remix of your first break up – it’s the same song, just faster and with a more intense beat.

And oh look at what happened with you: you basically had the same break up as before, but now with the extra twist of having gotten angry enough with your ex that she’s afraid of you.

Part of the problem is that you’re not accepting that maybe your ex ultimately decided that she didn’t want to date you all on her own. Blaming this on the supposed Killgrave-esque manipulation of her family neatly ignores the possibility that with a little distance and talking things out with people whose judgement she trusts, she came to the conclusion that this wasn’t going to work out. That’s a disappointing outcome, to be sure… but it’s still ultimately her decision.

The fact that you blew up at her over this ultimately confirmed to her that she was correct to not want to continue a relationship with you. Whether you were arguing over her conclusion, her agency (whether she was manipulated by people for malicious reasons) or whatever else, you were ultimately telling her that she didn’t have the right to feel or think the way she did about things. And while it’s understandable that you were hurt by this decision, trying to overrule or argue her into changing her mind is not going to work. Whether her family did or didn’t tell her about “all the bad things you did” is irrelevant. At the end of the day, it’s still her decision. You can disagree with it or think that how she arrived at that decision was faulty… but it’s still her choice to make.

To be honest, I’m not entirely surprised she still doesn’t want to see you, even after having gone through therapy. I’ll tell you what I am not seeing in your letter: recognizing what you did and why it was wrong. Nor, for that matter, am I seeing you take ownership of your mistakes and understanding why these might affect someone’s interest in a relationship with you.

Those “bad things” you did? However bad they were or weren’t, they clearly were enough to at least give her pause and make her reconsider things. You have to accept that; not recognizing or acknowledging how they made her feel about a future relationship with you is going to tell her that things likely haven’t changed.

The same goes for not accepting that you scared her enough that she doesn’t want to see you. You frame it as “holding herself back” – as though she wants this but isn’t being permitted.  Again, you’re not acknowledging that this is how she feels and instead attributing it to something restricting her own agency. Your framing of the situation is minimizing your actions and making it seem as though you feel entitled to have her back as a partner but it’s being thwarted by outside actors, rather than she made the decision on her own and doesn’t want to have more to do with you.

So, cards on the table: I don’t think there’s any hope of getting back with her – certainly not now, and likely not at all. If you want even the molecule of hope that things will be different, then it’s a matter of deeds, not words. If you have actually changed and become a better person, you’re going to have to show it through your actions. And the first step to that is going to be respecting her decision and moving on. The longer you insist on trying to get her back, the more you’re going to push her away, because it’s telling her that the things that broke you up have not changed.

The next step is going to be living your life with authenticity and integrity. That means living as the person you say you’ve become… which is also going to include taking ownership of your faults, flaws and mistakes. Until you do, you’re just confirming for her that nothing has changed and getting back with you will be a repeat of the last time she gave you a chance.

However, as I said: you’re still going to have to do this honestly, without the goal of getting her back. You have to be doing this because you want to be a better person over all. Otherwise all you’re doing is putting on a performance for an audience of one… and she’ll know that as soon as the curtain comes down, the performance is going to end. That means accepting that you’re likely not going to get her back and not trying to get her back. If she’s going to decide to try again, it’ll have to be her decision, made without your involvement.

But, I hear you cry, how is she supposed to know you’ve changed if you’re not there to tell her or show her? Well, that’s going to be up to fate. Maybe she’ll hear through the grapevine how things have changed and you’re like a different person. Or maybe she won’t. Or she may learn that you’re doing much better but still decide that some wounds run too deep to be overcome. That’s a legitimate choice for her and one that you’re just going to have to accept.

There is no path forward here for you that still involves her. You’re going to have to go and be a better person for the sake of being a better person and let the dice fall how they may. If the stars align and she reaches out to you, then you have the opportunity to start a new and different relationship, rather than continuing the one that you very definitively ended.

But if they don’t… that’s how it goes, and it’s on you to accept it and move on.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

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 been trying to get out of my rut by doing things that make me happy like going to my gym more, playing piano (learning Chopin) as well as staying focused with college, which I admit didn’t think was for me until I decided to get back on the horse after 8 years and now I’m getting good grades.

However, there are times when I get anxious/overwhelmed in public and the fear of rejection still scares me. And certain sayings like “you’ll find someone when you stop looking for them” have conditioned my brain to just keep to myself most of the time and be passive, even when someone catches my eye but my mind tells me to avoid eye contact. It seems like an oxymoron why we find things when we’re not looking for them. And the more I avoid it and try to escape with my earbuds or watch Netflix, the thoughts just keep coming back.

But overall, rejection still scares me. There was one time when I met a Venezuelan girl during a Halloween party couple years hosted by a mutual friend of mine. Had I not the courage to ask her to hang we wouldn’t have been a thing. So in this case, I wasn’t looking. I continue to do what I have to do in order to break the monotony but anxiety will still linger.

Analysis Paralysis

DEAR ANALYSIS PARALYSIS: I want to introduce you to the concept of “take it seriously, not literally”. What you’re doing right now is using the idea of “it’ll happen when you’re not looking” as a means of avoiding the risk of rejection by not just taking it literally, but taking it to absurd lengths. And let’s be honest, if you already know what it means to find something when you’re not looking, and you have a concrete example of how it worked, then you know that your current approach is not the same thing.

Here’s the thing about rejection: you will never escape it. That’s not a judgement about you, your social skills, your looks or your value as a person; it’s just a matter of fact. Not everybody is going to like you, especially not in the way that you would prefer to be liked, and that’s ok. That doesn’t mean you’re inherently deficient. It just means that this particular person either didn’t see what they hoped to see in you (or that you hoped that they would see) or that you just weren’t right for them in that time and place. The transphobic wizard lady famously had her manuscript rejected a dozen times by publishers before going on to become one of the most successful writers in history. Those rejections weren’t about the quality of the book or the writer, just about the publishers’ opinions.

(We will not be discussing the relative merits or lack thereof of the books themselves, thanks.) 

The fact that you aren’t immediately appealing to everyone at all times is, in fact, a good thing. Being a few peoples’ shot of whiskey is inherently better than being everyone’s cup of tea. Broad appeal is shallow appeal – people may like it well enough, but it’s not necessarily what they’re craving or will go out of their way to seek out or something that will stay with them for the long term. You can browse the best-seller lists of books for any particular decade or century you like and you’ll see that the books that sold the best weren’t always the ones that became classics. Shakespeare was famously less successful and accomplished a playwright than Christopher Marlowe, but it’s Shakespeare whose work has echoed through the ages.

Or to put it another way: only 10,000 people bought the Velvet Underground’s first album, but everyone who did went on to start a band.

You can’t be everyone’s favorite flavor and you shouldn’t want to be, if only from an efficiency and time management standpoint. The effort it takes to try to persuade someone who’s basically neutral or mildly interested into being actively or strongly interested in you is not and will not be commensurate with the reward. That’s time and effort you could be putting towards finding someone who is into you, as well as cultivating the aspects of yourself that make you a more desirable partner.

This is why rejection isn’t something to be feared, just accepted. It’s understandable that rejection is scary; it feels like a judgement on you as a person. But really, all rejection is just one person deciding that you’re not right for them – either in that moment or in general. You make those same decisions all the time, too. After all, you’re not falling in love with every person you see and you’re not pursuing every single woman you encounter with the ardor and obliviousness of a cartoon skunk or horny Japanese high-school student with an alien roommate. You’re tacitly rejecting – or if you prefer, not choosing – people all the time, not because they’re awful people but simply because they’re not your particular type or flavor. If you can accept that someone can be a perfectly lovely individual but that you’re not remotely attracted to them, then why would that same logic not apply to you?

But here’s the important thing: by trying to avoid the fear of rejection, what you’re ultimately doing is reinforcing that fear. Avoidance just makes the thing you’re afraid of that much larger and more present. Because you avoid the discomfort that comes from rejection, you become afraid of the possibility of rejection – that is, the likelihood of feeling the fear of rejection rather than rejection itself. Continuing avoidance – that is, avoiding feeling the fear of rejection – becomes avoiding times when you might encounter the fear and thus you end up making the world you occupy smaller and smaller.

Which leads us to the way you’re misusing “it’ll happen when you’re not looking”. The idea of “it’ll happen when you’re not looking” doesn’t mean that you simply wait in your apartment until God decides to chuck a woman through your window or a horny single woman kicks your door down, it means that sometimes you get so caught up in the pursuit of the goal that you end up tripping yourself up.

You’ve undoubtedly encountered this before in other areas of your life. Video games are a prime example. If you’re stuck on a boss fight in a Souls-like game and you keep dying and getting sent back to a previous save point, you get frustrated. You want to get back to the boss arena ASAP and take on that fight again… but now you’re frustrated. It’s making you sloppy as you try to rush through to get back where you were, which means you end up making more mistakes and getting bodied by random enemies, which sets you back further. Now you’re even more frustrated and angry because you can’t even make it past the trash mobs and have to get through those, which makes you sloppier and more careless and wash, rinse repeat until you start doing experiments in how deep you can embed your controller into drywall.  

However, when you take a break, step away from the console and come back to it a day or two later, you find that things flow much more easily and you ultimately hand the boss his own ass and move on to the next stage of the game like it was nothing.

This is how it is with dating. When you are laser-focused on trying to find Mr., Ms., or Mx. Right to the exclusion of all else, you get frustrated. You get sloppy. You make mistakes. But if you step away and just live your life, you’re relaxed and in your element. You’re doing things you enjoy, with people you like spending time with and wouldn’t you know it, that means you’re in a much better mood, you’re much more comfortable and you’re better positioned to connect with people and show them your best, most attractive, most authentic self… precisely because you’re not trying.

So not looking doesn’t mean that you refuse to make eye contact and just stand in the corner waiting for someone to take pity on you. That’s just attempting to avoid the fear of rejection by displacing it onto someone else and hoping that other people will be motivated enough to do the work for you. Not looking means you go out and live your life – ideally in ways that bring you in contact with other people. The saying that luck is when preparation meets opportunity is apt here; by doing things you enjoy out in public, you’re putting yourself in position to meet other people who enjoy the same things. That increases the odds that you’ll meet someone who’s actually compatible with you while also making it easier to connect with them; after all, you already know you have these things in common and can start off the conversation by talking about your shared interest.

But this still requires being willing to confront the possibility of rejection… and it’s only through confronting it that you realize that while rejection is unpleasant, it’s not damaging. It affects you exactly as much as you allow it to. And until you actually face it head on without flinching and let you feel what it actually feels like instead of hyping it up in your mind, you won’t see the difference between the rejection going on in your head and what’s actually happening in the real world.

If the idea of going out and actively seeking a person to date is too intimidating or is getting frustrating, that’s fine. But going out and living your life in a way that puts you in fortune’s path does make it much easier to meet folks… and in ways that make it more likely that you’ll meet someone who’s right for you, instead of rolling the dice based on very limited information.

Again: the point isn’t that rejection doesn’t sting; it absolutely does. But it means what you allow it to mean, not an objective judgement that everyone agrees with. Avoiding that sting just makes it worse and ultimately just makes you more afraid of rejection and everything surrounding it. The only way out is through.

But again: you want to take things seriously, not literally. Especially when taking it literally is just an avoidance mechanism.

Good luck.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

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 been reading a couple of the recent blogs, and have also fallen into the rabbit hole of reading some of your older responses too. I find myself resonating with a lot of what your viewers write in about. I don’t feel that my situation is particularly unique or even interesting, but I wanted to write in all the same. For me, dating has never come easily, I’ve been single for a very long time, and I’ll be honest and say that I’ve completely given up hope. I’m attending my first ever New Year’s party this year, and all I can imagine in my head is being sat at a bar, alone, while I watch those with partners and close friends out having fun. It’s depressing.

I’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf, but I’m certainly outgoing and likeable. I make it a habit of going places often enough, and I have a handful of people I get along with. However, I’ve noticed that I [don’t] experience the type of natural interactions that lead to close friendships or dates. For instance, I know many people who go to rock concerts that have met new friends or potential dates, but I’ve never had the fortune (which is even worse when I’m really into alternative women, but I digress). In many ways, it feels like I’m shielded from the rest of world, and that I’ll never get to experience what those around me have.

Sadly, it’s also lead to me developing the mindset of women being “unobtainable”, even though that’s not fair on them, and when I can acknowledge I’m attractive man with good qualities. The moment I see an attractive woman I find myself thinking that there is no way in hell she would ever want to be with someone like me, as the only experience I have is that they’ve never given me the time of day. I can’t see how I could ever think otherwise, because the evidence is there right in front of me. I find myself jealous of men that can meet and date these attractive women, I get sick when looking through social media, and it’s compounding into this deep sense of feeling unlovable.

I feel like I’m losing time with all of this. I know life doesn’t end at 25, 30, 35, 40 etc, but it’s like the ship has sailed and I’m waiting at the dock, hoping it will come back.

Left Behind

DEAR LEFT BEHIND: Alright LB, I’m going to do something that causes me to grind my teeth when other people do it to me: I’m gonna zero in on a metaphor you used and pick it apart as though the nitpicking somehow invalidates the message.

But stick with me for a moment, because I think in this case, it’s going to be instructional to poke at this for a moment. Specifically, I want to poke at the “I’m a bit of a lone wolf” comment.

If you’ve been reading my columns, you may have read what I’ve said about the stories we tell about ourselves and how those affect our attitude and our outcomes. I think part of the problem you have is in the story you tell yourself and the way it colors how you see the world.

See, when we talk about lone wolves, we tend to use it almost as an admirable trait; you’re an iconoclast, blazing his own trail, separate from the others, so unique that you aren’t easily understood. In some cases, it gets folded into the whole “sigma male” thing that mutated out of the bullshit alpha/beta divide.

But actual lone wolves aren’t admirable beasts striking out on their own. If a wolf leaves the pack it was born into, it’s usually a temporary measure; they’re not staying alone because they prefer to be alone, they’re almost always finding new territory, finding or starting a new pack. “True” lone wolves are anomalies; they’re not alone by choice and they’re weak and isolated, cut off from the strength and protection of a pack.

When you call yourself “a lone wolf” type, that suggests to me a romanticization of a sort of self-isolation. Not even in the sense of “I’m an introvert who needs a lot of alone time” – introverts are still social, still make friends and still have relationships – but in the sense of the “I walk this world alone because that’s just who I am”.

I suspect that mindset of isolation, powerlessness and “being shielded” from others is the issue, more than anything else. The way you describe things in your letter are very passive – things don’t happen to you or for you the way they do for others. You “can’t help” but picture things or can’t imagine things going any other way. It’s just “who you are”.

But, as I’m often saying, “You” and who “You” are is a concept that’s always in flux. It’s true in as much as you decide it’s true. That “evidence” isn’t evidence, it’s just how you’ve handled things thus far and how you’ve chosen to look at it. You can say “It’s proof that it will never happen” or you can say “this just means it hasn’t happened, yet.” You can decide that everything that has happened up until now is definitive and permanent, or situational and temporary.

So far, you’ve decided that it’s definitive and permanent. But I would point out that you are the one who’s decided this.

The problem is: you’re setting yourself up for failure this way. I mean, shit, you’re talking about going to a New Year’s Eve party – an event that’s weeks away at the time of writing – and you’re already crafting a narrative in your head about how this is going to be an empty, lonely night of misery for you, alone in a crowd of merrymakers.

Well… yeah. That’s exactly what’s going to happen… because that’s precisely what you’re setting yourself up to expect. You’ve already written this off, long before you’ve even gotten in the Uber to go. You’re going to be wandering in with an attitude of “Nobody wants to talk to me, nobody’s going to even notice I’m here” and that’s precisely what’s going to happen. Why? Because you’re going to get there and likely sequester yourself in a corner out of the way, with the sort of closed off, anti-social body language that tells people you would rather be left alone.  As a result, you’ve paid good money to go and just watch other people have a good time, instead of taking an active hand in your own life. 

And taking an active hand is precisely what seems to be missing here. Part of the reason why you know people who meet friends and partners at concerts and you don’t is because they actively try to talk to people. They’re deliberately making connections with folks, even if it’s starting as two people bouncing off each other in the mosh pit. Even if they’re not going to the concert specifically to meet people, I’m willing to bet you that they’re of the mindset that they might meet cool folks, that cool people there are going to be excited to meet them, and they are open to the possibility of making new friends in the process.

That mindset is important because it’s going to affect not just how you behave, but how you see things. If you are going to an event with the mindset that nobody’s going to want to talk to you or you just aren’t someone who can do X, then you’re not going to see the people who might want to connect with you. Your eyes will perceive them, but your mind will tell you that you’re mistaken, that you’re misreading the situation or that there’s no way they’d want to talk to you. So you won’t bother trying to talk to them. Or if you do, you’ll do so with the attitude that you’ve already been rejected and so you just half-ass the entire encounter and then walk away with your metaphorical tail between your legs. And then you’ll take that as confirmation that you’re doomed to be alone and the cycle will continue.

So yes, I am telling you that part of the answer to your problem is to start talking about yourself and to yourself differently. Positive self-talk and a positive attitude sounds like woo-woo-feel-good-manifest-your-life bullshit… but it actually works. These are the things that Navy SEALs are taught as part of building the emotional resilience they need to get through Hell Week.

So maybe instead of describing yourself as a “lone wolf” type, think of it more as “I’m looking to establish my pack”. Instead of choosing to imagine a long, sad New Years Eve of loneliness, you choose to see it as a great night, where you’re up beat and excited to meet people, a night full of possibility and adventure that’s just waiting for you to reach out and pursue it. You don’t “acknowledge” that you have your good points, you celebrate them and recognize that people would be lucky to be with you. You don’t frame your life as as “the only experience I have is rejection”, you see it as “my rich inner life is incredible and the right people will connect to it when I share it with them,” and then resolve to actually share it.    

Now this isn’t my telling you to embrace a Panglossian level of delusion where you pretend that you’ve been a social butterfly your entire life and that this is merely a speed bump on your way to forming a social circle. Rather it’s taking the events that have happened up until now and changing the perspective that you see them from. Is it that you’re a lonely loser that nobody could ever love… or is it that you’ve been pulling yourself up from the dirt and your story is one of overcoming challenges, laying foundations and building your way to an incredible present and even better future?

To put it another way: was Luke Skywalker a go-nowhere, do-nothing bumpkin stuck out in the booniest of boonies in the Outer Rim, or someone who’s whole life was leading up to the moment where he answered the call to adventure? Rough beginnings in stories are what set the stage for arcs of growth and discovery, improvement and connection.

You’re the audience for your own story… and you’re the one who’s telling that story. So if you’ve missed the boat, you can stand at the docks and sob… or you can dive in the water and swim after it. Or hop a train to further up the coast and catch it at its next port of call. Or get a ticket and fly to the destination instead.

The past is merely prologue. You have the opportunity to start your story and change your story. So you may as well start now, telling yourself that this is going to be the year that you have an amazing New Years’ experience. Prime yourself to have a great time, right now. As cheesy and cringe as it may be, start looking in the mirror and talk about all the stuff you like about yourself and what makes you awesome. Talk, out loud, while looking at yourself, about the things that are going to happen, the people you’re going to meet and the adventures you’re going to have because by God you know damn good and well you can do this. Roll into that party with an attitude of “there’re going to be people at this party who I want to meet and who want to meet me. I’m going to have stories of what happened that night, and when I get to that party, I’m going to find them.”

The more you remind yourself that you’re not a helpless observer in your own life but the leader of your journey, the more you remind yourself that you have to take charge of your experience. Not a “I did it once or twice, half-heartedly, so clearly it’s not going to happen” but a “I’m going to make this happen and if God closes a door, I’m going to blow open a hole in the wall instead.”

You can either be someone that life happens to, or someone who makes things happen in their lives. Right now, you’ve been the former. It’s time to start being the latter. And the first step towards that is telling yourself how it was is what sets the stage for how it’s going to be.

Good luck.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

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