DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I’m a 35 year old male. I’m overweight but I’ve been slowly losing the pounds over the past few years. I live alone, have a decent job, and make ok money. I dress nice, shower, shave, the usual, and try to be presentable whenever I’m out in public. I don’t really struggle with talking to women or socializing and I basically get along with most people. I’d also consider myself decently confident and I’m not afraid to make a move on someone I’m interested in.
Advertisement
Now, this might all sound fine, however, I think this might actually be the root to my lack of success with dating. To put it into words, I feel like I fly under the romantic radar of women. Like, they just see me as nothing more than a “funny fat friend” or maybe even in a more brotherly sense. For a quick example, a woman I was into and flirting with, said I was “gentle and wise.” It was a nice compliment but is something you’d say about your grandfather. And I here stuff like this all the time. “oh you’re so funny”, “oh you’re such a good guy”, “you’re so sweet”, blah, blah, blah. You get the point. I even get this from women I’ve only known for a few days. I’m always treated like nothing more than an old friend or a favorite uncle. In over ten years, I haven’t had a woman see me as man worthy of being desired.
On the other hand, and to really add some irony to the mix, I am constantly getting hit one by gay men. Even just the other week, I got an unsolicited phone number from a guy at my job. He even came back to tell me how handsome he thought I was. Usually I just take the bit of flattery and move on with my life but this last time actually really got to me. It just seemed like some cruel joke. I really try to put my best foot forward, be myself, and all the stuff and I only manage to attract men. That combined with constantly being pat on the back and being told how great I am while, simultaneously striking out at every chance I get, is actually really starting to drain on me.
So how do I break out of this? I’m obviously gonna keep trying to improve my weight (and I do think that does play some role here), but what can I do now? I’m not getting any younger and I would like nothing more than to find someone, maybe start a family, and just share a life with someone I love.
– Thanks
Chubby Comic Relief
DEAR CHUBBY COMIC RELIEF: Alright, CCR, I suspect I know what’s going on here.
There’s a reason why women say they love a guy with a sense of humor – and it’s not because it’s just something they’re “supposed” to say. The ability to make someone laugh is probably one of the most valuable traits someone can have. A strong sense of humor is correlated to high emotional intelligence, pro-social personality traits and overall social awareness – highly desirable traits in a romantic or sexual partner. This makes sense; knowing how to make people laugh in a way that makes them feel good requires knowing how to read the room, how to gauge what would be appropriate to joke about, what to avoid, etc.
It also triggers what’s known as “the Reward Theory of Attraction” – that is, the tendency to prioritize relationships with people who make us feel good in their presence. Making someone laugh triggers serotonin and dopamine production, which relieves stress and increases overall feelings of well-being. Small wonder why we like being around funny people, especially when it seems like everything is chaotic and horrible.
This is why it’s not surprising why people like Ryans Reynolds and Gosling, Kumail Nanjiani, Randall Park and others are all charisma-factories of diverse flavors; they’re legitimately very funny people on-screen and off. Part of why they tend to have massive amounts of chemistry with their co-stars – chemistry that even we the audience get caught up in – is because they can wield that power effectively. Humor is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to flirting because of how it makes us feel, even second hand.
But here’s the thing about humor, especially humor when you’re flirting with someone: you have to know how to use it and how to use it the right way. One of the mistakes I see a lot of people make – one I have made myself, especially in the early days – is that they tend to fall into one of two traps.
The first is someone who isn’t flirting, so much as practicing their tight five with a very small group. That is: they don’t feel like they’re actually interacting, so much as just doing bits. They know they can make people laugh, so they just go for the laugh, rather than actually, y’know, flirting.
The second is someone who’s using their humor almost defensively. This is something I see a lot from folks who feel like they’re not conventionally attractive or who are some form of social misfit. Fat guys especially are prone to this; it’s frequently something they’ve developed as a way of warding off bullies and a--holes – “I’ll make fun of myself first, so other people can’t use it against me”. This is also where you find the folks who use self-deprecating humor almost exclusively… and it becomes clear pretty quickly that those jokes aren’t really jokes, so much as self-loathing or bids for pity disguised as jokes.
Now, based on what you’ve said… it sounds to me like you’ve got a little of column a and a little of column b going on. Guys who get the “oh you’re so funny!” line in a way that’s more platonic than flirty do so because they’re not flirting, they’re just telling jokes. And while those jokes may be making the other person laugh, the point of flirting is to convey interest in the other person and to encourage interest back. And they’re not doing that.
If you watch some classic banter-y flirting between two people, you may notice that the undercurrent of the humor is overt romantic or sexual interest; they’re saying “hey, I like you. I find you attractive. I want us to go off and have fun together.” The humor is both the delivery mechanism and the force multiplier of the humor. When Robert Downey Jr. is roasting former co-workers and celebrity look-alikes with Michelle Monaghan, he’s framing the two of them as a mini-conspiracy; it’s them vs everyone else at the bar, and they’re having a much better time together than the rest are. When Ryan Gosling is talking about taking Emily Blunt to a beach but having to be careful about having too many spicy margaritas because it makes him make bad decisions, the “bad decisions” are very obviously “we’re gonna bang”. Calling it a “bad decision” is framing it as something naughty and taboo, a “we shouldn’t be doing this”, with a subtle undercurrent of saying “you’re trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
That’s part of what makes it flirting, rather than just jokey-jokes. It’s emphasizing the connection between the two people, with the unsubtle implication that there’s a connection there. The same with using humor to drive compliments or sexual interest; the humor is part of the flirting, not the sum totality. It’s how the message is conveyed. Otherwise, it’s just jokes.
And if those jokes are at their own expense? Then they’re telling the other person that they don’t see themselves as a valid potential partner, never mind encouraging the other person to see them that way.
This, I suspect, is a big part of the issue you’re having. If you’re making her laugh, but you’re not using that laughter as part of how you’re showing interest, then you’re not flirting.
The other part, I think, comes from how you see yourself.
It’s pretty clear that you see your fatness as a net negative, something that drags your sense of attractiveness down. Now, I’m all in favor of folks working out and getting into shape… but fitness comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, just as attractiveness does. If you’re treating your weight or your build as a negative, something that you feel you have to apologize for or make up for, instead of something neutral at worst? That’s going to be a problem.
Flirting, in its way, is akin to pitching yourself to another person. Nobody’s interested in a product that’s advertised as “it kinda sucks, maybe try it anyway?” The same goes for people; an attitude of “it’s ok if you don’t like me, I wouldn’t like me either” isn’t going to win a lot of hearts, nor remove clothes. There’s a reason why “pity f--k” is a negative term, after all; it’s certainly not something that’s going to make a person interested in the possibilities of a relationship.
I suspect the reason why a lot of your flirting is going nowhere is because you’re not coming to this from a position of “I’m desirable, you should like me”, just from “you’re hot, please like me.” Those are two very different feelings and one is far more attractive than the other. This is how you end up being “funny and sweet”, but not the “funny and sweet” that ends with “and I want to eat him.” It’s how you can be flirting and still give a platonic, brotherly vibe rather than a sexual one.
Part of what gives people charisma is confidence in their own desirability and their willing to convey that confidence. Look at some of the outfits that celebrities were wearing at the Met Gala. The looks that work best weren’t despite being outlandish or just because they made someone look like a Final Fantasy summon, it was both the outrageousness of the outfit and the “Damn right I look good” attitude of the person wearing it. If they didn’t have that attitude, the outfit would be wearing the person, instead of the other way around.
If you honestly don’t see yourself as an attractive person and are willing to convey that you see yourself that way, then they’re not going to do the extra work for you. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should they? They’re going to be missing the part of the message that says “I think you’re hot, you should come do bad things with me because I’m worth it”.
Don’t forget: you don’t need Adonis Creed’s body to be desirable, nor does anyone genuinely expect you to have it. Women, much like men, love bods of all shapes and sizes. You can be sexy while looking how hugs feel just as much as if you have abs someone could do laundry on after the apocalypse.
So part of what you need to do is make sure that when you’re flirting with people, you’re flirting properly, not just doing bits. But you also have to be conveying your own attractiveness in the process. This is why it’s important to love yourself and recognize your own attractiveness and desirability even if you would like it if there was a little less of you to love. Start learning to feel it, and then you can convey it. When you can do that effectively, you’ll be getting a lot less “you’re nice” and a lot more “niiiiiice”.
Good luck.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
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