DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: 6 months ago I broke up with my bf of 5 years I’m 32 and thought we would have a life together. We lived together and had a dog together. Going into the relationship I had trust issues but he always said he wanted to be with me have a future etc. However throughout the entire relationship he never posted a single photo of me on his social media and would hide his phone and lie about messaging girls. Girls names would pop up once even a new account on his Netflix. When I questioned him he deleted it. When I questioned him about it he would shut me down say I had nothing to worry about that his social media was just for his car or that my concerns were my anxiety.

 The break up was bad when I moved out he had agreed for us to share our dog then he just changed his mind and told me I would never see the dog again and got abusive. My question is how can I move on or trust even myself now ? I see a therapist but losing our dog broke my heart. I’ve started to question my reality like was I wrong to question him messaging other people. Or was I valid. I don’t understand the situation it has made me feel like I was wrong to react to his behaviour. Could it be possible I was wrong or are these valid concerns and behaviours to expect a partner not to do.

My head and heart hurt so much. I believed he cheated but he never admitted anything he always swore he did nothing. I’m worried I ruined my life by leaving the relationship I’d like to know if you think they were valid concerns. I loved him a lot I feel as though I put up with bad treatment but it’s so hard to put to rest when I’ll never get answers from him.

Shattered and Alone

DEAR SHATTERED AND ALONE: Let’s put this right at the top: your ex was a deeply s--tty, toxic and outright abusive pile of radioactive sludge who was a waste of the two minutes that it took to conceive him. I think you should’ve dumped him so hard his grandparents got divorced retroactively. Leaving your f—khead ex is probably the best thing you’ve done and it’s only a shame that you didn’t do so sooner so that it would never occur to you to ask if you somehow ruined your life by doing so.

Here’s what you need to understand: what your ex was doing is what’s known as “gaslighting”. Now I know that this is a word that gets tossed around and misused a lot, so I want to be clear: I don’t mean he was lying to you or trying to deceive you – which he absolutely was. When I say he was gaslighting you, I mean that he was trying to get you to question your very sense of what was real and true and making it so that you didn’t or couldn’t trust your own eyes and judgement. That is precisely why you feel so uprooted and confused; he was going out of his way to damage your grasp on reality.

Here is another thing you need to understand: whether he cheated on you or not is irrelevant. It is a distraction. If he cheated, then that is just the rancid cherry on a sundae of abuse; whether he did or he didn’t doesn’t change the fundamental fact that his behavior is that the way that he treated you was beyond the pale. Even if all of his weird behavior – having other women’s names on his Netflix account where you would see it?? – was above board, the way he went about everything and would turn it all back on you is enough to warrant getting the f--k out of this relationship.

You didn’t (and don’t, nor will you in the future) need some causus belli in order to break up with someone. You can break up with someone for any reason, including “the way he behaves makes me feel unsecure and uncertain, even if he’s technically not doing anything wrong”. If he cheated, then yes, that’s one more check mark in the “he’s horrible” list. But even if he didn’t, the rest of his behavior more than validates your decision to get the f--k out. Up to and especially taking the dog.

(That’s the sort of thing that makes me go “John Wick had the right idea.”)

And here’s the important thing: it’s possible that there were innocent and understandable reasons for at least some of his behavior. It is possible, for example, that not posting pictures of you on his social media wasn’t him trying to hide that he’s in a relationship; not everyone posts about who they’re dating or keeps things strictly about them. But even if individual actions and behaviors are on the up and up, that doesn’t change the sum totality of his behavior or the way that he treated you. Under the most generous – and I mean “needing to be The Buddha” levels of generosity – interpretation of things would be “he handled things incredibly badly. But I’m not the Buddha and he sounds like a s--tbird that you’re well rid of.

Here is the final thing that you need to understand: you don’t need answers from him. He’s already proven through his actions, that he’s never going to admit to wrong-doing, never going to give you the truth and certainly not going to give you closure. But that’s ok because you don’t need it from him. Closure is a gift that you give yourself. The closure you ultimately need is to acknowledge that this was a bad relationship and it’s good that you left it.

Here’s what to tell yourself about those unanswered questions: the answers don’t matter because they’re the wrong questions. The question isn’t “was he cheating” and “did I ruin my life by leaving him”, it’s “what can I take from this so that I don’t end up in a relationship with someone like him going forward?” It’s “How do I love myself in a way that makes it possible to heal these wounds, so I can trust someone who’s deserving of my trust in the future?” Those are the questions you need to answer, because those are the questions that matter.

The best thing you can do right now isn’t to get a confession from him, it’s to forget him so that he never occupies another nanosecond of your time. I know that this hurts, but that will fade as you let him go and give yourself the closure you’re looking for. Your ex is in the past, and that’s where he should be left. Your focus should be on the future – your future – and how you’re going to make it a good one for yourself.

You’ll be ok. I promise.

All will be well. 

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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 20, and I’ve never been in a relationship. I feel like I’m wasting time, though I never really interacted with women outside of my family, thus I don’t know how a relationship/love feels like.

My father keeps pushing me to do it, sometimes even making fun of me, besides the fact I’m in college and also applying for an internship program. Never had any problems in school either, besides my overall distancing from others.

All of the friends I had during middle school were already dating and/or working while I was just a nerd, spending most of my time at home, alone. And that still hits me, to this day.

I’m not gonna lie; I didn’t make any friends until I was, like, 8 years old? (Some psychologist said that making friends during childhood is highly important for a healthy mental development). And plus my parents started arguing (and eventually the divorce process) when I was in my early teens, so maybe this contributed to my problem with (the desire for) relationships and talking, sharing with people in general.

I have done therapy before, which also involved my parents, but it really didn’t solve anything – except that the doc suggested that I would develop attachment issues due to my parents’ divorce and my chronical loneliness, which makes me dangerously depressed from time to time since then.

What could I possibly do to fix this? Sometimes I just won’t sleep, will feel physical pain in my chest, have a breakdown, cry a lot, smash my head on the walls or beat it with my hands…

Did I really became the person the therapist suggested I would?

Attachment Failure?

DEAR ATTACHMENT FAILURE: Holy hopping sheep s--t, AF, it’s not very often I feel like I need to tell someone you deserve better parents and a better therapist but… Jesus, you deserve better parents and a much better therapist. Like, it’s really unprofessional for your therapist to say you would get some form of insecure attachment, especially if they weren’t doing anything to, y’know, mitigate or prevent it. I don’t know if that’s something they said directly to you or just in your presence but either way that’s the sort of thing that doesn’t make me raise an eyebrow so much as watch them shoot off into orbit and clip the ISS on the way to attempt landings on Europa.

OK, let’s back up a moment and roll it from the top. First and foremost: you’re not “wasting time” just because you’ve not had a relationship at 20. You’re not on any particular timeline, you’re not expected nor are you “supposed” to have dated by a specific age outside of other people’s bulls--t expectations. The idea that you’re “supposed” to have had X number of girlfriends or lost your virginity by Y year is entirely made up. It’s fake, it’s bulls--t, it’s complete trash and you can and should discard it completely. You’re on your own journey, with your own goals, challenges, ambitions and priorities and milestones, none of which require that you either have sex or date by a particular age. The pressure you’re feeling is real, don’t get me wrong… but that pressure isn’t based on anything other than what other people insist is “right”.

And while we’re on the topic, your father is not only not helping, what he’s doing is the opposite of help. The pressure he’s putting on you is bad enough, but mocking you for it just makes it worse. Shame is a demotivator; it makes you less likely to succeed, even less likely to try again after you fail and only serves to discourage you from ever making the attempt in the first place.

(I’m going to be honest here: this s--t gets my hackles up and there’s a part of me that feels like the best response to his mockery would be to verbally slap their lips off. And I’m very good at that.

It would be the opposite of helpful and it would only escalate things in the worst possible ways but Jesus tapdancing Frog…)

So here’s the thing: your tendency towards isolation and not even attempting to date are the least surprising things based on what you’ve said. Quite frankly, I don’t think this is a bad thing. You’ve got a lot of pain that you’re carrying around right now and I think that needs to be addressed before you worry about dates or girlfriends. It’s a hell of a lot easier to make that journey when you’re not dealing with a sprained back and two broken ankles, after all.

Let’s start with the most important thing for you to take onboard: you are not broken, you are not sick, nor are you irrevocably socially handicapped because you didn’t “make enough friends” as a child. I think that your previous therapist was, at the very least, profoundly irresponsible by talking about attachment issues with you or within earshot of you. I think you’ve allowed that and the bit you’ve read about early mental development to take root in your brain and it’s f--ked you up. And I want to be clear: those aren’t signs that there’s something wrong with you, those are things that you’ve latched on to that confirm what you already believe. It’s not that they’re right and true and correct and you’ve missed some important milestone, it’s that those are the tools that you use to smack yourself in the balls and then you blame yourself for feeling pain. But that’s why we say that feels aren’t reals; what you feel is absolutely real, but the fact that you feel it doesn’t make it true.

So no: I don’t think you’ve become the person your previous therapist said you would, nor do I think you’re hopelessly behind or wasting time. I think you’ve taken other people’s bulls--t onboard, and the fact that it hurts makes you afraid that it’s true. And it’s not. What is true is that you’re dealing with a lot of pain and big, complicated feelings that I don’t think you fully grasp and you certainly don’t have any good outlets for.

So I know that right now your life is very busy, between college and trying to get into an internship, but I think you really need to talk to a different and better therapist – by yourself. Right now, you’re in luck; being a college student means that you’ve got access to your college’s health services department and they should have counselors and therapists available. If they don’t, they almost certainly have contacts and people they can refer you to. I would highly recommend you take advantage of those resources while you can; this is a time in your life when access to mental health care is going to be a lot easier and cheaper than it will after you graduate.

You’re carrying around a lot of pain and a lot of self-recrimination for things that honestly aren’t things you should be blaming yourself for. It’s ok that you didn’t socialize much in high-school. It’s ok that you haven’t had a relationship. It’s a shame that things happened like that, but that doesn’t mean that you’re bad, deficient or broken; it just means that you went through a lot of s--t and you did what you felt was necessary to get through it as best that you could at the time.

So I think the first thing you need to do is simply forgive yourself for the way that you lived your life up until now. It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong, but that forgiveness isn’t for some nebulous “sin”, it’s for the blame you’re carrying around. Forgiving yourself for it and acknowledging that you made the best decisions you could at the time is part of how you stop carrying the burden of that needless blame around. You know better now, and so you’ll make different decisions going forward. You can acknowledge that you wish things had been different without beating yourself up over the fact that they weren’t.

The next thing is – as I said – to hie thyself to the therapist’s couch and to make that a priority. That crushing pain, that tendency to lash out physically to hurt yourself? Those are things that need to be dealt with. They’re not going to get better on their own, and they’re not going to be constrained to the long dark nights of the soul, to those times when it’s the hour of the wolf and you’re stuck in a maelstrom of remorse and self-recrimination. It’s going to start bleeding into other parts of your life and f--k up the things that go well too, because that’s how pain works. So getting to a therapist, unpicking those knots, easing those scars, debriding and cleaning those wounds, setting those bones are how you’re going to heal – an important part of making your overall life better.  

Once you’ve started progressing on your healing – not “when you’re finished”, but on your way to being in good working order – then I think you’ll find that you’re in a much better place to start socializing, breaking out of the old ruts and routines that you’ve been in and start working towards dating and romance. You don’t need to rush; trying to get to it before your ready is the emotional equivalent of Luke rushing off to confront Vader before he finished his training. It may feel like the right thing to do at the time, but it’s only going to make things harder and slow things down even further.

But more importantly, you don’t need to rush because nothing is going anywhere. Friends will be waiting for you once you’re able to join them. Love will be there when you’re ready. So for the moment, love yourself enough to heal your wounds. Everything will be much easier and much better once you’re not in so much pain.

You’ve got this.

All will be well. 

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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 just gonna get right into it. My most recent ex and I broke up in October 2021. I’ve experienced a fling or two since then but nothing worthwhile. I’ve done some reflection as to why my love life is so bone dry and I think part of the problem may be flirting, in that I don’t.

In my late teens and early 20s, I used to be a very flirtatious person. But the reason I don’t really flirt anymore is because, in a world that is post-#MeToo and Time’s Up and all these very necessary movements, I dread making people feel uncomfortable or, god forbid, unsafe around me. I guess my problem is that I don’t know where the line is. I don’t know when harmless flirting becomes harassment. And like I said, I never wanna be someone people feel like they should be on high alert around.

Maybe your advice can help me break out of this mindset.

Sincerely,

Not a Creep, Just a Weirdo

DEAR NOT A CREEP, JUST A WEIRDO: It’s good to be mindful of not wanting to make people uncomfortable or not wanting to cause people to feel unsafe. But the problem here is that you’ve taken it to an extreme, and to a point where you’ve basically made paralysis the seemingly only available choice.

This is something that comes up a lot, NACJAW. Like, a lot a lot, especially around here, and honestly… it kind of betrays how much the discourse around #MeToo and the rest has ended up giving folks the wrong impression. Not the movement itself, not the examination of behavior that it inspired, the discourse about it.

The biggest misunderstanding I’ve found that well-meaning people have is that #MeToo wasn’t about awkward dudes not knowing where the line is or someone getting upset because a guy she didn’t think was attractive asked her on a date. It was about the number of out and out predators and harassers who had been getting by without consequence. The idea that “#MeToo ruined dating and flirting” was very much a reaction to the movement – an attempt to minimize people’s very real, very understandable frustration by framing it as being too much or women being “unreasonable”.

It’s very much of a piece of when people complained that sexual harassment – especially in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings – were women “overreacting” or that they were too “sensitive” and this was making dating or working with women too hard because reasons. The attempts to dismiss or diminish what it was actually about began almost immediately. Some of this was, admittedly, deliberate on the part of f--kty people who latched onto #MeToo as the latest arm of the ongoing culture war, some of it was the result of algorithmic trends encouraging increasing vitriol in the discussions online, but some of it is because people didn’t (and in some cases, still haven’t) actually paid attention to what the actual problems were and let the conservative culture warriors dictate terms of the conversation.

The perpetrators who were the spark that kicked off the #MeToo movement weren’t folks making awkward passes or asking someone out to dinner one too many times. They weren’t simple misunderstandings or misinterpretations that people might make in good faith. They were serial harassers and predators. People like Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein were rapists who preyed on women in their orbit – using their influence and clout to lure in their targets while using their power in the industry to ensure silence and avoiding accountability for their actions.

(If you want to have a better understanding of why it all boiled over when it did, I would recommend checking out Maureen Ryan’s excellent book “Burn It Down”, which talks about the toxic culture behind the scenes in Hollywood).

Other folks like Louis CK and Vic Mignogna weren’t well-meaning but clueless bumblers, they engaged in consistent patterns of sexually aggressive behavior – behavior that was clearly unacceptable – with many many people. They, too, were insulated from consequences by their status and by people who didn’t take it seriously. The point of #MeToo was to bring to people’s attention just how wide spread this behavior was, how many people had experienced it and how it was at the very least tacitly accepted if not approved of by many. It’s not like there was a blurry line that got crossed when Louis CK would just drop trou and start jerking it in front of female comedians after all.

So right from the jump, you should understand that the bar you’re being expected to clear is very, very low. Low bars can be tripped over, sure, and people can still f--k up, but the thing that’s making you afraid was the result of the behavior of predators, not people making honest mistakes. The line is fairly simple: the difference between flirting and harassment is that harassment is unwanted and persistent. If you ask someone out on a date or flirt a little and they say “no thank you” or otherwise show they’re not interested and you stop? Not harassment. If you keep hitting on them every time you see them, argue their lack of interest or otherwise make it more about your desire for them rather than their desire to be left alone, especially when its making them uncomfortable? Harassment. The discomfort is an especially big part of what makes the difference, particularly when the discomfort is ignored or dismissed.

The next thing to realize is flirting isn’t inherently harmful, unwelcome or otherwise makes people uncomfortable. What is harmful and unwelcome are folks who a) don’t bother to read the room, b) aren’t mindful of other people’s comfort and interest and c) don’t take “no, thank you” for an answer. If you can pay attention to how someone’s feeling and can hear “no” or “I’d prefer if you didn’t” and respect their no without making it a problem? You’re going to be ok.

Now that having been said, there’re some things you can do that will help make sure that you’re able to go out and meet, mingle and flirt without making things awkward or uncomfortable.

To start with, you want to flirt with people who want to flirt with you. Of course, finding out who does want to flirt can feel like a bit of a challenge. However, people don’t expect you to be mind-readers; they just expect you to be able to read the moment. One of the easiest ways to gauge someone’s interest is simply to use a low-level flirt like a ping on the sonar – and one ping only, Mr. Vassily. You make a small, non-sexual compliment, you make a mild tease, whatever works with your flirting style – and see what comes back. Do they respond in kind? Do they match your energy or even escalate it? Great! They want to flirt with you. Do they seem to miss the flirting or just not respond? OK, they probably aren’t interested in flirting.

You can use the ping as a way of gauging levels of interest as well. If someone is meeting your energy but only to a certain point – you make a more overtly ribald comment or a more direct expression of interest and they don’t match it – then you know where the upper limits are and you can stay there. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t like you or aren’t interested, but not everyone needs or wants to go full Pepe Le Pew or the fruit scene from Tom Jones.

Another way to help make sure people feel comfortable – and to ensure that you know if you and they are on the same page – is to use your words. Even something simple as a “may I…?” before taking their hand to lead them to another part of the room or touching them on the arm or back or what-have-you makes a big, welcome difference.

Sure, sometimes it can feel awkward, especially when you’re getting used to incorporating asking directly into your flirtatious lexicon, but that’s the awkwardness of inexperience and unfamiliarity, not anything inherent to asking. For all the jokes and f--k-talking people do about asking for a kiss or saying “is it ok if I…” or “would you like me to…”, it’s far less awkward to tell someone that you want to kiss them (and give them room to say “yes” or “no”) than to go for a kiss and get the cheek or even a “wait what’re you doing?” Done well, asking for consent during flirting – “I’m trying so hard not to kiss you right now…” – can be sexy as hell.

Another  thing you can do to make sure that people feel more secure about you is almost absurdly simple: you make it clear to them that it’s ok to say no. Literally saying “hey, it’s totally ok to tell me you’re not interested” or “I’m safe to reject” can make a huge difference. Acknowledging the unspoken but understood worry that women have about a guy, making it overt and saying “I get this, it’s fine, let me address it now” is a very small thing, but it sends the message that you’re aware, that you’re mindful of how people feel and that you want to make sure this is something you’re both into. A reel from Instagram user dinosaur.arms has a great example of this dynamic in action.

And the last thing you can do that will make the difference is equally simple: if you make a mistake or misread things, you apologize. People know mistakes happen, signals can be misread and sometimes folks just miss things. Recognizing when it happens, apologizing for it and stopping the unwanted behavior is part of what makes it clear that this really was just a mistake. A sincere, simple apology – “oh, I got that wrong, I’m sorry” – is all that’s needed 90% of the time. You’re acknowledging that you made a mistake, you recognize it and you’re taking responsibility by apologizing and then letting the matter drop.

Like I said: it’s good to be mindful about people’s comfort and safety, and it’s good to want to make sure that the folks you want to flirt with want to beflirted with. Just don’t over-correct so hard that you end up afraid to do anything. Nobody’s asking for that, nobody’s expecting it. All anyone expects is for you to pay attention, learn and to do your best.

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