DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a question about social isolation, emotional overinvestment and strategies for meeting social needs. But first, some background about myself and my problem:

I’m a neurodivergent and highly sensitive trans woman in my mid-twenties, with a very difficult past behind me. And as I’m writing you this, I’m just on the cusp of coming out from the dark hole I’ve been in following a severe burnout/breakdown three years ago, when just about every single thing inside me that wasn’t working right broke down completely. It’s been hell! But I’m just on the verge of being able to leave that hell behind me, which is great! And terrifying! Because having been in hell for so long, basically unable to interact with anything beyond the immediate needs of my own mental health and close relationships (more on that in a bit) it’s like… Like I’ve forgotten how to live a normal life? And I’m at a point where the psychic repair work that’s been – out of necessity – my sole focus for these past three years is no longer cutting it, because that’s no longer where the brunt of the problem actually lies. The problem is that I’m lonely, Doc, and that I frankly have no damn idea what to do about it.

It’s a problem that goes way back into my childhood, growing up in an extremely hostile environment where others were very clear in their disdain for me taught me early on that there was no point trying to make friends… except those rare people I clicked beautifully with, with whom I’d be best friends forever!!! Until… Life happens and we drift apart, or they find other interests or activities, or a conflict comes along and makes things awkward between us… all perfectly normal and natural things, IF you have options, if you have other people to turn to, if you have the slightest bit of resilience in your social support network… which I didn’t. This is, suffice it to say, not a great environment to develop healthy boundaries or a stable sense of your own wants and needs, since placating the other into liking me was always my top priority, since if they didn’t, they’d leave me and I’d DIE, having been abandoned, all alone in the whole wide world. And if that’s not a recipe for a personality disorder, I don’t know what is.

(And before we go on, let’s all take a moment to acknowledge that Dr NerdLove is not, in fact, a real doctor. Deep breath in… Deep breath out…)

And this is, needless to say, a pattern that has followed me into my adult life. The positive thing is that I’ve had no lack of intimate relationships, even during the years following my breakdown; the negative is that they’ve all followed this same pattern of asymmetrical investment levels and emotional dependence leading to me hurting trying to be the person I think they’d want, while also putting all my emotional needs in the same basket, something that inevitably becomes too much for the other to handle, causing them to withdraw, at which point I frankly lose my s—t because I have no other strategies for meeting those needs that are now just twice as unmet as they were before. It sucks, Doc. I’m so sick of things being this way, most lately being that a person who really, really loved me had to leave me, for her own sake, because the emotional strife was just too much to handle. F--k me that hurts.

I don’t want to live this way, and I’ve done a lot, and I mean A LOT of inner work (something like 2000 handwritten pages of journaling, just this summer), consistent meditation, spending time in nature, all that stuff, working through my trauma and the ways those experiences have shaped my view and beliefs about myself, who I am, what my value is, what the approval or disapproval of others says about myself and who I am, all that good and terribly painful shadow integration. Good stuff!

But I’m also realising that it’s… not enough. Because the problem here is, at its core, that I have unmet needs. And sure, anxiously yearning for my ex to take me back or continuing to turn to her for emotional support may be terrible strategies for meeting those needs, but still, that’s what they are: Strategies for having my social and emotional needs met. And so no wonder I stick to them, since that’s all I know how to do… And that’s why I’m writing to you! Because damn do I need to find better and more adaptive ways of meeting those needs, of making friends, building social support nets, finding my people, finding meaning, joy and connection together with others; strategies for building the kind of social life that I want and need, the kind of social life that would decrease my dependence on any one person in particular, thus allowing me to have actually healthy relationships – romantic or platonic – rather than just perpetuating the tracks of my own childhood trauma. So. Where do I start?

Climbing Back Out Of Hell

DEAR CLIMBING BACK OUT OF HELL: So, there’s a temptation to say “well, if you’re aware that you’re doing this thing every time, have you considered not doing it?” and calling it a day. But that’s not actually, y’know helpful (nor does it make for great reading material).

At the same time, this is also an example of why I tell people so often that what they need is therapy, not a loudmouth with an advice column. Even when you’re profoundly self-aware and you are doing your best to keep up with your shadow work and deal with those emotional wounds, there’re limits to how much DIY you can do for mental health care. So while I think some self-guided exercises like MoodGym can be useful, I think this is an area where having a professional, who is not only getting paid to listen but also has no compunctions of telling you when you’re going overboard or veering into Too Much territory – is necessary.  In fact, they have professional incentives to tell you this. And even when they aren’t throwing up a warning flare, sometimes what you need is someone who’s less of a friend and more of a Professional Ear. Even if all they’re doing is being the sounding board to all of the weasels in your brain screaming their anxieties all at once, having someone who is going to sit there and listen and then say “that sounds like a lot, have you considered…” can be invaluable.

Now with that in mind, and the full recognition that Dr. NerdLove is not a real doctor, I do think it’s also important to have some strategies in place to at least mitigate these issues while you’re working on healing those wounds. And in a somewhat amusing (at least to me) reversal, this is a time when I would point out that the same things that help build strong, resilient and successful romantic relationships also help build strong, resilient and successful platonic relationships.

Case in point: one of the factors that helps a relationship survive is to not treat your partner as your sole source of companionship, support and intimacy. One of the keys to a strong relationship – platonic or romantic, sexual or chaste – is to have other people in your life who perform different roles.

This is going to be a weird metaphor but stick with me for a second. Anyone who’s practiced tumbling or studied martial arts – especially grappling and throwing styles like judo or jiu-jitsu – will spend a great deal of time at the start learning how to fall without hurting themselves. The key to minimizing damage when you’re falling is to spread out the area of impact. It’s basic physics; when the point of impact is constrained to one small area, the amount of force (and thus, damage) applied to that area is increased. By spreading out the area of impact, you spread out the amount of force applied, thus lowering the force applied to any one spot. While the overall strength of the impact is the same, because it’s spread over a wider area, the effect of the impact on the body is significantly lessened and thus you suffer less damage (if any).

Well so it is with relationships. Having more people in your life, who play different roles and serve different functions all helps to spread out the amount of time, attention and investment you’re expecting from any one person. Right now, you end up in situations where any individual person ends up chafing under the expectation that they are going to be All Things to you. That creates quite a bit of pressure and, unsurprisingly, you find the relationship creaking and cracking under the strain. Spreading out that time and attention amongst other people makes it much easier to avoid straining your relationships because you have different people helping meet different needs.

This is one of the reasons why it’s frequently a good thing to have what one might consider “specialist” friends – friends who fill a particular role or niche in your social network. You may, for example, have your Political Friend, who you can rant and rave about what our elected officials are f--king up this time or how the media’s one-sided coverage in the name of selling the horse race is damaging democracy. You may also have your Pop Culture Friend, who you go to when you want to squee about the latest plot developments in Demon Slayer or trade theories about characters in Rings of Power. There can be friends who you turn to for talking travel, for talking money, tech… pretty much any niche or interest you may have. Many of them may fill multiple roles, too; your Pop Culture friend may also be who you go to to talk about video games or books, your Political Friend may also be your Activist Friend or your Horror Movie friend. And all of them can help provide emotional support, distraction and companionship – each in different ways and at different times. Because you have these different friends, who occupy different roles, you spread out your attention and your time in ways that helps disperse the total impact of that attention. As a result, you get disparate and discrete needs met without overwhelming any one person. 

As an aside: what’s often odd to me is how often this idea gets pushback; there’s a lot of ingrained cultural narratives that friends and lovers should mesh in damn near all things in order to last. While that’s a nice idea as a fantasy, in practice, you end up with far fewer friends and relationships that often end up failing under the strain of too much togetherness… often leaving one in the position of having their entire social network fall apart at the same time. Having a wider network may be shallower in places… but that’s not a bad thing.

In fact, this is also an area where the difference between a scarcity mentality and an abundance mentality comes into play. In this case, one of the biggest and most significant mistakes that you, CBOOH, are making is that you’re functionally treating each and every person you meet as though they’re the keystone to your social needs. You’re investing each individual person with the idea that they are your deepest and bestest friend and confidant, in no small part because you are carrying this belief that they are the last and only person you could confide in and rely on. It creates a frustrating catch-22 of needing people in your life for the sake of improving your mental health, but the need to improve your mental health is what makes it harder to connect with people to meet those needs.

But here’s the thing: in working towards an abundance mentality with regard to friends and a social network, you also make it possible to have shallower, less intense friendships with any one individual person while you’re working on your mental health. You don’t, for example, need to be sharing your deepest, darkest and most intimate secrets with the person who you like sharing dank gaming memes with. You don’t necessarily need to be besties with the people you would hang out with to go see a hockey game or catch a movie with or talk s—t about politics over beers. By allowing yourself to have a wider diversity of people to talk to, you’re able to meet your needs for companionship and continue doing the work to address your mental health so that you’re better equipped to transition some of these relationships into more intimate ones.

Yes, this mindset can require a certain amount of compartmentalization and a willingness to hold yourself back. It can feel a little cold or mechanical… but in practice, it’s really anything but. It’s more accurate to say that this is a form of caring – for yourself and for them. You’re functionally saying “I value you and what you bring to this relationship and so in order to preserve it, I have to be a bit reserved for now. But in the future, when I’m doing better, that reserve means that I won’t have put an immense strain on our connection before I have the tools to help take them to the next level in a healthy way.”

And, I might point out, embracing those weak ties and holding yourself back is what makes it more likely that you will deepen those relationships. After all, it takes hours upon hours to go from strangers to acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends and from friends to close friends. Holding back a bit means that you have more opportunities to put those hours in at a much more measured pace instead of trying to speedrun the process and ending up, as you said, creating asymmetrical levels of investment and the inevitable withdrawal from the relationship. Holding yourself back allows them to invest at a more reasonable rate too, especially if they’re someone who doesn’t dive headfirst into new friendships with abandon.

So while I’m going to reiterate my call for you to hie thyself to a therapist’s couch, I think you’ll do well to look for (and even welcome) shallower, more specialized connections so that you spread out the total surface area of your attention. While each person may not be meeting your needs in total, the cumulative effect means that those needs get met without overwhelming any particular person. And once you are in better working order and have a better toolset to hand, it’ll be that much easier to pick and choose which of those friendships would be ones that’re worth exploring into a deeper and more intimate way.

Good luck.

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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 want to ask for your thoughts on an experience I had a couple of weeks ago.

First, a little background. I live in Las Vegas. It was a Friday night; I work from 12pm-9pm during the week. That week, I had previously been texting a girl I met on Hinge, but the conversation went dead the day before. I tried texting her once again and received no response. I was rather upset about it and had been in a rather sour mood all day. I originally planned to go home after work and play some video games. However, that changed when I heard some of my coworkers talking about going out to Latin night at a nearby casino. I don’t typically like going out, especially if I am alone, but I thought, “That sounds fun, and it’s better than just sitting at home.” So, I asked if I could join them, and they agreed. 

Fast forward two hours, and we arrived at the event after doing some pre-gaming. We spent the better part of an hour standing in line for drinks and eventually made our way to the dance floor. The combination of alcohol and upbeat music definitely helped lift my spirits. Now, I’ve never had any formal training in salsa dancing or other Latin styles, but I’m pretty good at footwork and matching my movements to the rhythm of the music. It wasn’t long until I decided to start asking women if they wanted to dance. I asked an older gal, probably at least ten years my senior (I’m 28) to dance and she agreed. I danced with her for around five minutes. Her friends excitedly cheered us on and clapped approvingly. We danced for a few songs until she turned around and made it clear that she was done, but not before telling me that I danced pretty well “for a white guy.” I made my way back over to my friends and jammed with them a few songs. I asked a couple of other girls if they wanted to dance and received some polite declines. I’m pretty good with rejection, so I would just smile and nod or give a thumbs up before turning around.

Now, after some prior context, we come to the main thrust. I noticed very pretty Latina dancing with her friends a few paces away from me and my friends. It was hard to see her well in the dim light, but I thought she looked attractive and decided, “Why not?” I try to follow the three-second rule when approaching, so I resisted the urge to play it safe, summoned up the courage, and marched up to her. Unfortunately, she was dancing with her back turned to me. I gently tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, but she did not turn around. I took that as a clear “no,” so I just shrugged and went back to dancing with my friends and didn’t think anything more of it.

So, there I was, just jamming out to loud Latin music and having a pretty good time, when suddenly, the Latina whom I had previously tapped on the shoulder strode right up to me, looked me in the eye, turned around, and began grinding on me. To say that I and my friends were surprised is an understatement; I’m pretty sure I saw their collective jaws drop looney-toons style. We danced for a song, and then she turned around and said she had to get going. I nodded, we hugged, and she walked off with her friends toward the exit. As I watched her walk away, my friends excitedly told me, “Go get her number dude! There’s still a chance!” I thought it sounded fun, so I decided to go for it. I caught up with her and her friends, and, after waiting for a moment to talk to her (they were talking to some of the event staff), I asked her if there was any way I could get her number. She told me she couldn’t at that moment because she and her friends were looking for an exit or something (I can’t quite remember). I shrugged and said, “Come find me after you’re done,” and went back to my friends. I remember expecting not to ever see or talk to her again. I walked back to my friends and resumed dancing. One of my friends, let’s call him “Rob,” was amazed and told me, “Yeah, that was f--king INSANE.” The rest of my friends shook their heads and laughed.

So, there I was, just dancing again, when five minutes later, back again she comes with one of her girlfriends. She asked if I wanted to do shots with her and her friend. I said, “Sure!” So we walked over to the bar. She was holding my hand and touching me the whole way. We continued to sway to the music as we waited for the bartender and began to talk.

I learned her name – let’s call her Jen. She told me that she was a nurse in her early 30s who worked at a local hospital. I also learned her friend was her sister. They asked me about what I did for work, my age, if I was a Vegas local, what my type was, etc. After telling them that I was a Vegas local, I told them with a big grin on my face that I loved Latinas. Her friend laughed. Jen smiled and said that she liked white guys. She told me that when she saw me dancing out there, she said to herself, “I’m going to make his night.”

Jen and I were standing closely together, with my hands resting on her waist. I was trying to be respectful. She gasped in surprise when she felt my abdominal region. She asked me if I had a six-pack, and I nodded. It felt good that a lot of hard work in the gym was being noticed. I’ve been working hard in the gym since I was about 13 years old. So, to use one of your expressions, I have “abs like WHOA.” Her friend was excited when she felt for herself. Jen’s sister said that she liked ripped guys. I felt like I was definitely her type. I am conventionally attractive; I’ve had a lot of people express surprise that I’m single. The only thing is that I’m not very tall, but that clearly did not bother her. We then turned our attention back to the bartender. Jen turned around so her butt was pressed up against me. She grabbed my hand and brought it down to her inner thigh. I was kind of surprised, but I enjoyed matching the movement of her hips with mine. I remember swaying to the music and nuzzling her neck.

We eventually were able to order our drinks. She and her friend invited me back to join them and their other friends to hang out and smoke hookah. I then followed her and her friend back to the other side of the dance floor to their cabana. I sat down and she promptly sat on my lap. She seemed to be pressing herself in as far as she could go. I was having a fun time, what can I say? I wrapped my arms around her and planted some light kisses on her neck. I felt her wiggle with contentment.

I chatted with her and her friends for a bit. I can’t really remember the conversation. We were all rather drunk at this point. Then Jen asked me if I wanted to stick my feet in the hot tub (the club floor was outside and had a pool and hot tub). I agreed, and, after stripping off my shoes and socks and her sandals, we stuck our feet in the hot tub and just enjoyed listening to the music. I happened to look over at her and noticed her looking at me. I just went for the kiss, and it was happily received. We made out for a bit. I asked her if I could get her number. She enthusiastically took my phone and typed out her number and her FULL name, which was surprising. I noticed her area code matched that of the local area, so that gave me more confidence that she had been telling the truth about being a local herself earlier. After that, we sat together for a bit, and then she told me that she and her friends were going to do their own thing. I nodded. We hugged and I walked back to my friends. When I got back, my friends were wondering where the hell I had been for so long. We all jammed to a few more songs and then decided to head out. They were all pretty happy for me and joking about my “rizz.”

The next day was a bit rough due to the ensuing hangover. I waited until about 6:30pm the next night to text Jen because I didn’t want to seem overeager to talk to her. I started with a, “Hello beautiful! How is your evening going?”

She said she was alright, and asked how I was and what I was up to. I told her I was rather hungover, but ok otherwise. I told her I was just taking it easy. She did not respond. I asked her the next morning if she wanted to get a coffee. She said she appreciated the offer, but she was getting on a plane. I told her that if she wanted to get that cup of coffee in the future, she had my number. She said that sounded good. I tried texting her a few times later in the week with “Hey, how are you?”, but received no response. I confess that I was hoping that the memory of our in-person chemistry and attraction would provide enough momentum to get us back together. Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been the case. I texted her today and saw that the message was never delivered, which indicates that I most likely have been blocked.

Needless to say, I’m bummed out about this. I thought that I had finally met someone who I thought was sexy and hot and who thought the same about me. She was not only beautiful, but I really liked how confident she was, how she knew what she wanted and let me know. Lately, I haven’t had any luck with dating. I’ve gone out several times with people I’ve met online and in-person. It seems like the people who are interested in going on a second date with me are catfishes, and the people I’m interested in going on a second date with end up ghosting me. I also have this frustrating tendency to attract people who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. I’ve been trying to find more in-person hobbies like running club to meet more women, but I know that it takes months or even years to build a social network and create a social life to meet people that way. It also doesn’t help that I’m more introverted and not-exactly a social butterfly, so I have to make myself go to these things.

Anyways, I just wanted to get your opinion on this experience: what did I do well? What did I do wrong? Why was she not interested? I’m pretty sure there was strong chemistry – I could feel it! I’m thinking that this was just a classic combination “what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas”, alcohol, and perhaps just mismatched expectations. I am also thinking that she probably does not even live here, since she said she was getting on a plane. Even if the issue was that she simply did not live in the area or was not looking for a relationship, I think it would still be helpful to get your thoughts.

Thank you for reading!

DJ Didn’t Have Us Falling In Love

DEAR DJ DIDN’T HAVE US FALLING IN LOVE: Alright before I get to the meat of your letter, DDHFL, I want to point out that you made a good call  on how to handle the disappointment of a Hinge conversation going dead.  While it’s good to sit with your feelings on occasion, I’m a big believer that it’s better to go out and do something fun. Not only is it better for your mood and overall emotional wellbeing, but it reinforces the idea that hey, that sucks but it’s not a big deal. Life goes on, good things exist in this world and it’s better to go do the things that make you feel alive and feed your soul than it is to sit at home and sulk.

Especially since this is more likely to get you back mindlessly swiping on the apps and causing the cycle to perpetuate itself.

Now let’s talk a bit about what happened in the club and what you can (and should) take away from it. We’ll start with the sexy someone you met while out on the dance floor.

What happened there is pretty simple, honestly, and it comes down to two things. The first is, quite simply, that the dance floor is its own space and has its own rules. Dancing, especially styles like Latin dancing, is a very sensual (literally) experience and one that creates a sort of altered state of consciousness. The combination of synchronized movement, the beat, the heat of bodies on the floor and everyone moving more or less in time (if not in sync) with one another can all put you into a state where you’re not worried about the past or the future, you’re just in your body and aware of everything your body is telling you, and you often feel almost disassociated from your sense of self.

It also tricks our brains. Our brains are notoriously bad at understanding why we feel the way we do. Rather than our brains saying “ah, I see, this situation is X, therefore I shall increase adrenaline production…”, our brains take in the physical sensations our bodies produce and then decide how we feel based on context clues; this is what’s known as “misattribution of arousal”. The motion of your bodies in time with the music gets your heart rate going and excites your central nervous system, getting the rest of you excited. The physical sensations you feel when you dance – your elevated pulse, awareness of your body and hers, the movements – feel almost identical to how it feels to be deeply attracted to someone. It mimics the excitement and adrenaline almost precisely. Small wonder, then, that it feels like there’s a powerful connection in that moment; everything we’re feeling in the moment tells us that’s precisely what’s going on.

Then there’s the way that dancing makes us feel connected with the people we’re dancing with. The combination of moving in rhythm with another person (or lots of people) creates a sense of closeness, connection and intimacy, and it can be a powerful moment. This is one of the reasons why, for example, military recruits go through boot camp; the synchronized movements, call-and-response shouts and the rest help break down that sense of individuality and create a feeling of connection with your fellow recruits. It’s also why a lot of self-help gurus will start their seminars with similar exercises, emphasizing group chants, movements and the rest. You feel the barriers come down between your sense of self and the others around you and feel closer and more connected than you would otherwise.

There’s also a disinhibiting effect, especially when there’s an associated view that this is a more sexual, sensual performance than, say, a foxtrot. We’re encouraged to let go, to be less self-conscious, to be with the moment and to do what feels right based on that moment and so we tend to be a lot freer in our behavior than we would be otherwise.

It’s powerful in the moment, but it’s also incredibly fleeting. When the moment is done, so is that sense of connection; when the music stops and you’re no longer in that almost ecstatic trance, then boom, you’re back into your sense of self. But you remember how powerful that feeling was and how disinhibiting it was and how strong that feeling of connection had been. So it’s not exactly surprising that you can come away from dancing feeling like you had A Moment, only to find out that that moment only really existed while you were dancing. That’s one of the reasons why I tell folks never to assume anything based on what happened on the dance floor; it’s what happens when you’re not dancing that’ll tell you how someone actually feels.

The other thing is, as you said: she and her friends were having a girl’s night in a town that sells itself on getting wild and crazy in a place where consequences (supposedly) won’t follow you home. The thing a lot of guys often don’t get is that girls’ nights are for the girls; it’s a time for going out and having fun but not necessarily for hooking up. Much as with “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, what happens on a girls’ night stays on the girls’ night. Women’ll go out, drink, dance, flirt and get a little wild… but they’re there with their friends and that’s how the night is going to go and that’s where things tend to stay. Especially if they’ve got a life and responsibilities (including partners, children, work, etc.) to get back to when the weekend’s over. So what seems like a good idea at the club after a few shots and a lot of encouragement from their friends seems less desirable in the cold light of sobriety (and the attendant hangover) the next day.

So I suspect that what ultimately happened is that you were part of her adventure that night… but that was it. This, I think was more about her and how it made her feel – the whole “I’m going to make his night” comment is something of a tell. That was her feeling powerful and desirable because of how she was making you feel. The next day, as the hangover sets in and mundane reality reasserts itself, she’s back to her every-day life, not the life of the siren with such a powerful effect on men. That, I think, is reinforced by the cooler response you got when you texted.

It’s possible that you could’ve gotten that coffee, but you were coming in pretty hot from the jump and you didn’t take “maybe” for an answer. I can’t say whether she would’ve hit you up later if you’d left it there, but the odds would’ve been better if you had. I think the multiple unreturned texts afterwards are what closed the door for good; you didn’t pick up what she was laying down and so she blocked you.

Now, all of that’s understandable. You were coming off feeling rejected, had a night that made you feel like as sexual tyrannosaurus and wanted that good feeling to keep going. Whomst amongst us hasn’t made that mistake and got out over their skis? God knows I’ve had times when acting like an excited golden retriever puppy blew up what seemed like a promising connection. It’s a shame, but it’s part of how we learn, and that’s part of what you should take away from this: a little restraint works wonders at times.

However, I think you should also recognize what that night showed you and take it onboard. Yes, it didn’t end the way you hoped, but over the course of an evening, you went out, had a good time with friends, had a number of lovely ladies want to dance with you and clearly charmed Jen. You had as solid a confirmation of what you’re capable of as you could want. You were charismatic and charming, you found levels of courage you weren’t sure you possessed and you had a connection, however fleeting, with some incredible women. That’s all really impressive and you should be proud of it.

Yeah, dating can be frustrating, and often for reasons that have nothing to do with you. But what you’ve just seen is how your self-image doesn’t necessarily reflect the limits of what you’re capable of. You’ve just seen that you have some rizz locked and cocked and ready to rock, should you want to take it out and unleash it. This wasn’t a fluke; this was very much a case of “the power was inside you all this time”, and I think you should recognize that.

Similarly, I think the next time you’re finding that you have to push yourself to get motivated to go out – whether to have a fun night with your friends or to go to that running club or other events – you should remember the experience you had that night. You may have to give yourself an extra jolt to work up the motivation to go, but remembering how much fun you had and how much you learned about yourself should help encourage you to get off the couch and get out of the house. Even if love doesn’t bloom on the battlefield dance floor, you had an amazing time, and having fun with someone is part of how you build a connection with them. After all, if someone feels like they have a good time when they hang out with you, they’re going to prioritize hanging out with you over other, less fun things.

The connection you made that night may not have lasted, but it showed you what you were capable of. Taking the lessons of the night, tempering your expectations and slowing your roll juuuuuuust a little bit will mean that the next time an opportunity like this presents itself, you’ll be ready to pounce on it. And this time, since you’ll be a little wiser and a little more experienced, you’ll know how to turn that moment into something incredible.

Good luck.

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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 a 33yo cis/het man who recently deleted all of my dating app profiles. I’ve been using Hinge since February of this year and to be fair, I think I did a lot better than most men on the app. I’m able to reliably get matches and dates with women I’m attracted to. I hit a couple of milestones this year. I had my first hookup and I also connected with a woman I really liked and we dated exclusively for a little over a month (7 dates total, a personal record) but things took a turn for the worst after she and I got done. I was devastated as I liked her a lot and could see myself with her for a long time. 

I went on a tear of going on dates and to be honest, not being very discerning with who I went out with (I just wanted to prove to myself she wasn’t a fluke and thought giving more women more chances was the answer). I got jerked around and got several last minute cancellations. The little rejections piled up on me. I was getting really down on myself and got rid of Hinge after having a breakdown. 

I felt some relief after deleting my profile, but soon had that nagging voice telling me I’m missing out and won’t be able to make up the time I’m losing. I’m diagnosed with OCD and am prone to repetitive/intrusive thoughts so that and the FOMO were driving me nuts so I tried Bumble. I really didn’t like it. Compared to Hinge, it was very convoluted and I got several matches who expired (a few were women who matched with me on hinge too, funnily enough), so I deleted that.

Since then I’ve had this background noise anxiety where I’m feeling like I quit, I lost, I failed. I really don’t think re-downloading Hinge is the answer. I’m a very social person. I’m involved in improv, rock climbing, yoga, the dance community, exercise groups, and I have a lot of friends. I feel like the apps have broken my brain in a sense. I find myself comparing myself to the people around me when I’m out doing things, wondering if someone is too “good” or above me for me to speak to, feeling like I’m a fraud if I go out and pretend I’m feeling ok or tell my friends everything is fine. I’m hanging with a close friend tomorrow and I’m hesitant to even bring this up with her out of a mix of embarrassment and shame.

How would you spent your free time if you needed to detox from dating apps? I’ve relied on them for most of this year for finding dates. I don’t want to feel this way about myself anymore.

Bad Brain, No Biscuit

DEAR BAD BRAIN, NO BISCUIT: Alright BBNB, say it with me now: “the problem you have isn’t the problem you think you have.”

This really isn’t a dating app problem and it’s not really something that you need a digital detox from – though, to be quite honest, that’s something that will certainly help. You’re not alone in finding that the dating apps mess with your head and sense of emotional well-being and self-esteem; you just have a harder and more chronic case than most. This is why the problem is what’s going on in your head and heart. You have a toxic relationship with the apps, but that toxicity is reacting to issues you already have. The apps are just exacerbating it. 

And in fairness, that’s basically what the apps are designed to do. One of the things that folks are starting to catch onto is the fact that most dating apps – the Match Group owned ones in particular – function like Candy Crush. They’re weaponized FOMO, using the algorithm to give you a little algorithmic boost at the start, then dialing it back once you get a taste. The app gets you hooked into a ludic loop – a tech-bro term for intermittent reinforcement – where you get a little dopamine hit from the anticipation of a match or finding a new profile. Much like slot machines, they encourage mindless swiping in hopes that maybe this one will pay out. Meanwhile – again, much like Candy Crush – they use little hints of what’s behind the paywall with their weekly rose/super like/whatever with the hint that somehow this will make these “exclusive” matches more likely to match with you.

(It’s somewhat notable how these matches never show up in your main feed, ever… which, ironically enough, punishes them as well, for the sin of being in high demand.)

They are, frankly, relying on making you fear that you’re missing out and you’re a fool for not spending more. Meanwhile this plays straight into your emotional issues and mental health challenges and manifestly makes your quality of life worse. So while there’re ways to be more mindful in your dating app usage, quite frankly, I think going cold turkey and focusing on your mental health is going to be more important.

There are a couple of things that I think you should be focusing on. The first is very simple: it’s ok to not be OK. There’s nothing shameful in admitting that things are hard, that you’re dealing with things that you may not be able to handle on your own, or that you might need reassurance or comfort from friends and loved ones. Nor is there anything shameful about saying “what I’m doing for my mental health isn’t working the way I would hope.” Mental health care is as much art as it is science, and often it’s a matter of figuring out what’s going to work for now as circumstances change.

It’s also perfectly OK to recognize that something isn’t working for you, isn’t meeting your needs, or otherwise is making your life worse. Quitting the apps because they’ve been having a profoundly negative effect on your overall quality of life isn’t “failing” or “giving up”, it’s recognizing a bad scene for what it is and responding accordingly. The apps were encouraging behavior that had a negative effect on your life and emotional well-being. We can debate whether that’s the intended outcome or a side-effect, but the effect ultimately is the same. That’s something worth excising from your life. It would be the same if it were a toxic friend or relationship, a job or anything else in your life. It just hits different because, in this case, it plays into your feelings of identity and self-worth. It feels like failing because they want you to feel like this is the only way to meet women. But strangely, the human race has been meeting, mating and falling in love without Hinge’s assistance for 99.9% of human existence.

But to be quite honest, I think you’re still going to have problems dating, regardless of how you meet people. The fact that Hinge exacerbated those feelings of worthlessness or not being good enough doesn’t mean that those feelings originated there. It just happened to be the trigger. At the risk of sounding like a feel-good-woo-woo-wellness influencer, I really think right now the relationship you need to focus on is your relationship with yourself.

The issue of your being “good enough” isn’t about objective comparisons; those are literally impossible. It’s about your own understanding and recognition of your worth, independent of other people or what other folks think. And yes, I understand the argument of “well, why should my opinion on my own worth matter if others might disagree”, I just reject it as relevant. After all, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but a lot of people are, frankly, morons, and I wouldn’t trust their judgement on cheese.

But also, when you can’t trust in your own worth, you end up having the precise issues you’ve run into before – dating people, not because you like them or because you feel like they would be a good partner for you, but because you have something to prove. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to prove something to yourself, to the world or simply to the invisible Greek Chorus in your head. When you are dating to prove a point, you’re setting yourself up for misery and bad relationships. You will date people who aren’t right for you but who say “yes”, simply because you’re throwing bodies at a problem that can’t be cured by external means. The call is coming from inside the house, but so too is the solution.

You mention that you have OCD and this is how the intrusive thoughts currently manifest. I think addressing those should be the starting point for your digital detox. I don’t know what form of treatment you’re currently pursuing, but if it hasn’t been helping, then it may be worth talking to your therapist about taking a different tack. There’re a number of different treatments for OCD, from talk therapy to medication. While a combination of treatments may help, one I think you may want to look into – if you haven’t already – is cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT has been found to be especially helpful in dealing with intrusive and unwanted thoughts, especially as you’re encouraged to really wrestle and pick those thoughts apart, to dig into where they come from and what they actually mean. I think that might be well worth your time to explore for a while, especially with the help of a trained mental health professional.

I think it would also help for you to work on not just your self-worth (for obvious reasons) but to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to allow the people who love and care for you to give you the support and comfort you clearly crave. I think it would help you immensely if you didn’t feel as though you had to take up so much of your mental and emotional bandwidth by projecting this image of “everything’s fine, nothing is wrong, I am the very model of a modern major millennial”. Not only does this isolate you from the people who would most want to support you, but it also means that you have less energy and mental resources to give to effective self-care, which is what you need more than anything else.

Decoupling your self-worth from your social calendar is going to be important, especially since it means you don’t even get a chance to truly appreciate how much you’ve accomplished and how far you’ve come. Your social schedule is great, but there’s a point where trying to fill the hours for the sake of filling the hours just ends up being an unhealthy coping mechanism in and of itself. Sometimes you need to take time to yourself to recover, to recoup and to do things simply because you want to do them, not because they fit on a list of “these things make me more attractive/desirable to others” or “this would look good on my dating profile”.

One last thing I would suggest is to recognize that even minor issues – like the last-minute cancellations – can hurt, especially when they play into your pre-existing issues. Individually they may not be much, but a paper cut ain’t much but it still stings. A dozen paper cuts may not be a risk to life and limb, but dozens of them are going to sting like a sonofabitch and make everything just a little bit worse. And when you’re already feeling like you’re holding on by your fingernails, even a little bit can make a big difference.

So as I said: if you’re going to take this as a detox, then actually detox. Not just from the dating apps, but from the emotional poison you’ve been letting build up while you’ve been using those apps. The apps may be the current trigger, but until you start to drain and clean the wound, then all that’s going to happen is that a new trigger is going to crop up and start the cycle again. The best way to avoid that is treat the core wound, not the external problems.

It’s time to treat yourself the way you deserve to be treated. And that starts by doing the hard and frequently unpleasant work of healing and conquering your internal demons. But once you do? You’re going to be a goddamn monster out there.

Good luck.

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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