DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I was hanging out with some new friends of mine yesterday and we were having some drinks and joking around when one of them turned to me and said “You’ve never dated and it shows.” This kind of took me aback as I wasn’t expecting them to hit me with such a pointed and personal jab. It’s an accurate guess of course but then I got worried that I gave off “Virgin Energy” or something. I was just being my normal, goofy self so that got me worried that my default personality is unattractive or something. Am I overthinking this? Do I need to change how I act?

Big Maidenless Energy

DEAR BIG MAIDENLESS ENERGY: I swear (every f--kin’ day), half my job would up and vanish if folks just had better friends.

This is just some asshat doing the guy thing of “bonding by roasting each other” who’s giving you s--t and hit you in a sensitive spot.

I’m not necessarily against roasting or teasing among friends. Several of my friends and I will tease one another regularly when we hang out. But it’s not merciless teasing, it’s affectionate. Part of the unspoken agreement is that we avoid hitting the places we know would actually hurt and the overall vibe is that the joking is about an exaggerated and clearly not real version of the person. It’s never with the subtext that we believe it to be true; we joke because we know it’s not. Similarly, we’re just as quick to make similar jokes about ourselves because we all know we’re all ridiculous in all sorts of ways. It’s in-group joking and teasing, the sort that reaffirms that we’re all part of this together, and that we can do this because we know each other well and care about each other. And if it gets too real, we apologize and we stop.

This, on the other hand, sounds like someone trying to put you “in your place” as it were – mock you in such a way that it establishes you in the social hierarchy. That’s more the mark of an asshole, especially if they’re not someone who knows you well enough or is close enough to have the privileges that allow them to joke like that with you. If they’re doing it because they think it’s funny, but don’t intend to be mean, then they’re a bore. If they’re doing it knowing that you haven’t dated anyone and know it bothers you, then they’re an asshole. One is potentially correctable, the other is someone you probably shouldn’t waste more time on.

What I don’t think is that you need to change how you act, and I do think you’re overthinking things. Maybe you act around these guys in a way that seems stereotypically socially awkward, and the dude drew a conclusion. It’s certainly possible that you gave off “never dated before, ever” vibes like Steve Carrell trying to bluff his way through a conversation in The 40-Year Old Virgin and the guy picked up on it and weaponized it on you. But quite frankly, it’s much more likely that this was just variation #2302b of the standard “men who aren’t neck-deep in chicks are losers” insult and it just happened to be the truth. It’s akin to – again, referencing The 40-Year Old Virgin – someone riffing on “know how I know you’re gay?” except turns out the other person actually is closeted. Shotgun enough insults about someone’s lack of a sex-life out there and you’re more likely to score a hit eventually.

(Another possibility is that you told someone else in the group and word got around, and… well, a--holes are gonna ass.)

Do you need to act differently? Well, let me ask you: are you carrying a chip on your shoulder about having little dating experience? Are you making “oh woe is me, I am among The Great Untouched and it’s not fair?” noises all the time? Are you trying to hide or obfuscate your relationship history? Because if the answer to any of that is “no”, then no, I really don’t think you need to change anything. Even if you are somehow pinging on people’s “haven’t gotten any” radar, the issue really isn’t that you’re pinging it so much as “why are you treating it like a big deal?”

And that really should be your response to it: “so?” or “And your point is?” Because it’s really not a big deal, no matter how much some slapdick tries to make it one. Not ceding the ground that this is something to be ashamed of or a mark against you makes it a lot harder to use it against you; it makes the other person look like an asshat for trying. It also makes it that much easier to spot the folks you shouldn’t spend time with because they’re demonstrating themselves to be a s--thead and your time is too valuable to waste on s--theads.

Here’s the thing: being a virgin or having no relationship history is value neutral. As I’ve said many times before, being a virgin isn’t a measure of your worth or desirability as a person. It’s simply a marker of “have had this experience” or “haven’t had this experience” with no more meaning or significance than whether you’ve ever gone skydiving or seen the Grand Canyon. Any significance is arbitrary and what people make of it says more about them than it does about that data point. And if they’re going to treat it as a negative? Then that marks them as an asshole rather than saying anything about you.

I can tell you from experience: having sex isn’t going to change you as a person. Losing your virginity won’t make you wiser, more mature, more cultured or anything else. If you were to go out tonight, run into the woman of your dreams and just absolutely wreck a hotel room and leaving it looking like a blacklight Jackson Pollock painting, you would wake up the next morning as exactly the same person you were the day before.

Nor, for that matter, would folks be able to magically detect the “just had sex” on you. There wouldn’t be some glow surrounding you telling everyone that you got your ashes hauled. The only way people would know is if you told them. So unless you’re making your sex life – or lack thereof – a big deal in those conversations? Then nobody’s going to know, and it’s not really their business anyway.

TL;DR: a--holes are gonna ass and trying to avoid giving off “big virgin energy” is just going to come off like insecurity. Better to just treat it like the non-issue it is and be friends with a better class of people.

Good luck.

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 an older experienced dater (41 yr old lesbian) and have a higher body count than most people expect. These almost all happened between my mid 20s to 30s.

I’ve been regularly and rigorously tested for STIs and remain clear. I’m very fortunate. However, I’ve had my high body count thrown in my face by multiple partners recently. Despite showing them my multiple test results, and explain that’s long been in the past, they will insist that I must have something. Lately, I’ve stopped dating altogether. I’m tired of being shamed for a past that was to me, not something to be ashamed of, given it was consensual and enjoyable.

How could I approach this topic in the future should I try dating again?

What’s In A Number?

DEAR WHAT’S IN A NUMBER: This one’s easy. Date less s--tty people.

Ok, I realize this sounds like I’m being dismissive, but I’m serious. You’re framing this in such a way that it implies that this is an issue with you and you need to address it in some way that doesn’t trigger a s--tty response from folks who have retrograde ideas about STIs, sexual risk and “purity”.

And it’s not. The issue are people who have a problem with your sexual history. They’re the one who suck, here.  

Unless you’re dropping that info like a challenge, as a form of dominance or authority or some weird form of one-upmanship – and it certainly doesn’t sound like you are – then the question of “how to roll it out” really does make it sound like the issue is “how do I do this in a way that minimizes it” while tacitly accepting the frame that this is a bad thing – as though you should apologize for the sex you had or describe it in a way that makes it seem like having done it was a mistake.

Well… you shouldn’t. As you said: this was sex that you had that you consented to and that you enjoyed. That’s pretty much the end of the story as far as I’m concerned. You are 100% correct: this isn’t something to be ashamed of.

The number of people you’ve slept with isn’t really an indicator of anything than “the number of people you’ve slept with”. It’s value neutral, a data point in the sum totality of who you are as a person. It’s part of what made you the person you are today and, from the sound of it, you like that person. So the problem really isn’t how to roll it out to others, the problem is that the people you’ve been dating don’t like you. They like an idea of who you’re supposed to be in their heads. The person in front of them, not so much.

But here’s the thing: you’re not responsible for the person that folks think you should be, any more than you’re obligated to apologize for not being that person. You’re you. They can decide if they like you or not, number of sexual partners included, but that’s ultimately a them problem, not a you problem. The “you” problem in this case is letting s--tty people stick around after they make it clear that they’re s--tty.

And to be sure, folks can have opinions and preferences about the amount of sexual experience they want their theoretical partner to have. I’ve said many times: people are allowed to have whatever dealbreakers they want, regardless of what other people think. If someone wants to date a person who’s purer than the driven snow in Alaska, more power to ‘em. Other folks can have opinions about their dealbreakers, but they don’t get a vote.

But their having a dealbreaker doesn’t mean they get to be s--tty about it to you or accuse you of things that are more about their issues than about you. Doubly so when they’re so wed to the idea that they’re throwing it back in your face regardless of the evidence. Evidence, like, say, negative test results for STIs.

Now, there are other choices, of course. You could lie about your number of former partners. It’s not like someone’s going to demand references or to see the official punch card or visitor ticker over your bed-frame; you could tell them with a straight face that you’ve only been with $ACCEPTABLE_NUMBER of people and just go from there. But if I’m being honest, I think that’s unnecessary and a mistake. I can understand the feeling of “well, a little white lie that helps people get over their bulls--t at the start when they don’t know me”, but in my opinion if you feel like you have to conceal parts of yourself that don’t need to be concealed in order to date someone, then there’s a problem right from the jump. At best, I think this is just starting the clock on a time bomb that’s likely to go off.

On the other hand, you could just, y’know, not tell them. I don’t think the number of partners is important or even particularly revelatory. It can tell folks more about who you were at a particular time in your life, what your priorities were, what you valued and prioritized in relationships or connections with others… but I don’t think that’s something that needs to be shared, especially early on. Certainly not if someone is giving signs that they’re going to get weird about it.

Yes, having more partners means a greater risk of having been exposed to an STI. But that’s just life. Existence is a full-contact sport. Going skiing means accepting a greater risk of injury or death. Going out to eat means accepting a greater risk of food poisoning. Driving means risking life and limb. When we do these things, we do so with the tacit acknowledgement of the risks involved. It’s part of the whole deal and we don’t treat doing the acceptance of those risks as a sign of moral turpitude.

This is why, in my opinion, the only thing that someone’s really “entitled” to are the results of your STI screening, which is really the only part that’s any business of theirs. The rest can be filed under “none of your business”, or “I don’t kiss and tell”, “I don’t keep score”, “more than some, less than others”, or “enough to know what I like and who I want.” 

There’re folks who will clearly take this as a sign that you’re hiding something or get upset and demand actual numbers. But that says far more about them than it does about you and – again – it’s a them problem. You’re laying down a boundary that says “I don’t want to talk about it” with an unspoken “…yet”, “… if you’re going to act like this” or possibly even “…ever”. If they keep pushing and demanding to know, then they’re telling you valuable information about themselves. If you don’t want to share the number of people you’ve slept with and they get upset about it… well, that sounds like someone you probably shouldn’t be dating. If it’s that important, they’re free to go date someone who either has an acceptable number of former partners, or who wants to talk about it.

So my thought on how to handle it is: take it on a case by case basis, based on the person you date. You can lead off with a handwave that signals you’re not interested in talking actual numbers, or you can decide based on how they’ve acted so far. If she’s someone who’s shown that she’s not going to get weird and sex-shame-y about your romantic or sexual history, then hey, feel free to tell them if you want and feel secure in doing so. I’d say just be matter of fact about it, treating it like the data it is.

But if they’re getting judgey about it, or they throw it in your face? Then the only sensible thing to do is kick them to the curb and they can go find someone more to their liking. Because all that’s happened here is that they’ve demonstrated that they’re someone who is absolutely not right for you, and you’re better off without them. It’s certainly better than giving them any more of your valuable time, which they’ll just waste by being an asshole to you.

Your past is part of what makes you you. This includes your sexual history. This ain’t Build-A-Bear or a Baldur’s Gate character generator; they can’t customize your background to fit their idea of you. If they are going to object to your having a history like this, then they’re objecting to your whole self. It’s a package deal; you don’t get one without the other. You (and they) don’t need to dwell on it if nobody wants to, but it’s still just a fact of who you are.

If they have a problem with your number, they have a problem. But it’s not your problem. And if they can’t get over it and be a grown-up about it? Then they aren’t your problem either.

Good luck.

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 feel completely and utterly hopeless. I’m sacred, afraid and have massive inferiority complex about a lot from my body, my desirability and my sexuality.

I’m gonna be upfront: I’m a gooner aka a porn addicted loser, I consume it and even buy it. I think this excessive porn consumption might be the source of a lot of my sense of insecurity and inferiority. That I can’t measure up, that I’ll never score with women like that and I won’t preform like that in bed. Because for once I’m very physically mediocre painfully average sized cock and soft doughy body the Dad bod if you will (a body type that is only truly desired and appreciated by gay men because it’s actually featured in their porn and smut, women who say otherwise have ulterior motives or are small fringe of fetishists) and men of my body type and size are not featured in this porn. Now I have chatted with some of the porn stars, some quite prominent who tell me straight up that size supposedly “doesn’t matter” or that it can “hurt” and they supposedly that they find my soft doughy body attractive. Gonna be honest; I don’t believe them because well their words say one thing but their actions (filming themselves with chiseled men with big members) and well yes *actions speak louder than words.*

On top of that I’m already paranoid about my excessive porn consumption and top use an incredibly nerdy Warhammer reference it’s like I’m falling to the Chaos God Slaanesh where “vanilla” porn doesn’t do it for me and I have crank it more. More spitting, more slapping, more roughness and is it gonna reach the point where I’ll have to engage in auto erotic asphyxiation to at least feel something, I’m not so much “pleasuring myself ” as I am torturing myself because well after having some “post orgasmic clarity” I just feel like s--t and garbage and total loser.

Because frankly I am a totally loser. I’m a virgin at my late 20s perhaps one of my darkest and most shameful secrets. I say that because I feel like if I were to tell someone especially a potential partner she’s gonna react with disgust or humiliation I.E the only logical reactions a woman might have to am older virgin male. Because I highly doubt if I were to open up about my lack of experiences and insecurities with another woman, that she’ll understand cause we’ll women aren’t really shamed, mocked or made fun of for being an older virgin or being inexperienced. That’s just a thing that doesn’t happen, if anything most guys might act pleasantly surprised or even appreciate it. So yes I want the experience but with my virginity status and my gooner brain I feel like I’m completely tied down and idk what to do.

What do I do Doc? How do I break these chains of doubt and addiction? How do I stop feeling like such a worthless loser?

Sincerely

Hedonist of Slaanesh

DEAR HEDONIST OF SLAANESH: One of the things that’s interesting about being in the Advice Column Industrial Complex is that if you’re in it for long enough, you truly start to understand what “there’s nothing new under the sun” means. I’ve been writing this column for more than 13 years now (Jesus, time is a weird soup) and in that time, I’ve noticed how many letters fall into particular genres, each with their own tropes and recurring motifs.

Regular readers will be familiar with the classic “I’m Too Ugly To Date (Except I’m Really Average At Best)” and it’s cousin “Women Only Want One Kind of Man (And It’s Not Me And That’s Not Fair)”. Some connoisseurs may think of the “I Have A Crush On A Celebrity, How Do I Get Them To Date Me?” And of course, we have the “Porn Makes Me A Bad Person” genre, which, unsurprisingly, tends to spike as we get closer to No-Nut November which – in a Christmas Creep kind of way – has been leaking out of containment with the advent of Locktober.

Now where things get interesting is the Venn diagram of what so many of these letters have in common: a perpetual Fallacy of Asymmetric Insight – the belief that while we are a mystery shrouded in an enigma wrapped in a crunchy shell, women are an open book and guys know them better than they know themselves – spawned by listening to Accepted Wisdom from other dudes who learned it at the feet of still other dudes who haven’t talked to women and a stunning lack of media literacy.

(And continuing the “nothing new under the sun” theme, in the days before Reddit, YouTube and TikTok the Accepted Wisdom used to be passed down from random slapdick older brothers and cousins sharing the wisdom they learned from the magazines they found in the woods. The only difference is the medium, not the message.)   

I bring this up, HoS, because… well, that lack of media literacy is precisely the issue here. I’m going to forgo my usual “porn addiction isn’t actually A Thing” rant – God knows I’ve got enough examples in the archives to paper my office bathroom. I will also skip over the part about dad bods or the fact that “average” penis size means that you have the same penis as the majority of men, and instead say that yes, you’re correct: porn is why you have body issues and insecurity.

Not, mind you, because you watch and masturbate to porn. No, it’s in no small part because somehow you really don’t understand how porn works… which is an extension of not understanding how media works in general.

Oh and also not understanding what logic is or assuming you know how women think despite not actually interacting with them. So… Yahtzee!

So let’s start with something obvious: porn sex is to real sex as The Fast and the Furious movies are to driving. There’re superficial similarities in as much as some of what you see on screen resembles those activities, but in practice are nothing like what any reasonable person would expect in the real world. Dom Toretto is driving in as much as there’s a steering wheel, a gear shift, a gas pedal, brake and something that at least looks like a car with four wheels and an engine. But you would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks that cars work on Road Runner physics where, as long as there’s something under the wheels, the car can still drive forward without issue (or at least until Wile E. Coyote looks down).

The same goes with porn: it’s “sex” in as much as bits are going into other bits. But everything else is the sort of thing that you only see in porn and trying to bust those moves in the real world will result in “ow, what the hell are you doing?”, “stop it, I’m getting a cramp” and “No, seriously, beating the s--t out of my cervix/colon isn’t fun”, not oohs, aaahs and paroxysms of pleasure.

The difference between porn sex and real sex is what’s present in porn that’s absent in actual sex: the camera, the director, the editor and the audience.

(Most of the time, anyway. I’m not here to yuk folks’ yum.)

Everything you see in porn is there because of those unseen co-stars, lurking around like black-clad stage hands in Noh plays; you may know they’re there intellectually but part of the agreement between show and audience is that you pretend that you don’t see them.

The problem arises when folks – like you, HoS – forgot about that agreement.

Take, for example, the various contorted poses that porn actors f—k in. Nobody has sex like that by choice, even if they have the hypermobility of a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat. That “Standing on one leg, the other leg to the side, torso twisted the other way, arm held back” pretzel position isn’t because that pose makes it easier to stimulate the clitoris and g-spot at the same time, it’s because the actors are trying to be “open to the camera”. That is, they’re trying to show all the actors’ bits so that the audience can see that they’re actually f—king instead of apparently being pleasured by someone’s belly-button.

The same goes for the “money shot”. The purpose of ejaculating on one’s co-star isn’t because women love getting hit in the eye with something the consistency of warm, salty mayo, it’s to emphasize that yes, someone actually came. Occasionally with hints of domination and degradation for flavor… but mostly to emphasize that they are actually having sex.

In the days when porn was being shot on film (and later on video), when resolution was closer to “viewed through a grease-smeared window”, seeing someone finish on the actress’ face was far more visible than filling whatever orifice happened to be in use in the scene. The grooming aspects of porn – many of which were actually adopted from gay pornography – is, likewise, about visibility. Less pubic hair means that penises look bigger, vulvas are more prominent and the close ups – to borrow from Robin Williams – don’t look like “an industrial film covered in fur”.  

I would also draw attention to what doesn’t happen in those sex scenes: there’s on meaningful foreplay. There’s no discussion about what they want to do, what kind of sex they’re in the mood for or even if they’re not feeling it at that moment. There’re no pausing to get a condom or lube, or to reapply lube midway through. In fact, condoms are only used when it’s legally mandated and lube is almost never “necessary”, except to give someone’s breasts or butt a shine like a freshly detailed Coupe de Ville. Nobody fails to orgasm, or ejaculates too soon or realizes that it’s just not going to happen for love nor money nor apple sauce. Nor do the participants complain about how long they’ve been penetrated and how it’s starting to chafe or their muscles are giving out.

Shifting positions comes from the desire to keep the audience from getting bored, not because someone is uncomfortable or needs a different angle or their legs are getting tired. Nor are there the times of someone having to sneeze, no giggling, farting, smacking something against the head board or nightstand, the cat jumping onto the bed at precisely the wrong moment or any of the other little imperfections that demonstrate how silly and absurd it all can be…

You know, those little moments that remind us of our humanity and all its attendant weirdness and how wonderful it is.

Nothing that happens on screen – even in amateur porn or “real world” sex videos – is happening organically. All of it is planned, blocked and staged specifically to appeal to the unseen participant: the audience. And 99.9999999% of porn is designed to cater specifically to a straight cis male audience. While there’re plenty of women who enjoy and actively consume porn, every decision made and everything you see, from the scenario to the positions, the acts, the actors, even the camera angles is made with that straight male audience in mind.

I mean, s--t, just look at the hands of actresses who do girl on girl scenes – specifically, their finger nails. No woman who sleeps with other women on the regular is going to have a manicure like that, for what I would hope are obvious reasons. Those scenes aren’t meant for bi, pan or gay women, they’re meant for men who want to see two women together.

Those ripped, muscular Adonis’ are the avatar for the audience… and they’re a fairly recent evolution of the aesthetic. Go back and watch some vintage porn and you’ll see dudes who look a lot more like your dad than Olympic swimmers or muscle twinks. They look like that so that the men watching can fantasize about being those men. So, those ripped muscular bodies? Those are there for men. Those massive penises? They’re there for men. The camera focusing on said dicks or the loving depictions of semen – including the volume, color and consistency – are all there because that’s what the straight male audience wants to see. You will literally never find anyone more obsessed with penises or ejaculate than straight men.

Those female porn stars you talked to aren’t lying to you, nor are their actions  “speaking louder than words” because unless they’re the producer and director, they aren’t choosing who to shoot a scene with. They are told who they’re shooting with, and occasionally they don’t find out until they get to the set.

In fact, there was a point where actresses in porn had to fight to have clauses in their contracts that excluded specific actors (such as Ron Jeremy, James Deen and others), so they wouldn’t find themselves paired up with them. And not – to forestall the obvious objections – just because they’re unattractive, but because a lot of those guys are violent rapists.

And even when the actresses are shooting and filming their own work, if they’re catering to a straight male audience, they still have pressure to pick guys with a particular look because that’s what the men consuming their porn want to see. There are distinct financial incentives to conforming to those aesthetics and risks for not doing so.

So, as with so many other issues that cause insecurity in men, if we were to pull the Scooby-Doo mask off the boogan, we would see that – say it with me folks – it was capitalism all along.

So, yes, porn is at least in part responsible for your insecurities. But it’s responsible in that you don’t seem to understand the artificial and constructed nature of it all. Instead, you’ve convinced yourself that this is what sex is like, what women want and expect and that it’s the yardstick against which all things are measured. That’s not a porn problem, that’s a you problem.

Everything else you talk about spirals out from there. Porn isn’t making you choose more “extreme” videos (and trust me, slapping, spitting and the rest barely counts as extreme), you’re seeking out stuff that is scratching a very particular need. Whether that need is seeing the women you supposedly “will never” get with be degraded or whether you’re doing it to degrade yourself, this is about you, not about what your porn “addiction” is doing. It’s about how you feel about yourself, an expression of psychic self-harm. All you’re doing is engaging in an eroticized loop of arousal and punishment; you get hard, you get off, you punish yourself for engaging in the things you’re into. Before long, the punishment becomes the reason why you do it.

The remainder of your complaints – about being an older virgin, about what women “really” want or would or wouldn’t accept all likewise come from that core of your own self-esteem and an unwillingness to believe otherwise. You make lofty declarations about what “logically” must be true, not only is there no logic, but you have absolutely no basis of comparison. You’re making assumptions based on nothing except what you imagine things would be like if you were a woman. If you think that no woman has been mocked or shamed or felt shame for being an older virgin or being inexperienced or not liking sex, then you definitely haven’t talked to women. S--t, you can find examples of women who feel shame about their inexperience in the letters to this column. And that’s before we get to other sex advice columns like Dan Savage, Therapy Jeff, Jessica Stoya and others.

All you’re doing is begging the question – assuming the inherent truth of the claim in the question you’re asking, instead of questioning whether it’s even true in the first place. And it’s not. You’re making these grand, unverified declarations because they “feel” true to you and the only reason why they “feel” true is because you need them to be in order to make yourself feel worse. As I said: past a certain degree, the punishment becomes the point. You dislike yourself and so you have created a world that makes disliking yourself not just permissible but mandatory. All of the self-shaming in your letter – calling yourself a gooner, lovingly describing your body in diminishing and dismissive terms, emphasizing the supposed shame of being an older virgin – is in service of continuing to commit self-harm.

So what do you do about it? Well, it’s not every often I say this but the first step is put down the porn and back away slowly. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with porn (and trust me, there is… but none of it has anything to do with your issues), but because you have proven that you can’t use it responsibly. It’s just the tool you’re using to hurt yourself.

The same is true of the online communities you are very clearly a part of. Trust me, I can smell a no-fapper like a fart in church, especially when it’s paired with incel bulls--t. Reddit is clearly not a good place for you, and as is so often the case, the answer to “doctor, doctor, it hurts when I go like this” is “well, stop going like that.”

The second step is that you need to get to therapy right the f—k now. You’ve spent years cementing this outlook to the point where you are actively accusing people of being liars or closet fetishists in order to avoid the possibility that you are wrong and this is all one long, continuous self-inflicted injury. This isn’t the sort of thing that you can shift with some visualization and affirmation exercises. You need an experienced therapist to bring a jackhammer and a pickaxe to start breaking away the protective shell you’ve built up and expose the meaty underbelly of your true self and actually start confronting these issues.

And before you say it – because I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord – this isn’t proof of how f—ked up you are. This is simply that you’ve been doing this for so long and so deliberately that you’re going to need someone with experience to help you fix it. Getting help is no more proof that you’re a loser than going to the doctor because you need a broken bone to be set properly; it’s not something you should be doing on your own.

Yeah, it’s going to make you feel worse before you feel better. But that’s the discomfort of lancing an infected boil, the sting of having to squeeze out the puss and the burn of the alcohol to disinfect the wound. Because that’s what this all is; these self-negating, self-harming beliefs are an infection that’s set in and you’ve been feeding it instead of treating it. So now the treatment is going to suck that much more.

But while you may come out the other side feeling weak and trembling… for the first time in a long time, possibly the first time that you’ll remember, you won’t be hurting. 

But none of that can happen until you’re willing to admit that maybe you’re wrong about all of this and to go get help.

The choice is yours.

Good luck.

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