DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m an autistic 27 year old virgin university dropout (Years ago by this time) that worked a string of crappy jobs, with my most recent being not-so-crappy, so an advancement.��I work from home, and am terribly lonely in my personal life.��I have good friends, and different circles of friends but this post isn’t about that.��I keep sabotaging any chance of a relationship, even a date.��See, the way it normally goes is:��I meet someone cool via online dating or in person,��I get to know them and I ask them on a date.��But then something compels me to cancel it, I panic like crazy and legit shake for hours afterwards.��In my younger years I isolated myself but in my older years, I have these self-imposed limits on myself, like I was an NPC that was coded for friendship, but the relationship pathway was half-finished.��So when someone tries to hack the relationship pathway and play it, it softlocks the f--king game or crashes it.��Metaphor over, but still.��I don’t know where to go or what to do to meet new people romantically, I’m a classical nerd so I’ve met loads of good friends at conventions and playing RPGs but I don’t want to f--k things up with them now, I’ve known them for years.��I don’t really believe in charity, as I don’t want to be labelled as someone who does charity work. A new-Simpsons-season Ned Flanders, a complete moral paragon who’s no fun to be around.��I’m sitting here in a cluttered, dirty and nerd-s--t filled room, bags under my eyes from not sleeping enough due to procrastination, and with one hell of a porn habit.��I just don’t know what the hell I can do anymore, and I can’t imagine anyone actually being interested in me romantically.��I sabotage my own life constantly, I don’t sleep enough, I procrastinate too much, I isolate myself out of fear and depression.��Believe it or not, I couldn’t give one solitary s--t about politics, or whatever hot-button-issue is striking the internet this week, as I’m as dull as they come, romantically and socially.��I never really learned how to flirt when I was younger, and in my adult years people tend to expect you to have some experience romantically.��Look, I think it’s come to the point where I’m not to expect anything romantic or sexual in the next few years, or ever.��Women can get away with being shy, or socially incapable, but as I am a man it does not appear to be acceptable.��I just don’t even know where to start in terms of finding a relationship, and how to stop sabotaging myself.��Anyway, that’s enough out of a bitter, regretful virgin 27 year old university dropout failure that wasted his best years on video games nobody plays anymore, and metric tons of porn.��Thanks,��Waifu Broke Up With Me

DEAR WAIFU BROKE UP WITH ME: Why does it feel like I just answered this letter? Probably because I answer one every other week. And to be perfectly honest, there’re only so many times I can say the same thing over and over again to people who seem more invested in detailing and maintaining all the ways they’re f--ked than actually fixing them.

So at this point, why fight what folks seem to actually want? OK, WBUWM, congratulations. You win. I agree with you: you’re f--ked and you’re not going to see any sort of sexual or romantic success any time in the next several years.

And it’s all entirely your choice. Nobody else’s. This isn’t to say that there aren’t challenges in your life or issues in the world that are stymieing you. There absolutely are, the same as there are in everybody’s life.

But you’re the one who’s decided that you’re f--ked. And until you change your mind and decide that you’ve had enough, nothing is going to change. Ever. And you’re going to have to accept that you’re the one who’s chosen this path and created this situation. Not God, not the universe, not genetics, not your autism. You. Because you have decided that this how it is.

And until you decide to change it, nothing is going to change. You haven’t boxed yourself in or painted yourself in a corner, so much as put up a much of cardboard boxes and decided that they’re penning you in and making it impossible to succeed.

Much of it comes down to weird choices that you’ve made and beliefs that you seem determined to hold onto for no reason other than it makes it easier to give yourself permission to give up. You’ve made yourself unpleasant to be around and taken on beliefs that seem to have been chosen specifically to make it so that you can’t proceed.

The idea that women are “allowed” to be shy or socially incapable is a prime example. This is entirely a “you” thing, part of the bubble you’ve decided to encase yourself in, not reality. It’s not like various anime where the shy, inexperienced girl is fetishized by a male audience who finds her cute because she’s less threatening to them. Outside of that bubble, you might have noticed all the terms people have for “shy, socially incapable women”. Like “spinster” or “cat lady” or “standoffish”, “snobbish” or just good old-fashioned “weird” or “freak”.

Then there’s the idea that someone who does charity work is “no fun to be around”. Considering your example is a cartoon character and one who is consistently shown to be happier, healthier, more well-adjusted and more successful than his neighbor, I’m kind of wondering what your basis for comparison is.

Or, for that matter, being perversely proud of “not giving a single solitary s--t about politics” or “whatever the latest hot-button issue is striking the Internet”. All you’ve done is further isolate yourself so that you aren’t bothered by the pesky thoughts that tell you that things could be different if you wanted them to be. Better to pretend that none of that stuff actually matters or makes a difference in people’s lives, lest you find that there’s a world going on outside your apartment.

It seems pretty clear to me that these are entirely the work of your trying to make yourself unpleasant to be around. After all, it’s much easier to not care for others if you don’t let them near enough to care and those who do try to get closer get pushed away by the attitude you project. Far better to wallow in loneliness and to pity yourself than to lift a single finger to make even the slightest difference. Because if you acknowledge your agency, then you might have to accept that maybe much of this is a situation of your own making.

This is pretty clear in all the ways you talk about your life and your character, as you compare yourself to be an “NPC” and these self-imposed limits. You are at the mercy of the programming that other people have imposed upon you, rather than being an autonomous individual and there’s no reason to change or point in even trying.

NPCs, after all, can’t change their own code. They can only follow the instructions they were given. To be an NPC implies that you’re a creation of others, not an individual with will and purpose and self-awareness.

You know. Like someone who might write into a dating advice column looking for suggestions.

Well, here’s a suggestion for you: knock it the f--k off. You don’t like what your life is like right now? Cool. What are you going to do about it? Because you have two choices: you can do nothing and let things continue – and at which point you must give up complaining, because you have chosen to exist like this. You have decided that this is what you want. Complaining about it is just self-pity, a lament that life hasn’t interceded to save you from the consequences of your own actions.

Or you can, as the Bard once said, take up arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

If you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. But first, to do that, you have to give up the belief that you have no control, no agency and no ability to change. You have to start taking active steps to make a difference and you have to acknowledge that doing so is as much of a choice as not doing so. There can’t be any dodging around the fact that this ultimately taking responsibility for your position in life. There are things in this world that are absolutely outside of your control, yes… but that doesn’t mean that everything in this world is outside of it. And that means that the decisions you make about what you do control are that much more important.

The first mistake that folks in similar circumstances to you make is that they focus on the wrong things. They’re too busy focused on the big, grand reward to realize the number of much smaller steps they need to take before they are even going to be within smelling distance of their end goal. They want a starting position on the Olympic team when they haven’t so much as put on a pair of sneakers, never mind learned how to play the game.  

You want to make those big goals? You want that hope of someday having love and romance? Cool, you’re going to need to start small. You play RPGs, so you understand this: the level one character isn’t going into Hell to challenge Vecna or ascending to Ruidus to confront Predathos the God-Eater; you’re going to be busy killing rats and running from kobolds first until you can afford more than the basic starting gear.

Your first step is going to be very simple: you clean your room. That’s your primary task: clean and de-clutter your room. You open the windows to air it out and let sun in, you dust and vacuum, so you aren’t living in a miasma of mold, despair, dust mites and stale semen-crusted socks. The carpets get steam cleaned, the mattress gets vacuumed and flipped, the sheets get washed and your bed gets made.

Next, you organize your living space and your closet. You go full Marie Kondo on your possessions. All that “nerd-s--t” you speak of derisively? It’s time to winnow it down to the only things that you actually care about; everything else needs to go. Maybe some of it can go on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but most of it probably needs to go to Goodwill. Bid it a fond farewell and send it on to someone who needs it more than you do now, someone who isn’t going to see it as nothing but oppressive clutter and piles of shame. If it’s something you’re going to refer to derisively or point to as another way of punching yourself in the junk, then it’s time for it to go away; the self-imposed shame of having it has clearly outweighed the benefit that it was supposed to bring to your life. The rest can be organized, cataloged, displayed or stored as appropriate.

Congratulations: you have just unlocked your first achievement – a room you’re no longer ashamed of, that’s fit for human habitation again. Your reward: a clean room that doesn’t smell of knob-cheese and failure. You might even get a decent night’s sleep now that you aren’t living in squalor, surrounded by things that you bought in hopes that they might magically make you a different person.

You also, critically, have reminded yourself that you have agency and control. You have just proven this by demonstrating that you have control over your immediate environment. You’re now no longer living in squalor and surrounded by “nerd-s--t”. This is already a manifest improvement and upgrade to your life. It’s the first step of many to changing and improving your life.

Next, you’re going to take inventory of your life and make a list of what you want to change and improvements you want to make. You separate it into three categories: short term, medium term and long term.

Short term are things that are within arm’s reach; that is, things that you can do relatively quickly and simply. Cleaning your room on at least a weekly basis. Establishing a consistent sleep schedule, so that you aren’t constantly exhausted and making things worse. Planning meals for the week so that you can ensure you’re at least mixing in a vegetable and a more balanced meal. Blocking off time in your calendar so that every day you go out and take at least a 20-minute walk and get fresh air and sunshine. If the weather isn’t permitting, that 20 minutes can be spent doing sit-ups, push-ups, squats and planks. You may also want to actually start educating yourself on local politics and social issues, so you have a better idea of what’s going on in your immediate vicinity. 

Intermediate term are things that you want to change but will take more time, effort and planning. Examples would include things like being a college dropout or working towards improving your social life, finding a better job and working on your social skills. With each goal or change you want to make, you list out the steps it will take to get to each – seeing the options for taking individual classes so that you can get enough credits over time or seeing if your college credits will transfer to a local community college, making a point to go out and try new social activities, finding volunteer opportunities,  sprucing up your resume and starting to investigate what jobs are out there. You might also look into self-guided therapy options like MoodGym to help start managing the panic and intrusive thoughts regarding dates and relationships.

Long term goals are ones that will take much longer to achieve. This includes therapy, especially DBT or exposure therapy to address those panic attacks and self-sabotage. It also includes building towards being in good emotional working order so that you’re actually able to date or find a relationship. Again, you want to create a list of what steps you’re going to take to achieve these goals and how you’re going to achieve them.

But you aren’t just making a list and calling it a day. You also need to be marking off each step as you accomplish them. There’s no point to assuming that the map is the territory; making a list isn’t the solution, it’s the path to your solution. If you treat the lists as the goal in and of itself, all that’s going to happen is that you’ve spent more time spinning your wheels and pretending you’re going somewhere. The same goes with making plans but then throwing your hands up and saying you don’t know how to do it. You work backwards from the goal: what’s the step immediately before that goal? What’s the step before that? What’s the step before that? Don’t know what the next step would be? Good thing that you live in a time when you have access to almost limitless amounts of information and the education to sift through it to find what you need.

But it can’t just be a list of intentions. Intent is meaningless without action. Action is will made manifest. If you sick of your life enough that you want it to change, then you need the will to change. If you have the will, then you need to use that will to spur you into action. It’s only through deliberate action that you’re going to improve or make a difference to how you live now.

Or you can continue to behave as though you were hapless and helpless, without so much as a cleaner room to show for it. 

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I’m 21 years old. I’m apparently not sane person. I have autism, ATH, borderline mania, borderline depression and personality disorder.

I have managed to somewhat fix the big problems and started to act like a normal person. I work and I’m keen to learn new things every day.

But for some reason, when I meet some women, they always act interested and even sometimes tell or show the interest of intimate relationship. And with in 1 to 2 days they always disappear. Then they text me that they need some time. While telling me that she is terrified of me. And they can never tell me what it is that terrifies them.

I know that I’m a somewhat huge (not fat) man. And it looks weird when I love cute things. But is it that.

Why So Scary?

DEAR RWHY SO SCARY: OK at the risk of sounding dismissive, WSS: I have no idea what you’re doing. I’m not there, I’m not seeing whatever these women are seeing and, critically, I’m a guy, so what is terrifying to them may not necessarily be as terrifying to me. Hell, it’s even possible that you really weren’t doing anything wrong, and this was all on them.

Now that having been said: if it were one person, that could be a fluke. Any individual can have their own hangups, fears or triggers and you could well have stepped on a landmine that you had no way of knowing was there. But if this has happened two, three, four or more times? That’s a pattern, and it’s time to start looking for what each of those incidents have in common. And the most obvious thing they have in common is, well… you. So part of what you’re going to want to do is to start examining your behavior and what you’ve been doing and what you’re acting like. Once you have some ideas of what you’re doing wrong, you can start correcting that behavior and hopefully avoiding creeping people out by accident.

You’ve given a few details that could possibly help narrow things down. The first is, quite simply, your size. You say you’re a huge guy. That can make a significant difference. Men on average tend to be larger and heavier than women. That alone can be enough to put women on their guard; the knowledge that you could hold them down and they wouldn’t have leverage – metaphorical or literal – to get you off can be intimidating in and of itself. If you’re larger than average, then that can increase the intimidation level exponentially. And if there are other issues going on or behaviors that are setting off their Spidey-sense, then your size can be a significant amplifier to something that already gives them the wiggins.

Another potential cause is your behavior, especially in relationship to your mental health. You mention at the top that you have a personality disorder and that you’ve got issues with mania and depression. It’s certainly possible, for example, that if you had a manic episode when you were talking with these women, that you came off as being incredibly intense, possibly to a level that people would find frightening or intimidating. It’s also possible that you have a form of rejection-sensitive dysphoria; this tends to be co-morbid with a number of mental health conditions, including borderline personality disorder and ADHD. If there was a point where you were worried that they might be pulling back or that you were feeling like you were about to be rejected and you were doing something to try to pre-empt that – even something you thought wasn’t all that bad, you may have come off as obsessive or pushy or overly invested in a way that made you feel “off” to them.

You might even have been over-eager or overly excited in a way that you didn’t realize was off-putting, but that made them feel like something was wrong, even though you had nothing but the best of intentions. This is actually a very common way that guys end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; they get so worked up and excited about seeing the other person that they end up pushing at things – wanting to meet up sooner, wanting to meet up for longer or more often, wanting to skip straight to the naked parts and so on. God knows I’ve ended up missing out on an all-but-sure-thing because I got out over my skis in the weeks before we were supposed to hook up. Even if it wasn’t actively scary, that sort of behavior can make folks say “ok, I don’t want to deal with this guy if he’s going to act like this.”

But even well-meaning behavior, behavior that seems like golden retriever energy to one person can feel like an excessive or frightening level of intensity and interest to someone else. This is especially true if said golden retriever is much larger than the person on the receiving end of it. Just as a large dog can accidentally hurt someone without meaning to, that excitement can go from adorable to “oh s--t, what if I upset him by disagreeing?” very quickly.

Or it’s possible that you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve had a string of bad luck. It’s certainly possible that they were reacting to your being autistic and rounded up “I’m unsure/unused to what I’m seeing here” to being scared. Multiple times in a row seems unlikely but it’s not impossible.

This is one of those times where it would be helpful if you have someone to give you an outsider’s opinion. If you have some female friends, it may be worth asking them if you give off a weird or intimidating or creepy vibe without meaning to. It’ll be important that they be honest with you and not hedge their judgement because they know you well. They may know that you’re as harmless as a puppy and understand the whys and wherefores of how you act, but they should be able to say “yeah, to someone who doesn’t know you, this could be scary.” 

From what you’ve said, you’re only starting to get your conditions under control. If that’s the case… well, I think we may be back to the combination of your size and the mental health conditions you’re dealing with. If you’re still early in your treatment, you may still have lingering behavioral cues that aren’t well managed yet or that are still problematic for you. If so, you may want to give it a bit more time while you adjust and learn how to manage your conditions more effectively.

Regardless, I think you may want to take dating off the table for a bit while you try to work this through. Do as thorough of an assessment of what you’ve said and done when you were in touch with these women and, if you possibly can, reach out to some female friends who you trust to give you their honest opinion. Failing that, talking to your therapist could be helpful in drilling down and figuring out where the disconnect is. The sooner you figure out what’s happening, the sooner you can address it and not run into these issues again.

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 have a bit of an odd question; I want to share a situation and get a third party perspective on it too see if there were red flags or if I was just being a little too jaded. 

Bit of background I was in a (for me) very serious relationship with someone I loved deeply, and they dumped me last November, I took a lot of time to get myself healthy and good and joined the dating pool again this summer looking for something casual and low key. After some chatting and first dates that didn’t go anywhere, I start talking with Jon. He’s flirty and fun over text, a little intense with asking a lot of questions about what I like and don’t like, but English isn’t his first language, so I give him a little grace. 

Side note, trying to sext with someone who learned English a bit later in life can get wild and not in a good way lol. 

After a week of texting and him bringing up meeting in person I let him know I’m interested, and let’s find a coffee shop or park or something to meet at first. He suggests his house. I let him know that I need to meet in public first, and add in a bit of humor with “so you know I’m not a serial killer before we head back to your place”. He changes the subject, and we keep chatting. Couple days later he wants to talk on the phone, and again brings up me coming over, this time asking, “do you REALLY want to meet in public first?” And I say yes, then get off the phone because I hate talking on the phone. 

I also start to notice that while I’m sending him pictures, he never sends any back and makes excuses when I ask for them, so I let him know that I want to TRADE photos not just give them, and try to turn it into a sexy game. When he sends me a pic of him in a state of undress I’ll match it. Sounds hot to me. I don’t get any photos, so I stop sending them, I give him another 2 weeks but all I get is some casual “how are you?” And “it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex, I’m horny” so finally I wash my hands of the whole mess and end things (even though they never really started). 

I’m 37 and don’t have time for the sort of nonsense I think he was doing. Sorry this got so long. So after reading that whole mess, were there actual red flags or is my calibration off? 

Thanks for your help!

Red Flags Look Like A Parade When You’re Color Blind

DEAR RED FLAGS LOOK LIKE A PARADE WHEN YOU’RE COLOR BLIND: I’m going to start off by saying that these sound less like red flags and more like pink one. What you describe here doesn’t sound like you were picking up on signs that something was off or wrong or that you would otherwise be in danger. But that doesn’t mean that you weren’t getting a vibe from him that made you feel less than comfortable and feeling less secure about meeting up with him.

Part of what makes me hesitant to say yes or no is the language gap; he wasn’t a native speaker and English as a language is notorious for not making a lick of goddamn sense to anyone who comes from a country and culture with a language that isn’t as kleptomaniacal as English. English isn’t a language so much as the grammar of three different languages in a trench coat, but they keep shuffling around and punching each other in the junk as they all fight to be the head instead of the legs while running around and grabbing up all the dropped idioms they find in the street.

It’s certainly possible that his grasp of English – which, as you said, made sexting a challenge and not even a sexy one – was getting in the way of things. Consider, for example, that while the words are basically the same thing, there’s a very significant difference between horsing around and pony play. Or a butt dial and a booty call. Or “I’m sorry Daddy I’ve been naughty” and “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned”.

It’s also possible that there were cultural misunderstandings. It may well be that he assumed that what with pictures being traded and all, that this was a done deal. Asking to meet up in person may have seemed like an extra and unnecessary step, especially to someone who may never have grasped the difference in the risks that men and women face when it comes to meeting a stranger, especially for sex.

But mostly it seems that what he wanted was low-effort sex and getting pictures and wasn’t that interested in anything that slowed those down or giving much back.

So, as I said: I would call these pink flags more than red ones. There’re a few places where maybe wires were crossed and misunderstandings slipped in, or he could just be a garden-variety jackass.

Now to be clear: that doesn’t mean that this was all fine and dandy and you missed out on some quality sex because you need to recalibrate your Spidey-sense. Far from it. Regardless of my thoughts on these particular flags, I think there was enough there that you made the right call to say “yeah, I’m not doing this.” The fact that he seemed to not take your request to meet up in a neutral public place first seriously was more than enough to disqualify him for whatever sexy times you had in mind. The fact that he didn’t seem to grasp that this was just a vibe check before you went back to bang out rather than a “you’re not getting laid the first time we meet” suggests that either he didn’t understand – but didn’t think to ask to clarify things – or that he just wanted the sure thing to also deliver itself to him like he was ordering Uber Eats.

It’s also possible he’s just one of those time-wasters folks run into on dating apps and hook-up sites, who wants to collect pics (and maybe swap a couple) but not meet up. He may have been cool with your showing up on his doorstep wearing nothing but a coat, heels and a smile, but he didn’t have any interest in being proactive about it. Which is, unfortunately, frequently par for the course.

Regardless, even under the most generous interpretation, it sounds like you missed out on what would’ve been lousy sex. Under the worst… maybe there was something rotten in the state of arousal. But while I don’t think you necessarily dodged a bullet, I think you definitely dodged some unsatisfying d--k.

But a thing I want to emphasize here is that just because I think these were pink flags rather than red ones, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t red flags to you. And more to the point, even if there were no red flags, that doesn’t mean that you made the wrong call. Just because someone isn’t tripping your Spidey-sense doesn’t mean that their behavior still can’t be disqualifying. You wanted to meet up in person for a vibe check before you decided to get d--ked down and he clearly didn’t want to. That’s all you really need to say “yeah, nah, we’re not doing this”.

You’re allowed to set standards – for your safety, for your comfort, for your pleasure, even for s--ts and giggles if you feel like it – that your potential partners need to meet. If they don’t meet them, for whatever reason, you’re allowed to decide that this is a deal breaker. You can decide to call it off because you had a bad dream about him that you couldn’t shake. You are allowed, at any point, to decide that you don’t want to see him or his junk, for any reason, no matter how arbitrary. Other people may think it’s excessive or stupid or unnecessary but that’s their lookout, not yours. It’s your body, your call, nobody else’s. Other people can have opinions about it, but they don’t get a vote.

So to TL;DR it: I think these were more pink flags than red ones. But even if they were green flags, you’re still allowed to say you’re not feeling it because reasons. And flags or no flags, I think you made the right call for you.

Good luck.

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