Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: For the past two years, I’ve had two girls who liked me. Yet I barely found them sexually attractive. I enjoyed their company as a friend and set that boundary with them. However, they fell for me. 

I, on the other hand, have a history of falling for girls who sexually attracted me but were unavailable. I really wonder if this is a pattern I should break. 

Could you help, please?

Don’t Want What I Got, Don’t Got What I Want

DEAR DON’T WANT WHAT I GOT, DON’T GOT WHAT I WANT: This is a pattern, DWWIGDGWIW, and it’s a fairly common one.

The reason for this is pretty simple, and it comes down to confidence and behavior. Part of the reason why the women you weren’t interested in responded to you the way that they did is in how you behaved with them. You were their genuine friend and treated them with the respect and care that you would treat a friend. You were your genuine and authentic self with them, shared mutual interests and spent time with them without an agenda. And most importantly: you were comfortable with them – comfortable enough to be genuine and authentic and to spend time with them without an agenda.

But the inverse is true with the women you were attracted to: you may have been attracted to them, but you sure as s--t weren’t comfortable around them… and almost certainly because you weren’t comfortable with yourself.  

The clue here is in the unavailability. It’s one thing if you’re into a person who you think is somehow “out of your reach” – whether that “unavailability” is a matter of social class, relationship status, a lack of opportunity to meet and connect and so on. But when it’s a pattern of behavior – when you’re regularly or possibly exclusively interested in people who are unavailable – then that tends to be about how you feel about yourself.

A lot of people across the gender and sexuality spectrums will find themselves drawn to people they know at some level are unavailable or unsuited to them precisely because their crush is unlikely to return their feelings. It’s a perverse form of self-preservation; they don’t believe that they’re worthy or deserving of love or they don’t trust or believe in their ability to make the relationship work.

As a result, their brains subconsciously steer themselves towards people who they know won’t return their feelings so as to avoid the potential pain of rejection or failure. It’s self-protection by self-sabotage; the pain of unrequited attraction is less (and thus less “dangerous”) than what might happen if they succeeded. After all, a love that can never be is, by its nature, perfect. It remains in potentia, which means that the relationship can never be subject to the mundanities of life. There’s never going to be an argument about cleaning the toilets or a time when you both have the flu or food poisoning and you’re both expelling everything you’ve ever eaten from every orifice you have. You’re never going to come to verbal blows over what to watch on Netflix, what to have for dinner or whose family they’re going to visit for the holidays this year.

And, importantly, it means that they’re never going to suffer the moment when their dream partner leaves them because of some deficiency or some mistake. Nor will their dream partner decide that they could do better or reveal that they were never really that into them and that the entire relationship has been about inertia rather than desire.

On the other hand, when you aren’t afraid of not “measuring up” to some weird, arbitrary or imagined standard, not worried that some flaw will drive people away, you’re able to interact with people from a place of confidence and security. And for as much as “confidence is sexy” is a cliché, it’s a cliché because it’s true. Being confident affects how you interact with people, but also in the way you see the world and interpret their behavior. If you believe people like you, then you’re going to respond accordingly – you’ll be warmer, friendlier and more open. This is more appealing to people and they’re going to respond in kind.

Similarly, because you’re not worried about the outcome of the interaction, you’re not as worried about impressing them or winning them over. Instead, you’re able to be yourself, be in the moment and focus on connecting with them instead. This, not surprisingly, leads to better relationships and makes you far more interesting and appealing.

To break the cycle… well, you’re going to have to learn to stop being so afraid of the possibility of success. It’s good to pay attention to what those “unavailable” women have in common, because this will often tell you what you’re being drawn to. But the more assured you become in yourself, the less you’ll be led by your subconscious to relationships that can never be.

That’s gonna take some time, and it may take outside help for some of it. But learning how to not be afraid of success and to believe in your own worth makes it that much easier to stop being afraid or intimidated by the women you’re attracted to. That, in turn, makes it much easier to relate to them the same way you relate to the women you aren’t attracted to… which will improve the results you get in the process.

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 gonna be very upfront. I’m beneath perhaps a of women in a lot of terms and women don’t date down. 

I’m beneath them economically because I’m working two minimum wage jobs and living with my parents while the vast majority of women are college educated (same college educated elite who look down on minimum wage or blue-collar workers or tradesmen as stupid uneducated hillbillies) who are earning more and already home owning at higher rates than men. I’m beneath them in terms of my looks I’m quite schlubby to chubby which I guess is a thing for weirdos and chubby chasers (I’m thoroughly convinced Dad bod thirst is a massive psy-op) because in real life, in my job I see lots of chubby women with very good looking guys but almost never reverse unless the guy has money (I can tell with how big tips he gives) and I’m not very picky, I just find people who find my body type uncomfortably weird. 

I’m beneath them in terms of well experience since maybe I’ve had one partner and the sex wasn’t particularly good at least for me and I only lost it since I didn’t want to be lower than I already am (a virgin) something once again women do look down upon when choosing a man, and much like chubby chasers, women who supposedly don’t have an issue with men being virgins/under experienced men are uncomfortably weird because they’re not really doing it because they like him or genuinely care about him but rather it’s all about asserting her superiority. 

A woman with experience is simply superior to a man with little to no experience.

So that’s the conundrum how does one get to their level to being a quality partner. Especially now a days where women don’t really need men (they got vibrators and smut and well there is no women complaining about being lonely or struggling to find partners or even getting laid because there is no virgin stigma affecting them) and thus leaving me in a position where I desire partnership and intimacy where that isn’t really reciprocated.

So what do I do so I don’t feel like I’m beneath them?

Singed, 

Climbing with Bloody Fingers

DEAR CLIMBING WITH BLOODY FINGERS: I’m going to say this as kindly and gently as I can: that was a lot of words to describe your low self-esteem and what is frankly an ugly mix of ignorance and a s--tty attitude about women. In the span of 400 words, you’ve declared that women are snobbish, mercenary and manipulative and really have no incentive to date men unless they can either control them or get something from them.

This is why it’s often hard to take complaints like this on their face: based on the way you describe women, if you honestly and sincerely believe this, then I’m kind of astounded that you want to interact with them at all. I mean, talk about how sexual orientation isn’t a choice…

But more seriously, this is another case of “the problem you’re asking about isn’t the problem that you have”. I’m going to be blunt here: it’s pretty clear just how much of this is self-loathing and what Nietzsche referred to as ressentiment – a state of suppressed envy and anger due on what you see as a personal affront. That is: you actively dislike yourself and see yourself as being inherently undesirable, yet also are angry at women for… apparently agreeing with you that you’re undesirable, thus denying you something that you desperately crave while also feeling undeserving of receiving in the first place. You’re right that the desire for partnership and intimacy isn’t reciprocated, but you have completely reversed who’s not reciprocating that desire. You want to feel desired, but you yourself say that you actively mistrust women who find you attractive. You treat people who think you’re attractive like their interest is an insult.

Honestly, I would think that the act of writing that sentence out would be something of a clue.

What leaps out at me is the level of learned helplessness that’s deeply embedded in your letter; you describe your situation as though it were both an inevitability but also something that is imposed upon you – by nature, by a cruel and capricious God, or by the vast and uncaring universe itself because f--k you, that’s why. And since lashing out at the universe does about as much as pissing into a bonfire and you don’t blame yourself, that ressentiment gets directed at the object of your desire for things that, according to your worldview would be entirely reasonable. I mean, if women are as mercenary and stuck up as you believe and you’re as much of a gloppy mess as you describe, then this would just be the natural order of things. God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world.

And of course, it doesn’t exactly take a deep forensic investigation to figure out how much time you’re spending in the same dank corners of the Internet, seeing how many of the usual talking points and tropes got trotted out. In an era where women are talking all the time about their struggles with dating, with loneliness, with finding quality partners or even just a modicum of respect from the people who want to date them, insisting that no woman is lonely or that there is no virgin shame almost requires deliberate and willful ignorance.

Hell, it demands an inability to read or even see, because it’s pretty damn hard to miss all the “how to get and keep a man” magazine cover stories, blog posts, articles, podcasts, TikToks, Instagram reels, YouTube videos and, y’know, friends complaining about it.

What “evidence” you do have isn’t evidence. “Well, this guy is a generous tipper, so he must be rich; that must be the only reason this attractive woman is with him” isn’t even motivated reasoning, it’s an observation that got tied up in a basement by Jack Bauer and beat with a telephone book until it gave up and told you what you wanted to hear.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying “the call is coming from inside your head”, my guy. Nothing is going to change until you can accept that all of this – everything you’ve written about – is coming from self-loathing and learned helplessness, not from women “not dating down”. If you want to stop feeling like you’re “beneath” women, then stop telling me about how much you suck, tell me what you’re going to do about it. What are the steps that you’re willing to take to stop feeling so bad about yourself?

And an important follow up to that question is: how many of those steps are going to be about learning to let go of your self-hate and instead learning to love yourself instead of trying to focus on shallow and far less important material concerns? Because here is a truth: there are no leagues. There are simply women who either want to date you or who don’t.

Are there issues that can affect compatibility? Of course, because people are people. Does class (not income, social class) play a role, for example? Well… yeah. The sainted Billy Joel didn’t write “Uptown Girl” for people to pretend like this was never a thing. But at the end of the day, people either like each other or they don’t; they want to date and try to make the relationship work or they don’t. If someone likes you and wants to date you? Then hey: you’re in their league.

But you’re not going to be in anybody’s league if you are going to insist that anyone who seems to like you is either “uncomfortably weird” (your words) or “asserting her superiority” (still your words). Why should they like you or express even the vaguest interest if your response is to recoil and brandish a crucifix at them like you’re trying to ward off a vampire?

(And this is before we even get into questions like “how are women supposed to know that you’re a virgin or only had one sex partner?” By smell? By telepathic radio? By the RFID chip implanted in your vas deferens that keeps track of how many body parts it’s been inside?)

The hell of it is that many, if not most of these issues are by choice. Being “schlubby”, for example, is easily fixable; you just need clothes that fit properly and to actually put some thought into your presentation. A decent haircut, some shampoo and conditioner (NOT an all-in-one product), a daily routine involving a gentle facial cleanser and moisturizer and deodorant solve 75% of most presentation issues. The rest tends to be a matter of personal style.

Similarly, some of these aren’t the problem you think they are. You live with your parents? Ok… and? Turns out, so do around 45% – 50% of young people. Congratulations, you’re not nearly as much of the outlier that you thought. Shockingly, the housing shortage and skyrocketing rents give no consideration to gender; they hit men, women and non-binary folks alike.

(Also, incidentally, the reason why single women slightly edge out single men in home ownership is due to simple demographics; there’re more single women than single men. That’s it. And I hate to tell you this, but women’s average income is still 88% of men’s.)

The rest? Well, I’ll be fair: some of it is out of your control. Jobs that pay living wages can be hard to come by as more companies try to find new and inventive ways of minimizing pay or even the need to have employees at all; welcome to end-stage capitalism, hope you survive the experience. Maybe you should go unionize your workplace about it.

But the remainder of your complaints aren’t about any innate superiority of women or anything else; they’re a matter of choice. More women are college educated than men or getting more advanced degrees partly because they need those degrees to reach something closer to economic earning parity with men (even ones who don’t have advanced degrees), but also because fewer men are applying to college. Men aren’t being rejected or failing out, they’re not going in the first place.

But most importantly – and I can’t hammer this home enough – your single biggest problem and the reason why you are “beneath” women is that you don’t believe women when they say they like you. That’s a you problem, my guy, not a them problem. Until you actually deal with the way you feel about yourself, nothing is going to change. You’ll never be loved, simply because you’ll never trust that someone actually loves you. You’ll never have companionship because you don’t believe that you could have it. And you won’t be a better option than a vibrator simply because you think the vibrator brings more to the table than you do.

If you want to start feeling equal to the women you want to date? Well, you’re gonna need to change how you feel about yourself. Some of that may mean therapy. Some of it is going to involve treating yourself like you actually give a damn and deserve good things instead of punching yourself in the dick over and over. A lot of that is going to require being honest with yourself and where this ressentiment is directed and why. And a metric f--kton of it is going to require stepping the f--k away from every incel and redpill adjacent forum you’ve been soaking in for Zod knows how long. And considering how many forays the grievance-peddling slapdicks have made into male-centric online spaces, that may mean a very thorough social media audit and detox. But that’s ok, because then maybe this will inspire you to get the f--k off the Internet, go outside, touch grass and get to know people in the flesh instead of gulping down other people’s pre-chewed anger-paste.

Nothing is going to change until you change. Nothing is going to improve until you improve yourself. And that improvement isn’t about your material condition, it’s going to be about believing that maybe people might actually give a damn about you instead of assuming that women are just out in these streets looking for excuses to “demonstrate” their superiority by… doing something that men then turn around and denigrate them for doing and insist makes them inferior.

The call’s coming from inside, my guy and that’s where the change is going to have to come from as well. You can’t hate yourself into being a better person. Loathing isn’t going to make your life better. Until you’re a bad enough dude to love yourself, this is the best you’re gonna do. The choice is ultimately yours: loving yourself and being able to accept love from others, or more bitterness, more anger and more loneliness.

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 a college freshman home for the holidays and experiencing mild but constant panic at being back in my old surroundings. Particularly my room. I am realizing my life may have been f--ked up in ways I have trouble putting into words. Not my parents, who did the best they could including homeschooling me when I was bullied, even though they both work full time, but the fandom communities that basically raised me from the age of 10 or 11 up to a few months ago. I am still active just not as much. My main fandoms are ones with lots of underage characters and controversy about shipping them, which I was always very on the side against.

My main issue is, I turned 18 in May and went away to college in August thinking I would start my adult life there. It’s an amazing small liberal arts school with a huge LGBTQ+ presence that I am completely in love with. I’ve made a number of platonic friends and would like to date and be in love and even potentially have sex in theory. But when I think about taking the actual steps for it to happen, I shut down. It just feels wrong for me even though I look at other people my age and don’t judge them the same way. My roommate for example has had a boyfriend a year older since she was 15 and I don’t see her as either a pedophile or a victim.

I guess I didn’t realize how deeply I believed that as a minor I was off limits to being sexual or desired in any way ever. And if anyone ever saw me this way there was something weird, sick even evil about them. Especially if they were older but really regardless of their age. It sounds so stupid but it’s almost like I thought “minor” was a permanent part of my identity, like my race or gender. While simultaneously thinking as soon as I was a legal adult I would feel like one. But it’s been 7 months, more than half a year, I’m closer to 19 now than 18 and I still feel the exact same as before. And I just wonder how long will it take?

If it matters, I am AFAB. Healthy and average by heteronormative beauty standards. Still figuring out if I’m nonbinary, in what way or possibly transmasc, although I don’t think I would ever want to medically transition. I don’t have a strong gender preference, but I do tend to like pretty, slightly feminine yet tall men and strong, dominant yet girly girls. All this is still in theory since I feel panic and disgust at the idea of anyone I’m attracted to being attracted back. A girl in a club with me started trying to hit on me and I wanted to just scream at her to die, even though I thought she was very cool and beautiful before and now I can’t even speak to her. And worried about others noticing and thinking I’m either homophobic or racist, or both. Even though I have been shipping adult characters and writing romantic fiction for years, it makes no sense, and I know it doesn’t.

So how do I stop seeing myself as this unsexual entity and anyone I think of being attracted to me as a pedo? I don’t want to be a 25- or 30-year-old virgin. But the time between being old enough it’s not pedophilic to lose your virginity and so old you’re a weird, awkward incel just feels impossible.

Ex-Minor Art Major

DEAR EX-MINOR ART MAJOR: I’m going to reiterate my usual stance on potentially fake letters: I don’t spend that much time worrying about whether letters are fake or not. The vast majority of the time, people’s creative writing exercises or attempts to fool me are glaringly obvious and get sent straight to the trash. While I’m sure some have gotten through, the fact of the matter is that I don’t really care that much if they did. Most questions to an advice column are, for all intents and purposes, entirely theoretical exercises to 99% of the readers, but can be incredibly relevant to that 1%. So if there’s a lesson to be learned, even a fake or fictional letter can be helpful to people outside the writer.

I say this because, well… this ain’t the first time I’ve gotten letters about the fallout from shipping wars and Tumblr fandom or attempts to get me to weigh in on the ongoing discourse about age-gap relationships. But then again, a bunch of college students recently violently assaulted a stranger as part of their attempt to have a “To Catch A Predator” antics go viral, so it’s not as though this sort of thing isn’t actually out there and causing problems.

But more importantly, I wonder if the problem you’re asking about, EMAM, is the problem you’re actually having.

So, I’ll be honest: I tend to roll my eyes at a lot of the age-gap discourse I see online, especially in fandom circles, and when it gets folded into ship and anti-ship conflicts. I think a lot of it is fueled by the tendency of online discourse to push people into increasingly extreme and intractable positions while declaring their opponents ontologically evil, and the rest gets fueled by purity culture bulls—t that figured out how to dress itself up in progressive drag, with a teeny bit caused by people who don’t understand how neuroplasticity works. Much of it – especially within fandom – comes from folks who have more enthusiasm than experience and whose experience with actual relationship dynamics are more theoretical than actual. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes there isn’t something more going on there. Just… not in the way you think.

This is why I have a question for you, EMAM: are you sure this is about age gaps and being a minor? Or, if you really dig down into it, is it possible that the discomfort you’re feeling is more about your own relationship to sex and gender overall? If you’re someone who’s in the middle of trying to understand themselves, who you are as a person and how you relate to your own sexuality, it’s not unusual that you might feel really uncomfortable with the idea of sex or people being sexually attracted to you. It may feel like an identity is being imposed on you, as though you’re compelled to live up to expectations that may or may not align with who you are. Someone else’s interest – even if it’s sincere and appropriate, rather than The Big Bad Wolf moving in on a metaphorical lost lamb in the woods – can bring up all kinds of uncomfortable or even frightening feelings and associations. Especially if, up until now, most of your peers had been telling you that all of this is bad and wrong and everyone who disagrees is going straight to the Special Hell, and should probably be shoved into the Fastpass lane.

Some of it may be because of how you’re still working out your gender identity; someone else’s perception of your gender might make you feel like you’re being told what it is. Or it may be as you come to terms with whether you’re a sexual being at all; you may well be somewhere on the asexual spectrum. And some of it could well be because now you’re out in the world for the first time and realizing that you don’t feel like you’re ready.

That last one is especially relevant. This part of your letter leapt out at me: “[…]thinking as soon as I was a legal adult I would feel like one. But it’s been 7 months, more than half a year, I’m closer to 19 now than 18 and I still feel the exact same as before. And I just wonder how long will it take?” This is so common that it’s practically universal. Damn near everyone has the moment where they realize that while legally (and chronologically) they’re an adult, they still feel like a kid in their head. I know people who are well into their forties and fifties who still feel like they’re a fourteen-year-old with a fake ID and pasted on mustache, getting away with something every time they buy a bottle of wine, rent a car or find an apartment.

But that’s the thing: there’s no “click” moment where suddenly you’re an adult and you get all the adult things. It’s just a gradual collection of experiences over time, and you often don’t realize how far you’ve come until you look back at your past self and go “oh wow, I really used to be like that, huh?” 

This, I suspect, is the real issue: you’ve been waiting for that “click” for everything to make sense, for everything to fall into place and everything will finally make sense. And because it hasn’t… well, here you are in limbo, feeling lost and confused and it’s all scary.

So, here’s my advice. First: take advantage of being a college student. Your college likely has counselors as part of the student health department. I’d recommend that you make an appointment to talk to them about how you’re feeling and why. I think part of this is simply trying to adjust to life on your own and establishing your identity. If there’re on-campus resources for LGBTQ people, I would recommend checking those out as well; even if you think there’s a chance you might not be queer, knowledge helps increase understanding, and understanding chases the fear out of uncertainty.

The second thing I would suggest would be to check out some videos by Princess Weekes, particularly on her videos about purity culture in fandom, media literacy and sex and how pop culture handles issues of feminism, race and queerness. Princess is incredibly insightful and incisive, and her breakdowns of pop culture tropes, fandom and social issues are excellent. I think some of her analysis will help you sort out and put nuance and context to your fandom experiences, possibly give you the language to express and understand how you feel.

The third thing I would suggest is to give yourself a break by giving yourself permission to not know yourself. Part of the problem is that you’ve expected to have all the answers, and you don’t. That’s fine; you’re still figuring yourself out and you’ve had precious little opportunity to explore those sides of yourself until now. College is precisely the time to try on different identities, to see what truly resonates with you and what doesn’t. And the good thing about taking this opportunity is that what you decide now doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re locked into it forever. Your understanding of who you are and what you want can – and often will – change with time, experience and perspective. What feels right and authentic in this moment may not be what is right and authentic in a few years; not because you were mistaken, deluded or lying to yourself, but because you’ll be a different person then than you are today. That’s part of growing up.

This may mean deciding that you want to hold off on the whole ‘sex and dating’ thing until you’re feeling more centered. You may come to realize that you’re just not interested in sex at all, but you still want a romantic or emotionally intimate connection. Or it may mean that you’ll want to explore different sides of yourself without expectation that it’s going to be forever – short term relationships, experimenting with gender non-conforming styles of dress and presentation and so-on. If you need more time to figure things out, take that time. The fear of being an older virgin is a distraction; the “right” time to lose your virginity – if you do at all – is when you decide it is.

Lastly, here’s some advice from An Old, who’s been around the block a few more times than you: it’s all much easier if you don’t hold onto these expectations that you’re supposed to know it all by now. Accepting that you know very little and that you’re making it up as you go along can be incredibly freeing… especially when you realize that that also describes pretty much all of your peers and classmates.

You’re on a journey, EMAM, and nobody knows where that journey will necessarily end. Don’t try to rush through it; take your time, explore and truly learn who you are. Your future self will look back and thank you for it. Even the awkward, embarrassing parts.

You’ve got this.

All will be well.

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