Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I just wanted to let you know that I enjoy your articles and your perspective regarding dating. You are probably one of the only people I bother reading on the internet these days. I guess I just wanted to ask a more general question, but I will start it off with some back story for context.

I have been somewhat back on the market, since I have been single for the past six months after my girlfriend told me that she had some emotional trauma that she hadn’t dealt with and couldn’t be in a relationship. After taking a little time to get over the loss of that relationship, I went out with a variety of girls that I had met on dating apps. This led to a variety of results.

The best was a girl that I had a casual thing going with for a few weeks. I thought it was going well, and she started wanting to make plans months out, and then she just randomly ghosted me. The rest were girls that I was kind of lukewarm on and we couldn’t plan anything else, or girls that really didn’t click. After the last date I had from dating apps, which went pretty poorly, I decided to at least take a long break.

I have had a variety of friends and people in my social circle recommend being friends before dating. While I had gotten along with all of my previous girlfriends, I had never solely been platonic friends with them beforehand.

My logic on that had always been this: It seems disingenuous to not pursue a woman as if you are into them, and women like honesty. Also, I have lots of friends and an active social life and I don’t have time to pursue a woman with friendship who is only kinda into me. Especially if she isn’t willing to meet me halfway on plans. My experience has also been if you delay the physical stuff too long, women think you only want to be friends or something is wrong with you.

But on the flip side, I do know people who this worked for. Women also like a certain level of comfort with a guy before dating him. And it would kind of sift out a lot of dates where you have zero chemistry. Also, it’s not as if my dates are going super well.

What is your take on this? Is there some sort of balance?

Friend Zone Generator

DEAR FRIEND ZONE GENERATOR: I know it’s not part of your question, FZG, but I feel like it’s important to point this out: the woman you had a casual thing with ended up ghosting you because she clearly was starting to want something more than a casual relationship. You weren’t responding the way she hoped when she started trying to make plans further and further down the line, which is why she dipped. It would’ve been nice if she had used her words and checked in about how you were both feeling about things, but now at least you can understand why things ended.

So, let’s deal with your actual question. I think you’re missing the point of being friends first vs. meeting strangers. It’s not an either/or thing, it’s more of a “yes-and”… but only if you’re doing it correctly.

In fairness, I think your friends may have explained it badly, or didn’t think to be clear about what they meant. The disconnect that I think you’re missing is that you’re not trying to be friends with someone you’re attracted to in hopes of winning them over. That’s the Nice Guy Backdoor Gambit, which, quite frankly, women hate. It leaves people feeling lied to and used, questioning whether the friendship was genuine or if you were just trying to manipulate them.

There’s a mistaken idea that women can either be attracted to someone or they can be friends and there’s neither middle-ground nor any way to change it. This isn’t true; people can and do develop feelings for friends, even friends they’ve known for years. Many times, this sort of change is a “right person, wrong time” situation; you or they aren’t in a place where you’d be a good match for one another, but as you both grow and change, so too do your circumstances. As you’ve gotten to know each other, become closer, you see things you may not have seen before and appreciate them in a way you didn’t before. Or you or they may have made some substantive change – in looks, behavior, presentation, what-have-you – that causes one of you to see the other in a new light.

A lot of couples who started off as friends had this experience; they’ll tell you that “we weren’t who we needed to be in order to fall in love when we met; later on, we were.” This isn’t something that can be planned for, mind you, but it’s hardly unknown.

Similarly, I think part of what you’re missing is that yes, women may think you’re not interested if you aren’t acting like you’re into them… but that’s often a matter of “well, when we met he was acting like he was attracted to me but he’s never made a move or responded when I flirted back, so I guess I got that wrong.”

It’s not that you’ve been locked out of the romance path so much as the messages you were sending were conflicting and so assuming that you’re not interested is the more reasonable choice. They may have moved on and started seeing someone else, or you may have to work a little harder to make them realize that no, you are into them, but that’s not the same as “never going to see you in a romantic or sexual light”.

If you show no interest or make no effort to move things forward, then it’s not unreasonable for them to think that you’re not into them. That’s different from being friends with them and developing feelings, or from taking an initial “no, thank you” and still being friends.

As a general rule, there’re two different ways that you’re likely to date someone who was a platonic friend, first. In one, you were friends and then you developed feelings over time and one of you made a move. In the other: you’re simply being friends with someone you would like to date.

There’re two different ways that you’re likely to date someone who was a platonic friend, first. In one, you were friends and then you developed feelings over time and one of you made a move. In the other: you’re simply being friends with someone you would like to date.

The latter, which I think is what your friends meant, is more along the lines of what I mean when I say ‘date slow’. You’re getting to know a person over time and building a connection before you end up asking them out on a date. A friendship can still exist; they may not be your deepest or closest bosom buddy but they’re still a friend.

This way of finding a partner may be a little slower, but it’s often more effective for it. One of the reasons why a lot of guys struggle with meeting women is that they feel like they have to get results right away; they meet someone, and they need to try to make something happen as soon as possible. If they don’t get her number or a date, then they’ve failed.

This causes guys to put a lot of pressure on themselves to get results, which means they’re often spending more time thinking about how to impress the other person or how to get them to like them rather than coming to the interaction from a position of “ok, she’s clearly hot, but is she someone who’s right for me?” As a result, you get a lot of guys who are more in their heads than in the moment, more focused on what to say next rather than connecting with the other person and who end up flubbing things because they were trying to read meaning into every micro-expression instead of learning more about the person they’re talking to.

And to make matters worse, that’s a really inefficient way of going about meeting people, simply because that’s not how most people meet their partners. It’s rare that we start a relationship with someone we’ve only just met, and we’re less likely to want to go on a date with a total stranger, especially if we meet them outside of specific social contexts like a singles mixer or matching on a dating app. It’s far more common to get to know someone a bit before actually going on a date, seeing if you two have much in common and if there’s any chemistry and mutual interest.

Think of it as the difference between the guy who goes to a yoga class and starts asking out every hot woman he sees as soon as he sees them, and a guy who’s a regular in the class who gets acquainted with people and eventually catches a vibe from someone he thinks is cute and asks “hey, would you like to grab dinner tomorrow?” The latter feels far more natural and organic because it’s a connection that has developed over time. They’ve made small talk, they’ve gotten to know each other in class and then one decides to make their move and say “Hey, I think you’re cool and I’d like to take you on a date”.

There’s also the idea that friendship and attraction are mutually incompatible, when they’re absolutely not. You can be attracted to a friend, and you can be friends with someone you’re attracted to. Attraction only “ruins” friendship when it interferes with the friendship. If, for example, you are letting your attraction to someone override the friendship – you’re constantly making a fuss about wanting to date her or getting sulky when she is dating other people, that is a problem. But if you can accept that an attraction is not a command and just let it exist without needing to act on it or draw attention to it, things can work out just fine.  

You can even be upfront and be clear that while you are happy with being friends and love having them in your life, you would also be interested in taking them on a date, as long as you’re willing to take “no thank you” with good grace and continue being their friend. It may be awkward for a little bit, but you can power through it to the other side and continue the friendship.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying “yes, it’s about striking a balance”. Meeting new people in dating-specific contexts can be faster, but often means you’re going to get a lot of first dates without second ones because the first date is serving to establish whether there’s enough “there” there to make things work. On the other hand, dating slow – getting to know people for a bit and being at least casually friendly before asking them out – may take a bit longer, but often means that you’re going to have a better idea of whether there’s chemistry and commonalities. Pursuing a mix of both brings you the best of both worlds… and often brings both more friends and more lovers into your life. From both sides of the equation.

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: When I (17 F, 16) started dating my boyfriend (17 M, call him Ben), I was reluctant to get into a relationship, but willing to try it out after talking to my mom about it. I knew that Ben had a past with his ex (16 F, 15 while they were dating. Call her Jane). He was very upfront and honest that things happened between them that shouldn’t have happened. It made me a little uneasy, and I made my boundaries clear – I do not want to have sex (no shame on people who do practice this) for a few reasons. 

1. My religion. People in my church have a rule against unchaste behavior until after marriage, and I am a big stickler for this.

2. I’m a high achieving student and I don’t want my high school education, college, and career dreams to be destroyed by an accidental pregnancy. 

3. I think it’s gross. Again, no shame to people who do it- none at all. I just think it’s nasty.

Ben is in the same religion as me, but he has lower morals because of the people he associates with. Because he has sketchy friends, he ended up looking at explicit images and getting some… ideas. He ended up getting into trouble with Jane, which wasn’t hard because she had lower morals as well.

But at the start of our relationship, he respected my boundaries. He didn’t crack dirty jokes around me or touch me in a way I didn’t want to be touched. He said he regretted everything that happened with Jane, and he didn’t want it to happen again. And for the first couple months of our relationship, he really acted like it. But after around two months and a few weeks of us being together, he started making inappropriate jokes and suggesting things for us to do that I wasn’t comfortable with. 

Just before our three-month anniversary, I broke up with him because he called my standards “boring and annoying;” I didn’t want to think about explicit activities, and I think he was embarrassed because he admitted he thinks about things like that all the time. After I broke up with him, we stayed on friendly terms, and he claimed that he was “just joking” when he called my boundaries boring, but I have a faint suspicion that he’s making bad excuses for his behavior. He blamed all the inappropriate jokes on a relapse. Eventually, I got back with him with a no contact rule, and this time it took even less for him to revert to his prior bad behavior. When I called him out on it and we went completely no contact, he blamed it on another relapse, saying “I was doing so good and then I slipped up again,” when he made bad jokes repeatedly, and if for no other reason he should be behaving well so that he doesn’t encroach on my standards. 

We have been no contact for a few weeks now, and thinking it over, I’m recognizing the distinct patterns of manipulation. I know he doesn’t respect my boundaries, and I’ve tried talking to him about my standards multiple times, and every time it helps for a little bit and then he goes right back. He gets upset when I don’t tell him that something he’s doing bugs me, but then he does it again as soon as he feels like it’s safe to do it again. 

My question is: Is it possible to work with him, or is this relationship a lost cause? And if I can make this work, how?

Balls and Strikes

DEAR BALLS AND STRIKES: Oh God, you all are so very young… �OK,

I’m going to cut to the chase: break up with him, B&S. This is a relationship that isn’t going to work, period, the end.  For one thing, you want very different things from a relationship, and those things are diametrically opposed to one another. There’s no real compromise to be had without one of you having to “lose”, for lack of a better term, and no real upside for whichever of you might decide to give in. The fact that you went through this twice should tell you that this isn’t going anywhere. It’s been two strikes already; you don’t really need a third to see that this isn’t going to work. Don’t try to make it work, don’t get back together with him, don’t listen when he promises that this time it’ll be different. He can go looking for someone who also finds physical intimacy to be a priority and you can go looking for someone who also wants to wait until marriage.  

For another: hoo boy, your ex was being an absolute d--k about the issue, and that’s a problem in and of itself. 

Now I’m tempted to leave it there, but there’re a few things I think that should be mentioned, if only to benefit you in your future relationships.

First and foremost: you don’t need to justify why you don’t want to have sex. Not to me, not to others. If you don’t want to have sex before marriage, that’s all that needs to be said. Don’t want to have sex, period? Same story. Explaining your reasons is helpful for other people’s understanding and helping to decide whether you’re on the same page or not, but you don’t need to list them in order to justify your decision. This is why we say “No” is a complete sentence; once you start explaining why to someone who doesn’t want to hear “no”, all that’s happening is that they see it as the opening bid in a negotiation, not the end of the discussion. You’ve got your reasons and your reasons are yours. They’re not up for debate. People can have their opinions about those reasons, but they don’t get a vote. If someone’s not going to respect or listen when you say “no, I don’t want to”, the reasons aren’t going to change their mind.

Will it limit your dating options? Will folks decide they don’t want to date you because of this? Yes, absolutely. But that’s the trade-off of boundaries; people will self-select out of your dating pool. It’s up to you to decide if that’s an exchange that you’re happy with. If it is, then great! Everything is working as intended. Will people think your boundaries are bad or poorly decided or whatever? Sure… but that’s a them problem, not a you problem. You don’t have to listen to their arguments, because as I said: it’s your call and yours alone.  

Second: this really isn’t a question of “morals” or “getting ideas”, nor was it about his friends’ influence. Honestly, blaming them for it is part of why you did this dance with him over and over again. You ascribed a lot of his behavior and choices to the influence other people, rather than it just being about him, and that made it easier for you to believe that maybe this time would be different. But this was really about what Ben wanted and Ben’s decisions, not about his friends being “bad influences”.

I can guarantee you: he would’ve been looking at porn and wanting to have sex, regardless of his friend group, because he’s a horny teenager. Did his friends spur things on or rib him about his chaste relationship with you? It’s certainly possible, because teenagers can be dicks like that. But it wasn’t as though they caused him to think about sex or want to have sex.

Ben’s 17 years old and dead bang in the middle of one of the most tumultuous times in everyone’s development. Like every 17-year-old across the gender spectrum, is dealing with a tsunami of hormones, physical changes and psychological confusion as he starts to try to establish his own identity. He – and honestly, most people his age – are going to be thinking about sex or interested in sex because that’s a part of human biology at that age. It’s not a question of “avoiding temptation” or getting horny because he has “low morals”; he could be living a monastic existence and still be having fantasies and wanting to get off. A stiff breeze would be enough to get him thinking about sex because that’s just life as a teenager.  

But his desire for sex isn’t really the issue here. His wanting sex is inherently neutral, just as your not wanting it is inherently neutral. The issue is his lack of respect for your boundaries and his unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions or his desires.

It would be one thing if he were willing to wait and was taking care of his needs in the interim (that is: masturbating) to make it easier to not pester you about sex or sexual contact. But he wasn’t. Now to be charitable: maybe he meant it in the moment. The first time, anyway. It’s entirely possible that, intellectually, he thought he could be abstinent with you and wait until marriage. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

But even if that were the case, it’s actions, not intent that make the difference here, and his actions are the problem. He wasn’t “making jokes”, he was making comments because he was upset and frustrated that he wasn’t getting what he wanted. He told you they were jokes because he saw that it made you upset and he was trying to get you to stop being mad at him. He didn’t “have a relapse” either. He wasn’t acting like this because he failed a wisdom saving throw and couldn’t help himself. He was acting like this because he was horny and wants to have some form of sexual release. Blaming it on these fictional “relapses” was him trying to invent a “get out of consequences free” card and tossing it on the table. It was him telling you what he thought you wanted to hear so that you would keep dating him and he’d have more opportunities to try to change your mind.

And therein lies the issue. Not his libido but his unwillingness to own this and to recognize that he could either have a relationship with you, or have one with a physical component, not both.

It’s not exactly a surprise; 17-year-olds aren’t exactly the best at taking responsibility, nor thinking clearly about sex and relationships. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that the way he was behaving was not cool. He was throwing temper tantrums over not getting his way and being disingenuous when called out on it.

It would be different if, for example, he had just ended things, rather than tried to get you to change your mind or nag you about your “boring standards”. If he decided that sex or some form of physical intimacy was a priority for him and had ended the relationship over that, that would be fine. It would’ve hurt for the relationship to end, and the fact that it was over sex would’ve added an extra layer to it, but it would still ultimately be ending because he was respecting your wishes, and the two of you simply weren’t compatible in the ways you needed to be to make a relationship work. But he didn’t.

Instead, he was acting like an asshole about it, and that’s not cool. And the fact that he continued to act like that after you took him back told you all that you needed to know: this wasn’t going to work, he was being an asshole about it, and you were right to dump him both times.

Wanting sex when you didn’t doesn’t make him a bad guy. The two of you being incompatible doesn’t make him a bad guy, and the relationship not working because of it likewise doesn’t make him a bad guy. Poking and prodding and pushing when you said that you weren’t down with premarital sexual activity is what makes him an asshole.

This is a valuable lesson for you going forward: if someone’s showing that they’re not right for you, then that’s all the reason you need to end it. If they’re not going to respect your boundary, especially around issues like sex, then you don’t want to date them. Treat them like finding out the car you bought was a lemon and return it to the lot where you bought it post-haste and find someone who is compatible with you.

As for Ben… well, with luck, this will be a learning experience and it’ll help spur some maturity and growth, and he’ll look back and think “I was such a d--khead back then”. But that’s not a concern for you, going forward. Leave him in the past where he belongs and go find someone who’s right 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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I had an on again, off again marriage with an emotionally abusive and alcoholic man for 20 years. I divorced him 4 years ago, took him back a year later, he cheated last year and I was officially done. Never felt better or free-er than I ever have.

Reconnected with a high school friend who had a very similar back story.

We became very close friends. Talked all day every day for 2 months. He escalated it to more than friends and we dated for 3 months. He broke it off saying he wanted to go back to being friends because he doesn’t date people right out of relationships. He was really upset about ending it. During dating, we got very close. He opened up to me about so much. He was thoughtful and sweet. During the breakup talk, he said he found me attractive, enjoyed the sex, had the best fun he’s ever had with anyone, but it wasn’t me, it was him. He was always caring towards me. 

I told him I didn’t want to lose him and if that meant I only got to be his friend, I would take it but that I needed time. Do you think he just got cold feet? Or was I really just not enough for him and I should just give up hope already? 

It’s been a week and haven’t really heard from him.

How Long Is Too Long?

DEAR HOW LONG IS TOO LONG: I wish you had given me more information about how long it’d been since both of you had been seeing someone; it’s the sort of detail that would help give a better idea where this dude’s head is at. You mention that you dropped your ex last year, so I’m going to guess that it was somewhere between three to six months which, honestly, is not an unreasonable amount of time between ending things and dating someone else.

I’m also assuming that “I don’t date people right out of relationships” means that he doesn’t want to date other people who have only recently left a relationship, rather than “I don’t date people when Ihave recently left a relationship”; the phrasing’s a bit ambiguous and I could see a case being made in both directions.

However, I’m not sure the details matter that much because, at the end of the day, this is ultimately about him deciding that he doesn’t want to be in this relationship. To a certain extent, the reasoning isn’t important or helpful, simply because there’s not much you can do about it.

If he’s being sincere with his “it’s not you, it’s me” and is genuinely sorry that this is ending, then whatever rattled him was likely not something you could control or account for. It’s certainly possible to have tripped over a particular emotional landmine without ever knowing it was there. It could also be that he is worried that he would be a rebound for you (or that you’re one for him), that he worries that you’re not entirely over your ex yet or that you’re not in a space where you’d be ready or able to commit to a serious relationship, or vice versa. And in any of those cases… well, how do you “prove” to someone that they’re wrong, especially if they’re reacting to something that may be illogical or not even real?

If he’s not being sincere and is trying to be kind while he ends things… well, you probably don’t actually want to know. This is one of those times where the answer almost certainly wouldn’t make you happier or bring you peace; it would just end up being something that made you feel worse about yourself for no good reason. And if it was a case of something like “I rushed into this and I realized that I was rounding up attraction to romance” or “This relationship is more than I wanted from what we have”, then not only is there literally nothing you could have done, but it’ll just feel like a personal judgement on you, as though you had some control over how much or how strongly he felt.

And it’s always possible that he doesn’t know why. Not that he broke things off because he suddenly got a wild hair, but that the reason he gave is not the actual reason; it’s just the one that makes the most sense to him in that moment. A lot of times, we often don’t know the true reason why we chose to end a relationship until much later, when we’ve had more time and distance to get perspective on the matter. So while he wasn’t lying to you or misleading you, he wasn’t correct about it either.

But this is why I tell people that closure is something you have to give yourself; more often than not, the answers will either not bring you catharsis or satisfaction and often will only make you feel worse for no good reason. Better to decide for yourself what you will take away from this and move forward.

Now as to the second question: first of all, a week isn’t that long, especially when he’s made a sudden decision to end things and is off dealing with his own feels. It’s likely going to take time before he is ready to know what his next steps are. If you’re going to need time, then you have to accept that he is going to need time too.

However, I think you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and heartbreak if you’re expecting to go back to being friends right away. I know the urge is there to say “ok, we were friends before, we can be friends again”, but under the circumstances, this is far more likely to be part of you hoping to hold on until he realizes he’s made a mistake and wants to take you back. And that’s not a good place to be, for either of you.

I know you weren’t dating very long, but it takes time to get over a relationship, especially if the feelings were intense. Trying to force yourselves to be friends in the immediate aftermath tends to be more aspirational than practical; neither of you have had the time to come to terms with the end of the relationship, to process your feelings or to have a genuine opportunity to move on. A lot of times, if you’re going to be friends after the breakup, you need time apart. It’s hard to heal and process when you’re constantly reopening those wounds, after all.

As much as it hurts, I think you should resign yourself to not hearing back from him for a while and to work on your own recovery and healing. Focusing on your feelings – about him, about the breakup, about dating in general – and working towards healing the wound the breakup left behind is important. It takes time, energy and effort. If you’re putting that off as you wait with sandwiches by the phone for him to call… well, it means you take that much longer to actually start healing. Better to start the process now than to put it off and aggravate the wound with that false hope.

You were friends before. With time, you’ll be friends again. It won’t be the relationship you had before – not the friendship, nor the romance – but something new and different. But first, you have to give it time. Take that time and put it towards yourself; the sooner you do, the sooner the healing will begin. Then, when and if he is ready to try something new, you’ll be ready to meet him where you need to be.   

Good luck.

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