DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I was interested on a coworker (26F) but it was hard to communicate with her: if we were alone, she would ignore me and if I started a conversation, she would talk, but in a nonchalant and disinterested way. However, when I was talking with other people, especially other girls, than she would barge into the conversation, flirt, tell a lot of jokes, etc.

I eventually found out that she is seeing/dating someone, so I decided to move on.

To make the process easier, since I see her every day at work, I decided to keep communication to a minimum (only work related) and avoid her. She looked a bit curious/confused about why I stopped contact, but did not make any approach. Everything was fine…

…until we have group talks. Then, she keeps her tendency of barging into my conversations with other people. This is kinda frustrating me, because not only ruins my avoidance strategy but also interferes with my communication with other people.

Why does she do this and what should I do? I don`t want to be impolite to her, but I need my distance.

Crush Recovery Zone

DEAR CRUSH RECOVERY ZONE: I can see how this would be frustrating, CRZ, but it’s hard for me to say what’s going on. After all, I’m not there to watch these and it’s not like I can subpoena all of you and put you under oath while I take your depositions. So even under the best of circumstances, all I’ve got is speculation and conjecture.

Having said that, I think there’re a couple important details that you left out that would make it easier to make an educated guess about what she’s up to.

To start with: when you were talking with her alone and she was acting disinterested, what were you talking about? Is it possible that she was less interested in the topic than you and was staying in the conversation to be polite?

Similarly, how were you behaving with her? If you were being overt (or at least, unsubtle) with your interest, she may have been trying to give you the wave-off without actually drawing attention to the fact that she was doing this. A lot of women will act withdrawn or uninterested in hopes that the guy who’s clearly crushing on them will get the message without them having to say it – especially if the guy hasn’t said anything definitively himself.

For that matter, are you sure she was uninterested or nonchalant but simply not reacting in a way that you’d see as being “interested”? Depending on what you were talking about, she may have had a more restrained reaction simply because it would be less appropriate to be effervescent and cheery than in some of the things you were talking to others about.

In fact, when you were talking with others and she would butt in, was it when you were talking with one person or a group? Does she do this with other people, or only with you?  When you’re talking with others, especially in group conversations, it’s certainly possible that you were talking about topics that she found more interesting or could engage with and actually had something she could sink her teeth into. She might also have felt more secure in participating in a group conversation simply because it meant that you would be less likely to steer things in a flirty or dating direction.

By that same token, who is she directing all this attention towards? Is she flirting with you? Or is she just behaving in a way that you would describe as “flirty” that isn’t necessarily directed at anyone or could be directed at everyone in the conversation? Is it possible that she’s friends with other people in the groups you’re talking to and is just joining the conversations with them that you happen to be having? Or is she actively seeking you out and only does this when you are having these group chats?

And while I’m asking: does she know you had a crush on her and you’re trying to get over it by spending less time with her? Or is this a decision that you made without making a production about it?

These are important, because they provide some much-needed context to both her behavior and yours. What seems inexplicable can make far more sense when context clues are factored into it. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of stabs in the dark and educated guesses.

It’s certainly possible, for example, that she’s the sort of person who likes knowing that someone’s into them, while not ever being interested in actually pursuing something with them. After all, just because you’re in a relationship doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the validation that other people think you’re attractive. If that were the case, she might also be the sort of person who likes keeping that attention going. Reminding you that she’s there and throwing some salt on your game to keep your options narrow would be one way of making sure that you’re going to keep dancing in attendance on her.

It’s not likely, but it’s certainly possible.

It’s also possible that she is behaving as she always has, simply because not much has changed as far as she’s concerned. If the only difference is that you aren’t talking to her one-on-one as frequently as you used to (especially if she’d been giving you the subtle wave-off), then the main reason why this feels impactful to you is because you’re the only person who feels the difference. To her, it’s Tuesday.

Or it could be that she’s unsure why you suddenly stopped talking to her and feels a little hurt but isn’t going to make A Thing about it because who needs the drama? It’s easier to just continue as normal with others, and hope that either things get less uncomfortable or that you get over whatever is bothering you and start talking to her again.

I suspect the issue here is that you’re reading too much into this and you’re taking it personally because your feelings are involved. I don’t think she’s doing this at you, nor do I think she’s trying to keep you on the hook. You feel this sting because it hits directly in the crush you’re trying to let go of, but I highly doubt there’s anything nefarious or even tricksy going on. I’d be willing to bet that this is just her being her and you’re reading more into it than is actually there.

That having been said: if she’s actually being rude or disrupting conversations that you’re trying to have with friends, that’s absolutely something to comment on. There’s nothing wrong with saying “hey, we were in the middle of something” if she’s butting in with no regard.

But as it is? I think you’re making far more assumptions about what she knows and understands you to be doing than is warranted. If you went from making a point of chatting to her to suddenly keeping it strictly business, it’s understandable that she’d be a little confused and possibly hurt.

It doesn’t sound to me like this was a deep or distracting crush and I don’t think you need to avoid her. Just treat her like normal, acknowledge your feelings to yourself without needing to do anything about it and redirect your attention when it flares up. The crush will fade on its own in time, and you can get back to business as usual.

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’ve stumbled upon your blog and account every now and then. I always end up reading at least one of your posts, sometimes more. Never as a subscriber though because some of this stuff gets heavy. Anywho, I realized after reading today’s piece that I too can ask for advice. Like, that is a possibility! So, this is me doing that.��I don’t know how to go about it really but the thing I struggle with is the fact that I feel like a Monster because I am a man. With all the high-profile cases of abuse you see, the casual sexism and misogyny in online spaces from random, to seeing men in my own life just being s--tty to women, I just can’t help but feel that I am a monster because I am a man. And this isn’t me putting the blame on women, that’s not what I feel, nor is it the intent of me expressing what I’m feeling here. This is very much an issue that stems from patriarchy and a mix of other things, at least in my mind. But yeah, I feel like a monster who should never love because doing so can only mean hurt and I have no intention of hurting anyone.��I’m sure that I haven’t been the best man to women as I was growing up and despite me recognizing and acknowledging that, there is no way for me to prove that I’ve grown for this and nor should there be, I simply just have to because I want to and not because it would please others, although I am a people pleaser but that’s a different thing I feel? Maybe not, I don’t know.��What comes with this feeling of being a monster, is this profound feeling of loneliness and shame. I feel very alone because I don’t have companionship, even though in my mind I should never seek it because I would just be a bad partner. There’s a shame that comes from things like self-pleasure, the notion of even imagining what it would be like to feel loved and just existing as a man. I don’t like both these things.��I’m not into the whole manosphere s--t, I think it’s mostly wolves leading sheep in wolves clothing but the harm they do is real and fundamentally impacts our modern-day society in many ways. I’m not like them, at least, I think I’m not. I think what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to be like those dudes.��I go to therapy and talk about this, and I keep getting reassured that I shouldn’t be thinking like this from her but that feeling is rooted so deep, it just doesn’t go. It’s always there, lingering.��But yeah, I don’t know what to do about this feeling of being a monster. Current plan is to isolate myself from feeling love forever and just put on a happy face. Any advice? 

This Man, This Monster

DEAR THIS MAN, THIS MONSTER: Well, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten one of these.

Ok, TM2, I’m going to say this as gently as I can: you have what sounds a LOT like a personality disorder and you need to be talking to a doctor about it. And quite possibly a different one than you’ve been seeing, since you don’t seem to be getting any relief or help from your current therapist. If you haven’t talked to them – or they haven’t talked to you – about the possibility of all of this being a symptom of something like borderline-personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder (especially with the intrusive thoughts you’re experiencing), then that should probably be on the top of your to-do list. If there’s a history of trauma with your family that could be influencing this, that could also be a factor that needs to be discussed. You should also talk to them about looking into alternative therapies, since what you’re currently doing clearly isn’t working.

But beyond the fact that you should be talking to your therapist about different approaches and therapies, there’s something else at play here that I think is important.

I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent but stick with me for a second. Back in the Before Times, the Long Long Ago (aka the 90s), as second-wave feminism was giving way to third-wave feminism, there was a particular trope of the Overly Sensitive Male Feminist. Much like with the weird anti-“woke” strawmen of today, the details would vary somewhat (and somewhat inexplicably would often involve Alan Alda or Phil Donahue – ask your parents, kids), but the overall image was of a man in his 30s or so, weeping and wailing, gnashing his teeth and rending his clothing at the horror of being A Man and all the horrors that being A Man meant that they were responsible for.

Whenever The Overly Sensitive Male Feminist was portrayed, there were always tears and self-recrimination and over-the-top proclamations about how awful they were and how much they wished they weren’t born male and so on and so forth. The idea, of course, was to mock the idea of men who thought that maybe feminism had a point and that striving for a more equitable and just society without artificial, hegemonic strictures based around gender was a good thing were, frankly, performatively whiny little babies who bought into the beliefs of the Straw Feminists that many self-proclaimed defenders of The Natural Order would tilt against.

It was very much a case of cultural backlash, trying to push back against what a lot of people in power saw as an overreach and – as is so often the case – trying to leverage toxic ideas around masculinity in order to shame people into falling in line. The message to men was “the only people who believe this are whinging little beta cucks and you should be ashamed for being even vaguely like them,” and that apologizing or feeling bad for being a man made you weak and pathetic.

Now here’s the thing: this is a case of “being somewhat right, but for the wrong reasons”. Not because Real Men Don’t Cry or Men Who Agree With Feminists are Gender Traitors, but because this is not about being sorry for being a man. If we accept that people like you, TM2 or other cases in the “I respect women so much I avoid them entirely” genre are being honest and legitimate in their sorrow at what their gender has done, then what they’re doing isn’t harm mitigation or trying to make amends; it’s centering their performative sadness in a discussion about the actual issues regarding gender equality and undoing actual harms that institutional sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia have done. It’s very akin to the dudes who, upon seeing someone complain about what a man or men had done to them, would leap into the conversation to proclaim “#notallmen”. If they weren’t just trying to derail the discussion, they were demanding special cookies and head-pats for Not Being The Worst and acknowledgement that they were One Of The Good Ones.

What they weren’t doing was, y’know: actually trying to make things better.

So, if we take it as given that this isn’t strictly a mental health issue and that this is coming from a place of regret or excess empathy, here is my question for you TM2: what good is any of this doing? How is beating yourself up like a flagellant monk changing the world for the better? How is hiding yourself away like The Beast, declaring that you don’t deserve to feel love helping to push back against the same forces you decry?

If you aren’t causing harm already – and let’s be honest, just existing isn’t causing harm – then this is just maintaining the status quo. Your isolating yourself and making yourself miserable for the sake of being miserable doesn’t manifestly change anything. Simple absence isn’t creating a net-positive, and you don’t even get that sweet-ass Jean Cocteau castle in the bargain.

If, again, we go with the idea that this isn’t a mental health problem, then all of this is really just an abdication of agency at best, a refusal of responsibility at worst. You’re coming to this from the assumption that your existence is inherently harmful – it’s absolutely not, but that’s the belief you seem to be holding – and there’s nothing that can be done about it. That, in and of itself, is basically just an objection mindset. It’s functionally your saying “well, I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas”, and that ain’t how we roll ’round here.

So let me ask you, TM2: what sins do you think you’ve committed and what atrocities do you think you’re responsible for? You don’t list any and you pepper your description with qualifiers like “I’m sure that” and “I feel that”, which tells me that this is a feels-not-reals sort of situation. For that matter: what are you hoping to gain here? Are you looking for head-pats that you are, in fact, the worst? To inspire a screed from me about how men are evil and you’ve got the right idea?

Or maybe, just maybe, you’re hoping that someone will help you recognize what’s wrong and walk you back from the ledge? 

If that’s the case, then maybe it’s time to stop with the flagellation and start actually thinking about what you’re actually doing.

Now, there’re two things in your letter leapt out at me that I think is important. First, there’s this: “[…] I simply just have to because I want to and not because it would please others, although I am a people pleaser but that’s a different thing I feel?”

Let me stop you right there. No, this isn’t a different thing. People pleasing is the sort of behavior that sounds neutral-to-good – you want to make people happy – but quickly can become malignant. A lot of chronic people pleasers have weak boundaries and a tendency to take on responsibility that isn’t theirs; they feel like they have to because… well, because. Your behavior is emphatically people-pleasing taken to an absurd extreme; you just think that the key to pleasing people is to avoid everyone because that’s the only thing you can do to make people happy.

This, in and of itself, is the sort of thing you should be telling your therapist, not assuming that “nah, this must be some other thing entirely.” It’s a perverse way of trying to prove your value to others, working from the assumption that you’re a black hole of worth, a singularity so dense that no amount of self-compassion, pride or confidence can escape.

But then there’s this: “there is no way for me to prove that I’ve grown for this and nor should there be”. This prompts a whole host of questions; prove what and to whom? You’re already saying that you assume you have committed sins against others, but you don’t bring any up. It seems like a safe bet that you can’t actually name any, which makes it all the weirder. I mean, going by your letter, I’m willing to wager five bucks American that you can’t be more than 25. What unforgivable crimes could you supposedly commit as a child that you seem to be unaware of?

For that matter, who is the judge that you would be pleading before? Other women who didn’t know you back then? What is this impossible-to-prove issue? That you’ve grown and changed past who you were when you were younger? Are you seriously saying that there’s no difference between the person you are now and the person you were in, say, middle-school? What do you think you would need, a signed affidavit from every woman and AFAB non-binary person you ever met? Why would “I don’t act like I did when I was 14” not be an example of having grown or changed? And why shouldn’t there be some way of demonstrating that you’re different from when you were younger?

Obviously, none of this is logical, but we’re not dealing with logic, as us Earth mortals would understand it; we’re dealing with emotional weirdness, and trying to apply logic to it is missing the point. If we took what you say seriously, we’d have to assume that you’re doing an IRL Dark Urge run and you shouldn’t be trusted to breathe free air. Hell, if we took it all as being true and accurate and extended the logic to its natural endpoint, really the only answer would be a Ra’s Al-Ghul-style campaign of extermination, wiping out men like a zealot trying to kill all the other Bhaalspawn before committing ritual self-sacrifice to end the line for good.

But we’re not taking it seriously, because none of that’s true. This is you saying “there’s no such thing as growth, improvement, redemption or making things better, not for me”, rather than making any sort of coherent point. You’re not a monster wearing a fleshsuit or the spawn of a dead god of murder; you’re a guy who’s talking about punching yourself in the face because you think you should be punched for the sin of having a face. And that suggests to me that this is less about other people, and more about just beating yourself up because F--K YOU, THAT’S WHY. And honestly, that’s exhausting for me to read about; I have to imagine it’s even more exhausting for you to live with.

So what do we do about this? I really should get a macro to reply to letters like this automatically, because once again, the first and most obvious answer is: get the f--k off social media. I mean, I’m not exactly shocked, shocked to see all the hints that your FYP roll on TikTok is a toxic stew, and I would bet more cash money that half your social feed are reels of people doing stitch-replies to the grievance-peddling masculinity grifters who think choking on cigars and acting like dicks is a substitute for a personality. Deleting all your social media profiles would probably be the best thing you could do for yourself; at the very least, an algorithmic cleanse, a timeline high-colonic and follow list detox would at least cut down on some of the emotional knives you have available for all the psychic self-harm you’re doing.

The next thing I would suggest is maybe instead of smacking yourself in the face over and over again with a rolled-up photo of Andrea Dworkin, you might want to, y’know, just work on being the kind of man that Mr. Rogers – Steve or Fred, dealer’s choice – you could be. There’re lots of ways to be a man, after all, from Mr. Rogers’ love and acceptance to Bob Ross’ pastoral creativity, gentleness and calm; Steve Rogers’ courage as protector of the weak and helpless to T’challa’s nobility, duty and honor; Steve Irwin’s enthusiasm and environmental stewardship to LeVar Burton encouraging a love of reading and exploration… the list goes on and on.

The same thing would apply to actually understanding issues regarding patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Instead of rending your clothes and pulling your hair about it, maybe start by reading bell hooks’ The Will To Change or watching The Mask You Live In.

Do you want to make the world a better, safer place for women and push back the toxicity of a patriarchal society? Now’s a good time to volunteer with a rape crisis hotline or warmline for LGBTQ people who’re under threat and dealing with the understandable terror of s--theads who’re trying to legislate them out of existence. Sign up to be an escort at a reproductive health facility and be the shield between vulnerable people needing health care and assholes trying to scare them, trick them and roll back their rights. Find the mutual aid organizations in your area and help people connect to networks that serve the most vulnerable. Join the organizations that’re doing the hard work of pushing back against the tidal wave of choleric bulls--t the current administration is trying to generate. Phonebank with others to keep pressure on your elected representatives, including on the state and municipal level and demand that they take a stand for truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love and a hard-boiled egg.

I can already hear the objections coming from you so let’s put this to bed right off the bat: none of these actions would be your buying carbon offsets for your supposed sins. If you genuinely feel that your existence is harmful because of your gender, then you shouldn’t be trying to “prove” anything; you should be out there doing the work to make the world a better place, simply because it’s the right thing to do.

But like I said: this really is a disorder that you’re struggling with, and you need to treat it like one. Talk to your therapist about how this current treatment isn’t working and what your options are. Ask about the possibility that you’re dealing with something like OCD or BPD and whether you need to look into getting a formal diagnosis.

That’s going to help far more than throwing your hands up and declaring that you’re an abomination in the eyes of God and Man and there’s nothing to be done about it.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This is really only somewhat related to dating but I hope you can help me anyway. I’m a recent college graduate, new resident in a large midwestern city and I just turned 25 and I don’t want to be me anymore because being me isn’t working out. 

Like a lot of your readers, I didn’t have the greatest junior high or high school experience. I struggled a lot socially and a medical steroid I took for a condition caused me to break out with cystic acne and caused some other side-effects. I had very little clue how to handle basic social situations and was incredibly awkward and weird. 

I couldn’t wait to graduate and go to college where I thought I could have a chance to reinvent myself and be someone new. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go far for college and had to stay locally, and that meant that I was seeing a lot of the same people I knew in high school. I wouldn’t say that my reputation preceded me because that would imply that I was infamous or well-known, but the fact that a lot of the same classmates were in the same communities or clubs and hobby groups meant that I’d show up hoping to establish myself and the other classmates would regale people of what I was like back in high school. I felt trapped by my past self, like I couldn’t escape from other people’s ideas of who I am. 

Fast forward four years and one degree and I’ve moved out and I’m starting over in a new town but I’m worried that I’m going to be the same guy I’ve been all my life and I’m tired of being that guy. I want to break out of my shell and try to be the person I always wanted to be but I feel like I’m doomed to keep falling in the same old patterns and that if I run into people who knew me, any work I did to change will get tossed in the trash. 

How do I shed my old self like a snakeskin and be someone new? I don’t necessarily want to go from being a high school loser to the hottest guy in the city, but I’d like to be more than the guy I used to be. How do I make this change and how do I get people to accept it? 

Thanks,

Time To Be Someone Else

DEAR TIME TO BE SOMEONE ELSE: Talking about reinventing oneself is interesting, TTBSE, because a lot of the time, we really mean precisely what you experienced in college: trying to get away from other people’s expectations. We see this a lot with Hollywood actors who are trying to shake off roles that made them famous – Disney channel actors trying to prove that they’re more than random fresh-faced moppets, actors trying to move away from their breakout role, singers who want to grow beyond their freshman hit and so-on. Many times, this involves trying to shock people with the change; I’ve lost track of how many female actors who got started as child actors would have some provocative photo shoot to try to banish their squeaky-clean image. Some succeed simply by not giving a s--t; Daniel Radcliffe left Harry Potter behind to pick a wild assortment of roles that he clearly found interesting, no matter how bizarre or outre. But it sounds to me like what you’re asking for is as much about making substantive changes, not just dealing with other people’s idea of who you are. And that part gets trickier, because it gets into issues of identity, authenticity and how much of our lives are patterns and habits, how many are responses to our experiences and how many are just hard-wired into us.

There’s a part of me that’s kind of tempted to just throw you at Richard Linklater’s movie Hit Man, where Glenn Powell makes the precise transformation you describe – just, y’know, while also pretending to be a hitman and convincing people that he’s going to commit murder for money – and call it a day. And to be honest, I think there is value to be found there, even if it’s just inspiration and motivation.

(Admittedly, it’s a little hard to believe that Powell has that level of charisma that he can pull out as needed and yet also isn’t popular with women but that’s a different rant entirely)

The truth is that a lot of our sense of “self” is as much about our habits and who we allow ourselves to be. Like I’m often saying: “you” are a concept that’s a continual work in progress, and it’s always in flux. Many times the resistance to change is less about any innate nature of who “we” are and more about our comfort zones.

But that doesn’t mean that we can snap our fingers and magically be someone different. In fact, trying to force the issue can be incredibly bad for us. As someone who’s made a lot of changes in his life and who’s seen others try to make similar ones, there’re a few things that you want to keep in mind if you want this to work.

The first is that you don’t want to try to be someone you’re not. Yes, I know, that’s sort of the whole point of this, but stick with me for a second. Back in when I was part of the pick-up scene, I watched a lot of guys try to basically create false personalities and lives for themselves because they thought this was what they needed to do to be attractive to women. They tried to create these personas that they thought women wanted and would try to live them when we were out meeting women at bars.

This created obvious issues: you might be able to convince someone that you were a successful entrepreneur or popular DJ or whatever for the span of a conversation, maybe even for the length of a one-night stand… but it also meant that you were setting a countdown timer until they figured out that you were lying.

Some guys I knew tried to live those lives – they quit jobs, switched entire wardrobes, bought cars and even moved into different houses and apartments in hopes of being those people…

…and almost all of them inevitably hit a wall. As it turns out, humans are bad at lying, and trying to keep up a lot of lies is incredibly stressful. Most of the guys I knew had emotional breakdowns to one degree or another because of the strain of trying to force themselves into these ill-fitting personas. One checked himself into an in-patient psych facility to deal with the fallout. Another joined a cult, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.

The issue wasn’t that they were trying to change who they were; the issue was that they were trying to be someone who was inauthentic to who they were. It wasn’t just that they were trying to be someone else, it was that they were trying to be someone who was nothing like them and the incongruence of it f--ked them up.

This is why the most important part of trying to reinvent yourself is that you don’t want to change, so much as explore other sides of yourself and discover new aspects to who you are that are already there. It’s less being someone else so much as giving other sides of your personality more time in the spotlight. You don’t need to be “someone else”, you just have to be willing to see what else you have that you haven’t spent time developing.

Which actually leads to my second point: Much of who “you” are is a habit, not an innate and immutable identity. To change yourself is to change those habits and behaviors. Humans are lazy; we like things to stay the same because it means we expend less energy, and we know what to expect. This is why we talk about our comfort zone; it’s where we’re comfortable because we don’t have to work at it. Sometimes those zones suck… but at least they suck in a way that’s familiar. The unknown – what lies outside our comfort zone – is scary because we don’t know what will happen. That’s precisely what allows our jerkbrains to throw all sorts of nightmare and worst-case-scenarios at us.

But that’s precisely what reinventing yourself entails; you have to take a deep breath and step outside your comfort zone. But you can’t just dip a toe out and say “ok, I’m good” before pulling it back in. You have to stay out long enough that this becomes something you’re familiar with – expanding your comfort zone to encompass this new knowledge and different experiences.

Clothes are a prime example of this; if you’ve ever said “I can’t wear X because it’s not ‘me’,” what you’re really saying is “this isn’t something I feel comfortable wearing right now”. It’s the same with doing things you “can’t” do; while sometimes there are things that are outside your reach, most of the time this is really saying “I’m afraid to do try because I think I’ll fail”. And yeah… the odds are that, when you try something for the first time, you’re not going to be that good at it. You’re doing it for the first time, after all. But to quote the sage: “sucking at something is the first step at being kinda good at it”.

So, if you want to be a new person, start saying “yes” to more stuff, especially things that you’ve either never done before or that you’ve been afraid to try. Don’t worry about it not being “you”; think of it as exploring about who “you” are and could be.

Not everything you try is going to be a great new discovery; you’ll quickly find that some things you normally say “no” to are things that you don’t vibe with or don’t work for you for many reasons. But you’re going to find that many of the things that you thought were your limitations are, in fact, just things you were afraid to try or things you got in the habit of not doing.

Now, an important point here is that you want to take this at a measured pace. A lot of people try to change everything about themselves all at once and get overwhelmed; it’s hard to give any one thing your full attention when that attention is divided amongst everything. Everyone has a limited amount of mental and emotional bandwidth, and it doesn’t do you any good to overload it; you won’t have the capacity to give those things the attention they deserve, and you may well end up over-committing to things that don’t actually work for you. So, take those changes in measured bites; try a couple new things at a time and reserve some of that bandwidth for the things you’re still happy with. That makes it much easier to recharge your mental and emotional energy and have reserves left over to explore those other sides of yourself.

But what things should you change? Well, I’m glad you asked, convenient rhetorical device. Part of how you decide what to change is also part of how give yourself permission to change: you act like you’re already the person you want to be. You want, quite literally, to fake it until you make it.

The thing about faking it isn’t that you’re being false or untrue to who you are; it’s more that you’re asking yourself “OK, what would I do if I were someone who had confidence?” “How would I behave if I loved who I was?” “What would I be like if I wasn’t afraid to talk to someone I was attracted to?”. You’re giving yourself permission to access those behaviors, attitudes and beliefs now, instead of in some nebulous future when you’ll have crossed some milestone. It’s easy to say “I’ll do X when I achieve Y”, because it kicks the can down the road; it’s a promise to a future self, but without any commitment to get there. 

By faking it and acting like you’re already the person you want to be, you’re giving yourself access to the qualities you want to have – qualities you already possess but simply need to put into practice. And practice is the key word; these behaviors and actions are things that you can improve by putting them to use. If you don’t actually use them, they won’t grow and develop; they’ll always be something you’ll eventually cultivate in a nebulous future that will likely never come.

It will also tell you what parts of you that you want to develop. You already know what they are; you just need to actually give yourself the option to do them.

This is part of how Powell’s character manages to change himself; he’s not faking things so much as finally putting different skills into practice and becoming comfortable with them. It can be easier to do this when you see it as “acting” or “pretending”, simply because it’s giving yourself permission to do things you wouldn’t otherwise, behind the fig leaf of “pretend”. But even if the idea is you’re “pretending” to be someone else, when you do it for long enough, it becomes part of who you are. This is why, as the saying goes, we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

(This is also how “ironic” racism, sexism and queerphobia quickly stops being “ironic” and becomes just straight racism, sexism and queerphobia).

The last thing to keep in mind is that none of the changes you make are going to be permanent. Not on their own, at least. Like I said earlier: humans are lazy, and we fall back into old patterns simply because they take less effort. It takes more time to exit one groove and carve a new groove in your brain than it does to just keep going in the same ol’ same ol. Making these changes stick is going to be a matter of consistent and regular repetition until they become muscle memory. If you, for example, decide to behave like you’re confident with women but only do so once every three or four weeks, it’s always going to be a struggle and you’re simply not going to make it stick. It’s just going to be a thing you try when you remember to.

Behaviors are habits. So are beliefs. If you want this new, more polished you to stick around, you have to make a point of being him a thing you do on a regular and consistent schedule until it quits being a thing that you have to consciously think about. That takes effort, it takes reinforcement, and it takes commitment. But you’ve done this before; you’ve just done it so long ago that you don’t remember, or in ways that you didn’t realize.

But this time, instead of letting it just “happen”, you’re putting your hand on the tiller and choosing what, how and when. Put your mind and will to it, and you’ll be amazed at what you can become.

Good luck.

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