Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m 47 years old. I left my sexless marriage ten years ago. I fully expected to have a rich sex life post marriage. I did not. The last time I had sex was years ago and that was an isolated incident.

How do I just accept my sexless life?

Chaste, Not Chased

DEAR CHASTE, NOT CHASED: OK, CNC, I promise you that I am actually taking your question seriously and that I’m not mocking you or dunking on you when I ask you this: what did you expect was going to happen?

I’m not asking this because out of a sense of “well you should’ve known you were unf--kable”, but because I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve made the same choices you’ve made, with similar outcomes. There was something in their relationship that they were unsatisfied with, made changes to the relationship or left it entirely with the hope and expectation that this would solve their problems… and then discover that now they had the same problem and also no relationship. Some guys, for example, pressure their partners to open up the relationship under the assumption that this means that they’re going to have hot-and-cold running sex whenever they want it… only to discover that finding women who were cool with sleeping with partnered men was far more difficult than finding men who were cool with having sex with partnered women. The same is true for leaving a sexless marriage; it’s one thing if there are people who’ve been making it clear that they’d love to jump a guy’s bones if only the obstacle of the wife was out of the way. But without that… well, the biggest difference is just that they’re no longer married.

Now this isn’t to say that leaving your relationship was wrong – far from it. You were unhappy and unsatisfied, your needs weren’t being met, those are all very good reasons to end a marriage. But this is where the question of “what did you expect was going to happen” comes in, because what you expected and what was likely can be very different. It’s generally a good idea to leave a relationship with some idea of what comes next, even if “what comes next” is “take some time to reflect on what happened and what I can do differently” or “I’m going to pursue my connection with X once I’m ready”. ��An expectation without preparation can lead to a situation like the one you’re in now, where things spiraled out of control.

Now, a lot of people hearing that will think that what I’m saying is that you don’t leave a relationship unless you’ve got a cushion to land on, metaphorically speaking, and I’m not. What I’m saying is that leaving a relationship isn’t a guarantee of anything except the end of that relationship. And while leaving that relationship may be a net-positive in and of itself – and it sounds like it was – that’s no guarantee of what will come after.

Now part of the problem here is that you give me next to nothing to work with in terms of what happened and what you’re struggling with. I don’t know why the sex in your marriage ended, what you and your ex-wife did, if anything, to try to resolve it. This is important, not just for someone like me to give you advice, but also from a perspective of “what you need to do differently after you’ve ended the marriage”.

There’s a significant difference, for example, between your ex-wife suddenly deciding that both of you were done with sex for good, or you having a profound disconnect in the kinds of sex you needed and the kind of sex she did. Her desire could’ve tapered off because of boredom, or hormonal changes or medication. It could be a case of “she just fell out of love with you”, or changes in her life cratered her libido and ability to feel sexual. You might have let yourself go in a way that made it harder for her to feel attracted to you, or she might have realized that her sexuality and relationship to it was different than she had thought.

Similarly, an idea of what you and she did – again, if anything – to solve the problem can give an idea of where you might want to pay attention in the future. If you went to couple’s therapy and that didn’t fix anything, why not? Was the therapist not a good match for you? Did they not take the problem seriously? Were their suggestions not actually helpful? Or did you or your wife not put actual effort into trying the exercises? Was it a case where your wife was happy no longer having sex and so didn’t see a need to try to fix things? Or was it a case of she or you wanted things the other couldn’t give and so the compromise was “nobody has sex now”?

This is why having an idea of what went wrong and why is important: it gives you a path forward to fixing things, even if you don’t necessarily have people waiting for you to be single again. If you, like a lot of people in relationships, started to relax your standards of presentation and personal upkeep, then obviously the next thing you want to do is get yourself back into fighting trim, so you’re ready to be out on the dating market. If it was a case that you and your wife had mismatched needs, getting a better handle on what you need from a sex partner can make a difference as you try to find someone who’s more in tune with you.

You also don’t give me any information about what you’ve done since to try to have a rich and fulfilling sex life, what obstacles were in the way and what you’ve tried to do to overcome them or work around them. That would give a better idea of what you could do next and whether the only answer truly is “just give in and be ready for your monastic existence”. Throwing your hands up and saying “nothing worked” isn’t helpful if the issue was ultimately that you were trying to pursue relationships with people you weren’t compatible with, if it was a matter of not knowing where to look for the kind of relationship you want or even “the apps just suck”.

And since I don’t want to waste your time and mine with suggestions that you’ve already tried or that aren’t necessarily a good fit for you… well, that limits our options rather significantly.

I will say that, if nothing else, your lack of sex is a money-soluble problem. Escorts, massage providers who give happy endings and other sex workers exist, after all. Sugar babies are a thing too, if you are looking for a regular partner. If all you want is sex for the sake of getting laid, putting money aside for, say, a bi-monthly trip to Nevada is always an option, especially if you want to avoid possible legal issues.

But if it’s truly a case of “nothing works, nothing will satisfy you and you don’t want to put more effort in” … well, you can still have satisfying sex with yourself. Masturbation doesn’t necessarily need to be a five-minute session with Rosie Palms and a browser tab open to Pornhub or Brazzers. Varying techniques, using lube of varying slickness or consistency, exploring things like prostate stimulation and the like can give you orgasms that’re very different from a quick knuckle shuffle.

There’re also a wide variety of masturbation sheaths from companies like Fleshlight and Tenga, with a variety of textures, levels of suction and friction to provide you with a smorgasbord of experiences. There’re even masturbation sheaths that’re licensed molds of specific porn stars, for a proxy experience. There are also human-sized and shaped toys like Real Dolls if you want to have the feeling of another body in bed (or the tub or the couch or whatever) with you; they’re not cheap by anyone’s measure, but they’ll provide a better facsimile of a sexual relationship than just your hand itself.

It may not be the same as having a regular partner, but that’s still different from an entirely sexless existence. You’re just adjusting your definition of what ‘sex’ is. ��But like I said: that’s basically the best I can do, based on what you’ve given me. Next time, if there is a next time, if you find yourself in a similar situation, before you make the leap out, remember to ask yourself “OK… when I do this, what happens next?”

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 sure this is familiar territory for you and many others, but here we go. I don’t know what I want out of my relationship. I suspect I never really have in past relationships either, but I always figured that either I would figure it out or some form of answer would just naturally present itself over time. 

I’m now in a relationship with a wonderful lady, and she (rightfully so) has raised the issue. She feels her biological clock is ticking (which is fair) and wants me to figure out what I want (also fair). This woman is great, she’s a lovely person and I really like her. Have you got any insight in regard to how I can try and get in touch with what I want out of this relationship?

Indecision May Or May Not Be My Problem

DEAR INDECISION MAY OR MAY NOT BE MY PROBLEM: I’m glad you recognized that this is an issue in your relationship, IMMBP because you’ve accidentally stumbled onto one of the biggest complaints women have about dating men.

No, I’m being serious here; one of the reasons why women hate the whole dating scene are the number of guys – on the apps, in the bars and just out in the world – who either don’t know what they want from a relationship or at least say that they don’t know what they want (because they’re afraid/ know that if they say it, their partner will dump them). There’s nothing inherently wrong with not knowing what you want, but it is important to be clear that this is where your head is at before you start dating and especially if you know your potential partner is going to want either exclusivity or long-term commitment. When you don’t, you run the risk of wasting everyone’s time; yours, because you’re in a relationship that isn’t a good fit or meets your needs, and your partner’s because they could have been off seeking someone who’s actually right for them and is on the same page.

Now, I want to give you and your partner credit for having a discussion about this and to you, specifically, for reaching out to try to figure things out. That’s a good sign; even if this relationship doesn’t necessarily work out, the fact that you’re asking this question and trying to find the answers is a mark of emotional intelligence. While I appreciate a “go with the flow” approach, hoping that you’re going to figure it out while you’re in it is generally a bad way of making a long-term connection last. It’s better, in my mind, to agree to something casual with the possibility of more (if that’s truly on the table) than to create a nebulous, neither-fish-nor-fowl situationship.

Now when it comes to figuring out what you want, what you want to do is focus on some core questions.

First and possibly the most important: what are your dealbreakers – the ones that are hard no’s, absolutely non-negotiable relationship-enders? Knowing these in advance is important, even if you’re a go-with-the-flow guy, precisely because “going with the flow” often means you may find you’re with someone who has those deal breakers at a time when you’ve become emotionally invested in them. You may, for example, be cool with long-term commitment with a partner. You may be cool with having kids together. But then you find that they want to raise their kids in a way that’s anathema to you… well, now you’re in a position where you’ve got a massive conflict at the heart of a relationship when you’ve tangled your lives together in a way that will make it that much harder to separate – both logistically but also emotionally.

The other benefit of knowing your deal breakers in advance is that you now have a list of qualities you do want – the literal opposite of those non-negotiables. This gives you a starting point in terms of things to look for in your potential partners.

Second: What do you value in life? What sorts of things are important to you for your overall emotional well-being and quality of life? Are you someone who needs stability and calm, or are you someone who finds too much structure and planning to be stifling? Are you oriented towards future goals or does your “figure it out as I go” include your life in general? Do you know yourself to be someone who falls in and out of love frequently, someone who finds their connection to their partner tends to fade over time or are you someone who finds Their Person and doesn’t waver unless and until the relationship ends?

Knowing these things about yourself, how well does your potential partner need to match those needs? Where are the areas of wiggle-room, where you might be ok with a partner who doesn’t line up perfectly with everything on that list? Are you going to be comfortable with someone who hits 50% of them? 60%? What about 75%?��Third: If you look around in your life, what relationship role models do you have? Who – whether in your family, in your social circle or even in pop culture – models the kind of relationship that you ultimately would want to have?��This one can be tricky, because often when folks have a hard time knowing what they’re looking for, it’s because they don’t have a strong reference point to compare things to. It can be hard to say “Yeah, I’d like that” when the most significant relationships you’ve seen have been full of strife or conflict.

It’s also important, when looking at those relationship role models to know what aspects of them don’t work for you. Some relationships work well because of the people in them are well matched for each other, but the way those relationships function might not be a good match for you because you’re not those particular people. Passion in a relationship, for example, can look very differently depending on the people involved. Gomez and Morticia are one example of a very passionate couple… but so are Han and Leia. The passion for them is often expressed in yelling and arguments; they may love each other to distraction and the passion they have for one another is intense, but it’s still one where the expression of it comes out in conflict. You can love someone to pieces and still want to toss them into the next convenient volcano half the time. ��The same goes in the other direction; some people are less demonstrative in the traditional sense. It’s not that they don’t feel love or affection or pride for their partners or their family or friends, it’s just that they aren’t necessarily the type that express it outwardly or vocally. The “rough hands, soft heart” type or the stoic may be appealing to some, but may not work for you, especially if you’re someone who’s preferred form of communicating love and affection comes in the form of verbal affirmation or physical touch.

Fourth: what kind of partner are you looking for? Not in terms of long-term/short-term or monogamous/non-monogamous, kids/no kids, but the partner type who compliments you and fills in gaps, as you do the same for them.  

Think of it like class types in a game. Some folks know they’re a support-class and like being the providing the logistical, emotional or technical support for their partner, rather than being the one who’s leading the charge, and so they often want a partner who’s going to be more take-charge. Some people want a tank, someone who’ll run interference with the struggles and trials and tribulations of the world, clearing the path for them while they pursue the team goal. Some people want a mutual DPS or battle buddy, someone who’s gonna be right in the middle of the fracas with them, watching their back as the two glide with and around each other like two gracefully lethal dancers (or mutual Tasmanian devil-style whirlwinds of destruction).  

Battle couples (literal and metaphorical) get a lot of representation in pop culture – Buffy/Angel, Percy/Vex, Nick/Nora, etc. – but others are just as valid, just as real and just as desirable. Sometimes you want a Sam Gamgee more than an Aragorn or a Giles more than a Spike, an Essek to your Caleb.

Fifth: what are you willing to give up? What are you willing to sacrifice? What compromises are you willing to make in the name of making a relationship work?

This part is incredibly important, because every relationship is one of compromise. Every relationship you enter is going to require that you make significant changes to your life, make demands on your time and require investments of your energy and attention. All of that is going to have to come from somewhere.

One of the mistakes I see people make all the time is that they assume that getting A Relationship isn’t going to change their lives; they don’t recognize or make room for the ways that it’s going to change their day to day lives or the ways that it will force them to examine and adjust their priorities and goals. A lot of guys – especially guys with little relationship experience – often don’t realize at first that having and maintaining a relationship means that they won’t have as much time for some of the things they did when they were single. It’s not that they suddenly started dating Lady Killjoy, it’s that there’re only so many hours in the day and everything you decide to do comes at the cost of not doing something else. At the risk of an awkward metaphor, think of a relationship like owning a pet; there’s a need for care and feeding, for enrichment and ensuring that its needs are being met. They’re going to make demands on your time when it’s not convenient for you. There are inevitable emergencies that will cost you time, money and stress, and you can only prepare so much for these in advance. Not being ready for the responsibility and time costs can cause harm and damage the relationship, even if you don’t mean to.

Sixth: what do you see in your future? Do you see yourself living a life of travel and adventure? Material success? A member of a thriving and supportive community? Surrounded by multiple generations of family – children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.? If you know you want kids, what timeline are you looking at? If you know you don’t, are you willing to be up front with that or to take steps to ensure that biological children aren’t in your future?

You want to make sure you have an answer to this because you want to make sure that you’re with someone who is actually in alignment with this future. Even if you know you both want kids, the timeline at which you may want them can be a deal breaker. Some people want to have lots of kids right away, for many reasons. Some want to wait to have them later down the line. This is one area where there really can’t be a compromise, especially the longer the relationship goes on and time, biology and entropy takes their toll. Someone is going to have to bend, or else the relationship is going to have to end so that everyone can find a partner who is in alignment with them.

Last question: Where is the desire for the relationship coming from? Not the physical, chemical desire for your partner or even the desire for connection and companionship but the desire for the relationship? Is it coming from a place of scarcity and worry, where you feel like you need to find a relationship or risk losing something? Is it coming from a sense of obligation – whether to the person you’re currently seeing or to some more nebulous concept? Or is it coming from a place of inspiration, connection and curiosity – a feeling of “this person brings so much to my life that my life would be poorer without them, even when things suck and we’re both grinding our teeth to powder?”

This is more significant than you may realize. A lot of times, people go into a relationship – even with someone they care for – for the wrong reasons. The reasons may be a fear of loss, a fear of future loneliness, a sense of obligation (“I have to get married because that’s what men do”), or having something to prove – to themselves, to former partners, maybe just to the universe in general. These tend to be bad reasons to get into a relationship; you’re coming to them not because the person is right for you but because they’re the person who happened to be there when you decided that this needed to happen. And while those relationships can last… that doesn’t necessarily make them successful.

I’ve seen a lot of couples who, while they loved one another deeply, were in a relationship for the wrong reasons. That disconnect often ends up creating a canker at the heart of the relationship and one that often ends up stealing their joy and connection over time. Making sure that you’re with someone for the right reasons, rather than trying to avoid negative outcomes or fears, is one of the most important parts of making a relationship work – whether it’s short term or for the long haul, casual or deeply committed.

Answer these questions for yourself, and I think you’ll have a much better idea of what you want… and if you want those things with this lovely lady in particular.

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 am 15 female, and I am going through indirect rejection.

In middle school I have this best friend (male) and he confessed to me, but I couldn’t share those feelings at the time. Plus, I was not ready for dating. I did think about our relationship and whether or not I could be in a romantic relationship with him. This went on for a while. I started to gain feelings for him, but didn’t want to act on it since I wasn’t sure if it was only going to be a short time crush. I could not do that to him, so I waited more. I ended up doing homeschool starting freshman year, so I couldn’t see him anymore. A year later I see him at Wednesday church, and at first, I was excited. I have liked this guy for 2 1/2 years now, so it really broke my heart when I found out he has a girlfriend. She is freshman, who also goes to Wednesday church. She is a really good person, and I would 100% be her best friend. I even have both of their numbers. 

At first when I found out I was surprised and after a little thinking I had to go to the punching bag and get out all my anger/jealously and sadness. Which it did help for a little bit. After a few weeks it started to feel very suffocating, and I had to be away from them for a bit. Then that’s when I started to get into a bit of a slump. I went back and I felt much better. Still sad though. 

After several weeks I started to think about him less, but one night I had a dream about them and after that I could not stop thinking about him. This was a few days before Wednesday church. When I went to Wednesday church, I started uncomfortable being there and it really didn’t help when people started trauma dumping me. After that I felt really suffocated and couldn’t go back there for some time. A week and half I saw his girlfriend and I felt like I could not be near her, let alone look at her. Luckily, we did not interact. Also, before most of this happened, I was texting my crush to get to know more about him, but one day when I asked what his favorite color is he said talk to my lawyer. I saw this as a joke and kept texting him, but he finally said he felt uncomfortable. I didn’t understand why he said, even though I already have an idea. 

I was a little heart broken and he would not text me after that, but in public he played off cool. I am also pretending I do not like anyone yet, mostly because I don’t want him or the girlfriend to find out and ruin our friendship. I have no clue what to do and whether or not to tell him the truth or how to get closer to him. It seems like we are drifting apart, and he seems to want to put a wall between us.

Against All Odds

DEAR AGAINST ALL ODDS: Oh God, this is why the only thing I miss about being a teenager is my old metabolism

Ok, AAO, I’ll be honest: you don’t really want a lot of my advice here because most of it is going to sound dismissive and like I’m not taking you seriously. But as someone who’s feelings about particular girls in middle-school and high-school looked like the emotional equivalent of The Tower of Terror, I can tell you this from experience: you are 15 and while this feels incredibly dire and world-shattering, I promise you that this will pass. By this time next year, you’ll feel completely differently and within three to four years, you’ll look back and cringe at it.

But let’s be honest: “leave it alone and this will blow over” isn’t satisfying, nor is it terribly comforting, so while I want to reiterate that this isn’t nearly as bad as it feels, here’s what you need to know.

First, a pet-peeve: words have meaning and trauma dumping – like gaslighting, emotional labor, narcissism and other terms that’ve broken containment into popular usage – has a specific definition. Trauma dumping involves talking about traumatic experiences or events, in graphic and often excessive detail, at inappropriate times and with little care or concern for how this behavior might affect the people they’re telling it to. It involves someone massively oversharing with others, often unprompted, and usually without the other person’s consent.

(To give an example of actual trauma dumping, YouTubers like Natalie Wynn have talked about when strangers have gone into unprompted and off-topic monologues describing in explicit detail horrible things that happened to them while in the chat on her livestreams, to the point where she had to ban them because their constant description of awful experiences was causing serious harm for other viewers who had PTSD from related experiences.)

This is significantly different from things like venting or complaining, in no small part because venting tends to be brief, mutual exchanges about anger or frustration, not a detailed rundown of a particularly awful experience. Mislabeling wanting to get something off one’s chest or asking for input or support as ‘trauma dumping’ not only minimizes what trauma dumping is and the effects it has on others, but discourages people from seeking connection and reassurance from others.

Now getting back to your letter: part of the problem you’re having is that you created this situation yourself. When your friend told you that you had a crush on him, you basically left him hanging; there doesn’t seem to be any point where you ever drew a line and said “Hey, I’m sorry but I don’t feel that way/ I’m not ready to date anyone” and instead left it as an open question for everyone. When you did decide that maybe you liked him, you continued to not act on it and let the whole thing just simmer until you saw him again, at which point, he had moved on and you hadn’t.

The fact that you left this so up in the air – for yourself, more so than for him – is part of why your crush is causing you problems now. You spent all this time nursing a crush while not acting on it, which is part of why it has lingered. One of the things I tell people all the time is that crushes are like fires; if you feed them, they grow, if you leave them alone, they die out. If you’d given a firm “yes” or “no”, either when he first told you how he felt or when you started to have feelings yourself, you would have put yourself in a situation to process the crush and either been in a position to get over it or let your romantic relationship with him run its course. In either case, there would have been a distinct start and end-point to things, where you had more certainty of where you both stood.

Instead, you sat with this crush for years, during a time when you were dwelling on it but without any contact with your friend. This gave you apparently two and a half years (the timeline in your letter is a bit fuzzy) of building up this feeling and your relationship to him in your mind, to a point where reality was never going to be able to live up to what you hoped. So it’s not surprising that, when you finally saw him again for the first time in forever, you were blindsided by the fact that he hadn’t been waiting for you. Instead, you suddenly had a bucket of cold water dumped all over your dreams when you saw he had a girlfriend and – worse – she’s a genuinely nice person.

This is why I’m a firm believer in actually making a move – or giving a definite answer – when you’re interested in someone. The longer you spend nursing a crush without actually acting on it, the greater the odds that you’re going to find yourself in a position where you have intense feelings for someone who isn’t going to return them; the opportunity will have passed and now you have to deal with the shattered remains of your dreams.

Now, part of the reason why things have continued to be difficult is because of the way you’ve been avoiding things. The dream you had that retriggered those feelings wasn’t the issue; that’s just our brains being weird. Much like with sudden crushes, it’s a case of “leave it alone and it’ll blow over”. The feelings brought up by dreams are real and can be intense, but they rarely last when you just treat them as random feelings. Just noting and naming it for what it is, then redirecting your attention onto other topics makes it much easier to let those feelings fade. A simple “ugh, that was weird and now I’m going to feel weird for a day or two” does wonders in cases like this because you are acknowledging the feeling but also recognizing it for what it is: a passing thing that will go away on its own.

Unfortunately, you made things worse with the way you were handling things after that. I don’t know if you were consciously aware of what you were doing, but the combination of ignoring or blanking his girlfriend while also stepping up your conversations with your friend almost certainly gave the vibe that you were trying to angle your way in between them. By the time your friend said “you’ll have to address this to my lawyer” (which, credit where credit is due, is a legitimately clever line), your behavior had crossed a line where it was clear that you had an agenda beyond wanting to be close to him the way you had been before. I’m not surprised he was getting uncomfortable; it’s uncomfortable when it feels like someone’s trying to push themselves into your life. Especially when it feels like their goal is to edge out your girlfriend and take her place instead.

Now, here’s the part that is going to be important for you in the here and now: trying to breeze past all of this and pretend like nothing’s wrong is a mistake and it’s part of how you’ve ended up in this situation in the first place. You didn’t want to say anything before, which is what led to all of this happening. Continuing to not say anything is only going to make it worse and risks pushing things to the point where your friend is going to make it clear that he doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore.

Your friend is pulling back from you because you’ve made things awkward and uncomfortable. Not addressing this just lets it fester and become even larger and more awkward. What you need to do is be willing to face the discomfort and awkward feelings and actually call it out. I don’t think you need to state that you have a crush on your friend because that’s not the issue here; you don’t want to try to win him back, you want to make things right. That means giving a sincere apology for the way you’ve been behaving and addressing the why of it without making it something he needs to deal with. ��Besides, he almost certainly has caught on that you’ve got a crush on him based on the way you’ve been acting. And if he hasn’t, his girlfriend has.

You should go to your friend and say “Hey, I know I’ve been acting weird lately and it’s been making you uncomfortable and I’m sorry. I’ve been feeling weird and distant from you after I found out you had a girlfriend, and I let it get out of hand. If you’re willing, I’d like it if we can try to power through this awkwardness while I get over my feelings and we can be friends again.”

I’d also suggest having a similar conversation with his girlfriend. Tell her “I’ve been rude and distant with you because I’m honestly a little jealous that you’re with my friend. That’s not fair of me and I’m sorry. You’re a really cool person and I honestly think we could be friends. I’d like to get to know you better, if that’s ok with you.”

Yeah, it’s going to be hard to say all that. Yeah, it’s going to feel awkward as hell when you do. But here’s the thing: confronting the awkward is what kills the awkward. Part of why it all remains so uncomfortable is because nobody is willing to call it out for what it is. The desire to save face and not “ruin” your friendship by addressing the thing that all of you know is there and all of you are feeling is precisely what’s going to push you apart. If you swallow your pride, gather your courage and confront the situation directly – with an apology for your behavior and an honest request to be friends – then I think you’ll find that any awkwardness will be forgiven and forgotten and the three of you can move forward with a much better relationship than you have now.

And as a bonus: getting in the habit of addressing your feelings directly now instead of trying to pretend like nothing is wrong is going to make life a lot smoother and less complicated as you get older. Trust me: trying to pretend like you’re not feeling what you’re clearly feeling never works the way you hope. Being “cool” tends to create more problems than it solves; being comfortable with momentary discomfort makes it much easier to deal with things before they become big, friendship-wrecking situations.

Good luck.

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