DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m going through the hardest moment of my life so far, at 24 years old.

A few days ago, I ended my first-ever romantic relationship. It was her first too. We were together for almost two incredible years — genuinely the best years I could have imagined. We met in a way that felt like it was out of a movie, and the connection we had was beyond anything I thought was possible. It doesn’t feel real that it’s over. It feels like something inside me is dying.

So, what went wrong? Was it cheating? Fights? A lack of love or chemistry? None of that.

We were truly perfect for each other. We trusted each other completely, communicated well, and shared amazing chemistry. But in the end, it came down to our futures not aligning.

To give some context: I’m from a Western European background and have spent most of my life in the U.S., but I always dreamed of moving back to Europe as an adult. My girlfriend’s story is different. Her family is from Eastern Europe and has been working toward building a life in the U.S. for over a decade. She and her sibling are already here, and soon her parents will join them. But her parents will rely on them completely —financially, socially, and emotionally — due to the major language barrier and other challenges. That means that staying with her would mean committing to a life where we’d never really have an independent household. We’d never get the chance to build a life that was just the two of us.

I think I could have lived with that — just to keep her. But the bigger issue is that a future in Europe, something I’ve dreamed of for so long, would be off the table. I care deeply about European culture, lifestyle, and even the career opportunities there. My own parents recently moved back to Europe, and my brother likely will too. If I stay here, I’ll be left completely alone in the U.S., with no family outside of my in-laws.

We talked through every possible compromise. The truth is, the only time we’d realistically be able to move to Europe together would be after both of our parents had passed. And by then, it would be too late to live that dream with the people I love. Not to mention I have been under immense family pressure to “follow the family plan” that inevitably pounded these worries into my head. Not sure if that’s relevant. Maybe, maybe not but it is certainly one of my doubts.

These dreams of mine disappeared after meeting her. But over the past several months, they started to resurface, and I couldn’t ignore them. I’ve made the decision to return to school for a master’s degree in Europe next year before it’s too late; would that option still have felt open to me five years from now. For obvious reasons, it forced our hand. We broke up — mutually, but painfully. So painfully.

Now I’m left wondering: was it worth it? Did I just give up the one person who will ever love me completely for who I am? Will I ever love someone the way I loved her? Right now, I just can’t see it. But staying scared me just as much.

I am constantly daydreaming of ways we still end up together, because to be honest I can’t envision a future without her.

Please, help me make sense of all of this. I feel like I’m drowning.

Separate Ways

DEAR SEPARATE WAYS: I know this is going to sound insincere or like I’m not taking your pain seriously and I absolutely am. This really sucks and I empathize. What’s happening now is… well, unfortunately, it’s series of lessons that everyone learns eventually, and that you can only learn them hard way.

At the risk of sounding like I’m dismissing your feelings, what you’re experiencing is premature enlightenment. It hurts and it feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, in no small part because this is your very first love and you were feeling it so intensely precisely because it was your first. It was new, it was astounding, it was the first time you understand why poetry was important because that was the only way to put what you were feeling into words. And a feeling like that seems like it should be so incredibly strong, so incredibly important that no force in the Universe should be able to stand up before it.

And then you discover that this isn’t true. And that’s not even a slap to the face, that’s like someone has taken a sledgehammer to your chest. You’re knocked off your feet, you feel like your body has forgotten how to breathe and your limbs don’t seem to want to respond to your brain. The world has been turned upside down and what you thought was a fundamental law of the universe has been broken. How could this be? What kind of uncaring, capricious and cruel god could give you this feeling and then rip it away like that?

And that’s when you have learned: not every relationship is going to last forever, even when you both love each other to distraction. As much as it hurts and as unfair as it feels, love by itself isn’t enough to make a relationship work. This isn’t a case of anyone doing anything wrong or messing up. It’s not a matter of one or the other of you making the wrong choice or being selfish or whatever. There are wonderful relationships that ultimately have to end, simply because there was one factor that didn’t line up in such a way to make it possible to continue. And that’s what happened here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not the consequence of anyone’s actions. It’s just, well, life.

Here’s the thing you need to understand: love by itself isn’t enough to make a relationship last, but a relationship ending doesn’t mean that the relationship didn’t work. It’s not that you and your girlfriend weren’t right for each other. It’s that you were right for each other for that period of time.

Every single one of us is always growing and changing, every single day. When we’re in a relationship with someone, we are choosing to grow and change with them, and we do our best to ensure that we grow and change in ways that keep us together. But sometimes – many times, really – there comes a point where the way we’ve grown means that what was right for us at one part of our lives is no longer right for who we are and where we are now. You and your sweetie were perfect for one another in that golden time you had, but the people you are now are no longer the people you had been. Your needs are different and your circumstances have changed, which means what you have now doesn’t fit the way it did before. And that’s a shame. It really is. It hurts, and there’re few hurts quite like the first time you experience this. Few that hit you to the core of your being the way this pain does.

But the pain will fade. It doesn’t feel like it now, and it hurts so badly that you are absolutely, unquestionably sure that I couldn’t possibly understand it. It feels like nobody could feel this sort of loss and survive, never mind see a day when it doesn’t hurt this way. I promise you: it will ease in time. There is a day coming where you will be surprised to realize that it doesn’t hurt like it did, when you can breathe a little easier without that hitch in your ribs. You will be more surprised to notice it by its absence than by anything else. It may feel now like this day will never come, but I promise you that it is coming and sooner than you realize.

I want you to know this truth: this is not the end of love for you. The lesson you are learning now, the one that you won’t want to learn, is that this was not the only person you could love, nor the only person who could love you. There is no One, simply because there will be many Ones in your life, and each will be unique and each will be special because they will be the One for who you are in that moment. This relationship isn’t any less special because it didn’t end with the two of you dying in the saddle together. It’s not that you didn’t love each other enough to overcome this. It’s simply that this relationship reached its natural conclusion, and where the two of you were growing together, you are now going to grow separately, in your own ways and on your own paths.

It’s entirely possible that this isn’t the end for the two of you. There’s always the chance that your fates will intertwine again in ways that you can’t predict or see coming. But you can’t rely on that either. You need to accept that this love story, as wonderful as it was, has reached its final chapter, and its time for your next chapter to begin. Trying to hold onto it past its natural conclusion only holds you back and keeps you from the growth that needs to happen now.

Take time to mourn this loss. Something beautiful has come to an end and that deserves attention. It deserves the respect of your tears. It deserves the acknowledgement of the passing of an age. But in every ending, a new beginning is born. This new stage of your life like a phoenix – the burning flames are what enable the new growth to happen.

It will get better. The pain will ease and your heart will heal. There will be love in the future. It won’t be the same as this, but no love will ever be the same as the one before it. Each will be special and unique and wonderful and terrible in its own way.

The pain won’t last forever and the tears will dry. You’ll be ok. I promise.

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: I’m writing to you because I feel completely lost.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for over three years. I fell for him when he was this sweet, kind, slightly awkward guy who made me feel loved, safe, and seen. He was thin, a bit self-conscious, but that never mattered to me — I loved who he was, not how he looked.

About a year ago, he started going to the gym. At first, I was proud of him. He wanted to feel stronger and more confident, and I fully supported that. But slowly, it became everything. The gym is all he thinks about. He’s there constantly. He talks about nothing else. It’s like everything else — our shared interests, our time together, our emotional connection — just stopped mattering.

He’s changed. Not just physically, but emotionally. He used to be affectionate, thoughtful, and present. Now he’s distant, dismissive, and strangely arrogant. He tells me things like, “Now I’m the one who could open Tinder and be with whoever I want,” and constantly points out when other women stare at him or flirt. It doesn’t feel like he’s sharing — it feels like he wants me to feel insecure.

What hurts even more is remembering how deeply he used to feel things. Once, early in our relationship, we were watching a Marvel movie and I made an offhand comment about how I liked Captain America’s physique. It wasn’t meant as anything serious — just a silly compliment on a fictional character. But he got really quiet. Later he told me that it made him feel like he wasn’t enough. I remember holding him, reassuring him, telling him that I loved him just as he was.

That same man — the one who used to lift others up, who was generous with his words, who genuinely cared about people — feels like a ghost now. He’s not that guy anymore. He used to be humble and warm, always trying to make people feel better about themselves. Now he talks down to others, brags constantly, and acts like anyone who isn’t as obsessed with fitness is beneath him. He’s become a stereotype — the arrogant, crass, shallow “gym bro” — and it breaks my heart to say that.

Yes, more women look at him now. Yes, he gets attention. And he sees that as a reward. He likes it. But it’s like he doesn’t care that the version of him who truly meant something to me is slipping away. That version — the one I loved so deeply — is being erased. And I’m the only one mourning him.

I still love him. Or maybe I love the version of him I used to know. I don’t know if that man is still in there somewhere, or if I’m clinging to a memory. But I do know this: the man he used to be was everything to me. That man was my love.

What do you do when the person you love stops loving who they were — and you’re the only one who still does?

Sincerely,

Lost and Heartbroken

DEAR LOST AND HEARTBROKEN: It always sucks when it feels like someone we’ve cared about is slipping away, LaH, but it hits a little different when that person seems to not just have vanished but left a changeling or a pod person in their place.

It’s one thing when your partner is gone, no longer physically present in your life. Even with the gaps where they used to be, the fact that they’re not there makes it a little easier to move forward. The first day of their absence serves as a sort of marker, a delineation between the time before and after the end of the relationship.

It’s another thing entirely when they’re gone but still there. Whether they’ve clearly checked out or when it seems like they’ve just become someone different entirely, the fact that they’re still there physically – looking the same, but behaving so differently – is almost enough to make you question reality. Did you get Berenstained? Did you open the wrong door and find yourself on the wrong side of reality? Did your sweet babboo get infected with some weird memetic virus and now they’re just off? It’s like you can’t even mourn the loss because they’re both there and not there at the same time.

And to make matters worse, it’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder – just as you are now – what you can or should do about it. Do you hope that there’s a window where you can try to bring the version you remember back like Luke trying to convince Vader that there’s still good in him? Do you accept that the person you loved is different now and that the relationship you had is over? And why did it happen in the first place? Could you have stopped it, somehow, if you caught it early enough?

Well, I can answer the last one at least: probably not. This was something that likely was always going to happen, in some form or another. It was just a question as to when and what the trigger would be.

Now, there’s going to be an almost instinctual reaction to blame this in part on outside influences. A lot of bodybuilding forums and influencers have long been a breeding ground for toxic ideas about… well, everything, but especially ideas about manhood and masculinity. The Venn diagram of gym bro culture, crypto, grindset hustle culture and absurdly fragile masculinity is basically one very large overlapping circle. When there’s a continual push of “you’re not good enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not hustling enough, you should be doing more”, it’s easy to fall into a mindset that ends up just hurting you and isolating you.

This is especially when many fitspo and bodybuilder influencers are pushing out and out fraud by insisting that their steroid-enhanced physiques are strict natty, nothing but pure power of will and a diet of chicken breasts and whitefish. When their fans, who don’t have the assistance of trenbolone, don’t get the same results, they feel like they’re the ones at fault somehow.

It plays to the voice of your insecurities and fears, confirming everything you’re worried about and telling you that the answer is MAN EVEN HARDER THAN BEFORE, YOU LITTLE B--CH. The contempt it encourages for yourself quickly becomes contempt for other people too.  

And that honestly sucks. It turns something that’s an overall net good into something toxic. Working out, getting exercise, getting in shape are great. Taking care of your body and health is important! But when it becomes a way of keeping score, a way of saying “this makes me better than you”, instead of loving your relationship with your physicality… it curdles the soul and poisons the connections you have with the people around you.

But in a lot of cases, it’s not the influence of particular subcultures or communities that’s the cause. They’re the method, the path the change traveled, but not the trigger, not the initial infection. That was already there, embedded in the psyche like a bomb waiting for the signal to detonate.

I suspect the real issue was insecurity that your boyfriend had already, and the gym was the method he was using to try to alleviate that feeling.

There’s a lot of pressure on men from other men to look a certain way, to act a certain way, that you have to be a man in a very narrow, stringent and specific way. There’s an insistence that women are lying when they say they like dad bods or a diverse array of bodies because… well, because women lie, basically. And if you let that belief linger and fester, it’s very easy to find “evidence” that it’s true; any off-hand comment gets turned into “proof” that your partner is secretly disgusted by the fact that you don’t look like a walking balloon animal and dreams of their hero with the Marvel physique carrying them off one-handed. It doesn’t matter that you can like the bodies of celebrities or influencers or porn actresses and your girlfriend or wife; women only want one thing and that one thing involves more gains, more cutting phases and single-percentage body fat.

There’s also a lot of pressure �to see relationships as a battle for influence – who’s “in charge”, who’s got the higher “value”, who’s the more desirable – and that’s relationship poison, especially when you have that inherent insecurity. If you feel like your partner’s “out of your league”, that any attention they get is a threat to you, it’s not necessarily a surprise that when that turns into something bitter and resentful.

I think it’s likely that your boyfriend has always had this nagging feeling in the back of his head that he wasn’t good enough and that any relationship he had was haunted by the ticking of the clock counting down the minutes until his partner decided to “trade up”. Getting into the gym to get yoked may well have been less about wanting to be in shape for the sake of getting in shape and more about making that voice shut up. And there’re a lot of people looking for guys with precisely those sorts of insecurity, who’ll gleefully stoke those fires and encourage them to see their newfound physique not as an improvement but as a weapon to get revenge on the people who they blame for their insecurity.

And for someone who may have felt insecure and unsure, who always worried about the strength of his relationships and connection to his partners, who may not have had many friends or a community with care and support? That change can be heady. It’s easy to get caught up in that rush of power and feeling of potential, especially when there’re folks who are ready to hype him up about it. We talk about the zeal of the converted, and that is precisely the sort of thing that can happen when a guy finds the very thing that seems to fix their single greatest anxiety. They take to it with a level of enthusiasm and eagerness that, if left untampered, can easily become their entire personality.

I mean, God knows that back in my bad old days, when I was getting into the PUA community, I was becoming a serious asshole. Friends have commented on how dickish I had been acting at the time. I let it consume a significant portion of my life in no small part because it was the first time I felt empowered in an area of my life where I had always felt insufficient. Small wonder it f--ked with my head; a sudden rush of power, even if it’s mostly imagined, can be intoxicating.

So yeah, I suspect the real issue are the insecurities and little bitter feelings that your boyfriend may have been wrestling with. Those snide comments about being the hot one or getting attention are as much about saying “see how it feels?” to someone he may well perceive as never having felt that same insecurity or worry. After all, women have it so much easier, don’t you know?

But what do you do about it? Is this a permanent change, or is there some way to bring the guy you knew back? Well… yes and no. For some folks, there’s a wakeup call, some moment that, if it doesn’t snap them back to reality, at least puts them on the path of walking it back and finding a healthier way of managing those feelings. For others… well, not as much. Some people get so invested in this new side of themselves that the sunk-cost fallacy kicks in; they can’t let go without admitting that maybe they spent too much time and energy. Their ego won’t let them admit defeat or face the awkwardness of admitting they were wrong, so they have to throw more and more into it. For others, it was something that finally gave them permission to be who they always were at their core.

The thing to understand is that the only way someone comes back from this is that they have to decide to do so themselves. They have to have that moment where they say “hang on, I don’t like what this is doing to me” or where something makes them see the effect that these new behaviors are having on the people around them. Your influence here is ultimately your presence in his life. You can talk to him about how his behavior is affecting you, how your relationship is suffering because of it. You can ask friends to reach out and say “dude, you’re really acting like a dick, is everything ok?” In fact, I recommend that you do so, especially friends of his who aren’t part of his gymbro circle. But there comes a point where you have to ask yourself whether you’re going to want to stay in a relationship with someone who behaves this way.

How long are you willing to put up with this, if you knew that he wasn’t going to change? Another year? Six months? Two? If he’s changed to the point that he’s not the sweet guy you were dating and the guy you’re with now is cold and contemptuous to you… well, sometimes you have to be willing to love him and yourself enough to leave.

Now it’s certainly possible that losing you – as cocky as he is acting and s--tty as he’s behaving right now – may be the thing that slaps him across the mouth and makes him realize what his behavior is costing him. Realizing he’s at risk of losing a good thing may be what snaps him out of that haze and give him the motivation to actually look at his behavior and cringe. But it may not. He may decide that this is his sign to “trade up”. And if that’s the case… well, as much as it hurts, it’s better to have exited that relationship now rather than giving him more opportunities to slap at your own sense of self-worth.

If you do decide that breaking up is on the table, then do it without hesitation. Don’t linger, don’t hold it as a possibility; break things off quickly and cleanly and without the expectation that this is going to break the spell. If you don’t fully commit to ending the relationship, then all that’s happened is that you’ve told him that you’re not serious about how much this bothers you and that he can continue to treat you with this contempt and disrespect. It’s the complete break that’s often necessary to make someone realize how bad they’ve f--ked up. It’s the sudden absence that shocks people awake; the fade away is just gradual enough that they don’t even notice it until it’s too late. And by then, the affection and respect you both is usually gone too.

It’s a s--tty situation and I’m sorry you’re going through with it. Talk to him, ask his friends to talk to him… but decide if you’re willing to stay with who he is now, not the memory of who he used to be. A clean break will heal the fastest and hurt the least.

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: This is not a relationship question in the usual sense, but I´ve been reading along for a while now and I think you still may be the right address for this concern, so to speak. Long story short, my brother´s been making increasingly strange comments when it comes to feminism and the like, and I´m getting quite concerned. We are, just for context, both in our mid-thirties and he´s active in the gaming scene, so I suspect that´s where he´s picking this stuff up, but I don´t know for sure and I can´t ask, because he won´t tolerate any criticism of his views.

It started with comments about female characters in movies and games and how they were badly written, but when you criticize that you get accused of being sexist. Not knowing most of them I didn´t really say anything to that, although he seemed oddly defensive about the topic and somehow male characters were never mentioned as badly written – which I dismissed as coincidence, and maybe it was. Then he came up with this 80/20 principle thing that 80 percent of women are dating only 20 percent of all men and that´s why men are disadvantaged when it comes to dating.

I, partially thanks to this blog, am well aware of the context of this statement and also why it´s nonsense, so it was a red flag for me, but when I tried to point out that a glance at marriage statistics alone would contradict this idea I was, unsurprisingly, shot down. Then there was an incident where he got quite heated about how Gamergate is taught at a Danish (?) university now as a right-wing harassment campaign, which according to him is “leftist ideology gone too far” and “all lies”. His source is basically that he saw it happen in real time and since he didn´t see any harassment it didn´t happen.

Which brings us to a couple of weeks ago, where he told me, in the middle of an argument about why women are naturally worse at sports, that sexism doesn´t really exist and it´s all solitary incidences by a few assholes. When I pointed out, albeit quite snappily (not proud of that) that maybe, as a woman, I had a slightly more accurate perception on how prevalent this problem is, he reacted quite insulted, because he has female friends and he is aware of the topic, but also, women often use sexism as an excuse for not engaging with constructive criticism.

This is its own set of problems, but my question is actually something else: Am I right to be concerned that he´s getting in some MRA/Incel s--t or similar? And if so, and assuming we still have some kind of relationship after this calms down, how do I handle that going forward? Because despite all of this, I like my brother and he is generally a very kind and thoughtful guy, so I really don´t want to lose him to the darker corners of the internet.

Thanks for reading,

Fighting against Windmills

DEAR FIGHTING AGAINST WINDMILLS: I think you’re justified in feeling concerned, FAW. The far right has long been sliding into any space where disaffected young men – men who very understandably feel lost or confused or frustrated or isolated – tend to gather and spend a lot of time, because they see it as prime ground for recruiting people to their cause. This is hardly the stuff of speculation or paranoid fantasy; leaving aside that this has been the MO of white supremacists since forever (see also: Blood In The Face), but people like Steve Bannon have openly talked about exploiting things like Gamergate as an entry for reaching an audience that was primed for messages that explained how the world was cheating them of everything they were due.

I’m admittedly a little bemused that he seems to be stuck on right-wing talking points that’re more than a decade old at this point (did he also complain about Anita Sarkeesian?), but then again, it’s not as though these are rational arguments. If you refuse to be distracted by the gish-gallop tactics and the attempts to change topics mid-discussion and insist on them getting into the nitty gritty of what they mean, it becomes clear very quickly that the arguments are the jingling keys of right-wing grievance grifting; it’s just enough to focus their attention without actually thinking too hard about it. It’s all argument by assertion without actual structure behind it; it’s all intended to make people on both sides angry and upset. For the proponents, the anger is to keep them motivated; for the people disputing it, the anger is to fluster and distract so they aren’t able to respond effectively.

In fact, that tends to be one of the more effective ways of shutting down the conversation; refuse to be distracted by the subject changes and insist on drilling down into the details and examples. The key is to not concede anything� – no concurring with “well, I’m sure we can agree that…” or “surely you can see that some of these claims have merit”. This is an attempt to shift the middle by appealing to people’s desire to be reasonable and to assume that the other side is arguing in good faith instead of regurgitating pre-chewed arguments that have less structural integrity than a soggy piece of toast. By not allowing the person to start by setting terms, you refuse to let them control the debate. It’s similar to a particular debate-bro “argument”, where a guy trying to force an argument about LGBTQ rights or economic stability is stymied when the other person simply rejects the entire premise that it’s a binary choice. Notice how the interlocutor gets flummoxed; he doesn’t have a meaningful argument if the other person doesn’t first agree to the underlying foundation that you can only have one or the other.

By not agreeing with even the initial premise or their framing, you force them to have to build the foundation of their argument from first principles rather than being able to pull a rhetorical ‘well, if you agree to this, then logically, you have to agree to this other thing”. Debate bros love to try to pull this because it plays into people’s desire to be, if not ideologically consistent, to at least seem like they’re coming to it from a reasoned position. If you don’t take the bait, you effectively remove their entire arsenal, They’re not arguing from a position they actually have thought out, they’re following a flow-chart and they’re lost without it.

Remember, that this is argument by assertion, without actual structure behind it. It’s all intended to make people on both sides angry and upset. For the proponents, the anger is to keep them motivated and keeping them on the “correct” side; for the people disputing it, the anger is to fluster and distract so they aren’t able to respond effectively. If you don’t get angry, it’s much harder to distract you. If they can get you to lose your cool, it becomes a lot easier to force you to have to defend the next assertion while you’re still trying to correct the previous one. So, as the saying goes: the only way to win is not to play. Or at least, not to play by their rules. Concede nothing, including the authority of the people he cites. If he makes a claim that a study says X or authority says Y, ask him to show you. He’s relying that you won’t actually check, so asking for proof throws him off his game. If he says “look it up”, then tell him “Well, I won’t know if it’s the one you mean, so why can’t you just show it to me?”  Most of the time, the studies either don’t exist or don’t say what the person claims it says, so making him actually cite and show his sources takes away his appeal to authority, while also breaking his momentum.

Throwing them off their stride is actually important. By breaking the momentum and not playing the game they expect, you force them into discussions that they’re not prepared for. This is why it’s more effective if you play dumb, rather than responding with anger or heat. Much like how responding to racist or sexist jokes with “…I don’t get it” or “why is that funny?”, asking them to explain how women in games or movies are badly written forces them to actually defend their position. And once you can point out how those same complaints apply to men – the fact that Rey and Luke Skywalker follow the exact same character arc is a classic example – the argument almost always comes down to “well, because girl.” The same thing applies to why a character has to have a “reason” to be queer in a story but not to be straight; why does someone need a “reason” to have a particular sexuality at all if that sexuality isn’t directly relevant to the plot?

(The really fun part comes when you can trap them in the Thermian argument; all story ultimately comes down to choices the writer made and any in-universe justification is, likewise, down to the writer’s decisions, and so really they’re just arguing in defense of bad writing.)

Again, the key is to avoid veering into “making X argument means you’re sexist”, which is the reaction they want, and instead, just asking “but why is this a problem?” and “so why isn’t the reverse also true?”

These tactics apply to the whole “80/20” issue too. Don’t accept the validity of the claim in the first place and ask to see the actual source. Then proceed to ask questions about why this is a problem and why it only applies to women and not to men. After all, don’t men also choose who they want to date? Does your brother attempt to date every single woman he encounters, including ones he doesn’t find attractive? Would it be reasonable to say that he rejects 80% of the women he meets simply by not trying to date them in the first place? If the 80/20 thing were true, then what’s the solution? If women should be willing to give more men a chance, then doesn’t that mean he should be giving more women a chance?

You can even apply this “no, wait, I don’t understand, can you clarify it?” to his arguments about harassment. Why does he have to see it happen in front of him for it to be real? If harassment didn’t happen in GamerGate because he didn’t see any, does it then follow that all harassment only exists if he personally observes it? It reverses the rhetorical trap that the debate bros want to try to trick you into by forcing him to defend a patently absurd position. If he says ‘yes’, then the next question is “does this mean that all crime doesn’t exist unless you see it?”.

At the same time, however, you also want to appeal to his desire to seem reasonable; if he argues that women would call anything a man says that they disagree with sexist, you might make the point that as a rational and sensible person, wouldn’t he agree that if someone who isn’t affected by sexism makes an argument that something isn’t sexist, that this claim should fall under greater scrutiny and skepticism? If he says “no”, then again, ask why that’s the case and what his reasoning would be. Why would that be true but only in one direction?

Remember, they want you to leap to the “you’re sexist” part, so they can argue that you’re being unreasonable or just trying to shut the conversation down and/or proving their point. Then they have you on the defensive, which means they now control the framing of the argument. Not giving them that option and not giving them the fight they want and instead just needing more clarification leaves them punching into Jello. It’s the Argument Clinic gambit and it’s almost shocking how well it works.

As an aside: I highly recommend Medi Hasan’s “Win Every Argument” as a primer on how to have discussions like this in effective ways and without falling for particular debate tactics or making all too common mistakes, as well as how to de-escalate and defuse tension.

Now, I realize that I’m focusing a lot on the weakness of their arguments and the ways they try to lead you down certain rhetorical paths, and you don’t want them to control the framing of the discussion. But the point isn’t to out-argue your brother, simply because you aren’t going to debate him out of this cycle. It’s important to remember that you aren’t going to be able to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place. They started from a place of emotion – often, but not always, aggrieved entitlement – and back-filled the reasoning from there.

Because this was an argument made from emotion, it tends to be an issue that’s pretty tightly connected to their sense of identity and often to in-group membership. Challenging them by saying “you’re wrong and here’s why,” tends to make them double down, simply because it’s a threat to their identity. As Dale Carnegie famously said: “You have made him feel inferior, you hurt his pride, insult his intelligence, his judgment, and his self-respect, and he’ll resent your triumph. That will make him strike back, but it will never make him want to change his mind. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

And to be clear: the folks who’re leading him down this path understand this. That’s part of why they want you to react with anger and to accuse him of being a bad person for precisely this reason. They want him to feel like the aggrieved one, so that he feels like he is right and to not think very hard about it. It’s much easier to let logic flaws go by when you are coming to a place of “I’m right and everyone else is unreasonably attacking me”. That sense of persecution helps put you in a mindset where you’re just not going to look too closely at what you’re actually arguing for.  

You can, however, lead him to change his own mind, by leading him to the point where he has to actually ask questions about what he’s saying, what he believes and why. By forcing them to explain things and refusing to engage on their terms, they have to make the argument to themselves… which quickly tends to reveal the cracks and unfortunate questions that they don’t want to face.

After all, many – if not most – folks with bigoted views don’t like seeing themselves as bigots, which is why they are willing to accept even the flimsiest of covers that they can then pretend is a reasoned and sensible rationale. When you make them have to actually explain things without the short-cut of accepting their definitions or inferences or even the assertion that they’re just reasoning with you, it quickly becomes obvious that the ultimate argument is, well, bigotry. And because he is the one who brings himself to that conclusion, it’s far more effective. It won’t change his mind immediately, but it will plant the seed that can lead to that change in time.

A last thing to keep in mind that if this is a relationship you want to keep, then you want to have firm but fair boundaries. You want to strike the balance of making him feel that those beliefs are uncouth and unacceptable at best, while also giving him room to back down. The reason why a lot of people have a hard time leaving toxic situations – whether it be an abusive relationship or s--tty social communities like the incel community or QAnon or GamerGate – is because they’re afraid of the feeling of embarrassment and humiliation that they may have to face. This is one more reason why it’s important to avoid responding to the rage bait or calling him out as sexist or bigoted if you are going to discuss the topics. If he feels like there’s no way to back away from those views without some measure of grace and forgiveness, then he’s disincentivized from doing so. This is the opposite of what you want.

However, past a certain point, arguing, even when using some of guides I mention, is an act of frustration and futility that only serves to waste your time and energy. Which is part of the point; the people who spread these views want to grind you down until you don’t have the energy to respond any further. So simply refusing to engage becomes its own response. But as I said: if you want to keep a relationship with your brother, then there has to be a balance between behavior you won’t tolerate and reminding him that he’s still family and you’re there for him if and when he’s ready to back away from this bulls--t.

This can be a difficult stance to maintain, especially if he’s the sort who’s aggressive and evangelistic about it. But you can, for example, inform him that you will absolutely refuse to engage with him on those topics and will walk away from the conversation if brings them up, even vaguely. And then you have to be willing to do so – to literally walk away, hang up or otherwise end the interaction when he crosses that line.

If and when he’s ready to either listen or to let go of those beliefs, let him do so without commentary. That last part is critical. If he doesn’t feel like he has a way out that will allow him a measure of dignity, he won’t take it. Similarly, the last thing you want is to penalize him for the behavior you want to see. Saying “well, thank god you quit being stupid” or “it’s about time” is functionally slapping him for doing what you were asking for in the first place, and it’s more likely to discourage him from trying again than to teach him a lesson. It’s better to forgo having the last word and instead to reaffirm that you’re glad he’s back.  

I understand how frustrating it can be. Believe me, I can understand the desire to beat him about the head and shoulders with the Chair Leg of Truth until you crack his skull enough to let reason back in. And I can absolutely relate to wanting to break down every argument so thoroughly that there is no universe in which he could pretend to have been correct. But a lot of those impulses are ultimately counterproductive if you want a chance to walk him back from the edge and keep him as your brother. Set boundaries, refuse to engage – either on his terms or at all – and give him room to back down with grace. Hopefully this will end up being an uncomfortable blip in an otherwise good relationship with him.                                   

Good luck.

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