DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I don’t even know where to start.

I’m just an average guy. I don’t stand out physically. I’m not tall, I’m not ripped, and I don’t have a jawline that can cut glass. I used to think personality mattered — that if I was kind, interesting, and genuinely cared about a woman, that would mean something. But then came Tinder. And TikTok. And now I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore.

Tinder destroyed my confidence.

It’s like playing a game where you’re never allowed to win. I’ve swiped for years, gotten barely any matches, and when I did, they rarely led anywhere. I started to notice the kind of men who did get matches. They weren’t like me. They were all cut from the same mold — tall, lean or jacked, model-tier looks. It didn’t seem like women were looking for variety at all. The same faces, the same bodies, over and over again. If women really had diverse preferences, wouldn’t we see more average guys succeeding on these platforms?

But that’s not what happens.

I keep seeing these videos on TikTok — some shredded guy walking shirtless and women just stare. They can’t help themselves. These guys don’t need to speak. They just exist and get validated for it. Meanwhile, I’m invisible. I have to open, impress, prove my value, and hope I’m not just another guy in her DMs she’s entertaining until Chad texts her back.

Is this just how evolution wired things? Did nature design women to only be attracted to a handful of “genetically superior” males? Is being hyper-muscular or even using steroids the only way to matter now? Is that the price we pay to even be seen?

Being a man feels like losing. Like no one gives a damn how I feel. Like if I complain, I’m just whining. If I talk about this stuff, people tell me to “man up” or accuse me of hating women. But I don’t. I just feel forgotten. Unseen. Unwanted.

I want to believe love exists. I want to believe there’s someone who could love me — not some idealized version of me. But I’m tired. I’m tired of pretending I don’t care. I’m tired of competing just to be noticed. I’m tired of having to be more while it feels like others get to be enough just by showing up.

Does any of this even make sense? Or am I just broken?

Sincerely,

Tired and Invisible

DEAR TIRED AND INVISIBLE: My guy, this one is easy. This is a case of you assuming a whole lot of facts that aren’t in evidence and drawing conclusions based on what you already believe. What you’re seeing isn’t a preponderance of evidence that you’re just f--ked by evolution, it’s you saying “Well, I think X about myself, so this MUST prove that I’m correct,” without bothering to actually think about things.

And look, I get it. When you’re at a low point – especially when you’ve been in that low point for so long you could apply for voting rights and a new driver’s license – it’s easy to assume that the worst that you believe is true. But that’s just confirmation bias and continuing to seek out s--t that “proves” what you think as a form of emotional self-harm. It’s just – say it with me now – masochistic epistemology: truth hurts, so if it hurts, it must be true.

It’s not true though. It’s just you punching yourself in the dick and saying the universe did it.

Let’s start with the most obvious: you’re acting like being “average” is bad, as opposed to your being dead bang in the middle of the bell curve with the majority of the population. Being average is the state of being in the largest group of people. You are, by definition normal and mainstream! If “average” people couldn’t fall in love or be loved, couldn’t date or get laid, the human race would have died out long before we ever left the savannahs. You don’t need to be “exceptional” to date and not everyone who dates is exceptional. They can’t be, again, by definition. The root word “exception” is right there in the word.

The things that you list that supposedly make you undesirable are the qualities that other men think make men attractive and what they respond to. It’s dudes projecting their own feelings onto women instead of actually paying attention to what women say or think because they don’t think women have enough awareness or agency to know themselves.

The next thing is that you’re looking for “proof” without understanding what you’re looking at and what it supposedly proves. Not succeeding on dating apps doesn’t actually tell you anything except that you’re not succeeding on dating apps. You aren’t getting anything that says why and instead you’re relying on your prior beliefs to explain it. You could, for example, just not be good at writing a dating profile. Your pictures – and let’s be real here, this is true of most cis straight men – could suck. The way you behave on the apps can affect whether you’re promoted or downgraded in the algorithm; the tactic of swiping right on everyone, for example, suppresses your profile.

And that’s before we get into the mechanics of the apps themselves – from the algorithms that control who sees you and when to the fact that the apps are designed to frustrate you so that you’ll pay more money to be (theoretically) less frustrated. And that is before we get into things like the way that Tinder has a massive gender imbalance, where there are 3 men for every 1 woman – and that’s even assuming that all the female-run accounts are either active or have a human behind them at all. It gets even lower if you factor in bots, sex workers, pig-butchering scams and bait-and-switch ads. You are, under the best of circumstances, looking at a very small pool of potential matches, many of whom never see your profile in the first place and even more which get overwhelmed by the firehose of s--tty attention that drains their interest in even participating on the apps.

None of that has anything to do with your being undatable or undesirable.

I would also note that you’re making a whole lot of bad assumptions about the people who are getting matches on there. Tinder is rather famously tight lipped on these, and I’m willing to bet cash money that your data on “the kind of men who get matches” are from dubious “experiments” and unverifiable, citation-needed claims made on subreddits and random videos. But they hit your despair just right, so it feels like it should be true. The line “we should be seeing average guys succeeding on these platforms” is kind of telling: how do you know average guys aren’t succeeding? Do you have secret insider data direct from Tinder or is it – as with most things – a case of “well, I’m not succeeding and other people are complaining about it, so it must be true”? Because if you’re honest, I’m willing to bet it’s the latter. It’s all biased thinking and confirmation bias and frustration, not fact. “Surely if this were true…” is not a reliable base for comparison, especially when you’re not accounting for a whole host of other issues.  

Which also brings me to the TikTok videos you’re talking about, involving people gawking at hot people. Which… yes, folks gawk at people they think are hot. This isn’t unique to anyone of any gender and sexuality. If you’re going to tell me that if you saw Sabrina Carpenter and Dua Lipa walking down the street in low-rise jeans and a bikini top, you aren’t gonna stop and stare, I’m going to call you a lying liar who lies. But, weirdly, the fact that absurdly conventionally attractive people exist and walk among us with two arms like Donald Sutherland, doesn’t preclude folks who aren’t supermodels from getting laid or finding dates. The fact that people behave like that in videos isn’t a sign of what women ‘actually” want, any more than Playboy magazine meant that “average” women can’t find husbands.

But once again, you are drawing a whole lot of ‘facts’ from minute long videos, videos that depict a very brief and specific moment in time. You know literally nothing else except what’s in that video – nothing about the person, what they do, what their lives are like. You are making assumptions and deciding they “must” be true based on reinforcement from other guys who also want to believe it. I mean, we can even start with the idea that these dudes “just exist”, as though they came out of the womb looking like Jack Ransom, as opposed to putting in absurd amounts of effort to look a particular way for years before they went strutting around the video. We know people don’t look like that normally because even the most jacked celebrities you can think of don’t look like that when they’re not on camera. So many people, from Jason Momoa to Stephen Amell to Channing Tatum and Zac Effron have talked about the amount of work it takes to be ‘camera ready’, the misery of it all and how briefly they stay like that. S--t, tabloids mock these guys when they show up at the beach looking like dudes who are decently fit but not dehydrated and starved to single digit percentage body fat.

And seeing as you’re not actually, y’know, accessing their inboxes, you have no idea what kinds of messages they’re getting and from whom, nor the experiences they’re having when it comes to dating, the work they put in, any of it. All of it – all of it – is in your head. It’s just you and your jerk brain inventing s--t to make you feel bad while you listen to other dudes telling you the same thing because they need you to feel as bad as they do.

But I’d also be interested in knowing where you’re experiencing people telling you to shut up or that you hate women, what they’re saying specifically and what you’re saying first. I’d also want to know whether they’re saying it to you specifically or you’re just extrapolating based on random people’s posts or videos. Because, to be perfectly blunt: I’ve seen a lot of dudes taking videos and posts made by strangers that aren’t about them in the slightest and making it about them just because it fit their personal narratives.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’re getting these responses directed at you, specifically, in those words, online.

Cool. So you’re dealing with assholes. Maybe – just maybe – venting to strangers on social media isn’t going to be the best way to get validation on a topic, especially when context gets flattened and nuanced gets lost on every social media platform. The whole “I like waffles”/”so you’re saying you hate pancakes” meme is a meme because how inevitably it happens. S--t, do you remember when a woman got blasted to hell because she had the temerity to talk about enjoying coffee in the morning with her husband?

If you’re looking for a place to vent your feelings and get reassurance, might I suggest that it would be better to talk to your friends or – better yet – find a counselor to talk to? There may even be group therapy, where you can talk with other folks who have similar issues, but in a structured and supportive environment, instead of hoping that random strangers on the Internet are going to tell you that you’re right instead of reading whatever the f--k they want into what you say. Or, for that matter, your not reading what you want into what other people are saying.

The solution to your problem is pretty simple: you stop doing the thing that keeps making you miserable. If it hurts every time you punch yourself in the dick, the solution isn’t to complain about all the people who don’t feel pain, it’s to stop punching yourself in the dick. So delete your TikTok and YouTube accounts and quit going to the subreddits, Discord servers and other s--tty communities that keep telling you that women only want Studly Goodnight and if you don’t look like one of the Saja Boys, you may as well just top yourself now. Not spending all your time online in places telling you that you suck and not seeking out things that tell you that you suck is going to go a long, long way towards not feeling like s--t all the time.

I’d also suggest deleting Tinder, Hinge and all the other apps while we’re at it, because right now it’s pretty clear that all that any of them do is make you miserable. If you’re not getting dates anyway, not getting dates and getting dick-punched isn’t exactly a value-add.

I’d also suggest that you find people who actually love and support you – in person – rather than looking for validation from strangers online. That includes people who’re willing to say “that’s rough, bud” on occasion, but who will also call you on your bulls--t when you’re just wallowing for no reason but to wallow.

The last thing I would suggest is that you start working on yourself. I don’t mean “hit the gym and get on Tren, flabb-o”, I mean that it’s time to start picking up some hobbies and interests that feed your soul and make you feel great. These should be hobbies that you actually like, not ones that you think are going to make you popular or that women want. Just as importantly, you want to look for opportunities to participate in those hobbies with other people; that will bring you in contact with people who also love those hobbies, which is an immediate point of commonality – something that will help you start making new friends.

And if you want to feel like you stand out, then start cultivating things that will actually help you stand out. Learning to cook and cooking for your friends, volunteering and organizing for worthy causes… all of these will go a lot further for helping you meet people who you would want to date and who would want to date you than shaking your fist at the Chad in your head.

Feed your soul and pay attention to what you feed your brain. Quit trying to “prove” your worst fears and focus on building a life for yourself that you love. That’ll change things for the better and make you happier in the process.

Good luck.

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

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been reading your recent columns about flirting, but I don’t think I’ve seen an answer to my question so here goes: why can’t I talk or flirt with people I’m attracted to? 

I have a ton of friends who are women who are shocked that I’m still single because they all think I’m a ladies’ man who’s always flirting with people around me, but I’m just being normal with them. Meanwhile, when I try to chat up someone on Hinge or Tinder or I take your advice and try to talk to someone when I get coffee, it feels like pulling teeth. I know I can be funny because my friends laugh at my jokes all the time, but if it’s a stranger that I want to ask out to a movie, I strike out hard.

My brain goes blank, I slip up and use the wrong words or get stuck trying to remember basic facts like place names or actors, my jokes fall flat and I get blank looks if I try to tell them I think they’re cool. Why do people think I’m flirting when I’m not, but don’t think I’m flirting or respond when I am? Why am I funny and apparently cool 90% of the time, but never when it matters? 

Michigan J. Frog

DEAR MICHIGAN J. FROG: This one’s easy, and you nailed it in the last line of your letter. The issue isn’t that you can’t flirt or don’t know how to talk to women. It’s not that you can’t flirt. Your problem is that you behave differently when it feels like it matters.

That’s the entire thing. You are flirting. You do it all the time, and it seems that you’re pretty damn good at it. After all, you’ve got your coterie of friends who are legitimately shocked that you’re single and struggling to mingle.

The reason why they’re shocked is that they don’t have 24/7 access to your unfiltered thoughts the way you do, so they’re not seeing the divide between what you think is normal behavior and what you think of as flirting. And that’s the issue: you’ve created this artificial distinction between “normal behavior” and “flirting”, without realizing that the behavior is exactly the same. The only difference is context – in this case, the context of “well, these are my friends” vs. “this is someone I’d like to maybe possibly get naked with”.

When you’re with your friends, you’re relaxed. You don’t feel pressure to perform or that you have to do things to “earn” their approval or affection. You know they love you and you love them and you feel comfortable and secure. There’s no sense of risk, because you know that if you make a joke that just drops like a rock, the worst that’s going to happen is that you’re going to get some groans and eye-rolls. You’re not worried that you’re going to alienate them or lose their affection, and so you can relax, take chances and generally just be your most authentic self.

But when you’re talking to someone you might like to date… suddenly there’re stakes. Suddenly you’re invested in this interaction and need it to play out perfectly. You’re motivated to play it safe because you’re afraid of losing this potential match, and so you don’t have the same edge or confidence you would with your friends. And that’s the problem. You’re trying to be likeable, but you’re not sure you can show your true self, so you end up aiming for “blandly acceptable”. It’s a little like going to Applebee’s: it’s inoffensive and broadly adequate, but you’re not going to find folks who are excited to go to Applebee’s, instead of saying “yeah, I guess that works”.

But “Yeah, I guess that works” isn’t what someone is looking for in a date. They’re looking for something that they want to be excited for. You’re dulling your spice and watering down your flavor and focusing far more on earning their approval instead of letting them know who you are and trusting that either they’ll be into that, or show that they’re just not a good match for you.

You’re not trusting that people will like you for your authentic self, and so you are coming to these conversations with an eye towards avoiding rejection instead of finding a connection. It’s so much easier with your friends or when you don’t care because you’re not invested in the outcome. When you’re focused on not getting rejected, you get stuck in your head – you alternate between playing it so safe as to be bland and overthinking things, so that you aren’t nearly as relaxed or jokey as you would be with your friends.

So there are a couple things you need to do. First, you need to start trusting in your own appeal and desirability. If you can’t believe that women will like you for who you are, you’re never going to feel secure in showing them who you are. You’ll be too hung up on trying to present them with something you think will be acceptable, when you need to be willing to risk – even invite – rejection. Rejection in these cases is protection; you want to be rejected by the people who aren’t right for you. You have to have a mindset of “I want them to like me for me; if I’m not what they want, then we’ll never work anyway.”

The second thing is that you need to treat these conversations like they don’t matter. Instead of thinking of it as you trying to convince these women to like you, think of it as “well, this doesn’t ‘count’” and let yourself behave as though you know that there aren’t consequences for failing or f--king up. You know… like when you’re comfortable and hanging out with your female friends.

This always sounds like woo-woo-manifesting but it’s honestly a little closer to the Jedi mind-trick. When you’re focused on the outcome, you’re coming from a place where you think you can fail. It’s a lack of trust in yourself, in the people you’re talking to, and in the possibility that they might like you. But if you assume that they like you and thus you can’t fail – the way you can’t fail with your friends, not really – then your entire demeanor changes. You give yourself permission to joke and tease and banter and flirt and to express yourself honestly. Your body language is open and more confident, your eye contact is stronger and your smile is warmer. You relax, you take bigger swings and show more of your true self without worrying about being judged harshly. You show your true personality and let the little things that make you uniquely you shine through.

And because you’re behaving in a more confident, more authentic and friendlier manner… people respond to it positively.

Just as importantly, though, is that you’re giving yourself permission to use the power you’ve always had inside. It’s always been there; you just never realized that this what you needed to do. You’re not showing them your Dating Self, you’re showing them your authentic self. That person is who your friends think is so awesome. That person is why your friends are surprised you’re still single. That person needs to be allowed to shine, because that’s the person people will be dating.

Now, it does take effort to unclench and to train yourself to think of strangers as old friends that you’ve just met. But that’s a matter of practice and reinforcement; the only way to get better at it is to do it, frequently and consistently. But the more you get in the habit of detaching yourself from the outcome, getting a case of the ‘f--k its’ and behaving with these special, sexy somebodies the same as you do your friends? You’ll find that your jokes hit like a truck, your bon mots get a better reaction and your Saturday nights will start being a lot busier.

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 a situation that’s been bugging me for a while now. I’m a 38-year-old guy, pretty well put-together, decent job, in decent shape, emotionally intelligent, and I know how to treat people well. I’m not out here looking for some kind of validation, but I’ve been in the dating game long enough to know when something just doesn’t add up.

Here’s the issue: I seem to only ever attract women who aren’t my type and certainly not people I would choose for a date. The women who seem to be the most into me are the ones I have zero attraction to. They’re co-workers, casual friends and friends of friends, people I spend time with and talk to but I’m not interested in, yet they are clearly VERY into me. They’re the ones who text me first, make plans, go out of their way to spend time with me. I don’t get it. There’s no spark, no connection, and I’m not exactly doing anything to encourage them. I’m not going to pretend to be someone I’m not just to make someone feel good. I talk to them normally, I’m polite and friendly and I make all the appropriate noises when they tell me about their day, but I’m not giving them any signals. 

The women I actually like? It’s a nightmare. It takes a ton of work on my part to keep the conversation going and I’m always feeling like I have to chase after them to make plans. I’m having to propose dates weeks or months in advance if I have any hope of fitting into their suddenly packed schedules and all the traveling they have to do for work or family. If we DO have plans, it’s a coin flip as to whether we’re actually going to go out or if something “comes up” at the last minute. These are all women I’ve matched with on dating apps or met at speed dating events or who we specifically talked about going on a date, so it’s not just that I’m hitting on women at random. I’m making this effort but they treat me like I’m just one guy in a long list of options. I feel like I’m the one constantly doing all the chasing, trying to impress, trying to make something happen, and it’s exhausting. It’s like I’m playing hard to get, but for the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, the women I’m not remotely interested in are practically throwing themselves at me. It’s maddening.

I’ve had my share of relationships. Two lasted more than a year, a couple of short-term ones that didn’t work out. I’m not afraid of commitment, I’m not some no-b--ches internet incel dweeb who doesn’t know what he’s doing and I put in a lot of work to be and look my best. I’m just trying to figure out why the women I want seem to be so hard to reach, while the ones I don’t are the ones practically camped outside my door.

This has been going on for YEARS and frankly, it’s messing with my head. What does it say that these women who I don’t like think they have a shot with me, but the ones I know are right for me are treating me like I’m an option at best? 

At this point, I feel like I’m out here doing everything right and still getting nowhere. Any advice would be appreciated because, honestly, I’m getting pretty sick of the whole thing.

Sincerely,

Frustrated, Frantic and Fed Up

DEAR FRUSTRATED, FRANTIC AND FED UP: You’re in luck, F3. A lot of the time, I’d suggest that maybe the problem is illustrated by calling other people “no b--ches internet incel dweebs” and your overall attitude of “what does it say that about me that these uggos think they have a chance?” and call it a day.

Recently, however, I’ve been working with a few clients who have been having issues with chasing after women who never seem to have time for them, or whose type don’t seem to dig them back, so the subject has been top of mind for me lately. And since more than a few folks seem to be wrestling with this lately, this seems like a good opportunity to dig into it.

If we leave your attitude aside for the moment, it’s pretty simple: you’re chasing after these supposedly unavailable women because they’re unavailable. It’s quite literally a matter of your chasing after them because they’re running from you; if they were “attainable”, you wouldn’t be fighting as hard for them. If anything, you’d probably not find them nearly as attractive.

In general, people have a tendency to want things that we can’t have. The harder it is to get, the more frantic people become in their pursuit. We’ve seen this play out over and over again with consumer products – the tumblers, cameras, accessories, makeup or fashions that get popular on TikTok, limited edition toys or shoes or gew-gaws that sell out in seconds and then go for insane markups on eBay or resale sites. If it were common and easy to get ahold of, it wouldn’t have nearly the same allure as something that seems to be just out of reach. 

The elevated and often exaggerated value of these things isn’t intrinsic, as much as it is in how much other people want them. The products themselves may be quite good – those always-on-backorder Fujifilm cameras are pretty damn tight – but it’s the fact that everyone wants them but nobody can get them that makes them extra special. They’re both status symbols – “look at my ability to get this exclusive thing” – and markers of being, if not in the “in crowd”, at least an attempt at being in the know and a la mode.

So it is with women. A lot of guys get hung up on chasing after particular women, not because they like them specifically, but because they think that having those women would be a status boost. The harder it is to “get” them, the more special they must be; the “challenge” of it all means that the relationship is more about “look at what this says about me!” rather than “this person is special of who she is.”

Needless to say, this is the definition of objectifying; the woman in question is less a wonderful and special person and more of a symbol of the man’s supposed higher value and status… not all that different from a sweet pair of limited-edition Nikes or an exclusive Hublot watch.

The other part of this equation involves attachment styles and emotional issues. A lot of people get into cycles of pursuing emotionally unavailable partners because it feels “right” to them. Often, it’s a matter of having an insecure or avoidant attachment style – they grew up having to fight and beg for attention from parents and family who often didn’t have time for them. This leaves them feeling like love is something they have to chase or earn, instead of something that’s given.

Another aspect is what’s known as intermittent reinforcement – where rewards (in this case, attention, love and affection) are doled out not just occasionally, but often seemingly randomly. You receive just enough of a reward to keep you engaged, but never on a consistent basis and certainly never at a level that’s commensurate with the effort to receive it. It’s the way slot machines in casinos or gacha games or loot boxes hook players; it’s the hope that maybe this next pull of the lever or cashing in the in-game currency (paid for with real money) will pay off the way you want.

Intermittent reinforcement has long been a part of the dating scene. The authors of The Rules infamously suggested that playing “hard to get”, even with people you were actively dating, was the “only” way to get and keep a man. Toxic and abusive people use it to manipulate and control their partners. But sometimes it’s a self-inflicted injury; like Pepe Le Pew they don’t realize that their sweet little cherie isn’t playing hard to get, they just don’t like them.

Guess which of these you’re doing. The issue here isn’t that these women are playing games or making you dance for their amusement because they like playing with their orbiters like a cat playing with mice; they’re not into you and you’re not getting the message. Instead, you’re romanticizing their distance and lack of attention as making them more beguiling and letting the smallest crumb of attention be all the encouragement you need to keep following them like a puppy.

You need to take a long, hard look at who you’re pursuing and how they’re behaving and ask yourself: why aren’t you taking “not interested” for an answer? Why is it the people you’re most consistently attracted to are the ones who show the least amount of reciprocal interest? Why are you not willing to accept that this behavior is, in fact, a signal that they don’t like you and don’t want to go on a date with you?

(Here’s a hint: it’s called ‘the sunk-cost fallacy’; you’re unwilling to admit that your investment is never going to pay off, so you keep throwing time and energy at it out of the fear that you’ll walk away right before you would’ve hit the jackpot.)

Incidentally, this is also part of why those women you’re not interested in are so seemingly dogged in their pursuit of you.  Leaving aside the ones who are just trying to be friends, not drag you to the altar, you’re doing to them what those other women are supposedly doing to you.

This is a good time to ask why you’re not giving those women a more definite wave-off, then flip it around and apply the same thinking to the women who never seem to have time for you. Don’t want to be rude? Feel like you have to maintain a baseline in order to keep things harmonious at work? Worried that you’re going to reject them only to be told they weren’t trying to date you and now you look foolish?  Cool… all those possibilities also apply to the women who are taking six days to reply to your texts and ghosting you when you’ve badgered them into dates they don’t want to go on.

At the risk of sounding like a hackey joke about psychology, now would be a very good time to go talk to a therapist about your relationship with your mother. If you’re this consistent in pursuing people who are just uninterested in you and are turned off or made uncomfortable by people who are interested and available, the odds that this is an emotional wound going all the way back to childhood are… well, a lot higher than the odds that this slot machine will eventually pay off.

Go work on healing those wounds (and your attitude) and you’ll see things change.

Good luck.

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