Dating Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

5 Rules for Being Friends With Benefits

November 27, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 68 Comments

An eternal truism of love, sex and dating is that no relationship style is one-size-fits all. Not everybody is cut out for a romance that will last the ages!!!! with all the cartoon hearts and animated cherubs that are implied. Some people are cool with being single and doing their own thing without the responsibilities that come with the label of “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” or “partner”.

Sometimes happiness means never fighting over what you’re binging on Netflix.

But at the same time, people frequently do want the physical intimacy and pleasure of at least semi-regular sex. And while many people may enjoy them, one-night stands and one-off Tinder hook-ups aren’t for everyone. After all, sex is almost always better with a regular partner rather than a new rando every time.

This is why, for many people, the happy middle ground is a “friends with benefits” style relationship. For many, FWBs offer the best of both worlds: companionship, the easy intimacy of friends and occasional bed-rocking sex.

Problem is… well, frankly, most people are bad at finding and maintaining FWB relationships. So let’s talk about what it takes to make sure that being friends with benefits doesn’t tilt too far towards neglecting the friendship… or the benefits.

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Post Mortem: Why Do Women Have All The Advantages In Dating?

November 13, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 409 Comments

As my long-term readers know, I get a lot of letters from readers for my weekly Q&A “Ask Dr. NerdLove” both here and over at Kotaku. But, occasionally, I’ll get a letter from a reader that requires a deeper and more thorough dive than the usual request for advice. Sometimes the answer is more nuanced than normal or requires cutting through a Gordian knot of related issues. These are the Post-Mortems, where we dissect a letter and dig through the remains in order to get to the heart of the issue.

Post-mortems are rarely pretty. Many times, we’re having to liberally apply the Chair Leg of Truth to a lifetime of beliefs. But, while the love may be tough, at the end we’re going to know exactly what went wrong and how we can do better next time. So scrub up and snap on the gloves; it’s time to get all up in them guts.

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How To Protect Yourself From a Broken Heart

September 18, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 231 Comments

It’s not a stretch to say that dating is something of a contact sport. Signing up for it means that you’re accepting that you might get hurt. Opening yourself up to people means being willing to risk a broken heart. No matter how carefully you plan or how much you try to protect yourself, eventually you’re going to have to learn to deal with pain and rejection. Sometimes you see it bearing down on you like a freight train. Other times it sneaks up on you and hits you square in the ghoulies.

But while pain may be inevitable, suffering is optional. You may not be able to avoid getting hurt, but you can avoid unnecessary pain. . And the cold truth is: a lot of suffering in the dating process is self-inflicted. One of the keys to dating without getting a broken heart is to understand how to protect yourself, emotionally.

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Staying Motivated (When You’re Still Single)

August 21, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 102 Comments

It’s easy to get frustrated when you’re single and looking. The world can feel like it’s full of happy couples as far as the eye can see while you’re still the Last American Virgin, doomed to die alone, unloved and unmourned.

Look at them all. Just… rubbing their happiness and contentment in your face.

Of course, part of the problem is that there are no shortcuts when it comes to meeting people. No matter what your spam folder promises you, hot singles in your area aren’t going to just fall into your lap. If you want to meet people, you have to actually go out and find them. Which, in many cases, is exactly the problem.

While it’s easy to say (as, admittedly, I do) “go out and practice your skills“, going out and putting yourself out there can be… well, really fucking frustrating.

Speaking from personal experience, maintaining the motivation to keep on working was one of the hardest parts of my learning how to be socially successful. When you’re out hitting the bars and striking out faster than a starter for the Arizona Diamondbacks¹, it only takes a couple of polite dismissals before you decide you’d be better off going home and bingeing The Defenders instead. And while dating apps like Tinder are supposed to make getting laid a push-button exercise, swiping right while everyone else seems to be swiping left can make you feel like you’re the last guy picked for dodgeball… again.

And hey, who wouldn’t prefer to go back to a life of books, cats and fights on Twitter instead of dealing with all of that? Hell, even when you’re socially skilled, it’s still possible to blow your motivator; I’ve had times when I’ve been travelling when I’d been torn between “need to talk to people” and “Oh God do I have to?”

“Yeah, I *could* go to the con bar but…”

So how do you stay motivated to keep trying to find that special someone (or someones) when it feels like the entire universe is telling you to knock it the fuck off?

Glad you asked. Here’s what I’ve learned about staying motivated:

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A reference that surely won’t be dated by this time next week [↩]

How To Take Dating To The Next Level

August 14, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 140 Comments

The process of getting better at dating can be a difficult one. There are a lot of self-limiting beliefs that can be hard to overcome – not the least of which being that you’re “stuck” at wherever you are and there’s nothing you can do. It’s part of the binary-view of social skills that guys tend to get brought up in; you’re good with women or you aren’t. Either you’re socially awkward or you aren’t. You’re popular… or you aren’t.

And of course, there’re a lot of people who buy into this. It’s a tempting narrative after all; when there’s no hope and no choice, you are relieved of all responsibility. You can point to the world at being unfair or complain that other people demonize your natural-if-awkwardly-expressed desires. It absolves you, in many ways, of having to do any self-examination. After all, if the world’s unfair, then isn’t it better to demand that the world change?

But that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works.

One of the things that I like to emphasize is that dating is a skill. And any skill can be improved with practice. The tricky part though, is that developing a skill can take time. If we buy into the axiomatic 10,000 hours for mastery… that’s a lot of time before you can get good at something. And with all the skills that can comprise a successful dating life… well, that’s going to take forever, isn’t it?

No. No it isn’t.

Today, I’m going to teach you about how you can radically improve your social skills in almost no time. If you’re ready to shave off the time it takes to learn to be the dating master you know you can be… well, this week is for you.

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