attraction Archives

What Does My Taste In Sex Partners Say About Me?

March 22, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doctor’s Note: today’s question deals with issues of race, white supremacy and sexuality. Needless to say: racist and homophobic comments are not welcome and the mods and I will be paying attention.

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a young gay man in his 20’s, and although I’ve had a sometimes rocky start to life (like many other folks around me), I’ve been able to get through it largely intact, and now have a pretty good path ahead of me.

I think I’ve already dealt with a good chunk of negative thoughts and fears that used to hang heavily over me – I used to fear I was unlovable as an awkward, overweight, nerdy Asian guy – but with successes in therapy, hobbies, friends, hookups, and my career, I’ve been able to begin to see myself in a new light. Although of course, I’m still dealing with remnants of it (your typical duo of depression and anxiety, maybe some self-hatred still in there).

There’s one big thing that jumps out at me, and it’s becoming more and more of a “hot topic” now, and I haven’t been able to figure it out productively. I… haven’t seen a single East Asian man in real life that I’ve been attracted to.

Now let me get this clear; I’m East Asian. My parents are East Asian. I have East Asian best friends, I went to school with many East Asians, whatever. I… may not be a purely aracial being, but certainly I’ve done a lot to try to stamp out racism and racist thoughts from my life. The websites that talk about this suggest that sexual racism means “you think Asians are effeminate” or “you think Asians are obedient and submissive” or something else; I don’t really think any of that.

To me, most East Asian guys I see around me or in media (here or overseas) are just… about as sexually attractive as I find women (I.e. not at all, and sometimes sexually repulsive). I’ve tried!! But after a few times, you kinda get the feeling it doesn’t work for you, and you don’t want to waste the other guy’s time either.

Even when I was younger (discovered porn around 10-12), although I have (though rarely) looked at Asian guys in porn, it was never really what I focused on.

I assume it has something to do with the media exposure I had – where white or Middle Eastern or Latino folks were ‘normal’, Black folks were often there just for the cock, and…. I’m not even sure what the western porn industry has used Asian MEN for, as a category.

But beyond that, I had my fair share dealing with negative experience with East Asian adults and peers as a kid too, especially since that sometimes formed a bulk of by upbringing. Young looking guys are still off-putting to me in general cuz of the whole bitter taste school left in me, lol.

But how do I even begin to fix this? Websites that talk about sexual racism never talk about fixing it. They just say guys that are racist are trash and you should stay away from them. Unfortunately for those folks, my depression did not win, and I continue to exist… And while “exposure therapy” might work, well, it’s hard to date someone you’re not physically attracted to when you know they’re physically attracted to you, and it’s even harder to… have sex with them (if I definitely want to say no, but force myself to say yes…). Beyond that, I don’t think it’s right of me to subject someone else to dating someone who’s just trying to “fix their racist preferences” through exposure. Otherwise, I still get plenty of exposure to Asian men through work, current (non-sexual!!!) friendships (that are meaningful and important to me), and life in general.

Got any tips, or perhaps words of wisdom? I do definitely wish I could expand my dating pool by broadening what I’m able to find attractive… but I also do wish I could address this nagging (and increasingly strong) guilt about having racial preferences / being racist in dating, especially in these times.

Want To Expand My Interests

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The 5 Common Mistakes That Ruin Dating For Men

March 17, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dating should be fun. Done right, it’s a blast. There’s a thrill in meeting someone awesome and getting to know them. There’s the excitement of discovering the fascinating side of a new person. And of course, there’s the exciting nervousness that comes as a relationship progresses and goes from “dates” to “this may be serious…”

But a lot of guys struggle to make that initial connection. Dating can be a serious challenge for a lot of men, who may struggle even with that initial connection — whether it’s meeting women in person, or through dating apps. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. The things that seem to come so easily to other men feel almost impossible for you.

This is the leading cause of sitting at the bar, pretending to be texting on your phone rather than admitting that you’re there by yourself…

Many times, the issue is that men who struggle with dating are making things harder on themselves. The problem is that they’re making incredibly common mistakes — mistakes that could easily be avoided. Here are some of the mistakes that make dating harder for men and how to avoid them.

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How Men Can Stop Feeling Unwanted

March 4, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Being a man, particularly a straight, cisgendered man, can be a perverse paradox at times. Society caters to us in almost every way imaginable. Even in 2021, as we strive towards greater social and sexual equity for people of different genders and sexualities, straight cis men are very much at the top of the social heap. And yet, men are lonelier and more isolated than ever, feeling not just lost but ignored or cast aside.

It seems laughable; society caters to straight men to an absurd degree. The world is nothing if not considerate of men’s wants and interests. Straight men’s desires, anxieties and — especially — their boners aren’t just the Rosetta stone of modern advertising, but much of pop culture over all. The entire literary fiction genre, for example, is an almost constant paean to navel gazing dudes who want to muse about roads not taken and drown their ennui in the desire to bone much younger women.

bearded young man in glasses, wearing a tweed jacket and tan waistcoat rubbing his chin — “Yes, I’m a published author and well respected, tenured professor of literature at a prestigious university… but somehow I’m still unfulfilled. Maybe another affair with an undergrad will help.”

But like I said my column on men’s fear of being “invisible”, the issue isn’t so much the way the world celebrates and validates male sexuality or interests. It’s the feeling that while the world continues to validate men’s desire for sex and power, the men themselves are excluded from it. They’re continually shown their hearts’ desires, but the fulfilment of them is kept just out of reach. They’re told that this is what they’re supposed to want, that this is what makes them a “real man”, but they’re unable to partake of it. It’s the frustration — even despair — of realizing that the rewards they were told to expect for being men and following the rules laid out for them are never going to be delivered, and certainly not in the way they were promised.

Animated gif from Fight Club: Tyler Durden saying "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't." — Of course it all comes back to Fight Club; it’s like you’ve never been read my column before…

It comes up in many, many different ways. Because we still celebrate and lionize toxic and restrictive forms of masculinity, even in media that purports to deconstruct them, men who don’t meet (often self-imposed) hypermasculine ideals feel as though they aren’t “real” men.

Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, shirtless and smoking a cigarette — *Still* looking at you, Fight Club.

Others feel excluded from the rewards of manhood and masculinity because of factors outside of their control — a lack of social experience or fluency, their body types, their height, or due to stereotypes based around race, culture or gender presentation.

This feeling — of being excluded, cast aside and discarded — is something I hear from men all the time. It comes up in letters, it gets mixed in with discussions about online harassment, street harassment and cat-calling, even in discussions about character design in comics, video games and movies. And while it’s the sort of thing that seems like it’s easily laughed off — oh no, dudes aren’t getting all the attention — it’s a real and legitimate issue.

After all, those feelings of being unwanted, loneliness, rejection and isolation can be hard to break out of. It’s all too easy for that feeling to curdle into despair.. or worse.

But, despite what many will tell you, it isn’t a matter of the lucky and the ones who got fucked by the fickle finger of fate. Nor is it about hitting the gym or getting plastic surgery or other quick fixes.

Here’s how you learn to stop feeling unwanted and undesired.

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How Do I Get Over My Fear of Being Rejected?

January 22, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Doctor NerdLove,

First of all, thank you for your good work! I’m a long time reader of your blog, and I like the content you put up, your sense of humor, and the hope you give to people who struggle at dating.

The problem I want to talk you about is that I have a clearly irrational (but socially crippling) fear of romantic rejection and I want to know what to do about it.

Just to start, here’s some background information about me: I’m a 34 years old man, single. I have dealt with OCD and depression for years and I’m still in therapy. I have a job I really like as an assistant teacher for special education children, and even though I don’t earn a lot my job perspectives are getting better. I have my own car, but for a series of reasons (including the recent pandemic) I still live with my mother. So, overall, I could do better, but I could do worse, too.

I have never had a lot of success in terms of romantic relationships – I’ve had a semi-serious sexual relationship years ago that didn’t last long, and I’ve been on a few dates during the years – although only very rarely and never to the point of things getting beyond early dates.

My biggest dating problem is, indeed, the one I mentioned before: I’m irrationally afraid of being rejected, so I rarely if ever approach women romantically and I actually often prefer not to. I used to have issues making friends as well (again, mostly due to fear of rejection) but that’s getting better in the last years – I’ve made several friends who like me and respect me, and I like and respect them.

I can have light, funny, flirty conversation – and occasionally, if everything seems to go well, that seems to be enough to casually agree to meet each other again, usually without this explicitly being called “a date”. And on one occasion a woman I met pulled basically all the stops: she sat on my lap, we kissed me and she brought me to her room – we ended up dating for a short period of time.

That happens only very rarely, though, and I realize I can’t rely on the women I meet to do all the work – it’s quite a thing to expect!

However whenever I try to psych myself up to ask out a woman I’m having a fun, breezy conversation with my brain always comes up with fears upon fears and worries upon worries, so I end up either a) folding back to a less flirty and more friendly behavior or b) freezing and making things slightly awkward, then moving on.

The worries always center about the rejection itself – especially around the idea that I’ve somehow deluded myself that the person I was talking to was actually interested in me romantically or sexually, and they’re actually not, so I’m putting them in a difficult situation and they don’t know how to react to break it down gently to me. Somehow I find this thought incredibly scary and painful – I’d really hate to end up in a situation like this, so I prefer bailing out, even though rationally I know that it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

The funny thing is that I don’t have a problem with the concept of rejection per se on a rational basis- I realize I can’t appeal to everyone I meet and that people have their own priorities and preferences.

I’ve also been soft-rejected by phone, social media or email several times after a first or second date and it’s always been no big deal – and when I’m ghosted I’m not happy but I can move on. It’s just the possibility of immediate rejection in presence that for some irrational reason I can’t fully understand fills me with dread.

Things use to be worse in the past – I used to pretend to be in a relationship to give myself the chance to interact with people without having to worry about romantic rejection – which I understand is something that doesn’t make a lick of sense, and isn’t healthy, so I’ve stopped doing that.

(It’s also counterproductive – there have been a couple of occasions when I was having a fun conversation with a woman and things seemed to go well but I lied about seeing someone as a way to avoid having to ask out the woman I was talking to even if they seemed interested – talk about being illogical!)

I’m discussing my problem with my therapist and so far I’m not making any sense of it – so I said to myself that I could try to ask out someone who has specific experience and knowledge about dating issues.

Thanks,

Irrationally Afraid of Rejection

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Are Looks REALLY All That Matter In Dating?

December 28, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello, I’m a 17-year-old boy in Korea and my life’s been great, I have many friends, my grades are super good, and I have passion and confidence.
But nowadays I’ve been thinking about love and I have some questions.

You see, I had a crush whom is my close friend. Our personality matched so much and I thought we would be good for partners but it turns out she only thinks of me as a ‘friend’, and am not interested in dating before turning 20. Sooo I was down but now I got over it, but because of crushing and failing questions about love started to linger in me, and then I started Googling about the subject, and I found some articles.

And they were like “Looks are the 80% that determines romance, you only say personality is more important because you want some excuses to lower your look standards, because you can’t date hot buds. Looks make up for flaws and people who says inner self is important are lying to themselves. People date someone who has the same level look with them.”

And I was kinda shocked when I read the article and people saying “That’s the reality, the truth.” I always thought personality is much more important and if the personality is really truly matching I could even date an ugly girl. Sure, a cute face is cool but it isn’t everything.

And I also thought love was something like wanting the partner beyond anyone else, not being attracted to any other more than the partner, and feeling something another level with each other… In other words, your partner becomes the most beautiful person in the world in your eyes.

But what those guys are saying and agreeing with was that you love someone based on superficial attributes mostly, and if you date with an average/ugly girl or guy it only means that you compromised to reality. And that also means you just settled, the partner isn’t the most beautiful in the world in your eyes, you just settled because she’s the best looker in the pool of girls you are able to date. So there are much more attractive girls but they are out of bounds so you choose her. A lot of people were agreeing with this, and the community was a major one, not a small one which only certain types(usually losers) of people gather.

Man, if love is like that in reality it sucks. I found my crush the most attractive girl in the universe even if she isn’t in the eyes of the public. She’s quite cute, but to tell the truth there are some girls who are objectively more good-looking than her. But I didn’t feel anything to them. And if someone whom I have been crushing on has feelings to me too, I thought we could have love like I described earlier.

But if the things they said are reality: Love really seems hollow. It’s not romantic: it’s shallow and strategic. I’m about 6~8/10 when it comes to looks (My opinion) so I wouldn’t have serious damage in my relationship chances even if that was true but the problem is the concept just seems HOLLOW if adult love is really like that.

So Is love really like that? What is it like? Are the things that I said/experienced about love only because I’m teen, and real life and love are just look-based calculations? Am I secretly compromising when I say ‘looks don’t matter’?

And am I look-based too? come to think of it I had 2 crushes, and both of them were at least average looking objectively. So if an below-average girl has wonderful personality and really clicks with me could I love her too? Or I’d just kick her out even if I know right now that I shouldn’t do that? Would I have liked my crush in the first place if she was ugly?? Yes we became BF the day we met and I’ve never found anyone that has personality so similar and matching with me(She agreed on that too). But what if she was ugly? Would I still have been attracted to her? I feel I would’ve, but what if I just think like that because I have been crushing on her? If the answer is no I just feel guilty and such.

My message is kinda messed up, but the main question is about looks and love, and about true love. I hope you could give me wise advice about those topics. Thank you for reading.

Worried About Romance

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