boundaries Archives

How Do I Stop Someone Who’s Trying to Ruin My Marriage?

November 17, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello,

I happened to find you through a google search when I tried to look up info about how to avoid creeping people out. I’m emailing you because I want to see if you’re able to answer any questions that I have about your article: “Social Awkwardness is Not an Excuse” in writing? I’m asking because I have limited ability to pick up on non-verbal cues and adhere to social norms due to my Aspergers, which is often resulting in me being subject to numerous complaints to school officials and authorities. Many times, I normally don’t realize that what I happened to do to someone is actually crossing the line until the very last minute, which by then, it’s already too late for me to fix. Here are the following questions:

1. What creepy behaviors would most likely subject the person responsible to civil and/or criminal penalties, including disciplinary action from school?

2. Do difficulties with social cues and norms really increase the risk of unintentionally creeping people out? If so, can you explain how come and how prevalent this issue is?

3. Many times, I often resort to briefly advocating to those I’m about to associate and/or frequently cross paths with about my Aspergers and the extent of it (which especially includes my frequent need for clear communication) in order to reduce the chances of any misconceptions that could happen. What do you have to say about that?

4. I’ve heard rumors that because women and girls are conditioned to be nice in certain situations, any chance of them communicating clearly to you if something was to happen that I may not know about is very rare. Is that really true? If so, how can I possibly get around this?

5. How come can’t you use “I wasn’t really aware since she didn’t communicate her boundaries to me clearly” as an excuse when it comes to being accused of unintentionally creeping her out? Bc for me, this is more of a concern if the circumstances were a misconception

Please note that I am NOT seeking a dating relationship by asking these questions, I’m only trying to make sure I have confidence in building friendships the acceptable way and staying out of trouble in general from there. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you,
Trying To Find The Manual

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How Do I Stop Being Jealous of My Popular Friend?

November 3, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

To start, I’m not the best at socializing; I seem to normally skew more towards listening and observing, and while I’ve gotten better at being social over the years, it’s still something that doesn’t come naturally.

My closest friend, on the other hand, is very extroverted and generally socializes as easily as one breathes, and needless to say, he’s very successful when it comes to befriending people, hooking up, going on dates, etc. Logically, I know it shouldn’t bother me, and I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but it still stings to see him do all this with such apparent ease, and it ends up making me feel very invisible.

I know these feelings aren’t healthy, and I don’t want to risk damaging what is otherwise one of the best friendships I’ve ever had, so how can I manage or overcome my feelings of jealousy?

What I Do In The Shadows

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How Do I Stop Being Angry About My Relationships?

October 29, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

So long story short I am a single guy approaching 30, never been in a relationship and only went out like 2 dates in my entire life. This all boils down to this major issue.

Basically my brother has been in a toxic relationship for as long as I can remember and this relationship has left scars on my self esteem. He is 35 years old, he has been with her since he was 18 years old and she was 14 years old at the time {they are married now with a daughter of 6 months). His wife is a gold digging materialistic manipulator, has never worked a job for more than a couple of months and constantly picks arguments with my parents over bullshit issues. She always requests either myself or my parents to do favours for her and then she literally kicks our asses to the curb afterwards (and my brother does not utter a word of protest that his family members are being treated like dog shit). My brother spent Euro 80,000 on their wedding without her paying a single fucking dime and she only found a job recently so that ” my brother will shut the fuck up about their depleted finances already”.

The issue here is that all my life I have been struggling to try and find a partner and settle down because this always keeps cropping up in my mind… I don’t want to end up like my brother. Mind you my parents constantly keep reminding me to not let this situation effect my opinions on relationships and women because there are awesome women out there who are career oriented and just want a loving partner to come home to.

And also another thing I have been getting into the habit where whenever I start thinking about relationships and women, I start to get really pissed off, angry and frustrated and that having a relationship will set me back in my life. Part of me says its all in my head and that I am overthinking this however I still fall back in the cycle of negativity and bad thoughts.

Any ideas on how to fix this please? I am going to admit, I might be wrong and the above scenario has nothing to do with me however I appreciate a second pair of eyes on this.

Thanks for your help.

Anger Issues

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Does My Friend Want Me, Or Is She Just Playing Games?

October 11, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

I am in great need of help to decipher a situation that I have going on with a friend of mine. It has been going on for a pretty long time and is kind of a big emotional trap that I have fallen into many times.

I’ll try to keep the backstory short so I can get to the present situation. I have a friend, we’ll call her A.

We have been friends since primary school and have had a bit of a back and forth thing going on ever since. I had crushes on her at times, she had crushes on me at times, but it just never really worked out. In particular for the last year of high school I was totally in love with her and was heavily pursuing her, but I could never make it happen. We hung out all the time, but there is something about this girl that just scrambles my brain when it comes to making a move. At the time I had had other relationships and made moves on other people, it wasn’t something that was really an issue for me, unless it was with A. I don’t know why, maybe because by this point it felt like there was so much on the line.

Anyway, after high school we lost touch a bit. She moved away and eventually I moved somewhere else too. We would talk from time to time, but pretty infrequently.

We ended up reconnecting 3 years ago when I was in her town for a few days. I had posted on facebook asking if I knew anyone in town who wanted to hang out and she asked me to meet her at a party. At the time she was in a relationship, but she is a good friend and I was just keen to catch up. When I went to the party there was a lot of chemistry going on. We were reminiscing over old memories and there was a lot of physical contact going on. I had a feeling that something was going on there, but she was in a relationship and also very intoxicated, so I had no intention of trying to take it anywhere. We hung out the next night too and it was the same deal. She also went on a big rant about how unhappy she was in her relationship and how she wants to get out of it and move to my city for university. But again, she got incredibly drunk that night (This is a pretty common occurrence), so nothing I could do.

She ended up coming to visit a few months after that, same situation, same chemistry, same complaints about her relationship. She would also make a big show of explaining to people how she and I had had numerous crushes on each other in the past. It really really felt like something was going on here.

Fast forward a year and she ended up moving to my city, along with her boyfriend. This is where things get a bit weird.

The same stuff is happening, same chemistry, same complaints, also bringing up the story about our crushes to people when we hang out, including her boyfriend, which was very uncomfortable. At parties she clings to me intensely. If I walk away to get a drink or go to the bathroom she grabs my arm and asks where I am going. She will playfight with me and try to wrestle me. She will come and sit on my lap in front of her boyfriend.

This shit is seriously confusing and pulls me into this trap where I can’t stop thinking about the situation and trying to figure out what to do.

This goes on for about a year until she finally breaks up with her boyfriend. So here I am thinking “Holy shit! It’s time!”. But she ended up sleeping with my friend before we got to hang out. Thanks to the lockdown for that.

That’s always a bummer, but it wasn’t a big deal.

We kept hanging out when we finally could and the chemistry was still there, but it was weird and different. There was still the wrestling and touching and clinginess, but she would also be very flirty with other people at the same time. Again, it is what it is, she’s single, she can do what she wants.

But there was a party at her house where at the end of the night she was calling out for me to come to bed with her and telling everyone to get out of her room. As you can imagine I was elated, only for my dreams to be quickly shattered. We got into bed and cuddled before she started asking me for advice about her situation with my friend. I gave what advice I could before I bounced out of there and walked home in the cold with a pretty sore heart.

So at this point my brain is fucked. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, so I figure I have to shoot my shot. We hung out again a short while after that and this was my opportunity, I needed to know what was up with us. I really wanted to just make a physical move, and I kind of think that would have been better, but she is a very dear friend and I didn’t want to do something that might fuck that up. So I just told her how I felt and asked if there was anything going on between us.

It did not go well. She made a very shocked face and just slowly shook her head. We talked about it afterwards and it ended up not being a big deal, but definitely not the response I was hoping for or expecting.

As disappointing as it was, honestly I was just happy to have an answer. I felt like I could move on. Fast forward to now, I am slipping back into the trap because our interactions are back to feeling very flirty. We hang out a lot and she is still saying and doing some very suggestive things. She’ll send me “u up?” in the middle of the night and want to chat when she can’t sleep.

It’s such a confusing situation and I understand how it is easy for people to misread the intentions of their romantic interests because they only see what they want to see. But it isn’t just me. When I told my friends about the outcome of my confession they were more surprised than me.

So I just don’t know where the fuck I stand with this situation.

I’m not expecting anything here, if it is not to be, then that’s what it is and honestly I’m pretty sure that is the case. She is one of the best friends I have and I’m pretty thrilled to get to have that. I just need help to unfuck my head so I can understand this better.

Thanks

Brain.exe Has Stopped

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Can She Ever Trust The Men She Wants to Date?

October 6, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

Last year, I got into a FWB situation that got really messy, and I’m having a hard time moving on. I met this guy through an app, we hit it off, and hooked up. The sex was surprisingly good, because even for just a hookup: he was really interested in my pleasure, and it was the kind of sex where you really feel connected with your partner. Since that was the vibe I got just with a hookup, I was very interested in finding out how that got better with time, so I pursued him. We talked about what we were looking for, etc, he said he wasn’t ready for a commitment yet, but was definitely looking for something more casual. I was coming off a divorce, so I was in the same spot, and we agreed to friends with benefits. Simple enough, right? Well, turns out…not so much.

Shortly after this, our area upped the pandemic lockdown measures as case rates rose. Since we both wanted to be cautious, we agreed to be “COVID monogamous”: there wasn’t an expectation of monogamy, but if we were going to do anything (romantic or otherwise) that would up our risk level, we’d let the other know so they could make informed decisions with their health. All very adult and reasonable. But…turns out having amazing, highly connected sex with one person exclusively, on top of great hang-outs and conversation…it’s not easy to keep things casual. I was vulnerable with him about my needs and how I was feeling. And, eventually, I told him I was falling in love with him. He was pretty obviously shocked by this admission, but didn’t say much of anything. We had sex again, but that’s when things started to feel off. During the act, amongst other sexy-talk, I whispered “I love you” and he didn’t say anything back, just…went at it with more ardor. When we finished, he kind of shuffled me out the door with an “I’ll call you later” because he had therapy. Admittedly, I’d decided to tell him on a day he had therapy because I thought it would be a good chance for him to unpack his feelings. When I had previously been vulnerable about my feelings, he said he “wasn’t ready for a relationship yet” so I wanted to give him a chance to dive into what exactly it was he wasn’t ready for, talk that through with his therapist before responding to my admission. Based on the connection we shared, I thought he was falling in love with me too, and the problem was that we were both scared of some aspect of defining a “serious relationship” between us.

Apparently I was way fucking wrong, because he told me the next day that he wasn’t falling in love with me. At all. He wasn’t holding himself back, he’d just straight-up never even felt butterflies for me in the 5+ months of sex.

Fucking ouch.

It turns out, I’d been reading him all wrong. The connection I was feeling wasn’t mutually falling in love, it was because, basically, he liked to roleplay being in love during sex. He just never told me it was a sexy game for him, and I thought it was the real deal. So all this time, when I was getting mixed signals out of the bedroom, I was blithely ignoring the pink flags while figuratively singing “It’s In His Kiss”: Sure, he didn’t seem as excited to see me as I was to see him, but he always seemed so reluctant to leave! Sure, he wasn’t returning my vulnerability in kind, but he’s just scared! Sure, he said he wasn’t ready for a relationship, but there was always a “yet” tacked on the end! There weren’t any completely red flags, he always was honest (seemingly) and sung my praises and treated me well, even if it wasn’t with the same enthusiasm as how I treated him.

In the conversation that finally ended it all, he admitted that he knew he’d been treating me unfairly. That trying to pass what we shared off as “just FWB” was dishonest of him. That having me act in a loving, adoring way was actively a turn-on for him: when I confessed I was falling in love, it made him hard even though he knew he didn’t feel the same way. He intentionally withheld his true feelings with the excuse of “I don’t want to hurt her” but really because he was having fun, hot sex and was adored by a wonderful woman and he liked it all enough that he didn’t want it to end (these are his words, paraphrased). Ultimately, I let him know how hurt I was, broke things off with him, and haven’t talked to him since.

Now for the issue itself: this situation combined with good old-fashioned ADD rejection-sensitive dysphoria is making it feel impossible to move on. I can’t get it out of my head, the ADD just wants to dwell on it. And I feel like I can’t trust myself. I used to think I was a great judge of character. Hell, my job relies on it. But I thought a guy was falling in love with me when I never even gave him butterflies. How could I miss that?

I tried to move on, date other guys (yay vaccine!). But hooking up has been a mistake because instead of mediocre-to-fun decent sex to help me forget, I’ve had disappointing-to-“he tried to stealth me” bad encounters (for readers: stealthing is taking off the condom without getting consent from or even telling your partner, and it’s rape). Not trusting myself has led to either being over-accepting or over-paranoid, and I feel like I have no ability to accurately figure out if a guy is genuinely interested in *me* or just wanting to take literally any woman who will put out. It makes me scared to pursue guys I’m really interested in, because I know if they’re not the one chasing me from the start, I’m going to want an impossible level of proof of their interest. And, in the process of falling in love with him, I did a lot of work to figure out what scared me about relationships, what was holding me back, so intellectually I felt better prepared to approach figuring out the definitions of a relationship. But now that’s putting the cart in front of the horse, because I’m too spun-up about the butterflies thing.

My therapist and social support circle don’t really understand the ADD/RSD part of it, so they try to point me in the direction of “these are irrational thoughts”/”he’s an asshole” respectively. I know both of these things, but it’s not stopping the RSD. Sitting with my feelings doesn’t really help, because my brain is happy to turn that into ADD spinning out of control and hyper-focusing on the bad feelings/upsetting parts/parts I can’t control. And I don’t want to keep trying to date like some shitty romance movie character who’s just waiting for The Right Guy to come along and See Just How Special She Is. I’m not a teenager in a vampire romance, I’m a successful, smart, fun, funny, full-grown thirtysomething woman: I know I’m special, and I know I deserve better. I deserve mutual butterflies. But how do I get past this all enough to trust myself to find something better?

-Friends Without Butterflies

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