emotional health Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

When Is It Time To Let Someone Go?

September 11, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,
So about a year ago I met this girl, we’ll call her K. K was the new girl at work and we had a “will they/won’t thing” for bit. We did go out for a bit but it didn’t work out. The problem was we kinda went back into a “will they/won’t they routine.”

It was a frustrating experience, sometimes she acted like she wanted to try dating again other times she acted like she didn’t really want to do anything with me. Eventually the dance ended when we out for a Valentine’s dinner (neither of us has ever had a date for Valentine’s Day so we decide to be each other), and at the end of it she told me she had feelings for a different guy. Our relationship really hasn’t been the same since, because whenever she’s around me she sometimes still acts like she’s interested in me.

The only that I can think of that explains her behavior is that she misses the attention I used to give her but doesn’t want anything more than that. Which comes to my question should I drop her from my life?

She’s not a bad person but the constant back and forth just hurts me to be honest. Like I know we are never going to be thing, I really don’t want to be a thing with her after all this. The whole experience has left me feeling confused.

Any advice you could give me would be nice.

Thanks

Round and Round

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How Do I Stop Obsessing About My Crushes?

September 4, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. Nerdlove
I am a 20 year old student going into my second year at the University of Ottawa, and let’s just say that I have a bit of a troubled history when it comes to romantic relationships. I am very much a socially awkward and socially anxious person who has a fairly hard time working up the courage to talk to people and trying to find the right words to say in a conversation. This, combined with my difficulty understanding certain social cues and tendency to get obsessive about the people I have romantic interest in, can make it difficult to talk to the people I’m attracted to and to enter romantic relationships. Though it’s rather embarrassing to admit, I have not been in one single relationship ever in my life, even though I’m 20 years old. Both of these problems (the social awkwardness and the tendency to get obsessive) impacted my first 2 semesters at Uni this year, which I will go into more detail below.

I have no idea why I had a crush on one of the girls who was in my psychology class during the 1st semester. We met at the global climate change protest march this past September. We travelled as a part of a residence group, but we didn’t hit it off or anything and we never talked to each other after the march. We were mere acquaintances at best and we didn’t seem to have that much in common. Nevertheless I developed this massive obsessive crush on her in the middle of October and I could not stop thinking about her until the end of the semester when I finally confessed my feelings to her via Instagram (she wasn’t interested and seemed a bit angry). It was really really bad and although I didn’t do anything inappropriate, I feel terrible because I creeped her out a lot. I probably should have slapped myself so I could wake up from my delusions and realise that she was not interested. To this day I am quite ashamed for how creepy I was during the 1st semester, because I don’t like or wish to make anyone feel unsafe in my presence. It was terrible and I’m trying my best to make sure that I don’t act that way again.

I really shot myself in the foot when it came to my relationship with a girl I was interested in the second semester. Unlike the person in the 1st semester, who I had a definite one sided crush on, this girl and I seemed to have a lot in common. At least in the beginning we seemed to have reciprocal feelings for each other. We were both involved in the board game club at school, we both like to read, we both enjoy biology, we both like visiting bookstores, and we both like listening to music outside of the mainstream. We had different upbringings as I was brought up halfway across the world in the suburbs of London, and she was brought up in the suburbs of Toronto. Other than that we had a fair bit in common. She had actually been quite friendly in the 1st semester as we shared an English class together and she talked to me in the residence, but it was only during 2nd semester when I joined the board game club and saw her at the Toronto bus station that we truly hit it off. We then went to a bookstore near the university although it was a disappointment when we found out that it was an academic only bookstore.

After the Covid 19 pandemic hit and everyone was sent home I really started missing her and I sent her messages on Instagram chat to try and talk to her. She got really annoyed with me and said that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore because I was invading her life and now I’m really convinced that I’ve shot myself in the foot because she was the first girl who ever openly expressed interest in me. To be honest with you I probably came across as a bit desperate when I was talking to her, which really turns women off.

Do you have any tips as to how to stop myself from obsessing over people and how to stop myself from shooting myself in the foot when it comes to potential relationships?

Thanks
TheLonelyBrit

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This Is What Happened After 30 Days of Meditation

August 19, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

It’s not really an exaggeration to say that we’re all living through a nightmare. This is one of the most trying times that almost any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. The stress of living through a global pandemic, quarantining ourselves for basic safety, the economic collapse and social upheaval that so many countries are enduring… these are quite literally the times that try men and women’s souls.

And frankly, none of us are ok. Even if you’re in a fairly good place — you’re not in danger of being evicted or losing your house, your job is secure, you’re financially stable — the existential fear and stress of life right now is affecting all of us, often in ways we aren’t aware of.

We all have limited mental and emotional bandwidth under the best of circumstances, and the very real stress and fears caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is taking up most of it. Our thoughts and emotions are so much louder right now and so much closer to the surface that it can feel like we’re hanging on by a thread. We all feel trapped, isolated and helpless. It’s like a nightmare that we can’t wake up from, no matter how much we try.

I’m no exception. The pandemic threw gasoline on fires in my own life, ignited the walls I’d built up to keep emotional issues at bay and burned to cinders the remaining shreds of my ability to cope. My anxiety and depression — things I frequently struggled to keep under control — shot through the roof. Similarly, my sleep schedule, something I already struggled with, became a distant memory. I would get less than an hour of sleep at a time, only to be woken up at random intervals as my brain would start to scream: “There is a THING and it is BAD and you need to DO SOMETHING about it because it is BAD but you CAN’T because IT IS BAD and you don’t know WHAT to do…”

Since I was exhausted and more sleep-deprived than normal, my focus was gone. Concentration was a thing of the past. I was the emotional equivalent of The Goliath or some other roller-coaster: alternately miserable, angry or depressed without warning. Something was going to snap, if I didn’t do something about it first.

So I did.

I decided to pull the trigger on all the self-work I’d been putting off. First, I got in contact with a therapist and got tested for ADHD — something I’d always suspected I suffered from. Next, I began working on a program about recognizing and breaking patterns. And I decided to try meditation. To help ensure I stuck with it, I gave myself a challenge: I would meditate every day for 30 days. With discipline, patience and dedication, I would see if I could learn to simply quiet my brain. I would see if I could wrestle control back from the chaos of my own thoughts. Maybe I would discover some new level of awareness I never had before.

Now here I am, a little over 30 days later.

Here’s what I learned.

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How Do I Talk To My Partner About My Sexual Fantasies?

August 17, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey there Doc,

I’ve got an odd relationship problem that I feel awful about and could really use some guidance.

I’ve been with my fiancé for a little over 3 years now. He’s my best friend and overall we have a really great relationship. Recently I’ve been finding myself less interested in the sexual aspect of our relationship and I find myself fantasizing about the earlier part of our relationship. I think it’s because he was a virgin when we meet, and if I’m really being honest with myself I’m pretty sure I have a fetish for that. I should probably mention that I’ve dealt with sexual & emotional abuse in my previous relationship, so I’ve never really thought about what I’m into before because I never thought I could enjoy sex.

I’m afraid to bring this up with him because I don’t want to make him feel bad but I also want to have a healthy attitude towards sex and actually be able to enjoy it. If I do have a fetish is there a healthy way that I can enjoy that? I feel like asking him to role play being a nervous awkward virgin again would just be really uncomfortable for him.

So Confused

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Is There A Right Way To Break Up With Someone?

July 31, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

I am a 25 year old homosexual male. My boyfriend and I have been together a little over a year and a half. I love him dearly but I’m not 100% positive that he’s the man I want to marry and start a family with. Herein lies the issue: he is sure.

Now for some background. This man has had a VERY turbulent childhood. I’ll spare you the gory details, but long story short his parents kicked him out and disowned him when he came out as trans. Needless to say, he didn’t really have a family before he met me. He’s told me on multiple occasions how I’ve given him a family, and I am so unbelievably happy that I’ve been able to do that for him.

However, I feel stuck.

Lately, I’ve been debating with myself if I want to pull the trigger and break up with him. I know this is gonna make me sound shallow, but part of it is because I miss dick, as he does not have one (he has a very small one that grew due to the hormones, but that’s besides the point) and will not entertain the idea of an open relationship. But the majority of it is because, ever since the pandemic hit, he’s been quite annoying and SUPER clingy. I’m not quite sure where it came from; he was never like this pre-COVID.

Like he’s told me, I’ve finally given him a family, and I have no idea how in the hell I can even BEGIN to take that away from him. And that comes in addition to the internal debate that normally comes with wanting to break up with a person.

I also thought it might be worth adding that he has told me multiple times that he would never break up with me. So, if either of us were to break things off, it’d be me. I don’t like that and, I’m no relationship expert, but that can’t be healthy. What if I were to royally screw him over in some unforgivable way?

Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

–Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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