Meeting Women Archives

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Why Are Women So Afraid Of Me?

June 4, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr NerdLove.

Long-time reader, first time writing in. My problem is quite minor, and not technically a “dating” issue, but it’s been weighing on me regardless and I’m hoping you’ll have some insight.

The short version is that many women I pass by in public places seem to have very strong negative reactions to me, and I can’t figure out why.

It usually goes like this: I’m walking through town in the daytime to work or to get lunch or meet friends or what have you. A woman comes walking the other way or exits a shop or something. Our eyes meet by chance (inevitable when you’re keeping an eye out for cars and bikes or whatnot), and the woman in question violently jerks her head away, turns her body away from me, and starts walking faster. She’s using her whole body to signal: “Ew, no, go away.”

Here’s the weird part: I never have any intention of interacting with these women. I’m just going about my business when they enter my line of sight. I don’t say anything, I don’t leer or stare or ogle, I don’t catcall, I don’t look at them for more than a second. I just notice them, and keep walking.

Obviously, women have every right to be cautious around unknown men (or unknown male-looking NB people, in my case). These women are also all young and attractive, so maybe they’ve had to become hyper-vigilant even beyond the standards of other women. It’s just that this reaction seems to fly right past caution and straight into immediate, visceral fear.

A more specific example will illustrate what I mean (and was also the catalyst for this letter). I was at work, returning to my desk from the bathroom. A woman I had never met came through the door I was heading to. Our eyes met and she flinched with her whole head, like my gaze was a slap to the face. Her body language became panicked, her eyes darted around the room, and finally she ran through a side door in a completely different direction to the one she’d been going before. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept walking.

Some extra context: this was in the middle of the day, in a crowded building, in a brightly-lit room that saw a lot of foot traffic, and I obviously worked there.

So with all that background, I guess I have two questions I’m hoping you can help with: firstly, how can I clearly signal to women that I’m not going to approach them? Secondly, what is it about my appearance that triggers such a rapid and extreme response? It’s happened too often now to write it off as a few very traumatised women; it really feels like it’s something about me.

I’m honestly stumped as to the second question. I’m not physically imposing, I dress conservatively but well, I’m young, I’m fit, I don’t have resting bitch face, I’m not ugly, and I’m meticulous with my grooming and hygiene. In short, I feel like my appearance is totally inoffensive. The fact I’m Māori might be a factor, but it feels unfair to just assume all these women are racist. My female friends are as confused as I am.

This problem has been getting me down because I don’t want to be a source of stress for anyone else, and also obviously because it really hurts my feelings when it happens. Plus, what’s going to happen when I meet a woman I do want to approach?

Before I sign off, I should reiterate: I’m not demanding that these women talk to me or smile at me or welcome me approaching them or anything like that. I just want to be able to go about my day and mind my own business without being treated like a landmine. And if this letter sounds like it’s trivialising the struggles of women who get harassed and catcalled, it’s really not my intent. I understand the world is dangerous for them; I’m just sick of being perceived as the danger.

So yeah, that’s my letter. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!

Sincerely,
Innocent Bystander

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I’ve Become A Great Guy. Now What Do I Do?

May 17, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doc, long time reader here. I think I have an unusual problem. I’m a cis, straight, white guy who during my teenage years (I’m 22 now!) used to be a Nice Guy^TM, didn’t care about presentation and didn’t have many (if any) female friends. I want to make emphasis on how much some of your advice has helped me to grow as an individual.

Nowadays, I pass the Grimes Test with flying colors. I dress properly and regularly go to the barber. I joined a D&D group with strangers who turned out to be some of my best friends. I have deep, intimate friendships with both men and women. I don’t panic anymore when talking to women. I’ve read a lot of feminist literature that literally changed the way I saw a lot of things for the better. You could say that I’m peaking, and the best part is that I’m constantly growing and developing myself.

The one thing that I don’t really know how to solve is, what’s next? I would really like to find a meaningful relationship, but I don’t have a clue about how to go about it. I tried Tinder, meeting friends of friends, and most of the times people just ghost me. I also don’t know how to flirt, I’m scared of saying or doing something that might be wrongly interpreted. Also there’s the fact that we are living through a pandemic, which doesn’t help. I know dating is sometimes a numbers game, so if anything, I wanted you to know that I owe some of my growth to your column.

Thank you for all these years, you’ve been killing it-

Completed the Tutorial

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This is The Best Way To Meet Amazing Women

May 12, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

As more and more people get vaccinated, we’re starting to see the world take tentative steps toward returning to normal. This also means that people are taking equally tentative steps toward socializing and dating again…

…and a lot of folks are looking forward to making up for lost time.

young man with a medical mask on his face looking frightened out of the door — Let’s be real, nobody had “Roaming Sex Mob” on their Apocalypse Bingo cards.

But as various people are predicting “horny summer” or “roaring 2os”, one question remains: what is the best way to start getting busy once you’re vaxxed, waxed and ready to relax?

Virginia opossum in fork of tree, hissing — Hot girl/boy summer? We’ve all been in quarantine for a year and a half. It’s gonna be junkyard possum summer…

Is it time to just meander out into the streets and hope that wandering hordes of sexed-up former-shut-ins catch you up in a Bernoulli effect and try to draft on the mist of wine coolers and Astroglide? Now that we can leave our houses again, has the twilight of the age of Tinder and video dates truly begun?

Well, about that…

One of the mistakes a lot of men make when they want to go out and meet potential partners — whether for love or for sex — is that they assume that the cold approach is the way to go. Despite the fact that a plurality of straight couples1 meet their partners in person through shared activities rather than random encounters with complete strangers, the notion of picking people up at bars or going about their day is still seen as the predominant way to meet people.

But the truth is that cold approaches are incredibly inefficient… doubly so if you are attempting what the seduction community calls “day game”: meeting women going about their day or walking down the street. One day game enthusiast broke down his numbers from over the course of three years on his blog (all numbers are approximate):

1700 approaches
180 numbers
19 dates
6 sexual encounters

That’s an approach-to-date ratio of 1 percent. It’s even less than a percentage point if you filter to dates that lead to sex.

Now to be fair: this is understandable. You are attempting to convince a stranger that they want to consider a romantic or sexual relationship with someone they have literally just met — often as recently as 20 minutes ago. Now while that can and does happen, and cold approaches are a valuable and versatile skill to cultivate in general, it’s not the only, or even the best way to meet potential partners.

Instead, I want to teach you a better way to meet amazing women without getting on the apps. A way that will set you up for success. A way that will bring amazing women into your life almost effortlessly and give you advantages that other people won’t have. This is a method that will take what many people believe to be a weakness and turn it into your secret weapon instead.

Ready?

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dating apps became the predominant way gay couples meet their partners almost as soon as modern smartphones hit the market [↩]

How Do I Find Casual Sex When I’m This Ugly?

May 7, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

So I was wondering how does an ugly guy navigate things like wanting casual sex or a friends with benefits kind of arrangement? A lot of these interactions tend to prioritize looks, but what if you don’t have the looks? I don’t know any examples of ugly guys getting anything casual, it seems like one of those things where if you don’t have the looks, then you’re kind of out of luck.

I am trying to lose weight and gain muscle, but you can’t exactly change your face as much as you can your body. What if, even after that, I’m still unattractive? How would I communicate and vocalize wanting something more casual or a friend with benefits arrangement without it being creepy? How would someone like me be able to find someone who wants me sexually when there are probably more handsome men out there who also want the same thing. There are probably more men who want something casual than women, so wouldn’t that make it even more likely that ugly guys won’t be able to have something casual if there is a better looking guy willing to provide the same thing?

It feels like women would rather only have me if I commit rather than be casual with me when there are possibly better looking men wanting the same thing? Same for women who are “in my league” so to speak.

You can’t exactly “fuck” a personality as they say.

Also in general, it looks like it’s mostly guys who have trouble getting laid, so wouldn’t that also lend credence to the fact that maybe there are some guys out there too ugly to be wanted sexually?

It just feels like I won’t be able to experience casual sex or FWBs and will only be able to sleep with women if I commit to them or if I hire a sex worker. I don’t wanna lead women on or lie to them, but I also don’t wanna sleep with someone who’d only sleep with me cause they need the money.

Any advice?

Thing From Another World

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Am I An Asshole If I Don’t Want to Settle for Someone In My “League”?

April 26, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

My entire family is dead, and I’ve been living with my only close and reasonably well-off friend and her husband since losing my job and housing in the summer of 2020. I have severe anxiety and a number of physical health issues that all together mean I am not capable of working more than part-time for the foreseeable future. (Yes, I’ve applied for disability; apparently I’m not disabled enough.)

For the last couple months my friend and her husband have been increasingly hinting that I need to move out — they want to have a baby before she’s too old, but my stuff and I are taking up both their spare bedrooms. For my part, I can’t stand babies, and my anxiety is exacerbated by being around anyone under 18 (from 0-9, it’s the loud noises and sudden movements; from 10-18 it’s the triggered memories of bullying). But if they accept that I’m unable to work enough to support myself, then my only other option is to find an SO to support me.

My friend thinks the only reason I’m reluctant to do this is that I’m a 38-year-old virgin, I grew up in a conservative Christian home and town (where I continued to live with my parents until their deaths), and while I came out as pansexual several years ago, I still have hang ups about actually expressing it. So she’s been trying to talk me through that. And while those are factors, I’m ashamed to talk about the most major factor. Which is simply that I don’t think I could stand to kiss or have sex with anyone as ugly as I am.

This is not just low self-esteem: I’m morbidly obese, with about the least attractive weight distribution possible; I have a gigantic double chin; adult acne; short, thinning head hair; gnarly body hair; and between my face fat and the thickness of my glasses, my eyes are so minuscule you can’t even tell that they’re blue. The only person I can imagine going for me is someone equally fat and/or ugly who is desperate for sex, but can’t get anyone better — and I feel like I’d rather die than touch someone like that, no matter how smart or nice or rich they are. I seriously don’t think I’m the kind of person who could ever become attracted to someone I wasn’t attracted to before just because of their personality. (And that’s only fair — I’m really smart, funny, kind, loyal, progressive, etc., but no one has ever been attracted by that, even people who liked me as a friend.)

But is it right to choose to continue to be supported by my friend instead? My part-time job covers my groceries, meds, car expenses, etc., so all she really has to do is provide a roof. We’ve been close since grade school and I’m confident she would never throw me out in the street, even if she couldn’t have a baby and her husband (who I can tell pretty much hates me) left her. But I’d really hate for it to come to that.

So please tell me: is there any possibility of someone like me getting an at least average-looking, non-overweight partner? Would I be better off focusing on women, since women (as a whole, I know I’m an anomaly) seem more open to dating people less attractive than themselves? (E.g., you see attractive women with unattractive men a lot more than vice versa.) The problem there is that I’m more attracted to men, so I’m not sure even that would be good enough — I’ve had crushes on fairly average men, but only on really beautiful women.

Finally, there’s no escaping the fact that if I could just get paid what I make now plus the cost of a one-bedroom apartment, utilities, TV, and internet, without working any more hours, I would never even consider trying to date, but continue to satisfy myself with crushes and fantasies of people light-years out of my league. Is this unhealthy, and might my friend be right, and dating actually be good for me? How can I get over feeling like a whore if I go into dating primarily because I need support? Is it morally better to be a leech, because at least you’re not selling yourself, or a whore, because at least you’re providing something in return?

Sincerely,
Leech Or Whore? (she/her)

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