Meeting Women Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

How Do I Become More Attractive to Women?

March 29, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

For the last month and a half or so, I went on some dates with a girl (who we’ll call L, for the purposes of this letter) who I met through Bumble. I really liked her, as we have similar tastes in music (which is uncommon among people my age), and it was really easy for me to be myself and remain laid back, light-hearted, and relatively jokey around her. However, earlier today, L let me know that while she liked me as a person, she thought that we should just be friends, as she didn’t she us as being more than friends. I’m open to that, though we both agreed that it would be best to take some time apart, so I can fully process my emotions and come to grips with this. Of course, this is partially because it just happened, but it really hit me hard, as I felt a strong connection with her, mostly in relation to our similar interests. (I tend to become a lot more interested in someone if they have one or more of the same obscure interests that I do.) I also got the “let’s just be friends” speech with a girl (who we’ll call K) who I went on a few dates with a few months ago, though looking back, I didn’t have as strong of a connection with her as I felt I did with L.

It should be noted that I really have only started dating in the past year or so, despite being 29 years old (I’ll turn 30 next month) and I’ve never been in an officially defined “relationship.” My longest time spent dating a girl has been for a few months. I never asked girls out before that, partially because of a fear of rejection, unrealistic expectations about what I wanted in a romantic partner, and having the idea that if a girl liked me, she would automatically ask me out. I also didn’t use touch with girls I was interested in, in part because I didn’t want to be seen as a creeper. After reading your website, I now know the error of my previous ways. However, I sensed a lack of experience with L as well. She never mentioned any previous boyfriends, she mentioned how her parents are very protective of her (compared with other girls, from what I’ve noticed), and she explicitly mentioned that I’m the first person who she went on a date with through a dating app. (She’s in her mid-late 20s) I didn’t ask about her prior dating history, though. Since I don’t have much of a prior dating history, either, I’m thinking that maybe she noticed some hesitation in my actions, as opposed to being confident and truly certain of myself. Obviously, I can’t confirm that this played a role, but I do want to display certain things that will make women romantically attracted to me, like being more confident.

In your articles, you often mention the importance of touch. Before the pandemic, I was able to incorporate touch with some of the girls I went on dates with, though not really since then. With L, we would hug each other when meeting and saying good bye, and occasionally holding hands when we walked together. I made sure to ask her beforehand, but again, I didn’t want to do anything she was uncomfortable with, and when we walked outdoors, for example, we both wore masks. I would have liked to use touch to convey interest with her more, but with us being in a pandemic, I was hesitant towards some things, like kissing her. With K before that, however, I didn’t touch her, as she was much more cautious towards the pandemic, as to name one example, she wasn’t comfortable with eating in restaurants.

Obviously, this makes it harder for a girl to see me as more than a friend, though. While I plan on moving on to messaging other girls online, it stands to reason that there are more than a few women who have a cautious attitude towards the pandemic, and with that, I would have to find other ways to create romantic attraction. I do plan on getting the vaccine as soon as humanly possible, though it’s uncertain as to when that’ll actually be able to take place.

Additionally, in those articles, you mention the idea of bringing up your past sex life to girls in order to create attraction. The problem with that is, that I’m a virgin, so I obviously have nothing to go with that doesn’t involve my right hand. Along with the fact that I’m relatively inexperienced with things like sexual flirting, how can I make up for this? (This created complications with L, as while I did my best to be a little more flirty with her compared to how I was with K, and playfully bantered with her as well, it may not have been enough, and because I sensed some inexperience with her, along with the fact that she generally didn’t talk about more risqué things, made me more hesitant to bring up more sexual-themed flirting with her.)

So, in summary, my main questions are, what are some of the main ways to create romantic attraction with a girl without touch, and how can I create sexual attraction despite my inexperience when it comes to sex?

Always a Friend, Never a Lover

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Why Don’t I Want To Sleep With My Girlfriend?

March 26, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a man in my early thirties. Growing up throughout my adolescence and, until I was around 25, I didn’t had any kind of sexual or even a casual relationship with any woman. I didn’t go to parties or any kind of social events, my job was menial and going nowhere and I didn’t have many friends. At that point I had just given up and had decided that sex, relationships and love was not for me. However, around that time I met a woman which basically did all the heavy lifting involved at the beginning (flirting with me, asking me out, inviting me to her house, go for the kiss, etc). We started dating not long after and it was with her that I started becoming a grown man (losing my virginity, learning to plan things, learning to drive and move through the city, go to parties, etc).

I never thought of my girlfriend as ugly, but I didn’t find her very attractive either. Everything was so new at the beginning that I didn’t think much of her looks. As time passed I started noticing other girls and me being a more mature, social and responsible man, girls started noticing me too. I’ve never stopped loving my girlfriend but the physical attraction was eventually gone and my desire to be with other women was increasing, so eventually we had an amicable break up.

Over this past few years I’ve been attending therapy and working on several aspects of myself that need improving both mentally and physically. Even though I can’t say I am a fulfilled man, I can really see a difference from the man I was when I was 25 years old, but the issue I have now is that I don’t really know how to establish a connection with women I am attracted to. When the person is very attractive, I don’t really behave like myself but I pretend to be different. Fortunately, this is I problem I have identified by now, but I don’t know how to resolve it. Being myself around attractive women makes me very nervous and anxious, even if my real self tends to be very likeable by other people.

Over the past few years I have only been with a handful of women, and with all of them at most I felt some mild attraction. The problem is I can’t really build any kind of relationship with these women because I am unable to have sex with them. This is in part because I don’t find them very attractive and partly because I masturbate a lot just to unload all this sexual desire that I have in me.

I know that part of the solution is to stop masturbating so that I have enough of libido to have sex with real people, but since the only people that like me are not very attractive I can’t really find the motivation to stop.

As I final note I want to say that I’m really desperate at this moment and I really would like to find a woman to have a relationship with, which unfortunately is something that some women are able notice and obviously drives them off. I know this part would be resolved by working on some personal or professional goals but unfortunately I’m really apathetic towards life in general, I don’t like anything and I don’t care about anything, I haven’t given up but I don’t expect to find the answer soon and I would like to not be alone until I do.

So my questions are:
How can build a connection with people I do find attractive?
How can I look past physical attractiveness and have a relationship with a woman I don’t find very good looking but is funny and kind?
How can I stop being so desperate about having a relationship?
How can I stop masturbating if I am not having sex either?

Thanks,
Lustful, Lonely and Lost

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Help, My Partner’s Anxiety Is Ruining His Life

March 19, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

My partner is an adjunct instructor of Sociology at a local community college. He is a brilliant social scientist and a great teacher, but he is terrible at the bureaucratic side of things: he loses track of emails, has a crazy disorganized mess of files on his computer, and struggles to navigate online systems to double check his work and connect with his colleagues and supervisors. I don’t think this is a terribly unusual persuasion for a professor-type, but the early stages of his career coupled with the digital demands of the pandemic have really brought this issue to the forefront lately.

Last spring, there was a huge problem when he failed to keep track of emails about an online certification program that his school was requiring. It almost resulted in him losing his job. He has missed notifications for in-service dates (and subsequently failed to show up), missed emails from supervisors and submitted the wrong copy of forms. So far he hasn’t suffered any lasting consequences, but that’s mostly because of the patience of his supervising staff. Those same supervisors are becoming increasingly (unsurprisingly) frustrated, and I worry that this could easily derail his career.

This would all be a problem within itself, but it’s doubly stressful because of his struggles with mental health. My partner suffers from body dysmorphia (a delusional disorder that affects all-over self esteem, not just body image) and anxiety. While he takes medication and mostly manages these issues, when a “crisis” arises (usually as a result of him missing an email or important date) he flies into a downward spiral. Instead of being disappointed and frustrated like any of us would be, his self-esteem plummets off a cliff and he starts talking about what a failure he is as a human and how he should just give up and resign. Sometimes this nears suicidal-levels, or includes a generalized rage which he doesn’t direct at me, but which makes it impossible to talk to him and sometimes results in rash actions like sending unprofessional emails to supervisors or throwing his phone down and breaking it.

I am also a disorganized person, but I’ve realized through trial and error that I can head off these kinds of crises by forcing myself into habits. I keep my work email open on my computer 24/7 to ensure I don’t miss emails, set alarms for important dates, and always place my belongings in the same spots so I don’t lose them, etc. I’ve tried to offer advice to help him avoid these issues in the future, but he mostly refuses. In the moment he thinks it’s totally hopeless and he should give up altogether, and later he seems to pretend the issues never happened. He claims he’s trying to be more on top of things, but I don’t see any evidence of that. As it is, I have to exist in a constant state of fear that his failure to keep track of his professional life will send our household into chaotic crisis mode at any minute.

How do we get to a place where he can cope with and prevent these mishaps? Is there help he can seek out for this kind of tendency to screw up the “mundane” tasks of his professional life?
Sincerely,

All Crisis-ed Out

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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 Can Men Look for Casual Sex Without Being Creepy?

March 12, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doc,

My question is, honestly, is it truly possible for men to actively seek out casual sex or hookups without being creepy? Now, let me clarify some things about this question. Theoretically, of course, the answer is obviously “yes”, but practically? How does a man even bring up the idea without ever creeping out a woman? Many women seem to be repulsed by the idea. Some may like it, but only with certain men. Of course, it’s impossible to know if a woman would like hooking up with you, or even if she wouldn’t be utterly repulsed by you asking, without asking in the first place, so even finding out that vital part of the equation seems impossible to do without creeping a woman out, unless you’re ungodly lucky and every single woman you happen to ask just happens to not be repulsed by you asking.

Another thing is even approaching. Ask on Reddit about it, every single possible venue has its detractors.
“Don’t ask me at the store, I’m just there to shop.”
“Don’t ask me at class, I’m there to learn.”
“Don’t ask me at salsa lessons, I’m there to dance salsa, and I’d be uncomfortable dancing with guys who ask me.”
“Don’t ask me at the coffee shop, I’m there to read/work.”
“Don’t ask me at the bar, I’m just there to drink with friends.”
“Don’t ask me at the club, I’m just there to dance with friends.”

It would be one thing if these were just framed as personal preference, but these always carry the implication that any guy who would do this is probably predatory. And God help you if you DARE ask any follow-up questions about any of these. If you do, it’s obviously because you want to invalidate her opinion or you think you’re entitled to women’s time. Just about the only uncontroversial venue is Tinder. But for many men, that’s just a self-esteem destroyer, of constant one-sided swiping and ghosting.

Some may say that the best thing to do is through social circles or activity groups. But because of everything else I mentioned, I REALLY do not want to do that. If I creep out a stranger, that sucks, but there’s likely no more negative consequences than that. The fact that she even would meet me again is slim to none. But if I creep out a friend or a friend or someone else in an activity group, that’s just terrible. She could tell others about how I creeped her out, my already existing friends would be more suspicious of me, any future interaction with any female member of the group would be tainted, I might even get shunned from the group. That makes me never want to look to friends or activity groups.

So basically, how is it even possible for a man to look for hookups without being creepy? It sounds like he’d need ungodly luck. First, the woman has to not be offended by a simple approach. Then, she has to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up, and then, to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up with him. None of those are knowable without asking in the first place. But to ask requires approaching in the first place. And then if he asks, she would then know he thinks of her like that…

Seeking Something Casual

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