Love, Sex and Dating For The Modern Nerd
Book A Private Coaching Session With Dr. NerdLove
Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes , Stitcher and on YouTube.
Like the podcast? Become a Dr. NerdLove patron at Patreon.com/DrNerdLove
Want more dating advice? Check out my books at www.www.doctornerdlove.com/books
Dear Dr. NerdLove,
I am at a point in my life that I know something is not right with me. The problem is I can NOT nail down what the underlying issue is. My guess is that I am going through a mid-life crisis; I am NOT really sure if it’s a mid-life crisis or not; but if I have to guess, I would say that. But the one thing I am sure about is that I feel mehhh / blah regularly. Other times, I feel like I am going each day robotically. What drives me crazy is that I don’t know the exact issue to combat this. These feelings or mental state I am in happens regularly when I am alone. And it doesn’t help that I think a lot as well.
I did a lot of research online but information from the internet regarding mid-life crisis wasn’t that much helpful and doesn’t provide information on how to manage / deal with it. I am hoping you can provide some guidance or know of organizations who I can reach out to for help on what I am feeling. I am sure I am not the only one feeling this way.
If it matters, I am in my early forties, have a good stable job, and have the basic necessity. I am normally a positive happy person but this state I have been in continues for over two years already. Some days it’s hard to get through than others. I am single and have friends / family but none seems to be going through what I am going through and they are busy with their life that I don’t want to take time away.
I am into self – help and any insight / help you can provide is greatly appreciated. I just want to be happy again and it’s hard when I can’t pinpoint what exactly is going on with me. I will be happy knowing what is going on with me; then at least I will work toward resolving it.
Wanting to be happy again,
Jack’s Sense of Ennui
Hey Dr. NerdLove,
So I had a decade long relationship with a lady (We’ll call her B) which came to an end. We both realised we needed to do things for ourselves and work on becoming better more mature people emotionally for each other. In order to work on some of our toxic habits within the relationship, we took a break from the relationship. But the reality is, we weren’t sure if it was a permanent break up or not.
Fast forward a year after, we continued talking and having fairly regular friend-sex, but I made a huge move away. We had spoken about wanting to get back together for months, but we both believed we weren’t quite there yet. We see each other as the one and only of our lives, but we had been dating for the entirety of our adult lives, and sometimes it felt like things were missed outside of our relationship . I have started to become needy and concerned in my time away wanting to talk to her more but I was busy with work and worried she would see me as needy and annoying. I was also scared that she was seeing other guys. Getting so scared about it made me feel very insecure, selfish and immature, wanting her to myself even though I moved away from her.
For some context, I have had sex and some teenage experiences before being with her, but I was her first and only experience for the last 10 years and I think that slightly adds to my insecurity. She has used that slightly as a reason to wanting to see what it was like to sleep with others.
After moving, she continued sending me things like nudes and telling me to hurry and visit because she’s getting “desperate” — just all playful flirty fun to get me rushing back sooner I guess. But last night I tried to call her wanting to catch up and talk about the “us” situation.
Well it ended in her missing my calls and telling me later she has been having sex with some other guys specifically that night while I was calling her and other nights before this, she would reaffirm that nothing was serious, I was still special and important and saying things like no one gets her or makes her feel like I do, especially sexually. She also said that a lot of what she’s been doing has been to due to depression; she has a history of self harm and ended up replacing it with sex, sex that I could no longer give her since I moved.
(I was unaware of the self harm coming back up until recently; she had only continued in the last few months.)
I guess my question is: how do I come to grips with all of this? I truly believe she still loves me and I know I still love her. After a long up and down night, we seem more determined than ever to get back together and make it work in the near future. Of course, the geographical location side of things being eventually dealt with as well.
But I feel so horrible and like a fool. It’s brought me to tears every day, I feel angry, replaced and unneeded, but also jealous and somewhat envious. She was happy for me to see other girls but I can’t bring myself to even try now, I don’t see myself as someone who could get laid or do the dating thing anymore. Not to mention I’m still madly in love with her and don’t want to string other girls along just for sex to even some sort of score between me and B.
I am dealing with all sorts of emotions daily now and plan to make regular visits to her until it either we break up for good, or one of us makes the move and we get back together. I want to feel important and special, and she says all the right things but I am having such a hard time getting over her experiences while we weren’t together. I wanted to be mature and understanding but I’m struck with jealousy and anger like nothing else.
She tells me she doesn’t want to keep sleeping with guys after talking to me, that she wished I was more needy and spoke to her on the phone more, that might have made her less wanting of finding other temporary guys. I wish I put in the effort now, I feel like an absolute fool for trying not to bother her constantly when she tells me now that’s what she wanted, that she hasn’t thoroughly enjoyed sex without me and misses talking to me.
I just wanna be the better man and believe she wants me over anyone else and be better for her, that I don’t become resentful because of her interest in experimenting out there during our “break”. Help?
Break Up or Break Down
Hi Doc,
I hope you can help me on this and I’ll start with some backstory: I’ve known this girl since…always. Her sister and I went to kindergarten, elementary and high school together and we’re close friends. I guess I began having feelings for her when I was 11-12, mostly because she was three years older than me and seemed like a woman, not just a girl. Time went on and over the years we became close friends and I discovered how amazing, funny, smart, laid back and friendly she was and I became more attached to her. She eventually graduated and moved out of to college. This really devastated me and I awkwardly confessed my feelings hoping that she would stay and marry me (I was 15, don’t get mad at me). As expected she told me she didn’t feel that way and that she liked me as a friend and a little brother.
She was great enough to give me some advice and told me to focus on girls my age. Of course, I didn’t follow her advice and kept liking her and everytime she came home to visit her family and friends and we would spend some time together I was the happiest man alive. My crush on her continued even after I finished college. A year ago I got my first job in the same city as her, so we hang out more often. Everything was great until she got a job offer in Europe. I’m sincerely very happy for her, because she’s not only good at her job, she algo loves it and living there was always her dream.
I know I’m being selfish, but I’m very sad knowing that she’s leaving and I won’t be able to see her for months. I highly value our friendship and losing it hurts.
How can I stop liking her? I know I should go out and meet other women, but in my 24 years on this planet I’ve never been interested in anyone but her, never kissed or been on a date and I’m not sure if I know how to flirt or ask someone out at this point and everytime I met someone is like ‘yeah, she’s cool, but she’s not HER’.
I know I’m just not right and good enough for her and we’ll never be more than friends, but I can’t see myself with anyone else. What can I do?
Hooked On A Feeling
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I’m starting to believe I’m not actually capable of dating someone and I’m becoming afraid of dying alone.
I was bullied most of my school life, I probably didn’t help myself much at the time but now I realise the experience left me socially isolated/awkward, lacking in confidence and self-belief and believing I had little to offer in life. I’m now 24 and all in all I really cannot complain: I have my health, I’m financially stable and I have the career I always aspired to which offers a fantastic work/life balance. I’ve always been somewhat introverted but I have my friends I see (as and when work schedules allow) I do socialise more now and have become a bit more self-aware and hopefully less awkward. I’m certainly no party animal and I choose not to drink. I prefer to spend my time away from work with outdoor adventure activities, exploring different countries, keeping fit, generally seeking to learn and develop in and out of work and charity/volunteer work.
However, my dating/love life has not had the same success, in fact much the polar opposite. I think this stems from a bad dose of what you’d probably call oneitis I had in school: in hindsight we were opposing ends of the social spectrum so it was an impossibility really. She was perfectly polite and respectful in her rejection but unfortunately once word got around it all fed more ammunition to my childhood tormentors and as is the way in school the majority sided with the socially dominant bullies. This has left me with crippling approach anxiety for fear not so much of the polite ‘No, thank you’ but more the nuclear explosion of abuse and psychological torture that historically followed. So I’ve hit 25 and not managed a meaningful romantic relationship. Not one.
Of the odd, irregular night out I enjoy bars and pubs but clubs are really not my scene. I suppose this limits the number of women I meet but I also think it’s probably better to meet them doing what I enjoy. I have many female colleagues as well (I realise work isn’t necessarily the best or even appropriate time to approach anyone).
My trouble is, if I meet a girl who I find attractive (personality, physically etc) the fear starts brewing. I automatically assume they’re already spoken for, wouldn’t be interested or could do better and I get tongue tied: either I end up saying something stupid or blanking them. Even worse, sometimes I manage a pleasant but platonic conversation when it’s just one-on-one, but cross paths with her with other people present, I panic and blank them. Probably as creepy as it is offensive and I don’t mean to be that way.
I have friends and colleagues who really have made a great effort to help. I regularly hear: “You’re not exactly ugly, impressive physique, you have a great career which involves helping people and you really can say you’ve saved more than one life, you’re passionate about your job and hobbies, well-travelled ambitious, intelligent, honest, well-meaning, pretty funny when you want to be AND you can cook! That’s quite the package to offer”
I go away feeling better about things but as soon as I’m faced with the pretty girl it all crashes back: Nope. I’ve got nothing to offer her. She’s out my league.
I’d love to follow the advice of just ask, nothing to lose, ask straight away before you’ve become over invested in the answer but, being a bit socially awkward, it takes a while for me to become comfortable talking with someone and by then I have overthought everything and convinced myself not to bother. On the incredibly rare occasion I’m seriously thinking of asking I don’t know how to, I can’t work out how to make the conversation more than just platonic chat or professional courtesy. On the even rarer occasion I’ve actually asked (unimpressively, timidly and stammering) it’s always a no. A polite and thoughtfully worded no (mostly) but still a no.
I’ve managed a few (we’re talking less than 5) dates in recent years. None successful. To be honest, none of them have even been enjoyable. She may be very beautiful with a great personality and I may have wanted to see her again but the pressure I seem to put on myself believing that I have to try and act like someone else because they clearly won’t like me just leaves me feeling deflated, defeated and exhausted. They never want to meet a second time. The reality is, I don’t enjoy the process of meeting someone or getting to know them (mainly due to my lack of self belief) but I don’t want to grow up and die alone. Unfortunately, in my work I see this happen scarily regularly and with every partially decomposed body that was only found cos the neighbour hasn’t seen them for a while it hits me every time that I’m possibly seeing my own future.
The internet is full of warped and contradictory “…treat em mean keep em keen…” advice filled with “infallible techniques and pick up mind tricks” and I’m buried under a belief that you need to be a psychological genius to work it out.
I guess my question is what do I do? Where do I start?
Feeling Like Failure
What “Forged in Fire” Can Teach Us About Manhood ·
September 30, 2020
What “Forged in Fire” Can Teach Us About Manhood ·
September 30, 2020
What “Forged in Fire” Can Teach Us About Manhood ·
September 30, 2020
What “Forged in Fire” Can Teach Us About Manhood ·
September 30, 2020
