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We Only Just Met. Can We Make a Long Distance Relationship Work?

February 22, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

After a few years of non-dating, I (F, mid-30s from Denmark) bumped into this awesome British guy (M, mid-30s) and we just hit it off. It was one of those meetings that lasted 6-7 hours. We shared laughter, life stories, bad jokes, what we do for living (without overdoing it), shared pictures of family members (without going into details) and friends… it seemed effortless as if it was a marathon of several dates in the same time. He was even very honest about a job interview that he was invited to, a job located in London. At the end of the date, he told me that he would get in touch with me after his job interview to set up a new date if I was interested. I thought,”why not?” Nothing was settled in terms of job. And so he did. A week later, he came over for dinner and second date was just as fun and enjoyable. He mentioned about how the interview went, but I found it difficult to have the conversation. Partly because I don’t know him well enough to have an opinion, but of course I want to be supportive. London is fab. I use to live and work in London, so I totally understand him. But a part of me also felt bummed out about the whole situation. How far should we take this when he was leaving.

After the second date, he texted me that he got the job in London. I was happy for him and stayed cool. It was a bittersweet announcement. After a while, I thought why not just be an adult and I told him how I felt about the situation – we had an honest conversation, even though it was on a early stage to have that kind of serious talk. I wouldn’t have initiated it if he was staying, but he was not. That kind of made the decision for him not to get too engaged in that short of time that was left. But if he was staying, it would have been different. He was very emotional about it. So I told him that there was no pressure. If he wanted to see me fantastic, if he wanted to texted me after settling in London, he should feel free to do so. And if not, then I wished him the best of luck and that life would treat him well. I got an unexpectedly positive response to it. I quote “Thank you for your support and honesty. It’s a good quality in someone. I find it so sweet and mature of you. That is why I think you’re good egg. And it is a breath of fresh air” (followed by 3 emojis with heart eyes)

I saw him today just for a short moment. I tried to be neutral and smiley but avoided eye contact. I could see it was difficult for him as well. It was painful to see the sadness in his eyes because it should be an exciting time for him. He asked if we could catch up before him leaving permanently so he could say goodbye properly. 

I don’t know what to feel – it has been a rollercoaster of mixed feelings; hope, happiness, sadness, anxiety, stress and that is just me … and I keep telling myself that I should not feel like this way. I understand that he cannot deal with any emotionally attachments when he has lots of things going on (the fact that he is in between two jobs, arrange a safe transaction from one country to another during pandemic, etc.) I want to be priority too, and that will be difficult when he is busy and stressed about moving abroad, the flights are running irregularly, test and isolation, finding a place to stay, etc. 

But the selfish part of me wants more at some point. Is it possible? Yes, if both people are dedicated and that they have known each other for a while. I visit London often, both for work and pleasure. And it is even quicker and easier for me to travel to London than crossing Denmark. But we don’t know each other that well….

I don’t want to seem needy, or annoy the guy who is emotional at the moment even though he asked me to come visit, twice (it’s difficult to tell if the British mean this or just being polite). He has spend most of his adult life in DK, now he is going back home to built a new life and identity. Being supportive by giving space and stay incommunicado

Everything about him seems honest and decent.  He keeps promises, and you can tell a lot about a person over texting (full sentences, long messages with emojis, being honest about his feelings,  sharing great news like a new job) He said the same to me and wondered why we haven’t met earlier though we live quite close based on the good vibe and chemistry we had. 

I don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t been dating in a long time, or I get attached to quickly, have I misunderstood something because it is too good to be true… but I would love someone from the outside to give a qualified opinion.

 We both want to settle (yeah, before he was offered a job). He has been married before and he’d gotten divorced three years ago. Currently we live in Copenhagen, not too far away from each other. He has less then a month left in DK. He had been in a long distance relationship with someone in London. But it didn’t work out due to Covid. So he has had his share of bad relationships too. Honestly I don’t care about demography and geography if you share the same values and mindset.

International Love Affair

[Read more…]

How Do I Get My Twitch Crush To Like Me Back?

December 11, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr.NerdLove

Back in december 2019, I joined a twitch channel to help develop my skill at a certain VR game and ended up sticking around that channel up until now. The person doing the streaming is an absolute sweetheart of a girl and helped me a ton with my life. Her small acts of kindness and genuine acceptance of my person gave me back my self-love, my self-worth and managed to get me out of a very long depression. We hanged out a lot in her discord server, she’d open up to me with her problems, with some of her desires and we would also play games together.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, I started to have feelings for her. At first, I didn’t really pay them attention, thinking it was not a real possibility because she lives so far away from me and kept that attraction buried. After around 10 months hanging with her and other friends of the community she created, the feelings grew to more than simple attraction, I was longing for her. I tried to approach her for a potential long distance relationship but it didn’t end very well. She said she wasn’t ready and that she’s a physical person and a distant relationship was not a possibility for her. I then spoke about it to someone else and it got her really angry about the whole situation but we managed to get over it and move on from it.

Now here’s the thing, that whole situation just showed me that it was more than just a longing for a relation. I am totally in love with her. True love level of love in fact. I’ve never felt feeling as strong towards anyone than what I feel for her. So I confessed those feelings to her at the end of november, that it’s actually love that I feel for her, not just attraction. She repeated that she’s not ready for a relationship, that she does not feel that way for me either. Still, I did something really stupid and I pushed it. I thought that the distance was the problem and that if I was willing to come to her (which I am), then maybe it could work. I asked her to give me a chance, I told her that love can grow between two persons. This caused her to actually burst into tears as she didn’t want to hurt me but really don’t want a relationship. She really do care for me but not in a romantic way… Seeing her hurt over this made me slam on the breaks, or rather, it made me divert my course into a brick wall rather than keeping hurting her. I love her with all my heart and it’s stronger than the very desire of being with her, I’d rather suffer than see her suffer from this…

The whole unrequited love made me have several mental breakdowns in the following day, I went into heavy crying for several hours, several times, silent screaming from heartache. The pain is very real and the only time I’ve felt something as intense is from the death of a dear one.

That said, I still want to be with her very badly, I don’t know if there’s any path for me to take that could result in that situation without her getting wounded in the process. She still want to be friends (very much so) and don’t want to end that friendship but was pretty clear that if needed, it will happen. I totally get that she wants to be left alone in that regard and I am not gonna make any direct move in that direction. I’d rather stay her friend than have her disappear from my life. Is there a chance she can eventually love me? How?

Is my love situation hopeless?

Thanks

Does The Heart Get A Second Chance?

[Read more…]

I Want A Relationship. So Why Don’t They Make Me Happy?

October 26, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Doctor,

Thanks for all the work you do! I have a question I’ve been pondering for a while now, and it is how on earth I figure out what I want. Because I can’t. And I have been trying very, very hard.

Professionally I’m all set (in my very early 30s, got all the opportunities anyone could ever ask for), my family is amazing and supportive and drama free (mostly very far away, but that’s about the only complaint I have) and my friends are beyond awesome. My life is already as close to perfect as it gets in this world, and sometimes I wonder how on earth I could possibly get even more lucky and find the perfect relationship to top it all off. Because that would seem like having my cake and eating it. And I can’t help but suspect that nobody really gets to do that.

Thing is, I don’t even know if I want a relationship. I’m content and I have a lot of challenging things to work towards. I have all the emotional support I want, mostly thanks to your awesome writing on developing emotional intimacy with people that I have no interest in seeing romantically. Seriously, it’s like someone gave you a cheat code for life. So I see very little benefit in relationships.

Whenever I am seeing someone romantically, it takes about a month before I crave being on my own again because I get to do whatever I like, whenever it pleases me. This was a bit more pertinent before that thing everybody is talking about because I would travel a lot, privately and professionally. That’s off the cards for now, but the feeling is the same even when there are no real opportunities I am missing out on. Somehow, whenever I am dating someone, time to myself becomes incredibly valuable and time spent with them bores me. So I end things. And I hurt people doing that, which I hate. But staying with them would be terribly unfair to them because I’d be faking it.

Then I am relieved and single again and content. And then I start to wonder if maybe I am missing out on something and start dating again and so the cycle goes. But I never have the connections with people I date that I have with my friends, and so I leave. Again. And then I start to wonder. Again.

Hell, I even went to see a psychologist about this (among other things) and they said some stuff about avoidant attachment that sounded sort of true but also a bit generic, kind of like a horoscope.

Any advice?

Is What You Want What You Need?

[Read more…]

How Can I Tell If Someone’s Leading Me On?

July 15, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

I (27M) met this woman on Bumble a few months ago. We met each other in person for a low-key meeting to see if we vibe together, and we certainly did. We had similar interests, shared values (which is pretty rare in the rural southern place I live). There was one big problem: that meeting happened a few days before the COVID-19 lockdown. Obviously, we weren’t able to go on any real dates after that.

We kept texting throughout it, but it slowed down, because she works at a hospital lab, and she volunteered to process the COVID-19 tests, and we live in a state that was hit particularly hard. I figured “fine, these are unprecedented times, dating is definitely going to be different, that pre-relationship anxiety of ‘oh god, am I doing something wrong’ is going to be extended by default.” I’ve heard about how much stress medical workers go through, and the fact that she’s doing the tests means she’s definitely at risk of exposure to the virus, and she mentioned that she lives with her high-risk father.

So I figured that her being slow to reply to text messages was a pretty normal thing, since she was diligent in replying to text messages eventually, and she gave pretty substantial replies, and we would even have deep conversations sometimes. I would suggest FaceTiming/remotely watching a movie, she mentioned not having a lot of time. Once, we eventually talked on the phone, we talked for two hours, I was really happy, she sounded really happy. A bit later, she apologized about how she was dodging my invitations to talk or video call, and mentioned what I suspected, that she was really busy and stressed. I didn’t think much of it, until a couple of weeks later, my friends told me that I seem to be obsessing over this, that this is clearly causing me anxiety, that they think she’s unintentionally leading me on, not being upfront about what she wants.

And now this is making me think, is she? So how do I proceed?

Thank you.

On The Back Burner

[Read more…]

Episode #138 — Love, Sex and Dating During Quarantine

April 8, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t mean that your love life has to be put on hold. In fact, relationships are more important than ever. People are still meeting, dating and even falling in love during social distancing. The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to think about dating in new and different ways. In this replay of the live workshop, Dr. NerdLove will talk about how dating has changed, how we can change with it and how the current crisis has the potential to make us more desirable dates, better lovers and incredible partners.

SIGN UP FOR THE DATING ACCELERATOR PROGRAM

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About Dr. NerdLove:

Harris O'Malley (AKA Dr. NerdLove) is an internationally recognized blogger and dating coach who gives dating advice to geeks of all stripes. Making nerds sexier since 20011

Remember: Dr. NerdLove is not really a doctor. [Read More …]

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Recent Comments

  • fuzzilla LW2: I get the financial aspect, I really do, but that can't be the only thing keeping you in a relationship, especially when you're not even in one but musing on what you'd want in one. I don't...

    How Do I Date When I’m This Ugly? ·  February 25, 2021

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    How Do I Date When I’m This Ugly? ·  February 25, 2021

  • buddleia "you don’t face the same difficulties you might face if one of you lived in, say, the US or Canada." Lol this is me and my SO with a 3 hr time difference. We met in an online forum about a year...

    We Only Just Met. Can We Make a Long Distance Relationship Work? ·  February 25, 2021

  • Jimmy Two-Hammers LW2 - a couple of things; usually people can maybe rush into moving in together with their SO's because they think "Hey, we're getting along great, we love each other, we get along, why don't we just...

    How Do I Date When I’m This Ugly? ·  February 25, 2021

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