online dating Archives

I Went From “Not” to “Hot”. Why Is It STILL Not Enough For Me?

April 11, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

TL;DR: used to be a nerdy loser, recently got my life together because of my fiancé, tempted to use my newfound powers.

I’ve been stuck in this strange situation for some time and I’m trying to figure my way out of it. To cut a long story short, I’m 33. I spent the majority of my life as a frustrated, overweight, overworked, nerd.

At one of the lowest points in my life, I found a girl. At the time, my dad was terminally ill, I’d left my job (I couldn’t cope with the stress of him being sick), and I was really depressed. I was 26 with no job, no family (my mom and I don’t get along). The one thing I had going for me was that I had some really good friends to help me through it.

After he died, this girl was there for me. We dated shortly after his funeral, and truthfully things turned around. She helped me get into therapy, and after a little while I was able to land my dream job.

Fast forward 7 years and since that point, life has panned out great. I’ve been able to afford to buy my own apartment (all from being promoted from that job at the company), dental braces, a new car and let’s just say, life worked out from that real low point. During lockdown, I proposed to my girlfriend and I thought life would be set.

My problem started after lockdown. I’ve started to go out a lot more to hang out with friends, which now also includes clubs and bars with work colleagues. On several occasions I’ve been at bars, and women have made passes at me. Not only that, but I feel like I’ve gotten noticed a lot more in the last year compared to the entirety of my 20s.

I admit I’ve glowed up, I’m happy with my life. But the thoughts keep coming in: “I need to make up for lost time”, “I need to make up for lost experiences”, “I need to take advantage of my glow up”.

No matter how hard I try, the thoughts keep coming in. Do I act on them? And if I don’t, have I missed out on my golden years? After almost 10 years of sadness, wouldn’t it just make sense to test it out?

I never had any success with women growing up. That whole time, I longed to have the superficial things to make me more successful with women. Now I have those things, and I can’t use them.

Help Doc! It’s like the Lord’s Prayer:
Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.

All Glowed Up

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How To Be Fearless With Women

April 6, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Trying to meet amazing women can be incredibly intimidating, even terrifying. There’s an understandable fear of judgement or rejection, especially since meeting women requires deliberately making yourself vulnerable to a relative stranger. There’s also the understandable worry of what your social success says about you and your worth as a person.

Worried young caucasian man steepling his fingers — And the over-thinking! Don’t forget the constant over-thinking!

However, so much of why it can be so intimidating is because we put unrealistic expectations on ourselves. We feel as though that we need to be “perfect” in order to get people’s interest, and in order to do that we need to know exactly what we’re doing. And we often don’t.

In fact, it’s that sense of not having an explicit road map or set of instructions that leaves them feeling terrified when they even think about trying to meet women. And to be sure: much of this fear comes from trying to avoid the hard stuff – being willing to be vulnerable, being willing to risk rejection and or even humiliation. This is precisely why so many people want scripts and one-size-fits-all rule sets to follow. If you have rules, then success is supposed to be assured… theoretically.

The problem with this outlook is that humans aren’t meat robots that follow algorithms and relationships don’t follow the if/then patterns that scripted routines and “secret seduction technique$” claim. There’s no escaping the inherent messiness of the human condition; accepting that risk is part and parcel of the whole adventure.

But imagine how much easier it would be to date if you weren’t having to fight through the fear first.

Meeting and dating women isn’t about being perfect or knowing exactly how to act at every second of the interaction. Being an incredible catch, the kind of guy that women would be lucky to date, isn’t about technique, it’s about your mindset. When you’re hung up on the outcome, rather than just connecting, you create barriers between yourself and the very people you want to match with. When you have the right outlook and approach to dating and meeting people, you remove the fear and anxiety and let your best and most authentic self shine.

Here’s how to change the way you think about dating and unlock your inner dating Jedi.

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How Do I Find A Friend With Benefits?

March 16, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

So I’m a guy who’s interested in having casual encounters or developing a friends with benefits situation. My issue is that I think I don’t have the right social circle for that. Now I know that this seems like I’m trying to avoid responsibility for my own failures but let me elaborate.

Due to the religious and “cultural” environment where I live, it’s really difficult to find other people who are openly interested in sex in a more casual context. I’ve been carefully trying to drop hints here and there in more socially “safe” situations hoping someone might notice and reciprocate. But I keep running into the same problem, which is that all the people I’m friends with seem to be universally against, or just not interested in that sort of thing. Online hasn’t been much better.

I know that people who are into what I want are out there and exist, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve managed to befriend and meet everyone one else but them. The feedback I’ve gotten from other people is that I’m fun, decently attractive (with some effort), and nonjudgmental (I’m aware I’m describing the bare minimum here)

So what my question is: Am I just somehow not meeting the right people? Am I simply incompatible or don’t attract someone who might be interested? Or are my hints just not as clear as I imagine them to be?

No Strings on Me

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How Do I Relearn How To Date?

March 4, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,
So I’m 31, nonbinary, and somewhere between demisexual and non-sex-repulsed ace on the asexuality spectrum. I was in a long-term relationship off and on (mostly on) from 2009-2018, before we finally admitted to each other that our life trajectories were heading in diverging directions and our incompatibilities (primarily that we’re two very different flavors of neurodivergent, as well as the fact that they’re pansexual with a high libido and I’m asexual with a low libido) were too much to overcome as partners. I’ve been on three first dates in my life, and the other two weren’t terrible but there was no chemistry.

So while I took time to be single and re-evaluate, especially during 2020, now I have no idea how to date folks, since I haven’t first-dated since me and the ex had a break in 2014. The previous relationship has made me want to take sex off the table entirely rather than be unfair to a potential allosexual partner, which limits my dating pool to aces, but like you’ve mentioned in other posts, there’s far more allos out there than aces and I’m very physically affectionate and panromantic otherwise.

Add the whole trans layer and I’m really not sure how to even approach people. Pandemic makes warm approaches difficult (though I did have a crush on an online friend for a bit, before they mentioned offhand they weren’t up to dating anyone for the foreseeable future), and cold approaches are as uncomfortable to me as they likely would be to pretty much anyone I’d be attracted to.

Advice?
Patchwork Dating Experience

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Help, My Boyfriend Wants to Move To Another Country!

January 3, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

I’ve known my partner for around 1.5 years. He’s from a foreign country, but his parents are from here. He moved here half a year ago, the plan was to stay here for 1-2 years to learn the language and work. Entering the relationship was a difficult decision for him, because he never thought he would commit to someone outside of his own country. However, we decided to commit even though the future seems scary for both of us.

He’s been having a hard time adjusting (he barely speaks the local language), and whenever he faces an inconvenience he would have a break down and he would wish he were somewhere else. And whenever that happens, I would get so scared he would leave me because I feel that he’ll never truly be happy in this country. He repeatedly said he belongs in his country, and his goal is to return there. He said he wants us to move to his country, but it won’t be easy for me as I am a woman, and I’ll have problems with my family about it. Plus he hasn’t had a stable job and he lives on allowance from his parents here.

Recently he’s been having breakdowns once a week, sometimes because he’s unsure of his future here, sometimes because he doesn’t feel safe here, sometimes because he just feels alienated. I told him to make friends, and to start building his career here so he’d have easier time adjusting. But he doesn’t make effort to do so, and I’d feel that he doesn’t even try to adjust and his ultimate goal is to return to his country and he’d never be truly happy here. These days I just tell him “if going back to your country will make you happy then you can do that”. I feel guilty that I can’t be a good listener and supporter because I want to understand him and how hard adjusting can be, but at the same time I feel very frustrated that every inconvenience he faces would trigger an emotional breakdown and this happens frequently.

I mean, I would sacrifice things in my life to move to his country, but I don’t know if he wants to put effort into doing the same thing.

What should I do?

Homesick Pilots

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