rejection Archives

Help, I Ruined My Friendship Because of Sex

December 3, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. Nerd Love,

Thank you for taking the time to read my email. I know you have addressed the issue of “friend zone” (and that it’s not really a thing). I completely understand that.

I recently started hanging out with a guy who we instantly connected and started spending time together multiple times a week and we’re in contact at various times throughout the day (quick phone call or text). I’d say he definitely initiated making plans more than I did and after about a month or so we were hanging out on a daily basis. The thing was this he had never once made a move or asked me to stay over. I found this rather odd and considering we are both in our 40’s, I kept wondering what is this guy waiting for? Finally one night I asked him if he wanted stay and basically made a comment about wouldn’t it be nice to sleep together… Well his response was that he thinks that I’m really attractive and he likes me a lot but he wants to go slow and be friends. A mutual friend of ours had told me that he had talked to her and said that he wants to make sure that we share the same goals and want the same thing in life. Uh ok, maybe that’s a thing. I wasn’t asking this guy to marry me, just to stay the night.

Since then, I found myself not being able to handle the reality of being rejected by someone who I felt we had a good connection. He didn’t back off, he continued to call, text, and hang out. I finally told him I needed space until I’m over my “crush” on him which that only lasted a few days before we went out to dinner. So there I was now finding myself feeling angry inside and almost resenting him for not wanting to take things further. The rejection hurt me bad and I even went as far as to tell him to lose my number and walked away.

I respect his decision and I get that if he isn’t into me that way then that’s his choice. But why bother telling me he thinks I’m attractive and he wants to continue spending time with me but not sleep together? If he doesn’t want to sleep with me then he obviously isn’t attracted to me and ya maybe he just enjoys my company like friends do. How can I make this rejection not hurt so bad? It sucks not hanging out anymore and I’m bummed now because I feel like I would had rather stayed friends than nothing at all but because I acted emotionally immature and told him to lose my number, I ruined the friendship.

Thanks,
Rejected

[Read more…]

Why Do I Keep Hurting Myself?

August 25, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doctor’s Note: this column includes discussion of self-harm

Hi Doc,

I don’t know how to explain this, so I’ll give some background. I’m a 25 guy who never kissed a girl or held hands and so on. I’ve been rejected all my life and in many mean ways, always being told I was too ugly, hideous, disgusting, etc. Of course that hurt me a lot back then and destroyed what left of my confidence and hope that maybe someday someone would like and love me. Now I can imagine myself trying to approach someone again, because I’m scared to death that they will say something like that again and I don’t want to bother them if I’m just not good enough.

That’s normal I guess and I would be somewhat ‘fine’ if I just never tried again talking to girls in a romantic way. However, for some reason I keep repeating myself those words and phrases and keep hurting myself emotionally. I tell myself ‘you’re hideous, no one will ever love you’ or ‘you’ll never get a girlfriend and you’ll die alone’ or ‘why you’re so ugly? kill yourself’ and so on. Or, for instance, at night I listen to romantic or some songs that remind me about girlfriends, love and relationships and I search ‘cute couples’ on google images and I spend hours crying and feeling awful and depriving myself of a good sleep (and the next morning, when I’m sleepy at work, I feel even worse for wasting time on that). Sometimes I go as far as texting myself awful things, just to make me cry.

I don’t know how or when I got this habit, but it’s something I deal on a daily basis. I’m going crazy? I’m just broken? This is a side-effect of my loneliness and being unlovable? I don’t know what to do. I can accept and being ok with people being mean to me, maybe I deserve it, but why on earth I hurt myself?

Bad To Me

[Read more…]

These Mistakes Are Costing You Dates

July 7, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I have a serious question for you: are you someone who plays to win, or who plays to avoid losing?

Most folks would say that, yes, they absolutely play to win. Even if they’re not the sort of min/maxing, loophole-finding, cutthroat gamesman who makes board game night a flaming hellscape, people will generally say that when they play, their goal is to make a sincere effort at winning.

Group of friends sitting at wooden table, having fun while playing board game. — Except for Abbott: the ONE guy who plays Pandemic by being on the side of the disease, WHAT THE FUCK, ABBOTT?

However, if you look at people’s dating life, you’d be forgiven for thinking that not only are they not playing to win, they’re playing in a way that’s designed to ensure they won’t find a long-term partner. To be blunt, a lot of the ways that people approach dating actively works against them. They are, for all intents and purposes, focused on not losing. That is: they’re focused more on avoiding rejection than they are on finding a potential partner. And to be fair: this is understandable. If you don’t have a lot of social experience, you’re just starting to date or you’re finding yourself back on the market again, rejection can be scary. It feels like the worst thing that could happen to you. It’s natural to want to try to avoid it at all costs.

But the problem is that trying to avoid “losing” isn’t the same as winning; in fact, taking this outlook will actually cost you dates.

It’s time to stop handicapping your own love life. Here’s how to recognize and avoid these common dating mistakes.

[Read more…]

Is It Ok To End A Relationship Over Sex?

May 10, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

How do you know if/when to end a long-term relationship when everything is great except for the sex? How do you know when it’s irrational to keep trying to make it work?

I’ve been dating my girlfriend Helen (not her real name) for 5 years, and lived with her for 3. We’re both in our mid-20s. Before meeting Helen, I had very little success in the dating and sexual realm; this is my first real relationship and she’s the only person I’ve had sex with more than once (I had a couple of one-time hookups years ago). We mutually decided to be polyamorous from the start, as both of us identified with it, though in practice I haven’t dated outside our relationship.

Helen and I were friends before we started dating, and as soon as we did we went through the typical honeymoon phase, including a deep personal connection and lots of enthusiastic sex. The thing is, even after the honeymoon phase wore off the non-sexual parts of our relationship continued to be amazing. We have similar values and (weird) personality types, share similar niche academic interests, communicate openly and honestly, and have a mutual love of cuddling. We still find ourselves regularly getting lost in fascinating, hours-long conversations. We’ve supported one another through hard times and mental illness. We’re best friends, and until recently I was 100% sure I was going to spend the rest of my life with Helen.

Over the course of our relationship, though, we’ve been having sex less and less, and Helen has seemed less and less sexually attracted to me. Nowadays, we sometimes go months without any sort of sexual intimacy. Even when we do have sex, while Helen still says she enjoys it, I always have to initiate and it’s clear that she’s mostly doing it because she cares about me and the relationship, and less out of visceral desire or excitement (she’s also told me as much, FWIW). It feels like she always prefers snuggling up with me on the couch and watching another episode of a show together over having sex, no matter what I do. We’ve had many conversations where I’ve tried to ask Helen in a lowkey way what I could do to be more attractive or make sex with me more enjoyable for her, but her responses are either unhelpfully vague or that it’s more about her than me.

To make matters worse, it isn’t that Helen’s sex drive has gone down in general, just that it’s gone down for sex with me in particular. While I wouldn’t say she has a high sex drive, and stress sometimes completely kills it for a week or two at a time, generally speaking she still masturbates, and when she has other partners she still enthusiastically has sex with them (this is based on conversations we’ve had, not my own assumptions, to be clear).

This is a problem for me. I have a high sex drive and really value sexuality. I masturbate almost daily, and often 2-3 times a day. And I’m still very attracted to Helen. Even after 5 years. I still feel over the moon every time we have sex, and it makes me feel close to her in a way few other things do.

I know it’s not realistic to expect daily sex in a long-term relationship, and that sometimes people will have a stressful week or month that might dramatically lower their libido temporarily, and I’m ok with that. That said, I really want my primary partner to make me feel desired, to sometimes be enthusiastic about sex with me, and to have sex with them a couple times a week on average. I want to feel like my partner is getting as much from sex as I am. I want my sex life to be more than just a very occasional quickie or handjob to keep me happy.

It really hurts to feel like your own girlfriend doesn’t desire you anymore. I try not to let it get to me too much and focus on the other good things in our relationship, but in some moods this dynamic makes me feel undesirable, lonely, and sexually frustrated, which is how I often felt back in my unhappy years as a college-aged virgin.

At the same time, aside from the sex our relationship is wonderful and I’d be devastated if it ended. When I compare our relationship to those of my friends and family, Helen and I have one of the healthiest and closest I know of outside of the bedroom. That connection feels really special and I feel like I’d be a fool to give it up.

Sometimes I wonder if I should try my hand once again at polyamorous dating to get my sexual needs met now that I’ve been vaccinated, but other times I wonder how much that would really help. And, to be honest, my past experiences with online dating as a partnered, polyamorous, introverted guy have been extremely dispiriting and not particularly fruitful.

My question isn’t so much about how I can be more attractive to Helen or communicate better about sex with her, we’ve been seeing a sex-positive couple’s therapist about that, but rather how do you know when you’ve given it your all and it just isn’t going to work out? How do I even go about thinking about this? What questions should I be asking myself? I feel so lost and uncertain.

Thanks,

Lost in a Relationship

[Read more…]

How Do I Friend Zone Someone Without Being a Jerk?

March 10, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

I’m the type of guy that never really prioritized relationships in high school or college. I was also focused on career, school, and my health. As a result, I never really had any relationship experience, or any experience with women, and, to be honest, I’m just a typical socially awkward nerd (and proud).

However, as I’ve started taking steps towards interacting with women, I realized that while I’m a socially awkward nerd, I’m a nerd who won the genetic lottery. I’ve netted from independent sources that I’m a really good-looking guy. I guess I just got lucky but while I’m really just trying to build friendships with women they tend to jump the boat from friendship to dreaming about a relationship or asking me out when we’ve only really shared a couple classes together and talked a few times over lunch. I usually reject them since I’m really not looking for that right now, but how do I do it without being a huge dick?

With one girl I flatly said “no” to a dinner date proposition, and I really wished I could’ve delivered that nicer because I could tell she was really hurt. I didn’t mean to make her feel that way I just wanted to be honest and not skirt around it like when girls do to guys. I know that’s because they’re socialized to be nice, but most men find it confusing so I just wanted to be blunt. With another girl I could tell she was beginning to catch feelings and I wanted to avoid another situation similar to the one above, and kind’ve just got confused with how to act and cut her off. The friendship fizzled out and it’s a shame I thought she was a cool person. How do I navigate people’s feelings for me without being a douche?

Thanks!

Strictly Platonic

[Read more…]