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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.

[Read more…]

How Do I Stop Feeling Ugly?

March 11, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

This’s the first time I wrote to someone so apologise for mistakes or missed details that are important.

I am 27 year old Middle Eastern guy. Highly educated and have a big circle of friends. I’m currently living in a European country but I lived in few different ones and my dating life sucked in every single one of these countries.

Looks are an issue but not the only. Even tho I have attractive features such as height, dimples, long lashes and I know this because I had so many compliments on them. Yet I do have a lot of poor DNA selections such as balding, dark circles, underdeveloped jaw, no jaw line whatsoever, sticking out ears and developed an overgrown brow line so kinda like horns sticking out of my forehead.

I used to think I was Prince Charming and lived my teen life believing it but was shocked why I couldn’t get any girls. The older I got the more rejected by women I became. It blew my mind when I saw one of my mates chatting to a girl she was drooling over him even tho he was beyond boring! I tried and I tried hard but the rejections I get sometimes are unbearable where women can be rude to me and either physically harass me or verbally. Rejection is not a problem it’s how rude they can be what really gets to me so I stopped trying in person.

Online dating, you can imagine how that is. I succeeded dating few girls from online dating websites but it was out of desperation I was not convinced whatsoever they were what I could get still I tried to make them work but here I am single and struggling more than ever. Duh!

I’m 6’1 and pretty fit as I’ve been dedicated for over 8 months to achieve my current look. Additionally I had jaw and jawline augmentation to make it look a bit better. Despite the time and the effort invested matches on dating apps are either not responding or one strike and you’re out.

I’d have my whole face reshaped if I could afford it but I can’t. I changed what I can but my tries hasn’t made noticeable difference.

I can’t give up I know that as I need a partner but apparently no women are interested or interested enough to even try and get to know me. Am I missing on something or should wait on line until women had their fun with Chad and finally decides to settle down for the ugly?

Rule of Lower Thirds

[Read more…]

This Is How You Break Your Self-Limiting Beliefs

January 19, 2022 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I want to talk to you for a moment about a client I had. He, like a lot of my coaching clients, wanted to know what it takes to be someone women want to date. This caught me off guard; this was a guy who had a lot going for him. He was tall, good looking and fun to talk to. And yet, he didn’t struggle with meeting women so much as failed to so much as look at them. Never mind striking out, the guy got the screaming abdabs just thinking about going up to the plate.

pitcher throwing a baseball at the camera
POV: You’re in a tortured metaphor for dating and your crush is about to send a 110 MPH fastball straight into your insecurities…

Once we identified just what he thought he was missing and who he wanted to date, I worked with him on a plan that would help get him closer to his goal. We talked about style and presentation, and about where he could go to meet the kind of women he was into. We came up with a plan of action to build out his social circle and start cultivating the lifestyle that would make it easier for him to effortlessly bring more women into his life. Once he was satisfied with his new strategy, we scheduled a follow-up session to discuss his progress and make adjustments as needed.

Well, the follow-up session came around and he had done… precisely none of the things we talked about. He tried. He planned to do it. But when it was time to quit talking and start walking, he choked. Couldn’t do it. Sometimes he got as far as walking up to someone and then either walked past, or just turned around and walked away without saying a word.

“Look… I’m just not one of the guys who can do that,” he told me. It was fine for him to imagine women liking him and wanting to date him. But as soon as he tried to actually talk to someone he liked, his anxiety would flair up and convince him that he wouldn’t be good enough. All of his good points didn’t matter; there would be too many other guys who had more. He failed before he even started — not because of anything he’d done, but because he couldn’t believe that he could ever be the kind of guy who could talk to women or who women liked. And so he “tried”, failed and took that as proof that he could ever succeed.

His story isn’t unique. Lots of men have convinced themselves that they’re doomed to failure, and that they could never be good enough. And while they may have different reasons why— wrong body, wrong height, too shy, too whatever — the real problem comes from within. To a man, they let their self-limiting beliefs run their lives. Rather than working on their social skills and building a great life, they convince themselves to not even bother trying.

Maybe that sounds like you. Maybe you’re frustrated at how little you believe that anyone could want you. How much better would your life be if you could shut up that voice that says “why bother, it’ll never work?” How much would your life change if you could let go of the negative beliefs that hold you back?

Hold onto that thought, because today, we’re going to talk about how to break those self-limiting beliefs and become the sexy bad-ass you were always meant to be.

[Read more…]

How Do I Learn To Love Myself?

November 29, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove: 

A common truism you hear a lot about dating is “You have to learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else”. I’m bringing that up so I can tie dating to something I want to pick your brain on, which is about self-love.

I find the messaging around how one should feel about themselves to be confusing to navigate. One hand, it’s generally understood one should learn to be humble and self-critical, because the mind is naturally biased towards itself and will resist hearing negative things about itself. On the other hand, we warn about self-loathing and excessive self-criticism. A person having too much negative self-talk is a sign of depression.

To make this more personal, I’m one of those people prone to self-deprecating humor. It’s a habit I’ve had since middle school. I admit, it was definitely unhealthy back then when I would say things like I’m stupid or ugly, things I didn’t really believe but got laughs. Nowadays I try to be more realistic (I’m a knowledgeable person and I look okay when I dress well, I think) but I’ll still joke about how much of a loser I am occasionally. I see some criticism of self-deprecating humor and ironically it’s makes me defensive. I think, “Yeah, I’m making myself look bad, but at least I’m humbling myself. Better than being egotistical”.

And that’s what I want to know. How can I have confidence and practice self-love without becoming a narcissist? I see people online express love towards themselves in ways that I could never feel comfortable doing because I believe that if I said them, it would be arrogant. I could never say “I’m hot” or “I’m cool” because I just don’t believe those about myself. I’m not saying that people who do are arrogant, I’m just saying I don’t have the will to stand up for myself if I got push back for saying those things. And I just have a hard time relating to people who do.

And I mean, while lack of self-confidence can be harmful to one’s health and social life, arrogance does still exist right? Whenever we see someone gassing themselves up to an extreme level and acting like they’re the hottest shit in the room we all recognize that person as an asshole. I mean look at the Artist Formally Known as Kanye. Few people looked at that guy and thought “That man is an example of radical self-love”.

What makes the pressure to gain self-love worse for me is the political aspect of it. There are people who practice self-love not just for their mental health, but to push back against a society that devalues anyone who isn’t a cishet white male (What’s that phrase? “Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man”). I’m a POC so I understand the importance of that, but if I’m in a situation where I’m not being valued, I just can’t imagine getting away with responding with “You just don’t want to see a proud afro-latino thrive”.

Where I’m at is that I think I love myself as much as I would if I were a separate person, and that I could love myself more if I felt I’ve improved. I believe my humility is honest and not just a shield to make people comfortable. It might have been back in middle school, but I swear it isn’t anymore. Yet people make it sound like loving yourself is something anyone can learn to do no matter who they are and what state they are at. And if that’s true, then I have no idea what’s holding me back.

So what do you think? How does one gain self-love without feeling arrogant?

Love At Fifth Sight

[Read more…]

I Turned My Life Around. So Why Can’t I Find A Date?

November 1, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

I turned my life around, but still can’t find a date. I suppose I’m your typical young adult geek. I live in a small apartment with collectible toys on shelves. I play video games, gossip on pop culture websites and don’t sleep well unless I’ve watched an episode of Star Trek to make me comfortable in bed. I’m also short, pudgy and often feel quite unattractive. I’ve had a single long-term relationship a few years ago, but things have been quiet since.

I felt my life was going in a direction I didn’t like — so I made a drastic move. I went to law school to become a lawyer. I learned how to network and how to build up my self-confidence. I started a busy career. I face professionals who have a lot more experience than me — and I win. It makes me proud to say that I’m good at what I do.

On the one hand, I want my story to inspire other geeks who lack self-confidence. We can use our inherent smarts to take go wherever we want to go. However, I’m somewhat more abject to admit that my dating world hasn’t changed.

I’m still the same old toy collecting Trekkie despite my “new” life. Heck, I once wrote an article in law school about how Federation captains can legally analyze their duties under the Prime Directive.

I thought a new career would make me more appealing to women. I’m a really kind person (like most geeks), and hoped that women would see me for my personality and my success. So much has changed for the better, but I’m still alone and left wondering what else society expects me to do. I like who I am — and I don’t want to change, but at the same time it hurts. I feel that no matter what, women are going to see me as a pudgy geek until the day I either get lucky — or throw my toys out and watch a football game.

Thanks for your guidance,

Geek, Esq.

[Read more…]

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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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