self-confidence Archives

How Do I Rebuild My Sexual Self-Esteem?

May 24, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

I just want to preface I really enjoy reading you and you’ve helped me out a lot when it comes to try and figure myself out as well as become more confident.

There’s just one aspect of my life in which I don’t feel confident at all: my sexual experience and sexual self-esteem. I’ve only had 2 sexual partners so far, mostly foreplay — that in and of itself isn’t a problem — yet my sexual confidence is at its lowest, even before I lost my virginity. Without wanting to go into details, my ex wasn’t really a supportive person, and everytime I would lose an erection due to performance anxiety, or struggle to adjust to a new position she would point it out in a hurtful way.

I feel this made me completely disinterested in sex, especially because I can’t portray myself in a sexual scenario; I always have the feeling I will fail, or be rebuked again, and I don’t even bother trying to date because I feel like I just CANNOT have sex.

This subject is actually stressing me a lot, and makes me feel like no one would actually want to sleep with me. Do you have any advice on how I could change my mindset or build better sexual confidence / self-esteem? I think I’m in need of some change (it’s pretty much the only area of life I’m not confident about)

Thanks for having me Doc

Soft Focus

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: What Does Confidence Look Like in Dating?

April 23, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc!

I see a lot of advice about what confidence looks like in men (body language, especially), but I don’t know what confidence looks like for me as a woman. Most flirting behavior for women seems to be based on submission cues, but everyone says to be “confident” while flirting.

While I know submissive confidence is possible from BDSM experience, I think things might be different outside of that specific context. I’m very used to and comfortable with employing masculine confidence in my professional life as an engineer, but I have no idea how feminine confidence would work.

How is masculine vs feminine confidence the same or different, especially for flirting and dating?

— Show, Don’t Tell

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The 5 Common Mistakes That Ruin Dating For Men

March 17, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dating should be fun. Done right, it’s a blast. There’s a thrill in meeting someone awesome and getting to know them. There’s the excitement of discovering the fascinating side of a new person. And of course, there’s the exciting nervousness that comes as a relationship progresses and goes from “dates” to “this may be serious…”

But a lot of guys struggle to make that initial connection. Dating can be a serious challenge for a lot of men, who may struggle even with that initial connection — whether it’s meeting women in person, or through dating apps. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. The things that seem to come so easily to other men feel almost impossible for you.

This is the leading cause of sitting at the bar, pretending to be texting on your phone rather than admitting that you’re there by yourself…

Many times, the issue is that men who struggle with dating are making things harder on themselves. The problem is that they’re making incredibly common mistakes — mistakes that could easily be avoided. Here are some of the mistakes that make dating harder for men and how to avoid them.

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How Can Men Look for Casual Sex Without Being Creepy?

March 12, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doc,

My question is, honestly, is it truly possible for men to actively seek out casual sex or hookups without being creepy? Now, let me clarify some things about this question. Theoretically, of course, the answer is obviously “yes”, but practically? How does a man even bring up the idea without ever creeping out a woman? Many women seem to be repulsed by the idea. Some may like it, but only with certain men. Of course, it’s impossible to know if a woman would like hooking up with you, or even if she wouldn’t be utterly repulsed by you asking, without asking in the first place, so even finding out that vital part of the equation seems impossible to do without creeping a woman out, unless you’re ungodly lucky and every single woman you happen to ask just happens to not be repulsed by you asking.

Another thing is even approaching. Ask on Reddit about it, every single possible venue has its detractors.
“Don’t ask me at the store, I’m just there to shop.”
“Don’t ask me at class, I’m there to learn.”
“Don’t ask me at salsa lessons, I’m there to dance salsa, and I’d be uncomfortable dancing with guys who ask me.”
“Don’t ask me at the coffee shop, I’m there to read/work.”
“Don’t ask me at the bar, I’m just there to drink with friends.”
“Don’t ask me at the club, I’m just there to dance with friends.”

It would be one thing if these were just framed as personal preference, but these always carry the implication that any guy who would do this is probably predatory. And God help you if you DARE ask any follow-up questions about any of these. If you do, it’s obviously because you want to invalidate her opinion or you think you’re entitled to women’s time. Just about the only uncontroversial venue is Tinder. But for many men, that’s just a self-esteem destroyer, of constant one-sided swiping and ghosting.

Some may say that the best thing to do is through social circles or activity groups. But because of everything else I mentioned, I REALLY do not want to do that. If I creep out a stranger, that sucks, but there’s likely no more negative consequences than that. The fact that she even would meet me again is slim to none. But if I creep out a friend or a friend or someone else in an activity group, that’s just terrible. She could tell others about how I creeped her out, my already existing friends would be more suspicious of me, any future interaction with any female member of the group would be tainted, I might even get shunned from the group. That makes me never want to look to friends or activity groups.

So basically, how is it even possible for a man to look for hookups without being creepy? It sounds like he’d need ungodly luck. First, the woman has to not be offended by a simple approach. Then, she has to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up, and then, to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up with him. None of those are knowable without asking in the first place. But to ask requires approaching in the first place. And then if he asks, she would then know he thinks of her like that…

Seeking Something Casual

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How Men Can Stop Feeling Unwanted

March 4, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Being a man, particularly a straight, cisgendered man, can be a perverse paradox at times. Society caters to us in almost every way imaginable. Even in 2021, as we strive towards greater social and sexual equity for people of different genders and sexualities, straight cis men are very much at the top of the social heap. And yet, men are lonelier and more isolated than ever, feeling not just lost but ignored or cast aside.

It seems laughable; society caters to straight men to an absurd degree. The world is nothing if not considerate of men’s wants and interests. Straight men’s desires, anxieties and — especially — their boners aren’t just the Rosetta stone of modern advertising, but much of pop culture over all. The entire literary fiction genre, for example, is an almost constant paean to navel gazing dudes who want to muse about roads not taken and drown their ennui in the desire to bone much younger women.

bearded young man in glasses, wearing a tweed jacket and tan waistcoat rubbing his chin — “Yes, I’m a published author and well respected, tenured professor of literature at a prestigious university… but somehow I’m still unfulfilled. Maybe another affair with an undergrad will help.”

But like I said my column on men’s fear of being “invisible”, the issue isn’t so much the way the world celebrates and validates male sexuality or interests. It’s the feeling that while the world continues to validate men’s desire for sex and power, the men themselves are excluded from it. They’re continually shown their hearts’ desires, but the fulfilment of them is kept just out of reach. They’re told that this is what they’re supposed to want, that this is what makes them a “real man”, but they’re unable to partake of it. It’s the frustration — even despair — of realizing that the rewards they were told to expect for being men and following the rules laid out for them are never going to be delivered, and certainly not in the way they were promised.

Animated gif from Fight Club: Tyler Durden saying "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't." — Of course it all comes back to Fight Club; it’s like you’ve never been read my column before…

It comes up in many, many different ways. Because we still celebrate and lionize toxic and restrictive forms of masculinity, even in media that purports to deconstruct them, men who don’t meet (often self-imposed) hypermasculine ideals feel as though they aren’t “real” men.

Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, shirtless and smoking a cigarette — *Still* looking at you, Fight Club.

Others feel excluded from the rewards of manhood and masculinity because of factors outside of their control — a lack of social experience or fluency, their body types, their height, or due to stereotypes based around race, culture or gender presentation.

This feeling — of being excluded, cast aside and discarded — is something I hear from men all the time. It comes up in letters, it gets mixed in with discussions about online harassment, street harassment and cat-calling, even in discussions about character design in comics, video games and movies. And while it’s the sort of thing that seems like it’s easily laughed off — oh no, dudes aren’t getting all the attention — it’s a real and legitimate issue.

After all, those feelings of being unwanted, loneliness, rejection and isolation can be hard to break out of. It’s all too easy for that feeling to curdle into despair.. or worse.

But, despite what many will tell you, it isn’t a matter of the lucky and the ones who got fucked by the fickle finger of fate. Nor is it about hitting the gym or getting plastic surgery or other quick fixes.

Here’s how you learn to stop feeling unwanted and undesired.

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