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Ask Dr. NerdLove: Is Dating Too Hard For Men?

November 19, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I’m 29M, from a European country. I’ve got a good career path (in training to be a doctor). I also have an introverted personality (more like crippling social anxiety when I was younger, but residency forced me out of this). I’ve never had luck with attracting women and have never had a girlfriend or a sexual partner.

A lot of the advice I come across seems either contradictory or platitudinous. For example, a lot of mainstream dating advice tells men to focus on their own lives and to stop caring about getting a girlfriend or having sex. This is how I lived my life for years while I was focusing on my studies and just doing things I liked. After years of not caring, suddenly at 29 I looked back and realized I still had no experience with women. I had a quarter life crisis because I didn’t want to end up dying alone never having experienced physical or emotional intimacy with a woman. I started paying more attention to how I dressed and going out more, holding eye contact longer with people, slowing down my speech and being more deliberate and calm with my choice of words. All things that I learned from “dating coaches” online. Truth to be told it made me feel more confident and at least it did more for me than any mainstream advice I had ever followed that told me to be myself, it’ll happen.

But it does seem like dating coaches for men are looked at with a tremendous amount of suspicion. Some of these guys might cross over slightly into PUA territory, but the terms are sufficiently vague that it gets confusing. In any case, PUAs and even dating coaches seem to be painted with the same broad brush as the worst among them (i.e. the guys who teach other guys how to “neg” a girl to lower her self-esteem). Approaching women in public is also vilified by many as borderline or actual sexual harassment.

I understand why since there are quite a few sleazeballs among them, but here’s the thing. In the mainstream, there is not a lot of advice out there to men who timid and who are not bold enough to express their interest in women. We are now in a phase of our culture where the dominant message to men is to encourage them to leave women alone, or at least to think before you speak. I’ve never had to internalize these messages, as I have always been too shy to act on any interest and I overthink everything.

So you can tell me “just treat women like human beings” all you want, I know for a fact that I have talked to women for 29 years in the same way I talk to men, with no underlying motives, with a genuine interest in who they are as a person, and that it has gotten me plenty of platonic friendships with women that I cherish, but never a date or sex. No mutual attraction that just organically manifested itself. (By the way, how insulting is it that the go-to assumption with guys who are not romantically successful is “he must treat women like subhumans”)

I’m not saying you coaches or worse, PUAs hold the answers, but it’s totally understandable why men would try out some of their advice when everything else fails. Obviously, as soon as I hear someone talk about childish and abusive shit like “negging” I switch off the video. But there do seem to be some actual some genuine people between the obvious charlatans.

This plays into my next gripe, which is really the number one thing that is giving me so much anxiety in this whole dating game. Which is my observation that male sexuality is demonized. I am well aware of the demonization of female sexuality, slut shaming and all the awful things that entails, and I am radically opposed to it. But at least those issues seem to be acknowledged through mainstream feminist discourse, while talking about the demonization of male sexuality gets you looked at askew like you must be a woman-hating MRA or incel. But it is everywhere, and it’s inescapable as a man. It seems that there is no agreed-upon way of showing your attraction to a woman that doesn’t carry a risk of labelling you as a creep or worse. Everything men do nowadays to try to act on their attraction to women is scrutinized to oblivion. Men who are just hoping to meet a partner (sexual or romantic) are met with some zinger like “Women are more than just potential dates or fucks, you know”, as if being interested in a woman automatically dehumanizes her. Attempts at getting better at flirting are met with suspicion and alarm and assuming the worst intentions. “OMG do you just want to manipulate women, women aren’t just a code to crack you know, we’re human beings.” (Again, this rings hollow when 29 years of treating women like normal human beings has yielded no results. Flirting is a different kind of interaction than normal social conversation, deal with it). It’s so tiring to walk on eggshells all the time, because trying to be more successful with women is now taken to mean that you think women are mindless sex objects with no worth beyond that. It’s not everyone obviously, but there is a sufficiently vocal minority spouting this stuff that seems to be growing.

It really fucking SUCKS to be told over and over again that your natural sexuality is disgusting and objectifying and creepy and unwanted and predatory and evil and dirty and sinful and harmful and dehumanizing and misogynistic. It’s like Catholicism without Jesus and Mary. But voicing your insecurities or sadness resulting from a lack of dating success just risks inviting scorn or assumptions about your moral character. I, for one, wouldn’t imagine in a million years telling a woman who is having dating troubles that she shouldn’t go out of her way to find men to date (a natural reaction if there ever was one) “because men are more than potential dates or fucks”. How twisted is that kind of thinking?

Look up any thread on r/AskWomen about where and how women like to be approached, and you’ll find that every location or context you can think of has its detractors. “I don’t want to be approached in the street, I’m moving from point A to point B”. “I don’t want to be approached in the bookstore, I’m here to read.” “I don’t want to be approached in the club, I’m here to dance.” “I don’t want to be approached at a bar, I’m here to have a drink with my girlfriends.” “I don’t want to be approached by a guy in my salsa class, I’m here to dance salsa.” It’s not about the personal preference, but the implication that often accompanies it that any guy who would approach is a creep or is exhibiting predatory behavior, because any kind of potential romantic interest is somehow predatory. The only uncontroversial “location” remaining to “approach” women is Tinder. Hours and hours of aimless swiping with near zero matches and certainly zero dates, your self-esteem eroding with every swipe. Dating, flirting etc. should be fun, but it’s not fun when all you are told is that women never ever want to be bothered by your nonsense and that you have to keep all your interest to yourself and bottle it up until it fucking explodes (this last bit is obviously never said, but it’s the logical end result).

Then there’s the advice that is centered less around flirting techniques and more around becoming all around more attractive man so that women will start chasing you. Go to the gym, lift, advance ambitiously in your career, dress fashionably, etc. However, this kind of advice is always underlined with the caveat that you should never do this to attract women, but authentically for yourself. Well, try as I might, I can’t lie to myself. I have no interest in lifting weights and subjecting myself to strenuous, repetitive exercise for its own sake. Any benefits (being able to lift heavier boxes, having bigger forearms) would not be worth it for me outside of the confidence boost from being more attractive to women. I don’t like looking at other guys’ guns, why would I suddenly feel a need to admire my biceps in the mirror? No, I have no problem whatsoever with doing things outside of my comfort zone and changing things about myself, but I can’t pretend that there isn’t some kind of underlying motive there. Same goes for signing up for more “female-friendly” hobbies like yoga or salsa. I’m sure that I could enjoy those things if I put my heart to them, but I wouldn’t really consider doing those things if they didn’t help meeting more women. But with all those people saying you’re a predator for asking out a woman from your salsa class, why not stick with my nerdy hobbies that involve meeting zero women, but at least I get to do something I truly love with a bunch of sweaty dudes whom I don’t feel any need to impress?

Finally, the nail in the coffin for me: the male gender role. I grew up as a sensitive kid in a warm family that encouraged emotional expression. As a young kid I used to gravitate more towards socializing with girls. Consequently, I’ve never had a problem forming fulfilling platonic friendships with girls, but the older I became, the more I started to have nagging thoughts that something about my demeanor just wasn’t very attractive to women, like most of them saw me as an asexual being, a little brother or “one of the girls”.

I believe now there is a multitude of reasons why the “male gender role” persists, some of which is “men’s fault”. But I also believe there is no escaping the fact that a certain degree of male stoicism and “strength” is seen as more attractive by many women, maybe even most, and that deviating from this lowers attraction. It’s certainly not all women, but it happens often enough that I hear a lot about it from other men, and finding women who deviate from this seems like a needle in a haystack. I don’t blame anyone for what they are attracted to (men’s general preference for beauty, youth and fertility isn’t exactly morally superior), but as Brené Brown says:

“Most women pledge allegiance to this idea that women can explore their emotions, break down, fall apart—and it’s healthy,” Brown said. “But guys are not allowed to fall apart.” Ironically, she explained, men are often pressured to open up and talk about their feelings, and they are criticized for being emotionally walled-off; but if they get too real, they are met with revulsion. She recalled the first time she realized that she had been complicit in the shaming: “Holy Shit!” she said. “I am the patriarchy!”

Even when texting a girl from some app, I now notice I seem to get better/flirtier responses when acting vaguely emotionally unavailable rather than as my true emotionally supportive self who is interested in the girl’s hopes and dreams. So this makes me think that even if I do manage to attract someone, it’ll be a struggle to keep her attracted to me and eventually the cracks will show and it’ll be back to square one again. Cue Nice Guy accusations. But as much as I’d like to be physically intimate with a woman, what good would it do if it meant I needed to suppress myself?

So what do you reckon? Should I just give up?

On The Fence

[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…]

How To Break The Paradox of Confidence

September 15, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

If you suffer from low confidence and low self-esteem, you may be familiar with the an effect I refer to as the Paradox of Confidence. It’s a self-esteem Catch-22; you don’t feel confident because you have no accomplishments to feel confident about. However, without having that confidence in the first place, you aren’t able to achieve those accomplishments in the first place.

puzzled young man with cup of tea
“… ok look, could you at least wait until AFTER I’ve had my coffee to hit me with these, Doc?”

In case it wasn’t obvious, is a wonderful way to set yourself up for failure. After all, part of having confidence in the first place is being able to trust yourself and in your abilities. But how could you possibly be confident if all you have are failures, flaws and missed opportunities? But because you have no confidence in yourself or your abilities, you sabotage your best efforts; you take fewer chances, you don’t try as hard and you can’t rebound as quickly or easily from mistakes or failures. These experiences just go on to confirm that yes, you shouldn’t be confident, which causes you to further mistrust yourself and encourages you to just quit trying in the first place.

And if you did succeed… well, who’s to say that this was a genuine success and not some crazy black swan event, never likely to happen again? How do you build your confidence off of that? Especially if you aren’t able to accomplish that a second time?

puzzled young man with cup of tea
“Seriously, now you’re just making me depressed, man.”

You could be forgiven for thinking that confidence is just for other people — the gifted few who won the lottery at birth and had success handed to them on a silver platter. But you’d be wrong. The Paradox of Confidence is circular reasoning born out of misunderstanding of just what confidence is. Like validation, true confidence isn’t built from externalities; it comes from within yourself.

But rather than continuing the self-reinforcing cycle of negativity, let’s talk about the mistakes that shatter your confidence. Here’s how to break out of cycle, and develop true, bulletproof confidence.

[Read more…]

Men, This Is Why You THINK You’re Ugly

August 4, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

So, I’m gonna do something a little different today.

There’re some letters I get over and over again. Not from the same person, but variations on an incredibly common theme. There are some letters and topics that come up so often with the same insecurities, often using identical language, that it seems pretty obvious they’re coming from the same place, literally and metaphorically. And just between you, me and everyone reading this… it gets a bit frustrating. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t covered these topics in exhausting detail. And likewise, it’s not as though I haven’t covered how to handle these issues.

Angry frustrated annoyed young adult man consumer feel rage looking at computer notebook screen
I mean, do folks not realize I have a search bar and extensive archive?

So needless to say, I get a bit of a headache when I get the latest version of “why do women only like X guys” like this one:

Doc , I feel really depressed and I want to share with you my story. Growing up i knew i was not the most handsome man in the room , women always ignore me because i was , well , not an eye candy.i bet that you get this question asked fair often but , if you are average can you be attractive to women? it seems that in order to be attractive to women you need to be a really really good looking dude (and tall , and muscular..) never in my life any women give a damn about me (and being honest , i never talk to them) but why in the name of god a woman (who has all the options of the world and 0% reject rate and access to modern day dating apps such as Tinder or Bumble) will choose me?

i read your article about pre -rejection but i think you are underestimating the amount of power women have when it comes to dating , any woman no matter how “ugly” she is can have the most handsome man in the room for a casual fling or relationship , women don’t face any hardship in the dating world. in fact , being a man is actually a curse , you have to do all the hard work in all the stages all your life. my main problem Doc is that i find very difficult to feel empathy to women since they have all the advantage. i don’t want to feel that way but is the way i feel.

(All grammar and spelling are from the original.)

But rather than go into how to solve these problems — seriously, I’ve got ten years worth of archives, podcasts, YouTube videos and several books, folks — we’re gonna get to the root of it all. Because, quite frankly, no amount of self-improvement is going to work until you focus on why, not the how. And that means talking about how folks get here, first.

So come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab; it’s time for a little exploratory emotional surgery. Here’s why so many men feel unattractive.

[Read more…]

I Have A Great Life. So Why Do I Feel Like A Loser?

April 9, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

No shit, I’ve been reading your columns on and off for about ten years now. I’ll admit that I often sneer at some of the advice because it seems so far-fetched or inapplicable to myself. But I think maybe it’s time that I actually see if you had any thoughts about my situation.

I’m 34 years old. I have had one girlfriend in my entire life. We dated for 18 months ten years ago, and broke up. I was an insecure wreck of a person, and I am fairly sure my own insecurity and insistence that there was no way she’d ever stay with me is what pushed her away. She was way out of my league, and could do better, but was in a lonely and vulnerable position in life and I was convenient I guess. Since then, I haven’t even so much as asked a girl out.

I spent a long time after that in college and in grad school. I come from a family that was never super well off. I’m the first person in the family to ever go to college let alone obtain a masters degree. I felt for years and years like if I am going to accomplish something, it better be something big because being an obese, bespectacled nerd from a lower working class background was something that would always stand in my way if I wanted anything good in my life to happen. Particularly if I wanted a partner or to have kids.

Full disclosure, and I know this sounds nuts to most people so I keep it to myself, the idea of having kids is important to me because there’s no one in my family left at this point with my name, and I feel like if my name is to ever be redeemed I have to pass whatever social mobility I have achieved onward. This is something I was ever conditioned really to believe in my upbringing, but something that I believe with an almost fanatical zeal.

Within a year of graduation from graduate school, I worked my first political campaign. I was hired on as district director for the legislator I helped get re-elected. Within a year after that, I was elevated to chief of staff. I am now in the process of running for local office myself, and working toward the goal of forming a political consulting group with a few other like minded individuals to elect progressive candidates in suburban seats. The amount of acceptance I have found makes me…uncomfortable.

I feel, essentially, like all of this could be taken from me at any moment once someone realizes I’m not nearly as talented or skilled as they thought I was. I find myself wondering why none of these people can see through the facade and understand that beneath being able to make things happen I’m a fundamentally broken person who can’t even do simple things that everyone seems to be able to do (like ask a girl out).

Over the years, my interest in dating has actually shrunk because I have been alone for so long now that incorporating another person into my life seems like it would be a huge chore. But at the same time I still have nights where I wish there was someone who I could share my life with. Outside of work (which is not much because I’m always working) all I do is drink, play games, watch stuff, and smoke. It’s not pretty, and I’m not a looker either. But it’s the only way I ever really feel alive in any meaningful sense of the word.

All of my friends think I sell myself short. My family nominally loves me, but clearly resent me for going to school and trying to make something of myself. My mom definitely, definitely resents the fact that the good looking son (my brother) is openly gay and will give her no grandchildren, and her only card left for that particular outcome is her obese son that “thinks he’s smarter than everyone and acts all superior.” I don’t, by the way, but my family are, for lack of a better way to describe them, insecure around anyone who has achieved anything higher than what they have.

I guess the thing that bothers me most is that while all of these things have happened that I never thought I could have, and never thought I deserved to begin with, I still feel basically empty and unaccomplished. Like I am my job and my skillset, and nothing more. Disconnected from the human part of my life. Back when I was still a loser in college living at home with a dead end job I would think “One day, I’ll have a better job, and my own apartment, and then I’ll be worthy.”

Now I have all of that, and I’m not. I’d still rather shave an entire layer of skin off my whole body than approach a woman or flirt.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

The Worst

[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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