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How Do I Get Over My Partner’s Infidelity?

July 19, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

My partner (he/him) of five years violated the boundaries/understandings of our monogamous relationship by receiving a one-way sex act from a friend of his. While I’ve agreed to stay and try to move past it, I haven’t decided the long term and taken off the engagement ring. I’m having a having a really fucking hard time moving past the intrusive thoughts and the wanting to really understand why. Please help me?

Some context: my partner and I (she/they) are both queer, but ended up in a hetero relationship with each other. I am very sex positive but struggle with polyamory as a choice for myself because of certain past traumas. I actually see the benefits and could maybe come to an agreement after some targeted therapy and lots of communication. But for now, monogamy is what feels safe for me. My partner, at the beginning of our relationship and throughout, has said he feels the same. And consent-based relationships are incredibly important to me. My partner had a friendly acquaintance who is a professional barber who has cut his hair for about 7 years, the barber (he/him) is gay and very openly sexual with everyone. When we’ve run into out in public like at a restaurant, he’s treated me the same as he treats my partner (on the surface), which is to talk openly about his sex life and ask questions if they’re welcomed. I had no issues with their friendship until earlier this year but thought my partner respected my wish for him to not to put himself in situations that would be weird/inappropriate with the barber or accept his sexual advances (which came pretty frequently but I never felt much jealousy because I thought my partner wasn’t interested or at least wouldn’t agree to any of it).

The infidelity and messy aftermath: First the timeline that I know now, then how I found out. We moved from our apartment to a house in August last year, and some problems both old and new surfaced, but I thought we were working through them. Back in late September/October, the barber started asking about my partner’s plantar fasciitis that he mentioned during his last hair cut and saying that he had some sort of massage/reflexology training (the barber is just a barber, not a massage therapist) and thought he could help and offered a foot massage. My partner took him up on it, and they me. Sometime between that initial “let me help you” kind of offer and his next haircut in October, the barber offered him a happy ending along with the foot massage. My partner went over to his apartment after that haircut, stripped down to nothing (including underwear) and got in the barber’s bed. The barber then gave him a foot massage and then a hand job. My partner was supposed to be picking up groceries that time, and I called/texted asking where he was at some point (he’s not the type to stay somewhere longer than he has to). He said he got caught up at the store but was on his way home, and was home 45 minutes later. Didn’t think anything more until late March. We share a car, and he dropped me off to get a beer with a friend while he went to his hair cut appointment. He got his hair cut then, went to the barber’s apartment for a repeat of last time, stripped down and got on top of the covers, except this time it was a full body massage and a hand job. In between these two incidents, there was some flirtatious texting and an exchange of homemade porn (not featuring any of them, but some of the barber’s acquaintances) and a text discussion about the porn a month or two after the first incident.

He was supposed to meet me somewhere after his hair cut after the last incident in March, and we ended up fighting because he blew me off and didn’t answer his phone for an hour when I left where he was supposed to meet me and walked to the barber shop (I was taking up a whole table at the bar by myself and I didn’t know where else to go because he was my ride). He said at first that it took longer than he thought it would and that he had been looking for parking. I told him I walked past too many open parking spots for that to be true. He then admitted he went to the barber’s apartment after his hair cut but said it was just to fix his bike. He said he lied because he thought I wouldn’t have been comfortable with him going to the barber’s apartment alone. He said it was just to fix his bike and he was sorry for blowing me off. I told him the whole thing made me uncomfortable and I’d prefer if he found a different barber. He said he wouldn’t and that I needed to trust him to set boundaries.

After our fight, he turned down the barber’s next request for a naked happy ending massage and then later told him outright that he would just be getting hair cuts. But then I found out after seeing messages on our shared iPad that were incriminating that a massage had been involved and that the barber had seen my partner naked (I didn’t snoop. I was trying to add recipes to an app, the messages came up all at once when I turned the iPad on and I saw weird stuff on the display before reading the whole exchange to confirm I wasn’t crazy). Then, he told me it was just a massage, he was covered the whole time, only happened once, and he didn’t do it again. Then the barber sent me a DM that was apologetic to me but made it clear more had gone on. I told him to tell me everything, or that I would leave. Only then did I find out all of the above.

The lying is obviously an issue, and even if he’s done the “right things” since it all finally came out, I told him that’s the hardest part to get past and the part that is going to be the biggest obstacle for whatever decision I make in the long run. But that at least seems to make sense to me. He lied, I don’t necessarily trust him the way I did before. If he avoids lying to me in the future, I could learn to retrust.

But I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the why, even after several very open and honest conversations in the last couple weeks. He said he’s finally seeking therapy for self esteem issues and said he never initiated, but followed through because the attention made him feel good when things weren’t going well with us and the massages were genuinely fun, felt good and helped his feet (I asked him to be completely honest). Specifically what I’m having trouble getting past is the fact that he blew me off and took that risk of getting caught (why was it worth the risk, especially when he hates being late?), that he seemed proactive in enabling himself to do this by doing things like telling me he mixed up his appointment time so it would take longer (if you’re just passively accepting the attention, why be so proactive in deceiving me and setting things up so he could?), why he wanted to keep seeing the barber for hair cuts (if my partner says he’s just someone who pushes boundaries and cuts his hair, why can’t he just cut contact?) and that he knew on some level that it was wrong but let it go on for almost a year (started talking about the first massage in September, maintained sexual interactions a couple times in person and several times over text between October and the end of March, drunkenly called the barber at the beginning of June and then decided to cut it back to completely platonic.

I don’t know. I can acknowledge he’s genuinely been trying to fix it for the last few weeks, and it was honestly pretty seriously out of character for him. And if I haven’t reflected that in the paragraphs above, I am always deferential and want to believe people. And I want my partner to have meaningful, deep, affectionate connections with people that aren’t me. But that feels like a minefield of anxiety now. And how do I get past this deep wanting ache to really understand why, when he’s already answered for that for the most part?

Cuts Like A Knife

[Read more…]

This is The Best Way To Meet Amazing Women

May 12, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

As more and more people get vaccinated, we’re starting to see the world take tentative steps toward returning to normal. This also means that people are taking equally tentative steps toward socializing and dating again…

…and a lot of folks are looking forward to making up for lost time.

young man with a medical mask on his face looking frightened out of the door
Let’s be real, nobody had “Roaming Sex Mob” on their Apocalypse Bingo cards.

But as various people are predicting “horny summer” or “roaring 2os”, one question remains: what is the best way to start getting busy once you’re vaxxed, waxed and ready to relax?

Virginia opossum in fork of tree, hissing
Hot girl/boy summer? We’ve all been in quarantine for a year and a half. It’s gonna be junkyard possum summer…

Is it time to just meander out into the streets and hope that wandering hordes of sexed-up former-shut-ins catch you up in a Bernoulli effect and try to draft on the mist of wine coolers and Astroglide? Now that we can leave our houses again, has the twilight of the age of Tinder and video dates truly begun?

Well, about that…

One of the mistakes a lot of men make when they want to go out and meet potential partners — whether for love or for sex — is that they assume that the cold approach is the way to go. Despite the fact that a plurality of straight couples1 meet their partners in person through shared activities rather than random encounters with complete strangers, the notion of picking people up at bars or going about their day is still seen as the predominant way to meet people.

But the truth is that cold approaches are incredibly inefficient… doubly so if you are attempting what the seduction community calls “day game”: meeting women going about their day or  walking down the street. One day game enthusiast broke down his numbers from over the course of three years on his blog (all numbers are approximate):

  • 1700 approaches
  • 180 numbers
  • 19 dates
  • 6 sexual encounters

That’s an approach-to-date ratio of 1 percent. It’s even less than a percentage point if you filter to dates that lead to sex.

Now to be fair: this is understandable. You are attempting to convince a stranger that they want to consider a romantic or sexual relationship with someone they have literally just met — often as recently as 20 minutes ago. Now while that can and does happen, and cold approaches are a valuable and versatile skill to cultivate in general, it’s not the only, or even the best way to meet potential partners.

Instead, I want to teach you a better way to meet amazing women without getting on the apps. A way that will set you up for success. A way that will bring amazing women into your life almost effortlessly and give you advantages that other people won’t have. This is a method that will take what many people believe to be a weakness and turn it into your secret weapon instead.

Ready?

[Read more…]

  1. dating apps became the predominant way gay couples meet their partners almost as soon as modern smartphones hit the market [↩]

Why Do I Keep Wanting My Toxic Ex?

May 3, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi there Doc,

First time writing. I like the way you think, so I’d like your take on a really annoying problem.

To make a long story short, I met this guy online about 11-12 years ago in a chatroom. I was in the middle of a relationship with someone else at the time, it wasn’t going well, and I guess I was looking for a way out. This guy (I’ll call him Mitten) and I lived very far away from each other (he was at the top of the country, I was at the bottom) but we fell very predictably for each other in a way that only two over-emotional assholes can. My feelings grew for this person to the point where I actually got the balls to break up with my boyfriend and settle into a LDR with Mitten, who had been trying to move down to my state for awhile, even before we had met. It was a ‘relationship’ of high highs and low lows, and I was living back with my parents at the time. He was so flaky with his feelings — one minute he was blowing up my IM and the next he wouldn’t talk to me for days. Well, he finally came down, and we met. It was awesome — I’ve never felt as comfortable with someone as I did with him. Here’s the kicker though: we only met once. He couldn’t find a job and had to go back home. Once there, we decided that there was really no point in trying to go any further, but our feelings kept us close. The same old pattern took shape. I was insane over this guy. The quality of my entire day hung on the possibility of his IM or phone call. He started ‘dating’ other people. This broke my 22 year old heart because he would tell me about it. This behavior went on for about a year and a half, maybe more, until we got into a massive fight over something I don’t even remember. He didn’t talk to me for months, but he would stalk my myspace blog every day.

(That’s how long ago this was…)

Finally, he started talking to me again, but only so that he could rub his dates in my face. I said, Bye Felicia.

Eleven years passes.

At this point I’m in a relationship with another guy (LEO), and have been with him for almost that long. We were having severe intimacy issues and though I loved him, I felt rejected and alone. Guess who bursts back into the scene, divorced and ready to cause some trouble? Mitten.

And cause trouble, he did. Just like my previous relationship, I began to rely on Mitten for all the validation and affection that I wasn’t getting from LEO, who knew I was having some sort of an emotional affair with Mitten, but didn’t say boo because he was having one of his own. I should have known better, because Mitten was repeating the same exact behaviors from ten years before: yanking me back and forth and up and down, telling me about his conquests, ghosting me for days and then popping right back up, flirting with my best friend. I was sick. It was like a sickness. Couldn’t get him out of my head, everything I saw reminded me of him.

As time wore on, I began to realize that we had nothing in common except the fact that we wanted each other (in varying degrees) and couldn’t have each other. He sucked at conversation, was immature as hell, and didn’t get me the way LEO did, but my heart wasn’t with LEO anymore. Unfortunately, I still wanted Mitten, but I hated myself for wanting him. A guy friend of mine who I’ve known since childhood (who had feelings for me) let me lean on him during this hard time. He would tell me I was worth more than this back and forth bullshit and urge me to cut ties with Mitten forever. I balked. It was one thing for me to be emotionally jerked around, it was quite another to let Mitten go and have to face the end of my relationship with LEO. My priorities were so backwards.

Sooner or later, it all came to a head. I finally had the balls to just delete Mitten. I never even told him I was doing it, but at that time his head was up some other girl’s ass and hadn’t talked to me for weeks. It felt like someone had socked me in the heart, but I didn’t falter.

Now it’s two years later, LEO and I have broken up (still friends) and Mitten and I haven’t spoken. He’s had a kid since then, which is a relief to me because if anything is a dealbreaker for me, it’s kids (I don’t hate them, they’re just not for me) but no matter what I do, and no matter what I tell myself about him, I can’t get him off of my mind. It’s ridiculous. I’ve met the guy once twelve years ago, we’re not good for each other. My conscious brain knows this. Apart from learning he has a kid, I don’t visit his profile. I don’t have pictures of him and I have given myself every talk in the book, but I know he doesn’t look me up (I can’t be 100% sure, but I was always the one who cared more out of the two of us) and that hurts me on the dumbest level ever. I don’t know why my brain insists on feeling this attachment to him and I hate him living rent free in my head. I am at a loss as to what to do. I know you might say to just give it time, but it feels like I’ve given it twelve or so years, and that’s freaking enough. What is going to make my silly brain realize that I need to let this guy go?

Just When I Thought I was Out

[Read more…]

Am I An Asshole If I Don’t Want to Settle for Someone In My “League”?

April 26, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

My entire family is dead, and I’ve been living with my only close and reasonably well-off friend and her husband since losing my job and housing in the summer of 2020. I have severe anxiety and a number of physical health issues that all together mean I am not capable of working more than part-time for the foreseeable future. (Yes, I’ve applied for disability; apparently I’m not disabled enough.)

For the last couple months my friend and her husband have been increasingly hinting that I need to move out — they want to have a baby before she’s too old, but my stuff and I are taking up both their spare bedrooms. For my part, I can’t stand babies, and my anxiety is exacerbated by being around anyone under 18 (from 0-9, it’s the loud noises and sudden movements; from 10-18 it’s the triggered memories of bullying). But if they accept that I’m unable to work enough to support myself, then my only other option is to find an SO to support me.

My friend thinks the only reason I’m reluctant to do this is that I’m a 38-year-old virgin, I grew up in a conservative Christian home and town (where I continued to live with my parents until their deaths), and while I came out as pansexual several years ago, I still have hang ups about actually expressing it. So she’s been trying to talk me through that. And while those are factors, I’m ashamed to talk about the most major factor. Which is simply that I don’t think I could stand to kiss or have sex with anyone as ugly as I am.

This is not just low self-esteem: I’m morbidly obese, with about the least attractive weight distribution possible; I have a gigantic double chin; adult acne; short, thinning head hair; gnarly body hair; and between my face fat and the thickness of my glasses, my eyes are so minuscule you can’t even tell that they’re blue. The only person I can imagine going for me is someone equally fat and/or ugly who is desperate for sex, but can’t get anyone better — and I feel like I’d rather die than touch someone like that, no matter how smart or nice or rich they are. I seriously don’t think I’m the kind of person who could ever become attracted to someone I wasn’t attracted to before just because of their personality. (And that’s only fair — I’m really smart, funny, kind, loyal, progressive, etc., but no one has ever been attracted by that, even people who liked me as a friend.)

But is it right to choose to continue to be supported by my friend instead? My part-time job covers my groceries, meds, car expenses, etc., so all she really has to do is provide a roof. We’ve been close since grade school and I’m confident she would never throw me out in the street, even if she couldn’t have a baby and her husband (who I can tell pretty much hates me) left her. But I’d really hate for it to come to that.

So please tell me: is there any possibility of someone like me getting an at least average-looking, non-overweight partner? Would I be better off focusing on women, since women (as a whole, I know I’m an anomaly) seem more open to dating people less attractive than themselves? (E.g., you see attractive women with unattractive men a lot more than vice versa.) The problem there is that I’m more attracted to men, so I’m not sure even that would be good enough — I’ve had crushes on fairly average men, but only on really beautiful women.

Finally, there’s no escaping the fact that if I could just get paid what I make now plus the cost of a one-bedroom apartment, utilities, TV, and internet, without working any more hours, I would never even consider trying to date, but continue to satisfy myself with crushes and fantasies of people light-years out of my league. Is this unhealthy, and might my friend be right, and dating actually be good for me? How can I get over feeling like a whore if I go into dating primarily because I need support? Is it morally better to be a leech, because at least you’re not selling yourself, or a whore, because at least you’re providing something in return?

Sincerely,
Leech Or Whore? (she/her)

[Read more…]

Why Don’t I Want To Sleep With My Girlfriend?

March 26, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a man in my early thirties. Growing up throughout my adolescence and, until I was around 25, I didn’t had any kind of sexual or even a casual relationship with any woman. I didn’t go to parties or any kind of social events, my job was menial and going nowhere and I didn’t have many friends. At that point I had just given up and had decided that sex, relationships and love was not for me. However, around that time I met a woman which basically did all the heavy lifting involved at the beginning (flirting with me, asking me out, inviting me to her house, go for the kiss, etc). We started dating not long after and it was with her that I started becoming a grown man (losing my virginity, learning to plan things, learning to drive and move through the city, go to parties, etc).

I never thought of my girlfriend as ugly, but I didn’t find her very attractive either. Everything was so new at the beginning that I didn’t think much of her looks. As time passed I started noticing other girls and me being a more mature, social and responsible man, girls started noticing me too. I’ve never stopped loving my girlfriend but the physical attraction was eventually gone and my desire to be with other women was increasing, so eventually we had an amicable break up.

Over this past few years I’ve been attending therapy and working on several aspects of myself that need improving both mentally and physically. Even though I can’t say I am a fulfilled man, I can really see a difference from the man I was when I was 25 years old, but the issue I have now is that I don’t really know how to establish a connection with women I am attracted to. When the person is very attractive, I don’t really behave like myself but I pretend to be different. Fortunately, this is I problem I have identified by now, but I don’t know how to resolve it. Being myself around attractive women makes me very nervous and anxious, even if my real self tends to be very likeable by other people. 

Over the past few years I have only been with a handful of women, and with all of them at most I felt some mild attraction. The problem is I can’t really build any kind of relationship with these women because I am unable to have sex with them. This is in part because I don’t find them very attractive and partly because I masturbate a lot just to unload all this sexual desire that I have in me.

I know that part of the solution is to stop masturbating so that I have enough of libido to have sex with real people, but since the only people that like me are not very attractive I can’t really find the motivation to stop.

As I final note I want to say that I’m really desperate at this moment and I really would like to find a woman to have a relationship with, which unfortunately is something that some women are able notice and obviously drives them off. I know this part would be resolved by working on some personal or professional goals but unfortunately I’m really apathetic towards life in general, I don’t like anything and I don’t care about anything, I haven’t given up but I don’t expect to find the answer soon and I would like to not be alone until I do.

So my questions are:
How can build a connection with people I do find attractive?
How can I look past physical attractiveness and have a relationship with a woman I don’t find very good looking but is funny and kind?
How can I stop being so desperate about having a relationship?
How can I stop masturbating if I am not having sex either?

Thanks,
Lustful, Lonely and Lost

[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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