toxic masculinity Archives

Did I Miss My Only Chance To Lose My Virginity?

April 19, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello, Doc. Your audience base went worldwide. Congrats !

Now, I’ve been severely repressed by family and religion for years. Forced to see people having fun and enjoying life while I was always locked in a room studying and praying. As a result, I never learned how to read social cues, or how to talk to people outside of a professional setting.

I’m a 22 year old virgin. It’s an awful thing in on itself. Problem is, in my country the average age to get rid of your virginity is 12. Being denied any casual social contacts and venues to obtain relationships and sex wrecked me, and the knife was just driven further in college, where my ineptitude and constant pressure for academic accomplishments I ingrained into myself ruined any chance I had at having sex or friendships.

I now have a ton of issues, crippling loneliness, self harming and constant seizures where I bust out laughing and crying at the same time whenever I see happy couples enjoying each other’s company. Can’t watch music clips or any kind of videos of music festivals. The vision of people being happy, partying, enjoying their youth is too much to handle.

At times I catch myself thinking if I would be ok with being used like those 14 year olds who get in trouble for having sex with their teachers. I’d be perfectly ok with being someone’s sex toy. Better to be a toy than a dirty sopping wet rag in a dark corner.

I wish I could’ve been young. Had fun. Go to at least one orgy in college, get drunk and do something stupid, smoke a blunt or a bong. Have sex in a dorm and leave a sock in the knob. Get rid of this festering wound of virginity at the proper age.

I wish I flipped the bird at my parents and at my religion. I wish I never listened to them. If I didn’t, I’d be a human right now. I’d have lived, instead of just existing locked in a room, studying.

What do I do?

Too Little Too Late

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Why Do Women Love “Himbos”?

March 31, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

One of the topics that comes up the most often when it comes to dating advice is, paradoxically, the one that folks get wrong the most often: “what do women find attractive in men?”

This is an evergreen subject (ahem), in no small part because of how often guys buy into mistaken ideas about what women find attractive… ideas that are spread by other men. Whether it’s the idea that only men who’re 6′ tall can get dates, the myth of “attraction switches” that were installed by evolution or even just the idea that only the most jacked, alpha males get laid, guys are more prone to listen to other straight dudes about what women want than they are to listen to actual women. Even when women have said “no, actually, we like these things,” men disregard them because… well, because it doesn’t line up with their ideas about attractiveness.

woman yelling in a bullhorn at a man who's ignoring her — “So like I was saying, if you want women to be into you, you’ve gotta treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen. Alphas never let women get comfortable, y’dig?”

Then on Sunday, Brendan Fraser started trending on Twitter, just because people wanted to gush over the actor and his movies, which immediately pivoted to discussions of The Mummy and George of the Jungle and just how damn hot people thought he was.

The discussion quickly moved to the topic of himbos and the women who love them, in no small part because George of the Jungle is the platonic ideal of the himbo, in a movie that has absolutely no shame in catering to the female gaze. But the discussion covered far more than just how good Brendan Fraser looks…

Yes, we get it, you’re objectively handsome on top of being stupidly talented and having superb comedic timing, GOD.

…but about the reasons why so many himbos are beloved.

Of course, not being one to miss an opportunity to instantly date a column by tying it to a trending topic, I have thoughts on this topic. Because once you get past the initial thirst-posting and memes, there are valuable lessons to learn about what women actually value in a man… if guys are willing to listen.

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How Do I Become More Attractive to Women?

March 29, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

For the last month and a half or so, I went on some dates with a girl (who we’ll call L, for the purposes of this letter) who I met through Bumble. I really liked her, as we have similar tastes in music (which is uncommon among people my age), and it was really easy for me to be myself and remain laid back, light-hearted, and relatively jokey around her. However, earlier today, L let me know that while she liked me as a person, she thought that we should just be friends, as she didn’t she us as being more than friends. I’m open to that, though we both agreed that it would be best to take some time apart, so I can fully process my emotions and come to grips with this. Of course, this is partially because it just happened, but it really hit me hard, as I felt a strong connection with her, mostly in relation to our similar interests. (I tend to become a lot more interested in someone if they have one or more of the same obscure interests that I do.) I also got the “let’s just be friends” speech with a girl (who we’ll call K) who I went on a few dates with a few months ago, though looking back, I didn’t have as strong of a connection with her as I felt I did with L.

It should be noted that I really have only started dating in the past year or so, despite being 29 years old (I’ll turn 30 next month) and I’ve never been in an officially defined “relationship.” My longest time spent dating a girl has been for a few months. I never asked girls out before that, partially because of a fear of rejection, unrealistic expectations about what I wanted in a romantic partner, and having the idea that if a girl liked me, she would automatically ask me out. I also didn’t use touch with girls I was interested in, in part because I didn’t want to be seen as a creeper. After reading your website, I now know the error of my previous ways. However, I sensed a lack of experience with L as well. She never mentioned any previous boyfriends, she mentioned how her parents are very protective of her (compared with other girls, from what I’ve noticed), and she explicitly mentioned that I’m the first person who she went on a date with through a dating app. (She’s in her mid-late 20s) I didn’t ask about her prior dating history, though. Since I don’t have much of a prior dating history, either, I’m thinking that maybe she noticed some hesitation in my actions, as opposed to being confident and truly certain of myself. Obviously, I can’t confirm that this played a role, but I do want to display certain things that will make women romantically attracted to me, like being more confident.

In your articles, you often mention the importance of touch. Before the pandemic, I was able to incorporate touch with some of the girls I went on dates with, though not really since then. With L, we would hug each other when meeting and saying good bye, and occasionally holding hands when we walked together. I made sure to ask her beforehand, but again, I didn’t want to do anything she was uncomfortable with, and when we walked outdoors, for example, we both wore masks. I would have liked to use touch to convey interest with her more, but with us being in a pandemic, I was hesitant towards some things, like kissing her. With K before that, however, I didn’t touch her, as she was much more cautious towards the pandemic, as to name one example, she wasn’t comfortable with eating in restaurants.

Obviously, this makes it harder for a girl to see me as more than a friend, though. While I plan on moving on to messaging other girls online, it stands to reason that there are more than a few women who have a cautious attitude towards the pandemic, and with that, I would have to find other ways to create romantic attraction. I do plan on getting the vaccine as soon as humanly possible, though it’s uncertain as to when that’ll actually be able to take place.

Additionally, in those articles, you mention the idea of bringing up your past sex life to girls in order to create attraction. The problem with that is, that I’m a virgin, so I obviously have nothing to go with that doesn’t involve my right hand. Along with the fact that I’m relatively inexperienced with things like sexual flirting, how can I make up for this? (This created complications with L, as while I did my best to be a little more flirty with her compared to how I was with K, and playfully bantered with her as well, it may not have been enough, and because I sensed some inexperience with her, along with the fact that she generally didn’t talk about more risqué things, made me more hesitant to bring up more sexual-themed flirting with her.)

So, in summary, my main questions are, what are some of the main ways to create romantic attraction with a girl without touch, and how can I create sexual attraction despite my inexperience when it comes to sex?

Always a Friend, Never a Lover

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Help, I’m Terrified That Leaving My Job Will Ruin My Love Life

March 15, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hi Doc,

I am recently in the process of leaving my toxic job with a little bit of savings and no concrete plan for what’s next. I can’t even think about work and job stuff without feeling dread, anxiety, depression, etc. because not only am I leaving a bad environment after 5 years, but I also feel my career in tech and engineering no longer fits my life. I have no idea what my future holds and I’m absolutely terrified. I just turned 30 years old, male, straight-ish but identify within the queer community, and I am feeling so stuck with trying to get out of the toxic masculinity, “high-performance-male,” “life purpose or bust” mindsets.

I am in the slow process of seeing a career counselor and I am also on the ADHD/ASD spectrum. I have a lot of dating experience and good social skills, but the career aspect of life is just so painful for me and contributes to horrible feelings of low self confidence and failure to live up to my potential and expectations (I am a self-taught musician, avid reader, good friend and ally, and have a lot of positive social feedback, but I just don’t know how to pull these all together into a career that can pay the bills and still have free time to prioritize relationships). I am also terrified of going back to school for exploring interests in psychology, social sciences, arts, etc. because of not only post-pandemic uncertainty, but also if it’s something I’ll actually maintain long enough interest and executive functioning to succeed in without having mountains of debt for nothing (I consistently seek treatment for ADHD, but it’s a constant struggle because my brain might be treatment-resistant to most medications and there’s a lack of alternative resources in my area. I need A LOT of reassurance and support just to feel that I am succeeding and worry that I may need too much support that would be unattractive for a “grown-ass-man”).

So anyways, back to what I want to ask. In case I am unfortunate to experience long-term unemployment, failure, etc., what is my possible outlook for finding partner(s) who are okay with dating an unemployed man in his thirties or potentially forties? How can I still feel attractive and “sexually valid, wanted, etc.” without thinking too much about job uncertainty and potential financial dependence on others? It personally doesn’t bother me about not fitting the traditional stereotype and role of a man in today’s society, and I actually am not interested in children. But I am very worried about other people’s unconscious beliefs from society blocking me from finding loving, sexual, and fulfilling relationships (which I have found WHEN I was working, but never had the experience of finding them during unemployment, and I do not want to live with my parents). I know that I would never fall into a co-dependent hole of binging on weed, drinking, video games, porn, etc. if I ever found myself in a relationship as an unemployed person, but how can I portray that while dating or explaining to others about my circumstances? Would it still be attractive to call myself a potential “stay at home boyfriend?”

Thank you for your time and support,

Potential Stay-At-Home Boyfriend

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What Does It Mean To Be Strong?

February 10, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be strong, lately. Not in the physical sense, but what it means to be emotionally and mentally strong. The idea that people today — men especially — are “weaker” or “can’t handle it” is tossed around with gleeful abandon. In fact, the underlying conflict of Cobra Kai is, at its core, about the nature of strength and what it takes to become strong. In fact, much of it is rooted in the idea of “the world is an awful place and I will make you strong so you can survive”.

You can see this outlook all over the place if you make even a cursory glance on Twitter or Facebook, but especially media on the right. Folks rage about people “being pussies” for telling people what their pronouns are and, of course, the neverending outrage over “political correctness”.

Or, as most of us call it, “not being an asshole”.

You see this in sports, when football players are lauded for playing with injuries or in the pushback against trying to reign in CTE. You see it with folks — mostly men — who get called “weak” or told they’re a pussy for saying “this is too much, I need to step away or go to therapy“. People complain about how hazing has been restricted or banned and what this means for social organizations like fraternities. And of course, you can find it all over the place online, from in-game chat, on forums, Twitter, Facebook and so on. It gets cast as “trolling” or “trash talk”, while people who object are told to “suck it up,” “grow a thicker skin,” and that “trash talking and harassment is a vital part of the culture“. And of course, there’s the ever-popular “facts don’t care about your feelings”, “soy boy” and the classic “snowflake”.

People will insist that this is a good thing. That people today just aren’t as tough as those who came before. That we’re creating a world of weak, privileged, pampered infants.

In reality, it’s an excuse. It becomes a way to justify abuse and having been abused.

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