use your words Archives

Am I Too Aggressive When I’m Looking For Dates?

July 23, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc,

Thanks as always for your tireless service! You are definitely still the best purveyor of dating advice on the internet. I think I have an issue that I haven’t seen you talk about before…

I (30, cis, straight, F) have been single for a *long* time, and in general I find that when I meet someone cool whom I’m interested in, I tend to be the one who does most of the heavy lifting (i.e. suggesting meetups, initiating contact, etc). That may or may not be a sign that I’m just setting my sights on people who aren’t actually interested – definitely a topic for my therapist but that’s not really what I’m writing to you about. The point is that I’m not shy to make the first move as a woman but am having zero success so far.

The issue is that I’m living in an area where people in general are quite restrained and well-behaved; everyone is friendly and kind and welcoming, but it rarely goes beyond that. People don’t really flirt or open up to you unless you really make an effort to get to know them properly, and even then it is borderline impossible to tell if someone likes you or *likes you’-likes you. There also isn’t really much of a vocabulary surrounding dating (the people here don’t speak English); there are no phrases for saying “Want to go out sometime?” or “I’d love to invite you on a date if you’re free next week” and so on. I asked a friend what they might think if someone up-front asked them on a date, and they said that sounded “way too direct”.

Generally this therefore means that I am in a pattern of inviting cool people for ‘drinks’ or ‘dinner’, only for them to interpret that as a literal invitation to go and consume food or liquid as acquaintances and then go home. I can’t think of an elegant way to make clear that I mean ‘drinks’ like ‘romantic flirty drinks’ rather than ‘two people ingesting beer in the same general area’. And because men here are very respectful of women’s boundaries, they sit politely on the other side of the table and keep their hands to themselves regardless of what kind of signals I try to send over. I think they are often quite nervous about potentially offending women by overstepping. I don’t want to violate their boundaries either so I don’t push it. We have a nice drink or dinner, go home, and nothing *ever* happens. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I guess I am wondering how I can make it clearer in my communication and body language that I am interested in these people so that things don’t just end up stuck in neutral like this. If anything, it would be good to get to a point where I can get an honest rejection from them so I at least know that I can move on and stop wondering. As it is, because I never get the up-front rejection, these things tend to stretch on for months and it can be quite emotionally draining.

Some people say that part of the problem is that guys don’t pick up on subtle signals like hair-touching and all that other stuff that women are told to do to show someone that they are interested. Is this true or is this just part of the usual ‘lol men are so oblivious’ genre of crap dating advice?

Ultimately the questions are:
– how do I make it crystal clear to someone that my invitation to meet up is a romantic move and that therefore they should say no if they’re not romantically interested?
– what are some things I can do as a female human to signal my interest, clearly enough that someone would get the message, without coming across as creepy or desperate? Or – worst of all – *intimidating*?
– what are some things I can do on these meetups to loosen up the vibe and encourage the other person to sit closer/reciprocate a touch/relax a bit and possibly even engage in some light flirting?

Thanks so much!

Why Don’t They Get It

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These Mistakes Are Costing You Dates

July 7, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I have a serious question for you: are you someone who plays to win, or who plays to avoid losing?

Most folks would say that, yes, they absolutely play to win. Even if they’re not the sort of min/maxing, loophole-finding, cutthroat gamesman who makes board game night a flaming hellscape, people will generally say that when they play, their goal is to make a sincere effort at winning.

Group of friends sitting at wooden table, having fun while playing board game. — Except for Abbott: the ONE guy who plays Pandemic by being on the side of the disease, WHAT THE FUCK, ABBOTT?

However, if you look at people’s dating life, you’d be forgiven for thinking that not only are they not playing to win, they’re playing in a way that’s designed to ensure they won’t find a long-term partner. To be blunt, a lot of the ways that people approach dating actively works against them. They are, for all intents and purposes, focused on not losing. That is: they’re focused more on avoiding rejection than they are on finding a potential partner. And to be fair: this is understandable. If you don’t have a lot of social experience, you’re just starting to date or you’re finding yourself back on the market again, rejection can be scary. It feels like the worst thing that could happen to you. It’s natural to want to try to avoid it at all costs.

But the problem is that trying to avoid “losing” isn’t the same as winning; in fact, taking this outlook will actually cost you dates.

It’s time to stop handicapping your own love life. Here’s how to recognize and avoid these common dating mistakes.

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Help, I’m Losing My Friends To Streaming

June 21, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doc,
I have had a few friends since high school. We remained friends even after we graduated, went to different colleges, lived over an hour apart, after I moved out of state, but now I’m back, and one of my friends moved less than 10 minutes from me for the first time.

We’ve been on the same Discord server and are all online more than once a week. However, I’ve been feeling distant from them much more, because they got into livestreaming. Now in theory, this shouldn’t change anything, but in practice, everything is so much worse. They almost always are playing a game I REALLY don’t like, to the point that it makes me feel much more bored and down when I play it. So I don’t. The problem is, it’s a game that they are always communicating during it, and any time I try to say anything, I just get ignored or a “I can’t talk now, I’m busy with this.” And then they play it for hours on end.

Even when they don’t play that, stuff still isn’t the same. Like, I can’t talk about anything remotely political with them, I can’t talk about anything personal, and even though it’s not their profession and they’re not particularly famous, they do get a small amount of viewers, so I have to always watch what I say and I can’t be myself when they’re streaming. At least one of them is streaming almost every day of the week, and it’s always while I have free time. It’s just exhausting to have to constantly be watching what I say, even around my closest friends, especially after a day of work. I’ve also been going through other things emotionally, and I can’t even talk about it, because I can’t say it on a livestream, because it would be taking attention from the streamer and it’s something any audience member wouldn’t want to hear.

I don’t want to make them stop, because they seem to enjoy it and I don’t want to be a funwrecker, but I just want my social and friend life back with them, especially after a long day of work. I also don’t want to keep this bottled up, before I do or say something I regret and can never take back. But I also just want my social life with them back… What do I do about this?

Video Game Widower

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: I Like Rough Sex. Does That Mean Something’s Wrong With Me?

June 7, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a cis woman who has been happily married to a kind, gentle, cis man for 3 years. The only area where we are mismatched is our libidos — mine is very high and his is not. But we’ve made it work and for the most part and sex has been enjoyable, if a little dull.

Over the past couple of years, I have developed a serious interest in “rough sex.” Without going into too much detail, there are several things I would like to try that sound very enticing to me.

During our last sexual encounter, I talked to my husband about this beforehand and asked him if he would incorporate a few of these things to try them out — like biting me and slapping different parts of my body. He agreed, and it was the best sex we’ve had in a long time. It did not hurt me, and I found everything incredibly enjoyable.

The next day, I was talking with my husband about this to see how he felt and if he liked it. He said it was alright, but he’d prefer to just have “boring sex” (his words) from now on. I was disappointed, but didn’t know what to say.

The rougher sexual encounter has made me hungry for more. I want to do it again. But, I know it made my husband uncomfortable so I won’t force him to do anything. I can’t stop running scenarios around in my mind of things I really want to try, none of which I can do because I know my husband won’t be up for it.

Why can’t I just let this go and be satisfied with what I do have? Is there something pathologically wrong with me?

Counting The Bruises

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How Do I Trust a Boyfriend Who Still Talks to His Ex?

June 2, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

My first two marriages ended badly, with my first being abusive and the second him being unfaithful. I’ve been with my current partner a few years now, but we got off to a rough start – long story short when we got together he had a drug issue that I wasn’t aware of. I found out when he tried to quit cold turkey and nearly died. I chose to give him an opportunity to enter a treatment program, and have no reason to believe he hasn’t been 100% compliant, but I still struggle with trust.

He has also remained close with many of his exes, which in general I think is a positive. There are times where it makes me a little insecure (like him keeping a pic of him and an ex on his nightstand, or him making slightly over the top comments on his exes Facebook posts) but haven’t considered it a big deal, and I don’t want to ask him to change if that’s just who he is.

A few weeks ago, something happened that made me nervous about his past drug issue. I was freaking out a little and I looked at his phone for the first time in over a year (he provided me the passcode towards the start of his recovery as a sign of trust, but did not give me explicit permission to look at that moment). Good news was no sign of a relapse, the bad was that a message caught my eye while scrolling through that contained graphic sexual content. I opened the convo – it was between him and an ex and was along the lines of them hashing out a sexual issue they had while they were together years earlier.

I then opened a couple of other convos between him and exes (I know, I know). While I found nothing that indicated there was any current activity or plans in that direction, there were things that made me uncomfortable. Examples include references to things he and an ex did sexually while they were together, comments about how beautiful and sexy they were/are, and in one case a description to the ex of a sex dream that he’d recently had about her.

I tried to bring the issue up in vague terms and he acted confused. I don’t know if I can trust my own judgement here – I am prone to making excuses for others and deciding that if something bothers me it’s my fault. Also, I don’t think a little flirting is necessarily a problem in an otherwise healthy relationship, I just think some of what I saw crosses a line. I don’t even know if confronting him would make me feel better, I don’t want to constantly police his phone, but at the same time I don’t know if I can 100% trust him and with my past, I don’t want to go back to a situation where there are gut feelings I’m ignoring. On the other hand, though, I am generally happy in this relationship and part of me thinks this is just something he doesn’t see the same way I do as I am definitely more sexual conservative.

Another note is that he referenced me frequently (and in positive terms) with all of these same exes, so I know he’s not being dishonest about our status together, and many of them are in committed and seemingly happy relationships as well. Do you think there is a possibility that this is just a difference in boundaries and comfort levels? Is there a possibility that he would find it genuinely surprising that something like this would bother me and if I brought it up as an issue he’d just be more careful? Am I making too much of this or am I, once again, ignoring a huge red flag?

Lines Lines Everywhere A Line

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