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How Do I Get Over My Virginity Anxiety?

January 11, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Doctor’s Note: Hey NerdLovers! It’s a new year and I want to help start 2021 off on a positive note. So I want to hear from you: what are some of your relationship wins? How have you improved your personal life, your friendships or your romantic relationships? What are some of the ways you’ve made your life better recently? Let’s share some hope, some positivity and success to help inspire folks to achieve their own victories.

Send your success stories to doc@doctornerdlove.com with the subject header “relationship wins”; maybe you’ll see your success story in a future column.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I’m in my first new relationship in 10 years and things are going really great! We’ve been together for over 3 months now and we really love and care about each other. However, due to the pandemic situation, we aren’t doing anything physical yet. As a result, there’s been a lot of talking about sex, what we like/don’t, and definitely sexting which has all been great to do with each other in the meantime!

The thing is, I’m a virgin and my girlfriend is not. This, in itself, doesn’t bother me at all, especially when we’re both mid-late 20’s. To her credit, she has been incredibly supportive and understanding of any insecurities I have about losing my virginity, which has been so good for me. Luckily, we seem to be very compatible sexually too!

The hang-up I’m having comes from the conversations we’ve had about sex and what she likes and wants to do in bed. Naturally, much of what I’ve learned about her in this area comes from things she’s done with her ex. My girlfriend has only expressed having good sexual experiences, which is definitely music to my ears for her sake. But when I look at myself, someone with no experience (eager as they are to learn and pleasure their partner), I find myself feeling like I won’t be able to satisfy her as well has her ex did. I’m not even specifically talking about our first time, more just in general.

I haven’t really talked to her about this issue specifically because I know what she’ll say: that she loves me and she’s not comparing me to her ex like that. And I believe her! She also has never made any comments specifically about “how great he was” or anything of the sort. And she definitely does not deserve to be asked about it from me either. But there’s just something within me that wants to prove to myself (and kind of to her as well) that I can be her best partner; better than that last guy.

What can I tell myself to stop worrying about being the “best” when I know there’s no way of knowing (unless she tells me herself one day)?

– The Competitive Novice

First of all TCN: congratulations on your new relationship! Your girlfriend sounds awesome, and a great match for you… especially as your first time.

It’s just a shame that your jerk-brain is making you feel a little insecure about things. But thing is… that’s all it is: your jerk brain and random feelings, not truth or prophecy. And to be perfectly fair, that’s a really common insecurity. A lot of folks — mostly men, but definitely women and non-binary people too — worry that being a virgin means that they’re going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to satisfying their partner. This is especially true if their partner has had a long or varied dating history; they worry that their lack of experience is going to mean that they couldn’t possibly measure up in some way.

But that’s not true at all.

Now one of the reasons for this is that people tend to get very rules-lawyer-y about virginity and treat penetration as the end-all/be-all of losing one’s virginity. If you didn’t get your end in — or have someone get inside of you — then it doesn’t “count”. But a lot of folks who are virgins aren’t complete blank slates, who’ve never been physical with a partner at all. Lots of people may never have had penetrative sex but have still had or performed oral sex, mutual masturbation or any number of other sex acts and are, in fact, quite good at them.

(And if penetration is your end-all/be-all for “losing one’s virginity”… well, there’re a lot of gay men and lesbians who are lifelong virgins… but still have a hell of a lot of sex.)

But the other reason is that good sex isn’t about the numbers. A person could have partners that number into the triple or quadruple digits… but still suck in bed. Yes, they’ve had a lot of sex, but rarely with the same person more than once. Meanwhile, a person could be a provider of mind-blowing orgasms, even though you can count the total number of partners they’ve had on the fingers of one hand with plenty to spare. That’s because great sex isn’t about pure technique or how many times you’ve inserted Tab A into Slot B; it’s about the connection between you and the person you’re sleeping with. It’s about paying attention to your partner — both what they’re saying, but also how they’re responding. It’s about learning their cues, their preferences and just what they like and when. And it’s about being willing to discuss what you’re into, what you need, what you’d like to try, what are your “maybes” and your hard “no’s”. These are all things that take time, intimacy and communication.

And that, TCN, is where you’re actually doing everything right. In fact, if I’m being perfectly honest TCN, you’re already doing everything that I’d be telling you to do. The fact that you and she have been having these conversations and sexting back and forth and talking about the fact that hey, you don’t have much experience in this particular arena are all part of how you set yourself up for some great sex when you both feel like you’re ready.

But the thing that you need to keep in mind is that the part that’s screwing you up isn’t about the likelihood of how good the sex will or won’t be — either for your first time or overall. What’s getting you is your ego. You seem to be coming at this like you have something to prove… almost like you want to compensate for being a virgin in your 20s. So hey, if you can show that you’re some fuck-prodigy, wouldn’t that be awesome? Yes, except not really. Because here’s the thing: you have nothing to prove, man. You aren’t in competition with anyone else — not her last boyfriend, not other dudes she may have gone on dates with before you, not anyone. You know this because hey, she’s dating you. You can stop pitching, you’ve already made the sale. It’s fait accompli at this point, all over but the squishy noises. What’s going to happen next is going to be you and her getting to know each other physically, getting to know each other’s bodies and responses and making it all work. And that’s going to be a collaborative exercise, not a case of your standing on stage and being told “alright, show me what you can do, stud.” The physical aspect of every relationship is different, and getting to know each other means that you’re both going from off-the-rack to bespoke fucking. That’s something the two of you do together, not something that one does and the other gives a rating to. It’s a holistic endeavour, something that’s about the both of you.

Y’know. Kind of like your relationship overall.

What you need to do is worry less about your ranking and focus more on being present in the moment. And that means not just when you two can get together for some physical time but while you’re flirting and sexting and getting each other rev’d up. The more you put your attention on that moment, not some theoretical dick-measuring future, the better the connection will be between you and your girlfriend… and the better the sex will be too.

Good luck.


Hey Doc!

With another polarizing election behind us, it is pretty obvious that the political divide isn’t going to mend anytime soon. We all see it on dating apps when women write “don’t bother if you voted for [insert candidate here].” But my question isn’t about the view differences between myself and a potential lover… it’s about the view differences between her and the rest of my family.

A majority of my family (plus extended family) don’t exactly share the views I have when it comes to politics. Despite this and plenty of heated debates, we still manage to have a great relationship. However, when it comes to dating I’m concerned about being guilty by association.

I have sabotaged several communications with women who really liked me only because of the worry that I’d be pitting their political & social views against my family’s…. and eventually ruining both relationships. It’s a fear that has held me back so much that I even had to speak to a therapist about it. Am I overthinking this? How can my love life and family life live in harmony? I wouldn’t want to put her in an uncomfortable setting and can only dream of both parties really loving each other.

Thanks in advance!

Two Party System

Seeing as we just had a historic election last Tuesday and an equally historic attempted insurrection as Trump’s fanbase tried to take senators hostage and murder the vice president… I think “political divide” is putting it a little too goddamn mildly.

But let’s leave that aside for a second.

What you’re doing, TPS, is what’s known as “borrowing trouble from the future”. You’ve taken this vague worry — that you and your future partner’s politics will conflict with your family’s and this will destroy your entire relationship — and turned it into prophecy. Either they won’t believe that you don’t have the same politics as them — that whole guilt by association thing — or that this potential future fight will be so horrific and all-consuming that you will lose both your family and your future partner.

Except… you don’t actually have any experience of this happening at all. You’ve got a lot of speculation, a lot of imagination and pretty much no actual experience with it in real life. And while I’m sure you can find any number of random anecdotes or Am I The Asshole posts that may seem to back this fear up, those don’t actually count. Even leaving aside the ones that are pure creative writing exercises: the people involved aren’t your family, nor are they any future girlfriend. There’re reasons why the plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data”, after all.

But let’s look at the actual facts here. You and your family, despite having wildly different political views, have managed to keep your relationship strong. Like a lot of folks in mixed religious/atheist households, vegetarian/carnivore households or other diametrically opposed issues, you’re able to make things work, even your different stances make everyone want to grind their teeth into powder and smack the other up with a Howard Zinn omnibus. Assuming that you and/or your family aren’t, say, QAnons or COVID deniers, think that there were “very good people on both sides” at the Unite The Right event in Charlottesville or think that the attempted insurrection is an Antifa false-flag operation, it is theoretically possible to at least have a “we’re going to draw a line and we do not cross this line no matter how heated things get” sort of set up. That can go a long way to keeping a family as a family… even if you’re back to the “dual-wielding Disobedience and Democracy, roll for initiative” stage over dinner.

And I’d point out: there are lots of folks who date and marry people whose families are gold-plated shitheads. Sometimes everyone is able to come together or even help bring people around. Sometimes it ends with the couple deciding that they’re not going to spend time with the fam until said fam gets their act together.

But that’s all theoretical, not actual. One of the bigger things to realize is that this, presumably isn’t going to just be you throwing your new girlfriend into the deep end with no warning. Ignoring how long it may or may not take you to get to the “meet the family” stage, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be giving your theoretical future girlfriend a heads up that you’re the political black sheep of the family. Giving your squeeze the basic rundown of the family dynamic is — or should be — standard issue before bringing her to your cousin’s wedding/nephew’s bat mitzvah/little brother’s birthday. That gives you time to work out how you’re going to handle any thorny topics that need to be avoided or handled with care — political or otherwise.

And, I would hope it goes without saying, that I hope neither your family or anyone you date is the sort who goes out of their way to pick fights with folks over politics; that’s a headache of a different color entirely.

TL;DR: stop writing your break-up story before you’ve even had your first date. Focus on finding someone awesome that you click with, build a relationship to the point of actually introducing her to the folks, then figure out how to navigate family functions. And hey: it’s much easier to weather the slings and arrows of family political arguments when the two of you can present a united front and give each other the backup you need.

Good luck.

 

Is My Partner Just Settling For Me?

December 4, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

So, first things first: my partner (38NB, they/them) and I (28F) both have histories of abusive relationships. Their most recent partner before they met me was physically, sexually, and emotionally violent towards them; I had gotten out of a sexually predatory and abusive relationship with a much older man. We both understand that the trauma we’ve undergone shapes us, but does not define us. We’re working through it.

My problem is that I’m scared that I was simply the first partner in a long time to show them kindness and compassion, and that because of that they’ve spent the last five and a half years in a relationship in which, on some fundamental level, they do not want to be. This is in large part because I have a lot of flaws as a partner.

We live together and have done for nearly five years, but it was a case of me moving into their flat straight from my parents’ house rather than us picking a place together. I am long-term unemployed and contribute to household expenses as much as I am able but they’re still the primary breadwinner and I feel like I am leeching off them. I have triggers relating to showers (which I would rather not go into) that make personal hygiene difficult for me. I clean and help out and cook and the like, but I’ve had to learn how over the time we’ve lived together. I have serious depression and anxiety, for which I am receiving treatment and medication, but they had to poke and prod me into getting any treatment at all. I constantly feel like I have nothing to offer but being a considerate and caring partner – something that should be the default for any relationship, though the both of us are keenly aware that it is very much not.

Both of us drink heavily, something which lockdown has made worse, but they’re getting through a litre of gin every couple of days. They’re much more outgoing than I am and not being able to see their friends has hit them very hard indeed. When they’ve been drunk on the sofa, they’ve talked about how they didn’t see themselves ending up like this. Illness took their dreams of being a dancer in the West End, and now they’re pushing forty in a provincial fishing village that makes Toshi Station look like the height of urbane cosmopolitanism. And they look so sad when they say it. And then the next day, it’s like a switch has been flipped and it’s all smiles, and when I try to bring it up they brush it aside as me being paranoid. Which, to be entirely fair, is one of the symptoms of my anxiety disorder.

I love my partner, I really have to stress that. I love them with all my heart. I’m just terrified that I’m not worth loving back as much, and I can’t help but wonder whether or not I’m making my partner as happy as they make me. I struggle to tell what’s my paranoia and what’s a genuine issue that I should talk about with them. They’re a really awesome person and I just… worry that I’m nothing more than the first person to be a good partner, and that having had such an unbelievably fucking shitty partner for five years makes me look way better than I actually am.

We’ve been together, like I said, for five and a half years. I’ve been really happy. The happiest I can ever remember being. And I wonder if I’m the only one in the relationship who feels like that.

Or if it’s all in my head.

Thank you for reading,

Relevant Black Sabbath Song

[Read more…]

How Do I Talk To My Partner About My Sexual Fantasies?

August 17, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey there Doc,
I’ve got an odd relationship problem that I feel awful about and could really use some guidance. 
I’ve been with my fiancé for a little over 3 years now. He’s my best friend and overall we have a really great relationship. Recently I’ve been finding myself less interested in the sexual aspect of our relationship and I find myself fantasizing  about the earlier part of our relationship. I think it’s because he was a virgin when we meet, and if I’m really being honest with myself I’m pretty sure I have a fetish for that. I should probably mention that I’ve dealt with sexual & emotional abuse in my previous relationship, so I’ve never really thought about what I’m into before because I never thought I could enjoy sex.

I’m afraid to bring this up with him because I don’t want to make him feel bad but I also want to have a healthy attitude towards sex and actually be able to enjoy it. If I do have a fetish is there a healthy way that I can enjoy that? I feel like asking him to role play being a nervous awkward virgin again would just be really uncomfortable for him.
So Confused

[Read more…]

Is My Boyfriend Falling In Love With Someone Else?

June 1, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Dr Nerdlove,

Brief context: I (28 F) have been in a 2.5 year relationship, 1.25 years of which has now been long distance (12+ hour flight, long distance). Currently coming out of a non-Covid rough patch, newly thrown for a loop.

Ever since I moved away, I have been encouraging him to cultivate friendships because all of his friends are here in the States. In combination with coaxing him into therapy for the past 2 years (which I would say has been moderately successful as he now has 4 consecutive months under his belt after scattershot attempts) I have tried to assist him as best I could in various personal matters (family dynamics, culture shock, opening up emotionally, etc).

While in general very willing to improve, he always found a way to avoid cultivating friendships. He has a mix of friends of both genders from college who he chats with, and we called 2 a day with video calls on weekends as well.

He’s a huge romantic and called me his best friend and that he didn’t need anyone besides me. As the complete opposite of him, I affirmed that I know he loves me and appreciate the sentiment but that all people need someone you can physically meet up with and be in the same time zone with and that no one person can be all things.

We’ve been meeting up for 2-3 weeks every 6 months and we hit a rough patch this January (ironically just before COVID dominated everywhere) While we were working things out (which involved some radio silence for a week or two while we cooled off) he magically gained a “squad” (his words) in February of a college acquaintance who moved to the country he lives in and a high school friend who also moved back.

The college friend is a girl. I’m very chill, but my boyfriend proceeded to tell me multiple times that he thinks she is into him. As he has the social flirting fluency of a statue and had so few friends to start with, I encouraged him to have an awkward conversation or just keep treating her as a friend.

Then he tells me they get drunk together at her place after he helped her run some errands (he is fluent in the local language) and she admits to feelings but she respects what we have.

Given that we were still hashing out our unrelated issues I honestly wondered why he was telling me this. Then he says he feels disconnected from me and our relationship and since he is talking to her for more than an hour everyday about things we used to talk about and meeting up 2-3 times a week, he wanted to know how our relationship is different than a friendship.

I was, needless to say, floored. I asked him if he is no longer in love with me or interested in marriage (aka one of our issues) and he says no. I ask if he has feelings for her and he says he doesn’t think so. I ask if he is attracted to her and he says he can find something attractive about anyone really.

He repeats that everything he used to talk about with me (which was everything under the sun and involved emotional vulnerability a great deal of the time and was apparently a first for him) he now talks about with her. I personally view that as a positive thing as he had a turbulent childhood and consequently great difficulty trusting people enough to converse like that. I’m also not apologetic about not fulfilling his conversational needs because 1) we were in a bad place and needed space 2) he should have people he trusts to talk to and 3) I’m in a COVID epicenter under lockdown—the highlight of my month is finally doing laundry.

Having been a longtime reader, I know you have covered that how men manage emotional intimacy in a relationships other than a romantic partner. Is that related to this or was he never really in love with me—was I just the first person he trusted and decided it was love?

-Lost and Confused

[Read more…]

Help, I Find Sex Disgusting

April 10, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I am a straight man in my mid-twenties who had had absolutely zero dating experience until relatively recently. In part thanks to inspiration from your blog, I started working towards self-improvement and tried putting myself out there more, and I finally began to get a few dates. Eventually, I had my first (and so far only) sexual experience involving another person, which ended badly. I brought a woman back to my place after a second date, and she said yes to sex (I had never done more than make out). I started going down on her, which she seemed to enjoy, but I threw up on her. Quite understandably, she asked me to stop and drive her home. I sent her a text the next day apologizing again for what had happened, but unsurprisingly I never heard from her again.

This incident was a stumbling block in the path of the confidence and momentum I’d been building up, and I haven’t been able to get a date since. Given that I only have this one experience to draw from, I have no idea whether this was a one-time reaction or something likely to recur. On the one hand, it’s possible I simply ate something that didn’t agree with me (I don’t think alcohol is the culprit, by the way, as I’d only had a single drink with dinner). On the other hand, this could easily be something that happens again. I am a picky eater who sometimes gets nauseous from food with off-putting tastes, smells, or textures, so that could be the reason. Her vulva smelled pretty bad to me, and I kept getting pubes stuck on my tongue. Since I have nothing to compare it to, however, I have no idea whether most women would be similar or if I was simply dealing with a case of unusually bad hygiene.

Also, I feel bad saying this, another possible factor is that she was… I wouldn’t say unattractive, but approaching the limit of what I would find physically attractive. She was a nice person, and I try to keep an open mind and not have too high standards for physical appearance, just as I would hope others would do for me. Still, I wonder whether I would have had the same reaction if it were with someone I were more strongly attracted to. Finally, a contributing factor was probably the fact that I was nervous. It was my first time getting naked with someone else, and I had thought I was about to lose my virginity. The irony is not lost on me that if nerves were playing a major role, then that makes me nervous it could happen again, which in turn makes it more likely.

I’m at a loss for how to approach this the next time I find myself about to get sexual with a woman. Presumably, saying “I’ve only done this once before and I puked on her” would send most people running for the hills. However, it also feels unfair to a potential partner to not warn her that I’m concerned that I could vomit on her, since I don’t know which of the aforementioned factors were involved and which ones could arise again. I feel really bad for the last woman and wouldn’t want to put someone else through that. How should I handle this going forward?

Weak Stomach

[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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