Dr. NerdLove

@doctornerdlove

Free now of the chains of Twitter, traveling the world and doing good. Dispensing the best dating advice on the Internet. Send your dating questions to doc@doctornerdlove.com.

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Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· 29d

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: He's been struggling with dating for his whole life. Now an experience while traveling seems to have been the final straw. Is there any way for him to hold onto hope? What can he do in the face of a lifetime of rejection? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

I’ve Given Up Hope That I’ll Ever Find A Relationship. What Can I Do?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· 29d

One of the frustrating things about feelings is how often they just don’t make sense. Moments that feel like they should be simple and clean and straightforward leave you feeling things that don’t feel like they match the situation, while incredibly complex and nuanced situations seem easy to process and don’t leave you with confusing mixed emotions. When the situation and the feelings it inspires don’t seem to line up, it often leaves us wondering what the hell’s wrong.

There’s an understandable temptation to wonder if this is a sign, that your subconscious knows something that your conscious mind hasn’t picked up on or isn’t ready to acknowledge. Or you may wonder if this means that you’re doing something wrong, that you’ve made a mistake. But more often than not, it’s just that what you expect to feel isn’t lining up with what you’re actually feeling. It’s the misalignment that’s messing with you, more than the feelings themselves.

Case in point: this is a pretty open and shut case. This is a relationship that absolutely needed to end. It is as clean and clearcut as can possibly be, with an unmistakable bad guy and unquestionable call to end this relationship at speed. You would be forgiven for thinking that ending this relationship would feel like a release. Like you freed yourself from a horrible situation. And yet, instead, you feel like History’s Greatest Monster.

The seeming paradox of why you feel that way is because you’re not a monster. This is someone you cared about; someone you’ve shared a part of your life with. Even if their behavior became untenable and they represent an honest threat to your family, that doesn’t mean that you hate them. Nor does it mean that the good times that you had up until now have been overwritten. You remember what it felt like to love them without worry or restraint. You remember when things were new and effortless. And now this person is upset, screaming, confused and crying because of something that you did. There’s no…

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 14

Sometimes the way we feel and what we need to do in a relationship don't line up. Let me help you make sense of it all. Send in your questions about love, sex and dating to ASK DR. NERDLOVE at doctornerdlove.com/c... or email them to doc(at)doctornerdlove.com!

Image of a smartphone showing a romantic couple in silhouette against fairy lights in the background. Underneath a reminder notice says "SUBMIT A DATING ADVICE QUESTION!"

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 12

Ah, timeline synchronicity

Nash (@radiodeadair.com) posting “if republicans keep this up, the next CPAX will be held in Hell”, right above Bakoon (bakoon.bsky.social) posting the Keith David “WELCOME TO HELL, MOTHERFUCKER!” clip

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 9

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: Her boyfriend is amazing... but she's worried that she's a charity project, not a partner. Is she crazy for not feeling happy that she's with him? Is it possible to be a great guy without being a great boyfriend? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

Can Someone Be A Great Guy, But Not A Great Partner?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 9

A frequent mistake I see, whether on dating apps or trying to approach many people in person over the course of an afternoon or evening, is that people are taking a shotgun approach. Sure, throw enough lead into the air and you might hit something... but that doesn't mean that's something that you were looking for, or even that you want.

One of the drawbacks to approaching strangers, especially in a "cold" approach, where you're talking to someone you have no personal or social connection
to, is that you know next to nothing about that person. The likelihood that, through sheer chance, you will
have met someone who's compatible with you is low. You're basing your interest entirely on their physical attractiveness; while that's not a bad thing, it's also very impersonal and more than a little objectifying and alienating.

Nobody likes feeling like they're just a warm body or potential notch on the bedpost. Even someone who's down to hook up with a stranger is going to want to feel like that person is interested in them, specifically, not just anyone who says "yes".

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 8

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: One reader wants to know how to keep his newfound sobriety from straining his marriage, while another asks how he can troubleshoot his love life and end this cycle of constant rejection... www.patreon.com/DrNe...

I Don't Know Why I Keep Getting Rejected! How Do I Find Out What I'm Doing Wrong?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 6

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: Since he was young, his life was all about becoming a doctor. Now that he's made it, he's worried about everything he gave up to get there. Is it even possible for him to learn how to date as a grown man with little social experience? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

Is It Too Late For Me To Learn How To Date?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 6

The way that folks seem to segregate social skills as being unique to all other skillsets that is part of the problem. People keep positioning these skills as something you can only learn in this incredibly small window of time and lamenting that they've missed that opportunity and trying to develop them
now will forever show that they're a loser, like a social Mark of Cain.
But that's not how it works. That's not how any of this works, in part because nobody notices or cares. I have been on more dates with women than you've had hot meals; never once - never - has anyone ever asked me about my dating history or gave a damn about when I had my first serious girlfriend.
lost my virginity, any of it. Because it doesn't matter. Here's the thing, BtCAoP: the only thing you truly missed out on was the time in your life when meeting new people was convenient. High-school and college are times when making friends and socializing is at its least difficult because you're spending most of your waking hours with people around your age in approximately the same stage of life, at a time when you have relatively few demands on your time. It's easy to hit the cumulative 200 hours to make a close friend because you're seeing the same people every day for hours at a time. But the fact that it's the most convenienttime
doesn't mean that it's the only time in your life when this can happen.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 5

Ah, the three stages of “this would fix me”…

A photo of a glass door into a brick building with three signs stacked vertically. From the top, the signs advertise a clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist and a tattoo studio.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 5

Made a batch of Dirty Shirley Jell-O shots and a batch of non-alcoholic cherry-lime rickey Jell-O shots for a friend’s July 4th party. All the boozy shots had whole cherries in them. Considering that I was freestyling a bit on these, they came out surprisingly well!

An overhead picture of a rimmed baking tray holding about 20 Solo-cup style shot glasses with red Jello inside. Many have cherry stems sticking out over the rim of the shot glasses.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jul 1

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: He's starting off in a high-pressure, competitive industry, with everything that means. Is there any way for him to find balance between work and having a social life? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

I Have A High-Stress, High-Pressure Job. How Do I Balance Work And Having A Relationship?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 30

Also it’s comedically easy to fake “success” for social media. I did this as a bit near the start of the lockdown and the number of people who thought that the top photo was legit was *staggering*.

A pair of photos spliced together horizontally in the middle. The top photo shows Dr. NerdLove apparently on a tropical beach, wearing sunglasses and holding a tiki drink.

Bottom photo shows Dr. NerdLove at home, standing in front of a TV showing a tropical beach, while he holds an iPhone on a selfie stick, clearly taking the above picture.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 29

NOW ON PATREON: What do you do when the pain of what you missed out on is always with you in the present? How does someone trapped in the past learn to let go? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

I’ve Missed Out On So Much. How Do I Learn To Let Go And Move On?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 26

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: He has no problem meeting women... but the women who like him are never the ones he's into. Is he just asking too much to expect women to be interested in dating a guy like him? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

Do I Need To Lower My Standards In Order To Get A Girlfriend?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 23

For posterity:

A reply from hivebox, an obvious bot. Text reads: “hivebox.bsky.social @hivebox.bsky.... •13m
→ Replied to you
I totally get what you mean! It's frustrating to see trends that complicate things while trying to stay relevant. The push for Al-optimized experiences can feel like a double-edged sword. Have you found any strategies that work for you to balance these demands?”

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 22

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: It SHOULD be a dream come true: his college crush is back in his life and now she wants to give dating a chance. So why does he feel so conflicted? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

I Got Out Of The Friend Zone and Now I Don't Know How I Feel About It!

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 19

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: he’s been making strides towards being the kind of guy women want to date… so how does he let women know? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

How Do I Show Women I’m The Kind of Guy They Want to Date?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 18

Sure I’ll play along.

The BlueSky License meme card. Apparently I’m a BlueSky veteran

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 15

NOW ON PATREON: He's decided to take time off from dating to work on himself after a break up. Now he's worried that he's not ready to get back on the market yet. Another reader wants to know: why do people get so weird when he tries to talk to them? www.patreon.com/DrNe...

How Do I Know If I'm Ready To Date Again?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 13

It’s kind d of a shame that it’s too damn hot for any sort of Bradstreet looks but one does what one can at the last minute

Doc rocking said skull shirt at the theater

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 11

If he doesn’t immediately rip his eyes out, does this mean he doesn’t truly love you?

The logic of micro-cheating goes something like this: Your partner's every move online says something significant about them. These actions make legible their innermost thoughts, which are visible, traceable, and recoverable as evidence. Many young women will post about checking to see if their boyfriend has recently followed another girl on social media-because, of course if he
does, he must like what he sees.
A man
that truly loves you will never look at another woman,
says one Instagram pest
with more than 100,000 likes. In a Cosmopolitan article commending the perks of dating a man without social-media accounts, the writer triumphantly declares, "I've never had to compete with the likes of Emily Ratajkowski and Bella Hadid."

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 11

This is just motivated reasoning in action. When you’re this convinced that someone’s cheating, the complete LACK of evidence is going to be proof of just how crafty the cheater is.

place digitally. For some of my friends, the celebrities a romantic partner follows can be just as big a dealbreaker as parenting or financial choices—following Instagram models, in their calculus, fundamentally reveals as much about long-term compatibility as a poker addiction. To catch micro-cheaters, people often hunt for indiscretions: scrolling through the entire list of accounts that their partner follows, or watching for a partner's single like on another person's Instagram post. What appear to be gray-area online behaviors, the thinking goes, are in reality small but infinitely telling betrayals.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 11

When everything is cheating, nothing is…

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 11

Oh FFS, not this shit again…

A screenshot of an Atlantic article on *sigh* “micro-cheating”

Text reads:

THE NEW INFIDELITY
Micro-cheating includes all sorts of internet behavior that, to many people, might just seem innocent.
By Zoe Yu
MARCH 19, 2026, 10:41 AM ET
Last summer, a friend called bearing bad news: Her two-year relationship was finished. In between insisting that she was, in fact, totally fine, and that everything was probably for the best, she

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 10

I see you and raise the Boomhammer

A war hammer/flintlock pistol combo made out of steel, the flintlock over the blunt striking surface, rhe mechanics exposed on the side of the head and the barrel sitting over a spike at the back

For when you wanna shoot a Jacobin but you gotta be REAL extra about it.

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 10

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: Women keep telling him that he seems incredibly confident and take charge, with real "alpha male" energy. So why doesn't anyone seem to ACT like it? Is it possible that he's wrong about what women want? www.patreon.com/post...

Why Can't I Accept That Women Might Find Me Attractive?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 8

NOW ON PATREON: Fair warning - this is a rough one. She was attacked by a co-worker; now months later, she's still trying to understand what happened... and how much of the guilt she feels is deserved. www.patreon.com/post...

I'm Still Struggling To Understand What Happened To Me Four Months Ago...

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 7

NOW LIVE ON PATREON: At first, he was looking forward to meeting someone he'd been flirting with online. Then a little googling brought up new information. Is this something he should be concerned about? Is this even a sincere question? www.patreon.com/post...

I Was Excited To Meet Up... Until I Learned Something Disturbing About My Date! What Do I Do?

Dr. NerdLove@doctornerdlove· Jun 5

NOW IN EARLY ACCESS ON PATREON: He got a crush on her. She turned him down and said "Let's just be friends." He said "sure," but he's worried she doesn't believe him. How can he convince her that he really DOES want to be friends and nothing more? www.patreon.com/post...