Back in the bad old days, I did a lot of things I regret out of jealousy. Pretty much from middle-school onwards, jealousy defined the majority of my waking life. Everywhere I looked, other people had what I thought I wanted in life. Watching happy couples would alternately make me feel lonely and almost sick with envy. Watching movies meant watching people with lives - and relationships - that I wished I could have. Of course, it didn't help that I was surrounded by people who seemed to ...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
I love Fight Club. The book and the movie. In the middle of the macho posturing and the My First Anarchist Manifesto, it so neatly captures the angst of people who recognize that there's something missing in their lives and not knowing what the hell to do about it. We feel confused and lost and directionless and so we try to cover it all up by getting obsessed with things that we don't actually care about but feel like we should and buy crap we don't really need because we feel like it giv...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
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. However, if you look at people's dating life, you'd be forgiven for thinking that not only are they not playi...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Last week, I wrote about how being nice wasn't enough, in and of itself. This kicked off a number of discussions, one of which focused around the idea of self-acceptance. After all, I've made it a point that self-acceptance is important and how believing in magic cures can actually hinder you in your progress when it comes to any sort of self-improvement. At the same time however, it brings up the question: doesn't needing to be more than just nice conflict with the idea of self-acceptance...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Dear Dr. NerdLove: A common truism you hear a lot about dating is 'You have to learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else'. I'm bringing that up so I can tie dating to something I want to pick your brain on, which is about self-love. I find the messaging around how one should feel about themselves to be confusing to navigate. One hand, it's generally understood one should learn to be humble and self-critical, because the mind is naturally biased towards itself and will resist he...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
