He knows he has the skills to be more social, but he's still having a hard time connecting with people. How do you fix a problem you don't know you have?| Paging Dr. NerdLove
As someone who's been active on the Internet since 1994 — before there was a World Wide Web, even — I've seen a lot of changes over time. Few, however, have been as significant as the way that online dating has changed. I have seen things you wouldn't believe. Spring Street Personals, shared across Salon and The Onion. Paying to send messages and buying 'roses' to send instead of likes, winks and pokes. I watched major dating sites become infested with zombie accounts and new ones popula...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
I want to talk to you for a moment about a client I had. He, like a lot of my coaching clients, wanted to know what it takes to be someone women want to date. This caught me off guard; this was a guy who had a lot going for him. He was tall, good looking and fun to talk to. And yet, he didn't struggle with meeting women so much as failed to so much as look at them. Never mind striking out, the guy got the screaming abdabs just thinking about going up to the plate. Once we identified just| 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
So, I'm gonna do something a little different today. There're some letters I get over and over again. Not from the same person, but variations on an incredibly common theme. There are some letters and topics that come up so often with the same insecurities, often using identical language, that it seems pretty obvious they're coming from the same place, literally and metaphorically. And just between you, me and everyone reading this… it gets a bit frustrating. I mean, it's not like I haven't...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Being a man, particularly a straight, cisgendered man, can be a perverse paradox at times. Society caters to us in almost every way imaginable. Even in 2021, as we strive towards greater social and sexual equity for people of different genders and sexualities, straight cis men are very much at the top of the social heap. And yet, men are lonelier and more isolated than ever, feeling not just lost but ignored or cast aside. It seems laughable; society caters to straight men to an absurd deg...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes Dear Doctor NerdLove, Long time reader and bona-fide straight woman here. Something struck me in your latest column, 'What Makes A Man Attractive to Women?' The LW lists examples of 'unattractive' men that masc-attracted women 'claim' are hot to illustrate their question. This time, it was Pete Davidson (I only get the appeal in the academic sense there, so I sort of understand the LW's confusion) and 'that guy from The Bear.' And it honestly took me a sec...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Ah, I see it's that time of year again. Normally on Fridays, I run questions for Ask Dr. NerdLove and help you — and folks like you — solve your dating dilemmas. But occasionally… well, occasionally I get a letter that requires a much deeper dive than most. And then occasionally I get ones like today's, which happen so regularly that you can actually measure the intervals between them and count down to when I'll get the next. Like the monarch butterflies traveling to Mexico and swallows...| Paging Dr. NerdLove
Every woman he meets on dating apps ghosts him after he tells them what he does for work. Does he need to find a better job or is there another option?| Paging Dr. NerdLove
