My Crush Started Dating Someone Else And I Can’t Handle It! – Ask Dr. Nerdlove

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I know dating struggles are your bread and butter, but I guess I big blind spot you seem to have is frankly women and men having pretty much completely different struggles in the dating market. From men fearing they’ll be perceived as creepy, needy and falsely accused, to women actually fearing violence or worse. 

But I’m talking from my experience because I don’t really think a lot of women even share my struggles with dating; like you said from a woman it could be she’s hungry and she’s getting offered up is a moldy sandwich someone fished out of the dumpster and for guys (at least in my experience as an autistic male) the best you’ll get is said moldy sandwich and wanting better makes you picky and entitled. Like I’m sorry I’m not Professor X, I can’t read minds or tell when someone is “giving me signs of showing interest” like why do they gotta play these mind games like she could telling me she likes me or my shirt or my tattoos because she either has genuine interest on me or I think they’re neat and this day and age I rather frankly not find out by coming across as too forward or too needy. Because if something is too good to be true then it probably is.

I’ve had gone of a few dates and well honestly I couldn’t relate with a lot of struggles from a girl who’s told me she’s sick of guys only liking her for her conventionally good looks (something I can’t relate too as a painfully mid guy) to another where she talked about her wild sexual escapades with men and women (compared to me who only lost their virginity quite late in life thus I’m no longer an incel) while I’ve only ever had one partner. Cause if I do open up about my experiences whether it’s the security in my masculinity or my late blooming I seriously doubt they’ll either understand or even connect with me on said issue. Or even then why I try to say that for example I enjoy Chapple Roan music only to be either give funny looks or told since I’m not queer or a woman therefore her music is not meant for me.

So what do I do? How do I truly connect with someone even if we don’t share struggles or experiences?

Sincerely, WiFi Buffering

DEAR WIFI BUFFERING: OK, since you’re coming on hot on this one, WD, would you prefer that I tell you that you’re accusing women of the thing that you’re currently doing now, or would you prefer that I break all of this down before I point that out?

Because I hate to tell you this but…

A big part of what you’re dealing with is what’s known as “The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight”; that is, you are sure that you have incredible insight into others’ true selves that they couldn’t possibly have into you.

You are a gimlet-eyed observer of reality, someone who can see The Matrix; nobody can cut through the bulls–t as clearly as you and you see people for who they are, even if they don’t know it. You, on the other hand, are a black box, a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a tortilla and baked into a laminated pastry shell. Nobody could possibly understand or relate to you because you are just too complex, and people’s insight into you is lacking because they can’t see your true depths.

Ironically, those same people are feeling pretty much the same way about you. And I don’t think you realize that you peppered your entire letters with examples of this.

The even bigger irony is that you’re insisting that you can’t do something precisely while you’re actually doing it. You are actually laying out areas where you could relate and understand – and vice versa – except you’re not recognizing it because you’ve convinced yourself it has to be a 1 to 1 exact correlation. That’s not going to work because the things you’re trying to compare are apples and oranges, when you’re not trying to compare apples to things that aren’t even fruit.

The first thing you do out of the box is insist that you don’t think women could understand your dating problems, in part because you don’t think women have dating problems outside of being spoiled for choice. The example you choose to start with – the “women being offered a sandwich from the dumpster” – isn’t about having “options” or “choices”, it’s about the supposed surfeit of attention they get from society in general and on dating apps in particular. The point isn’t that women have so many options, it’s that quantity isn’t the same as quality. Getting a lot of attention doesn’t mean that it’s wanted attention and a lot of the “offers” aren’t offers so much as demands, and people getting upset when women don’t respond to those demands the way the people making them wish.

In fact, this happened to someone I know the day I write this; a guy rolled up on her at the bar and tried to get her number because he wanted to take her on a date. When she mentioned she had a boyfriend, the guy responded angrily that she must be lying because she’s not even cute and also, he totally is dating women who are so much better than her.

If you notice, the argument people make about women’s supposed lack of struggles with dating is “you say you’re hungry, so how dare you not accept this s–tty sandwich with gusto?” often followed with “you’re lucky I offered you this moldy sandwich covered in rat turds in the first place; you’re not worthy of my sandwich and I was so generous in offering it to you in the first place.”

You might want to take the time to notice that this is precisely what you complain about in the same sentence. The sentence you wrote. You literally say “the best you’ll get is said moldy sandwich and wanting better makes you picky and entitled”, which is what women hear when they complain about struggles with dating.

You also miss a couple other relevant areas where you could relate to women and their dating struggles in your very next (extremely run-on) sentence. Why do women often couch signs of interest in indirect ways such as complimenting your clothes or your tattoos? Well, part of it is because, as you say not ten words later, “I rather frankly not find out by coming across as too forward or too needy”. Newsflash my guy: that’s precisely why women are cautious in how they show interest. They aren’t playing “mind games” because they’re bored and f–king with you. They’re not even playing games. Why do they do it? To quote, well, you: “I’m sorry I’m not Professor X, I can’t read minds”.

Because hey, guess what? Leaving aside that autistic women exist too, women also have a hard time reading signs of interest and are afraid of coming on too strong or being too forward. You can go through my archives and read dozens upon dozens of letters from women who, for the life of them, can’t tell whether or not guys they like are into them or not.

Hell, one of the longest running joking-but-not-really memes among queer women is “lesbian sheep syndrome”, where everyone’s afraid to make the first move because they aren’t sure whether the other person actually likes them or is just being nice.

But when it comes to women who sleep with men, even in the Year of Our Lord Beyonce, women who are too overt or too direct in their interest often get really unpleasant responses. Guys often will overestimate their level of interest and get aggressive or, worse, assume that this is a trick of some kind and respond with anger and aggression. The idea of women getting caught in a catch-22 where you show too much interest and you’re a slut and too little and you’re a frigid prude has been around for literal decades. It was getting called out, specifically, in the goddamn Breakfast Club in 1985.

So right there, you’re proving that you’re fully capable of relating to women and their dating struggles because they are dealing with the same struggles. It has nothing to do with being neurodivergent or even gender and everything to do with being worried about making the wrong move with someone you like and being afraid of the possible fallout.

But even when there’s not a one-to-one correlation between someone’s stated experience and yours, can you truly not find common ground on something that, while not exactly the same, feels very similar? When someone complains that she’s tired of guys having certain expectations based on her looks, you can’t understand other people having particular expectations about you because you’re autistic? You may not have had the same number of sex partners, but you can’t relate to having other adventures and wild experiences and see how they’re similar? You can even say “well, I’ve never done X but I’ve done Y; is it a little like that?”  Finding commonalities is good, being able to say “me too” and show that you can relate to it is good, but it’s not the only thing. Yeah, I know, part of this is the neurodivergence talking; I’ve got my own flavor of this as part of my ADHD combo pack. But the thing is, taking that divergence in experience as an opportunity to get to know them and let them talk about themselves a bit more is a good thing.

But even if you can’t relate directly, or even indirectly, not having the same experience doesn’t mean that this is a problem. Just as you don’t need a one-to-one comparison in order to relate, you don’t need a perfect match of experiences, desires or relationship history for a date to work or to connect with someone on a meaningful level. You don’t have to relate to every single thing they’ve said or done; you can, instead just let them tell you about their experience and ask about it. I’ve never gone SCUBA diving, but when I’ve been on dates with people who have, I focus on their experience and validate them for it. I will literally say “Wow, you’ve done that? I’ve never been, that sounds amazing! What’s it like, do you ever feel like X when you do it, what’s the coolest thing you’ve seen when you were diving?”

This can actually work even better than just finding commonalities or places you can relate. As it turns out, people like it when folks want to hear about their experiences and want to actually listen to them instead of waiting for their turn to talk. This is some classic Dale Carnegie s–t.

Women, in particular, appreciate it when men say “oh that’s really cool/ interesting/ smart; tell me more!” and then proceed to actively listen and ask relevant questions. Because hey, turns out a lot of guys think that when a man does it, it’s automatically awesome but when a woman does it it’s not as cool. So if you can’t necessarily relate, you could always appreciate that this is their experience and take it as an opportunity to get to know them better, while also validating that yes that was cool/ yes, that must suck.� �(We’ll just glide on past the likelihood of someone on a first date talking about her wild sex life or complaining about guys only liking her for her looks because while it’s certainly possible… I suspect that there’s an open question as to who thought this was or wasn’t a date.)

But the part where you really make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself is when you start writing their responses for them in your head, before you’ve even had this conversation. Do you honestly think women aren’t going to understand or empathize with someone’s struggle with their identity or be compassionate and understanding about trying to connect with one’s sense of self and gender? Do you think no woman has ever had issues with, say, the idea of relating to their femininity (or lack thereof)? You’ve never heard women talk about having a stage of “I’m not like those other girls” or self-consciously rejecting “girly” things like, oh, say, Twilight or the color pink?

Similarly, do you really think that women are going to get weird because you like Chappelle Roan’s music, even when “Good Luck, Babe” and “Hot To Go” are certified bangers? Yes, her music is pretty sapphic, but it ain’t like women haven’t rocked out to songs from men about women for generations. FFS, one of the most popular songs in the last century is about how a particular woman is toxic and you know it but goddamn if you can’t resist her anyway.

And if you do run into someone who is going to be weird and gatekeep-y about it… cool, you met an asshole. Remember how that feels the next time you feel exclusionary about some of your interests.

All of this is stemming from this belief that women aren’t going to be able to relate to you, that women live an entirely different existence from yours and that there can be no overlap between how things feel. You’re coming into this preemptively defensive because you’re reacting to what you expect, situations that you’ve played out in your head and decided to treat as though they’ve already happened, and then wondering why you’re having a hard time connecting with people.

This is one of the reasons why I tell people who struggle with meeting or ‘understanding’ women need to consume more media written by women for other women – fiction and non-fiction, print and video and games, rather than other men telling you what women clearly must think or be doing. Instead of assuming that obviously you know women’s thoughts and experiences – source: Dude, Trust Me – try seeing what they’re saying and doing from their side of things. Because trust me: the differences aren’t nearly as stark or alien as you are making them out to be. You’re reacting to your assumptions and beliefs based off projecting your own feelings onto others. That’s going to make it much, much harder to have an honest and meaningful connection than if you come into the interaction just wanting to get to know them.  

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com