I’m So Lonely, I Can’t Even Enjoy Imagining Being In A Relationship!

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m 20 years old, I’ve never dated before, barely talk to anybody and spend most of my time alone. In fact, I’ve spent most of my time alone since I my pre-teens, and it intensified specially after my parents’ divorce. From there, I’d daydream constantly, mainly about girls I would see on TV or internet. It would fade away eventually, either after a long time without seeing her or after finding out that she was dating someone.

Now, in college, I’m still the same: no friends (other than a few people I talk to at class) and therefore no girls.

My father still puts pressure on me to find “the one”, and others constantly remind me of that. Problem is, I don’t feel like meeting people (and thus women) and I don’t see the reason for it, but I envy the seemingly happiness in other people’s relationships, as well as what I see in movies or tv shows – like I subconsciously know that I’m missing out on important experiences.

During the last months, I have been thinking about a girl I see in college, who is sorta reclusive too. She is also autistic, and we go back on the same bus. I was thinking about how to approach her all the time, without having the opportunity to do so. This year, some students decided to hold a “welcoming breakfast” for freshmen, and from there a lot of people met each other, especially the freshmen. Of course, I did not attend, and so no one from my class did. From the “breakfast”, some couples appeared – some of them formed in less than a week. It’s like I lost another big window of opportunities…

And, of course, the girl I mentioned, who was seemingly single, is now taken, since I saw her today holding hands with a guy – he is not a particularly handsome guy or anything, and even is shorter and skinnier than me in fact, but I don’t want to go and judge this part. The thing is, this really ended my day, as I realized that the reason she has been taking longer to appear on the bus these last few weeks was because she was staying over with him, and now I have no one left to daydream about – everybody I see on our 10 minute intervals between classes, is already taken. Groups are already formed. And, to be honest, I was never the type of guy who would share my feelings or tastes or anything, so logically I should not be expecting anything out of this.

What’s really eating me up is that I took too long to approach her, and now I envy that somebody else did what I couldn’t.

After all these years, it all just got worse. Every two weeks or so, I go on a mental breakdown – usually at night, while in bed – while having a shit ton of disturbing thoughts and scenarios, and hit myself in the head several times until it goes away.

I’m not sure if you know anyone like this, but I hope you can help me.

Bad Brains

OK BB, I’m gonna be honest: if you’re having repeated nights where you’re physically hurting yourself trying to make intrusive thoughts go away, you shouldn’t be worried about dating at all right now. Even allowing for hyperbole, that’s a pretty solid sign that you should be putting more time and energy into getting some help, not trying to meet people.

As I’m always saying, you don’t need to be in perfect shape – emotionally or physically – to date, but you do need to be in good working order. Right now, you are not. Under the best of circumstances, your having these long dark nights of the soul are going to make it a lot harder for you to deal with the inevitable trials and tribulations that come with dating. If you’re already having these kinds of responses, then you definitely need to prioritize your mental health above everything else, and put dating on hold until you get this aspect of your life under control.  

The good thing is, if you’re in college, then you’ve access to student health services. This means there’s usually at least a counselor to talk to, and likely has at least some working association with mental health professionals that they could point you towards. So my advice is to hie yourself to health services and start talking to someone now. I don’t doubt that this is causing you a lot of stress and pain, but the way you’re managing it is only going to make it worse.

Depending on how things go with the counselors your school makes available, you may want to look into finding a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy; CBT is known to be especially effective for managing intrusive, unpleasant negative thoughts. It’ll certainly be more effective than actually hurting yourself.

I think talking to a counselor is going to help with the issues you mention in your letter as well. I’m going to be blunt: I’m not sure if you know what you want. You don’t seem interested in actually meeting people or dating anyone, but you’re also having these really intense reactions to, well, getting precisely what you’re asking for. Which is to say: nothing. You say you don’t see the point of dating, but you’re also – literally – beating yourself up over supposedly missing out on meeting people. When you say that you don’t see the point of trying to date but you feel envious of other people’s happiness, it makes me wonder which part of this is actually true. You talk about daydreaming about people you see on TV, and occasional idle daydreams about your classmate, but not much in the way of actual interest in them.

Is it the case that you genuinely aren’t interested in trying to meet people, or is that the excuse you’re giving yourself to not try? Is it the case that maybe you’re telling yourself that you don’t like or want to meet people in order to avoid the risk of putting yourself out there and getting rejected? After all, one of the reasons why people focus more on celebrities or relative strangers on the Internet is because they’re “safe”; that is, there’s always the part of you that knows that these are relationships that can’t or won’t happen and thus you don’t have to ever actually take steps to do something about them. You can live with the daydreams, where you have complete control and emotional safety, without ever actually having to make yourself vulnerable or actually let people in and risk them actually hurting you.

I suspect this is part of why the interest fades when you find out they have a partner; you have a much harder time maintaining the fantasy when reality intrudes. It’s not just the safety of the imaginary relationship, but also the potential is there – the feeling that maybe, possibly this could happen. It’s a little like the way that Japanese idol singers and Kpop performers are supposed to not date or be in relationships; it allows their fans to fantasize about them. But honestly, that ain’t healthy for anyone, fans or performers. And in your case… well, I think it’s only serving to keep you isolated.

Now I’m sure some of this lack of interest could be a response to your parents’ divorce. It could also be that you fall somewhere on the asexual/aromantic spectrum – you’re just not that interested in romantic or sexual relationships and that’s fine. But it doesn’t sound to me like you’re happy with your self-imposed isolation. And this is self-imposed. You’re choosing to cut yourself off from making connections with other people – connections you seem to want and not want at the same time.

The fact of the matter is that you’re not missing windows of opportunity. You’re choosing not to take advantage of them when they come along. You could have met people at that student breakfast. You may not have coupled up, but at the very least you could’ve made some friends and gotten to know people. You decided not to. It’s important to emphasize this: you decided not to. The same goes with talking to your classmate. You’ve had chances to talk to her, even if on the bus. You see each other enough that you could have said “hey, I think we go to the same school/have the same classes; do you go to $COLLEGE/ have class with $PROFESSOR?” and then introduce yourself. You could even have said “It feels weird that we see each other daily and ride the same bus and I don’t know your name. My name’s…” and start the conversation that way. But you didn’t. The guy she’s dating? He did.

And that’s the important thing here. Maybe he’s not as physically conventionally attractive as you… but he’s still the one dating her because he’s the one who talked to her. Women can’t go on dates that you don’t ask them on, and you can’t complain that someone else is dating her when you haven’t so much as said “hello”. And even if this is all just daydream fodder for you… well, this is what happens when you’re basing your emotional life on the imagined “possibility” of dating someone – the odds are high that someone else is going to start dating them in reality.

The lesson to take away from that is that if you don’t take action, someone else will. Nobody, even some theoretical person who’s harboring a secret crush of their own, is going to wait around forever, waiting for you to make a move. Imaginary people may exist exclusively on a timeline of your choosing, but real people don’t; they go about their lives, encounter other people in the real world and start relationships with some of them. If you want to actually have a connection with any of them, you have to actually get in the game. Otherwise, all that’s happening is the consequences of your own choices and (in)actions.

(And before anyone suggests it, even jokingly: please, for the love of God and your own well-being, don’t go in for one of the AI girlfriends like Replika or trying to roll your own with ChatGPT. You’re already in a fragile state. Services like Replika come with a whole host of problematic issues – including the fact that the company can just wipe your “girlfriend” from existence – and chatbots have lead people in delicate emotional states down some really dark paths).

I would also point out that your father putting pressure on you is not helping, and it would probably do you a world of good to tell him to stop. Learning to establish and maintain boundaries would be an important step towards having a greater sense of agency and control in your own life.

But – dragging this back to what I said up top – that’s something that should be discussed with a counselor or therapist, and you desperately need to find one. Far more than you should be worrying about not having fantasy fodder because all the people you see between classes may or may not be coupled up. You’re experiencing some serious pain right now, and learning how to manage it in healthy and less harmful ways needs to be your top priority.

So head over to health services, find out what they have to offer and – if necessary – seek out a psychologist or psychiatrist; you may well need medicine as well as therapy. Take care of yourself and your mental health first. Relationships, in whatever form they ultimately take for you, will be waiting for your when you’re in a better place, mentally and emotionally.

Good luck.

---

Dear Doc, I need your help with a very stupid problem.

I (M/27) am dating an incredible woman, “Susan” (F/27) for a couple years now. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be with her because quite frankly, she’s way out of my league. She makes me laugh, she’s the sweetest and most genuine person I’ve ever known and I’ve never been with someone who’s been such a perfect mix of supportive and independent. And for whatever reason, she loves me too and thinks she’s lucky to have ME. We’ve been talking about getting married and the main reason I haven’t popped the question is that I’ve been saving up for the ring I want to have made for her.

The problem is that I am irrationally jealous, and it’s making me go insane. If she’s talking to other guys, I feel a knife twisting in my guts. When she’s having a night out with her girlfriends, I have all sorts of worries that some guy’s going to try to flirt with her or pick her up. It happens enough that I even have nightmares about coming home and finding her in bed with someone else. It flares up and I feel almost nauseous for a while.

I need to be clear here: I know my jealousy is completely irrational and baseless and I’m trying my hardest to keep it out of our relationship. Susan has never once given me even the slightest reason to question how she feels about me, even if I don’t get it, and I trust her absolutely and completely. She’s never made me feel unimportant or unloved, I never feel like I have to fight for her attention and I have no doubt that I’m her priority as much as she is mine. There’s no actual basis for these dark thoughts.

I do my best not to act on these feelings. I don’t tell her who she can or can’t talk to, I don’t try to keep track of her at all times, even if some part of me really wants to and the rest of me thinks that would only make things worse. The only sort of information I ask of her when she’s going out without me is a general idea of what her plans are and when I should expect her back and when I should start worrying that I haven’t heard from her, and I do the same for her when I go out without her. I don’t text her when she’s out with friends outside of letting her know I might not be home when she gets back or if something important comes up and she does the same for me. Occasionally we might send a funny text or say “hey, I’m going to bed, let me know if you’re staying out longer.” You know, basic couple stuff.

I’ve never had a reason to worry about her with other people – men, women, friends, strangers, anyone. Her guy friends are nice enough, and I think the sun would literally fall out of the sky before she ever cheated on anyone. I have no doubt that the hottest celebrity could hit on her and the first words out of her mouth would be “thanks but I have a boyfriend.” I don’t think it could even be that my subconscious is picking up on signals the way some of the people I see on TikTok say. I think it’s just me.

That’s precisely why this bothers me so much. I trust her, I have no reason to ever doubt her, but some part of my brain doesn’t or something and I hate the way that it makes me feel. I’m trying to keep Susan from worrying and I don’t want to make her feel like she needs to avoid things that make me feel this way, so I don’t tell her about any of this, but I think she can tell that something’s bothering me. Apparently, I’m really grinding my teeth a lot, especially at night, and I’m being tense and stiff at times.

I know you’re not a doctor, doctor, but do you have any idea what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I having these irrational fits of jealousy and what should I do about it?

Mean And Green (Eyed)

Quick question, M&GE: you don’t say anything about this in your letter but are you any particular flavor of neurodivergent? Do you have ADHD, are you on the autism spectrum or have you ever been treated for something like borderline personality disorder?

I ask because some of what you describe sounds an awful lot like an especially malignant version of rejection-sensitive dysphoria, which tends to be co-morbid with ADHD and other neurospicy conditions. RSD takes the normal worries and anxieties we all have around rejection and loss, dials them up to 12 and then snaps the dial off. A lot of people who get the neurodivergence/RSD combo platter deal with a sort of hypervigilance; they’re always on the alert for signs that they’re about to get rejected or dumped. Almost anything can set it off – a different tone in their voice, how long it takes to reply to a text, even just word-choice or an almost imperceptible pause between being asked something and answering. It’s like having rejection PTSD, but usually without actual trauma to be post-.

If you haven’t been tested for ADHD or other similar conditions and you have symptoms or behaviors – besides your jealousy – that line up with them, it may not be the worst idea in the world to get tested. Speaking strictly for myself, as someone who discovered he had the ADHD/RSD combo meal in his 40s, I notice a significant difference when I’ve had my Vyvanse vs. days when I haven’t.

But let’s put that aside for the moment and talk a bit about what you’re experiencing. I’m not sure you’re jealous, per se; jealousy, after all, is a fear that someone is going to take what you have. Nor, for that matter, are you suspicious or covetous or feel some sort of unfounded rivalry. I think you may be feeling a fear of loss; not that you think she’s going to leave you for someone else but simply that she’s going to leave. I suspect that the things you imagine and the pain you feel show up when they do and the way they do because that’s a common nightmare scenario and it’s a constant part of the cultural zeitgeist. I think that the true  fear is  that she (and your relationship) is too good to be true.

I assume you’d say if this has been an issue from the beginning, so I do wish you’d mentioned when this started. That could give an idea as to whether there was some change or initial event that triggered these feelings, or if this is just free-floating anxiety that hit you out of the clear blue sky. The thing about jealousy, especially when it’s unfounded, is that it’s a lot like a check-engine light coming on in a car. It’s an indication that something needs attention, but what it could be is up in the air. Sometimes it’s a warning that the engine’s about to fall out of the car or some important part is about to go boom; other times it’s telling you that you didn’t tighten the gas cap all the way after you stopped to fill up the tank. If you had some significant event or change in your life, that might explain why you’re feeling this way.

If I had to guess, I’d suspect the issue can be found here: “quite frankly, she’s way out of my league” and “even if I don’t get it.” One of the potential drawbacks to dating someone who’s supposedly “out of your league” is feeling like you don’t deserve them or that you don’t match them in some important way. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like the concept of leagues; it implies that your being with that person is a mistake somehow, that you’re a poor match for one another. To my mind, it’s very simple: if someone likes you and wants to date you, you’re in their league. But if you aren’t secure in yourself or you feel like you don’t “deserve” this person, sometimes that can curdle inside; what starts as vague anxiety can metastasize into something ugly and unpleasant.

There’s also the possibility that maybe you don’t trust yourself to be happy or to make this work. Sometimes what people are most afraid of, especially when it comes to trying to date someone they see as being ‘out of their league’ isn’t failure, but success. In a perverse sort of way, getting with someone you see as being so incredible can be horrifying because now you are responsible for the relationship. You have to deal with the risks and trials and tribulations that come with dating a person and you have an even greater risk of heartbreak than you did before. If you were rejected, then the status quo hasn’t meaningfully changed. But if you fuck up somehow or fail the relationship… well, it’s a little like dying and then being yanked out to Heaven. You’ve known paradise; how’re you supposed to live without it now that you’ve experienced it?

It may be worth digging into this question: do you feel like you deserve to be happy or to have someone who makes you happy the way Susan does? Do you feel that you’re undeserving of having a great relationship? Is that fear less about jealousy and more about not being “worthy”? Or that you’ve done something wrong in your past that disqualifies you from having this happiness? Do you feel that whatever qualities you have aren’t actually enough for her and eventually she’s going to figure that out?

I think you’re right in as much that it’s irrational. It doesn’t sound like you have anything to actually be worried about – at least, logically. In as much as logic applies in these cases, anyway.

You clearly have things that Susan loves and values, and it sounds like she’s thrilled to be with you. That, I think, makes it clear that you absolutely are in her league – especially as far as she’s concerned. Seeing as she’s the one who’s chosen to be with you and you’re both actively talking about marriage, it seems safe to say that this is more a bugbear of the mind, rather than your subconscious trying to tell you something. With as painful and intrusive as these thoughts have been, it may be worth talking to someone to help root around in your feels and see if there’s an underlying self-esteem or self-worth issue to untangle.

But the other thing I would suggest is that you shouldn’t hide that you’re having these feelings from Susan. She already is picking up on the tension in you, and I would imagine that bothers her; after all, nobody likes seeing their partner in pain or under stress. I imagine it would make her worry when she detects this anxiety in you, and I think she’d be shocked and sad to know you’re feeling this way. I feel confident in saying that she would want to help you in any way she could.

So perhaps part of what you need is to just be honest with her: you’re having these irrational feelings that you know are irrational, but they still hurt. Instead of trying to hide them, or ask her to not do things that make you feel them, whenever they come up, ask her if she could love you a little louder. I think that’ll ease things a lot more than trying to grit your teeth and white-knuckle your way through them.  

Good luck.