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Doctor’s Note: As we start look at the start of new year, I feel like this is a good time to look back at where we had been see how far we’ve come. New years, after all, are often a time to celebrate change and growth.
In my case, it’s been more than a decade since I started this site, and my perspectives on dating and relationships have changed as I’ve grown and experienced more in that time. One thing I thought would be an interesting experiment would be to look back at older questions, and see how I would answer them today.
So with that in mind, for the next two weeks, I want to take a look back at some questions from the start of this column and answer them again, as though they were new. I’m answering these without looking at my old replies, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s changed, if anything. Call it Ask Dr. NerdLove Revisited.
Let’s do this.
This question originally ran on July 29, 2011
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I can has a question. I’m a very average guy when it comes to dating, I feel. I go out on dates with girls once in a awhile. I don’t have any issues with asking girls out, but at the same time I’m not a “player”. The question is :
What do I do if I’m insecure about my girl’s career? Is there something to make it easier to get over?
I’ve been dating this girl for a while. I met her in a bar in downtown San Diego. She was working there as a go-go dancer. Her lifestyle of constant bars and clubs, along with getting hit on by celebrities in LA makes me insecure. In the past few years she has been on an episode of Entourage and was a model for a long time in that TERRIBLE show called “Manswers” on Spike TV. I don’t stop her from doing anything, And I never pay for anything.
But her lifestyle, and the fact that she makes more money then me makes me insecure.
Kicking Outside My Coverage
So, there’s a reason why I pulled your question specifically, KOMC, and that’s because of how universal this actually is.
See, it’s really easy to get caught up on the flashy details of your situation: a girlfriend whose career depends on being physically attractive and desirable, who’s income is dependent on creating an illusion of being available but unobtainable, and has “high status men” – for suitably individual values of “high” as well as definitions of “status” clamoring to try to get into her pants.
But honestly, while the details are sexy and all, the problem that you’re dealing with is actually remarkably common. The problem isn’t that she’s a gogo dancer or that she’s got celebrities hitting on her. The problem is that you’re worried that you’re not good enough for her and that you can’t contend with the hordes of other men who might be competing for her time and attention.
In fact, you see a lot of this discourse these days in a lot of Manosphere circles and related social media accounts – men proclaiming how they’d never “let” their girlfriend start an OnlyFans or how women who “show off their bodies on Instagram” are less trustworthy because… reasons.
Now if we’re being honest, much of this discourse happens because the loudest voices are very open about wanting to control their girlfriends or wives, making them less “partners” and more “property”. But another part of it comes because of how many people see dating as a competition. This undercurrent comes up all the time when we hear from men who worry that the women they want to date are “out of their league” or that they can’t outperform “players”. They worry that they don’t have the coolest car, the best or sexiest job, the biggest paycheck or the “Six Sixes” and thus can never trust that their relationship is secure.
Mix this with classic toxic and restrictive ideas about gender roles – like men having to earn more than their partners – and you’ve created a situation where someone can never feel secure in their relationship. There’s always that fear that “someone wants to take my stuff”, and worse, your “stuff” may want to be taken.
And that’s what we have here. Take away the sexy details and this is a common, even mundane problem. It’s ultimately down to the fear that dating is less about mutual attraction, respect, shared interests and values and compatibility, and more about who’s got the most points on the spreadsheet.
But that’s not how people date. While there’re always going to be individuals who are that mercenary and status-seeking in their relationships, they’re so few and far between that worrying about them is like worrying about being eaten by a great white shark… when you live in Iowa.
But hey, maybe that’s a thing to worry about for you. Johnny Theoretical may be in the Mojave, but you and your sweetie are swimming around The Great Barrier Reef… and your girlfriend’s been dousing herself in steak sauce. So how is an average non-celebrity supposed to date an incredible woman when there’re so many other people who also want her? Men who can flash fat stacks and flashy rides, wave their clout around and turn her head with all those demonstrations of higher value?
Well here’s my first question: if your girlfriend was that shallow and that easily drawn away, wouldn’t that mean that she shouldn’t be with you in the first place? Well, obviously not. It’s not as though you met her when she was a simple, naive young thing from the country, stepping off the bus and into The Big Bad City for the first time. She was a a gogo dancer and fixture in the nightlife scene when you met her. She was already living a life that brought her into contact with the rich and famous, with folks trying to woo her with their connections, cash and clout. And yet she’s with you. Has been all this time, too.
Yeah, the Usual Suspects can make noises about “betabux” or weird cuckoo logic (literal cuckoo logic, at that) about banging celebrities behind your back while dating you, but none of that actually makes a lick of damn sense when you think about it for half a second. If her whole thing would be banging all these “better” men… why would she be doing so while dating you? Clearly it would be better for her to actually be single and maximize her opportunities. Nor would it make much sense for her to be buying you things with the money she’s earning in these flashy, sexy jobs, if you’re just the “beta” who’s ultimately providing support for the lifestyle to which she intends to be come accustomed.
I think you have to take a deep breath and look at how she’s actually behaving. Unless you left some significant details out of your letter, it sounds like this is much more about the potential that some celebrity will finally break down her defenses and sweep her off her feet than an actual worry. If she’s been with you, a non-celebrity, for all this time (and again, in a career that she’s had from before you met her) and stayed with you as she’s had TV gigs, modeling jobs and other occasions to mix and mingle amongst the glamorous… well maybe she’s with you because she likes you for who you are. She didn’t start dating you because you’re the New Hotness on the Hollywood scene, she started dating you because you’re you and she likes you, specifically.
Plus, I can guarantee you that she finds a lot of the celebrities to be obnoxious. I’ve got friends who’ve been in similar situations – friends who dated folks who you would’ve heard of – who’ve said the same thing: 9 times out of 10, the celebrities who’re hitting on the dancers or models tend to be tedious at best, or their behavior and attitudes render them utterly unfuckable.
So I think what you need, to help get over this hump, is to focus on that. She started dating you because of who you are and how you make her feel. Trusting her and trusting that connection will do much more for easing your anxiety and realizing that hey, she’s fully capable of recognizing that she’s got a good thing going here.
Now as for the money issue… look, it’s hard to undo a literal lifetime of social programming that gets so deeply embedded in male psyches that some men get erectile dysfunction when their partners outearn them. But while your disparity in income may mean that you can’t split the bills 50/50, you can contribute in other ways. Even if it means saving up so you can splurge on her on occasion, finding different ways to provide in the relationship and actually valuing those contributions will help immensely. Your bank accounts may have similar balances, but you can make sure that the balance of your participation in your shared life makes up the difference.
And honestly? That’s going to mean a lot more to her than anything with a price tag on it.
Good luck.
Dear Dr. NerdLove: I am not a good looking person by any stretch of the imagination, at least not in the conventional sense of beauty. The thing is, when I’m using dating sites like OKCupid of Plenty of Fish, I can easily find girls I’m attracted to, both by their pics and their self-description. I will also be contacted by girls who are attracted to me, but whom I don’t find attractive in return. How do I remedy my own physical attractions (as physical as you can get over the Interwebz) to girls who aren’t interested and girls who are interested?
Also, this doesn’t just have to deal with girls on the web. I’ve had a similar problem with girls in the real world as well.
Man In The Mirror
There’re a couple things to consider, MITM. First and foremost is that being good at online dating, especially in the post-Tinder era, is a separate skill from actually dating.
As swipe mechanics create an incentive of shallow, superficial browsing, knowing how to make yourself stand out and capture people’s attention as they’re idly thumbing through Tinder is a skill, and one a lot of folks never fully cultivate.
It can seem a bit odd to separate it out like that, but making connections on dating apps, especially ones with swipe mechanics, is very much a multi-disciplinary skill that goes beyond just “be attractive; don’t be unattractive”. Looking good in photos, for example, isn’t about being blessed with the right cheekbones and a certain level of facial symmetry; it’s about knowing framing, understanding lighting and make-up, how to pose and present yourself to the camera and how to create a connection between you and the person looking at the final results.
There’s a reason why there’re literally thousands of conventionally attractive people who never work as models; they may have appealing facial features, but they don’t have the other skills that come together to make themselves leap out of that photo.
And that’s before we get into the differences between how men and women use dating apps.
So the fact that some of the people you’re into aren’t matching with you doesn’t mean that you’re not attractive. Clearly you are, seeing as you’re getting attention from other women. It’s more likely some aspect of your profile isn’t clicking with them or catching their eye in the right way or there’s some aspect of your profile that signals an incompatibility. Gauging your objective attractiveness by how people respond on dating apps is like trying to decide who’s the most delicious by who gets taken down by a leopard first; that’s just not how things work.
Now some of this can be an in-person issue too. You don’t say if you’re actually approaching the women you find attractive, or if you’re looking for spontaneous attention from them before you talk to them. Similarly, you don’t say if these women you’re not into are approaching you unprompted, or if you’re just catching signals from them that you’re not seeing from the other women. It’d be helpful if you’d included that information, since that could tell us more about just what the problem could be, or if there even is a problem.
But one thing I can tell you is that it sounds like you’re hoping for quick or even instant attraction, which… well, that’s not exactly how things work. Yeah, we can tell at a glance if we find somebody sexy, but as a general rule, we don’t date based on love at first sight. More often than not, we date people we’ve gotten to know over time; propinquity has far more to do with who we choose to date than “seeing that sexy somebody looking at us from across the bar”.
And no, dating apps don’t disprove this; there’re reasons why most first dates off dating apps tend to never lead to anything. There are so many factors that affect who we are or aren’t into that can’t be detected over text or even video chats; we only can truly experience them in person. First dates off the apps are often more about figuring out whether there’s actual compatibility and enough we find the other person interesting enough to spend more time getting to know them.
So one of the things I would suggest is to worry less about trying to get instant results – like getting a phone number or date from someone you just met – and more about getting to know people over time. Exposure and familiarity will do much more for building attraction and interest as people get a chance to know you and vice versa. If nothing else, it’s much easier to improve your love life when you get comfortable talking with the women you find attractive without being overwhelmed by the feeling that her looks give her status over you. Being able to connect with people as people is incredibly attractive. If you aren’t flustered by talking to Hottie McHotterson and feel like you need to be Perfect Tommy to get a date, then you’ll do a hell of a lot better. Plus, getting to know her without the self-imposed pressure to Get The Date will mean that you can spend time finding out whether she is worth your time and if she has more going for her than just being good looking
And incidentally, I’d suggest applying that same outlook – getting to know folks beyond how tight your pants get when you first see them – with the women who seem to be showing interest in you. Not because you need to “settle” or date women who’re more your speed, but because you might be surprised by them if you got to know them.
Plus: you’d be amazed at just how that “enh, not bad” woman at the gym or the bookstore turns into wolf-whistle-jaw-drop-lip-bite when she’s gotten dolled up to go out.
Good luck.
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