Estimated reading time: 23 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I’m not sure what to do.
My boyfriend and I have been dating for a couple years since high school. He’s almost done with his freshman year at a big party college and I’m finishing my high school senior year where we met. We’ve been going pretty strong, working out the long-distance thing. The distance hasn’t been bad either. He’s able to come home around every 2 weeks, sometimes 3, which is a lot better than the long months I hear other couples spend apart. However, I still feel like there is a huge gap between him and I.
This gap has been growing since he left, and it’s been growing exponentially since he started rushing to join a frat.
For some backstory, he’s not a party guy, nor a drinker. Before college, he hated drunk people and didn’t have an urge to get drunk because of past experiences with his family. I’m also not a drinker. I’m open to it, but people that I care about drinking excessively makes me worried and uncomfortable.
Well, now he’s joining a frat. It’s a pre-med frat, so it’s technically academic and not social, but they still make him drink a lot and go to events. There’s always some sort of drinking game or bonding exercise he has to do throughout the day and even throughout the night. But he loves it. He’s having the time of his life and he’s really enjoying the people he’s around.
For some reason, this really bothers me. We talk at least a little every day, and he always has some fun new story to tell me about. There’s always some plan that involves drinking and it always seems like a good time. He’s a heavy weight, so he never really gets drunk, but it still bothers me that he’s taking 5 plus shots every other night.
But besides the drinking, all of his activities and parties he goes to bother me because while he is having all of these new experiences, I’m stuck in the same place I have always been in. Nothing has changed in my own life. I have to hear about all the things he gets to do and how fun they are just for me to say that I haven’t done anything all day other than school and sports practices (the exact same things I have done since we met).
I feel left out. I feel like I’m static and he’s progressing without me. All of the people around him get to experience these new and exciting moments alongside him, and all I can do is hear about it a day later and say “cool”. I can’t relate at all, and I feel like he’s getting closer to the people he’s doing all of these bonding exercises and drinking games with.
Now, I don’t mind that he’s getting close to others, I don’t mind that at all. I know he’s going to bond with people and I know he’s going to drink and I get that. I understand completely that these things are a part of college, and alone, they don’t bother me. But I feel like shit when he tells me all about them because I’m sitting in my home alone doing nothing.
I know it’s a me problem, but I can’t help but feel like I’m being left behind. I feel left out. I’ve talked about this feeling with him before, but there’s nothing he can do, it’s me that’s the problem. I feel stuck, alone, and I don’t know if this feeling of exclusion is even normal. I’m not sure if there’s a way for me to get out of my spiraling mind of being boring and left behind. I’m worried that this feeling will create a rift in our relationship because I’m jealous of the people around him and that his life is new and exciting everyday while mine… isn’t. Is there anything I can do to help myself from feeling so excluded and left behind?
Sincerely, FOMO
I’m going to preface this with a warning: you may not like what I’m going to say here, but I promise you that it will help.
Let’s be real for a second, FOMO: you are being left out. Literally. You’re not in school with him, he’s however many miles away and having these experiences without you – ones that you can’t share with him simply because you still have a year of high-school left and physics says you can’t be in two places at once. So yes, you are being excluded. Not in a malicious or mean way, but in the sense that it is not capable to include you beyond how he’s trying to share these experiences with you second hand.
But that’s not the same as being left behind. Left behind implies that you’re static and stuck and not going anywhere. It suggests that – to some degree – this is something being actively done, even if it’s not conscious; that he’s ranging so far ahead that you don’t feel that you can catch up to him, and he doesn’t seem to notice how far back you are while he chases this new horizon.
But just as importantly: left behind implies that you were always going to go with him on this journey.
Part of the problem you’re dealing with is one of perception and expectation. It wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable or dire if his experiences in college were at least similar to the routine you two had lived in for years. It’s something that would feel a little reassuring because it would imply that his life isn’t changing so much that you don’t recognize it. If that were the case, you wouldn’t feel like Samwise chasing after Frodo, saying “Don’t leave me here, please don’t go where I can’t follow”.
But now he is having these experiences that are night and day different than what his routine had been for the last several years, while yours… aren’t. Worse, he’s loving these new experiences – a world he never experienced before is opening up before him and has such sights to show him. It’s that excitement that is the most threatening. It suggests an eagerness to move further and further into this new world, which is so different from yours that you worry that he may never come back, or be able to be satisfied with the life he had before. It’s like an old song from after World War 1: how are you gonna keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Paris?
Your life, on the other hand, feels like it’s exactly the same as it was last year and the year before. You think that this puts you in stasis, staying the same while he’s growing and changing. But it doesn’t. Not really. You’re not the same person you were last year, any more than your classes are the same or your sports team are exactly the same. The changes may be smaller and more incremental compared to your boyfriend’s, but they are there. You’re still making forward progress, you’re dealing with changes, not just in curriculum, but in your skill level, in your rapport and cohesion with your team mates and in all the ways you’re preparing for your own upcoming change to your status quo.
It’s only the scale that makes it feel like you’re not going anywhere; his changes are just so significant and visible compared to yours. And truthfully, the only reason why the changes in his life are so large and different is that a year’s difference in high-school can be pretty significant. The gap between a junior and a senior doesn’t feel so big, right up until it becomes the gap between a newly minted high-school senior and a newly minted college freshman.
You feel static while he’s being dynamic; that’s part of why you feel like you can’t relate. You feel that gap growing because he’s making moves and choices and changing, while you feel like you aren’t. But here’s the thing I don’t know if you realized: you are on that treadmill only in as much as you want to be. Yes, you don’t currently have the same degree of freedom that you would have living in a dorm, miles away from home and without the structure and rules you’ve lived under before. That doesn’t mean that you can still shake things up. You can change your routine. You can experiment with new stuff, try different things, remove things from your routine and/or add new ones into it. It may not be as easy as it is for him and it may require more finagling to make it all fit, but you can seek out new and different experiences and try new interests just because.
You could, for example, go seek out a dance class and learn ballet, or jazz or ballroom dancing, just because it seems like it might be fun. You could pick up a new hobby or decide you’d like to learn how to play an instrument and participate in a jam session. You could volunteer your time after school or get a part-time job… all things that would bring you into contact with new people, new experiences and new ideas. You’d be getting a head start on that self-exploration that comes with going to college.
You are only stuck in stasis in as much as you choose to be.
But that doesn’t mean that you’re going to catch up to your boyfriend… because you may no longer be travelling in the same direction.
See, this is the part that you’re not going to like: a lot of relationships in high-school don’t survive the move to college, even when both are graduating at the same time. That’s a time of transition, and those are often times of great change in your life and who you are as a person… and that new person may no longer be compatible with the relationship you currently have. That doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong or that your boyfriend did anything wrong; it simply means that what was right for you in one stage of your life isn’t right for you in this one.
Even if the two of you were both freshmen at different colleges – or even the same college, depending on size – the odds are good that you’d be having wildly divergent experiences. The difference wouldn’t feel so stark – you wouldn’t feel like stuck on a treadmill while he’s moving off into the distance – but you would likely have different social circles, different social experiences and discovering sides of yourself that you may never have had the chance to explore while you were in high-school. You might both be on the same planet, but you would be living in different worlds – ones that may overlap in places or allow for visitation, but still separate and different.
And that’s ok. That’s how growth happens. College is a time where you experiment with who you are when you’re on your own, with greater freedom than you’ve ever had before. You try things that may seem out of character and discover that they suit you after all. Or you find out that the things you thought you wanted at one point don’t fit you any longer, and you have to decide what you want instead. Or you might even be one of those people who realizes they figured it out early and can focus like a laser on their goals.
But that still means change. And change means becoming someone new… that someone may not be a good fit for the relationship you have. You’re already experiencing that, as you sit at home and feeling bad because you’re sitting at home. You’re worried about the changes he’s making and the ones you’re not making. You can start making changes now and see where it takes you, if you so choose.
But you should be careful to make sure you’re making changes and trying things with a view towards what’s right for you and not for trying to force yourself into a relationship that may not fit for much longer.
Relationships are how people entwine their lives as they choose to travel into the future together. But people never stop growing or changing, and as we grow, our needs, wants and futures change… and there is no guarantee that those futures are going to stay headed in the same direction. You can travel with someone for a while, but eventually come to the point where your paths diverge from one another. You can choose to leave your path and follow theirs (or vice versa) but that ultimately means you’re giving up your future for theirs, and theirs may not be a good fit for you.
Does this mean you should give up and end things with him now? Not really. What it does mean is that you shouldn’t be sitting at home and hoping that things are going to work out. Change will happen regardless of whether you want it or not; the only difference is how much you direct those changes and how you flow with them. Sitting still means you are entirely at the mercy of change; choosing to act means you can affect those changes and how they affect you.
So my recommendation is that you stop waiting for the future to come and instead start moving towards it yourself. Take this opportunity to explore who you are while he’s away and you’re in your final year of high-school. If you have things you haven’t done yet or have always been curious about, now’s a time to give them a try. Even if you aren’t making changes as large and significant as your boyfriend’s, simply getting comfortable with exploring and trying new things will help get you in position to take full advantage of the freedom you’re about to have – to steer yourself on your journey instead of being at the mercy of the currents.
Maybe this will bring you and your boyfriend back together, and you can try this new relationship between two new people. Or maybe it will lead you to a future you never even dreamed was possible. But whether it does or it doesn’t, it’ll remind you that you aren’t helpless. You have agency. You have far more control than you realize. You may not be able to ensure the outcome you want, but you aren’t stuck watching it come towards you like an oncoming train while your foot’s stuck in the trestle.
I know this isn’t necessarily what you were hoping to hear. But I promise you: this isn’t the end. This isn’t even the beginning of the end. It’s simply anending… and a new beginning.
The future is always coming; the only difference is whether you’re moving to meet it, or waiting for it to swallow you whole. The choice is ultimately yours to make.
Good luck.
How do I come to terms with the possibility that I may never find a date?
I’m approaching my forties and have never been involved with a woman. People are often asking me why I am still single because, by most measures, I’m a good person with an interesting life. The reality is that I feel increasingly hopeless about the idea that dating or a relationship could ever happen for me. Today, more than anything, I feel bitter about having gone this long without ever being desired romantically. I feel profoundly unattractive, like I wouldn’t be chosen even if I were the last man on Earth.
I know I’m dealing with a bit of a handicap. I live in a very small rural town and can’t realistically move anytime soon. I’ve never had a close circle of friends. Literally everyone at my current workplace is married with children, and this is also similar of the people in my hobby groups. I do have acquaintances I occasionally spend time with, but there’s no real social network, and I don’t really belong anywhere.
In many ways, my life is fulfilling. I take care of myself, pursue meaningful hobbies, and often receive kind compliments from others. But emotionally and relationally, I feel profoundly alone. I’ve tried approaching this from nearly every angle. I attended different events and meetup groups hoping to build meaningful connections, but even after sticking with them for a long time, I never found “my people”. I’ve also tried the opposite approach, simply investing in the things I genuinely love and hoping relationships would form naturally as a byproduct. The most frustrating part is that I genuinely get along with people, especially women, and generally seem to be well-liked. Yet I constantly watch the people around me form meaningful connections with each other, keeping in touch and knowing about each other’s lives, but no one makes that same effort with me. If I leave a workplace or hobby, I never hear from anyone again and am completely forgotten. I always remain on the outside looking in.
I’ve been in therapy for years, and the general consensus is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with me except that I struggle to love myself. For the past decade, I’ve heard all sorts of things, that I’m handsome, charming, kind, talented, and so on, but I can’t internalise any of it because I’ve never had the experience of being chosen romantically or feeling deeply connected to someone. It leaves me wondering; if I’m really such a “great guy”, why have I gone this long without close platonic or romantic relationships?
I feel stuck.
Here’s the thing about making grand declarations like “I may never find a date”: you have no idea if that’s true or why it may be true. You aren’t Nostradamus, nor are you Hari Seldon. You could meet your true love tomorrow, be married by the end of the year and have a horde of kids five years from now. Or you could be on the verge of getting a date and then be struck by a meteorite without warning.
I say this because what you’re doing right now is extrapolating how you feel now into a future that you honestly cannot control or say for sure will come to pass. But in doing so, you make that future far more likely, simply because you are setting your confirmation bias to filter out any evidence to the contrary. You aren’t being “realistic”, you’re being depressed, which feels like you’re being realistic because humanity has an inherent negativity bias. But this is why we say that feels aren’t reals; what we feel is true is subject to bias and belief, not factual reality.
But that works both ways, too. You can, as my friend Arden puts it, hack your confirmation bias in your favor. After all, if your beliefs become your filter and affect how you see the world, you may as well believe in things that actually help you.
Put a pin in that. We’ll come back to it in a minute. Instead, we’re going to talk about why some folks struggle with finding a relationship. And there’re all sorts of reasons, many of which are entirely outside of people’s control. Demographics are a prime example: sometimes the numbers simply work against you. A young queer person in the rural south is going to have a much harder time finding other queer people, simply because of how hostile the environment is. Even if there is a population of queer folks greater than 1, the odds are that they’re in hiding because the risks of being out are significant. That queer person would have an easier time in Chelsea in New York, in Savannah or Chicago or Austin or Seattle or other more cosmopolitan cities with larger populations.
You live in a rural, small town; it may well be that the population size is part of the problem. The likelihood of someone who may be a good match goes down in proportion with the population. This could well be a significant part of the problem for you, especially if your values and beliefs aren’t a good match in your community.
Another factor is simply timing. Any relationship is as much about the right time as it is the right person; someone who may be right for you may not be in a place where they can have a relationship with you. They may be in a relationship themselves, or they may be experiencing something that precludes them being available or able to date anyone. Once again, this isn’t something that you can account for. The same goes for you, too. It’s certainly possible for you not to be in a place where you could or should be dating, even if the perfect person were just around the corner. And those reasons could be anything from physical health to available time to needing to heal emotional wounds.
And it certainly sounds like there’re some core wounds going on.
But a big part of what is going to affect whether you find a partner or not is something that I come back to over and over again: how much you’re actually putting yourself out there. That’s something that you can control. And – like many people in your situation – it sounds like this is an area where you’re falling down.
Look, I get why folks don’t necessarily list all the times they’ve asked someone out and been shot down. But your letter has similarities to a lot of the other letters from folks in your situation, including a frankly passive outlook on life. There’s a lot of talking about “being chosen” or other people reaching out or hoping “things would form naturally”, but not much about how you’re reaching out to others or trying to make things happen for you. There’s being on the outside looking in and then there’s not realizing that you’re looking in the window while standing next to the door… and the door swings both ways. You can wait for the door to open for you, or you can open it yourself and walk in.
And to be perfectly frank, it sounds like you’re waiting for other people to open the door. You sound like you’re standing there, waiting for folks to notice that you’re there, intuit that you’re single and looking for connection and then to scoop you up. That’s certainly something that could happen. Maybe. Theoretically. But it’s a lot less likely, especially without effort from your end.
That’s part of how you can be this great guy – with people telling you sincerely that they don’t understand why you’re still single – and have not had a close relationship. Someone can’t force friendship on you, any more than they can go on a date that you didn’t invite them on. You have to be an active participant in your own life, and that includes being willing to make your interest known, making the first move and even in many cases, persisting when it seems like you should give up.
You say that if you leave a workplace or hobby, nobody stays in contact with you and you don’t hear from them again. While this is something everyone experiences to one degree or another, it brings up an important question: how much effort are you making to stay in contact? It’s certainly possible that from their perspective that once you left the job or the group, you dropped off their radar entirely and nobody’s heard from you since. So you may want to ask whether this is as much you aren’t reaching out or doing more than a token effort to do so.
It also suggests another fundamental question: have you given them reason to stay in contact? Have you actively fostered connections with the folks in your hobby or at work, or do you only interact with them to the degree necessary for what needs to be done? Again, if the only interaction you have with folks is pleasant but shallow and strictly about work, then there’s likelihood that you’re going to have more than a nodding acquaintance with your coworkers or fellow hobbyists. Friend is an active verb; you have to put effort in to make it happen. Even if someone else initiates it, you have to keep up your end of things; otherwise, it all falls apart.
So I think it’s going to be important for you to take a sincere look at how much effort you’re making to connect with people beyond the bare minimum, and how quickly you give up. If you’re making a half-assed offer of friendship, something that may even be dressed in plausible deniability if they turn it down, then that’s a big part of your problem. Similarly, you may need to be willing to persist past making one offer or gesture, especially if you are taking anything other than an over-the-top “yes” as a “go away forever”. Sometimes timing becomes an issue. Sometimes it’s the person. It could be the nature of the offer – asking someone to go to the football game or the movies when you don’t know them well and they may not feel comfortable with that level of outing with you… yet.
Or it could even be that you aren’t giving people the chance to connect with you at more than a surface level. How much do you talk to your coworkers about things that aren’t just work? Do you ever talk about favorite shows or sports teams? Do you ever ask how their weekend was or what they’ve been doing and go any deeper than just “Oh, that’s nice…”?
Many times, the reason I find people struggle to make friends, never mind find dates, is that they don’t ever make real effort to connect. They never let things go further than the most surface level and don’t get to know the people around them as more than just familiar strangers. Nor do they let people in, answering questions with the bare minimum and not really giving people the chance to get to know them. And when they do try to make a bid for connection, it may end up being either too strong or so hesitant that it’s barely perceptible, and never repeated because they take that seeming “no” as “…and stop asking, freak.” Even when that’s not what the other person intended.
You’re the only one who can really say whether that’s you or not. But like I said: I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of letters like yours, and they tend to have the same issues.
But let’s circle back to what I said about hacking your confirmation bias. You’re asking how to come to terms with never having a date (or, by implication, a friend). My suggestion to you is that you think of it this way: start coming to accept that you are going to make friends and you’re going to find dates. You’re not quite sure when or with who, but you know it’s going to happen.
Reinforce this belief in whatever way makes sense for you. Write it out longhand on a legal pad, twenty times every morning. Do a mood board if that’s your thing. Take Grant Morrison’s chaos magic route, make a sigil and charge it and release it into the world. Repeat it into the mirror ten times a day – anything that primes your subconscious into looking for proof that it’s happening and – critically – encourages you to take active steps to make it happen. God helps those who help themselves after all, so you’re going to need more than to say a prayer in the darkness for the magic to come; you’re going to have to be actively putting yourself in serendipity’s path and increasing your available surface area to make it possible to reach you.
In practice, this means being more social – at work, at your hobbies, even when you’re out getting groceries, picking up coffee or grabbing a quick lunch. Talk to your co-workers and ask them about their day. Share yours too. Find the places where you have overlapping interests or ask them for suggestions – maybe you’re interested in a hobby they like, do they have any recommendations on how to get started? Then you can come back later and say “hey, thank you for that suggestion” or talk about what you liked about it.
Similarly, start making bids for connection beyond work. You may not be ready to ask if people want to hang out one on one, but there’s nothing stopping you from saying “hey, we should get some folks together and grab a beer after work, you in?” or arranging an office pool for the NBA playoffs or what-have-you. Anything that establishes you as more than just another face in the office and gives people opportunities to get to know you as more than a familiar presence is a good start. Even if you eventually leave that job, it’ll mean that your leaving will be noticed instead of being met with a shrug, and there’ll be the greater likelihood that when you reach out, folks will reach back, too.
The same goes for finding dates. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, and not just passively on the apps. Yes, even if you’re actively swiping, it’s still inherently passive. You need to be active, and that means not just going out, but talking to people, getting to know them and seeing if you even like them as more than someone pretty.
Will this guarantee you results? Hard to say; you could still be dealing with issues like demographics and bad luck. But even if that’s the case, getting in the habit of proactively connecting with people, making bids for connection and being an active and vibrant presence will serve you well if and when you are able to move somewhere that’s not only more demographically advantageous but in alignment with your values.
You need to stop waiting for things to happen “naturally” and realize that “naturally” isn’t working. Nature sometimes needs a helping hand, and that means you need to be giving it an assist by being an active participant. You’ve been waiting for love and friendship to find you. Now it’s time to stop waiting and start going out looking instead. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen because you made it happen.
Nothing’s going to change, otherwise. So decide for yourself whether you need to get used to it never happening or making it an inevitability.
Your call.
Good luck.
