Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I’ve been talking to a girl I met online in a flirty way, thinking about possibly meeting up. So far we just haven’t found a time that works for both of us.
We live about 2 hours away so a relationship would be doable but would take some juggling. We shared our other socials a while ago but I only just now spent some time looking deeper into hers, and I found some stuff that disturbed me. She is really excessively into wolves, German shepherd and husky type dogs, guys with wolf or dog ears and tails, BDSM style dog masks, wolves mating, celebrities drawn with different dog heads, characters acting like dogs or wolves and sniffing or dominating each other, etc etc etc.
I know fetishes don’t necessarily have anything to do with reality, I’m not accusing her of being a real-life dog rapist or anything. It just gave me the ick and I’m not sure I could be with someone sexually knowing they have these interests. I want to have dogs when I get a house someday. My family had German shepherds when I was growing up and like I said, just ick.
Is this a valid reason to break off an online friendship, or at least step back so we are no longer talking about meeting or starting a relationship? Would it help if I told her what made me feel this way? If I had interests I was open about online that were this off-putting to women I would want to know. But as I said I don’t want to come off as actually accusing her of anything. Advice?
I Don’t Wanna Be Your Dog
I’ll be honest, I’ve been torn between whether to bother with what feels like someone’s creative writing exercise or treat it as an example of the knots folks will twist themselves into when they think hooking up might be an option.
But hey, as I’ve said many times before, even disingenuous letters can be helpful to folks, so here goes:
You don’t have to be friends with anyone you don’t want to be friends with. You can decide someone isn’t right for you based on literally anything if that thing is going to bother you. You don’t have to date anyone you don’t want to date. You can end relationships at any time for any reason. People may think those reasons are bad or dumb, but as I’ve said many times before: folks can have opinions, but they don’t get a vote.
So, if this person gives you the ick, you’re fully capable of deciding that you’re done and bounce.
Now assuming that all of this is true, then I’m impressed with your quads because deciding that this person is a potential dog molester is a leap. What’s far more likely is that either they’re a furry or that they’re into Omegaverse fiction. And based on the seeming focus on wolves and wolf-like dogs – and the lack of a mention of a fursona or furry art – I’m betting the latter rather than the former.
(What, did you think the “Nerd” in my name was for show?)
Omegaverse, for those of you who aren’t as excessively online as I am, is a catchall term for a subgenre of paranormal romance fiction. Omegaverse stories focus on werewolves or werewolf-adjacent communities that are divided into Alphas, Betas and Omegas. Pack hierarchy, pheromones, and wolf-like dominance displays are all core tropes of the genre and tend to be drivers of conflict, whether between the main character and love interests, or between the protagonists and the antagonists. While it may be terribly well-known to the general populace – despite some remarkably high-profile lawsuits that even ended up dragging Lindsay Ellis, of all people, into the mix – it’s a popular genre, with quite literally tens of thousands of books, websites, fanfic communities and more.
I’m willing to bet cash money that your friend is either a fan or a writer, and much of what you discovered are either fan work or the equivalent of an author’s mood boards, full of inspiration, research or just in-group references. Plenty of folks use their social media as storage and digital bookmarks as they do for connecting and communicating with others.
While the appeal is admittedly lost on me, it’s a genre that resonates with a lot of folks. What it isn’t, however, is a sign that your friend has a fetish or kink for animals, nor is she a potential animal abuser, any more than someone who writes or consumes romance or erotica with dubcon (“dubious consent”) themes is either a rapist waiting to happen or someone who fetishizes rape. Some people just like shit that seems weird to folks who don’t share that interest and that’s fine.
Now one thing I can tell you for sure: she knows that Omegaverse and/or being a furry is well outside of the mainstream and folks think it’s weird. It’s almost impossible not to know this. For one thing: she’s a woman who’s on the Internet. Dudes have been trying to educate her about things she already knows from the first time she logged on. For another, people have used being a furry as a punchline for literal decades now. It was the basis for an entire episode of CSI for fuck’s sake. If it’s not your thing, that’s all well and good, but I can promise you that she’s perfectly aware of what people think. She doesn’t need you to inform her. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure why you think it’s your place to tell her, especially since you’ve got a foot out the door as it is. It’s not going to be helpful, and I can promise you that you’re not going to be the one to change her mind about it.
If you’re gonna dip, just dip. The only real reason she needs,and the only one that’s going to be relevant, is that you’re not feeling it, best of luck, peace out girl scout. Anything more than that is pointless at best and petty at worst.
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I think I have a twist on a question you’ve gotten before but I haven’t seen answered on here.
A couple months ago, I basically packed up my entire life to move to a medium-large city in the Pacific Northwest to take care of my grandfather while he moved from managed care to a hospice, and then to take care of his estate after he passed. That was more or less my entire life during that time.
Since then, I’ve got a new job, I’ve found a more permanent place to live and I’m starting to get settled in. What I don’t have are friends. Or, I guess I should say, I have friends all over, but I don’t have any friends HERE.
My question isn’t how to make friends. I’ve been slowly starting to meet folks and I’m confident that in time some of them will be friends. I know it takes time to find my people, and I’m already starting to make inroads. My question is more: what do I do in the meantime? When I was taking care of grandpa, I didn’t really have time for anything else and when he passed, I was busy and also in mourning. Now that things have stabilized, I’m not sure what to do with myself while I build my life here. I like my place, I got a dog, but there’s only so much Netflix I can watch and video games I can play, and my weekends are pretty dull. As much as I’m making an effort to meet people, I want to do more than just try to meet people. It gets a little exhausting after a while.
How do I have a life while I’m in the middle of building a new one, so I don’t go insane from boredom before I rebuild my social scene? What do I do with myself when there’s only myself (and my dog) to do stuff with?
Temporarily Lonely
This one’s easy, TL. I’m a big fan of “begin as you intend to proceed”, and that includes with the kind of life you want to live once you have your nascent social circle.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of folks “taking themselves on dates”; that is, they treat themselves to the same sort of night out on their own that they might have gone on if they’d had a partner to take them. They get dressed up and go have a night on the town – dinner at a nice restaurant, go see a movie or a show, maybe hit a bar or go dancing somewhere and basically just see where the night takes them. It’s a nice way to remind oneself that being single doesn’t mean you can’t go out and have fun, nor do you need someone to be with you in order to do things that you might want to do.
Well, my suggestion for you would be to do take the same approach. Since you seem to have spent about as much time at home on the weekends as you care to, start taking this opportunity to find out what’s going on around town – both that interests you and things that you might want to do when you’ve got friends to do them with.
If you’re into sports, for example, then get yourself a ticket and go see a game. Sure, it may feel a little less weird or more acceptable to go watch the game at a bar somewhere, but there’s a lot to be said for being there, in the arena, watching your team in person instead of on a screen. It’s an entirely different experience, and you don’t need someone to accompany you to justify your being there. Nobody is going to notice or care if you’re rolling solo, and getting caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd is an incredible experience.
The same goes for seeing a band, whether it’s a local up-and-comer playing their set in a tiny venue or some arena-filling extravaganza. Or going to see live theater, an art gallery opening or some other event that strikes your fancy. None of them require that you have a plus one, after all, and it’s not as if you’re going to get stopped at the door because you’re going stag. If it’s something you enjoy, and something you would enjoy doing with friends, you may as well go enjoy it now. there’s no real benefit to denying yourself the enjoyment of it until you have folks that you want to hang out with.
This is, of course, in addition to things that might help you meet more people, like taking your dog to the dog park and meeting your fellow pooch-parents. Sometimes taking a break from trying to meet people and just living your life can be a good thing; even if you’re outgoing or an extrovert, when all you’re doing is in pursuit of trying to meet people, you can burn out hard if you’re not careful.
Yes, I’m aware that this can sound a little odd. That’s fine. Leaving aside that you’re in the PNW – a place that’s taking up the mantle of “keep it weird”, now that Austin seems to be getting aggressively colonized by tech bros who wouldn’t appreciate weird if it bit them in the ass and sang ten rounds of ‘Enry the ‘Eighth to the tune of “Keep Austin Weird” – it’s always good to be reminded that there’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. You can be lonely in a crowd, but you also can be in good company even when you’re by yourself.
This also has benefits besides keeping yourself entertained. For one, it gives you an excuse to go out and explore your new home and find all the interesting little nooks and crannies that you might not be aware of yet. It’ll help you get not just a feel for the general vibe, but also help you triangulate on what the city has to offer as well as what speaks to you, personally. You up the odds that you’ll find your new hangouts and homes away from home – those places that become your refuge when you’re restless and bored but don’t have any idea what you want to do. Your place may be nice, but no matter how nice it is, you can still get bored of staring at the same four walls, after all.
And if there’re places that you’re curious about but have never tried before or are aren’t sure about, then this is the perfect time to give them a try. It’s a great opportunity to get comfortable in a new place and start learning all the unwritten rules and customs of the venue and the folks who hang out there, so if you go with friends or with a date, you’ll feel like you’re in a place of power already. The same goes with trying new things in a low-pressure, nobody-will-know-or-care environment. It’s an opportunity for you to expand your horizons and become a more interesting and well-rounded individual, which will pay dividends in many ways… including making it easier to find and make new friends.
The last thing I’ll point out is that doing this now is going to be good practice for other times when you’re going to be on your own. Whether you’ve moved to a new town or city, you’re traveling on your own or you’ve found yourself on your own for any number of reasons, knowing that you’re capable of going out and having fun and finding adventure on your own is a boost to your confidence and sense of self.
And then later on, once you do have your new circle of friends, you’re going to be the one who knows all the cool places and folks want to hang with because they know you’re going to help them have a blast too.
Good luck.
