Estimated reading time: 22 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove,
Hello! I would like your advice on coming to an agreement on hosting overnight houseguests when you and your SO are looking to move in together, and you come from very different backgrounds in this regard.
Him: Very outgoing, lots of friends, moved to a new area two to three hours away from where he grew up/went to college and so if he wants to see these friends, he has to go visit or they need to come visit them. No one is particularly well-off, so the expectation is that whenever someone comes to your town, you host. The amount of notice for a visit is somewhere between two days and two weeks, and only one household member needs to be on board for the visit to be approved.
Me: Strong introvert, autism, PTSD. I find hosting guests in my own space extremely stressful because I can’t then use home as a place to retreat to when the inevitable social overload sets in after a few hours; I have to always be on, and we both live in 600 square foot apartments with one bathroom and paper-thin walls. I live 14+ hours from family and friends, and visits are planned out months in advance. Everyone is comfortably well-off, and the expectation is that they will pay for a hotel, but if I can host, it’s an added bonus (or: they just want the hotel so they’re not making do with a sofa bed). Because visits are so disruptive, a potential visit must be discussed and approved by all household members before it can be set in stone.
Obviously, there’s not a lot of overlap here when it comes to our habits or expectations or where we’re coming from. I gave BF’s last-minute surprise (to me) hosting a try and it led to a panic attack + three days’ recovery time from the meds to deal with the panic attack (by way of explanation, we live just far enough apart that traveling back and forth to each other’s’ places is a royal pain, so when I have the chance to WFH for an extended period of time I move in with him temporarily, and this was one of those times). I really couldn’t handle the disruption to my routine plus having someone else living in my space on such short notice. So me simply adapting to his way of doing things is a no-go.
I proposed as a compromise a minimum two weeks’ notice plus jointly deciding whether to approve visits, and he agreed, but, when the next visit came around, it turned out that his interpretation of jointly deciding to approve visits was that he will go ahead and say yes to his friends, but I would have veto power if it’s a bad weekend for me for some particular reason. This is understandably not the kind of arrangement I had in mind for joint decision-making power over visits. I asked that we discuss the visit in advance together before he agrees to anything, and he said that would make it weird with his friends.
I proposed as another compromise that *I* could pay to put the visiting friends up in a hotel, that this would remove the advance notice and joint decision-making restrictions for me as long as there was enough money in the Visits Fund, and that if he moved in with me when his contract ran out and started paying half the rent, as we’d originally planned, this would free up enough money for the Visits Fund to pay for a long weekend for visiting friends once a month, which is also his preferred frequency for visits. He said that this would make things very weird with his friends.
So, I feel stuck. I generally like his friends as people and I do want him to keep up with visits back and forth, but on the other hand, it does no one any favors to pretend that I am able to handle situations that I can’t. When I try to dive deeper into his reasons, it seems that, first, he thinks that I should already be fine with the amount of space I have from guests because the apartment has four rooms with doors that all close (lol no; again, we have mismatched expectations regarding living space, etc.), and, also, he is very reluctant to give up his fReEdOm because he had a prior girlfriend he lived with who put more and more restrictions on his ability to see friends, and he doesn’t want a repeat of that. That was when I proposed the I-pay-for-a-hotel idea, but, since he rejected it, I suspect that it has more to do with him wanting to maintain a certain autonomy over his own space and/or own time and/or wanting to keep a certain status quo with his friends, than simply spending enough time with them. I let him know that my offer for him to move in with me after his current contract is up was off the table unless we could come to an agreement about houseguests that we were both happy with.
Anyway. It’s no real life or relationship goal of mine to nest or have children with a significant other, so not moving in together is not a problem for me other than the annoying travel time back and forth. On the other hand, I want the dude to feel safe and well cared for, which doesn’t seem to be happening with the way he keeps deferring to friends and shutting down (“it would be weird with my friends” = it is currently weird FOR ME, but I don’t want to say it), and I’m also all in favor of resolving relationship problems with better logistics solutions. What’s your take, Doc?
Signed,
Houseguests Are Like Fish Aging In The Fridge
One of the most common phrases that comes up in this column is “the problem you’re asking about isn’t the problem you have”, and that’s precisely what’s going on here. Or rather, part of the problem is that this isn’t an issue with houseguests. The conflict on how to host people is a symptom, rather than the source. And to be sure, the symptoms need to be treated – they’re clearly a source of stress and discord in your life – but if you don’t treat the underlying problem, those symptoms are just going to keep recurring. Or, worse, you’re going to develop new symptoms and not realize that they’re tied to that underlying cause.
This isn’t an issue about how to handle guests, it’s an issue of establishing communication, expectations and understanding and respecting each other’s needs… and some discussions that should get hashed out before you move in together.
That is, of course, assuming you do move in together. More on that in a second.
One of the first things about your letter that leapt out at me is that there seems to be a disconnect in terms of understanding your needs and how those needs get met.
Part of this seems to be the difference between having privacy and having space. A 600 square foot apartment is already close quarters for two people trying to live together. Even under the best of circumstances, you’re going to be on top of one another at all times. This can be fine if you’re someone who likes company or your partner doesn’t “count” as company… but if you add a third person (or fourth or fifth or…) to the mix, that balance changes rather significantly. The fact that you have separate rooms to retreat to doesn’t change the fact that they’re in your space, your sanctum sanctorum and the place where you can relax, unwind, shuck the pants and let your inner goblin out. You may have privacy, but you don’t have space – that place where you can let everything down and decompress.
A visitor is a disruption of all of that, and that can throw things for a loop. Doubly so if you’re someone who has a need for routine and stability in your daily life. If it’s a close family member or friend, where you feel like you can relax and let your hair down around them, that’s one thing. It’s another entirely when it’s someone you don’t know or barely know. That feeling the need to be “on” – to basically take on a role while they’re staying with you – is very real, and it can get exhausting even for an extrovert. It can be even harder for someone who doesn’t usually share their space – not just their living quarters but their space, that sense of sanctuary and security and order.
I suspect that your partner doesn’t quite grok that having being able to close a door doesn’t suffice. That barrier between you and the rest of the apartment doesn’t change the awareness of other people being in your space. The thin walls are only a part of it; the ways you have to adjust your routine and habits to accommodate a new person add to those feelings. You may be able to retreat to your room and shut the door, but you also don’t know if you’re going to stumble into them at 2 AM on the way to the bathroom. You have to factor them in when you’ve gotten up and you just want your coffee and your cereal for the world to hold off until the holy caffeine has finally kicked in and you feel vaguely human again.
Then there’s the fact that, as an introvert, you expend your mental energy around people, while you recharge it when you’re alone. Having a person who doesn’t get the Introvert’s Exception around means that there is no recharge; your social batteries are undergoing a constant drain like a laptop that’s not allowed to go into sleep mode.
And if you have an anxiety disorder or panic issues because of PTSD… well, having someone dropped on you without time to prepare and make arrangements to meet your needs for solitude and recovery is a very good way to trigger those disorders.
The next thing that struck me is that there doesn’t seem to have been an actual discussion of how to make your different needs mesh – there certainly wasn’t any compromise here. I actually take issue with the way you framed things in your letter. Having someone dropped in on you unexpectedly, especially in your space, isn’t “giving it a try”, and quite frankly, I don’t think there’s any way to give it a try if these plans are always done at the last minute. It might be feasible if you had protocols in place for hosting unexpected or last minute guests that you could fall back on… but that doesn’t sound like what happened.
Instead, it sounds like you were tossed into the deep end with no real consideration for what this would do to you, your plans and your routines. That would not be cool if you weren’t an autistic introvert with PTSD. You are, however, and that makes it especially not cool.
Now, this all happened at his place while you were staying with him and under normal circumstances, I would say that his apartment means his rules. But the fact that he sprung when you were staying with him is inconsiderate and short-sighted. It might well have been less disruptive for you to up stakes and head back to your place, the inconvenience of the commute be damned. But it played out the way that it did and now you both know that his way isn’t a way that works for you.
I have some sympathy for the fact that he’s got a dynamic with his friends and the way things have worked for them up until now. But there’s a significant difference between before and now: you, and the fact that you’re staying with him on the regular. Having to adjust to accommodate that rather significant change can feel odd or awkward, but refusing to adjust to circumstances is even more so. I suspect that his friends could understand that “hey, I’ve got my girlfriend staying with me this week” means they can’t just drop in with next to no warning. However, if for some reason they can’t (they can, but let’s pretend for the moment), then the answer is giving you more notice so that you can make alternate arrangements.
If he’s not willing to do either of these things, then that’s a problem. Being in a relationship means finding ways to mesh your disparate lives together; that, in turn, means finding compromise when there are conflicts. Saying “this would make things weird for my friends” but also not making changes to make things easier for you is not a compromise.
(Also, I agree: his lack of concern for making it weird for you isn’t a good look.)
As someone who dealt with a toxic relationship in the past that left me isolated from my friends, I’m sympathetic to your boyfriend wanting to keep his autonomy. However, the stubborn refusal to accept any sort of compromise and just expecting you to go along to get along isn’t the answer – especially not if his autonomy runs roughshod over you. It feels like defiance for defiance’s sake and not trying to maintain effective boundaries.
So what do you do about this? Well, for one thing, I think you’re right: you take moving in together off the table for the foreseeable future. The distance may be annoying, but it’s a lower price to pay than the occasional flashbang of unexpected guests going off when you’re staying with him. And I think it should stay off the table until he starts actually being able to make compromises instead of expecting you to just be cool with things. Otherwise, you can expect to keep having “well, this is how I always do things” conversations whenever your needs or expectations come into conflict.
That’s not a recipe for a healthy or long-lasting relationship.
You may also want to consider having him come to you when you’re working from home; having to adjust to your apartment and your rules being in effect might be helpful. It also means that you’re far less likely to get a “hey, Jack’s gonna spend four days with us” jump scare. He needs to start recognizing that trying to share your life with another person doesn’t just mean that someone’s going to snap into your life perfectly like a Lego piece; you both have to make compromises to make things work together.
The second thing that needs to happen is that you and he need to have a talk about precisely what your needs are, how your introversion, autism and PTSD affect you and how things like unexpected guests aren’t just minor inconveniences. This includes explaining why “you can just go to another room and close the door” isn’t going to help, and why hosting with no warning is a serious disruption for you. And when you do have this discussion, I think you should ask him to explain in his words what you told him, so you can make sure that he actually listened to you, not just receiving the soundwaves but actually understanding what you’re asking for.
If this “I technically heard what you said but I interpreted it differently” keeps happening… well, that’s a problem that goes deeper than just having mismatched expectations.
Good luck.
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
Throughout my life, I’ve been repeatedly told by many people that I’m an attractive, warm, compassionate, thoughtful, witty, perceptive, self-assured, and socially adept man. Pretty much any positive trait you can think of, someone has used to describe me at some point.
Those comments have, for the most part, come from women themselves. I do very well with women in a platonic sense, but I’m clearly not seen as someone they would consider romantically or sexually. I’ve consistently put myself out there by attending social events, getting to know women over time or being a bit more direct, flirting and overall being a fun guy, and ultimately asking for numbers and dates. I haven’t been able to secure even one. The moment I start to stick my foot through the door, it immediately slams shut. Ghosting. “I’ll let you know”. I’ve had friends and strangers on the internet review my profiles, pictures, and messages, only to tell me I’m not doing anything wrong and that it must simply be a matter of timing, the wrong person, or circumstances.
This suggestion that I am a great guy, down on his luck, has been consistent across friends, family, dating coaches I’ve worked with, and therapists I’ve seen over the years. I’m far from perfect, but no one has been able to pinpoint why I seem to struggle so much when it comes to finding a romantic connection. I have been as open and honest as I can be with this, and am still failing miserably.
At the same time, I’ve known men who were abusive, creepy, unfaithful, or even accused of sexual misconduct – men who were openly talked about in social circles for their behaviour or otherwise were not hiding it – yet still seemed to have a steady stream of attention, dates, hookups, friends with benefits, relationships, and even marriages. I can’t even recount the times I have known a woman complain about a guy harassing them, only to keep engaging instead of blocking or keeping distance.
This isn’t a “bad boy vs nice guy” debate, because I’ve also seen genuinely good men in relationships. Still, all of this has left me feeling as though I’m somehow intrinsically less than men who most people would consider “undesirable”.
My social media feeds are filled with posts about women saying they want to find good men, yet my own lived experience hasn’t seemed to reflect that, and I sometimes feel guilty for even existing. I’m also constantly surrounded by content suggesting that emotional vulnerability is the right path for men. I tend to agree with that in principle, and I would say I’m on my own healing journey – but I haven’t seen much evidence that it’s something women are drawn to in practice.
All of this has led me to wonder whether adopting a “Manosphere” mindset might improve my chances of finding a partner. If I load up on cash, at least a sex worker will notice me. It’s the only message offering answers that reflect the things that I am seeing, even if those answers are utter shite.
But I don’t want to become that kind of person. I would rather die than go down that route, so I hope that says something about my character. I’m 38 and still trying to figure this out. The frustration has built up to the point where I’ve spent the day in tears. I feel deeply undesirable as a man, and feel like a teenager still screaming “Why don’t girls like me?!”.
What do I do, doc?
At A Crossroads
Without following you around like I’m doing a nature documentary, I can’t tell you what you are or aren’t doing wrong, AAC. That’s the same issue your friends, including your female friends have in terms of diagnosing what you’re doing wrong. If they aren’t watching your entire interaction with people, they’re only going to have the limited knowledge to work from. And even if they werewatching, they still have a restricted perspective because they can’t read the other person’s mind or know the full extent of their circumstances. So, they have to work with the very limited data they have, colored by the fact that they know you as a person and can fill in a lot of blanks that a relative stranger couldn’t.
This doesn’t mean that they’re not correct; it just means that from their perspective, they aren’t sure what the problem might be.
But one thing that is important to understand – even if it’s not an answer you are going to appreciate – is that sometimes it really is just shitty luck. And yes, an unlucky streak can go on for a long, long time, through no fault of your own. I’ve had friends with absurd dry spells, including one who went for close to two decades of shitty first dates with people who thought she was good enough to fuck but not good enough to date until she met the guy she married.
But a more salient issue, and one that I think you’re missing, is that you’re not actually grasping what’s going on with the examples you bring up. You’re getting hung up on the surface and flattening the nuance. This is part of why you’re finding the Manosphere’s “answers” appealing – not because they’re good answers but because they’re simple answers. They rely on people not understanding – or deliberately ignoring – nuance and complexity because it’s easy to make money selling One Simple Trick or catering to the systematic sexism and toxic ideas about masculinity that we are all continually inundated with. “Do this simple trick and get what you want” is an easy sell, especially if the person they’re selling it to feels like it’s an answer that will unlock access to all the rewards and experiences that they’re “supposed” to have, while those same grifters also reinforce the anxiety and fear that not having those experiences makes you lesser. After all, if all you see is “do this and you’ll finally be a man among men”, you’re far less likely to notice when what they’re selling you is literally part of the Walker Cycle of Abuse.
(I will also point out that what you seem to be expecting is… off. Sex workers aren’t going to “notice you” just because you have money; unless you’re being solicited from someone working the street, you’re the one who has to be contacting them first. And one who, say, comes up at the hotel bar isn’t ‘noticing’ you, they’re hiding the fact that they’re a sex worker until you’re committed and more likely to pay – usually because of implied or overt pressure, social or otherwise.)
To give an example of how you’re missing the nuance: when women are talking about wanting a good man, it’s not just “I want a man who is ontologically a good person” or “I want someone who has these qualities,” it’s “I want someone who has these qualities who I am attracted to.” That attraction is a critical part, especially in making the difference between a platonic friend and a potential partner. And to be clear, this isn’t just a case of “be attractive; don’t be unattractive”. The attraction tends to be holistic, the sum totality of the person, but it also is about being attractive to that specific individual. If you ever want to see just how individualistic attraction can be, ask some of your female friends about their Hear Me Outs.
Similarly, when they talk about wanting someone who’s emotionally intelligent and vulnerable, it’s not just a case of going up and saying “Hi, I tear up whenever I see SPCA commercials”. What they are looking for are men who actually experience the full range of human emotions in a relevant and appropriate manner, and who aren’t closed off or unable to actually communicate what they want or need.
Men have been – and are still taught – that actually understanding or expressing an emotion that isn’t anger, lust or stoic indifference is effeminate, and to be effeminate is the worst thing they can be. Even just being able to say “I love you” to a platonic male friend is suss. To be willing to express a need for comfort or consolation from a (male) friend? Or to admit to being scared, uncertain or unhappy? Yeah, you may as well put on a frilly dress and call yourself a pretty princess as far as those men are concerned.
This isn’t an isolated thing; it’s a core component of the (Straight) Male Loneliness Epidemic. Men are socialized to be detached from their emotions and thus can’t open up or be vulnerable with others, or even approach friendship without having a socially permissible pretext for bonding. Can you – you, specifically, AAC – hang out with some of your guy friends and just talk about what’s going on in your lives without doing something at the same time – playing games, watching TV, and so on? If the answer is “no”, then you’ve experienced what I’m talking about.
And I should point out: this is something that guys get told they’re supposed to do, that it’s biologically inherent to being a guy. The social opprobrium for “talking about our feelings” is real and persistent, even in the year of Our Lord Sabrina Carpenter 2026.
This creates a situation where women regularly end up with partners who require that women manage their emotional state for them – whether that’s making sure they never get jealous or angry, needing constant reassurance and comfort at every turn or who can’t handle conflict without flying off the handle. Or who simply refuse to open up and talk about how they are feeling or what they may want or need from the relationship before things reach a boiling point.
If you’ve ever watched a movie or TV show where a couple’s conflict could’ve been resolved with an actual conversation and some compromise, or not holding onto secrets for no reason, you’ve seen this dynamic in action. Now imagine if that was every relationship you had with someone, and the only people you interacted with who didn’t behave that way were women or queer men. You would be exhausted too.
Meanwhile the awful men you mention aren’t getting dates because they’re awful and women are biologically driven to want men with “Dark triad” qualities. Those guys are very good at hiding their awfulness and putting up a false front instead. The ones you notice (and I stress notice) getting dates and partners despite being horrible are people who know how to be attractive and give the impression of being something you’re not. This isn’t an inherent quality of being horrible; it’s that these people are horrible, and they are skilled at presenting themselves in a particular way.
There’re plenty of folks who are just as awful, but who aren’t nearly as successful. They don’t stand out because they aren’t the ones in relationships and making you question your intrinsic worth as a person. The ones who are awful but without that ability to mask themselves are just as miserable and lonely as you and angry with it. They’re as much a target for manosphere grifters as the people who are good-but-frustrated; the difference is that they’re less concerned with any ethical concerns as long as they get what they want.
But – to bring it back to the social pressures we all experience – the women who continue to engage with guys they know to be creeps or harassers aren’t doing so because they like them despite the creep factor. What’s often the case is the pressure to Go Along To Get Along, to Give Him A Chance and, importantly Don’t Make A Man Upset. Again, even in this far-flung age of greater gender equity, there is an immense pressure on women to subsume their own wants and needs and instead focus on making sure that a man doesn’t get upset or inconvenienced. Sometimes that pressure to not upset someone is practical – many guys will lash out when inconvenienced or given the brush off after all. But more often, it’s the social conditioning that teaches women not to listen to their gut and judgement, that maybe this guy just needs things explained to him the right way and how will he learn if someone doesn’t show him the way?
So yeah, the answers are complex, and that’s not satisfying. The appeal of “you need to be tall, ripped and rich” is enticing because of its inherent simplicity.
So what do you do about this? Well, here’s what I would suggest: start focusing on doing the things that make you feel like a sexy bad-ass. Not what you think women want or what you think a sexy bad-ass man should be doing or look like: you. Take some dance classes to understand how to move your body with rhythm and develop the confidence necessary to lead a partner. Take acting classes and learn how people convey different personality types through voice, posture and body language.
And don’t wait to do them until you’ve reached some milestone; start now. Do it badly at first, so that you can learn to get better at it and integrate it into your sense of self. Does it mean feeling like you’re deluding yourself about being hot? Fine, embrace the cringe and push past it.
Do these things so that you start to embrace yourself as a sexual, desirable person and recognize that this helps you trust yourself enough to actually present yourself as that sexual tyrannosaurus. And as you do, pay attention to not just who you find physically attractive but who you want to spend time with and who wants to spend time with you. Don’t try to impress them with your sexy persona, just be.
At the same time, don’t spend so much time comparing yourself to others and trying to figure out what secret you’re missing. You’re looking for simple answers to complex problems and that’s precisely the issue. You’ll never find one that actually works; they’ll only just complicate things further. But if you can learn to be the sort of person you’d be proud to be, the version of you that feels secure and confident in his worth and desirability, I think you’ll start seeing a difference in how people respond to you.
Good luck.
