Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Hi Doc,

I have never been on a single date, and after years of feeling inadequate and unwanted, your reply to the letter from the man who went down the RedPill route left me frustrated. I found the letter and the responses to it contradictory. The writer was promised that RedPill methods would bring him women. You, like many other dating advice voices, tell men like him to steer clear. Yet his own letter showed that it gets results, even if he ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. He got attention, he got dates, and he had women pursuing him. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy that.

Let me tell you about my own situation. I grew up in a thoroughly broken home. I suspect most people who begin life that way end up addicted, homeless or abusive towards others. Whether by God’s grace or plain luck, I avoided all of it and came through comparatively unscathed. I do carry some emotional scarring, and recognising and expressing my feelings can still be a struggle, but on the whole, I’ve done well for myself. Since reaching adulthood I’ve been in therapy. I’ve taken ownership of my problems, educated myself, and built a career devoted to supporting others, all while looking after my own wellbeing and my health. The women I’m friends with have told me they feel heard and safe with me, and those friendships are strong, healthy and rewarding. The life I’ve built over two decades is a good, stable one.

So a kind, handsome, emotionally balanced man who has made something of his life should be a catch. That’s what I keep being told, yet it hasn’t been my experience. I’ve belonged to my local dance community for ten years, I know almost nobody but women, and still no one has shown sexual interest in me. I’m owed nothing for that, and I did the work for my own benefit, but I struggle to believe it makes the difference I’m told it does.

The men I’ve known who had women flocking to them were, in my experience, the ones with the worst behaviour: alcoholics, drug addicts, emotionally unavailable, and a few who had committed physical or sexual assault. Many of the men and influencers who preach RedPill rhetoric seem to have women readily available to them, and they don’t “do the work” or care about becoming better human beings. The behaviours I’m told are repulsive often seem to be the ones that attract the most. A woman who is interested can start a conversation, suggest a coffee, or ask a man out, and in my experience that is exactly what happens when she’s drawn to someone. In twenty years, it has never happened to me. I know that’s only what I’ve seen, and I don’t claim it represents all women or all men.

I also know plenty of couples in loving relationships where the man is nerdy, introverted and nowhere near the stereotypical “masculine” ideal. But those men weren’t the ones who got noticed. They were the friend who eventually became a partner, or the guy who was swiped left on Tinder but then met the woman through mutual friends. They didn’t rack up dates or enjoy passionate evenings with a string of different women. I’d largely concede that they came out ahead, but it’s hard to feel comfortable with the idea of years spent feeling inadequate and unwanted. We live in a world where the RedPiller turns heads across the bar, but the decent man goes home alone.

Please don’t misread me: I won’t be embracing the RedPill. I’m not judging women’s choices or preferences, and I agree with you that these gurus are selling snake oil. Whenever I’ve encountered men heading that way, I’ve steered clear of them or given them a stern talking-to. I’ll keep living a good life, working to make the world a better place and a safer one for women. All I want is to enjoy the journey, meet a lovely woman (or two) along the way and eventually find love.

But being told “Be kind. Be funny. Be emotionally available. That’s what women love!” when my own experience has been the opposite is hard to hear, and the well-meaning advice feels like a lame donkey next to what seems to work.

I’m not asking you to endorse the RedPill. I’m asking what you’d say to the man who has done everything right, whose kindness, effort and emotional maturity have gone unnoticed, and who is still going home alone. And is there anything women could be doing to make that easier for him?

Chronic Bench Warmer

OK I see what the problem is here: you’re working from a lot of misunderstandings and apparent misreadings and it’s messing up how you’re seeing things.

I realize this sounds dismissive and snarky, and in fairness it is, a little; I get a variation of this letter on a weekly basis, as a quick browse of my archives will show you. But it’s still true: you’re working from misunderstandings that seem to come from faulty assumptions and mistaken beliefs.

Let’s start with the letter you’re referring to and my advice regarding manosphere communities like red-pillers and pick-up artists. You’re correct in that I, and other folks in the dating advice industry, warn people away from the various grievance-peddling slap-dicks who sell “secret seduction advice” and lifestyle “gurus” who sell anxiety and misogyny dressed up as empowerment. The reason we tell people to avoid doing so is for precisely what that letter writer – and others, who’ve been stuck in the Red Pill community – described: if they get results, it’s invariably not what they wanted, it made them worse people and ultimately left them unhappy and unsatisfied.

In fact, this is something that I experienced personally, which I like to think gives me a slightly different perspective on the topic than many others. I’ve talked a lot in this column about my origin story in the pick-up community and what that did both for me and to me, and for the people I knew. Everyone I hung out with in that scene either dipped out early and never looked back, or else hit the wall. One of them checked himself into an in-patient mental health care facility. Another joined a cult. I had my long dark weekend of the soul after I had a similar revelation to what that letter-writer experienced; mine just happened when I was getting ready to leave a club with someone I had picked up.

Like him, I realized just how much I didn’t like what I was doing, how it wasn’t making me happy or feel fulfilled and was making me a worse person in the process. And while I understand your feeling of “well, at least you had those results, I’d love to have that”, I thought the same way, back in my bad old days. And I am here to tell you from personal experience that there are few things that will leave you feeling emptier than getting what you want and realizing that it meant nothing. That none of it was going to do what you thought it would, that it doesn’t change how you feel about yourself, nor does it “fix” you in any way that matters.  

I’ve also been clear that I learned a lot when I was in the scene. But I need to be clear here: most of what we learned wasn’t exclusive, occult knowledge; it was a hodge-podge of guesses and assumptions about women and female sexuality based on nothing but vibes and “Trust Me Bro” just-so stories, mixed with occasional smatterings of actual, actionable and practical advice. Nothing I learned from my days in the pick-up scene were things I couldn’t have learned anywhere else; it was simply that at the time, these were the only places and people who were teaching men how to socialize, how to present ourselves and how to actually date. Even if much of it was not just out and out wrong, but harmful to myself and, importantly, to others.

Many of the improvements that we experienced had far less to do with what we were taught and far more to do with a willingness to believe that we could improve and to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, challenge self-limiting beliefs and trying things that we never thought to try before. Much of what we were taught actually hindered us, rather than helped; many of our successes were in spite of the teachings, not because of them. If you want to get nit-picky about things, much of what helped us improve was a combination of deliberate practice and a group of friends supporting and encouraging one another. A big part of what helped me, once I left the scene, was making a concerted effort to filter out the actual useful advice from the crap, and then trying to understand why the stuff that worked actually worked and to build on that.  

Now, I’m going to emphasize this part: “our successes were often in spite of what we were taught”, because this is relevant to a lot of what you’ve said in your letter. Specifically, it’s this part: “The behaviours I’m told are repulsive often seem to be the ones that attract the most.” This is precisely where you’re going off the rails and it’s affecting everything else. If there’s one thing that humans are good at, it’s fundamental attribution errors and actor-observer bias – making observations and drawing conclusions based on assumptions that aren’t actually based in fact – and that’s precisely what you’re doing here.

What’s actually going on is that, among other things, those people are proactive. They’re putting themselves out there, approaching people, shooting their shot, getting shot down and pivoting to approach other people. That alone makes a difference, because – like the oft-quoted Great One says: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. The more shots you take on the goal, the greater the odds that one goes in. You notice the successes because those are the ones that are significant to you; you’re not seeing or counting the times they get turned away, laughed at, shot down or otherwise rejected. That alone is giving you a mistaken impression of how this works.

But then you compound it by attributing their success to their flaws, as though being abusive or violent or having substance abuse issues makes them more desirable. This should be so self-evidently false that you should recognize it for what it is – your focusing on your perceptions and beliefs about other people, assuming them to be not just true but universally held. What you aren’t doing is giving any thought to what you’re not seeing or acknowledging what you don’t know. You are seeing a very small slice of their interactions and relationships, and you’re seeing it from the outside. You aren’t seeing what happens when you’re not around, what happened before or after what you witnessed. Nor do you have any access to their interiority – their thoughts, their beliefs or perceptions.

Because hey, it turns out that abusers don’t go around wearing signs saying “I’m an abusive fuckhead”. Awful people don’t brag about being awful to people they’re meeting. The ones who are good at getting other partners are also very good at hiding those traits or highlighting others. Many are very good at putting up false fronts, downplaying or explaining away their flaws and – importantly – choosing people who are more likely to be vulnerable to their schtick. They’re good at finding the people who’re emotionally vulnerable, people with anxious or insecure attachment issues, or who think that they can “fix” those flaws. And those particularly successful men – who, I should emphasize, are not the majority – are only notable because they’re successful. You aren’t complaining about the toxic guys who are perpetually single, after all; if their toxicity was the draw, then they would be practically non-existent.

Unless you honestly think that those women were deliberately choosing people because they were awful, you have to agree that you don’t have the full picture of what’s going on and why they chose those partners and you’re making inaccurate assumptions based on a flawed premise.

Nor are you even recognizing or really acknowledging that you contradict this in your next paragraph, where you talk about people who weren’t toxic or abusive were in loving and successful relationships. The closest you come to addressing this dichotomy is by assigning those a lesser status – they aren’t as real, valid or meaningful because of how those couples got together. As though a romance that bloomed over time is somehow less than one that started through a chance meeting between strangers – toxic partner or no.

This is all important because it’s coming down to the same issue that drew “A Win That’s Not A Win” to the Red Pill community: you’re looking for validation from others in the form of attention and sex. And AWTNAW – and I and others – have already told you that this doesn’t work. The validation that this supposedly brings doesn’t fill the hole inside you; it just makes the hole feel even larger, even emptier than before because it didn’t work. That hole can only be filled from within you.

You’re only accepting validation when it comes from others. You are only accepting that you’re someone worth loving if other people love you. That makes everything that’s supposedly good about you conditional, everything about you that’s of value only exists if other people perceive and acknowledge it. If your sense of self-worth and value isn’t integral and inherent to you, something that exists regardless of whether other people agree or not, then that means that those qualities don’t truly exist for you and your worth can be taken from you at any time.

This is a recipe for insecurity and misery, because it makes you a slave to other people’s beliefs and expectations. You will never feel secure in yourself or your connection with other people, simply because one person can undo all of it.

This is why part of the real secret sauce from my time in the PUA scene were my friends in the scene. We were supportive and encouraging of one another, but also we were pushing each other to acknowledge and validate our beliefs in ourselves. This is part of what you need: gassing yourself up in support of your inherent value. Not “you’re an awesome person because women are into you”, but “you’re an awesome person, now go show them who you are.” This is one of the reasons why it’s important to be your own biggest fan and number-one cheerleader. And if you can build a group of friends who care for, motivate and support one another in the same way, so much the better.

If you want to make things easier for you? The support of Team You will do precisely that.

But that’s not the only issue at hand, here. I want to circle back to something important that I mentioned several times in this reply alone: the successes my friends and I achieved and the ones that the awful people you complain about manage are because of action. Being a good person who’s done the work and having great qualities makes you a better partner, yes, but you have to show them to other people. You have to put yourself out there, give people reasons to want to get to know you and learn more about you. That requires being proactive, even in the face of rejection or failure.

Being kind and emotionally available are all important and are qualities that women want in a partner. So how are you showing them that you’d be a great partner besides simply existing and begin good? How are you building connections with people, generating interest and showing interest in them? What are you doing to actively meet people and build chemistry? The awful folks you complain of are doing that, so why aren’t you?

Nobody is going to just divine that you would be a great partner or sense that you’re a good person inside. You have to be able to show them through your actions. You have to be a verb, not an adjective. Believing that malignance of spirit and soul are somehow visible to all, obvious in its malignancy or that bad behavior is always punished and never rewarded is a just-world fallacy in action… but so is believing that goodness or high-value qualities are inherently visible and rewarded.

If you want your awesome qualities to be noticed, then you have to show them to people, not wait for people to see you. You have to be proactive about letting people know that you’re there, you’re single and ready to mingle instead of hoping that you’ll stand out from the crowd and be chosen through no effort of your own. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be challenges, nor does it mean that you won’t face rejection. It means that you perservere through those challenges, build your resilience, learn from your failures and apply those lessons to the next time. You don’t wait for opportunities, you make them.

It won’t always be an instant connection between strangers. Sometimes the best way will be that slow burn that builds between two people. That, too, is something that’s built instead of something that “just happens”; it’s just built over time and from a foundation of a genuine connection of friendship and respect. That’s just as real, just as valid and just as important than a lightning strike, and treating it as the consolation prize just limits your options even further.

If you want to be noticed, then be a verb, not an adjective.

Good luck.

Hi Dr NerdLove, 

Hoping you can help me with an issue that’s been ongoing. My girlfriend and I have been together about a year, with almost all of it being long distance. 

At the start of our relationship, we would be talking as much as possible on the phone or over video calls, swapping stories, learning about each other more and more, etc. As time has gone on, she’s taken to calling me and then simply going about her day without actually having a conversation with me. At one point, she disclosed that she liked keeping me in her ear in case of a situation developing and to reassure her, which I was good with because it made her feel safer. 

Now though, the phone calls and video calls are much more “her living her life leaving me to listen to background noise” with very occasional statements that might be vaguely directed at me, but not a conversation in any sense.

How can I communicate that phone calls (especially) are about conversation and communication, and that leaving me to feel like I’m on hold in my own relationship is making me feel like hitting “End Call”? 

Thanks

Hanging On The Telephone

I think you’re misunderstanding what your girlfriend is getting from these calls, HOTT, because this isn’t about relegating you to background noise. It’s about bridging the literal distance between you.

What your girlfriend is doing is what’s often known as “body doubling”, something that’s been popular among neurodivergent people. At its most basic, body doubling is simply “doing things with another person present” – that is, you’re working on a task with a friend or acquaintance in close proximity. You aren’t necessarily working together, nor are you necessarily doing the same things; you’re simply doing stuff with company. Sometimes that proximity is physical and in person, other times it’s virtual and done over phone calls, voice or video chat.

Body doubling can also be a virtual hang-out too; it’s become popular especially among Gen Z and Gen Alpha as a way to spend time with friends, even if you’re doing different things in different places. There are lots of young people who will hop on video or Discord calls and then go about their day, occasionally chatting with each other and otherwise just spending time in companionable silence.

To take this to a dating context: you and your girlfriend are long-distance. Your ability to spend time together is quite obviously limited, and when you dosee each other, it tends to mean packing a lot into a relatively small amount of time. But what I think you’re missing is what life would be like if you were in the same city. If you lived much closer – or even shared a living space – then not every moment would be filled with dates and meaningful conversation. You’d have errands to run, chores to do, the minutia of day-to-day existence that we rarely think of in the context of a relationship. And while that can seem incredibly mundane, even boring on the outside… sometimes what you miss most are those quiet, unassuming moments of companionship, the comforting presence of your partner being nearby, even if you’re not interacting much in that moment.

You two can’t have that right now because of the realities of geographic distance… but you can simulate some of it with technology. That, I think, is precisely what your girlfriend is getting out of this: that feeling of “well, we may be miles apart, but I can make it feel like you’re there with me.”

I realize that you’re used to phone calls being about conversation and communication, but they’re also about connection. What your girlfriend is doing is connection in another form, just one you may not be used to. Personally, I’d suggest giving it a shot in the spirit of “this is about us spending time together” as though you were physically present and see how it feels. If it turns out that you can’t really vibe with that… well, you gave it an honest try, and you can tell her that you prefer more traditional phone calls.

Personally… well, I think it’s actually sweet and more romantic than any grand gesture.

Good luck.