DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I wanted to ask if you could help me out with something. This is my first time writing to you, although sadly this letter is probably a few years too late. I have done some terrible things.

A few years ago, I was talking to a girl on Twitter, she is the same age as me (18, at the time). I will just call her D. We have never met in person and live in different countries (I live in the UK and she lives in Norway) and had started talking a year earlier. It was obvious she only talked to me because she pitied me. I was very needy and insecure. I asked her out earlier that year, which was stupid as we live in different countries and couldn’t have dated anyway. She politely said no. I messaged her back but didn’t here back from her. I didn’t hear from her for about six months, until I created a twitter account just to get in touch with her.

Anyway, so it was later that year, and while talking to her as myself, I created a new twitter account under a fake name to talk to her. I originally created this in order to talk to her anonymously and not have to worry about what I wrote to her. Anyway, I couldn’t resist asking about her boyfriend. After, I asked about him once I couldn’t stop probing her about him. I asked to see a photograph of him, and then ignored her first attempts to refuse to give me that picture. Also, while I was doing this I hunted down a photograph some guy who she may or may not have been dating in order to compare myself to him. I asked some guy she was friends with on twitter tons of questions about D, such as whether or not they talked about me and even asked if he thought she and her best friend ever had sex. The exact question was ”Do you think D and her best friend ever lezzed off before?” At the time, I thought this was an okay thing to ask. He said that was creepy and refused to keep talking to me.

I eventually admitted to D that it was me and we stopped talking for a short while. I offered to leave her alone, and she then took me up on it. I eventually messaged her again anyway.

I was recently re-reading a conversation I had with a Woman on Quora about this (which is what inspired me to write to you). She was trying to convince me that this was cyber stalking and would have frightened her a lot. She even advised me to write to you. I didn’t want to believe I had stalked, as that would probably have meant I had no chance with her, and knew what you would say, so I refused. She said she knew I would do this, as I had too much staked on my self image as having not done so much harm. She eventually cut contact with me, as she promised she would if I messaged D or her friends, without letting her get in touch with me first.

A year from when I created that fake account, I insulted her as I was desperate for attention from her. I messaged many times after that and never got a response. I had bad day, and I logged on to the internet and began insulting a bunch of people. A bunch of people who had been good to me, including D. I regretted doing this and when I went to apologize she had already replied. She told me she had been busy with work and uni and a family member of hers had just died. She told me she was disappointed in me and said she no longer wanted to talk to me anymore.

I left her alone for two months, until I messaged her again. This time the message was much bigger and more insulting. In the message, I said things like how I only wanted to give her multiple orgasms (this was intended to be a ridiculous thing to say, not serious, but I didn’t realize it had rape connotations). I also told her how I was jealous of her boyfriend and wished I was more like him. I also called her boyfriend a “cuck” and insulted him several times and insulted D once. I didn’t think about what I was doing and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I originally was just some something ridiculous about her boyfriend and I thought I could provoke her into responding to me. I felt entitled to talk to her and couldn’t stand it that she didn’t want to talk to me.

The next morning, I tried to apologize and try to convince her not to block me. In the end, I ended up writing a bunch of nonsense, and then she blocked me anyway. Of course, I know I completely deserved to be blocked and I am probably lucky that’s all she did. At first I was okay with it. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In the next hour or so, reality set in. I had realized what a terrible thing I had done and that I would never get a fix of my fantasy girl ever again. I panicked and created another twitter account and begged her to message me. She blocked me and I created another account. She ignored and then I gave up. I curled up into a ball for a while and it was one of the worst days of my life. I thought I was done, only do the same thing again a week later. I tweeted her the next morning on the third fake account, I apologized for what I did and promised never to contact her. again. That was at the beginning of a new year and the last time I contacted her. Although, I had been tempted to add her on Facebook messenger a few times, but I knew it was wrong and thought about she wanted for once. So I didn’t do it.

Again, not trying to paint myself as a victim here, but I do deeply regret what I did and I know that sort of behavior is completely unacceptable. She was very sweet person as well which makes my treatment towards her even worse. I have only been able to accept what I did was stalking until recently, when I knew I definitely wouldn’t hear from her again. I had too much staked on my self image as having not done the wrong thing I had done. Now that I have stopped lying to myself and accepted how poorly I treated her, all I feel is grief.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you

What do you think of my behavior?

Do you think she was frightened by how I behaved? Does she probably think I would beat and rape her if given the chance?( I wouldn’t obviously)

Also, do you have any advice for me to help make sure I never behave this way again?

Thanks a lot Doc!

Yours Sincerely

C-Creep-e-o

DEAR C-CREEP-E-O: Wow sport, when you f

k up, you don’t do it small, huh?

Well, you asked for the Chair Leg of Truth, so you’re going to get it. Better buckle up chief, because this ain’t going to be pretty.

Here’s what you did: you stalked someone, gaslight her, tried to drag her friends into enabling your stalking of her, created multiple accounts in order to get around her blocking you, sexually harassed her repeatedly, insulted her, insulted her boyfriend and continually begged for more access to her after doing all of the above, then proceeded to insult and harass her some more.

You manage to hit pretty much every single point on how to not talk to a woman on social media short of actually waving your d

k at them and frankly I’m kind of surprised you managed to leave that one out.

Literally everything about your interaction with her told her that you:

Have no concept of boundaries

Ask profoundly inappropriate questions of her friends

Say horrifically inappropriate things to her

Have no problem with stalking people

Have a hair-trigger temper and lash out at the slightest provocation

Will immediately turn around and beg forgiveness and swear that you didn’t mean it before doing it all again

Will work constantly to circumvent her attempts to shut you out of her life.

Congratulations, my dude, you hit “I’m A Violent Abuser” yahtzee! I can’t f

king IMAGINE why she didn’t want to talk to you.

You say you’d never hurt her. This may indeed be literally true. Too bad everything you write about in this letter has so many red flags it looks like a NASCAR race in Beijing. Women look at this behavior from a guy and assume the worst because, quite frankly, they’ve either experienced it personally before, or they know somebody who has. The Internet is littered with stories of women who had randos on the Internet lose their s

t at them to disastrous results. Even with thousands of miles between you, it’s not as though we don’t have an abundance of examples of how dudes used the Internet to punish women they were angry at.

Frankly, if you were in the same country, I’d imagine she’d be looking into protective orders to get you to leave her the hell alone.

So, yeah. She’s had reason to be afraid.

What do you need to do? You need to get your happy ass into therapy. You have a whole lot to learn about handling your emotions, appropriate ways of dealing with anger and frustration and a s

tload of emotional issues that I can’t deal with for you. And until you do, I suspect that it would be a very good idea to stay the f

k off the Internet so you don’t unleash this torrent of bulls

t behavior on your next crush.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I started dating this guy about a month ago.

He is very nice, gentle, extremely considerate, sometimes v. cheesy (my analytical mind says), and if there is such a thing as doing everything right, I think he is probably doing everything right.

He introduced me to his friends by date three, we went out as a group by date four. And, he started planning tons of things to do for us for months to come.

I am so impressed by his attitude and personality, but having come out of a bad first relationship, I have a nagging voice telling me “what if this is just an act”. Although, how could someone act like that?

Anyways, here is the only problem so far:

We have kissed, with some heavy petting etc. I am a penis-in-vagina virgin. I haven’t had suitable opportunities in my short dating history to do that. I am also into developing an understanding, affection and care for a person before getting physical. I told him very early about these values, and the fact that I want to take my time. And I added that if and when I am ready, I will tell him, and I hope we both get tested, work on contraceptive and stuff to ensure that we are both safe. He agreed, and assured me that that was fine by him.

In the next few weeks, we ended up spending most of the time in his house, usually in his room. And what starts as a let’s watch this anime, or let’s make some tea and talk, ends up with us cuddling in his bed. I do like cuddling very much, but I feel as if that most of it is angling towards making both of us hot and bothered. And his pointing out a few times that ” I just need to say the word” or ” we might actually have sex sooner than you think”. I start feeling uncomfortable, but he is really nice and I feel bad refusing to go to his place. Also, he said we should get STD tested.

Recently, I told him that I still need time in order to have sex. I really don’t feel ready.

He said he is willing to wait, especially if there was some form of sexual relief (that didn’t have to be sexual intercourse). Inner red flags started appearing. Then he added, he was thinking that he can wait for a couple of months, but afterwards, he will probably start looking for someone else.

My reaction was to say that I understand. I reality, I am not sure (1) having been abstinent for years, I feel it shouldn’t be that difficult to do. (2) Having been abstinent for years, I feel may be I am not qualified to talk for people who are sexually active, and may be things are indeed different and people need sex at least every two months.

Frankly, I am confused. Part of me likes this person very much, and the other part is skeptic and now feeling very unsafe. May be it is also my problem for not being as sexually active at this age, and expectations are different.

Heck, I don’t know.

Is this guy saying something reasonable ? Or, is this my cue to an incompatibility between us?

Thank you very much

A Visitor From Planet Inexperienced

DEAR A VISITOR FROM PLANET INEXPERIENCED: He’s not willing to wait. He SAYS he’s willing, but all of his behavior is him pushing you to giving in and sleeping with him. I mean holy s

t, “We may be having sex sooner than you think”? While I don’t think that’s a threat, that’s not someone who’s patient and kind and giving you the space to feel comfortable and secure. That’s somebody who thinks that if he pushes you juuuust right he’ll get you to give him what he wants.

What you said about his using cuddling to get you hot and bothered? That is EXACTLY what he’s trying to do; he’s hoping that he’s going to get you to say “yes” by either turning you on so much that you throw your reservations out the window or you’ll feel his boner poking in your back and feel like you need to do something with it. And that bit about “Well, I’ll wait but only so long”, while honest, is meant to push you into being afraid to lose him.

So I’d say you need to call his bluff and – in the words of Dan Savage – DTMFA because this ain’t going anywhere good. And, let’s be honest: this isn’t someone worth losing your virginity to. Even if we leave out the whole “pushing you for sex”, the two of you are sexually incompatible. You have different drives and expectations and those aren’t going to line up in ways that’ll make you both happy.

But then there’s the fact that someone who’s this much of a dick about your feeling comfortable and secure isn’t good boyfriend material. They’re a case of Crouching Nice Guy, Hidden Douchebag and things are only going to get worse from here.

Here’s the thing: you have the right to go at your pace and what you feel comfortable with. Yes, people are more likely to want and expect sex at a pace that you aren’t cool with… but that does not mean that your comfort and desires are irrelevant. It may mean that you’re going to have to do more dating and more searching to find someone who is worth dating. There are dudes out there – especially demisexual guys – who’re a slow burn, just like you are. Finding someone who is on the same page as you or is actually willing to wait (instead of saying “OK, I’ll put up with oral sex for a while, but I expect you to give it up sooner rather than later” while poking you with his erection) is worth the effort.

And even if you decide to pick someone and just get it over with, you can do a metric ton better than this douche. Kick his ass to the curb and find someone who’s legitimately good, not a jackass in good-guy drag.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NEDLOVE: I’ve been with this guy for about 8 months now and I wouldn’t say I’m happy but it’s company. Recently I’ve been having sex dreams:

1. I was having sex with some girl (completely unknown)

2. I was having sex with an ex (I believe it’s because he reminds me of a movie character who I am attracted to and who’s movie I had recently rewatched)

3. I was pregnant by said same ex but the person he was in the dream was much better than who is was to me in real life

4. had sex with a cousins roommate because I had broken up with my boyfriend and needed to get him out of my head (in the dream it seemed like that was just an excuse to have sex with someone else)

(These are all in the past like week or two)

I guess it’s worth mentioning that I haven’t been having sex with him lately and we were at one point very sexually active (like 3-5 times a week; like 3-6 rounds through our time together). He is at the top of my best sex list and because he’s mine (doesn’t happen very often) so I can do more and feel more comfortable. I may have an idea of what these dreams may mean but I really need some second or more opinions….

Thank you

Hey Libido Bats in the Belfry

DEAR HEY LIBIDO BATS IN THE BELFRY: Here’s what sex dreams mean: your brain is doing weird s

t. Period. Maybe you’re feeling frustrated and horny and it’s getting pulled into the core dump your unconscious does when you sleep. But in terms of the people you’re having sex with? That’s just the weirdness of dreams.

If you let the randomness of who you find in your dreams take on too much meaning, you’ll lose your goddamn mind. People have dreams about sex with all kinds of random people, from folks outside your sexual orientation to family members or other people you’d never touch with a borrowed vagina and Ryan Gosling doing the pushing. It doesn’t mean anything other than dreams are goddamn weird.

You can dig into the Jungian analysis and what-not if you want, but honestly? It doesn’t mean much. If it’s making you think of an issue in your relationship, then it’s as good a motivation to go hash it out. But don’t get too deep into things before you start wondering if Father McGuilicutty is giving you the eye and also might look better as a merman.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)