My Life Is Great, but It’s Empty! What Do I Do?

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I feel like I’m stranded on a desert island when it comes to finding a meaningful relationship. I’m starting to wonder if I’m holding myself back with self-limiting beliefs, but I’m not sure how to break free. I’d really appreciate your insight—I’m at a loss and could use some direction.

I’m 32, though I’m often told I look younger, and I’d say I’m generally considered attractive. I’ve never been married, don’t have kids, and have no addictions. I’ve built a stable life: I own my house and car, hold a solid job (backed by a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and additional certifications), and have savings and investments to show for it. I stay active with a smart home gym setup and work out regularly. Socially, I’d say I’m adept — I can hold my own in conversations and shine when I’m in the right frame of mind, though I’m no social superstar. I’m also active in my church community, attending every Sunday, which keeps me connected in that sphere.

Dating, though, has been a struggle. I’ve tried apps like Facebook Dating, Bumble, and Tinder, where I get matches, but distance often makes it tough to connect with someone nearby. It’s also hard to find a decent match. I’ve also experimented with Jigsaw, a social media app that hosts in-person events once a month—great idea, but the turnout is hit-or-miss, and I haven’t clicked with anyone there. Last year, feeling desperate, I made the mistake of signing up for a “professional dating service” called It’s Just Lunch. It was a disaster—their customer service was awful, and the matches felt like a pool of older women or single moms who didn’t align with what I’m looking for. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out of the contract fast enough.

Over the past year, I’ve had a handful of dates, but nothing has sparked. My life feels consumed by work, working out, investing, and hobbies — good things, sure, but it’s getting lonely. I’ve thought about getting a pet, like a dog or cat, but that feels like a band-aid, not a solution. I know I’ve put effort into improving myself, but there’s only so much self-work I can do before I need help figuring out what’s missing.

I want to move forward, but I’m clueless about what I’m doing wrong or what steps to take next. Dr. NerdLove, you’re my only hope here—please help me get unstuck and point me toward a path that works.

Thanks so much,

Sleepless In Suburbia

P.S. I live in the suburbs near a major city, so there’s got to be a woman out there for me somewhere around here. I’m longing for a woman who sets my heart and soul ablaze. Lately, I feel like a lost soul trapped in purgatory. My last relationship ended over two years ago—a two-hour long-distance thing that left me wanting more. Life isn’t terrible, but the lack of companionship is wearing on me, and honestly, it’s making me a little irritable. I’ve got all this freedom, yet I’m still restless and on edge.

There are a couple of things that you’re doing here that a lot of guys in your situation do, SiS: you’re doing a lot of self-improvement, but it’s very internal work.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s good to be working on yourself, it’s good to be setting yourself up with a stable foundation to build on and doing things that improve your physical and mental well-being… but when it comes to dating and relationships, it’s a lot like having six-pack abs: they’re nice and all, but they aren’t going to do the job by themselves. Most people aren’t going to know you have them unless you’re going around bragging about them and at that point most folks’ reactions will be a mix of annoyance and “…so?” Because while said six-pack is aesthetically pleasing, it’s not exactly something that makes people say “hell yes I want to get with that person and spend years of my life with them.”

That’s the thing about having the sort of solid foundation you talk about – a good education, being financially secure and so on. They’re good things to have and are definitely a value add, but they’re not the things that attract people to potential partners. They’re things we look for when we’re looking to settle down and start a life… but before we get to that part, we have to meet people who inspire us to want to spend time with them in the first place. And those traits you mention aren’t things that make people say “this is my future life partner-in-crime,” when they meet you.

Back in the days when marriage was literally the difference between starvation and survival for women because they couldn’t have direct control over their own finances? Yeah, that’d make you one of the hottest bachelors on the block. But in an era of increasing equity between the sexes, when women have actual financial independence separate from their spouses, that’s not gonna make hearts go a-flutter all on its own. It’s a mark that you’d make for a good, stable partner and that you’re in a position to help weather hard times… but that’s something that tends to come after you’re already started dating and they’re looking at potentially getting serious.

As I’ve said before: if you want to attract people, you want to cultivate qualities that entice and encourage people to spend time with you. Those qualities can vary, but they have one thing in common: they help people feel good when you’re around and enjoy being in your presence. And to be clear: this doesn’t mean that you need to be a dancing clown, always putting on a performance. Sometimes it’s as simple as being the rock that people can cling to, a steady and reassuring presence in a sea of chaos. Sometimes it’s generosity of the heart and the willingness to serve others because it’s the right thing to do. It’s going to vary, depending on the people you’re most compatible with and your personality, but finding those qualities and developing them is important.

Just as important is recognizing where some of the problems are. You mention being lonely, and I can’t help but notice that the things that seem to take up all your time are solo activities. You don’t mention, for example, having a group of friends or spending time doing social stuff outside of attending church. That’s another issue that comes up with men fairly frequently: we’re lonely in part because we just don’t have a steady group of friends to spend time with. In fact, this frequently becomes an issue for men in relationships: their (usually female) partners end up serving as their social director as well as romantic partner, helping plan and maintain social connections outside of the relationship. When the relationship ends – whether through break ups, divorce or even death – the men often find themselves alone and isolated simply because they’d outsourced their social lives to their partner. If you don’t have a social life beyond work and church on Sundays, that’s another area to look to improve on.

It’s also why I cocked an eyebrow when you mention getting a pet but seeing it as a bandage rather than a solution. As someone who’s had pets all his life, I can tell you that they are amazing at helping ease your loneliness. They provide companionship, teach you about empathy and communication and encourage developing skills focused on care and nurturing, and they simply love us in uncomplicated ways.

Just as importantly though: it can also be a step towards easing your loneliness. You call it a bandage, but here’s the funny thing about bandages – they’re usually the first part of a solution. When doing first aid, one of the first steps is stop the bleeding. It doesn’t do any good to get to said solution if the patient bleeds out before you get there. Not feeing as lonely because of the simple comfort of another living, caring being in the house goes a long way; after all, now you’re not relying on one person to solve your loneliness issues.

Plus, having, say, a dog, means you’re going to have to go out a lot, just taking them on walks and keeping them entertained. But it also creates opportunity to find community and meet people – being a regular at the dog park, meeting folks when you take him to puppy training/socialization classes and so on. And there’re few things cuter than adorable, doting pet dads.

Most importantly, however, is that I think you – like a lot of folks – need to dial back the focus on dating-specific environments and apps and work on just meeting people. While yes, dating oriented events and the like are good, there’s also a certain expectation of lightning striking for the connection to be valid or worth pursuing. While it’s great when that happens, most human relationships don’t tend to start with attraction like bolts of thunder out of the blue; more often than not, we get to know someone and our affection for them grows with that familiarity.

Dating apps and speed-dating don’t necessarily allow for that slow burn and put a lot of pressure on people to make the love connection right then and there. Sometimes what you need is simply be out in the world, making a point of being with like-minded people and building connections. Some of those connections will be attraction – you’ll meet people who push all the right buttons for you. Others will be comradeship, people who you relate to and who become part of your life because you vibe well and become friends. And sometimes theres’ overlap: friends who become lovers, and friends who introduce you to potential lovers because those potential partners are part of their lives – lives that you have now become a part of.

So I think this is a good time for you to take a look at your life – personally and professionally – and do some evaluating of your priorities and shifting things around. Take that energy you put into internal self-improvement and see about cultivating qualities that help make you someone folks like to spend time with. Similarly, taking time to find your community, to meet people and make friends and put yourself in fortune’s path will make it a lot easier to meet people that might make good partner. After all, if you want to meet someone who sets your mind afire and your soul ablaze, you are more likely to meet them when you’re doing things that also set your soul ablaze. After all, if you like the same things, the odds are good that you’re going to like a lot of things about each other, too.

Good luck.

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Dear Dr. NerdLove:

What do you do when you think you’re falling out of love with someone? I’ve been married to my wife for over 15 years now. Over the course of that time, we went from being unable to keep our hands off each other to my being annoyed when my wife cuddles up to me on the couch as we watch TV.

I know that things aren’t going to be as passionate as they were at the beginning but now I feel like time we spend together is an imposition. When I think about making plans, I don’t plan date nights or whatnot, I want to make them with just me and my friends. When she asks me about my day after work or texts me something funny the dog did, I feel like it’s intruding on time I want to spend on my own.

It’s not that I dislike her or hate her, I just find everything to be annoying or expecting to feel pressured to act like I did when we first started dating. I’m in my early 40s now, I don’t feel ANYTHING like I did when we first met. I don’t really want to get divorced, but if she were to come with papers, I’m not sure how hard I’d fight. There’re times I feel like maybe life would be better if I were living on my own, on my own terms and not having to run it through another person.

I feel bad about feeling this way, but I don’t know how to change it or if I should even try. What do I do?

One Foot Out The Door

Y’know, OFOTD, it’s certainly possible that your relationship with your wife is reaching its natural conclusion. Not every relationship is meant to last forever; sometimes they’re only right for us for a little while, and then we reach a point where they no longer meet our needs and that’s ok. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the relationship; it just means that you’ve reached the end of the chapter of this particular stage of your life.

But it’s also possible that you’ve fallen victim to one of the greatest and most colossal traps that hits basically every couple: you got too comfortable and that comfort has started turning into contempt. There’s a quote from Esther Perel’s Mating In Captivity that I feel is relevant here: “Too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire. They forget that fire needs air.”

Here’s the thing: in every relationship, we all settle down and settle in. We get comfortable with that person, in part because we feel safe and secure. We don’t necessarily feel like we need to keep up with certain things because we know we love them and they love us. And while that’s a good thing – relationships should be comfortable – it also means that you quit doing more than the bare minimum to keep the relationship going. Yeah, human biology means that the initial waves of passion are gonna slow down and you’re not going to be as hungry for each other as you used to be, but that doesn’t mean that you should let everything slide. And yes, some of this is simply a matter of “ok, I don’t feel like I need to be in fighting trim at all times” – you’ve got a partner, after all, you don’t need all that wonderful plumage to attract one – but some of where we let standards slip is in how we treat our partners and our relationship.

One of the interesting things about human psychology is how much our behavior shapes our feelings, rather than vice-versa. We as a species are very bad at understanding why we feel the way we do. We assume that we do X because we feel Y and Y inspires us to do X. But in reality, it’s often the other way around: we do X and that makes us feel Y instead. Our brains take the cues from our bodies and invent the reasons afterwards. The way we act can change the way we feel, simply because our brains assume that we’re acting this way because we feel thatway and so we start to feel it.

This matters in relationships because when you start to treat your partner as though they were less special, you tend to feel like they’re less special. And I don’t mean that you’re treating them badly, but that you’re simply not doing the little things that you used to do because it makes them smile. It’s easy to feel passion and excitement when you’re off together doing exciting things; it’s entirely different when the only place you take them is for granted.

So here’s a question for you: when’s the last time that you’ve made an effort for your wife? And I don’t mean doing expected household chores or maintenance, I mean making an effort specifically for her? When is the last time you dressed up sharp because you know she likes a sharp-dressed man? When is the last time you got her a little token of affection because you knew it would make her smile? When is the last time you planned a date for the two of you, not as a married couple but like you were planning a date from the early days of your courtship?

So my first advice for you is simple: make an effort. Even if right now it feels like you’re forcing it, make the effort to treat your wife like you’re only six months into the relationship. Treat her like she’s the Morticia to your Gomez or the Laura Mohr to your Shorsey, as though you would – to quote the sage – “tongue-kiss your toaster to vacuum your fuckin’ car”, the way you did at the start. Keep this up and you might be surprised just how much those old feelings start to return.

Now the second thing I would suggest is going to sound counter-intuitive but… have you considered having time away from her? You mention feeling smothered or inconvenienced by her, but when’s the last time you’ve legitimately gone and had a stretch of time on your own? I’m a big believer in couples having distinct and separate lives outside of their relationship, including going out on separate vacations. To return to Esther Perel for a moment, one of the insights from Mating In Captivity is how much familiarity is the antithesis of desire; love may be in the knowing, but desire is in the mystery. If you spend all of your time together – even if that time is separate but in the same house – then there’s no room for mystery, no room for discovery and no room for novelty. You don’t have as much to talk about simply because there’s not so much that’s happened that you didn’t experience at the same time. Taking time apart – as in vacations, not “we’re on a break” – can help rekindle that spark simply because that time apart means having different experiences. Those different experiences mean you grow and change in new and interesting ways and suddenly you have new things to learn about each other and to discuss with one another, new insights to share and new thoughts to plumb the depths of. It can also help ease this feeling of her being an almost-literal ball-and-chain.

The last thing I would suggest is that, before you talk to a lawyer, talk to a marriage counselor. Sometimes we can be too close to a problem to really see the size and shape of it. Having a third party to talk to, who can provide an outsider’s perspective and insight, can help identify where the issues are and help give you the vocabulary to dig into them.

It can alsohelp you figure out whether you’re there to save your marriage or to start the process of winding it down. Sometimes the point of visiting a marriage counselor is to help everyone come to the understanding that this relationship has reached it’s natural conclusion and to create a path forward that makes untangling and separating your lives a less fraught and troublesome process. We all like to roll our eyes at terms like ‘conscious uncoupling’, but there’s a lot to be said for treating the end of a relationship with seriousness and consideration rather than a contentious or traumatic break.

So start with simply making an effort for your wife – treating her like you love her as though it were the start of your relationship instead of the culmination of decades. Give yourself a little space outside of your time together, so that the two of you can have lives of your own and develop new things for the other to discover and learn about one another. And then, as this goes on, talk to a counselor about the state of your marriage.

Just because things feel the way they do now doesn’t mean that they’re inevitable, permanent or signal the ultimate end. Sometimes it just means you need to recognize that you’ve stopped caring because you stopped trying.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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