This is a legitimate complaint about DNL, and one other people have expressed. He has a single model that he tends to fall back on for how to generate attraction. It's a model that tends to work, but it's not a model that suits everybody equally. Particularly on earlier articles, such as this one, his focus tends to be a little narrow.

I'd suggest reading with a grain of salt. The parts of his advice that will work with your lifestyle you can take. The parts that feel totally alien you can leave behind.

I do think that despite the fact that his advice all focuses on an outgoing pattern of behavior, you can apply the general idea to different behavior patterns as well.

For instance, you don't have to engage in daring innuendo to subtly hint at more sensual topics. Any way in which you can introduce attraction or dating or sex into the conversation is going to shift the interaction towards a more romantic/dating zone. Knowing how people (and not just women) tend to react to conversations, and what they tend to interpret as flirting, helps you to make your intentions clearer.

I will say that a man who does the things DNL suggests will leave me in no doubt of his intentions. That's helpful to both of us. But if it doesn't work for you, then there are ways to get the same effect that will work within your personality.

I view every man as a sexual entity, because I view them all as potential sources of sexual violence or harassment, pushing their sexual desires at me. Was that what you meant?

It's important to note that the language in the CA letter was a little different, and included:

I think a lot of my anger derives from stereotypes about male privilege, my own less-than-ideal past experiences with exes, and the aforementioned mommy issues. Can you help me untangle some of this???

My peanut gallery/greek chorus says dump him. It sounds like, they say, I just don’t like him. I do like him. I think?

So Captain Awkward was responding to someone saying, "My friends are telling me to ditch him, but I still like him! What do I do?" And the Doc was responding to someone saying, "Am I being a dick? Can I just ditch him?"

I do think the advice is different to those two questions. CA's advice was about how to try to salvage a relationship the LW wants to keep, and DNL's was about reassuring the LW that she's not the problem here, and giving the permission to dump that was requested in this letter.

I'm so sorry, trundlebear.

I'm kind of not ready to talk about my April so far yet, but I am definitely with you on the "Fuck off" train for this month.

Sounds like your uncle was a great guy, and like he lived every minute of his life fully. Take the time you need to grieve. *hug*

I upload my music to Amazon cloud and then stream it on my phone. Dunno if that's viable for you.

On top of this, people who are against their tax dollars being spent find all kinds of justifications for why the recipient is undeserving -- too lazy to work, should have had kids they couldn't afford, didn't take care if f themselves, made a choice to have kids, whatever.

When it comes to themselves, it's easy to say, "I can't get sex because the world was unfair to me, so It's only right that the world provide."

I think it was here that somebody was talking about the poor woman theoretically tapped to throw herself on that live grenade of awful and twisted to save lives. And you know she would never be able to leave without setting him off...

OMG, so many jedi hugs for the dry elbows. I have those, and I grieve for you.

The best advice I have ever heard for jerkbrain, and the only advice that ever really helped me, is to tag it when you see it. The problem isn't that the messages are there, it's that we accept them as truth without scrutiny. If the asshole at the Shakespearean club was saying, "If your dick haveth not sufficient inches, then thy lady shall leaveth thee for a stallion of greater girth hurr hurr," you would not be despairing, you would be thinking, "Wow, why do I even come here?"

So tag the thoughts as opinion rather that fact. You think, "My dick sucks," and add, "Is how I'm feeling right now."

Or, "She's going to leave me for someone who can bench press more pounds... is a fear I should examine more closely"

Label the thoughts. "This is a habitual trash-talk of myself", "This is me going down a spiral of more extreme thoughts," "This is me being afraid."

This does a few things.

1. It labels the thoughts as something other than facts.
2. It engages your logical mind, which likes to label and categorize things, and can thus stop the extreme emotional swings.
3. It helps you to see patterns in your thoughts.
4. It helps you to find your way past your thoughts to the underlying thoughts and feelings inspiring them.

Good luck, OP1!

*hug* That sounds really, really awful. Best wishes for your whole family. I hope things get better from here on out.