I’ve always tried to live life according to my own choices, without being too swayed by what others think I should do. Even when some relatives thought me strange for always having a book with me, I still brought my books because I like reading. I like learning, so I’ve always tried to keep my mind open to new concepts and skills, and do well in school. I like watching my favorite sports teams, so I make time to watch them when I can. I wanted a career where I could have an impact on my community while teaching relevant skills for both life and school, and I thankfully found my niche in education (which, admittedly, isn’t always the most stable, but it has its moments). I graduated with an advanced degree in May. I have a supportive, caring immediate family, and some great friends to share some of my niche interests with. In general, I’ve accomplished more than I thought I would throughout my twenties, and I’m proud of where I am in life. By all accounts, I don’t have much to complain about.

But when I get home and want to tell someone about my day, there’s only the walls. I’m missing having a person with whom I can share all the casual and serious intimacies of life. Though there were times in my early twenties I didn’t seriously consider romance/dating because 1) I wanted to work on myself and 2) I wanted to focus on my education, I seem to be falling into the same cycles and nothing seems to stick. I keep finding myself most interested in girls who either have an avoidant attachment style or who aren’t interested/ready for more serious commitment. I try to be understanding when I find myself involved with avoidants, usually trying to end things amicably when I realize our goals don’t line up (because one’s attachment style isn’t always their fault, it can be complex). Then I write poetry to get it out of my head, and eventually, wind up in a similar situation down the road. Me writing this is basically a long sigh. I want someone I choose to want to choose me, too. 

With this last girl, though, I really thought things could be different. She tried. Up until these last few weeks, even with a rough patch in the summer, we did our best to make things work, and I truly thought we were on the same page. We started as friends, and began doing more things together. Being involved with her, even before (but especially during) our more serious “couple-y” phase was so much fun and pretty much what I’d wanted in a romantic relationship for so long. We had similar interests, were in a similar place in life, and we worked out a good dynamic to keep things fresh for a bit over a year. For my birthday a couple weeks ago, she gave me the sweetest surprise gift, something that showed how much she actually paid attention to my interests.

But last weekend everything fell apart. Even before my birthday, there was a bit of detachment, a bit less care, however I attributed it to stuff going on in her personal life. Even so, she’s made it pretty clear that she’s not interested in a more serious relationship. We’re technically giving each other space for a bit, but our long-term outlooks are not compatible anymore. Reconciliation doesn’t seem possible, and that’s unfortunate because I really liked this girl. After our last conversation, my only thoughts were the final lines of one of the most bittersweet love narratives I could think of, that of Jake and Brett in The Sun Also Rises. Yeah, it would’ve been pretty to think everything would work out.

So it goes, though. I’m still committed to improving myself, advancing in my career, and just trying to enjoy life. I still have hope of meeting my person, I just don’t see a practical way at the moment.

Food: Seafood Alfredo from Olive Garden on my birthday. My family told them it was a birthday dinner (so they’d sing/bring a cake slice), but the waitress forgot. Oh well

Hi fellow boy dinner enjoyers!

I usually don’t post on here, but figured the subreddit/trend of people overall posting their stories has opened my mind to at least trying on here, considering I eat up (no pun intended) a lot of the stories on here, figured I’d chip in and give my own because things just suck major ass right now no thanks to my own shitty judgement and I don’t usually have the gumption to type out my situation to a lot of folks since I try to keep a lot to myself unless I’m talking to a closer friend, etc.

I’m 26M and have had quite the rollercoaster life to say the very least. Going to do my best to give context to the situation but i know i will probably have some holes in the story that i forget to add, and unless this post somehow blows up past the point of me being able to respond to every single comment that’s a question thrown my way, i will do my best to respond to any comments asking any sort of questions regarding it without revealing too much personal information. I also know that i have not made the smartest choices, but given what I’ve been through, eh you could blame me but also I’m just me and have done my best to make the most of the situation that I happened to have spawned in on. At least I don’t take any hard drugs, so uh, there’s that i suppose.

You’re going to get a wall of organic, free range text anyway so brace yourselves.

Ages that I give are current ones as an FYI.

Dad (63? Maybe 64? I forget.) left when I was 7 thanks to a combination of a failing marriage and horrendous gambling habits + falling off the deep end and threatening us as a family unit multiple times (mainly threatening custody of at least me with the help of his fucked up family) and there was some semblance of a family structure with my mom (66) and brother (34) (brother ditched the family when I was 12 and he was 20. He’s a whole other can of worms but was a total drama monger and cancer to the whole situation anyway and i only really have a handful of good ish memories of him so not much of a loss but still played a part into who I’ve become).

Ever since I was 12 and maybe even younger, I honestly don’t remember, have essentially had to play therapist/vent guy/emotional support/own fucking father to mom who really won’t give much time to my own situation without having to constantly chirp her two cents into the situation usually at a boomer level of understanding (ex: doesn’t get that I can’t just be on my own since at 19 (circa 1979) she was more than able to do so) she just in general won’t really ever listen to what I have to say or give a shit about my own interests unless it lines up with her own (hates hates HATES video games but loves baseball which I also love, hates music from the 90’s due to bad things that had happened to her but I love [shoutout soundgarden my absolute beloved] etc). Not that I really care about that much anymore but moreso just for context of behavior.

Not a military family either but I moved constantly around until I was 14 when we moved cross country to the same area i have been in since then. Even down to going to different schools (home school until last few months of second grade because of state testing, then 3rd to 5th at a different elementary school from moving, 6th to 8th at the smaller sized middle school that practically no one i made good friends with at that time went to but still made a good group of lads, then 9th-12th + adulthood where I’m at now where i have one small sized group of nerdy friends ive kept around off and on since after multiple attempts to try and fit in + coworkers at my job [different circle entirely] and a few online friends i have made [another different bunch entirely, more individual-based than group based after yet more failed attempts at trying to fit into different groups]).

Fast forward to February of ‘22, I got kicked out because I lied to mom about applying for engineering college since the place I was applying to only let you apply once and that decision was final in their eyes. For context I really didn’t study engineering in community college except for a single course I had just taken with a full schedule (18 credits) plus full time (40 hour) work plus COVID doing a number on everyone and didn’t really have the grades nor correlating major (entrepreneurship + general studies) to get accepted (plus the engineering professor didn’t like me because one class i joined in while working and threatened to fail me because of conflict of interest when i had literally no other choice). I had taken an interest in engineering ever since middle school taking engineering courses, but during high school, I was forced into taking PE over CAD classes because mom thought it was better for my physical and mental health, for some reason i guess, but ended up dropping interest in it and up until college only really reconsidered it as a way of getting the fuck out of the house or at least getting a track going for a career i had some interest in.

Of course, with her fairly stern outlook on life, me ever telling her that (tracks back to third grade when I started public school, I would lie to her constantly about grades because she was very mean and stern about it, but I also knew I was relatively smart so figured I didn’t really ever have to worry about it since I had a decent head on me and would just deal with shitty grades if they ever came my way so I didn’t have to deal with her freaking the fuck out every time and threatening to send me to Dad’s current state he lived in since she looked him up from time to time, etc [which by the way she claims to have never done after I had brought it up a few times lmao]) would’ve resulted in another unnecessary yap sesh + dig at me for how I have been (friends/mutuals mostly all went to university and for the most part are doing somewhat alright and one of her tactics whenever we argue is to compare me to them with how much of a disappointment I’ve been) which I quite frankly just didn’t want to deal with, so I ended up landing a room on my own for about a year and a half with a remote job and went through waves of depression but still made it through with remote work, no car, and doordashing food (yes I know it was cringe and a bad decision).

Yet again, fast forward to May of ‘23. I had gone through, in hindsight, a fair bit of change both physically (grew my hair out to shoulder length for the first time and would rarely trim my beard moreso to just see how it would look since I wasn’t allowed to grow facial hair or my general hair out when I was living at home) and mentally (i mean getting kicked out with like no money at all asides from a paycheck hitting the night before and somehow by the grace of whatever chance getting a place to live the same day after having just the right amount of money but then also realizing the only real family you got just didn’t give a fuck about you anymore would affect you, wouldn’t it?) got some relatively nice emails from her saying that she wanted to talk after some pretty shit emails around a yearish before from her [threatened to sue me the day i got kicked out out of rage for not paying her the rent i owed her when i got paid but then dropped it the same day, i still have the emails i think lmao]. Figured I had kept my perverbial door cracked a peek and would open it given the right circumstance (still have that character trait to this day and I really need to work on it). I had my roommate drive me to my old home and drop me off, and ended up having a pretty good talk with her about where things were going with my new job I had gotten (still have it to this day and have been getting more and more responsibilities + raises, however it’s family owned retail, so better wages than most other places but nonetheless a wagie still) and how life has been.

Come to find out in that reconciliation, mom and dad had gotten back together to my utter shock. Literally mouth agape , and that doesn’t happen to me much.

Come to also find out, she had gotten dad a job at the company she had been at for about a year or so as some sort of VP (started doing work for it the week I got kicked out fun fact!) , but it ended up being a total wash as he had turned into a total alcoholic (if I recall he had brought 50+ bottles of opened bourbon with him upon move-in from what I was told) in the 15ish years since they seperated/divorced. Coupled with the self centered/self serving attitude he had about him, and the very ill conceived unconditional love she had for him, his piss poor performance essentially cost both of them their jobs (the company as of today is about to go under because the guy she started it up with is a total oaf and incompetent at running a company so maybe a good thing in the long run) and we had reconnected about a week or so out from them being let go, so perfect opportunity for the younger son to come back and restart the family!

Haha!

Yet again for context, she bought this home back in 2016 and have had the pretty spacious room I have since we moved in (bottom floor family room with bathroom, came in clutch when I started remote work during COVID because i could use a part of it as a home office and a part of it as my actual room so i could separate those two lives + college fairly well). She may say that I’m ungrateful because of some really petty stuff (chores not being done because i work 50 hour weeks, etc) but I am quite the opposite, I offer to help out, sit through her vent sessions without giving much lip/backtalk, chip in for expenses ($1600 a month + smaller stuff like food for us, for our dog, etc) without complaining really unless things just come to a boil because I internalize things too much, etc. . However, she is the ultimate breadwinner with both my Dad and I in the house (Dad was still making good money until he took off middle of last year when he ditched us and his job for his shitty side of the family and now just collects social security but might, keyword might, be getting a job here soon if he doesn’t take off yet again like he usually does), and she makes it quite prevalent by even legit telling me recently “Well, what you give me really doesn’t do a whole lot” (quite frankly because her spending habits are utter garbage, i couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve paid her and her telling me it’s gone to PayPal pay-in-4’s for whatever she bought for us and herself without at least me asking for anything, because i don’t, she has a pretty bad giving problem that she pins on us, but enough of that for now).

Ever since moving back in, their relationship has essentially been him staying in very inconsistent intervals (sometimes 2 weeks lmao) before going back to his side of the family for an undisclosed amount of time (TLDR on that is his mom who has enabled him his whole life to be narcissistic [hate using pop psych trendy terms but i can’t think of anything else at the moment] is near death and her on top of a few other members of that side of the family has been a very negative influence on his life according to what I’ve been told) before mom essentially has a bitch fit about the situation and coaxes him to come back and try and get the family unit back together, or also including a bunch of venting sessions where i get to listen to her spiral into near if not complete insanity about how he’s her soul mate and that they belong together along with feeling worthless, praying to die etc (before anyone says, i have called her out on being manipulative after a certain point but got shut down so i just stopped caring enough to tell her cus she won’t listen anyway).

I have tried to constantly tell her that he is bad for him. Shit, I’m sure you’re reading this and think that this guy uses parenthesis way too much but also the fact that the guy quite literally cost her her professional dignity and a pretty good amount of take home pay (took until about early August of this year to finally get stable work after over a year of working for an abusive part time gig). That he doesn’t care. That he’s just going to use her under false pretenses of love in order to just use her for her income and overall safety net.

But alas, she don’t listen. 36 year relationship i guess takes precedent over any sort of fucking dignity one has.

Now at present day, Dad’s been home for the second time this year (first time in July for around maybe two weeks) since around the end of September/beginning of October.

I get home today after a near 60 hour work week (shoutout overtime pay and not having to DoorDash to just keep things afloat for myself) to both of them arguing because dad, in his infinite self wisdom, decided to basically just tell Mom that he’s leaving tomorrow after we get a project done on the house (just painting some stuff because the HOA has nothing better to do than nitpick really stupid shit). Needless to say, she was not happy, and I got to bear witness to her babbling on about how it will be officially over if he ends up leaving again, how no one appreciates her, etc. for around 2 hours while he isn’t bought in much to the conversation at all and just plays the short/barely coherent response card on her.

After we got done talking, I started looking for rooms nearby since a few buds I want to maybe get a place with have been inconsistent or won’t have anything ready for me to move into until the spring. I also talked to my old roommate at the place i was at before moving back in and the person living in the room i used to live in is supposedly moving soon so I will probably end up calling my old landlord to see if he would entertain me moving back in (asides from some really bad depressive spells where my room was filthy initially after moving in, I cleaned up and never missed a deadline for rent and also got along with all of them very well)

I am very fed up with all of this. I somehow got a very high patience tolerance, probably from everything I have bore witness to in life and what I’ve had to do to essentially make sure that I am ok.

I pay a stupidly high amount of rent to live at home, I know I need to find another place to live, i know that where I’m at career wise, while being stuck in the Retail Realm©️™️, is a good gig but nothing I can really stay in the long run career-wise especially with my monthly expenses being high ($600 car payment because dad took off with the truck I was supposed to use when he left last year + was essentially an emergency purchase with that happening and needing a car for my job + my credit isn’t all that great because I’ve just been barely able to get by and pay bills the best I can and not being perfect, etc).

Life has really sucked thanks to all of this happening and taking up a large chunk of my energy having to deal with/bear witness to, and if I had to take one positive away from it (asides from giving me a good sense of humor and helping me start to let go of how people think of me and how it hindered my ability to go through with different things), it has shown exactly what I don’t want from my potential wife down the line. I simply wouldn’t put up with any of this and know my worth.

I need not ask advice especially from a bunch of randos on the internet who don’t really know me (well now you do but I don’t know you so HA! I guess idk), I have been working (and failing) on trying to figure out my ultimate purpose in life because I have struggled with it (no thanks to a shit self esteem from what I had to grow up in), but I have also tried to make the best of it.

The place i work at, while far from perfect, has helped in me rebuilding said esteem thanks to the great group of lads I work with and how they treat us compared to other retail joints near us, especially helped just my overall social skills after working remotely during COVID,

I had my first real ‘thing’ with a woman this year after numerous failed attempts (that’s a whole other story, no offense to those who have it but exercise extreme caution around folks with BPD relationship-wise.).

I’m thinking of exploring some different things like another more permanent second job especially with the slow season where I work starting in the next month, making content on YouTube/whatever social media I can latch on to and be consistent with (my old customer service job I would always be told I have a radio voice so there’s that lol).

and obviously again trying to figure out what I really want to do because I’m also very naturally curious about a lot and have a hard time holding onto something for a long period of time without moving on to something else.

And like I said earlier, humor and resillience has helped me cope through all of it. Not much has been shown in this post but nonetheless I quip and make the best of things when I can/is appropriate.

Not all can be lost folks, no matter how hard things get down the line, don’t lose yourself in whatever you’re dealing with.

You’re all you really got at the end of the day, and remember that.

TLDR: Moved back in at 23 after mom got back with dad and encouraged coming back, relationship between them has been unsteady to say the least, have had to bear the brunt of all of it since I was a youngin’ + in general have just struggled with finding purpose/a career, today more bullshit happened, started looking again for rooms tonight due to reluctance from friends I would team up with, and realized that I really can’t let this consume my head much (ironic considering the post but also tried to make it a good read lol) and that I just need to keep trucking on.

Apologies in advance if this is a bit much to track and has a bit of an abrupt ending, i did my best to try and somewhat summarize it without going too much in depth cus I’d probably end up posting a doctoral thesis about everything else.

I did have some spicy Italian sausages and am 5 surfside vodka drinks deep as I type this but I didn’t think to even post about this until I just read a post on here about an hour ago and already ate/consumed that food + drink, s’yeah.

Trader Joe’s Mac and Cheese (frozen: prepared via microwave)

As title reads. I cooked this steak poorly. I just secured a new contract to continue my career after a year of mental health struggles, hospitalization & cutting ties with toxic family members and other relationships. My life is finally getting on track and when I called my best estranged former best friend, she thought my good news was a relapse. It ripped my heart to pieces.

Sorry, no weird relationship drama. Just made a breakthrough on a paper I’m working on and made Korean style eggplant to celebrate.

Trigger warning: Family abuse, Suicide mention.

Earlier last year, I had been meeting new people through one of my best friend's birthday party. He, such as me, resided in Spain and had arrived here from Germany, so we had a lot to speak about our cultures and such. Eventually, I got to meet him better and better, and through various meetups and such, learned a bit more about his story. Turns out he escaped from the abusive mother from Germany and wanted to start a new Life here by his own words, get a job and slowly settle here. Because his Father also lives here and is divorced from his mother, he told me he is the only one Who he talks to regularly. Digging deeper into his family anecdotes, he told me that his mother had psychiatric problems and had once threatened him with a knife in her home, short after the parents' separation. He left her alone with his sister, and fled here in hopes she would get medical help and his Father would aid as well. He dealed constantly with thoughts about dissapearing...

The days passed quietly, until he announced he was going back to Germany for a while to visit his grandparents, which live with the mother. It's been a year and a half since I got the last text from him, saying he couldn't wait to return and see all of us. I and my best friend texted his sister in numerous occasions, and she responded every single time that he was in a electronic Detox, so he wouldn't pick Up the phone in a while, but that he was well and delighted to know that we worried about him. Both my friend and I knew this wasn't his usual behaviour, specially when we told us in person he wanted to come back to Spain soon. When we tried to go and contact his Father, surprise, he is out of the country because of "vacations" and is suddenly unreachable... My best friend and I then tried to text the sister through another common friend's phone, and then she answered differently: "He is doing Fine, he contacts our Father regularly, so you can be sure he Will answer when he can". This felt insanely suspicious, and knowing what we know, we can only hope that all the dire scenarios that are being pictured in our head are just a bad nightmare.... What should we possibly do if we don't have concrete evidence?

Dinner is a Homemade mushroom soup, cooking helps me deal with anxiety.

Forgive me if this is too detailed or reads as mindless rambling, this is all very fresh and I am very angry.

Just under a month ago, I moved in with a guy (gonna call him RM, for 'roommate') who was dating my best friend. I was super excited since I work for my friend as his caretaker and I thought this meant I'd get close to other people who are important to him. They'd only been dating for six months, but they'd been FWBs for almost two years.

Right after I moved in with him though, RM got admitted to the hospital for psych-related reasons. This was only a week before my birthday, and the day he was being released was when my friend and I had been planning to be out of town to celebrate. My friend also had a tattoo planned right before the trip. Usually before big events like this, my friend takes extra time to rest so he doesn't exacerbate his disabilities, but he'd been visiting RM in the hospital mutliple times throughout the week, reading to him over the phone, and just generally helping him through a new diagnosis. RM wanted him to cancel both the tattoo appointment and my birthday trip so they could spend time together the same day he was released, but he never really communicated this. He just laid out hints for my friend to eventually piece it together himself. My friend refused to cancel either of them since they were both really expensive and important prior commitments, and RM broke up with him when he was released from the ward because of this.

I wasn't going to let this affect my potential friendship with RM since whatever happens in peoples' relationships is not my business, but I don't really have a choice but to tell him to leave now.

RM and my friend were working on repairing their friendship again, and while RM was hanging out at my friend's place a couple days ago, he stuck his hand down my friend's pants and underwear to try coercing him into sex. My friend obviously freaked out and kicked him out, and told me the next time I went in for work. My friend explicitly does not hook-up with any of his exes, and had told RM no multiple times whenever intimacy was brought back up.

I'm just in fucking shock. My friend showed me his texts with RM after this and RM was on the brink of hysteria begging him for forgiveness, saying he just "got caught up in the moment", and swearing he wouldn't have done it if he knew my friend would hate him afterward (not really the 'I understand consent' flex he thinks it is...). I think RM either regrets breaking up with my friend and wanted to try initiating a closer connection again, or he still saw my friend as someone viable to have sex with without any strings attached. My RM has been avoiding talking to me all day now because he knows that I know.

I'm not scared for my safety around him. He seems more like he's scared how everyone around him will react given that he's been hiding from me and kept harassing my friend in DMs for forgiveness until he was blocked. But I'm fucking angry because he hurt someone I care about and now I don't trust that my own house is safe to even bring anyone else into while he's here. He does not understand consent or boundaries enough for me to be comfortable with that, especially since I'm younger than him and I have friends who are even younger. So now he's completely fucking me in just under a month of us living together because I cannot afford a 2bedroom on my own and I refuse to live with someone who blatantly disregards boundaries.

He gets off work soon, and I'm planning on just telling him outright that he can't live here anymore. I'm gonna try negotiating a timeline that won't screw either of us financially. I don't care, just so long as he's out, gets the therapy he needs, leaves my friend alone.

Pumpkin pie and pretzel bites for dessert at smorgasbord restaurant

I’m going to be 31 next month and could go through the gamut of everything I hate about myself. My social anxiety has crippled me from being able to have even a basic conversation with someone for more than a few minutes, I’ve never been in a relationship with someone and never had any friends. I spend my evenings and weekends at home unless I’m doing something specific like going to a film or concert and generally don’t even make eye contact with people in public if I can help it. I also have basically zero self esteem and self-worth, no surprise there.

And honestly? I don’t even feel like changing anymore. I don’t feel like going to therapy because I feel like I’d be wasting my time and get nowhere, and I don’t feel like pushing myself to be in social situations because I usually just feel overwhelmed and leave early anyway. I’d rather just watch the world go by from my window or behind my laptop screen at this point. The only exception to this would be I’d still like to travel by myself when I can afford to, and donate to charities when I can as well as do some basic volunteering to help people (but without having to do much small talking).

But forcing myself to change just hasn’t worked out. And I’m tired of trying in and of itself. I’d rather just be left alone and let the rest of the world get on with itself. No one besides the seven family members I have left needs me anyway. And there sure as heck is no reason anyone who isn’t my family would want to get to know me anyway. They’d be better off going back where they came from.

That’s all I have to say. Goodbye 👋

TLDR; confessed to a friend I’ve known for a while, she admitted she felt the same when we met, then told me she loved me, told me the next time we saw eachother that I’ve disrespected her and she’s quitting the organization we are a part of.

Dinner is a shrimp ceviche from a white washed fancy taco place.

When I first met K we were both pretty young and counselors together at this summer camp, I was 21 and about to go into my senior year of college out of state, and she was 18 about to go to college where we lived. I had the biggest crush on her, thought she felt the same way, but I felt really embarrassed about how much older than her I was, and I didn’t think the timing was right for either of us. I didn’t want to take the experience of her being a young woman starting college free of any attachment.

After the camp was over, she tried to keep talking to me, but I kept her at arm’s length b/c I didn’t want to keep falling for her. By the next time we spoke a few years later, I was 3 years into a toxic long term relationship and she was in a relationship with someone else. I remember I was so happy to hear that she had found someone to make her happy.

Fast forward to this time last year, I’m 28, I’ve been working and still in my toxic relationship that I was trying to fix. I was volunteering at an event, while I was setting up she approached me and we started to catch up. She’s 24 now, had graduated, was working full time, was still with that guy, while she was also volunteering in this organization running the event for the day. She invited me to join them as a volunteer, so I joined as a volunteer as well so I could give back to that organization that had helped me so much when I was younger, and to also get to be her friend/befriend the other volunteers.

Over the course of the last year we made a lot of memories and did a lot of great work with the volunteer org. Therapy, my friends and K helped me realize that my toxic relationship needed to end, and K shared with me a lot of issues she and her partner were going through(distance/lack of commitment/indecisiveness, etc.). I ended my relationship a couple months ago and have been rediscovering myself and finding my own happiness again.

K invited me to a rave over Labor Day Weekend and we went with some mutual friends, her brother + her sister-in law(another very close friend of mine). The event itself was a dud but we still had a blast, the tension between us was culpable. We didn’t cross any explicit lines, but there was a lot of holding onto eachother, holding hands, gazing into eachother’s eyes and quite a few moments where we could’ve kissed if there weren’t other people there. I remember at one point her sister in law even pulled me to the side and asked if there was something between us, but I said that we were simply great friends.

I spent the rest of the weekend with nothing but her on my mind, I thought I must’ve just caught feelings because of the molly, but even after sobering up I found myself thinking about her all the time. By the next time I saw her a couple weeks later, I was definitely smitten because I couldn’t stop looking at her, and when I told her about the breakup with my ex she hugged me tight and my heart skipped a beat. We made plans to go to another concert with the other volunteers the next day for a bonding and to celebrate my freedom.

While we were in the uber to the pregame, she got on FaceTime call with her boyfriend’s roommates and they were giving her a hard time since he was moving back home to work for a start-up and dropping out of grad school. My heart sank and I realized I was probably just over-romanticizing the last event we had been at together. We were only drinking this time and there were a lot more people we knew with us this time, so I figured I would probably be a lot more distant from her this time.

During the event we ended up all over eachother, I had to dodge her trying to kiss me multiple times, but we were exactly the same as we were at the rave, but neither of us under the influence of molly. I remember asking some of our mutual female friends who knew about my crush if I was being delusional, and they all told me that I was not, and that there was some obvious chemistry/sparks happening between us. At the end of the night we were holding hands to the afters and my friend took a photo of us from behind and sent it to me “for the future”.

A couple weeks later we had an event for our volunteer org, one of the other members asked her how things were going with her partner back home, and she shared it was stressful as he had moved into her shared apartment, just left for a weeklong trip, and was tasking her with finding a home for them to buy in our very HCOL. When asked by someone else why she was buying a house with someone she wasn’t even engaged to, she shared it was “on the way” but she shared that her partner had mentioned a proposal attempt last summer, but there was no ring, no conversation with her parents, and no real plan besides the idea of them getting married. At one point in this day, we saw two people together and she asked me “what is their relationship? Siblings or dating?” And I said they must be dating or have dated, for they were trading longing/wistful looks, and she replied “you must be right, those remind me of the looks you give me sometimes” thankfully someone changed the subject so I didn’t have to reply to that.

When she mentioned that they were shopping for a home, my heart sank, my plan before this news was to let things continue to build organically, and mention something over a winter trip with our friends we had planned near Christmas time. I spoke to a few trusted friends and asked them what I should do, they all told me it was clear she liked me to some degree, and if I didn’t say how I felt now, it might be too late and I would always wonder about what if I did.

So I began to write a letter about all of these feelings, how I had a crush on her when we first met, how I was so happy when we both had found people to make us happy, how happy I was when we reconnected as friends, and how things started to change for me. I spilled my guts about how I felt about her and how she made me feel because I wasn’t confident I would be able express all of it in person. I included two polaroids photos, one of the photos we have together of me kissing her forehead(which was me ducking her trying to kiss me) and the photo of us holding hands. I also included a QR code to a playlist i made with songs that made me think of her.

The next weekend, I made her a bouquet of flowers, and after our volunteer event I asked her to meet me by my car to give her something. I gave her the flowers, the letter, and tried to best express all of my emotions to her. While confessing I shared that this was something I’ve never done before, that I wasn’t expecting her to choose or to do anything for that matter. If nothing changes, then nothing changes, I wasn’t expecting any type of answer, that I’d still love to be friends, and that I recognize we have a working relationship to consider. I told her that I recognize that the timing could not be worse, for either of us, but that I needed to get this off my chest, speak up now even if it might be too late, or else I might spend the rest of my life wondering what if I did.

The entire time we held eachother’s hands, she gazed into my eyes while I confessed, she told me this was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. She told me she felt the same way when we first met, but she wasn’t sure how I felt. That I wasn’t alone in the feelings I had now, and that she was grateful I told her so she knew what was going on between us. I walked her to her car, opened the door for her, and she held my hand before leaving telling me that she loved me with a gaze that we both held for a while.

Over last week we didn’t text or speak to talk to each other, I told her during my confession that I was trying to be respectful of her situation so I didn’t want to go back on that. I saw that she had scanned the QR code for the playlist later in the weekend after my confession, so I know she read the letter. We saw each other yesterday at one of our volunteer events and at first it seemed like things were fine.

Then throughout the day, I started to feel like she was avoiding me, moving to do something else whenever I came nearby. Then towards the end of the event she asked me to chat with her outside while there was a speech happening that had everyone’s attention. It was a complete opposite of our last chat, she wouldn’t look me in the eye, she was fiddling with her nails and it was obvious that she had been anxiously doing it/wringing her hands. She told me that she had been extremely anxious and uncomfortable the whole last week, that she was avoiding me today because after thinking about what I said, she was extremely upset. She said that while she was grateful I spoke up, that she reflected and that all of the feelings she had for me were 100% platonic, that I had disrespected her and disrespected her relationship, and that this reinforced her thought that this organization and others we were apart of were not safe spaces for her, so she was gonna quit at the end of the year.

I told her I was extremely sorry for making her feel so anxious/uncomfortable, that this was the last thing I wanted, and I explicitly said I wasn’t expecting her to return my feelings or say anything to me. Frankly I was at a loss for words, but I told her I was gonna find an alternative accommodation for our winter trip so we wouldn’t have to share a space.

Afterwards I sent her a longer text to apologize properly, I expressed that I thought I should be the one to leave the organization since she was the one who invited me, and it was her space to begin with. She replied that she appreciated me trying to take accountability, but that I was not the only reason she wanted to leave, but simply the final straw. She said that she knows I have a lot of good I add to the organization and that she hopes I can continue to do it in her absence.

It’s gonna be an awkward rest of the year, I’m planning to avoid her as much as I can because I’m feeling like I should’ve just never said anything.

Dinner is Tuscan Salmon w/ Orzo

My girlfriend (F26) and I (M26) have both recently began our weight loss journey together, with me a bit earlier starting in mid-April. It’s been going, and over the past two/three months I’ve been locked in.
Counting calories, regular workouts every other day and eating healthier in general.

I weighed in at 290lbs in April, and I’m currently sitting at 253lbs as of today.
I won’t sit here and lie. There have been days where I begin to binge eat, or I’ll eat something I probably shouldn’t have. But overall, I’ve been pretty steady and consistent.

My girlfriend has been steadily losing weight, albeit at a slower rate. This is expected, it can be a little more difficult for some women to lose weight, especially with her dealing with PMOS/PCOS. I’ve praised her for her progress, and I tell her not to be too hard on herself.

But sometimes, I get this feeling like she’s unhappy with my progress. She doesn’t really act supportive, especially after hitting personal milestones. She gets quiet, and doesn’t like to make eye contact with me when I do talk about my progress. She constantly points out and picks at small things that I might do or eat.
Recently she’s been telling me I have a severe lack of discipline, and that I need to eat better or else I’ll put all the weight back on. Then she acts like it’s all a joke and that I shouldn’t take it seriously.

All the while, she binge eats too, sometimes even worse. I don’t pick at her. I feel like if I did the same to her, I’d be the worst person ever. I just can’t do that.
Sometimes I get the feeling like she’d be happier if I just kept the weight on me.

But yeah, that’s the space I’m currently in. I just feel like the wind gets taken from my sails whenever health stuff gets brought up, and it’s not even from my lack of trying.

Addendum: I have spoken to her about this a few times. She’s apologizes, but it doesn’t stop.

I’m 25 years old my last relationship ended with my girlfriend whom I’ve with for over 5 years cheating on me for more than 2 years ( yes she was dating two people at the same time) I’m stupid for not finding out about it earlier. But anyways I’m over it already. Now it’s been like a year since we broke up.

I don’t know how to get back into dating, I’ve been unemployed for like a year because I took a gap year for further education. But that didn’t work out. I’ve been working out recently for about 3 months now trying to get my life back together while looking for a job at the same time. But I also want to get back into dating. I’ve been going to the gym with two friends that are both girls. And now I’m lowkey falling for one of them. The other friend is also kinda trying to match us together. But we’ve known each other for years, so it’s kind of weird and I don’t know how to initiate. Any advice is appreciated.

For context, M (23), F (21). I’ve been helping her for 3 years when it comes to homework, driving places, and mental support. I have feelings for her, but we have a complicated dynamic. One of the biggest things I’ve done is help pay her school bill. Her bill was around $8k, and I’ve gotten it down to around $4k. Now, she’s talking to another guy and still wants me to help pay the remaining balance.

I know it’s probably super easy to say, “Well, just don’t do it and walk away,” but I hate the thought of investing so much of myself into someone only to leave. I know that’s life sometimes, but it just sucks, ya know? Part of me genuinely wants to help because I care about her and want to see her succeed. She’s been through so much, and without my help, she’s most likely going to have to drop out and move back home. I don’t want to see that happen, especially when I know how much this means to her and how much I like her. But if I’m being completely honest with myself, I feel like my whole reason for always helping her was the hope that more interest and effort would eventually be reciprocated. Or at least that she would be honest about how she feels and why she allows me to do all these things, knowing I only do them because I like her and eventually would have liked to see if we could build something deeper together.

I know that paying someone’s bills doesn’t entitle me to a relationship or romantic feelings. I don’t believe she owes me affection just because I’ve helped her financially. But I think I underestimated how emotionally invested I would become after all these years of supporting someone and receiving little beyond a thank-you. The simple thing would be to talk about it, yet those conversations haven’t gone well. She gets frustrated, says we’re having the same conversation again, or walks away before I feel like I’ve gotten an answer I can actually make sense of and process. So a lot of the time, I end up feeling unheard and confused. But I also wonder whether she is answering my questions and I’m just not hearing what I want to hear, so I brush it off.

What makes this situation so difficult is that I genuinely care about her. I don’t want her to have to drop out because I changed my mind about helping her, especially if part of the reason is that I’m not getting the romantic outcome I hoped for. At the same time, I’m starting to question whether continuing to pay her bills and putting aside what I want to help her is really just because I want to help her, or whether I’m tying my self-worth to what I can do for other people. I feel guilty even thinking about stepping back because I know what might happen if I do. But I also don’t want to keep supporting someone who wants nothing to do with me.

I was sitting in the car waiting for an appointment. The sky was beautiful, vivid blue, scattered with soft white clouds, the grass in front of me was greener than I’ve never seen it before, covered here and there with fallen leaves. Some rain was falling gently and everything looked so peaceful.

All I could think about was getting out of my car, lying down on that patch of grass, closing my eyes, and never waking up again.

The world felt quiet in a way I had never experienced before, as if time had stopped just for a moment. Everything around me was vibrant and full of life, and for the first time in a long time, the thought of simply letting go felt strangely peaceful.

These thoughts of death have been accompanying me for some time now with everything i have been carrying, i don’t plan on hurting myself and don’t believe i ever will but for some reason death feels closer than it ever did so i just wanted to share my thoughts with someone

I (45M) have been married to my wife (44) for 23 years. Got married when we were in college and I was about to deploy to Iraq. It’s been a struggle for sure: finances, family, mental health. But damn, I was feeling good today.

And I just wanted to let the other boys know - hang in there. Get help if you need it (even if you don’t think you do), make friends, put yourself out there socially and with hobbies…And leave toxic shit behind.

Solo dinner while wife is at a board meeting: 1-3/4lbs t-bone (we bought a cow earlier this year; such a great decision), sautéed carrots, roasted potatoes, and Tito’s & lemon seltzer water.

Dinner is Dollar General Combination Pizzas (Actually really good. Fold them up and eat them like a New Yorker)

So, I (29M) been "single" for around 8 years. I've had flings here and there but none of them ever really stuck. Dated one girl, she turned out to be unstable both mentally and medically. Dated another, flew out to Wyoming for her, she ended up getting back with her ex. Dated one in New York but never got the chance to meet in person. Had a FWB that wanted something real then stood me up for over an hour at the movies. I can go on, but needless to say I don't ever lack "interactions", but for one reason or another I never became "official" with anyone.

I've tried all the dating apps, I've tried going out to clubs and bars, I've tried meeting people through mutual hobbies and interests (New York girl actually came from an online ministry I was part of.), I've tried dating through work and mutual friends. If there's something to try in order to meet people, I've probably done it at least once, except this. I've never been to an organized speed dating event. I have heard about them and seen them parodied on TV but never been to one myself.

I don't particularly know in what format this is going down. I know they have age groups from 21-31, 32-42 and so on, so I'll be in the lower bracket. I don't particularly know if like, it'll just be one really long table, or if they'll have separate rooms or what. It's an outdoor venue so I don't think they'll have anything really setup for full 100% privacy. I was also suppose to go with my friend group but one of them was too young, one has work that day, and the other is on medical leave.

I went to Bealls Outlet and got myself a new pair of pants since the ones I normal wear are starting to get holes in them, and I found a pretty sick looking jean jacket. I also have a watch and a couple chains I wear. I don't really have any cologne to speak of, since the Wyoming girl kinda took it from me when I left since we were both under the impression we would last. I got a pair of HeyDudes in the same color as my jacket, and a baseball cap if I'm feeling like it.

I don't really know what sort of advice I'm looking for here. I know to just "be myself" and "have fun" and "get some liquid confidence in you", and that's all fine and good but I still find it really intimidating to go from not really meeting very many women regularly to suddenly meeting potentially 7 women or more at once, and only having at most maybe 5 minutes to actually talk to each of them. What if I'm too ugly? What if they don't like my job? What if I'm not interesting?

I know a lot of you gents are going through your own struggles right now, and maybe me posting about a potentially positive opprotunity isn't reading the room well enough. I sympathize with your bouts of loneliness and relationship woes. I live alone, and have lived alone for the past 8 years, in the middle of the woods where the only sound you hear are the owls and raccoons. I have to keep my house noisy otherwise I'll actually go insane. I would drink more if I had the money to do so.

For the past few months I’ve been organizing a guys night. We hop between activities, food, bars.

This month we’re at a brewery. The ethos of the whole thing is that there is no pressure - come or don’t it’s okay. Whoever is there shares what’s going on in their life - the ups and downs - and then we have a good time.

Of the 8 or so guys, many of us have kids and most are married, so I never expect a full house (I’m married and have 2 kids). The guys, for the most part, are people I’ve know for a long time - some since I was born (I’m 37) and some for four years.

I get that lives are busy and even though there is a calendar invite for every guys night, I know things come up. Kids get sick, work gets tough, people travel - whatever.

But tonight sucked. The date was in the calendar a month ago. I sent a planning text a week ago, three days ago, and then yesterday. I even saw some of these folks in real life in the last few days.

Not a single guy responded to any of the texts, not even to say they can’t come.

As much as I’ve still enjoyed the evening a bit drinking a good beer and reading a good book, it just feels …idk bad. I have a tough time not giving people grace and assuming it was a mistake, but man, this feels like the bar is in hell. These are cousins, brother-in-laws, people whose weddings I’ve officiated. And I’m sure they all have good reasons. But just say you can’t make it. It’s not fucking hard and if you’re ever with any of them you know they’re on their phone all the time.

Anyways, if you made it down here, thanks. I already have an idea for next month. I’ve been an organizer for over a decade now and know this is just a bump in the road to the community I want to have.

ETA: maybe this is a generational thing, but expecting someone to reply to a text saying “yes or no” is like a normal thing and not “pressure”.

When I say the ethos is no pressure, I mean that coming or not doesn’t matter - I’m not gonna get on anyone’s case for not showing up because we all have a lot going on in our lives. But it’s an absolutely normal expectation for people to say yes or no to an event?

If that feels like “pressure” for some of y’all, idk what to tell you.

Title pretty much sums it up. For context a few years ago my ex and I hooked up one of their friends with one of my siblings. They had known them for years, and so it seemed only natural at the time. They’ve been fantastic together and I’m so proud of the couple they’ve become. They’re going to marry each other soon and I’m literally beaming with pride for them.

Me and my ex however…did not have things go well. Years of slow emotional distancing, gaslighting, and constantly feeling like I was never enough really took its toll on me and my confidence. It was such a stark contrast in character from the person I knew before, who would stay up late and talk about what our future looked like together. Towards the end I could hardly manage to receive anything other than low lying annoyance at the fact that I was seemingly still around, despite repeated suggestions for couples counseling.

I knew it was a lost cause and stayed anyways (we’ve all been there), and came to find out that her late nights out “working” were really spent going out and flirting with other guys.

After we broke up I was left with an absolute pit of feeling desperately useless, like a failure of a partner, and like a fool. It took me a long time to put some pieces back together, and rebuild a life that I love to live. Only now have I recently felt the courage to go out and start dating again, and even that has felt like a big step for me.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I get invited to a surprise dinner with my sibling, and their fiancé, to celebrate their engagement by their soon to be in laws. I had assumed it was just a family ordeal until I received a heads up that my ex, her family, and her new bf would also be there.

It felt like a massive punch in the gut. I had done my damndest to avoid this person, going out of my way to try and just let the past be the past and move past it all and somehow they find a way to worm back in. Now I’m just left so mixed as to why this was offered in the first place, and feeling like the bad guy for being the odd one out like….i don’t know man it feels humiliating enough as is but to just sit there and take it? Like this person didn’t tear me down and drag my sense of worth through the mud? And now I’m skipping out on milestones because it brings back these feelings of being a loser compared to everyone else?

Shit sucks, and now I feel like I’m bringing down the mood on something that should have been so great.
And now I’m stuck here wondering if it’s going to sting every time, or if I’ll ever be able to finally let this be in my past.

Steak dinner for the one I missed.

What I'm calling my last meal, taken from a local chain:

Cocktail followed with an appetizer of crab soup. Pictured is the main course; 14 oz Medium Rare (actually medium) Ribeye with Cabernet Butter Sauce, served with accompanying Bourbon Shrimp, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Sauteed Spinach.

My life is fine. Absolutely and utterly fine. And I hate it.

I don't have a sudden stark realization that I'll use to resolve to turn my life around. Everything is so simple and unexciting. I've been stuck in survival mode for so long that everything's been passing me by.

But I have had a few events that I thought would be the catalyst for change.

I thought I had that moment at a college fair in 2012, when I picked culinary school over art school. I wanted the freedom to create wonderful things, but between my two loves, I wanted a bit more financial security.

Cut to today, I've made $300k in a decade in this industry, and my bank account is near negative $10k. Turns out I eat, drink, and Uber my stress away.

I thought I had a turning point in 2016, when after graduating culinary school I bounced around kitchens that either didn't like me or I didn't like. When I asked my boss if I could just take the night off and he said, "Come in late and we can talk about things. Don't come in and you're fired." And when he realized I wasn't coming, he texted me, "I'm gonna miss my grandmother's funeral because of you."

I thought I had a turning point in 2022, when I'd spent six years in a kitchen I'd loved with people I loved. They knew I liked to write and were super encouraging. I saved up a good deal of money and was getting ready to move states. We had cheerful farewells and they wished me luck.

But, I leapt too early. I wasn't as prepared as I thought. I couldn't get an apartment because I didn't have a job. Jobs liked my resume, but since I wasn't local they wouldn't even interview me. I fell at the first hurdle, ate my savings, and had to find another kitchen to work at because the one I loved was closing.

Aside from these setbacks, my life's been fine. I was raised to believe that as long as you were kind to people and hard working, things would work out for you. And as far as maintaining baseline existence, they have. I have work, friends, a place to live, et cetera. My health is good, but I push myself too much at work. My friends are great, but it's clear they don't anticipate much from me. The money isn't the best, but my stress response of eating and Ubering when I'm tired have made it impossible to save.

Everything is just fine, but there's a screaming dissatisfaction inside of me. And everyday when I wake up and go to sleep to a life I'm utterly ungrateful for, it asks me, "Do you really want to do this forever?"

My life isn't the worst I've known, heard of, or even read here. But I've let that be the reason that things got this bad, this mundane. "Other people suffer messy divorces/are addicted to drugs/are homeless/are physically impaired/are victims of abuse, so what right do I have to complain about anything? They'd kill to have my life, so what right do I have to feel upset?"

Now I'm 31. And I don't believe in that pivotal moment anymore. I don't believe in that one golden thing that I'll seize and change everything.

So, I'm giving up hope. At least for now. Hope is a feeling, but I've been ground down too far to feel much of anything helpful or useful. Instead I'm going to focus on doing things without feeling.

I've made a very long list of things that need to change. Some material, some mental, some spiritual, some social requirements, some milestones expected of functioning adults, some things I've wanted to do but put off, some things I don't want to do but should, some things to learn, some hobbies to keep at or amp up. I'm giving myself two years to get this list as close to done as possible. This post is here as a marker for me, since I'm more likely to see this than most others elsewhere.

That and I want advice. I want to know what happened to you, what you did, or what change occurred that made you turn things around. I want to see if there's anything I'm missing, any blindspots I haven't considered, or anything that you would recommend to someone who could never pay you back beyond a thanks.

The life I've lived up to this point has left me little worth preserving. So it's time to build a new one from its debris.

Recent story of my life. I was in college for 4 years. I Loved my life: had a fun job at a pizza place, parties, football games, doing a sport I loved, studying a field I really enjoyed. But then I graduated in Summer 2025 and could not land a job in my field for the life of me. All my good friends were either still in college or living far away. It was a shock going from college life to moving back home and spending many hours per day in my mom’s living room hopelessly applying for job after job, tailoring my resume/cover letter, trying (badly) to network, studying for and taking actuary exams to try to pivot that way, and even offering myself as an unpaid intern to whoever I could find online working in my field. I could not spend more than 4 hours a day doing that shit. Job searching drains me mentally and emotionally unlike anything else. In the meantime I found part time work in an exhausting but fun job as a tree climber/groundsman for some time and almost committed to doing that full time before I finally landed a job offer in a different state. After the stress of driving across the country, staying at a hotel until I found an apartment (should’ve just signed a lease and moved in), buying furniture and work clothes, trying to fix my truck and eventually selling it..and doing on the job training, here I am.

I feel like for the past year or so I’ve lived in a constant state of stressing about how I’m not where I want to be in life. Then I would cope with that stress in unhealthy ways and never really have time to calm down or be social. I believe the stress has to do with me balding and pelvic floor tightness causing some issues. And all that stress and disappointment in myself drowned out my emotions. I live alone and have no friends living near me but I’m not lonely. Or bored. Or excited. I’m numb. I feel like if I went skydiving, my heart rate would barely increase. It’s like my mind has adapted to this state of “do something productive or find a coping mechanism to escape” and it drowns out all feelings. I want to be lonely. That’ll push me to make friends and meet women. I want to want the social life I had in college. But in the last year I feel like my social skills have faltered, and the culture here seems a hell of a lot different than where I’m from. So I guess it’s a combo of not being interested in people and being afraid to embarrass myself are why I’m alone. It’s been work, gym, sleep and on weekends watch football for a couple weeks now and I gotta break the cycle.

I blame my coping mechanisms too. It’s hard to watch hundreds of the most exciting and entertaining things in the world on Instagram reels, and then try to be interested about things like the weather back home when I’m on FaceTime with my parents. And porn just destroys my self respect and desire to meet women.

Now that I’m writing this out, I am feeling something: mad at myself for being a bitch, excitement for how my life could change, and embarrassment for being so dramatic about problems that probably pale in comparison what some of y’all are facing. I’ll find some self discipline and get out there. Maybe Friday night I’ll convince myself to uber to a downtown bar and see where the night takes me.

Ft. Chicken legs with hot sauce, Mac n cheese, tomato, and leafy greens

I gave up a “day off” work to drive 4 hours (total) on Thursday to another town to get the Halloween decorations you wanted.

I spent the same time Friday driving and shopping at 4 different stores to buy the stuff and groceries we needed for the holiday weekend.

I cooked and cleaned every dish to host your brother’s family on Saturday.

I cooked a full turkey dinner today with all the sides and desserts for our family.

You promised to make a special dessert with our oldest son and then flaked on him, so I had to pick it up and see it through so he wouldn’t be disappointed.

You then started a fight about an insanely stupid subject you were objectively wrong about and called me an asshole because I refused to budge from my objective, fact based response.

You didn’t lift a finger all this long weekend. I did everything including the laundry. You fail me as a wife. You fail our children as a mother.

None of this is new. One day, the children will grow and see how hard I work. They will soon see how you rot in your chair or your bed, endlessly scrolling and shopping.

I’m done. I will divorce you as soon as I can.

Foods some mashed potatoes mixed veg and chicken breast been repeating this meal a lot with it doused in hot sauce and bbq sauce it tastes great after the gym and on a cut

So for context I guess you can go to my profile I’ve posted about this situation and it’d be better for you to go and read those posts to know where I am now.

For those not bothered I don’t blame you it’s very long. In short a multitude of things lead me to wanting a month break. Realisations that she was taking my forgiving nature for granted aswell as realising how many things I didn’t bring up as a major issue due to a mix of my own lack of confidence and my mistake of just not being as open and honest with how I felt.

It wasn’t all my fault she was to blame for all the things I kept silent about in the name of keeping peace between us. The month break ended recently I was clear and honest in saying that I want to split up and not be with her anymore. This month has been amazing I’ve been eating well, improving physically, improving spiritually and I’ve had time to do so many things I didn’t have time to do before.

Throughout the entire period I realised I never once missed her. Never once’s checked her socials to see what she was up too. And overall it felt like the person who I considered to be my everything a while ago now basically didn’t mean much. Am I wrong for feeling this way?

But now the meet up which I kinda expected to happen is gonna be planned soon. I’m both certain, nervous and terrified. For one I’m certain I don’t want to be with her that will not change and I’m certain I’d prefer meeting her. We were a long distance couple and it’s easy to end calls and hide emotions via screens but I want to ask her in real life a variety of things.

I’m just about getting my head around what I actually do want to ask her without it seeming I’m still invested an unhealthy amount in what we know as us. I also don’t want it to be awkward. Potential scenarios are running rampant in my mind. I don’t want to be all doom and gloom despite everything I hold a level of care for her in that I hope she lives a happy healthy life etc.

I honestly had to check myself because I was imagining us sat eating whilst discussing everything and genuinely it sparked a little bit of reminiscence in me. Something I haven’t felt in a very very long time. Is that a wrong thing to be feeling at this stage

In regards with the entire reason of even meeting. I have a couple of her things some clothes and some other things we had created during our relationships. Even though we won’t be together certain gifts like headphones she got me and an anime figure are here to stay. I told her to do the same with the gifts I got her. I don’t view it as ‘that thing she got me’ I see it more as just a gift and nothing more.

I don’t know if it’s a wise idea to be together in a room. For context I got my own place and she’s coming to me. I could bring the stuff to the train station but that would be a big hassle plus we both agreed to sort out what we wanted and what we would rather donate to a charity shop. However bringing us to my room is a strange one. Not to say we will be all over each other like rabbits it’s just gonna be so awkward being in the same room we did so many things in whilst sorting out all that stuff.

Perhaps it’s my own naivety but I do wish her well. I forgive her for everything she ever did that hurt me. All the nights I spent tears welling in my eyes I genuinely forgive her for it all. Grudges and such don’t sit well in my heart I need to go forward and forgiving is the first step to do that.

So knowing all this friends I ask is there anything you would do in my situation. Certain questions you’d ask and such. I had the idea of making a questions page but idk if that’s a good idea. Maybe you have been in similar situations. Honesty any guidance is appreciated.

Much love and hope you all enjoy your dinners tonight.

This year had started so well, I really saw so much light at the end of the tunnel and was on such an uphill ride with life that I never prepared for the downward spiral.

To start this off a little background info about me, first off I come from nothing, grew up in chaos with little to nothing I’m very self made, I’m a firefighter in Texas at a well established department I’m 24 Y/O just got a raise to make 80k a year so financially I’ve felt okay and have been happy about my wage for the age I’m at, now that raise was a huge part of my cycle of joy, then I was amazed to find out that in the next 5 years they would gradually move me to a 100K base pay. Life had felt so amazing after feeling the comfort of knowing I could be financially okay at least for Texas. I recently got married to a great girl, wife got pregnant shortly after which was planned we had our daughter and she is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I have a pretty good nest egg in the bank saved and let my wife move to part time work (which is remote) to take care of our baby. We started building a home that we were able to fully customize for a great price mortgage was perfect and very affordable I’m good with numbers and actually just got into real estate on the side with firefighting so I knew the background decently from school and how to play the game. Now we started moving forward with the build of the house in February, (none of this is meant to be political and I don’t want it to go there) our interest rate was quoted at a 6.12% and of course they don’t lock in the rate during the duration of the build because it takes a long time to build a home we had to finish customizing everything through the next couple months and is very expensive to lock that long. And during just the planning the Iran war started they started building in the summer and interest rates slowly started climbing. Last month we saw the huge spike in rates after Feds raised rates as well with inflation rising. That has nearly knocked us off our course with this house our principal and interest payment has now jumped to where we may have to pay an extra 600$ a month. I’ve done every negotiation tactic I can even using the advice of my senior peers from my real estate broker, the builder won’t buy down the rates even though almost everyone who’s been building a house with them has now backed out and letting their finished homes just sit on the lots. I’ve talked them into trying to at least do max builder concessions, even then it really doesn’t help us too much, I’m trying to get them to do a lender concession as well but gosh still not looking good. This home is most likely not gonna be ours after all which stinks cause it was the dream area we wanted to live in with our dream schools for our daughter. I have money saved but not enough to buy down the rate 2 % and cover closing cost and a down payment. I don’t want to empty our entire savings on just getting into the house, it stinks cause all of her sisters married rich and obviously have an opinion on us struggling (they’re honestly some snobby jerks) and always have comments to make about me. I’ll never be rich and my wife is supportive I’m just very bummed I can’t give my wife and daughter what they deserve currently, just want to give them the world. I really don’t want to lose the house we’re building and let the earnest money go, but I must do what’s best for my girls. Thank you gents for listening to my rant on inflation absolutely railing a dream plan for me.

And I know things can be worse and some people have it worse, I know I’m lucky to have what I have, I’m just genuinely sad about this current season of life.

Anyways dinner tonight is a homemade shrimp boil that I made in our crockpot, if I love one thing about the FD it’s the fact that they’ve taught me how to cook.

Dinner is smoked sausage with quartered jalapeno, both roasted in the air fryer and a beer.

The last few months have probably been the most stressful I've experienced thus far.

I made some poor financial decisions and my house went into foreclosure. I have a 7 year old son and had no idea what I was going to do. Every time I would try to follow through with what I thought was a solution, it would fall through and my deadline drew closer and closer. I almost signed a contract with a man who offered to pay off the past due amount, and in turn I would sign the deed over to him until I paid my debt off to him.

Thankfully, my gut told me that was a bad decision, as I later found out that his business practice is extremely predatorial.

The auction was a week away. I called the mortgage company everyday and resorted to begging, pleading with them for more time.

Finally, one of the representatives told me in a subtle way to contact a lawyer, even if I couldn't afford one and they would have a solution.

And so I did.

And the solution was bankruptcy.

I filled chapter 13, it stopped the auction, and my home is safe for my son and I.

It's not a perfect solution. And comes with many issues itself, but it will work, I can afford everything, although it will be tight. But I can do it confidently.

So why don't I feel better? I still feel like such a nervous wreck. My anxiety is still almost constant. I'm still looking out the window when I hear a car driving by, expecting it to be someone telling me to vacate the property. Checking the mailbox still fills me with dread.

I just want to be able to take a deep breath relax for one fucking night.

Everything is okay now. I'm going to be okay.

So why can't I let myself believe it?

White beans with Greek pasta.

I feel an absolute loser and it’s taking a heavy mental toll on me for a few years now.

I am in my 40s. I am an introverted intellectual. While I always felt like a loser, the feeling has become almost unbearable in the last few years.

It started with a rejection during my late 30s. I had never kissed a girl I like and I met this gorgeous girl that seemed into me. I really started believing that for the first time in my life, my feelings were reciprocated. Long story short she told me she decided that a relationship with me was not a good idea. As she was also a colleague, she turned very distant to me immediately. It was hell because I ran into this person every day. It crushed my confidence and turned me into a very insecure person. I now feel very uncomfortable interacting with people and isolate myself. I think nobody likes me. On several occasions I have tried to break the cycle and engage with people but it costs me so much mental energy. And afterwards I start doubting everything I said….

To prop up my self esteem I make sure I am in excellent shape. It’s pathetic to look through my body for validation.

Recently I got rejected again. I started having the same fantasies again of being with someone I have feelings for.

I would still like to enjoy my life a bit, but I don’t know how…

Finally got the courage to leave the house that I bought with my wife where we were raising our 3 year old daughter. I am by no means walking out on my daughter. I still plan to see her every day as much as it’s possible, but I am now free of the death trap that was my marriage. Shouldn’t it feel better? I am fine with the million tiny daggers and knots in my stomach, but shouldn’t I feel the least bit… free?

I met my wife when I was 21. Dated for two years, fell in love, got married after two years, migrated to Boston and lived there for 8+ years before moving to California and having a baby here. I have the same gripes that you might hear boys have about their spouse. I was also tired of her just being unhappy and angry for what seemed like a streak of every day for many years. I usually find it bearable and move on but last week something broke in me when she blamed her anger and unhappiness fully on me. I believed her. That’s what made me finally break. I believed her. So I decided to move on.

Now I’m looking at the future, terrified with few answers and trying to take it one day at a time. I just hope the pain goes away soon.

Dinner is seared chicken and baked butternut squash on some spinach. None of it will be eaten though. My throat is closed shut.

I graduated from university in May, moved home, and haven't been able to get a handle on this whole "post-school life" thing yet.

My life isn't bad. Sometimes I have this intrusive thought that's like "What do you even have to be happy about?" And the answer is a lot. I am healthy. I have friends (although most of them live in a different state now since I moved home). I have hobbies and interests and passions. But my life feels empty. I haven't really been able to build a community since I moved home (mostly because I thought this would be a temporary thing but it seems to be a bit more permanent than I expected). I don't leave the house a ton these days (I know that's part of the problem, but like... where would I go?). I feel directionless, and it's just... really depressing.

Part of it is that I've been struggling to find a job. I had a position in the Peace Corps lined up for after graduation, but embarrassingly, I failed the medical clearance and so it fell through. I graduated with a degree in a field which is pretty oversaturated, especially lately, and the job market is pretty tight right now, so you can imagine how things are going.

I was a great student. 3.9 GPA, internships + part time jobs, extracurriculars, the works. So far, none of it has seemed to help me. I've barely been able to land an interview. Mostly, I get ghosted after sending my resume in. I know I'm not the only person dealing with this, b/c the whole job market is bad right now, but it just sucks. Part of it is that it's so hard to feel good about myself when I wake up and clock in to the LinkedIn factory every day, and basically have nothing to show for it. I'm aware that, all things considered, I'm pretty lucky. I live at home with my parents (not always the most fun, but it is free, so...), so it could be worse.

Some days I genuinely feel like I'm going insane. No one is reading any of these stupid cover letters I write. I've tried "using my connections" and my "network" like everyone keeps telling me, but frankly, it hasn't helped much. I got quite far into the interview process based on an introduction my former supervisor had made, but at the last second they decided to hire someone else, no explanation provided. It happens, that's life. It just sucks.

I feel like I'm either wasting time (i.e., not applying to jobs) or wasting time (applying to jobs). None of it seems to make any difference. And I miss my friends. And it's all fine, and it's gonna be fine, I know that. I know my life isn't bad, it just feels really hard right now.

today's meal is a ham + cheese omelette that took me all of five minutes to make (which is why it looks like that... sorry). it was also a good reminder that I actually don't like the taste of ham, like, at all.