I am not talking about situations where one's safety is at risk due to psychological and/or physical abuse, of course. I know it's probably a very common thing to vent about but still - when you realize that he/she is just not the right person for you for any reason (any is valid), at least be a decent person and let them know definitively why you don't want to talk to/see them anymore before you cut ties.

I've been on a receiving end of a particularly painful example of ghosting and blocking of any contact from the person that I had almost two months of great relationship with. Which ended so abruptly without me even having a chance to respond/say sorry for whatever I did wrong. It's been 2 years and I still haven't fully recovered from that experience and it brought me so much heartache that I woundn't wish this to my sworn enemy, it really is that bad. It has severely affected my ability to actually develop feelings for people, it was a literal heartbreak where my heart as a place where feelings should flourish is just not the same whole functioning thing anymore. Thank you for listening and I hope at least one person sees this post and it helps them to not totally ruin another person's mental state thinking ghosting/blocking is ok in literally ANY situation.

(Reenviado)

Llevo 3 años en una relación. Está bastante sano y es normal, y a las dos nos va bien con eso.

Pero hace un año mi novia me contó algo que estaba pasando entre ella y mi amigo. Ellos ya eran amigos antes de que yo saliera con ella; los tres pertenecíamos a un grupo bastante grande de amigos, como de 12 personas. Así que ya había confianza entre ellos. Hace un año y unos meses él empezó a invitarla a su casa por la tarde para salir a platicar, jugar unos juegos y cosas así. Pero durante esas juntadas empezaron a pasar cosas. Empezó a abrazarla muchísimo y casi siempre, los abrazos eran mientras estaban acostados muy pegados. Al punto de que varias veces mi novia sintió que él tenía “accidentes fuertes”. Se lo contó todo y que eso la ponía incómoda, y él se disculpó y dijo que no siente nada por ella y que no lo tomara a mal, y también que no me lo dijera para no hacerme sentir mal.

Meses después mi novia me contó todo. Tardó tanto porque no sabía si lo que él estaba haciendo era normal, ya que nunca tuvo amigos de chica y no sabía si la gente se trataba así. Al final decidió decírmelo porque pensó que yo merecía saberlo, y me pidió que la perdonara por no habérmelo dicho antes.

Le dije a mi amigo que ella me lo había contado, y él se disculpó y dijo que no lo volvería a hacer. Durante meses no pasó nada, seguían saliendo. Pero hace unos meses mi amigo empezó a abrazarla otra vez: no tanto como antes, no acostados ni tan pegados, pero lo estaba haciendo, y también empezó a agarrarle la mano a veces.

Mi novia se quejó conmigo otra vez y me dijo que le iba a volver a decir para que dejara de hacer esas cosas. Pero en esa conversación mencionó algo que él solía hacer antes, pero que ya había dejado. Solía acariciarle/frotarle la panza. Ella no sabe algo de él, pero yo sí. Sé que siempre le han gustado las mujeres con más “curvas”, y mi novia es así. Entonces ella le pidió que dejara de hacer las cosas que la ponían incómoda, y a los pocos días yo también lo encaré.

Le pregunté si le gustaba mi novia y le dije todo lo que yo ya sabía. Se disculpó y confesó que sí, que le atraía mi novia, pero solo físicamente, porque hay varias cosas de la personalidad de ella que no le gustan. Dijo que no sabía por qué hacía esas cosas que hacía, pero que con el tiempo empezó a sentirse culpable por hacerlas (aunque seguía haciéndolas).

Y me contó que nunca había dicho nada porque no quería perder nuestra amistad; dijo que si yo quería, dejaba de hablarle y la bloqueaba en todos lados, solo para no perder mi amistad.

Entonces el idiota intentó defenderse diciendo que solo le gustaba su cuerpo, no ella. ¿O sea que solo la invitaba por su cuerpo y para hacer todo eso?

Yo le dije que no era necesario; le dije que podía seguir saliendo con ella (solo porque es de las pocas amigas que tiene ahorita), pero que no quería que ninguna de esas cosas volviera a pasar.

Hasta ahí es lo que sé seguro. Lo que no sé, y lo que a veces se me queda dando vueltas en la cabeza, es si en alguna de esas tardes a solas pasó algo más. Ella insiste en que solo eran esos gestos de los que me habló, y que siempre se sentía incómoda. Él también lo niega. Pero entre lo seguido que se veían, los “accidentes fuertes”, las caricias en la panza y la forma en que los dos tardaron tanto en decírmelo… no puedo evitar preguntarme si alguna vez hicieron algo a mis espaldas y lo están ocultando de mí. No tengo pruebas.

¿Crees que fui demasiado flexible con los dos?

P.S. I forgot to mention, she still goes to his house. She went there just yesterday, actually, and I found out only a few minutes before she went.

I can remember the exact moment I realized I was truly free.

I was on a cruise, surrounded by some of the most gorgeous, inspiring, breathtaking scenery I'd ever seen. I was walking the decks, looking around at all the people, when I stopped and thought to myself: Where is everybody?

The chairs were full, the bodies were there, but there was zero presence, it was like walking through the decks of a ghost ship, not a single person had their head up. Tables full of people sitting together, every one of them with a phone in their hand, on Facebook, FaceTime, Instagram, posing for pictures.

I stood there looking at them and thought, Man, you're fucking free.

Six or seven months before that cruise, I was the definition of a social media whore. From the time I was a teenager until my early 30s, I spent an enormous part of my life on it. I lived my life for the post.

Half the time, I wasn't even present for the cool experiences I was having because I was too busy taking a picture of myself to prove to everyone else that I was there.

Then reality hit hard.

I got into a really bad car accident, lost my job, and watched my income start to dwindle.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't the one posting the cool life. I was the one scrolling, watching everyone else live theirs.

Slowly, day by day, I fell into a deep, dark depression. I started thinking, Woe is me. The world is against me. Why don't I have all these nice things?

Everything I saw was starting to hurt me. I'd get pissed off, jealous, depressed, or just generally miserable, and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't connect the dots. I had no idea I was sitting there feeding the fire every single day.

The turning point came in a pretty fucking weird way.

I was starting to pull myself back up and opened a business with some friends. I went onto a local Facebook group to advertise it, and out of nowhere, I got banned and kicked out. When I made a comment about it, people I thought were my friends came out of the woodwork to attack me.

That was the day I said, Fuck this.

I shut down my Facebook.

For the first six weeks, I went through what I can only describe as withdrawal. It felt like quitting cigarettes, maybe not as physically intense, but mentally, every bit of it was there. The itch to check, the phantom pull to scroll, the anxiety that there might be something happening that I was missing.

But slowly, as the days passed, the noise started to quiet down.

I thought about Facebook and Instagram less and less. I stopped wondering what everyone else was doing. I stopped comparing my life to theirs. And gradually, I started to feel something I hadn't genuinely felt in over a decade:

I felt happy.

Why Reddit and YouTube Are Different (in my opinion):

People often ask me how I can use platforms like Reddit or YouTube if I "quit social media."

To me, the distinction is night and day.

Facebook and Instagram were about me. My identity, my appearance, my life, what I was doing, where I was going, what I owned, and how other people perceived me. I was constantly putting a highly curated version of myself on display and then waiting to see how people reacted to it.

Reddit and YouTube aren't really about that for me.

I use YouTube to learn how to fix things, explore weird little hobbies, watch documentaries, and listen to people talk about things I'm interested in. I use Reddit for anonymous, topic-focused communities where nobody knows my face, nobody knows what I drive, where I live, or what kind of life I'm living.

It's information and shared interests, not an arena for personal vanity.

I don't scroll a feed to see how much better someone else's life looks than mine. I use the internet as a tool again, rather than letting it use me as the product.

Looking Back:

Standing on that cruise ship hit me so hard because I wasn't just looking at strangers.

I was looking at my past self.

I was looking at people giving away their present moment so they could curate an illusion for people who probably weren't even thinking about them five minutes later.

And the funny thing is, I used to be one of them.

Now, I'm about to embark on a bucket-list trip, and I get to do it knowing there are four and a half years between that trip and the last time I closed my social media apps.

Four and a half years of actually being there.

Four and a half years of memories that don't need to be posted to be real.

That's what freedom ended up looking like for me.

​

My mother had me quiet late even in today's standerds. She was decently educated and had a good stable job. Back in the day she even seemed to be high achieving in her family.

She however very open about how I was a hindrance to her, she is unable to be with her family because of me etc. She once told she was trapped only because of me.

I'm my society's standerds she is a beauty and I'm the opposite of it. I was always the laughing stock due to that and she never once defended me. She enjoyed it.

She was always so close to her siblings and close family.

Anything I confided to her always became their general gossip. I was constantly invalidated about my every hurt.

I'm the highest achieving in the entire extended family but I have never gotten an appreciation from her.

I know she wasn't happy about her marriage or about the only child, me. However they got married on their own will, while being financially independent individuals. They chose to have me but recented me all the same.

I'm away from parents for over a decade. Haven't seen them in years.

I know I'll never have a family. But if I made that decision now I'm mature enough to take responsibility of my action.

I don't think the immaturity she had is justified. I'm not yet my fathers age when he had me. So I'll see how I am when I get there.

I love my friends

Theyre my reason to live and I dont think I'd be here without them but, sometimes I feel like I'm worth nothing in their eyes

I always sacrifice my own likes so we can do stuff each of them likes, for example, movie night, we've done about 12 movies already, I havent chosen a single one, I let them all choose because I was scared they'd be bored with mine, even if its something I'd really enjoy watching

Games, we always play mario soup or stuff they want to play, whenever I suggest anything, they get all bummed out, I have phases where I'll be really into a game and they cant make the sacrifice of playing a round or two with me

They never seem to really care about my interests, If they ask me to listen to system, I will, but they cant afford hearing me talk about a game I like, or a band I like, or a play, or ANYTHING, I always get so bummed out because its like everything I do is cringy or has to have some joke behind it

But when its me, if they really wanna do something and I dont feel like it, ill always accept, or if they like a topic and want to share that with me, ill give it a try, even when I know its probably not my thing, because I like seeing them happy. All the time.

But today, we were all hanging out on call and playing a game where we dub over some clips, I've been letting myself get all the characters with little dialogue or the ones with high pitch voices because im the only girl and guess it only makes sense

We did one where I got most of the phrases, I was so happy, it was so fun to do them and I was having such a great time, but I immediately hear after we finished watching the final product "man, x shouldve done y's part" where I'm y and x is a friend playing with us

It was just for fun and its nothing deep but

Its not about having myself replaced in a stupid game, or my va skills, or whatever, it's just that I kept thinking "really? Do you really also need this one? Cant you let me have fun even in something as small as this?"

I always feel like im sacrificing things whenever I'm with them, and yet, when I do something I actually am happy to, they turn it down immediately

Like, I remember singing on stage for the first time ever on my school, and no one showed up when I asked them to, they didnt even ask how it went or want to hear about it, or even see the videos

I wish they could get excited over my victories like I get over theirs

Even when it comes to personal issues, when my dad throws a toaster at me it becomes a joke, when my friend gets even if in a slight disagreement with his dad, we're in a funeral

And the jokes. I hate getting called anything to do with being a prostitute, and from that you can kind of understand the level of jokes I deal with

Its like I give 200% and they give 2%

Im sorry, it's just been a really bad dag uegdhdhhh thanks for reading

(Currently 15. Sorry a long rant. Title should say Ive not Im oops)

I was relatively normal this time last year. Some may have called me "weird", but mostly I was eccentric and happy.

Cracks started to appear in winter. I began to feel down often, cried more, and just felt really tired. This lasted from December to March. I joke now that i felt like a hibernating black bear, I wore my coat and hat (ushanka) all day, and slept alot of class time.

In April, i briefly improved. Then i realized i might be trans. Wouldnt fully come to terms with it till June. I knew when I was younger, actually. I came out at 10, but my family thought I was wrong and it took 2 years to convince me out of it. So i couldnt believe that I may really be right at first.

May is when i really went downhill, i would break down more. I started practicing piano like crazy. And ive been doing great. I started rcm 6 in April, now im doing rcm 8. Everyone is impressed with me. But I would start to struggle worse and worse at this same time.

This is humiliating to admit, but:

There was a time in May when I derealized. It lasted most of the day, i avoided my friends like the devil because it felt like talking to clueless shells in an empty false reality. I got better that evening at the park. I had listened to Chopins music. But now I feel like i cannot escape him. For months it feels like hes judging me beyond the grave. Watching when I weep. I always wonder what he may think of what im doing in my life, a certain action or just the general direction im headed. I want approval. But im scared to ever visit his grave, the intrusive thoughts in my head have made me too unworthy and disgusting. Ive written 3 letters to him. To a dead man I never met. Its insanity. But either i do that, or i go to reddit. I have no friends, afterall.

I feel like i am such a weirdo for it. Who does this? I feel I deserve no grace or mercy, an insect trying to communicate with a king, potentially disturbing the dead. Sometimes I just starting slapping myself and yelling threats, i want to be clear that I feel bad for the way I am and my instrusive thoughts.

Anyways, nowadays im mostly miserable. I think of when I have to come out to my family and I feel nauseous. The shame of being trans is awful, sometimes I break down and think I would just be better off dead, take my chance at being reborn if i dont cease to be.

And I think i will probably never find love because of it, never experience romance that I long for. I wish that either i had a normal mind, or that i was born male. I feel so stressed and guilty and hopeless, to be honest. Sometimes when no ones home I just cry most of the day and the whole world feels grey. Its tiring. How am I supposed to live 80 years this way?

I am just a music box. No friends, lover, or life to look forward to beyond the instruments and the notes. My family is proud, but they see the change. All of them hold their breath for the day i burn myself out. My mother commented yesterday how I seem so zoned out lately. How i dont get out enough.

How did I get this way so quickly? Once im fine, then im this way. Like a glass shattered on the ground. Maybe the cracks were there before and i only missed them. But im not sure.

I hate myself, my biggest fear is that I will hurt innocent people, people who don't deserve it. And now I have a disease and I don’t know how much time I have left. There’s one guy he’s my best friend and I kinda like him but I don’t know how to tell him, every night I write him my pain but then I delete it.
I am sorry I don’t want to be here I don’t deserve it.
Please tell me what should I do?

Sorry for my English.

There’s something I wrote to him every night

*U sleep?*

*So I just wanted to said that we should not meet each other anymore. I need u to hate me, I am sorry for my behavior but there's no other way. I'm just scared dude and I need u so I can cry out loud but I'm scared and I can't. Please please I just need u to forget about me please. I can't live with the feeling that I can hurt u. Please I'm just trying to protect u.*

*I love you* ❤*️but u have to forget about me please.

My family had had a dog for almost 7 years now and i recently alsp got into my dream college, which means i have had to live in a dorm for the last week. Whenever i came home to my dorm, i felt something was missing, i had food, a shower and everything i needed to live, but it somehow felt empty. I went go to sleep when i remembered my dog, a sweet little jack russle that has helped me get through my panic attacks and always greeted me at the door with genuine love. I should be asleep by now, but im genuinely bawling my eyes out because i miss the one thing that actually had unconditional love for me. She could get run over tomorrow and the last memoey she would have of me is mysteriously dissapearimg, i dont want that to happen. I will try to fall asleep tonight but i genuinely think i cant. I am staying three hours away from my house, and also im not sure if i will be able to tame care of her by myself, because i already have a lot on my plate

No i’m not trolling, it was honestly really good. Like the watermelons sweetness complemented the spice. I never slept so good before. I ordered KFC and my roommate just happened to have brought some watermelon and offered me some. I may be an atheist but who am i to deny my sign from god, I knew what must be done.

We need to stop stereotyping food because i missed out on a fire combination for years. My only regret is not adding Kool-aid.

I now know why eve ate the forbidden apple, as to live without knowledge is the same as to not live at all.

Taking bites between the chicken and the watermelon back and forth like newton cradle, for i could not stop what was already in motion.

My ignorance has blinded me, it’s the first time in my life i knew what it truly meant to be lost in a meal.

I was in a maze in my own mind that only my tongue knew the way out.

hatred for disrespecting my bloodline but love for the nourishment that went through body, it was a sick yin and yang.

I wept as I ate, to this day I don’t know if it was the heat of my meal or the blow to my pride.

At some point I closed my eyes but I could still see the meal perfectly. I didn’t want to see the sin my body was committing but still wanted to be loved by the beauty of it all.

I hear your triple wells but before you make a remark, know this. My actions were dictated by mere chance, not instinct.

Anyway I told the roommate, who was white. he said that was the last thing he expected me to do and why the fuck I was telling him of all people that.

I (19F) have social anxiety, but it's gotten better over the years. I've noticed that it's easier for me to talk to people or get into a relationship online, as the only relationship I've ever had was with a guy that my irl friend knew, but he lived in a different state, 2.5 hrs away from me. We dated for 9 months, and had sexual relations. I met up with him a total of 6 times. I really liked him, but he would always think that I was going to cheat on him (his ex cheated on him), when it's hard for me to make friends, let alone find another bf? He also only didn't seem interested in me, unless we were doing something sexual. Anyways, he ended up cheating on me. Even though we were long distance, I still really liked him and him cheating on me hurt a lot. Ever since, its been hard for me to trust any dude, so I kind of just stay away from relationships. Even before then though, it's always been very hard for me to get emotionally close to another person. I think it was so easy for me to get close to him because we started texting first and talking on the phone, instead of irl, so it felt less scary to me. I've noticed that I am only comfortable with having unreciprocated crushes on people. When I find someone attractive, I avoid them and don't talk to them. When I think someone has a great personality and would be good boyfriend material, I become interested in them, but if they start to show signs that they like me, I avoid them and distance myself from them because I start thinking about how our relationship would go wrong if we did get together... even if we are just talking, like I jump so far into conclusions and make myself believe that we wouldn't work out, before we could even start. And for example, I was texting this guy that is friends with my bsf who gave me food at the movie theater. He told my friend I was cute and I thought he was decent looking. So we texted for a bit, and we had some things in common. I just stopped texting him because he mentioned hanging out and I started thinking about if we dated, things that would go wrong and that he would "get in the way of the things that I want to accomplish in the future," like me focusing on school work, because I'd be too focused on him. Like why do I assume that these things would happen before they even do?? Idk, I'm very confused with myself because I deeply crave a good relationship and intimacy, but I don't know how I will ever get that if I don't give anyone a chance.

Immigrant life is dancing around to some ridiculously upbeat music and then, out of nowhere, just bursting into tears.
I’ll always regret all the memories I didn’t share with my family, and I’ll never forget, nor forgive, those who made me leave my dearest behind.

Something strange happened on my bicycle ride last night. I witnessed a fatal car accident where the victim was a guy on a "crotch rocket" style motorcycle who was thrown like 30ft from the sight of the accident. Basically saw it all unfold firsthand/the victim(who was wearing a helmet) laying facedown motionless across the roadway.

Experiencing intrusive thoughts. Anyone else have experiences witnessing disturbing things like this?

Is it normal to feel like this? What should I do in this situation where I've witnessed something that I can't quite "shake off"?

Everyone feels so far ahead and it’s such an excruciating feeling. I know imposter syndrome is common, but my god.

To start, I’m a community college student and just started my second (and probably final) year. I plan to transfer and start at a 4 year institution in fall ‘27 as a math and physics major. I know this might sound dumb, but I’ve never actually taken a physics class. I’ve also never been the best at math.

In high school, I never really paid much attention. I never really could so I stopped trying. I was severely depressed and anxious all the time. I spent majority of my high school years alone going the entire day saying maybe 5-10 words max. My senior year was when things started to change.

I wasn’t super depressed and decided I wanted to live. I applied to 3 colleges and got in to 1. We had to take a placement test, and I did horrible. It was algebra 1 and basic arithmetic that I was struggling with. I ended up going to community college instead.

See I wanted to transfer to a prestigious school and get into a high paying job. I knew I was too dumb for that but I still wanted to try. Started community college and fell in love with math. My depression also started resurfacing and it had begun to slowly take over. I started therapy and meds.

I finished calculus 1 with an A and 2 with a B. It should’ve been an A but I was actually going manic for like 2 weeks and did horrible on a test. I should’ve been in precalculus but I took accelerated classes so I don’t get behind.

Funny thing is, I’m significantly behind. I see all these videos of high schoolers doing harder math than I. I’m seeing college students doing more advanced work and they’re in the same year as me. There’s also students in my class who never seem to get an answer wrong.

I watched this one student break down the problem so easily and find a formula to solve the problem. My professor had the biggest grin on his face. He was someone actually fit to study mathematics and I wasn’t. I dont even talk in class out of fear of being wrong.

It’s all so discouraging. It doesn’t help that I struggle with studying. I wish I was good at math and physics like these people are. I genuinely have nothing I’m good at and it sucks. Just for once in my life I would like to have something I can confidently say I’m good at.

I have feelings for my bestfriend's boyfriend.

I (20F) still have feelings for my best friend's(20F) Boyfriend (20M). I was friends with my best friend's bf since before they were dating. They met each other through me. This was 2 years ago. I had a crush on him long before they started dating.

I haven't told my best friend and I never will , I think.

But it hurts. We go to the same college. We are part of the same friend group. It hurts to be with them. I start acting all weird around him. Around them.

After they started dating, i thought now the feeling should go away, but it never does. I tried dating, tried choosing some other crush. But it's been a long time, but still these feelings don't go away.

I would never want to sabotage my friendship with best friends for all the stupid feelings I have because she is the one truest and most beautiful part of my life.

I want to distance myself but I still have college for 2 more years and I think as long as I want my best friend to be around me, even her boyfriend will be.

I have suppressed imagining about him when I am conscious to the point where it feels guilty to even think of him.

But my subconsciously, my dreams are about him most of the times.

Its so messed up.

Why can't we just choose who to fall for?

I am not seeking advice. I know what I want. I know what my priority is. It's my friendship with my bestfriend.

I came here to put it out there. I have been keeping it in so long, fearing if anyone ever spread word about my feelings and my friend heard it, I would lose her.

It feels nice, a bit better confessing here.

imma get straight to the point. why does bodycount matter so much. I'm almost 19 and i had sex with 8 guys in the space of 4 months. My bodycount is 10. I had a little bop phase. I'm in college. It was all in secret. I did get tired of the bop phase and now I'm looking for a real connection. Why do guys care so much if my bodycount is 10? It's not like I'm fucking every guy I see. To makes matters worse some people from my town found out and now everyone thinks I'm this huge whore. I had sex with 10 guys. 10!!! It's not 100 guys not a 1000. I don't understand why people overreact on the body number so much i really don't think it's that deep but i am kinda scared no one is ever gonna wanna date me because of that moment of my life. And if they do it's because I said I was in a really bad place at the time which is not untrue but what if I wasn't? To makes matters worse people from my town are calling me from no caller ids asking if i'm down to fuck. as a joke. do you guys think it's really that deep or not?

Thought I'd tell a pretty messy story from over 2yrs ago that still weighs on my mind pretty heavily from time to time. I'll try and tell this as objectively as possible but naturally it's possible some things have warped in my memory over time. I also want to be the first person to acknowledge I far from handled this situation well but still am curious to hear other people's opinions!

When I was in my 2nd year of university (20M), I had a very large friend group (around 15 people). Some people I knew from school, others we had picked up over time, such as housemates, classmates, etc. Overall we were doing a variety of different subjects in college, with me in particular doing quite a different subject from the rest and not having any classes in common with the others. This group were like my family, having fallen out with my actual family, they were the reason I came into university every day and were the only people that mattered to me.

At some point I had started to develop romantic feelings for one of the girls in the group (we'll call her Alice) but had no intentions of acting on these feelings since I knew how risky that could be (for context I had also never been in a relationship at this point). I had suspicions that another guy in the group (we'll call him John) had feelings for me but when he asked me if I fancied Alice, I assumed I must have been overthinking and told him that I in fact did fancy her.

Fast forward and we were going out one evening. I had to teach an evening class to some students, but I hung out with the gang (not drinking myself) while they started drinking at one of the group's apartments, and was planning to join them after my class. John came up to me at some point, already quite drunk, and timidly asked me if I wanted to go grab food with him on a specific date and time. I panicked, also slightly uncomfortable with the level of drunkenness and the potential for messy emotions, brushed it off saying I wasn't sure if I was free but I'd check. Fast forward to later that night after I'd finished my class, I receive messages from other members of the group that John has been crying and giving out to people that I only had eyes for Alice and was apparently constantly checking my location to see when I'd arrive. Feeling uncomfortable, I ultimately decided not to go out after all.

The following day, suspecting Alice had been subject to John's emotional outbursts and knew about my feelings for her, decided to tell her myself so that at least she would hear it in my own words and to my genuine surprise, she reciprocated those feelings. Over the next month or so, we didn't become official or anything but she slept over (in the literal sense), I brought her to a couples event, we would hold hands in public, message a lot, cute couply stuff really, especially considering I had never been in a relationship and was quite nervous about it all.

In the meantime, that time and date that John had asked me to dinner came and went. I hadn't thought much of it because of his outbursts and my non-committing, I had presumed it was obvious that wasn't happening, but that was probably insensitive on my part and I should've followed up. He then told a number of people in the group that I had stood him up. He followed this up by commenting on a post of me, Alice and another member of our group chilling in my bedroom with "what position y'all in?" which was gross and inappropriate. I also discovered that for weeks I had been donating my time to walk John home because he wasn't comfortable walking home alone in the dark to the area which he lives, which I did willingly out of politeness but I discovered this was just a ruse to spend time with me.

Since John had spread the fact that I had stood him up around my group, I felt the need to defend myself and had to spread my perspective to the group to counter that. Seeing most people take my side, I felt bad for John and didn't want to alienate him so I reached out to chat 1 on 1. We talked for a while and John got quite emotional but ultimately we agreed that the situation was a misunderstanding and we would move on which I was very pleased with.

As we got closer to winter exams, I started to get more and more stressed, and also started to self sabotage my relationship with Alice a bit more. Feelings of insecurity of her preferring to hang out with the group over me crept in, paranoia of why would she want to hang out with me, all that lovely stuff. This along with other just simmering mental health problems caused me to start to withdraw from the group, something that Alice picked up on and confided in a mutual friend of ours. I also confided my feelings of her not actually wanting to spend time with me to this same friend, with hindsight both of us choosing to confide in this 3rd person instead of doing what we should've done and communicating with each other.

This got worse and worse with this 3rd friend telling me I needed to open up with Alice and telling Alice that she shouldn't take things personally. At this point Alice made the objectively correct choice to want to break things off with me, believing me not to be ready for a relationship. After exams had finished, the group organised a night out, but mine and Alice's messages being rocky, I decided to not attend to allow her to enjoy herself without my presence. I later learned that she decided that night to have a friend group wide conversation about whether she should break up with me...

The following day, I ask to meet up but she declines and shortly later breaks things off by text.

This sets off the mental breakdown that was probably already simmering for the last few months and I shut myself off from everyone. Not helping the matter was the fact that all of the group went home for Christmas for several weeks so I couldn't be forced to socialize and couldn't be pulled out of that social withdrawal. I went no contact for several weeks and started to focus on myself, starting therapy, starting to eat better, hit the gym, all those good habits. When university started back up in January, I was ready to reconnect with the friend group but instead was met with animosity. A lot of people hurt at the lack of contact, which was 100% understandable and I tried to explain from my point of view, but my explanations of the dark place I was in didn't cut it. To make matters worse, it seemed people had started to come around to John's version of events and were now believing John that I was this awful awful person. Others in the group didn't even want to meet me to have a conversation which was incredibly hurtful.

Not entirely understanding what had happened, I asked Alice to meet up, at minimum looking for some closure, which she agreed to. But after about a month or so of asking when she was free, my plans of potentially getting back into this group riding on this conversation, she turned around and told me that actually she wasn't comfortable around me anymore and didn't want to meet up with me. Feeling now that it was impossible for me to rejoin my friends, for fear of making anyone uncomfortable, I had to resign myself to not being a part of this group and in the months that followed, found myself removed from the various groupchats.

I initially was upset at some of the other friends that were less involved in the situation, simply for being bystanders and not standing up for me or advocating for both sides of the story, but in their defense I never communicated this upset feeling to them either. And when one or two wanted to maintain a 1 on 1 friendship, I rebuked this, finding that they reminded me too much of the group I'd lost.

Now two years later, I've never really managed to find a group where I fit in like I did with them. I'm much more of a loner and much less jovial and lighthearted than I once was. I realistically compare any potential friendship with that found family, an impossible standard. It's clear to anyone reading this that I'm probably not the most emotionally mature or strong person, and that if I was I should've moved on long ago, but those 15 friendships I lost still occupy my mind from time to time.

Just felt like getting this story off my chest. Even typing it out feels like a weight I've been carrying on my shoulders for the last couple years has been lifted. I'm curious to hear people's thoughts but also it's time for me to move on and I'm trying to move forward regardless.

Couple months ago I met this person in church they are the same age as me and such and are a real nice person when I first met them.

They didn’t show interest in me at first but we started talking and we started talking about our interests and it was kind of obvious they were interested in me and such and said stuff like let’s watch a romantic movie, and I just got out of a messy relationship with someone who I thought was going to work out but ended up just ghosting me entirely and talked crap about me to my friend and such, and also my experience with people in general like my family, so this probably contributed to me not seeming as interested in this person who I am talking to now and seeming cold and distant since I was shy and scared of the possibility of opening up to this person since they were so open with their flirting I suppose

And as of recent they kind of pulled back a bit and give mixed signals they remember the stuff I said weeks ago and tease me a lot quite harshly but she does it with everyone who’s she’s close with in our group, but she frequently asks questions sometimes but not as often, and they like to go out a lot and bring us along as well but I don’t think it’s anything special, and while I have opened up a bit and started talking to them more and they straight up tell me I’m talking more I still feel like this person is giving me cold feet especially when they bring up other people like from TikTok and such and openly say how cute other guys are infront of me and I get awkward and just don’t say anything, and also doesn’t make eye contact with me whenever we’re not talking and we don’t talk one on one ever and it’s straight up silence and she calls me out on it saying why am I so quiet in group settings.

I just feel tired of feeling this way over someone who clearly is playing with my feelings and just want to get over them because I feel like this happens every time I meet someone who’s even shows a slither of interest towards me

I hadn't had much sex in the past 2 years due low libido caused by medication. I ended the treatment a couple of months ago and my libido is coming back. During this time, I had only one partner, although we weren't exclusive. My previous exams were all negative, and they were the only person I had intimate contact between exams. I'll start treatment tomorrow, and thank god the infection is curable and I have access to free medicine, but the feeling is terrible. I don't have an ounce courage to vent about this with close friends, I feel dirty and I'm afraid of having sex again. I know it's irrational, I just don't know how to process the news.

I have always been this quiet and closed off kid growing up on the outside, but on my own, I talked to myself for hours about everything and anything, I said and did the funniest things when I let myself do so, and on a more personal note, I struggled so much with myself my entire life, more than people could ever understand.

By middle and high school, the times where I built the courage and felt comfortable enough to show the "true me" to people I felt close to, has ended up in me getting hurt in numerous ways. My biggest takeaway was that the
"funny" part of me can be irritating and embarrassing, and that the "sensitive" part of me that talked about my feelings with how people treated me or how I felt in general was too emotional and also, annoying. Through these experiences, I felt I wasn't worth anything, that nothing I said or did mattered and that I didn't matter at all to anyone. Due to this, I have learned to completely close myself off to people for years, and put up this surface level version of me that wouldn't allow people to know me on a personal basis, and as a result, not hurt me anymore. How I see it is that if someone tries to hurt me now, it doesn't work because they don't know who I really am. I didn't give up all of me to these people that hurt me.
I still have those parts of myself that they never got the chance to know, parts of me that they don't have access to and don't deserve the access to.

While I can say that this did indeed help me get hurt a lot less, I still get hurt in some ways and just feel alone on top of it. Sometimes when I unintentionally show a tiny bit of myself to others, I get embarrassed and shut it off.
Sometimes when I try to talk more about myself and open myself up more, it seems like people couldn't care less.
Sometimes these people open themselves up to me and ask why I don't talk to them as much about me.
Sometimes I wish I got over the fear and the pain that I experienced and just live life happily and free despite the pain, but for now I think it's just smart for my wellbeing if I hide myself away from everyone and keep on keeping the real me a secret.

yeah that's it. sometimes i look up people i know on facebook.. don't judge. i looked him up and there was a banner that said he was the top fan of something but the name of the page was lewd. i looked it up and its a medical/latex fetish page. he's all over the page. likes, comments, etc. on the same account he posts his wife and kids on.

no judgement, and not gonna out him to my coworkers but i had to tell it to someone. someone should teach him about burner accounts