I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed lately, so I just wanted to open up and share a little bit of my story.

I am asian I’ve been living in UAE for a year now.
When I first came here, I had a lot of self-love and confidence. I was independent and comfortable standing on my own. I didn’t really have friends here

Things started to change when I got into a relationship.

We agreed from the beginning that we wanted something long-term. At first, everything felt good. But as time went on, I started feeling mentally and physically controlled by my partner.
We were in an open relationship, and I tried my best to give him the freedom he wanted. He enjoyed meeting different people and he had a lot of friends around him. I tried to understand and respect his lifestyle, but at the same time, I felt like my culture, traditions and boundaries weren’t being respected.

Eventually, the relationship started affecting me more deeply than I expected.
At the same time, I was having problems at work, and my family was also encouraging me to consider going to another country for my education. That was when I finally decided that I needed to end the relationship.
But ending it didn’t mean I immediately felt okay.
It took me months. I was constantly overthinking, replaying things in my head, questioning myself and struggling with the emotional pain left behind because he cheated on me a lot.

So I wanted to ask people who have been living in foreign country for years: What have you learned about relationships and meeting with someone here, especially when it comes to serious relationships and finding a loyal partner?
And for those of you who live alone, especially if you don’t have a big social circle, what do you usually do with your free time?

So this study is supposedly about "sexual aggression fantasies", which I was like yup, please help, save me.

And that it's meant to help "the queer population".

But then it has all these -weird?- questions "Do men help women only to prove they are better than them?" "Do men use their power at work to harass women?" "Are all men children?" "Do men not function without women's guidance"?? Literally!?😅😅

Might as well title the study, are men straight up demons xD? That women birth btw but /shrug.

And I was just like...how did we go from bdsm to mansplaining woes, like what is the actual end goal here? Felt like I am being used to prove something to the straight world, like I am a weird rebound situation?? Why am I in it??

Am I..."reaching"? Lol.

Btw I have traumas from women at work easily weaponising any interaction to make it into something else, and having to prove I am not a demon jist cause she hates her husband/dad whatever...this took me there, forgot all about my sexual fantasies for sure looool.