I could have never expected this level of sadness* for officially being done DoorDashing. (*I mean, if there was a different word I’d use it, but that’s all that fits). I’d been Dashing for about two years now, which also happened to be the worst two years of my life. But Dashing allowed me to drive around, sometimes to new places I’d never been before, listen to music and forget about some of the stuff I was going through. Some days the Dashing (or attempts to with no orders coming in) made things much much worse, but taught me strength I never had before. Most days I was just happy to have finally found something I “could” do. I’ve struggled most of my life with pretty intense social anxiety, and after PTSD-inducing abuse I now have selective mutism where I physically cannot speak to people at times. DoorDashing never showed me that side of me. I was friendly, outgoing, and usually pretty upbeat and ok with any customer interactions. It helped me to grow as a person in ways I didn’t expect. And about a month ago, my gut knew it was coming, my 2011 Kia became undrivable and the steering locked up completely. It’s not worth fixing, nor could I afford to anyway. So I sold it. And as of today I have no car. (That is a whole other emotional post I won’t even write lol) I just wanted to say thank you to this community, as much as some of you have pissed me off lol. I felt a camaraderie here, as small as my presence may have been, that helped me to carry on in the world when I didn’t want to. I’ve never really fit in anywhere, but for a time I did fit in here. So thanks pals, and I hope you all have only successful high tipping Dashes with no drinks & stay safe. (Maybe I’ll be able to save up for a used car and be back. Or maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Either way. Love ya all, mean it)

39m here. Like others, no arrests or fights or dui…but I have Been drinking heavily for the past 20 years. 3-4 nights a week and mostly all days and nights on the weekends…then covid hit and it went to pretty much every day. The past few months I’d drink for 7-10 days and go through several nights of night sweats as withdrawal and stop for a week, then go back to it. I was good about generally not starting until late afternoon, but recently I’d wake up and start having a few drinks. It started on weekends when I knew I would be able to take a nap and my wife could take care of the 4 kids (6,3.5, 15 month twins). Lately, it’s been weekdays. I’d get up with the kids at 6, feed everyone breakfast and make lunches for the older kids while having a couple beers, drop kids off at school (walking), then take twins for a long walk while drinking a beer. I never got drunk, I just needed to take the edge off. I would nap when they napped and then not drink again until evening. Rinse and repeat.
The withdrawals have gotten worse. I’m currently on day 4 sober and barely slept the first few nights. Night sweats like crazy. Last night wasn’t too bad, got some sleep and light sweating. Of course my twins woke up at 530 today, but I feel ok all things considered.
My mom was an alcoholic and died last year at age 65 not from that per se, but throat cancer. She was still very ill from drinking for so many years. My dad is alcoholic but he stopped drinking 35 years ago. Alcoholism runs further back in my families as well.
I just read about kindling this week and it seems like that’s where I’m at. I’m so disappointed in myself. I was the one who got away-went to Ivy League school, had a great job after college that allowed me to travel, have an amazing wife and kids…yet here I am, in the same fucking boat as everyone else. I guess it was a fun 20 years. I never stopped drinking long enough before to experience withdrawals. Now that I have, it sucks. I’m thankful for what seem to be minor symptoms compared to what I’ve read here and on other subs.
I’m still processing everything. My wife and two older kids are gone for the weekend, so I’m with my twins solo (which is fine, I’m a stay at home dad so used to taking care of them by myself). I’m trying to find a silver lining in that I have to stop now, there’s no other option, and because of that my kids’ memories of me being a drunk will be minimal. I’ll be able to remember all their birthday parties and not make an ass of myself for getting too drunk. I’m going to save a shitload of money.
It’s going to be hard. I live in a small social town with a constant flow of booze at every event. My in laws are loaded and have an open bar whenever we visit. All my friends are drinkers. I’d like to think I’ll be able to get to a point where I can enjoy a glass of wine with steak or a cold beer at a bbq or a frozen cocktail at the beach…but it just doesn’t seem like I have that option. I can’t go through these withdrawals, and I certainly can’t handle going to the hospital for a seizure. Nor can I allow anything to happen to me while I’m alone with the kids. I’m so disappointed in myself.

I slept in today, well I woke up early at around 6:30am because pup woke up and wanted to be let out of my room but then I went back to sleep. I was just so comfy and cosy in bed so I stayed til just before 10, though I wasn’t really asleep after 9, I was scrolling through auction catalogues for Webbs and whatnot. And then I did get up and I made some breakfast, I had peanut butter on toast because I don’t ever buy peanut butter at home so it’s nice to sometimes have it. And I also had a coffee. I’ll have to go out the back of the garden and see if there are any feijoas on the tree as I think I’d fancy some while I’m here. It’s very cool and crisp and sunny today. I forgot to bring any sunscreen so I’m a bit stressed about that and mum only has some but it’s kind of stingy on my skin so idk. I’ll just loiter in the shade like a wee lil vampire today and try find something at a chemist tomorrow. I find it odd that people find it odd that I wear SPF every single day, even not leaving the house. Like the sun is deadly, especially in this country, so mock me all you want for prioritising SPF and shade and all that but I don’t care. I’m taking care of my health and my skin. I hope when I’m sixty my skin will still be soft and supple and less wrinkled and then all the people that mocked me will be leather sun spotted lizards. No I don’t hope for that at all, not the latter part anyway, that’s just mean. I’m absolutely not a sun worshipper, I like to get some sun because you need it and it feels nice for short periods of time, but I don’t bask in it and never have. I don’t like it and it stresses me out a lot as I just think about my skin cells turning rancid and cancerous and the skin damage occurring. If you want to age well, you wear SPF and avoid the sun for the most part. But so anyway, quite a slow morning and it’s nice.
Mums godmother or cousin, I never know which, is coming around for tea today and I have noticed a marked difference in how I feel about someone coming over and a surprise social thing happening. To be fair I did know last night and started to feel anxious and I was planning out all the usual things like where I’ll sit or stand when she arrives and how I’ll say hello and what I should do and how I should behave and say and so on, but it was much much less than usual and today I didn’t have my irritable anxiety thing where I get snappy because I’m going so berserk internally and idk I just do. I don’t like it and it’s not fair on those around me, close people anyway, I’d only snap at people like my parents and I guess Andy. I don’t snap at anyone else but I’m more myself with the other three, I feel safer I guess with those three? I don’t know. It’s not fair that I snap anyway, not at all fair. But so I reacted so much better today, I was still on edge and I was still far from relaxed but I felt… better. And it was noticeable to me. And as I write this now I’m properly realising how different I would have felt a year ago and it’s making me cry as I write this. Sometimes (often) I feel afraid that I’ll never change and better myself, I feel like I’m so stagnant in my progress at times and I feel like such a disappointment to myself and to Andy and to everyone else for how slow my progress is and I don’t know, just this feeling of noticing a change in myself makes me feel so overwhelmed and it’s making me cry more and it’s just I’m finding this whole process so hard. It’s challenging and it’s painful and I feel so defeated so much of the time but right now I feel so proud of myself. I know it isn’t enough change and I know I have so so much to go, but I just wanted to journal about this because it felt like a win and I don’t feel like I get many of those.
Anyway she arrived and she’s so lovely albeit a bit doddery and she got lost so dad drove around to find her and pick her up and mum walked her home as she’s house sitting nearby, she’s from down south I think. She kept looking at me and saying I look like mum then later say I looked like dad and so on. She said she remembers how shy I used to be and i was saying how that is still the case and she said that’s absolutely not a bad way to be and it made me feel nice. She’s really nice.
I took puppy for a walk today and he got very muddy so I had to hose him down outside and wrap him up in towels and he’s so wriggly and so cute. We really are so so so lucky to have this darling wee chap in our family.
How on earth could anyone cheat on Natalie Portman? NATALIE PORTMAN? Incredibly beautiful, crazy talented, I bet she’s lovely and I’m fairly certain she’s ridiculously smart too. Imagine landing a wife like that, mother of your children, and cheating on her. This is why I feel as though it’s inevitable I’ll be cheated on and I won’t ever be enough, because if someone like Natalie Portman isn’t considered enough, how on earth could I ever be considered as such? Her husband is such an f’ing idiot and rotten human being. Anyone who cheats on their partner is. If Andy ever cheats on me when we’re together I will actually gouge his eyeballs out and mash them with a potato masher. I obviously won’t do that. Gross. Gross. Also ouch. I feel mean even suggesting I would do that? I’ll never do that. Ever. I will leave his pretty eyes alone. I might scratch the bench top in his kitchen badly or scuff up the floorboards somewhere so he couldn’t get his deposit back or something though. You know what would be cruel? Mixing all his expensive fragrances up or adding some drops of vinegar to them or something. That’s pure evil, isn’t it? I wouldn’t do that. OR WOULD I? But no I wouldn’t. Unless he cheated on me with my best friend or something but that’s unlikely given I would need a best friend for that to happen. Anyway I’ll top being some maniacal evil genius now. He wouldn’t ever cheat on me. He would never. I’m so deathly afraid of it and I feel like it will happen but equally I cannot imagine him being that kind of man. Anyway. Shush. These thoughts are not helping me in any way - do I have a purpose for these thoughts? Is this me trying to make myself feel bad? Its time to move on from these thoughts.

Me and my (ex?) best friend had decided to match names together on a game that we played together, and the theme we decided to go with was final fantasy. At the time we didn’t know what names to use as we were both tired and tried to think of iconic names to use that anybody knew and would recognize, stupidly I suggested we go by Rinoa and Squall.
I assume you can see the downfall if you know their story and who they are, if you don’t long answer short their a couple and I wasn’t thinking of that fact at the time and that’s what brings me to this story.
Just a few hours ago I don’t know the whole story but it seems like I won’t know it at all but my bestfriend had been talking with their boyfriend and brought up the fact we went by those two names, we haven’t played the game that was brought up, in over a month and we didn’t get to change the name to something more sisterly like Lighting and Serah which depicts our friendship but aside from that
It started an argument between the two until I finally got brought into the mix and I had to personally apologize for it, which I was glad to do and offered we change the name to something more suitable and that I was sorry for hurting him by using those names, but as I was defending myself and my friend he decided to add more fuel into the flame as I was apologizing.
It continued on until I thought enough was enough and said that I wouldn’t fight for our innocence considering how he was painting me in a bad light and he wasn’t seeing it any different and told him that not everything is about him considering how he would treat my bestfriend during the relationship.
My best friend prioritized him over anything else and he always said and made it seem like my bestfriend chose others over him though half the time it was the other way around, they would cancel plans or cut hangout times short just so they could go hang out with him and not cast him aside. Not to mention the fact that when he was in a bad mood or was frustrated it would affect my bestfriend in a negative way and they wouldn’t want to hang out with him any longer because they would start feeling stressed out.
He doesn’t like fps games or anything related to it so we just didn’t tell him about it, as whenever we talk about the game he brushes it aside or says something like “yuck fps games” and I apologized for that as well.
I ended everything by saying that I was sorry for impeding on the relationship and would understand if he didn’t want to talk to me and if me being a problem is causing the relationship to be messy that I would end the friendship so he feels comfortable in the future and that I would be willing to make that sacrifice as all I wanted was for my bestfriend to be happy and for him to be comfortable.
If I could go back in time and undo the whole matching names thing I would but I can’t and for that I’m truly sorry to him.

So I am an “Oregon Trail” genx’er (I just learned that moniker.) 43M born in ‘79. Still in good shape and still zero medications (which the nurses seem to find amazing anytime I am in for anything.) However, in the last couple of years I am really beginning to realize I am aging. It first started with gray in my beard which hasn’t really bothered me at all. Wife says, “it makes you look wise.” Ok, I honestly didn’t think much of it. But, now chest hair is gray. WTF! It’s really kinda freaked me out for some reason. We are at the beach for the week and it has really been messing with my head. So what are the other men in here doing. Besides the inevitable and probably most likely comment, “just embrace it.” What did you do? Shave it
Females welcome to chime in on advice also.

i used to be anorexic and recently started to hit the gym quite frequently for a while now. i always go during a specific time and there’s usually another girlie that goes at the time. one day i was doing step up leaning forward to target glutes and she comes up to me saying that i should straighten my back out & goes on to tell that she’s been going to gym for like almost 6 years and that she knows what she’s doing but like…. Her body is not what i want to look like & i hate her body. whenever she comes up to me, im always nice & polite and say “yea i def incorporate that” & ill notice her looking at me and she sees that i won’t change thing. yesterday she came up to me and said the movement of a workout i was doing was wrong but i told her doing it this way to target another thing and then said “can you F off i don’t like how you look so idk why you’re trying to tell me what to do!” ughhhh

Hi everyone! I’m a Jan 2024 bride and would love some advice on how to deal with my disappointment over my MOH not helping me.
I’ll start by saying that I made it clear from the beginning that I had zero expectations that would put a huge financial burden on her. She does have to pay for her dress but she can pick any dress she likes and is within her budget. I’m paying for hair & makeup. So really all I want is help reaching out to the bridal party to plan things and just some moral support.
A couple months back I had bridesmaids asking about plans for a bachelorette so I talked to her and she was so excited to help me plan. I told her I would pay for decorations and anything extra we needed. I didn’t hear back for a couple days so I went ahead and started a group chat and put together a plan with hotel and Airbnb options and sent to everyone. She didn’t even respond to the group message and I had to ask her if she could respond.
We used to talk regularly and now it’s hard to get a hold of her and she often ignores my texts (most of which aren’t wedding related). My other bridesmaids have offered to help me plan which has been amazing, but I’m just so sad that my MOH can’t even set aside 2 minutes to respond to a message.
I’m self aware and realize that not everyone will care about my wedding as much as I do. But we’ve been best friends for over 17 years and I guess I hoped it would be different. I will love her no matter what, but I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or right in feeling disappointed. I don’t know if I should bring it up or just be OK with the fact that her role will only be a wedding-day role and be grateful for that.

I am male 25. Things got worse lately and now I have rollercoaster of emotions towards my girlfriend. I also have to say we transformed to relationship from fwb (but we liked each there from the start) and at the start of our relationships I wasn’t really into it (I had to push myself to have a meeting with her or any other interactions) but then with time things naturally got better we got closer and prior to sudden change in my mental health towards her everything was ok (I felt naturally involved calmed and relaxed about our relationships).
So now everyday I feel like I love her very much and want to be with her and then in 20 minutes I feel like I don’t want to have this relationship. I think that we match in many ways and then in 20 mins I’m thinking about things we are really different in and things I don’t like about her. I also feel more obsessed with her now and feel too much involved while I don’t feel that level of involvement from her.
I also get easily hurt now by harmless actions of her of which she doesn’t even think can hurt me. Like I worry that she doesnt text me during day while she On a job (im unemployed) while I’m waiting from her at least just a single message asking how I am today (I am always asking those and initiate online communication), I worry that I told her that I be happy waking up to a message of her just saying good morning since she always wakes up earlier and she barely doing it, I worry that when she goes for a meeting with her friend/friends Im waiting for a message after how her meeting was and if I don’t ask first she could not message me back till next day or she can just say I’m tired good night.
I know I’m tripping in some way but why all these things make me genuinely feel hurt? I’m also scared of confronting her on things I dont agree with her. But when we spend time together in real life everything is good. She knows about my mental health and she respectfully and adequately answers my questions and give reasonable answers to my worries. But I feel a lot of anxiety and sadness and depression cuz of my unstable feelings and thoughts. I wanna cry actually. I also just started therapy. Any help advices thoughts etc are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I took everyone’s advice and agreed to the buy-out. I thought I might have time to get used to the idea, but right after I signed the contract, they said they could come the next day which seemed a little odd. I was still feeling OK about my decision until two minutes after they arrived, one of the employees yells, “We’re going to make a killing on all this stuff!”
Day 2 and one of the employees yanks open the locked door of an outbuilding when I was on my way with the key. So disrespectful and rude. It really irritated me and now my mood has really gone downhill especially when I see the greedy dollar signs in the business owner’s eyes as he makes sure to haul all the best stuff away first. The guy has always been an arrogant jerk who thinks he’s so much better than me - I just let him think that because honestly IDGAF what these people think and don’t want them knowing anything about my life - and I never wanted to use his services but there isn’t a lot of competition in the area. A lot of people sing his praises while an equal number think he’s just a bottom feeder who lowballs everybody. I will give him credit though for taking on the jobs a lot of people probably wouldn’t.
I know I got screwed but I still would have gotten screwed if I had tried selling the stuff myself. Plus, I would have had to deal with random yucks knowing where I live and coming to my house. Dealing with those people would’ve been way worse than this stuck-forever-in-high school person that I’ll never see again after this is over. I’m sure once everything is cleared away, I’ll eventually forget all about it and move on but right now I’m having a hard time. My friend who’s been through this herself told me to take a lot of pictures, which I did, and I realized I’m not going to miss any of it. I think what bothers me the most is knowing someone is profiting at my expense. It seems like I’m constantly paying people high prices for things - repairs, renovations, goods, etc. - but if I tried to charge high prices for anything, nothing would sell or no none would hire me.
TLDR; I know a lot of you are overjoyed once you are free of the hoard so how can I start feeling joy instead of anger?

Ok so this dream is VERY weird because it links too what I’ve done the previous day. For a little bit of a backstory I ran a garage sale and I was exhausted due to how long I’d been awake and active.
Now to the dream / story.
This entire dream was in 1st person!!!
I was laying in bed for the night and nothing seemed off, maybe a little bit. My room was exactly the same in real life but the vibe just was uneasy, so I was able to tell that my dream wasn’t “actually real”. I just remember how I felt like I wasn’t in control of my body and it was in auto pilot, and here’s why. As tired as I was I got up (which I wasn’t trying to do) and went to my window that showed complete darkness. I was just standing there and saying stuff, but again I wasn’t trying too and everything just came out on it’s own. But I was saying random stuff and I remember seeing myself just act so weird because of how tired I was. There was also a point where I closed a folding door door to my stairs because it was so eerie and unsettling, always looking down and seeing it. This was next to the window fyi. I remember taking myself back to bed and throwing the blankets over myself. I said some nonsense here and there but I remember manly just wanting to go to sleep. What made me more aware that I was dreaming was how fast I was able to fall asleep, I am in fact not the type of person who can fall asleep that quickly unless I am very absolutely extremely exhausted. I won’t go into detail but then I had another dream in this dream since it was “supposedly” reality even though it wasn’t. That dream forwarded to more dreams within dreams so that was an experience.
When I woke up (actually) it was 5:30, 25 minutes before my alarm went off like it did in the dream. What’s weird was that I woke up in the same position I feel asleep in FROM the dream… I didn’t realize at first but as I started waking up I remembered the dream and was like “wtf this is not real”. Sadly it was but I don’t really know what to make of that dream.
If there’s anything that stood out and maybe has a meaning to why I dreamed about it let me know because I’ve never had a dream like that EVER..

From The Ashley:
On cheating on her partners & having a “revolving door of men” in her life:
“I get a lot of s**t because I do cheat, or I have cheated,” Kail said.
Kail pointed to her childhood trauma as a possible reason for her cheating, but stated that she also refuses to be unhappy in a relationship.
“I also leave if I’m not satisfied or happy and I think that people don’t like that. People don’t like that I leave,” she said. “I’m not gonna stay somewhere I’m not happy. So it does kind of look like [I have] a revolving door of men, but also I know when and when not to introduce them to my kids.
“There’s people who date all the time and they don’t get s**t for it.”
On why she almost got an abortion with her fourth son, Creed:
Kail also discussed her time with Chris, which she called “by far, my most tumultuous, toxic relationship.”
“When I met Chris, it started off very toxic. I would say about six months in, I had already had a miscarriage with him. At that point, I had found out that he had two other girlfriends, full-time girlfriends. These were not side chicks. All three of us were main f**king girlfriends…I found out when I was pregnant with my son Lux. None of us knew about each other.”
Kail claimed that Chris was living with her full-time during this period.
On finding out Chris was having a baby with his other girlfriend:
“That was really hard for me to learn that he was having a baby with her,” Kail said. “I had a mental breakdown that day…I called my therapist on an emergency basis and she talked me through it. I basically blacked out. I don’t even remember what the conversation was. I accepted that he was having this child and from that point forward, I never looked back.”
Kail said she hasn’t had a good relationship with Chris since.
“I’ve never hooked up with him, we don’t talk, we don’t hang out, we’re not friendly. There’s been one or two friendly times where we’ve tried to be cordial but it ultimately just goes to s**t every time. It’s hard,” she said.
On the only reason she doesn’t try to get with Chris anymore:
Kail— who, earlier in the podcast, stated that she loved Chris more than she’s ever loved anyone she’s dated— admitted that she would probably still be trying to get with Chris if it wasn’t for one thing.
‘Here’s the thing: I don’t date men with kids. And if it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I would be done with him today,” she said.
On the real reasons she left ‘Teen Mom 2’:
“It was a really hard decision for me but I had been really struggling with the fact that I went through such a public divorce. And then the stuff with Chris was so messy. My kids are getting older, Isaac really didn’t want to film anymore. So I was just kind of feeling like, ‘Maybe this is time for me to move on,'” she said.
“My kids didn’t want to film. I just wanted the privacy and to kind of just move on,” she added.
On whether or not she would return to a ‘Teen Mom’ show:
Kail has made it clear that she is interested in coming back to reality TV, but says it won’t be on a ‘Teen Mom’ show.
“They’ve asked me a couple times to come back, but I’m so far removed from that now that I can’t see myself going back to the show, specifically,” Kail said, although she stated that she would “absolutely” be down to star on her own reality show.
On plastic surgery:
Kail also talked about the plastic surgery she’s gotten over the years, including a tummy tuck, Lipo 360 and the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) she got live on Snapchat by Dr. Miami in 2016.
“I love plastic surgery,” Kail said. “The only regret I have is not waiting until I was done having kids. I had the Mommy Makeover after my second son and I could definitely go for another.”
One thing Kail regrets, though, is getting her BBL, which she says has not aged well.
“I don’t love [my BBL]. I want it removed immediately,” she said. “Gravity is kind of pulling it down a little bit.”
When I did the BBL and I did the Lipo 360 I wanted everything to match because I felt like, ‘I can’t have a huge butt and then have my waist be small and my arms big.’ So I had it in my arms. My butt and my arms have grown insane. But now what? I don’t know what I can do about it. Gravity pulls down your butt a little bit and it just looks crazy and I can’t find jeans that fit me.
On having even more kids:
Kail has four kids currently, (and it’s been intensely speculated that she gave birth to a fifth child by her current boyfriend Elijah Scott around November 2022, but she’s never confirmed it). However, she said she’s willing to grow her litter even more.
“I am in a relationship now and yes [I’m open to having more kids]…[Elijah] deserves kids of his own,” she said.
https://www.theashleysrealityroundup.com/2023/06/02/kail-lowry-talks-to-bunnie-xo-about-her-revolving-door-of-men-why-she-really-quit-teen-mom-2-what-plastic-surgery-she-regrets-getting/

So i (f24) have a big sister (f27) who is in a toxic relationship. She is dating a guy (m26) who is younger than her and has been together for 4yrs. Throughout the relationship she would constantly talk shit about the guy to me making me dislike him. They would fight in front of me all the time!
Now here is where the problem starts. The guy desperately wants to get married. Of course i do not support it at all considering how toxic their relationship is! My sis would constantly reassure me that she 100% does not want to marry him at least not any time soon. She would tell me that her bf is still so immature and she does not see a future with him. So i take her word for it and i’m glad that she knows what’s good for her.
BUT!!! Just yesterday she broke up with the guy and i was so happy. She told me she won’t take him back no matter what he offer her. Well… today her bf’s mom asked to meet with her. The bf’s mom offered her a lot of money in exchange for her to take her bf back and get married soon. When she got home she (OF COURSE!) talks about how she can see a future now with her bf as long as his mom is willing to give what she wants.
My parents LOVE my sister’s bf despite them being in a toxic relationship. They are happy that my sis is giving him another chance. I on the other hand is so SICK of hearing my sis complain about her bf but then refuse to let him go!
I’m so drained because now my family constantly talks about my sis and her bf! Even when i’m having dinner with my parents (without my sis present) they would constantly talk abt my sis and her bf and ask for my opinion… but everytime i talk abt how i do not support their relationship, my family would debate with me about why my sister’s bf is such a good person and the perfect match for her

i’m 16 and i start my apprenticeship in a few weeks. in the uk you can’t start driving until you’re 17, and my workplace is fairly far from home and i’m struggling to find a way back from home. coincidentally, my mom works there, so she’s able to give me a lift to work in a morning, however she’s refusing to give me a lift home. i finish at 5:30pm, and by then she’s already in her pyjamas and won’t leave the house, that’s always been her routine. i don’t ask a lot from her, but she’s refusing to give me a lift home and i can’t see why. she’d only be out of the house for 25 minutes at most, ive offered to give her petrol money but she’s still saying no. i don’t want to get the bus home like she’s telling me to, because the bus route takes so long and i wouldn’t be getting home until 7pm at least. ive tried asking my dad but he hasn’t really given me an answer, i don’t feel like i’m asking a lot from my mom, and i know she’s not obligated to give me a lift home, but it would help me so much just until i can drive next year, what do i do!!??

Okay. My situation is this: Me and my long-distance boyfriend just had a trip together, and when he left, and after my dopamine dropped because of the successful trip, I started feeling unmotivated to do anything alone. I told my friend, who checked on me, and it turned into a two hours long phone call, where I discovered that there are a lot of activities around me, but I couldn't go because my only friend has been very occupied lately. And this is when I got the genius idea of asking people through my Instagram story if they are interested in hanging out with me.
During these 2 hours, I made the mistake of not replying to my boyfriend, who was very busy driving around all day and being quite absent and nontalkative since morning. After the "ignoring" time, where if I'm being honest, I wasn't replying to his last message immediately, because it had a bit of passive-aggressivity to it, he started being the one not replying, and even saying he's "not feeling like talking to me today". I asked about it, but like always, he didn't want to elaborate. After hours of barely having a normal conversation, he said he feels "used and disrespected by me" and I tried to encourage talking about it, what he immediately shut down, again, like always. I told him that for the hundredth time, please stop saying that there's a problem, and then not try to solve it, because it gives me extreme amounts of anxiety trying to figure out what I did wrong. And to that, this is what I've got:
"How would you feel if after a nice vacation and after the fun is gone I would ignore your messages and in the meantime post on Instagram about finding someone to go out with places? Advertising yourself like on Tinder. Should I be ok with you going out dancing with your ex? Or other dudes? Or your lesbian friends? Are you out of your mind? Is this normal around there?"
So yeah, that left me flabbergasted. I feel like there's a bit of exposition needed here. We are from different countries, but we talk to each other in English. I wrote the post in my language, which means, he had to translate it, and I feel like there's a lot that gets lost in translation, but I'll try my best to make it understandable.
"Hello people of (name of my city), somebody please be my friend, because as it turns out to me there are a lot of events in my vicinity which I would like to visit, but I don't step outside of my flat alone. HELP. /very trustworthy and friendly human/"
The main question is DO YOU SEE ANY PROBLEM WITH THIS TEXT? Because I don't. In my eyes, it showcases my humor and my awkwardness with social situations. But that obviously isn't what he saw in it. He's been cheated by his previous partner, which destroyed him, and now he has absolutely zero trust towards anybody, which includes me because I slipped up once by not taking his boundaries seriously enough in the past. So the first thing he does is jump to conclusions because as you see, there was no mention of partying with dudes. On the other hand, I'm bisexual, which he never really got over, because he comes from a very conservative place, and doesn't really understand that no, I don't want to fuck my friends just because they're girls.
I still don't really understand what the main problem was, because what he always brought up was this scenario. "What if a guy replies to my story and I start talking to and feel comfortable around him, and he offers to take me out somewhere?" First of all, I explained to him that I wouldn't reply to a guy, because I know that he would see that as disrespectful, and I very hardly feel comfortable around men, so for me to actually make friends with one has to mean that I feel a 100% safe with them not trying anything and last, but most importantly I'm not an NPC! Just because a guy comes and talks to me doesn't mean that I'll act like a magnet, and stuck to them. I can make my own decisions, but because of his issues with trust, he can't seem to trust me with not being mindless.
And he had a problem with how I'm advertising myself to the whole city, while I know that I barely have any people added from here and could tell you that exact 50 people who actually watch my stories, and they know as well, that I'm talking to my already existing friends who I might have lost touch with.
So after an hour of intense trying to make the other understand, my conclusion was that next time if he feels like I did something wrong, what I CLEARLY can't sense by myself, don't spend the day not talking to me and making me anxious, but communicate the problem to me as soon as he feels wronged by me, because then I might even have a chance of fixing it.

Ok so i haven’t been playing all that long and I’m confused with the questing. I have a lvl 60 human just by grinding quests but my confusion lies with quest order. I get that you can go do whatever you like but I feel like there is probably a structure I’m not sticking to. My logic has lead me to kul tiras (I think that’s where you start with Flynn) and then pretty much do every chapter there within the different areas (stormsong valley, tiragarde sound,ect).
Basically all I would like to know is if what I’m doing is the best way to go about questing. Once I finish kul tiras I’m assuming I just go to the next continent. Thanks in advance

First I’m very aware my mom is a narcissist but didn’t get to realizing this until I was in highschool. I’m currently 20 now and just realized a pattern that I hadn’t noticed till now but a lot of people around my mom and I genuinely believe that I treat her horribly. And I don’t mean this has been happening recently, I mean since I was a child. I won’t pretend I was always a good kid but I honestly don’t know if I was or not because recently my older brother (currently 22) admitted last week that for years throughout my childhood he would lie to our parents that I was doing something bad just to get more attention because he was already treated like the favorite anyway. Though back to the subject at hand while my mom and I had big arguments here and there no matter how bad she cursed me out or (rarely) got physical I never would curse back at her or fight back against her. I think the first time I even cursed infront of her or said something to actually hurt her feelings was when I turned 18. So I’m starting to think my mom is purposely talking shit about me to family members and has been doing so since my childhood so people believe I’m treating her horribly which wouldn’t be weird for her to do tbh because she’s the kind of narcissistic that overworks herself just to say she’s overworked and act like the victim. I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced something similar of family members/family friends thinking you’re treating your mother badly when you’re really not or at least not as bad as she treats you.
Edit: I like to add that just recently I got so frustrated at her laughing when I brought up that I had unaliving myself thoughts throughout childhood and maybe now that I cursed her out. Her boyfriend was not there during the conversation but he came to me and told me “I don’t like how you treat your mother. Why would you curse out your mother?” That’s what spurred me to vent about this.

Our dream wedding is an intimate (10-20 people) outdoor wedding at a National park in front of an amazing view with a somewhat casual, local reception in our hometown for the rest of our friends and family later on. We are both very outdoorsy people and love places with mountains or beaches, but I have been looking at locations within my favorite parks with easier walking access and even golf cart access for people who aren’t into hiking like we are.
If I had my way I would elope, but my fiancé wants a few people and my mom is adamant that she witness it, even if she has to “hide behind a rock where we won’t even notice her.”
I started telling my dad and step mom about our plans to see how far they would be willing to travel so we could choose a National Park and their answer surprised me. Most of my family lives in the Midwest and they are wanting me to plan something within a couple hours of our hometown near which are zero National Parks. They keep sending me ideas for venues there and I feel like they aren’t understanding that I just don’t want that.
They have always been about traveling and being free spirited, but they are now the only ones to try to guilt me into having a more local wedding and to save the travel for a honeymoon. Their excuse is that no one wants to fly or drive that far and how people with dogs will be inconvenienced (we also have dogs). Its pretty obvious they are the ones not wanting to travel far or deal with their dogs because no one else has expressed a problem with it or is just not going and happy attending the reception.
The biggest head scratcher to me is in the same text they were talking about how since they paid for one of my older brothers to get married in Vegas (he eloped and had a hometown reception) they would pay for or contribute to my venue.
I am at a loss, the last thing I want to do is start an argument or make them feel like i don’t care if they come ( i really do want them to come but if they legitimately can’t i will understand). I’m sort of just really confused and disappointed by their reaction.

It’s many moons since I did my leaving cert but this time of year I think back to how I handled it: I spent the weekend before writing “cheat notes” that I’d keep in my pocket. Once I had started the exam and answered what I could I’d be able to go to the toilet and whip out the notes and refresh the memory etc etc. Turns out that creating all the cheat notes actually helped me remember stuff. Anyway, it’s never to late to start cramming. While this exam will have an effect on the next few years of your life it won’t matter a damn by the time you’re in your mid twenties. So, if you’re like I was and did fuck all study it’s well worth putting the time in today or tomorrow and get them cheat notes written out!

This morning, I had someone introduce themselves on Seeking, he was a premium member, but had zero verification badges and hadn’t completed a background check. I decided to entertain the convo because I usually skip those who don’t have verification or BGCs. After three messages, he threw me his number and said to text if I was interested. Sure enough, after a background check on the person associated with that number, I was looking at a long criminal history record. DUIs, battery, cruelty to children, and criminal trespassing.
Just reassured me why I won’t waste my time with people who don’t even take the time to complete BGCs. I don’t understand how Seeking allows people to be Premium members without these!

TWBS Previous Next
-
--- Hr3101m973S’s perspective---
---Tuesday, 31st of October, 2682 Terran Calendar---
---Southwestern Scotland---
I ride the speeder at an altitude of 307m over the rural landscape.
I have 158 other bodies making similar deliveries across Britain right now, as well as 29 in Ireland and 11 in Doggerland. Though, none of them have quite as spectacular a view as this one does so, for the moment, this is the body whose sensory feed I’m paying the most attention to.
I see a large herd of mammoths walking at the edge of the Galloway Forest.
Though it has a better view, the news I’m carrying with this body is just as grim as all the rest.
In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that I was such a spendthrift with regard to my fleet of courier bodies… If I hadn’t been, if I’d selected abilities that let them do much more than deliver things, they may well have been requisitioned for military use… which, I suppose, they were anyway… but there’s a big difference between delivering notices on Earth and fighting on some distant planet!
Still, if sacrificing my replaceable bodies would save even a single irreplaceable life, I would definitely have done it.
The city comes into view.
Calling it a ‘city’ may be a little generous… it only has 2,507,963 inhabitants.
That may have been a respectable city in the 22nd Century but, for context, nearby Dumfries has 7,491,509 and Glasgow has 24,339,192!
Stranraer occupies a rare middleground between the historic hamlets that are allowed to exist in the countryside and the megalopoleis where around 98.32% of people on Earth live.
I land in the northern part of the town and step off my speeder.
I get some raised eyebrows as I walk from the landing pad to the residential home.
I don’t blame them!
Before the War, every single one of my courier bodies had a full suit of elastomer over their entire body, to make them seem more lifelike… Now, though, that’s considered a luxury and, so, this particular unit is walking around with its metal endoskeleton bare, bar its uniform.
The effect can be a little offputting… though, in truth, it may also have to do with the news they’ve inferred me to be delivering to some unlucky soul.
I cross the wall into the garden and begin walking up the steps, through the mosslawn shrouded by pinus sylvestris trees, to the house on top of the little hillock.
It takes me 12 seconds to reach the door from the gate… I can’t rush, I need to give this girl her due respect.
I rap on the door 3 times and hear the knocks echo through the cavernous hall behind.
A man opens the door.
I begin, speaking in the most popular local dialect of Lallans Scots that I know to be this man’s primary speech register “Greetings, Mr Baird. I don’t know if you remember me but…”
“I remember you! I’m organic, not daft! You’ve been here enough times already…” interrupts the residential care manager, his demeanour gruff and no-nonsense “…Come in, Hermes… You can wait in the kitchen while I go get her.”
I step into the building, passing below the lowest of 5 balcony walkways into an open space with a skylight ceiling, allowing in the natural light.
I let the man lead the way to a large kitchen.
He pulls out a chair for me.
“Thank you, Sir, but I believe I ought to remain standing to make this delivery.” I respond, politely.
“Suit yourself…” he shrugs before walking off, presumably to fetch the girl he knows I’m here for.
I wait several minutes before he reappears.
The girl he has in tow is the perfect match of the file photo (though a few years older). She is average height, 178cm, and has an average build. Her skin is pale, her eyes are emerald green and her hair is long, absurdly voluminous, curly and vividly red.
She looks to be in fine physical health and is making no pretence of illness or injury, though she is scowling at me.
The grey bearded man shuts the door, leaving me alone with the girl.
“Could you tell me your name, please?” I ask, already knowing.
“Esme Reid.” she answers, truculently.
“And your date of birth, Ms Reid?”
“31st of October, 2664. Come to give me a birthday present, have you(?)” she says, folding her arms, pursing her lips and looking away to the kitchen counter by the window.
“Thank you…” I say, reaching into my bag to withdraw a letter and a large holopad with a stylus attached.
I hold the letter out to her and say “This is your conscription notice, Ms Reid. Please sign receipt of it here.” indicating the holo.
Her eyes flick from the paper to the screen before she drily answers “I don’t suppose, if I don’t take that or don’t sign for it, that’d mean I couldn’t be drafted, would it(?!)”
I shake my head and respond “I’m afraid that no such loophole exists, Ms Reid… If you have a conscientious objection to fighting, you could request a nonmilitary national service. However, you would be asked to provide some proof of your conscientiousness and…”
“I’m no bleeding heart…” she says, snatching the letter from my hand, irritably “…I’ll sign for my bloody death warrant!” scrawling her name on the pad.
Without looking at the pad, I check the signature she provided against the one on file and find it a close enough match to proceed.
“Thank you, Ms Reid. Please report to your local recruitment office in Stranraer within 14 days for your physical and psychological fitness assessments. They’ll then interview you regarding your preferences for training and deployment and they’ll try to take those into account when assigning them.
“Great(!) Maybe if I can convince my evaluator that I’m cracked enough in the head, I won’t get sent off to die like my mam and dad did(!)” she quips, sarcastically.
“I don’t think you’ll have much luck with that strategy, Ms Reid… Sol’s government have had quite the interest in weeding out malingerers these past few years… I would put the odds of success below 1%.” 0.75619902%, actually, but that’s too many decimals for most biologicals’ patience(!)
She frowns up at me and demands “I’m being such a brat about this… Why are you still being so friendly!?”
I laugh “Ms Reid, though I strongly encourage you not to express the same demeanour to your drill instructors as you are with me, you are far from the worst person I’ve delivered this news to in even the last half hour!… Right now, I’ve got a draftee in Leeds who’s explaining a hairbrained scheme involving unethically cloning a replacement to fight in his stead, I’ve got one in Bristol who’s trying to beat up my body but only really succeeding in hurting herself, I’ve got one in Edinburgh that’s run away in an attempt not to be served… by comparison, a bit of scowling and sarcasm is rather tame!”
“Huh!… Guess I’m not quite the bad girl Ms. Larch always told me I was, am I(!)”
“It seems you shall simply have to work harder(!) I believe there is a leather jacket emporium in Stranraer that still does business…”
She smiles and laughs for the first time that I’ve seen.
That’s the real reason I don’t get touchy about the attitudes expressed to me by draftees: It makes my job so much easier when I soften the blow with good manners and good humour.
As unfair as it is that so many choose to shoot the messenger, it’s understandable when you consider the messages I carry.
“Ms Reid…” I start, seriously but softly “…if you truly do not wish to fight, you know there are alternatives? You can discuss them with your recruitment officer but…”
“I got no special skills, Hermes… Nothing I can do that an AI couldn’t do faster and better… The Merchant Navy’s basically as dangerous as the Navy Navy, just less armed… the Humanitarian corps has a waiting list so long that the War’d be over (one way or another) long before they got to the point of considering me… I know where I’m going… no use in fighting it…”
“Alright, Ms Reid… I wish you the best…” I say, turning to leave.
Mr Baird shows me out of the house.
Rather than walking back to the landingpad, to retrieve my bike, I walk the other way.
My bag is still heavy with conscription notices… it only makes sense to deliver all the ones in this town first…
---Oskar’s Perspective---
---Southern Doggerland---
The evening sun plays off of the calm waves of the North Sea.
It should be raining on a day like this…
This gorgeous weather is slapping me in the face and telling me to be happy, to be content…
I know the weather does not care for the happenings of people… I know that, if it rained everywhere and every day there was a funeral, the whole world would flood… I know this… and still… I hate this contrast between my grim, internal misery and the tranquil sun drenched beach where I stand, this autumn day… There’s barely even any snow on the grass…
When this War started, I was fourteen and had two loving parents…
My Father was too old to serve, at 51…
At 37, my mother was not…
Yet, it’s not my mother’s funeral I am attending right now. That was two months ago.
No… the strongly built 55 year old man, dressed in a long white robe and clutching a Norse langsverð, despite having been a fishfarmer and not a warrior, is my father… Lars ‘Walker’ Taylor.
His eyes are closed and he lies within a wooden boat, around 80cm wide and 3m long.
This boat was never meant to touch the water… I bought it from a supplier in Bankland that specialises in funerary boats for Doggerland’s Forn Siðr community.
I already recited a poem… there’s nothing else for me to do until the singer begins.
I’m not listening to the Goði prattle on about Valhalla and Ragnarök… I’m just looking at my father’s face… oscillating between hating him for doing this to me and hating myself for doing this to him.
The sermon concludes and a blonde woman, like everyone else present, dressed in snow white funeral clothes, steps forward.
One of the three men behind her brings his bow to the three strings of his tagelharpa, another raises a flute carved out of a cow’s leg bone to his lips, the last begins banging out a slow beat on his drum.
The band would definitely be larger if so many of the Hof’s musicians hadn’t been called up to serve.
The men begin playing a mournful tune and the woman begins a wailing, melismatic melody, not in English, the first language of most here, not in my father’s native Frisian, not even in New Norse, the liturgical language of his faith…
She sings in a strain of Norwegian that was spoken centuries ago, when there were barely any Forn Siðr practitioners living.
mf♫ Eg songane søkte
Eg songane sende
Då den djupaste brunni
Gav meg dråpar så ramme
Av Valfaders pant♫mf
I have a final part to play in this ritual.
The Goði picks up the torch and lights it against a flaming brazier before beckoning to me.
I step forward from the small crowd.
In contrast to most, whose clothes are pristine white robes and tunics and such, I wear the same simple white suit that I wore two months ago.
I may be a nonbeliever but no one at my father’s Hof challenged the idea that I was the most fitting person to perform this last rite for him.
I take the torch from the man and walk to my father’s side.
I hesitate before I touch it to one of the mounds of high energy, smokeless fuel that surround his body… but only for a moment…
The flame quickly takes and, before the current verse of the song is even finished, the entire boat is engulfed in fire.
I toss the torch in and step back from the conflagration.
Minutes pass as I watch the inferno consume the entire pyre.
I barely notice the music stop.
I barely notice the crowd thinning as people leave.
I just watch as the man’s existence is wiped from the Earth.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do now, brother?” asks a voice from beside me.
Without looking at the Pagan cleric, I dully answer “I have.”
“And, what is that… if I may ask?”
“My birthday’s in January… I’ll be drafted… but I don’t have to wait… I’m going to go to the recruitment office and request an early start to my training… by the time it’s done, I’ll be 18 and they’ll be legally able to deploy me.”
“I… see… that’s certainly… an option… Have you thought about…?”
“I haven’t, Tormund. This is what I’m doing.” I state, still looking at the blaze.
“I see… I wish you well then, Oskar…” Tormund says, sincerely.
---
Support me on Patreon for to access the entire series, now.
---
TWBS Previous Next