my crush "isla" wants to decide if they really have feelings and if this is going to work out before we actually start dating, so for now, we're friends, but we managed to hug and meet up for the first time.

they also do like me so far but who knows what the future holds. my tarot card reading when i had the question in my head "will i get a relationship soon?" said probably yes according to isla's reading of the question since they asked what the question was.

I'm around 30, male, and even though I never believe in destiny type stuff, I firmly believe that some of us are fated to be alone. I've been lurking on reddit dating subs (not really a thing on lemmy) and I've seen other very similar stories. It's made realize, and accept, that some of us will always be alone.

I've never had a relationship, still a virgin, never kissed, never even held hands in a romantic context.

I've been on and off dating apps since I was 20, and I've never had any success. I started lurking on reddit to see what I could do to improve, and it didn't help. I even made an account so I could DM people and ask for advice, and nothing changed. I've been told I'm good looking, that I'm in good shape, people always said my bios are good, and my pictures could be better but they never got very harsh criticism. But I never had any success. And it's not like my standards are too high, I don't even get likes! On the rare occasion I do get a match, they never make an effort. They don't care about me, don't ask questions, and don't comment on what I say. They just answer my questions directly, and if I don't ask something the conversation dies.

The only women who ever seem to pay me attention and enjoy my company either have boyfriends, or just want a friendship. I started going going out IRL more, doing group activities and classes. No luck. Women seem comfortable with me, but they only ever want me as a friend. The first class I went to a woman came up and started making conversation with me. Not my type exactly, but I figured why not? We talk, I ask questions about her, eventually she mentions her husband. There's nothing wrong with that, she was just looking for conversation or making a friend; but from my perspective it sucks. Another girl I got along well with, thought she was cute, started making conversation, she eventually mentioned a boyfriend. We're still friends, but again, it sucks.

There's this girl I met, the first girl I ever truly "liked" - I've had some crushes before but this was entirely different. I had pretty much given up on the apps, was focused on my self, then one day we just match. Didn't care much at first because I knew how things go. But then I get to know her, and start falling head over heels for her (we hung out a few times). I start thinking "people always say it happens when you least expect it - is this it? Is this destiny?". She just wanted a friend, and did not feel the same way. This pretty much ruined the friendship. It kind of broke me a little, I'm not gonna lie.

I've also been told I'm nice, thoughtful, smart. I have good hygiene, and I take care of how I look. I also have several hobbies and would consider myself an interesting person. Women I meet IRL like talking to me. I'm also emotionally open and don't play games. I have goals in life. I'm allegedly good looking, and I'm active and workout - I don't have a six pack or anything, but I'm in ok shape. And if I compare myself to other men I see everyday, I'm in better shape than like 3/4 of them. I'm not trying to put anyone down, just want to paint a picture. Also, I'm average height for my area, so I don't think that plays into it.

But in around 30 years there's been nothing. And from what I've read and seen, I'm not alone in this. Over the years I have also watched my friends get into and out of relationships with ease. I'm seeing my friends getting married now, and having kids.

I think some of us just don't have "it" - whatever "it" is - and we're fated to be alone. That's the only answer I have. I'm accepting it and giving up. The alternative is hating myself and not knowing why or what to change.

so i (f) recently got into a talking stage with "isla" (nb) and we kinda have a "slow burn" type thing going on. i'm lowkey scared because they really do wanna decide if we should be friends or be in a relationship. i really like them and want a relationship with someone and also don't want to rush. last time i rushed, things went badly and ended in a few months.

i'm scared, though, they will decide i'm a better friend than a gf, though there are some good signs like them at least having feelings for me.

i know we'll still get to chat if they decide we should just be friends but i guess i'm just scared for whatever reason. i don't mean to be panicky, i guess i'd just like to have someone who's more than a friend.

I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now. I've had this on my notes for a few days now and I've now got the courage to share it.

It was three years ago now when my daughter who was 19 at the time was arrested.

At first none of us knew why she was arrested but then after a few days the charges became public. We found out she was charged with CP. As you can imagine all of us were shocked to say the least. Our daughter is the most kindest and caring person you could get. We couldn't imagine her being capable of doing something this horrific. It wasn't in her nature.

At first we thought there was a misunderstanding and the charges must have been trumped up. None of us thought for a minute that she could be guilty of these crimes. We had her back from the moment she was arrested and we were all convinced she was innocent even though none of us had heard her side of the story.

In the weeks leading up to the trial we spoke to her a handful of times via the phone and through visits. We told her we would get the best lawyer money could buy and we would help her clear her name but anytime we tried to talk about the charges or the trial she would change the subject. It was very infuriating but in hindsight I know this was because she was planning to plead guilty.

I still remember when she only used a court appointed attorney and pleaded guilty. We were all shocked. All we could think was why she would plead guilty and not try to fight the charges like an innocent person would. Was she doing it to get a shorter sentence? Could she actually be guilty guilty? There has to be a misunderstanding here. I remember being there in person with my son during the trial. We had never been so shocked in our lives. It was like a punch to the stomach.

The trial was short as she pleaded guilty but to us it went on forever. The judge told us the details of what was found and they were horrific. Apparently, she had lewd pictures both real and drawn of little girls being abused. Some were as young as three or four. She ended up getting about a year in jail and was given a SOPO (Sexual Offences Prevention Order) and made to register as a SO for 10 years.

I tried asking her in prison why she pleaded guilty but none of us have received an answer.

It was so embarrassing for all of us. Her name and face were all over the papers and the Internet and we all have to live life being known as the family whose sister/daughter is a convicted "nonce"/"wrong'un".

All of us were in shock. At first some of us were in denial about her guilt but over time we came to terms with the fact that our daughter/sister was a SO but some of my family are still in denial. For those of us who had come to terms with the truth the only question remaining was why? Why would she have those photos? Did she get them by accident or something? This isn't the type of thing you can imagine someone you know doing/getting in trouble for. This is something that only happens to strangers you read about on the news. I hated the thought of my daughter being one of them. I know she's done bad things but the thought of her being in prison still breaks my heart.

She was released last Spring and now lives with me. She pretty much has no future and has destroyed her life. I let her live rent free as she's pretty much unemployable and has no chance of getting a secondary education unless she moves back to Spain but even then her convection is going to follow her like a shadow.

I still love my daughter as any mother would but I see her in a completely different light now. She still spends a lot of time on the internet and I can't help but worry about what she's doing there. I just don't want her to get in trouble again.

She has goodness in her but she needs the right help and the guidance to rise above all of this. I know she's got problems but I see the best in her. She isn't a cruel person and she loves people, especially children. I know she didn't do any of this for sadistic reasons.

Yes, I know. Earth-shattering take. But I was only able to play it at my girlfriend's house at the time, and I was in high school then, and she thought it was corny and stupid, so I had to mask my admiration for the game behind a layer of "heh waow"

I had all but forgotten about it until something jogged my memory of it a few days ago, so I did a bit of a vicarious revisit via YouTube and so on.

That game was awesome and I had a blast with it and I don't care if it's uncool. Suck my ass, Bethany, Sonic Adventure 2 (Battle) is fucking cool, The characters are fun, the story is more nuanced, complex, and engaging (dare I say epic) than it seems, and yes, the chao are adorable and the chao garden is great, and "Live and Learn" is a banger.

I am no longer ashamed! ✊🏻😠

Hi, so I'll call the girl "Alice". Alice is this really cool girl I'm seeing. Wonderful, really. She'll be my girlfriend once we go on a few more dates. However, I don't know if I should let her know my true self. I am secretly into claymation yaoi between the characters of Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away, etc.

Like, come on! Wallace and Victor Quartermaine is so cute. Victor Quartermaine and the Vicar!? Spike and Whitey!? Spike and Ladykiller!? And don't get me started on Dr. Fry and Reginald Smith and Mr. Tweedy from Chicken Run!

It's embarrassing, and I'm afraid the girl I'm seeing will think I'm weird, but she'll love me no matter what if she's the one, right?

When I was 17 in school (sixth form) there were some girls who kept chatting shit about me behind my back. there was this tall, very loud guy who went by "D" who'd always seem to be shouting things at random people in the hallways so I tried to avoid crossing paths with him. one day D caught these girls chatting shit about me and he came up to me and told me about them. we became friends and he'd always step in to defend me. after we became friends nobody dared to chat shit about me. everytime we crossed paths in the hallway he'd yell "YOOOOO" followed by "saaafe maan" and either do a thumbs up or a slow fist bump. he ended up asking me out one day but i said idk if I'm ready for a relationship and he was understanding about it. this was in like 2010 so it was a looong time ago. i hope wherever he is he's doing well

My friend joined a car forum, because she's into cars. She wanted to ask about car components, and the thread got about 14 pages in just a few days, but most people weren't actually answering her questions, they just kept accusing her of being a man because the forum apparently once had someone "pretending to be a woman". They kept calling her he/him, even though she said that she is a she (she's cis). She's 23 and most of the userbase on the mentioned forum are men in their 30's and 40's. She was being civil throughout the entire thing mentioning that it's rude to misgender someone. Apparently the way she talked was too "proper" to be "girly" and people responded that her knowledge of car components was a "red flag" that she must secretly be a man. She pointed out that she doesn't know why they're so obsessed over a random stranger's genitals and they replied back with "you're the one who mentioned genitals, we think you're the obsessed one here". I wish that I was joking. Reminds me of the internet 20 years ago.

I was always told that as I got older so would the people I like but for me it hasn't worked like that. As of now I'm a 65 year old woman and I'm only attracted to those in they're 20's-30's.

Honestly, girls my age are just as gross to me as they were when I was young. I don't like how grey, saggy and wrinkly they are. I can see why girls the age I like wouldn't want me. I'm attracted to youth, ok that came out wrong. What I mean is that I like young features like smooth skin, firm breasts, colourful hair and big butts.

I really regret not doing more when I was that age. I missed out on having a sex life and now I'll never get that time back. I wish I could turn 25 just for one day and make up for lost time.

It sucks not being able to get the attention of the girls you like. As of now I cope with this by going to strip clubs every now and then and I'm considering getting into prostitutes again.

Maxine told me not to speak to her, so I blocked her. She also was friends with a girl who tried to stalk me, so I guess Maxine's also not great.

I just finished driving for 16 hours. I'm away from my partner, our place, our animals. I'm headed up into the mountains tomorrow (er, today, in like 6-8 hours) to see my family at our annual reunion which I have normally missed for the past few years. I'm currently in my childhood home, which also happens to be where my partner and I lived for a short while, trying to fall asleep.

I'm exhausted, of course, but it's hard for me to fall asleep here, all alone, no animals, partner, or family.

My partner and I are very isolated from both of our families, the closest to us being mine. We've gone through a lot of pain over the past 6 or so years, including multiple debilitating injuries and near losses of our pets. In the 6 years we've been away, we have barely made any real friends in person. It's really bad, because we've become so dependent on each other and we can never really travel together because our animals require twice daily meds.

Driving back here alone, seeing the place I grew up, where I met my friends, where my partner and I got our start, where I proposed.. it's all so much emotion. It would be one thing if I were able to share these emotions with someone, but since it's just me.. it's crushing. The loneliness is the hardest part.

I'm staying in my sister's old room, which has been decorated and filled with things from her, myself, and even my partner. I made the grave mistake of finding my yearbooks and looking through them, and then realizing I have no one to share them with at the moment. All of my friends, many of which I haven't seen in nearly two decades, adding on to the feeling of being alone.

Anyway, that's my 16-hour-drive-fueled vent. Thank you for reading, stranger.

So I recently purchased two phones and signed a contract with AT&T, due to a technicalities in their fine print they where trying to shaft me of about $1,500 in value.

I went up and down their customer service lane and got no where.

So I wrote a letter to their legal entity (don't write a letter to their corporate address, I mean you can, but legal entity is what you want)

And in that letter I laid out two options

• Give us what you promised regardless of any BS
• Let us walk away with our new phones free and clear

I citied case law, I then citied my own state law where I can sue for 3x damages in small court.

They called me today, we settled for everything I wanted. Was it a pain? Yes, does it feel good to win aganist a big giant? Yes!

had a dental appointment earlier because I'm getting sensitivity after eating chocolate and it turns out I have a tiiiny early cavity the dentist's gonna fill next month. i had to have 2 x rays one on one side and one on the other. well the x rays picked up more than just a tiny little cavity, there's a wisdom tooth that's literally at a 90 degree sidewards angle to my bottom molar, it's not causing any pain but holy shit i didn't expect to see that on the x rays and i hate having any kind of dental work done. i just hope i don't have to have general anaesthesia for this one bc general anaesthesia freaks me out so bad

I turned 30 yesterday. Nobody besides my family believe me when I tell them how old I am. Everyone else consistently says I look 18 or 19. I do not use make up or any skincare products. I've always eaten a diet of junk food so it makes no sense. I've always looked considerably younger than my actual age throughout my life, consistently freaking people out when I tell them how old I am. When I was 16, people told me that I looked 9. One of my friends messaged me about this study which said that some people actually do age a lot slower compared to other people, and looking considerably younger is often a sign of that. My appearance got the attention of doctors who were convinced that I had some kind of hormonal disorder, but when those tests came back normal, they were stumped. Whatever it is, it's not genetic because my sibling looks their age, so do all my other family members on both sides. I used this app called FaceAge (after one of my friends told me about it, curious what the results would be) and it estimated my age to be 18. When I uploaded a photo of myself from 2020, it said I was 16.

I got really sick a little over a decade ago which caused me to be semi-bedbound from when I was 19 all the way up until I was nearing 30. I had heart and neurological problems caused by Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which have since been treated, but because of that illness affecting the blood supply to my brain, I hardly remember anything from my 20's. My 20's seemed more like a weird fever dream than anything very tangible (I mostly just remember hospital appointments) and suddenly I'm 30 but I don't feel 30, physically or mentally. Anyway, I recently thought about the people I knew in school who I forgot the names of. Some of them were a couple of years older than me, and I'm just imagining how old they must all look now even though they aren't that much older than me, and how they're probably experiencing slow downs. I look like how they did when they left school now. That just makes me feel really upset for some reason. The best way I can describe it is similar to how you feel about a cat or dog ageing a lot faster than you.

Another issue is with dating. If I put my age on my profile, with my photos, I'm going to look like I'm catfishing or something, even though I'm not. And even then, it's going to look weird for a 35 year old man to go out on a date with someone who looks like she's barely old enough to gamble.

If someone's tone changes slightly or is more snippy/aggressive, I assume they hate me and it really makes me upset. I also can't let it go when someone insults me or says something out of anger.

Im not sure where to post this at but it bugs me and i want to share my experience and thoughts.

Hello im 19 year old with autism if that matter. Im not allowed a job because parents said no and yes i know im a adult but i cant drive and im dependent on family and they are with me aswell. Anyways i felt so down in the dumps and just wanting a way to earn money, that i thought surveys and get paid to sites would be a change. There a waste of time and only good for earning pennies. most of the time you do the survey and when you fishish it screen you out not giving you a reward. I even get money from the government for having autism but it goes towards bills and life, the little i have left i always blow it on something dumb (I have a problem).

I want to let you know never try those sites there just not worth it and take weeks of slave labor to even get a dollar.

And now i ask how do i earn money in a real way or get a job from home? I wanted to be my own boss sense i felt busy but im not sure anymore.

I am a 22 year old Panamaian-American woman who a little while ago got into a car crash. I don't feel ok with getting into the pacifics all you need to know is that it left me needing to go to the hospital. I suffered some injuries that weren't permanent but serious enough to need me to go to the hospital. After I had mostly recovered from my injuries the state of my mental health came into question. Me and my mom decided I should see a mental health professional so we both chipped in and I started seeing one.

After like a little time I got a formal diagnosis which was less than flattering to say the least. It turns out I have something called "anti-social personality disorder". At first I thought that meant that I was autistic or something but it turns out that's the fancy term for "psychopath"/"sociopath". Which means I'm literally a psychopath now🥀🥀🥀. They also found out that I'm a neurotic alcoholic woman with histrionic and paranoid personality disorder as well as a poor memory. I thought they were making things up to diagnose me with. I've always been a nice person I don't see how I'm a "sociopath". As the kids say, I'm cooked💀.

so, i have this friend and we talk about the wallace and gromit character victor quartermaine.

i know this reads like a shitpost but i am really obsessed with him and all i do is get really happy and dazed and giggly around him and it's so annoying because he's not even real and he gives me energy to keep me awake at night and i go to sleep thinking about him. ughhh and my friend is like his biggest fan and she also likes him please help. it's a fuel for my creativity to make headcanons and stories with victor but this feeling hurts to like him so much and i also don't want to make my friend jealous.

and the other character is the vicar and NO ONE talks about him and that kind of hurts too because no one will like him like i do but at least i have someone with victor.

My dad thinks people who put Confederate flags up are admirable and just "proud of their ancestry"... Oh dear.

One of my ex-friends told me I never had to worry about SA because I wasn't good enough to be touched. Why the hell would someone say this? I just thought of this just to express it even though we don't talk anymore.

ok, so i'm generally kind to everything and everyone, but bugs, slugs, snails, etc. really bother me. i have intrusive thoughts and i really get the urge to kill these things and have in the past because i hate them. i'm scared that this is going to be the sign of a future serial killer because i also have the urge to kill and destroy things but i don't. it's not often i get the urge, but when i don't like something, i absolutely will lol

of course, i need help, not for someone who can say definitely, because only i can.

ok, so i'm born female, but i don't identify as such. honestly, i think i align myself somewhere on the "man" part of the spectrum, but i feel very "soft" and "tender", i guess that means i don't feel a sense of hypermasculinity or a strong sense of gender.

part of me seems to be male aligned and the other part just feels soft like i say, no specific gender. rather, i'd say a gender but not one that counts as male or female. since i can't express my gender, i say i'm just me, but i do get curious what gender i would count as. i'm just me in the end, but still.

I know it's been like a day but she asked me since we asked each other out does that makes us BF and GF now and I said yes! And she said we could get on a call and watch a movie as an online "movie date" hehe!!!!

Why did it hurt when he said he didn't want to talk to me?

The way he moved on so quickly and said he felt nothing for me immediately after I stopped doing as much stuff for him.

The way he was always on-and-off, like "I love you". Then "we should break up".

The way he would sometimes feel nothing for me even in the relationship.

He suddenly didn't like me anymore. He wasn't focused on a mutual, loving relationship, but more on what I could give him and do for him. He was always happy when I comforted him like I was his parent. Always happy when I did stuff for him, like make gifts, buy gifts, etc. But not once did he try to help me or do anything for me, not even like my interests or watch my movies when I did, like he said he would! Then, he suddenly didn't like me and we broke it off.

Now, his bio says "A owns me", but when I ask him about it, he says that it's "some dumb quote he found".

So, I'm autistic+BAD(+possibly ADHD) and my parents were both idiots when I was a kid.

They both thought children only take making right choices from their parents, not parenting work. Or only surgical excessive parenting work where they thought it was important (which wasn't always good too).

With my mom it was her NPL and the fact that her parents were both not very responsible, with my dad - I think he secretly knew he's autistic, but was terribly afraid of that and thought only autistic kids need parenting and I'm normal or something delusional like that.

So they picked a school with a not very good kind of people being prevalent, children of government workers mostly, and not the lowest caste of those.

Somewhere around 16yo I had learned nothing of substance other than drawing dungeon plans and reading fantasy and sci-fi and fan-fiction on those, and I was trying at computing things, but it was hard and mostly imitative talk, like you'd do imagining a sci-fi story. At the same time sometimes quite pretentiously, while feeling myself mentally impaired (couldn't concentrate or keep myself on actually learning things). And I felt like in prison in that school, and the worst was the feeling that I might become one of those kids (this wasn't possible, was probably a trap and so on).

So I'd intentionally try to distance, sometimes via actively insulting that whole layer of society and their idea of authority. The paranoid idea is - that the little bitches and some of their teachers recorded my words and used them as a prank on someone quite respectable from my point of view. Possibly even real-time. Say, a person big enough to be present in some BSD Unix manpages. And a few other such pranks, with the overarching goal of somehow hurting me. And a few of the people around that man decided to take revenge without checking.

What's important in that paranoid idea is that those people might have had different reactions and done different actions. Some might have done pretty bad things until realizing that they were wrong. Some might have behaved right from the beginning. Some of those might have been sorry upon learning that, some not. It's as if this story were slowly traveling behind my back and people would first start telling me something with indignation against me, and then decide it shouldn't be told to me.

And I have a habit of insulting people in the Internet.

So - my progress since then might have seemed like a flat line (even though it wasn't), and I'm both worried about that being known to the people who've reacted properly, upsetting them, and about the possibility that I, with my habits, might have insulted some of them.

And it sometimes feels very needed to reach some of those people and check that they are not too disappointed and this is not such a big deal.

The question of whether it's a psychotic idea or gaslighting is important because of executive dysfunction and having yet achieved far less than I would want to have.

In general this fear becomes weaker every time I have something like a hyperfocus, but that happens rarely and usually involves exploring something for a token toy to keep, and not learning or doing anything further in that area. In very rare bursts, most of the time is wasted.

It's a bit like vibe coding inverted (and not just in coding, but in making POV-Ray renders, drawing, writing poetry, making themes for FVWM, generating ambient music, whatever), where with vibe coding the process itself doesn't matter, while here the functional result matters less than the vibes of a working program or a configuration or a rendered picture (I think with renders this isn't different from the mainstream though).

So, to partially close such a gestalt, I'd have to do a useful project, but that's the thing - I have done toys complex enough (though messy and ugly) and requiring understanding of the tools and the problem. But I have never done useful and conformant things of the same scale. It's as if I physically couldn't do big things that are work, only big things that are play.

And probably to really reach some of those improbable people ; which doesn't seem a good idea both if it reminds them of something bad and if it doesn't.

So. No question, though advice is welcome. Just learned there's a community with such a name and decided to share.

EDIT: FFS, feels like exhibitionism.