i feel like they can't expect me to do what they want in the relationship (spend more time with them and not friends and Super Mario/Nintendo games) but rather they should do what i want, which is just play with me and realize i can't be there for them.

i wouldn't call myself a Nintendo addict, but i do play for very long hours without even talking to my partner. yes, i've seen the other gaming post as a fedi lurker, but i also have a similar relationship. i don't talk to them because i'm so absorbed in my game that i forget and don't even think about them. i only think about them when i'm not playing a game, which is admittedly rarely, though i would never tell them this.

i can't be there for them when they're upset nor can i talk to them through their depression and anxiety because i'm busy on a game, but i really feel like they should give gaming a try. it's a fun form of escapism and shooters and Super Mario really help.

Cross-posted from "What do I do?" by @relation_anon4238@thelemmy.club in !lesbians@lemmy.blahaj.zone

So my girlfriend "Lily" hasn't texted me in over a week. I can tell she is alright and receiving my messages, as it says she has read them, but she won't respond, even if I send something romantic like "I love you" or just say something like "let me know when you can hang out".

Lily is usually busy and will text me "Sorry can't talk right now" and that will be the end of our conversation. My friends, however, said that this is suspicious and means she doesn't WANT to talk because if she couldn't talk right NOW she would at least answer later instead of just reading it. ' I have no idea, it's been a week and I haven't heard from her.

so my girlfriend and i made up and we hung out yesterday. i had one long/series of weird dreams about her. the ones i remember is that i had a sleepover at her house and i watched her sleep, weirdly.

keep in mind that whenever i develop a deep attraction to someone, i end up having this dream.

then, i had a new dream i never had before. first, it was the same old dream where i got kissed on the cheek, a dream i usually have when i'm attracted to someone.

later, i had a dream where i woke up and my gf was lying over me. i felt her teeth on my neck and i moaned. she giggled and continued to suck on the skin until it left a mark and i looked in the mirror. then, we had to work on having to hide the mark.

(yep, talking about an ex part 2. not the same ex)

so, my friend called one of my exes "julia" a mean person.

my friend then called her a mean person, but in my opinion, she just had a lot of problems. she could be a really nice person for all i knew, but her mental health was clouding her judgment and personality.

Hi, so I'm a high school student and I happen to be trans FtM. I know I'm quite young, but I do believe in the importance of supporting trans people, even young people just in general.

I was born a girl (obviously) but now I'm a guy named Anthony. When I came out to my social worker "Mrs. A" (not her real name or initial), she said that she was proud of me for coming out, but that if I wanted teachers to refer to me as "male", "he/him", Anthony, etc. that I'd have to come out to my legal guardian.

The thing is my guardian isn't the most supportive of trans people. I came out to him a few years ago and he said I was just a confused girl and that "the left was just pushing their agenda onto me". He loves me, I'm sure he does, but he definitely wouldn't support me.

I told my therapist and a good friend of mine and both of them said that was breaking a rule of confidentiality. My sister told me that too. My therapist wonders if it's to get it changed on paperwork or something but says that if I want to be called Anthony at school, there should be no problem.

What do you all think?

I'm at a loss of what to do here because I don't know them that well and don't want to be too intrusive.

For the past year or so I've been new friends with "Frankie", and although we are not close, I'd say we're more than acquaintances. We don't know each other well, and have interacted a handful of times. Frankie has been eager to socialize and do activities with us, and I hope to become better friends with Frankie.

I've always gotten a "vibe" from Frankie that things are not great at home. We've met the spouse a couple of times and they've always given me bad vibes; They are uninterested and unengaged, not really friendly. I'm pretty socially awkward myself and have had my share of unfair judgement based on misunderstood social interactions and so I just gave spouse some slack there.

But Frankie is unhappy. I can tell just from conversation Frankie struggles with depression and life. I know that Frankie sees a therapist and is trying to be more social and active to improve mental health. I check in on Frankie periodically by text and durring a text conversation tonight, there are red flags of an abusive relationship. I asked how Frankie was doing, and I got a response "Just a lot of isolation and depression." and later in the conversation I invited Frankie to an event this weekend and they said:

Frankie: "[Spouse] hates that stuff and won't let me go." Me: "Not even by yourself?" F: "Nope. Says I'm too trusting of people and will get hurt." Me: "Too trusting? How?" F: "I talk to strangers. I help people who need help. I smile and say hello to people whenever I'm out and about..."

At this point, I was a bit stunned and didn't know exactly how to respond. I've never had someone be so direct in telling me something like this before. I know this sounds very much like textbook isolation and gaslighting. But I also thought that because I don't know Frankie very well, this might just be an emotional moment. I can think of a couple times in my life where I was struggling emotionally and might have said something snide about my partner in confidence to someone else, and it wasn't really fair or truthful. I don't know anything about Frankie's mental health other than they are struggling.

Without judgement, I said "Well you're more than welcome to come with us [ to the event ] and we can keep an eye on you. wink wink" I tend to try and inject humor into things, even when it may not be appropriate. I don't know how else to handle it.

I said: "This sounds like a difficult situation, if you ever need to talk, I'm here." Frankie: "Yeah, it has been a difficult situation for a while."

I went on to be clear: Frankie is always welcome at our house, and I am always available to talk if needed. Let's hang out more. I couldn't bring myself to be more direct and inquire deeper because I feel like I don't know Frankie well enough, and also to put it bluntly: I can't handle being a counselor right now and that is usually my immediate reaction: to dive in over my head to help someone. I'm trying to break this habit already.

But now what? Do I leave it alone? Do I make more an effort to un-isolate Frankie? Do I trust that Frankie got the message that I'm here as an escape hatch? I always try to live that other people's marriages are none of my business - lord knows my own has had some very private struggles, but when it comes to abuse it's different. I just don't know what to do next?

I'm in my mid-30s, my friend is in her mid 40s. This happened a few weeks ago.

Chloe (not her actual name) is a pretty good friend of mine who I've known for the last three years.

We met up with a few friends for karaoke and she was pretty much all over me the entire evening and was acting really flirty.

Among other things, she made suggestive comments (things like cracking dirty jokes with me, suggesting I get her name inked on my arm when we were talking about tattoos), embraced and slow danced with me, grinded her ass against my crotch whilst I was singing a song she liked, and kept asking me for kisses on the lips.

We did smooch a few times, but I didn't think that much of it.... until I felt her tongue go down my mouth.

I texted her when I got home and thanked her for the nice evening. She immediately apologized about the kiss, insisted it was a friendly kiss and that she really values me as a friend.

I feel guilty about what happened and the fact that I reciprocated for many reasons, but also I don't know how to interpret this. It's not like it was a drunken mistake, she was like that even before her first glass of wine. She had also gone through a rough breakup a few months back and I'm worried how her ex (also a friend of mine) would respond if he found out.

We have met since but neither of us have brought that night up. She doesn't seem awkward around me, but I just feel a pit in my stomach when I'm around her.

I dunno how to feel about this, nor what her intentions were.

I may be bad at reading people but I'm pretty sure any kiss that turns into tonsil hockey crosses the line between friendly and romantic.

This question has bothered me quite a bit, and I'm seeking clarity for this specific question for several reasons:

• My friend (same age/gender) is quite time constrained and can't do long meetings, frequent meetings, or dedicate time on his end to commute
• Because of so, I'm willing to tolerate commuting 2 hours one way (4 hours round trip) to his place - Why? Because I don't enjoy online texting in the slightest and find it to be a waste of time, I value regular in person interaction the most, so that's why I myself am willing to dedicate my own time to commute the entire length to his place.
• The 2 hour one way commute limits the ability to do early and late meetings, due to sleep and meals, so figuring out what exactly is the shortest meeting length to justify a 4 hour round trip commute is key for me.
• I have already asked a sibling of mine to articulate what he thinks (he's happily car free and takes city transit everywhere), he tells me that he thinks a 0.5:1 ratio of meeting time to travel time is sufficent (i.e. base the shortest meeting on a 1 way commute, if a 1 way commute is 2hrs, then the shortest meeting is 2hrs). His advice means that for every minute I travel/commute, I would only get 30 seconds of meeting time. I'm still torn whether this ratio is worth it, so I want more input on this. I would value trying to do at least 1 in person meeting per calendar month with my friend, as we both live in the same city.

So what would be a good ratio of meeting time to round trip travel time? What's the shortest meeting length duration that justifies a 4 hour round trip commute (2 hours one way)?

I'll try to keep this short, sorry!

We met at a tumultuous time in my life ~7 years ago and bonded over shared trauma very quickly. Since then, we've been excellent friends. In this years since, we've both been through a tremendous amount of personal growth and strife and have grown closer and closer. She's just the kindest and most beautiful soul and makes me feel safe and like I have worth. She's said similar about me.

We've had a ton of friends mistake us for dating - to be fair, we're both touch starved and since we're so close emotionally, we're typically physically close as well. Like holding hands, kissing one another on the head or arm, snuggling, etc. Because of the mistaken notions of friends, we had a very real conversation about what "we" are, and the first conversation we had alluded to the fact that she had some romantic interest, and I was happy to move forward with a romance. The conversation was cut short and the next time we had a conversation, I was more forward that I wanted and was hoping for romance after sorting through my feelings since the first conversation. But she began to back pedal.

She's afraid that things will change. And she's also afraid of her own internal anxieties pushing forward to chew at her and cause resentment if she feels like she's not good enough. In her words, she's not a very exciting person and her idea of a good time is phone in hand laying on the couch.

I've known her long enough and spent enough time with her to know this, but I don't want to push the issue and create discomfort. But that being said, I do want a relationship to come out of our friendship.

I'm stuck in what I can do, if anything. I can try to reassure her and I can propose a trial period or whatever. But I don't want to come off as pushy and I don't want to betray any of her feelings, nor do I want to breathe any life into those anxieties she harbours. Can anyone offer some advice? Or just some thoughts, even.

[THIS WILL PROBABLY BE THE LAST POST ON THIS PERSON, AT LEAST FOR A WHILE, SO I CAN MOVE ON AND BE LESS ANNOYING]

"sophie" claimed to have feelings for me and said im so nice but she could never say she loved me and she ghosts me.

next, she says we're just friends, that the relationship didn't mean much to her, that she didn't even know me, and that she didn't have feelings for me.

sometimes, she acts like she wants to be my friend, next, she completely ignores me or only talks to me when i talk first.

she never texts first, understandably, and in the relationship, she didn't do much for me, not even show me love, while i bought her stuff and openly showed my affection.

even now, she doesn't indicate anything of wanting to be friends and doesn't put any effort into a friendship like she does with her other friends, where she openly jokes around, asks them questions, and starts conversations with them.

so, if you have read my other posts, i just broke up with sophie because we were moving too fast and didn't "click instantly" or hit it off, so she decided she would get to know me better and be my friend.

my friend eliana says she definitely does want to be my friend, and she waves to me and all that sometimes (i think she did today).

my mom, however, said based on her experience, sophie does not really want to be friends and wants to be left alone mainly and i should wait for her to make contact.

i understand if she wants to be left alone, since we just broke up, so i do exactly that.

however, i usually have to talk to her first because she usually only talks to her friends, sits closer to them, i've noticed, and initiates contact with them but not me. however, she will still include me in stuff, invite me to things she's doing, etc. which makes me think she might want to be friends or she's doing it just to be nice.

after all, she was closer to them than me and we didn't really KNOW each other, we just knew who each other was.

should i give up the whole "friend thing"? wait a while?

crosspostato da: https://thelemmy.club/post/35017645

so, i've already talked a lot about sophie, my recent ex. now i'm asking for advice on her. basically, i really liked her but she was taking more than giving and it wasn't really 50/50. i discovered (and so did she) she was aromantic and didn't actually like me that way and that's why she refused to be romantic with me and even seemed repulsed by it. (the idea of being romantic), yet she flirts with others and jokes about kissing them just fine and did that in our "relationship" and right after we broke up. now, she wants to continue being with me in a "talking stage" because she "really likes me" and hopes she can get to know me better "as friends".

here's the thing: my feelings for this guy eric are resurfacing. should i continue being in an ambiguous friendship with someone who only recently discovered what she wanted and still doesn't know or just be completely, unambiguously, friends and later pursue eric in the future?

should i also be concerned that she can't flirt with her own girlfriend but makes very sexual jokes about other people while in a relationship?

Hi, so I could use some help. I really like my girlfriend and I want to show my love and make her feel special, but I don't know how to do it without going into "obsessive" territory. I've loved her for two years and every day with her is great, but I don't know what to do since I feel more obsessed every day.

Lots of backstory, so I'll try to create a timeline.

I met my gf 2 years ago when it was her first week in America- she's Irish. She was really into me, but I didn't feel the same. We dated for a week but I called it off pretty quick.

Fast forward, we reconnected when she began working for a daycare that I would come to to play music for the kids. We became friends again, and really hit it off platonically.

In October, I began a relationship with a sadist who was a real mindfuck- she tried to separate me from my friends and family, she told me I was dumb and ugly, had me pay for everything, and afterwards tried to start a rumor that I was a pedophile. I had to get a restraining order.

In January I broke up with her and decided I would be single for a bit.

But it wasn't even a month before I started dating another friend from my group as I came back into my life. She was the kindest person I've ever met, and frankly the only reason we ended things was that I eventually wanted marriage and kids and she did not.

In this time, my current gf and I decided we would be roommates, as good buddies. I honestly thought it would just be a roommate situation, and we began climbing and having fun together.

The week I broke up with my kindest girlfriend, I was absolutely devastated. At the same time, my current gf had broken up with her bf. In that week we were both trying to grapple with our new pain. We went to an art show where we did a bunch of shrooms, and at the end of the night we hooked up. Later that week at our housewarming party, my ex showed up (we actually were trying to be friends). She started getting touchy with me, but when I told her about what happened with me and my roommate, she stormed out and sent me the angriest text I've ever had. I fully agreed with her, and essentially I lost the best friend I ever dated. I'm still absolutely devastated from that.

With my current gf, we decided to continue to hook up "for the plot", but when I decided I wanted out, there was a fight and she threw a chair. I was so afraid that I chose to try and appease her by becoming closer. We became official, and moved forward in the relationship. She even came home to meet my parents, though that week she had an episode of CHS (if she smokes weed she can become violently sick) and ended up in the hospital for almost the entire time.

The thing is, I'm not really super attracted to her. If anything I was settling. But I was so afraid of her big temperament that I continued to be in the relationship.

The other night I was drunk and high, and we had been watching YouTube. She wanted to make out and I wasn't in the mood. After a while she got up and stormed off. I was surprised, but honestly should have known it wasn't going to be good. She asked me if I was attracted to her, and I decided to give a reason for my not being in the mood by saying she had gained weight.

Honestly she's not all that heavy, but I just felt I needed to say something. High and drunk it was a stupid thing to say.

After that it all unraveled. She came into my room demanding more of an explanation and I exploded saying how I'd been cleaning and cooking and taking care of everything and wanted her to be my teammate in the house. It wasn't happening and that week she was already stressed because her clown troupe broke up.

Now I'm trying to backpedal because there are many things I do like about her, and I love the apartment we've made. I know these are horrible reasons to be in a relationship, but right now my head is in "wtf is wrong with me that makes me do these things".

I lied to her about the whole relationship. I am just trying to damage control especially since I'm not in a financial position to move out. I don't like that this shallow side of me turned up. I don't like that I had a streak of relationships without room to breathe. I became a serial monogamist this year and none of this feels like me.

Okay, so first off, I wanna say that I'm in a lovely relationship with "Jess" and have been for a few days. Before I dated my friend and now girlfriend Jess, though, was my ex that I posted about around 2 weeks ago: Evangelina.

Evangelina and I were going great, until she told me she needed me for something. I asked what she needed me for, and she said she was horny.

I didn't know what to do, so I sent photos of my face and said "Here you go," but she asked for "different photos".

When I refused to give them to her because we'd only been dating for a few days and I'd been sexually harassed before, she said "It's fine, I get it." But then she blocked me??

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/34281439

A few months prior, I had broken up with David. My relationship with him prompted me to later realize I was going through comphet, and was actually into women, not straight like I once thought.

I was looking for a girlfriend after a few months of healing and being single, and my acquaintance/friend Michael, who is a few years older than me, introduced me to Kay/K.

"I think you'll like her," he said.

Keep in mind that Kay was not yet out to Michael as nonbinary with they/them pronouns, but I indeed asked them for their pronouns so I didn't misgender anyway. That's why Michael used she/her and thought Kay was a girl.

Kay wanted to be in a sort of "talking stage" after a while, where we weren't quite friends but we certainly weren't dating.

Here's where I wonder: Kay could imagine romantic stuff with me, such as holding hands and kissing, and going on dates and all that stuff, yet they didn't want me to do that with them nor did they want to initiate that with me. They said they had a crush on me, too, as did I for them.

We did things they were okay with, such as saying "I love you" and flirting, but that was it.

They said we were just hanging out and asked me could we not make it a date for now. They also got annoyed at me for asking if we could hold hands one day and said not now but maybe in the future.

They eventually told me they were traumatized by dating, which I respect, and weren't ready for a girlfriend nor were they ready for commitment.

So, this makes me wonder, did Kay like me romantically or did they just see me as sort of a friend? They were traumatized either way, which definitely could influence it, but yeah. I do wonder, from your guys' perspective as an outsider.

This is a follow-up to this post.

As a TL;DR for context: my best friend from high-school, for whom I'd developed the first batch of unreciprocated romantic feelings in my life, reached out four weeks ago, after almost two decades of not being in touch. I started falling in love hard again, and I thought it was a bad idea.

Well, right now it seems as though I was right about that. I came clean about two weeks ago with the intent of backing off. Told her I'm falling for her again, hard, and that I don't want to do another stint of carrying it alone. I apologised profusely, told her this wasn't on her, no hard feelings, and wished her well.

She replied and told me that she really didn't want to lose this, because she started looking forward to our conversations and was excited about potentially meeting up next month (relative to the present moment), but that she didn't want me to suffer in any way, so she'd understand. She said that I'm definitely not indifferent to her, but that she's struggling to figure out her feelings - later on, this turned into "[I'm] very dear to [her] and [she] missed [me] so much without even realising it."

I, being the moron that I am, decided to stick with it for her, as she's clearly not having an easy go of things at the moment and thought that this was one thing I could do to ease her pain.

Trouble is, I started spiraling around the thought that I've just set myself on a trajectory of pure pain, again. I've had two episodes since then, let her know both times as I could tell it was affecting my "just chatting with a friend" mode. The first time, she stuck with me and gave me hints that there's a chance that pain is not inevitable. The second was last night, and it was significantly stronger. We ended the night with quite a bit of tension between us (she told me she's more of a "taking things as they are in the now, not defining anything," while I'm the kind of person who needs a bit of clarity in my life as an anchor point). We'd discussed where each of us stands in relation to continuing this interaction between us: I told her I'm choosing to stick with it even with the looming inevitability on my horizon, she avoided answering entirely, citing the aforementioned "taking things as they are in the now," and this just served to further fan my destabilisation.

It's clear to both of us at this point that there is a major mismatch of investment. My side is significantly more defined than hers (I'm not judging her, btw, every person has their rhythm and that's ok), but I genuinely see no way this could end up somewhere along the lines of where I'd like it to end - a mutual romantic attempt. This is for a number of factors, such as:

• we live in different countries - I would have no issues uprooting myself and moving for a relationship, but I most certainly won't do it without anything clearly defined; she told me she needs something "real," a.k.a. no long-distance; establishing myself in her country would most certainly not be an easy process, with zero guarantee of success;

• while we do get along in general (very well, I might add), it's clear that we have two very different approaches to this whole "relationship" thing, which is only amplified by the aforementioned mismatch of investment;

• I'm not getting any concrete intentions from her in... well, any direction, to be honest; actually feels like it's a bit of a rollercoaster, with some days being almost lovey-dovey, and others being brief and devoid of any such elements - I'm not talking about just not discussing it, I'm talking about things feeling distant; as an example, one day she even told me I'm very dear to her and reacted positively when I hinted that I would love to hug and kiss her, now she's avoiding even saying anything concrete as to whether or not she'd want to continue interacting (not "let's give a relationship a chance," literally just "do you want us to still keep talking");

I'm genuinely suffering. It's painful, because I'm not only carrying the intensity of things as they are now (and they are intense in their own right, with every interaction just further solidifying everything), but I also have our shared history piling up on top of that, making everything significantly more intense - I've realised my feelings for her are on a continuum spanning from the first day I saw her and up to this very second, while she barely remembers anything from back then. She tells me that my being certain that this'll end up with pain on my end will serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, while I genuinely see no chance of success.

Right now, I'm leaning toward cutting it all off. The pain will be guaranteed as-is, but I'm thinking that I will at least not let things grow any more than they already have, thus avoiding an even greater amount of pain, not to mention avoiding doing any more splash damage than I've already done. The tension at the moment isn't world-shattering, or anything, but it's noticeable - we both ended the night relatively upset. On the flipside, there's a dumb and stubborn flicker of hope which popped up after the first time I tried to pull away, and it's yelling at me that I'll lose her from my life again and that backing off is certain to end... whatever this is for good.

At this moment, I'm stuck oscillating between a rock and a hard place, my reason went out the window, and I'm severely emotionally compromised. I could do with any insight anyone might have and I thank you profusely for it.

So will try to keep this vague and somewhat short, but I (27,M) met a girl (23,F) last year that I was casual friends with. At some point or another she found herself freshly single from a longtime toxic ex, and we ended up talking after a few drinks and decided to give things a go between us. I was clear my ultimate goal was a relationship, she wasn't sure, so it was mostly FWB testing the waters. We progressed very quickly to the point where she seemed to be genuinely on the precipice of making something real happen, and her friends were even pushing her to go for it. And then she just suddenly ended it and said she felt nothing for me out of the blue one day. Completely tore down what happened between us and had a million and one reasons for why that she never brought up once before.

I was heartbroken for months while she was off kissing other guys within a week. We never cut contact though and ultimately ended up going back to just friends after a few rocky patches. I've been mostly focusing on myself while she's been off chasing guys that are either non-commital or barely giving her the time of day. We've talked about things a fair bit, and she's kinda changed her tone that I didn't really do anything wrong, and in a lot of ways I was the best she's ever had regarding how I treated her. But she's still adamant that she wants nothing to do with me like that anymore and feels nothing for me.

Thing is, every once in a blue moon when we're both drunk and hanging out, she suddenly gets slightly flirty or minorly physical with me again in a way that feels more intimate than just a friend. I don't let her take things far in order to respect boundaries she set in the past, but every time I ask about what that was about, she has some excuse for it. But the second I do anything that can be perceived as the same, no matter how minor, she's at my throat accusing me of still having feelings for her and threatening to not talk to me anymore if I do.

I can be a bit of an anxious overthinker so I don't entirely trust myself to make the right call if there's more going on here, but it feels like there is, and I can't shake that. But I also don't have the slightest clue how to approach this regardless of if there is or not.

Edit: Something minor that just happened I may be reading into I just remembered. We hung out a month ago at my place and she gave me one of her shirts that fit me, so I offered to give her one of my hoodies that I just suddenly found her wearing all weekend in return. She scoffed at that and said you only do that when you're dating. Well, we hung out again recently and she spent all weekend wearing a different favorite hoodie of mine. As I was taking her home, she swapped back to that same one from last time, and I realized afterwards that she forgot to give it back. I didn't say anything, but did mention her leaving some stuff at my place to kind of prod her. She said she didn't care about leaving stuff there, and didn't even try to bring up that she has that hoodie. I don't think she knows that I know she has it. Almost like she's hoping I forget so she can keep it without me knowing. Maybe that means something. Maybe not. I don't know. Help.

My partner and I are in a long distance relationship, we've been together for 5 years. From the start, the plan was that I would move there, but he didn't start the application because he wanted to get a stable job (he was working when we met but quit around 2022 when they expected everyone to move from remote back to on-site).
Last year he told me that if Trump gets in he'd move here instead (he's American). My family expressed doubts about his sincerity, so I confirmed with him multiple times and he insisted.
Now he's saying that he never thought Trump would actually get in, so I shouldn't have taken him seriously. We fought about it and when I said he went back on his word he says I went back on mine since I haven't moved there yet and am now saying I don't want to because of everything happening and I don't feel safe (I'm trans, and even if I wasn't foreigners aren't being treated well from what I've heard).
He's now saying he doesn't want to leave his mom, which is fair, but I feel conflicted about it all. I feel like he's broken my trust, but he's adamant he didn't lie because he never actually expected this to happen.
He also thinks everything is being exaggerated and isn't really as bad as I think it is, especially where he is on the west coast. He says it's safe there, but I wonder for how long. He says if it gets worse we can move here, but how can I trust that? I feel like he's burying his head in the sand (he responded that I'm burying my head in the sand) and ignoring how bad it's going to be, but maybe he's right and I'm stressing too much? At the start of the year he agreed with me about how bad it is but now he doesn't seem to think it's that bad.
Mostly I just want advice I guess, an outside perspective. I don't know how to feel and I'm conflicted about it all.

I live in a poorer country where I live with less than 10k a year. It's low but since my country is generally less expensive I can live (and vacation) there with some comfort as long as I don't go crazy. I'm a frugal person so I don't miss out on anything.

My sister and brother-in-law went to live in Europe and they are doing very well. Together they easily make 200k. I'm happy for them.

The problem starts when I visit. The country they live in is far more expensive than mine. It isn't always a problem since I don't have to pay for accommodation and cooking at home is sustainable. The problem is they always want to eat out and do expensive activities (for my standards). And they always leave out the price until it's time to pay since the price is meaningless for them. At first they would chip in until my brother-in-law started pulling "it's your turn to pay now". Imagine being given a dinner tab that is almost as much as your monthly paycheck.

Visiting has become stressing as hell, when I should be relaxing. I tried to talk about it, that eating at home would be more affordable for me, but they quickly go back to old habits. At this point I just decided it's not worth it to visit anymore and blow my year savings in a few days. They're not happy and, as much as I try, I can't make them understand how much money I make. They can't understand you can't buy 100 euro meals everyday when you earn less than a 200 a week.

It's also not much better when they visit our country but at least I know what prices to expect and since I'm home I can find an excuse to ditch them.

Maybe we have just grown appart and that's that.

i'm m45. My current wife and i decided to separate a few weeks ago - we have simply drifted apart, no hard feelings, it can happen over 15 years which weren't easy because of illness. We currently still share the home and will probably over the next few months - She said she could never make me leave the flat until i have a safe and stable home for myself.

Me and my siblings relationship has been devastated by the alcoholism of my dad and the uncaringness of my mom, grandparents are dead except the worst of the 4, a venom-spitting vindictive bitch; my aunts - well one is a nazi, the other one tramples over your personal borders even if told not to, so i'm NC with both. My first friend circle in my 20s was consumed by drugs, the second by separation from my ex, and that will probably happen now again.

I have AVPD (Avoidant/self-insecure personality disorder, meaning i have low self esteem, low tolerance for making mistakes, a lot of fear to do new things, and cope by avoiding both) and social anxiety (which is much better now than a few years ago thanks to a lot of therapy, which also helped with my depression, but it's not gone)

So, i fear to become completely alone now, for the first time in my life. I'm on disability, so at least i have a stable if low income, and 2 times a week i am in a center for group therapy settings, which means i will at least talk to someone once in a while, but i fear that i might become a crazy cat man.

Update 2: nevermind, apparently!

Update (for myself more than anything): I called everything off. I can't do this thing anymore, and it's clear that's where things were headed. Nothing's changed on my end in 20 years, not going to change any time soon.

This is a weird deal even for me, so I apologise beforehand if anything ends up being unclear in the text.

For a bit of context, she and I used to be high-school class mates and got along very, very well. Used to hang out constantly, became very close, she even became my first significant non-familial, non-platonic affection (dunno what else to call it given when it started developing). Didn't go anywhere due to circumstances at the time (and mostly because I didn't even know what to do with it) but we remained close friends and grew even closer.

In our last year, though, I started dating my first long-term SO, and I drifted away from my best friend (ex was very jealous, so I stupidly reduced all contact with the people I knew would trigger that in her). We then both left for Uni (I moved to the other end of the country, she went abroad) and stopped communicating entirely.

It's been almost two decades since then. We'd met up a decade ago and chatted for a bit when she spent some time over here, but it was very awkward and, honestly, irrelevant as far as where we'd been before that. I was an emotional mess at the time, so basically nothing more than a steaming heap of vaguely anthropomorphic meat.

Last week I got a connection request from her on my professional profile, completely out of the blue - for added context, my presence on Socials is minimal-to-none, mainly only accounts which don't carry my real name. I accepted it thinking nothing of it, then shortly after she sent me a message. Told me she started having a reocurring dream in which I was always present but wasn't talking to her because I was upset with her, and she got worried that it was the same in real life (I repeat, we haven't talked for pretty much two decades). I told her honestly that I had no reason whatsoever to not want to talk to her and that I wasn't upset with her in any way (never been).

We switched apps, then continued to text semi-regularly. It was awkward at first, lotsa' long pauses between texts (1-2 days) as we've both been busy, but yesterday we both caught a break and spent pretty much the entire day texting. Chatted about a lot of random things, about life, swapped a lot of music (I always loved her taste), basically got back in the old groove.

And that's the problem, apparently. I got very excited, she did, too. Also got flooded with memories of our dynamic from back then, because it seems to not have skipped a beat. Same dry yet goofy sense of humour, same wonderfully complex conversations, same feeling of it being safe for me to be open and honest with her. Conversations with her really are a treat, she always made me want to be better, to think harder and deeper, to be honest with both of us. We'd both remarked how much we've missed talking to each other even though neither of us had thought about it until now.

I woke up today at 4AM with a flutter in my chest and I suddenly realised I'm falling in love with what I'm now "seeing" of her. It's a lot of forgotten familiarity which still applies, apparently, but also the ways in which she's been shaped by these past two decades. We've both gone through a lot and did a lot of growing, but we're still very much the same people we used to be when interacting with each other. Feels kinda' like some old seeds finally managed to hit dirt and take root.

I don't think I want this, though. I see it as yet another hopeless romance on my end, and I'm very tired of these... I don't know how to proceed with the situation, to be honest. If circumstances were different, I'd probably shoot my shot and be done with it (i.e. be honest about my feelings) after letting things settle a bit, but given we're several countries apart with no plans of moving any time soon and relatively established lives, I don't see how anything would even be possible between us. I'm talking hypotheticals here, with the biggest one being that I don't even know what's going on on her end (although my naturally pessimistic tendency is to say "absolutely friggin' nothing, you dumb idiot") - still a bit blindsided by the sudden reappearance, yes, but I simply have to think things through clearly, which is why I'm considering every aspect I can think of. It does feel really nice having her in my life again, though, and I can tell she feels the same way about it. Plus she literally told me that.

To clarify, I'm not jumping to any conclusions, I'm not daydeaming about it, I'm actually in Hypervigilant Problem Solving Mode, because I really don't want to hurt myself with things like this anymore. This is a reaction related strictly to what I feel right here and now.

I ask and thank you for any possible thoughts, advice, anything you have for this.

P.S.: as another potentially relevant variable, unfortunately, I get over Love™ slowly, and it's usually a difficult process for me. I tend to pour all of my heart into the people I love (I'm passionate, this is how I feel it, not complaning or looking to change it), so it's hard to recover even after brief/light episodes. I usually need to play things tactically, and the only thing which has worked so far has been cutting all contact.

P.P.S.: I wasn't even looking for romance, ffs... I just want to get my life in order...

Hey guys I know this is weird, but my story is I have like more than 5 insta. acc. Only 2 of them are public and the other are private, anyways I have been stalking my ex-bsf insta. acc. for almost a year and a half, from one of my private account, but she didn't appeared at all in the suggested or discover ppl for this year and a half , anyway in the past month I decided to massage her on my telegram acc. to forgive her, and she apologize to , but then we got into a discussion to know why our friendship ended from our point view ,I got pretty angry from this conversation so I deleted the chat for both parties in telegram anyway after that I went and changed my bio on my telegram acc. and put the user of my main public insta acc. So in the past 2 weeks I've been kind of cutting back on visiting her profile,get busy with my life even tho I am kinda heartbroken anyways before 1 day I was on my main public account(the one that I put it in my telegram acc. bio) watching stories suddenly suggested ppl appeared and I rolled the dice surprisingly her account popped up on the suggested ppl, anyway I went out and back to the app 3 times in all the 3 times when I rolled the dice she appeared in those 3 times,also to discover ppl and appeared 2 times not only on my public account she appeared ,she appeared in all of my 5 account even in some acc. that I didn't search on her, Also I blocked her in one of my private acc. after I unblocked her she didn't appeared but after a while she appeared again in this private acc. as the 1st person in the suggested ppl so idk is she stalking my account without my knowledge or am I just imagine?? (Note:my ex-bsf acc. Is private and we don't have friends in common,I synced her number a while ago but her acc. never showed up and my insta acc. isn't connected to my Facebook acc. Also my ex-bsf she is over from our relationship along time ago , also I didn't see fakes account in my story views)

My (29M) online friend (30's F) has been flirting with me. She says her only intention is to boot my ego, but the way she is talking to be seems to be more than that. She will constantly message me and ask me to do things with her in game all the time. She also seems to want to know more about me, but any time I try and ask about her, she kind of brushes it off or changes the subject. She spent an entire day telling me that she had a crush on me (for a year??) and everything that she liked about me (the exact list will make this post too long). I really appreciate what she says, but I feel like I am on an emotional rollercoaster trying to figure out what exactly she wants. I have tried asking her, but it's usually either ignored or the subject is changed. I do not want to cut ties, because she is an integral part of the group of friends I play with and I don't want things to be awkward, but I really don't know how to move forward with this situation. Any advice, even if it's brutally honest, is welcome.

I’ve been making new friends recently and going out with them. One of the times a bunch of us (me included got really drunk). I was all over this one guy putting my arm around him and leaning towards him in between his legs while he was sitting down. I don’t remember if we kissed or if nothing else happened.

Anyway, we went out another time and he asked me if I thought we were going to fuck. I didn’t know what to say and said maybe, and he said that he thought we would, and then I agreed with him (because I do like him).

But now I keep thinking about that and wondering if I need to do something to make that happen. Like text him or something. I just feel nervous because I’ve never texted him before (we’ve only been in group texts together). And I feel like if I do text him I’m going to fuck it up, because this (having mutual interest with someone in person) has pretty much never happened to me before so I don't really know how to navigate the situation at all. Please help.