Why would RC dilute the 75M DRS total out in an instant after years of effort? I believe RC really cares about his investors. Say GME squeezes into the thousands. What would happen? You would get ordinary people trying to FOMO in too late, and in the end getting wiped out when regulators intervene or buy button shenanigans occur. Instead, he is showing a controlled burn strategy. Just up.
Up cycles, sell high, down cycles will inevitably be shorted, buyback low. Now they have the extra capital to prepare for the down cycle in the upcoming years. I believe this will be a long road of acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, and share issuance. RC will trade for us and take care of his investors. He is in fact the largest shareholder by far of GME, so taking care of himself and his team as well. MOASS was a fun dream, but regardless, hodlers are probably set for life. It just may not have been as sudden as we would've liked.

Long story short, I’m essentially on suicide watch now. I can’t even go out without supervision anymore. Which sucks as my friend and I were hoping to have a sleepover at some point. I probably shouldn’t of been completely honest with the lady I spoke to.

Hi everybody, hope you are having a good day. To me, self help seems super simple but really difficult. I know what I need to do to improve but often dont do it. Why do you think so many of us are like this?
Eating healthy and working out is a simple thing we should do yet it can be a struggle, the same goes with many goals we have. If we know doing the thing makes us where we want to be long term why do we take the easy option instead of the good option so often?
Are there tips or tricks to make your brain see it as the easy option when it does in fact require work.
For the eating example, I would like to lose weight. I get off work tired and hungry and crave a burger. If i eat the burger my brain gets happy and i enjoy it. I know this doesnt align with my goals. Any tips to trick the brain into that satisfaction feeling when i choose the option to not eat the burger? Self praise maybe?
This isnt just about food but more the concept of quick satisfaction vs choice that aligns with goals.

One of my extended cousins is in the insurance business and has been trying to convince me to buy life insurance with Primerica on a 35 year term. I understand they are an MLM but as long as they have a good rate and coverage it's not a bad choice right?
The problem I'm facing is that I'm leaving for boot camp for the Marine Corps in about 3 months, and they have good rates on SGLI. The only problems being that 1) it's not a locked in rate, so when I leave the military my rates go up and 2) spouses have a cap on their coverage.
Basically my question is what should I do? My wife is pregnant but since we are young we don't have any debt that would get passed down to our child. At the same time though life insurance would help with expenses for the kid in the case that we both pass away simultaneously?
If there is any resource that can provide a full picture of my options and can compare quotes I would appreciate it, I'm just starting out as an adult and trying to get my finances in order, I've already set up a Roth IRA and am planning out how I am going to put away money with the TSP in the military.
TL;DR: Young adult starting a family and joining the military, what life insurance do I need

Hey I'm quite young, starting as a software developer I've had a few good contracts and an internship with one year experience in the payments industry. By payments I mean, Stripe, Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay, Etc. basically electronic payments. Payments is a complex and unforgiving world, and it's insanely competitive. There's not many people that truly understand and even less that do well by starting their own company.
Over the past year, I've honed my developing skills and business skills and learnt everything I could whilst I'm here at the internship. My question, if I stick in the payments industry, jump from one company to a better company. Could I eventually start a competition in this industry, my thinking is if I stick long enough I'll find a gap that consumers need when it comes to payments and I'll be the first start to start it. Is this a realistic goal, or should I explore other fields to start startups, because at the end of the day. That's my goal, to have an idea and provide it as a service to another people .

Hey all!
I'm a 26 year old guy from the Netherlands and I work as a web developer. I just got back from hiking a bit near the sea and I'd like to chat with some fun people!
A little bit about me: I love listening to lots of different music, stuff like Andy Stott, Joy Orbison, Joy Crookes, Ahmad Jamal and Immolation to name a few. I also collect vinyl records. Hit me up with recommendations if you have any! Other than that I like making electronic music myself as well, spending time in nature, photography and trying to keep my plants alive.
Personality wise I'm an INTP (if you care about MBTI), I think a looot and I like researching random topics!
If you’d like to chat, send me an invite and tell me a little bit about yourself or what your plans are/were for today! I would prefer something longer term, but short term chats are fine too!

I’m 24, and have lived with severe general and social anxiety for as long as I can remember. I just never realized how bad it was truly hindering my life. A year and a half ago me and my ex who I was with for 4 years split. She was all I knew and all I cared about that entire time, and I felt lucky to even have her in the first place and due to my anxiety thought I was destined to be alone forever.
I end up moving back in with my parents because I already work for my dad’s company. I have worked there for 2 years but it’s not really a job I see working out in the long run. I have thought this almost since I started working for him but continued to work there because it was good money and convenient.
Now that I’ve finally been prescribed anxiety medication, which I didn’t choose to do until I absolutely obsessed over a girl I had only talked to for a month and thought she was the one (stupid I know) but she didn’t feel the same way and it ended. Every minute of the day I thought about her for a month after the fact that she ended it.
This situation caused many breakdowns and terrible depression, but it finally got me to go to a doctor and get medicine. After being on this medicine for a few weeks I feel a lot different. My mind is finally clear enough to think about the things that are actually important. I’ve realized I haven’t been in the driver seat of my life since I’ve been an adult. My ex was my life and I let her chase her dreams while I worked a shitty job for years supporting her. Then I went to working a shitty job for my dad and relying on him and my family for a home and work.
I’m 24 now and it feels like I’ve wasted a lot of my life, but I am currently finally able to focus on myself and start my own life. I am applying to a nursing program, and may be a little late in doing so, but I know what I want to do now and am working towards it and that is such a relief.
Sorry for the long post just needed to get that out there somewhere. Hope people in similar situations to what I was in can get the help they need!

Background & Context:

Throwaway account. This isn’t an immediate issue, or even an issue anymore. This relationship issue happened when I was 18. Now I’ve been in a loving relationship with my current girlfriend (we’ll call Mia) for 3 years (I love her to bits, I can’t understate that). This topic came up when I was talking to a group of people about our relationship history. I talked about my first relationship as nowadays I find it to be a funny story. Everyone laughs when I tell it, but they usually come to the conclusion that she was a raging A-hole and gaslit me, even though to this day, I think we’re both at MASSIVE faults for our behaviour. My closest friends have even nicknamed her ‘the devil’. It feels weird to me that despite feeling like I was also an A-hole, but everyone around me thinks otherwise. I was telling my girlfriend about this and she’s like, ‘you know what, you should post this on reddit, it’d be really funny to see the responses!’ Few days later here we are. Now that I’ve gotten context out of the way, Imma just start telling the story.

PART 1 - This is Where I Feel I Was Asshole:

Before The Break-Up:

After some time in the relationship, (I think 2-3 months in, not entirely sure), I felt absolutely awful. Not because she (we’ll call her Emily) was a bad person, not at all. 3 months-ish into the relationship, there were entire days were I would ball my eyes out, or feel completely sick, not able to really do anything apart from contemplate the state of the relationship, mostly because I felt like I was putting in a lot of effort, and she wasn’t putting in effort at all. I think around 3 months in, I ‘talked’ about how I thought ‘the relationship felt like a friendship’. I wasn’t completely open with how much it was affecting me at all (which was an issue on my end), however she kindly set her boundaries, saying how she thought the relationship was fine. She wasn’t mean or anything (maybe AT WORST), slightly dismissive. It was a very civil conversation. I did leave that conversation feeling better, but I also left that conversation thinking I was asking for way too much out of the relationship, and that relationships aren’t really how I thought they’d be. Regardless we move on.
Later on into our relationship, we go on one of our dates, and I remember it being one of the most draining outings I’ve ever had. On my end, and her end as well. I was drained because she was having a bad day before our date, and was frankly being rude to me when it wasn’t really justified. On her end, there were times when I being an idiot and frankly embarrassing, which looking back on it, WAS DEFINITELY TRUE. I remember we were making a joke on the train, and I got to into it and loudly said ‘GANG SH*T’, and then immediately regretted it because 2 or 3 old ladies looked at me, and Emily looked absolutely awe-struck with embarrassment. (Spoiler: A lack of self-awareness in certain moments plays a crucial role later in this post. I read my friend this story, and she said to me, please state that you are also autistic as I feel it also plays a crucial role in this story. I don’t know if that helps but that’s what she says I should say, so yeah). During the end of this date, when we’re both clearly kinda beat up, she brings up the point ‘Does this relationship still feel like a friendship to you?’. We had a civil conversation about it, got some pizza at a pizza place, and left the date on a rather sour note.

Break-Up:

Okay, let’s fast forward to the time when I ask her ‘Can we talk at ‘x’ location?’ This was after the semester in the summer. I wasn’t completely dead-set on ending the relationship, but I was pretty sure within this conversation, it was probably going to happen. She agreed, but later on the day, she texted me that she’d rather talk on the phone (later on within that conversation she jokingly said, ‘I’m not gonna lie, I’m not going to get all dressed up to get broken up with man’, which got a good laugh out of both of us’). We talked on the phone about the relationship and our issues with it, and at the time I thought ‘Yo, this is like the best break-up ever!’. There was very clearly no sort of strong dislike or hate between us despite our moments. We even started jokingly roasting each other during the conversation, laughing our assess of. Hell, she even said that she’ll invite me to her 19th birthday party at the end of the conversation. We even said to each other ‘let’s not tell our school friends that we’ve broken up, and then act like the most platonic homies ever in front of them!’ We both left that call feeling good about ourselves. I told my friends (who didn’t go into the school about the interaction), and they were happy. One of them even said ‘you delayed what could’ve possibly been one of the most calmest break-ups ever’. I texted her about what her friends said, and she said that she was going to tell them in the evening. I didn’t hear back from her about her friends, but didn’t really think anything of it. We very much occasionally texted sometimes in the summer. Sometimes about working out, sometimes about music…don’t really remember much of it, but it was calm (or at least I thought it was calm).
(As I type out this paragraph right now, I indefinitely cringe. The lack of self-awareness from me in this story is…a lot to say the least).

After The Break-Up (Back To School):

I go back to school to see Emily and my friend studying on a table. I see Emily and get slightly nervous, I haven’t seen her face to face for months on end, but I go up to her and my friend, and dap them both up. We have our conversations, go to class, and go home. It did feel VERY awkward being around her, and I did sense that something was wrong, but I chalked it up to, ‘Oh, you’ve just met your ex after months on end, it’s going to be slightly awkward’.
I saw my other friend (we’ll call Daisy), the next day, and she had broken up with her girlfriend. I asked her how the break up went, and she said the break-up went decently. She then asked me about my relationship break up. My brain goes ‘hold on, my ex told you about it?’. Additionally, she asked me that in the most sad way possible. I immediately knew that something was off. I ask her, ‘Yo what did she tell you?’. I’m going to give a very approximate re-enactment about how the convo went.
Daisy: She’s really hurt, from what I said
Me: What did I say?
Daisy: She said that she felt really hurt, the fact that you called her disgusting-
MY EYES WIDEN. I was like WHAT?!? ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’, THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT. OH MY GOD, I FEEL AWFUL…NOOOOOOOOOOO’
Daisy looked at me like she expecting my reaction, like completely unphased. She said to me that she told Emily:
Daisy: ‘You should probably talk to him, because that’s definitely not what he meant.’
Emily: ‘No, I’m tired of explaining myself to people’
I remember the feeling to this day, I felt absolutely awful in the moment. I’ve genuinely never felt worse about hurting a person in my life. I asked Daisy whether I should talk to Emily about the situation and apologise to her, but Daisy said that Emily really doesn’t wanna talk to me again, and that the damage has already been done. Maybe you can apologise in the future, but to give her some time. After school, I go home from this incident, still feeling like shit, and call my friend to tell her about my mistake. We’ll call this friend Steph. Steph listens to me, and doesn’t look amused. She says to me….
Steph: I don’t believe you called her disgusting
Me: What do you mean?
Steph: What did you say to her?
Me: I said to her that during the relationship there were times that I felt sick and couldn’t do anything in the day, as well as struggling with attraction (VERY BRIEFLY, LIKE A FEW SECONDS). Also during the break up, fast forwarding when we were both in a jokey mood, my ex said to me:
‘Why did you DM me a few days before this break-up calling me babe?’ ‘Like you knew this moment was coming hahaha’
Me: ‘Girl, when I did that I was absolutely DISGUSTED’
She laughs and we continue talking to each other making jokes and releasing some tension.
Steph says to me: So, you didn’t flat out say to her face, that she was disgusting…in a serious or jokey tone?
Me: I mean, what I said, can CLEARLY be interpreted as such man. Even though I didn’t flat out say it, I shouldn’t have said any of that, whether it was in a jokey or serious tone. And looking back on that, it’s stupid that I didn’t take that break-up as seriously as it should’ve have. Like…come on, I’m an idiot for roasting and joking around in a moment that should be taken seriously.
Steph: But she was joking around too right?
Me: yeah…
Steph: And she was roasting you too…right?
Me: yeah…
Steph: So why is she mad? That doesn’t make any sense.
Me: I mean, I don’t remember, but knowing me, I probably initiated the jokes.
Steph: Bro, don’t assume. And even if you did initiate the jokes, she would’ve had to play along as well. And the fact that she just assumed that what you said, meant that you found her disgusting, and didn’t find her physically attractive, without talking to you about that…DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.
Me: I don’t know…I still feel like I shouldn’t have done any of that
Steph: Bro, don’t PURELY blame yourself. Hell EVEN HER FRIEND TOLD HER, THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU MEANT! AND SHE DECIDED TO RUN OFF WITH HER ASSUMPTION ANYWAY!
As you can see, my friend was pissed on my behalf. She didn’t really convince me, I still felt awful for a LONG TIME. Okay let’s keep going with this story, it’s a long one

Birthday & ‘The Talk’

My ex and I, have the same birthday. Shocking I know. We were both in school, I didn’t see my ex for the entire day, but even if I did, her friend told me that she really didn’t wanna talk to me, so it’s not like I would talk to her in the first place.
When I went to get lunch, I saw Daisy and Emily were sitting at the table having lunch. I saw my ex, and I made sure not to make eye-contact and walked past them. I thought in my head, she probably wants to enjoy her birthday, and probably doesn’t want to see her ex who called her disgusting on her birthday. A day later, I talk to Daisy, and the topic of Emily comes up. Daisy said to me that Emily was looking for me on our birthday, to also wish me happy birthday, and got upset that when she finally saw me, I walked past her and ignored her. AGAIN, I FEEL AWFUL, but in the back of my head, I’m just like ‘wait, I swear she said she doesn’t wanna talk to me’. I inquire Daisy on this. (Unfortunately, since it’s been years now, I don’t remember what Daisy said). So bing-bang-boom, later on in the day, Daisy, my ex, Emily and my old friend group meet up. Emily smiles at me, but also looks emotionally beat-up. Bro, when I saw I almost teared up, and was like ‘not today, not today, not today’. After some small talk within the group, I ask Emily to talk privately with her. She was amicable and agreed to go to talk privately.
The first thing I did was apologise, and says that’s not what I meant at all, and clarified my feelings. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I said the comment about me being disgusted about my Instagram DM was meant playfully, to criticise my own behaviour. Additionally, when I said I was struggling with attraction and felt sick during the relationship, it wasn’t because of how you look. It was because of the nature of the relationship, and how I felt like I was putting inn way too much effort (within that conversation, I was trying to omit the fact that I felt like she put in no effort at all. I felt weird putting blame on her for that in the time) I even admitted within the break-up conversation, that I still felt attraction to her, but I know the relationship wasn’t working, as so did she. She said:
‘Well, I’m not going to ask for clarification, like oh maybe he didn’t mean this, when someone says something as blatant as that’
We talk some more. Emily said that she didn’t want to be friends because she was VERY hurt about what I said, but if we ever see each other, that we can be civil. She gives a lot of points about the break-up. I remember in my head disagreeing with the points, but unfortunately while I’m writing this post, I don’t remember those points. The conversation that we had was very civil and respectful. I remember that I disagreed with the points that she put forward, but I didn’t give any push-back. I was there to take responsibility for my stupidity and negligence, and apologise. Daisy told Emily what I said about just being there to apologise, and emily got annoyed saying ‘Why is he trying to act like my therapist?’ to her. Daisy told me she said this…I was confused but decided to leave it there, and not talk to Emily again, and reflect on how I communicate with people,, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone like that again.

Conclusion

Okay, everything I’ve said here, to this day, I still believe that I’m a MASSIVE ass-hole. The way I talked to her whether jokingly or not within that conversation was unacceptable. I should’ve kept it serious, no roasting, and not to give jokes at the expense of the other WHATSOEVER within a context as a big as that. Due to that, I hurt someone that I really cared about. Agree with me or not, that’s how I feel to this day. The experience has helped me for the better as it did help me change my behaviour in terms of how I communicate, and be more conscious of what I say. It’s carried on YEARS later, and whilst I slip up and may occasionally hurt someone’s feelings or say something out of pocket, it can easily be solved with a ‘hey, please don’t say that’, and nowhere near as bad as someone who is supposed attracted to you, feeling DISGUSTING. From here, this is where she does some things that dictate her as a massive asshole.

PART 2- This is Where I Feel SHE Was An Asshole:

Making Up

3-4 weeks go by , she seems a lot more chirpy and happy when I occasionally see her in school. One day she taps me on the shoulder, and says ‘Hey, I’ve thought about our conversation, and I think I’m over everything[…]I’d appreciate it if we can be cool again, if you would like, and we can hang out in the same circles. I light up and I say ‘yeah, that’d be nice’. Being in the same friend-circle with her was nice. We didn’t talk face-to-face often, but everything was friendly and cool.

Water-Incident:

3 days later. Somebody in our group spills water onto the ground in the cafeteria. I try to clean it. Emily and my other friend (we’ll call Marco) go to get some cleaning roll. She comes back giving me a death-stare. I was startled, but for some reason thought nothing of it. I thought it might’ve been how I was cleaning the water, as she’s very big on cleaning. She says ‘WHY CAN’T YOU GUYS CLEAN?’ Marco makes a joke along the lines saying ‘Men don’t know how to clean’ or something like that. She laughs, and I start thinking that ‘oh this is a bit’. As we’re cleaning the water off the ground, and then let the water soak into the tissue, she goes away from the water, and starts ranting to her friend. My friend and I start laughing, as we think it’s a bit. She storms out and says ‘it’s not funny’. Instantly I froze. I went over to her friend (we’ll call him Kyle. BTW Fck Kyle. He was a terrible person that sexually harasses women, despites them saying that they’re uncomfortable. I didn’t know about that during the time of this story, but I knew that later on during that year. Kyle, I if you’re reading this, I hope you’ve changed your ways, if not, fck you, sincerely). I went over to Kyle’s table and asked, ‘Yo is Emily okay?’
Kyle: It’s not my place to say what happened
Me: slightly panick Bro, I just wanna know if she’s okay
Kyle: okay…YOU AND EMILY GOT SOME ISSUES! AND YOU GOT SOME STUFF TO FIGURE OUT!
She shouted at me in front of the cafeteria, with multiple tables looking at me, some people laughing, and some people looking sorry for me.
Kyle walks away, and I just stand there for 5-10 seconds, give a large exhale, put my palms in to my hand, and walk back to the group. When Emily comes back, I ask her if she’s okay. She said something alone the lines of ‘Don’t make fun of someone, and then ask them if they’re okay straight afterwards…’. (She wasn’t mad at Marco for some reason, but was mad at me, but as Daisy said ‘I knew how her anxiety worked’.) I walk away from the group, and go outside and just look up at the sky. I thought that I had fucked up again, and not able to realise when I’ve crossed a line. I distanced myself from the group, and just stayed alone from a bit and studied for the upcoming exams. I was studying for around 14 hours a day, and when I wasn’t studying, I was thinking that I was a terrible person. It was probably that, and the combination of exam-stress that lead to me getting my first panic-attack when hanging out with my friends. When Emily came up to my group of friends with someone else, I left the group, and just wanted to be in my own space.

Getting jealous of multiple girls I was talking to and proceeds to stare them down:

I was talking to other girls in a group. Not in a romantic way. I was NOT in the space for another relationship, especially when I don’t know when I’ve crossed a line. I didn’t want to hurt anyone the same way I hurt Emily. There was a girl (we’ll call her Lacey) and another girl (we’ll call her Selena) that I got on pretty well with. We’ve been talking for a few months at this point. I was talking to them during my lunch-time, and I told her the story about my ex and I. She said to me ‘Is your ex the girl that’s been death-staring me?’
Me: Wait what?
Lacey: Yeah, whenever I talk to you should just death-stares me for ages. It’s made me so uncomfortable, I’ve wanted to get up from my seat and say ‘excuse me, do we have a problem?’
This battle between them apparently lasted for the ENTIRE YEAR until they never saw each other again.
Selena has talked to her and said to me ‘Yeah…I’m not going to lie, I don’t like her, you can do better’
I was like ‘guys, relax’
Them: My bad, my bad.
Selena: But, there’s better out there.
I was also notified by another woman that my ex death-stared them and made them uncomfortable because of it. That was really weird to me, but hey I wasn’t talking to her anymore, and I just minded my business. I haven’t talked to her since that ‘water incident’.

Make-Up No.2

Emily hits me up on Instagram, wanting to call. We have a chat about the current state of affairs, and both admitted that we had feelings for each other to summarise. She admitted that she was jealous seeing me hang out with other girls, and that she got mad at me again within the 3 days that we made up, and said ‘my bad about that’. We further clarified some stuff about the relationship, and we made up. I think a few days later - FOR SOME UNGODLY REASON, I DO NOT REMEMBER WHY, MY FRIENDS TO THIS DAY MAKE FUN OF ME FOR THIS - I asked her out. Maybe, it was the feeling of wanted to being rejected to fully get over her, I don’t know man. I was in a bad space. My friend as I’m reading her this draft, has now gotten on her knees, and started praying for my sanity. Emily rejected me, and to be honest the day after, I thanked god that we didn’t get back together.

‘Exploding at me’

We were hanging out in a group. I was being relatively quiet, and had learnt to shut up and think before I speak quite consistently until this point. I looked at Emily and she looked upset. I looked at her and was about to ask whether she was okay. From my glance alone, she exclaims at me: ‘If you ask me if I’m okay, I will shout/snap at you, just saying’. I put my hands up completely startled. I was thinking maybe she hates me asking if she’s okay. It had become a meme in the friend-group that I over ask people whether they’re okay if I think they look sad, so maybe I was annoying her.
Now, she later apologised a few days later saying Kyle had sexually harassed her, and she was really tense within that moment, and just exploded. NOW, people who were there said I was unfairly treated, however, something that’s as serious and harmful as that happening to someone, I understand blowing up at someone. So we moved on. As I said before, f*ck Kyle.

I WASN’T fully sure why she didn’t like me in this moment:

I saw Emily sad during the day, seeming sort of upset. I message her on Instagram during that evening ‘Hey, I know it’s a bit of a meme of me asking people if they’re okay, but you looked upset today and I wanted to know if everything was good?’. She laughs and says ‘everything is good’
I literally walked up to the group the next day, try to fist-bump everyone, and when I put my fist towards her, she ignored me. I thought she didn’t see me, so I stupidly fist-bumped everyone again and went towards her. This moment is comedic gold. She winces at me, and disapprovingly waves. My friend Marco says ‘Ooooooooo’, I’m like ‘woah’ and completely freeze, with my fist still in the air. Daisy tries to break the awkward silence and says ‘it’s just one of those days’. I’m completely frozen with my fist, still in the air during all of this happening, in complete awe, thinking to myself ‘what did I do this time?’. Daisy, to release me from this state, proceeds to rapidly first bump me 10 times. Once I register what’s fully happened, I leave the group and sit with my friends. I heard her from the other end of the cafeteria complaining about me to her friends. After that scenario, I didn’t talk to her one-to-one for the rest of the year, and tried to avoid talking to her. I accepted after that moment that no matter how I act, I’m going to be met with a negative reaction.
Later on after school had ended, I found out that she was upset because she thought I was dating my CURRENT girlfriend. Now to be brief, I met this girl in the beginning of the year. I remember we started talking very frequently as she was cool, but I wasn’t ready for a relationship whatsoever. She said really liked me, and in her words jokingly says that ‘she just waited patiently’. We went out for a couple of times, but these weren’t clarified to be dates (EVENTHOUGH nowadays we basically call them dates), and she admitted she liked me. I said that she was lovely, but that I wasn’t mature enough for a relationship, and that ‘you probably don’t want to date me’. I did start slowly developing feelings for her. All of this date stuff happened after being rejected from my ex. Now we weren’t dating at the time, and were strictly on friend terms. I guess it might’ve been obvious that we both liked each other, considering that Emily got upset and didn’t talk to me. Near the end of the year, we started dating, and as I’ve said before, we’re still dating to this day. Marco called it out that we liked each once we started dating, and we were like ‘welp, I guess the secret’s out lol’. Yeah that’s about it there.

A year later, Emily texts me when I’m studying my university degree, telling me I’m a dickhead, even though I blocked her:

I’m on facetime with my girlfriend. I believe we’re a year and a bit into our relationship, and then my ex texts me. Keep in mind, I’ve blocked my girlfriend on all platforms, and deleted her number. I should’ve blocked her number, because she decides text me, saying something along the lines of:
‘Hey it’s Emily here. Just wanna say you’re a dickhead for leading me on for 3 months, and telling me that you liked me when you didn’t. Thanks for adding to my trauma and my trust issues with people. Hope you and your current girlfriend are doing okay!’
Me: w-what? I’m so confused.
Seconds after, I then decide not to give a second thought, and then I blocked her.
Conclusion:
This was a long-story, but here’s my proper conclusion. I think I was an asshole for how I broke up with her as said in Part 1. I also think I was flat-out stupid for agreeing to be friends with her, despite her clearly resenting me. I think she’s the asshole for treating me horribly after the break-up, making some of my female friends feel uncomfortable by staring at them, getting mad at me multiple times without telling me she was properly mad, and then sending me an awful text, even when I’ve blocked her on all platforms.
Okay long story done. Discuss y'all.

Hi all!
I have an 8 week old boy who nurses 9-10 times a day and receives one bottle at night (total of 11 feeds per 24 hours) to get a good long stretch of sleep. When I had him, my LC wanted me to pump one breast if he only nurses on one, which is the case about 90% of the time. Based on this I have two questions:

1. If I’m pumping one breast after he feeds on the other and only getting around 2-2.5 oz, does that mean he’s likely only getting 2-2.5 oz from the breast he nursed on? If so, he’d only be getting about 22oz day and I think the recommended is 24? He’s content and has enough wet diapers so I haven’t been too worried about it, but he is on the smaller side and has been since birth.
   
2. Do I really need to pump the other breast every feed? I’d like to do maybe every other feed to get some more time off the pump. As of right now I have about 12-16oz I’m storing every day without using any yet so I’m comfortable with my stash as of rn.
   

Thanks!

Graphic images and descriptions below.Hello Drowners,
We as a mod team feel we haven't been working as hard as we could to promote and share resources and charities regarding recent tragedies and genocides going on in Palestine/Gaza. We have 8.4k members on this Subreddit, that's a pretty decent reach. With this post, we hope we can help spread information, donation links and awareness so more people can contribute to donating, boycotts and join in on the spreading of awareness.

So, why should you care?

We believe that the innocent people in the Gaza Strip deserve the same rights as anyone in the world does. The events going on in these places could happen to anyone in the world - yes, including you. These people's own governments are committing atrocious acts such as ethnic cleansings, colonization and mass attacks killing thousands of civilians at once, as well as taking civilians hostages and putting them through vile acts such as torture and rape in their own homes. At least 1.4 MILLION people are being forced to flee their homes, thousands have been killed and houses, schools, safe rooms and hospitals are being bombed, bulldozed and raided. Despite whatever side you might take, it is important to acknowledge these acts alone are inhumane and need to be stopped.
​

Charities/Fundraisers and How YOU can Help!

CHARITIES :
Palestine Children's Relief Fund - "Our mission is to provide medical and humanitarian relief collectively and individually to children throughout the Levant, regardless of their nationality or religion."
Unity for Gaza: Mutual Aid & Resilient Livelihoods - "Amid the breakout of indiscriminate violence in the ongoing war in Gaza, numerous families find themselves trapped in a dire humanitarian crisis. Our primary objective is to assist them by addressing their urgent needs."
Help feed homeless pets and people in Gaza - "Every day, countless people suffer from hunger, cold and displacement due to the war in Gaza. These face difficulties in surviving on the streets, and often face hunger, disease and injuries. You can make a difference in a needy life by donating today... Every donation, no matter how small, makes a big difference."
CADUS - "CADUS is a non-profit, independent, international emergency response organization from Berlin. In our projects, we provide rapid, needs-oriented emergency aid and promote long-term capacity building on the ground." - "We are internationally active with our projects. Our work is currently focused on Ukraine and Gaza."
BOYCOTTS/CAMPAIGNS IF YOU CAN'T DONATE :
BDS Movement : What is BDS ? - BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions and is a Palestinian-Led organization that organizes official boycotts. As stated by them, "The BDS movement is about much more than consumer boycotts: it is also about campaigning alongside others to pressure institutions, unions, and companies to boycott or divest and to isolate Israel academically, culturally, economically and militarily." -The OFFICIAL list of BDS boycotts. If you are interested in boycotting, we recommend following BDS' lead and focusing on boycotting a few, select companies at once - as targeted/more-efficiently-organized boycotts historically work better.
Cease Fire NOW - #CeaseFireNow is a call to political figures around the world to cease fire immediately, as they have the power and influence to end these tragedies.
We are also interested in holding a Charity/Fundraiser event for the Subreddit as well as the Discord server, where the prize would be a sum of money donated to one of the previously mentioned charities. So, keep your eyes out for this post in the future.

From the River to the Sea.

We also want to use our reach to uplift voices of the community, and would love to hear stories, opinions and voices from any community members who have been personally affected by these tragedies.
SOURCES :

• Hamas Fighters Attack on Israeli Civilians at Music Festival - 260 Bodies Recovered
• Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
• PCRF
• CeaseFireNOW
• Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained
• Dozens reported killed in Israeli strike on Rafah
• How the Watermelon Became a Symbol of Palestinian Solidarity
• Israel begins bulldozing villagers' homes in West Bank

Thank you for your time,
SinjinDrowning Lifeguards

Long story short, I made an new Ironman and am looking to rush 83 construction on this new account.
After identifying Wilderness agility as fun alternative method to agility pyramid of getting the raw GP (alchables), trying it, and then getting caught by pkers so often I'm at a net loss, I was wondering what the general consensus was on what stage of your account this course is fohow to improve.
Is it better to keep at it with minimal stats to stay at the 36 or so combat level wearing studded leather, or if I should rush all the way to like a crystal shield setup to try and survive more encounters?
Or am I just barking up the wrong tree, and this course is terrible for ironmen?

So this was over a year ago, and Ive had a few suspicions about this psychologist (and i just read the other day that privately run psychologists are less likely to give accurate diagnoses (?)), however I just found a place on here that seems open to being asked, where people are actually educated enough to respond accurately. Bear with me until the end, and please answer each question individually before you add information that i havent specifically asked for (including but not limited to unsolicited advice). Any extra information, if any, add to the end. And before anyone tells me "seek a second opinion from another psychologist", i cant right now, ive been trying but i cant find a psychologist that has the credentials im looking for thats near me, so yeah honestly just answer the questions before you say anything like that.
Background: About a year ago (age 19) I had an examination for autism and ADHD, the autism due to lifelong struggles with socializing and my dads concerns as well, and the ADHD because i struggled in college (before droping out of college for an unrelated reason). What the psychologist did was give both me and my mom a copy of the SRS-2, me the CASS, me the WAIS-IV, me the WRAML-2 story memory recall and story memory delayed recall tests, me the Moxo ADHD test, me the Social Cognition test, and me the TASIT-S minimal test. I ended up diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder level 1 as a primary diagnosis, and ADHD predominately inattentive type as a secondary diagnosis. I dont have the Moxo test results off the top of my head (other than they were very bad) but Ill give my other results here, ill make it as detailed as possible so that nothings hidden.
SRS-2 Maternal Responses: 72 criteria A (moderately elevated), 70 criteria B ( moderately elevated)
SRS-2 self responses: 80 criteria A (severely elevated), 67 criteria B (moderately elevated)
CASS (5/10 cutoff): 6/10 inattention symptoms, 2/10 hyperactivity symptoms
WAIS-IV
IQ: 107 (68th percentile)
Verbal Comprehension Index: 103 (58th percentile) Similarities: 11 (63rd percentile) Vocabulary: 10 (50th percentile) Information: 11 (63rd percentile)
Perceptual Reasoning Index: 105 (63rd percentile) Block Design: 7 (16th percentile) Matrix Reasoning: 16 (98th percentile) Visual Puzzles: 10 (50th percentile)
Working Memory Index: 122 (93rd percentile) Digit Span: 13 (84th percentile) Arithmetic: 15 (95th percentile)
Processing Speed Index: 94 (34th percentile) Symbol Search: 10 (50th percentile) Coding: 8 (25th percentile)
Social Cognition Test: 8 (25th percentile) Facial Affect: 6 (9th percentile) Vocal Tone: 10 (50th percentile) Pairs: 9 (39th percentile)
WRAML-2 Story memory recall: 4 (2nd percentile) WRAML-2 Story memory delayed recall: 5 (5th percentile)
TASIT-S minimal: 4 (2nd percentile)
Extra observations: Monotone voice, flat affect, repetitive movements (such as "shaking head" and, "scratching head"), lack of eye contact particularly when speaking, constantly restarting sentences when speaking.
Now, Ive already rejected the ADHD diagnosis. Long story short, nothing thats supposed to help people with ADHD helped me, in fact most of the things made it worse, and literally no one noticed inattention my entire life. If anything i am (and was) seen as way too attentive, often writing way too much during assignments when i was in school, and constantly catch a bunch of things that others miss while simultaneously almost never making careless mistakes now that i have a repetitive non-social job. I now realize through self reflection that it was a combination of me not noticing how inattentive others were compared to me, because i focused too much little parts of assignments not realizing how much time flew by before i could move on, and also partially because i often found the work at school hard and didnt receive any support, and instead got in trouble. Keep in mind that it was very much domain specific; it was almost always english work that was what i struggled to get done, math was extremely easy and i never understood why people struggled with it. All of those things along with terrible organization skills, for example, i cant clean a room without stuffing things in random places, which is partially because i feel sad when i even throw away old papers so i tend to keep them, I cant fold clothes neatly in drawers, until my teenage years couldnt even hang clothes on a hanger and until recently i couldnt even make a bed. However, the last straw was the 20mg Vyvanse causing me a panic attack on day 3 of me taking it as soon as i got exposed to noise (up until very recently i operated a noisy machine as a mail processing clerk) followed by an hours long episode of not being able to speak clearly and a bunch of uncontrollable subconscious stims (episodes which have happened twice before ever since i started working jobs, once when i was sick with covid and once after taking a stimulant, my dad described it as an "autistic episode" since he saw the exact same representation on a show called "good doctor" but i dont know what it actually is). During the days before that episode, I would hallucinate sounds, such as a very faint buzzing of christmas lights on a bush all the way across the street (which i know realistically would be impossible for a human being to hear), delusions such as me feeling like i could now do anything, as well as making my executive function 10x worse (i would focus even more strongly on even smaller things the entire time i was on the medication, and my time blindness increased severely, things which were already main issues but multiplied). The only thing the stimulant helped with was removing the brain fog that had accumulated ever since i started working, which i later realized that as soon as i switched positions (from a mail processing clerk to a calmer data entry job in a computer room this week), along with shifting my sleep time one to two hours earlier, the brain fog completely went away.
Questions:
During the Moxo ADHD test, the constant noises would make me suddenly start laughing, followed by tearing up randomly and then feeling extremely exhausted. I rarely get episodes like this (at least not to this extent, to a milder extent possibly), however when I posted elsewhere on like two subreddits I was told it was sensory overload. I know that those people dont actually know what their talking about so i ask here: what likely was the real reason for that? My dad did tell me i had auditory sensory issues when i was a toddler, but I thought it was supposed to cause pain (which i only remember getting when i worked the mail machines before i started wearing noise cancelling headphones) so i dont think thats the reason but correct me if im wrong.
If the answer to the previous question is "sensory overload", does that mean it was likely that asd affected my Moxo ADHD test results? Or is the test supposed to trigger sensory overload in people with ADHD as well, while assuming they dont have a condition such as asd, apd, or spd?
The psychologist later said through email that the story memory being way worse than my working memory index was a result of asd causing my brain to prioritize factual information over social information, and that in most people these scores are correlated. Is this accurate?
In the psychologists office, when going over my results, he said "your IQ is in the 68th percentile". However, when I left the office and my mom asked what my IQ was, I said "i dont know but look up what 68th percentile would be". My mom later asked the psychologist "im sorry but what was his IQ?". The psycholgist turned to me and said "so we went over this already, your IQ is 107." Was that his attempt at trying to gaslight me?
The psychologist added in the report that i needed help interpreting the SRS-2 (which i did), because i interpreted it (too concretely). Why was that necesary to add? What from the criteria of asd/ADHD would influence this? Also note that the CASS i also didnt fully know how to answer, yet this was before he realized i struggled with those forms.
In the office when going over my results, the psychologist claimed that my stuttering/restarting sentences was due to their being less connection between hemispheres. Months later through email he claimed that trouble voicing thoughts is a symptom to ADHD (which would be ironic considering that "symptom" got much worse during my episodes, usually triggered by a stimulant such as Vyvanse). My intuition tells me he doesnt know what he's talking about but i thought id ask here. Should i be concerned about his inconsistency of what he's saying?
Lastly, this psychologist claims that ADHD causes block design to be worse than visual puzzles, due to "lack of mental organization and planning". However, i found zero studies to support what he's saying. Also there's a subreddit called cognitivetesting, where there's people consistently sharing their IQ scores, and ive actually never seen someone claiming to have ADHD do worse on block design than visual puzzles; if anything the opposite. Can anyone actually prove this claim with studies?
Why did the psychologist say that someone who has a lower score on the social cognition test than their FSIQ likely has autism? Wouldnt it be "social cognition score thats under 2nd percentile"? Otherwise its just a personal weakness right? I scored 25th percentile on it.

One of the players was gone for a long time due to a trip. We decided that to make sense of his character's disappearence the BBEG would kidnap him and the players would go through a short campaign to rescue him, sort of a Retrieval Arc.
The BBEG has the ability to extract memories and has done so to the kidnapped player. I want to play with this, knowing also that memories have bias from the holder.
(C=close relationship to the kidnapped character)
This is the party and the notes from the player of each as if he was the character: - Fighter Gunslinger (C): has 2 revolvers and a sniper for long distances. Has a great sense of humor, is the "leader" - Clockwork Soul Sorcerer (not known by the character) - Champion Fighter (not known by the character, new player) - Monk Open Hand (C): my best friend, hits many times really hard (He is not in the party anymore) - Wizard Order of Scribes: Great magician with many tricks under his sleeve. He can change the color of his spells, making a fireball of lightning for example. - Cleric Tempesr: dragonborn that heals me.
I want the BBEG to use the known information to prepare if combats arrive but I want to hear some ideas of how he would do it... His main combat ability is raising dead soldiers.
I would also love to know if you have any ideas for weak points in his plans...
I thought of having the BBEG have some specific soldiers for the party he knows of but I don't know how they should be...

Some people do it because it's prestigious, some people do it for passion, some people do it for money etc. For me, I'm a career changer. I took all the medical tests etc and was at the interview stage. I am doubting myself though. Initially I wanted to do medicine because I am interested in the science of it, helping people etc. But I realized after personally doing another health program and actually treating patients, I feel tired in a sense. Partially because I have trauma from previous medical negligence (unfortunately more than once. It's where some doctors will go wtf was the other doctor thinking, some doctors will be scared to even treat me and hence dismiss me as a patient etc) in my life when I was young. This caused me to remember my trauma while I was studying and treating patients in the other health profession I was talking about.
I think after self-reflecting on a lot of things, I feel like for long-term sustainability, I want to think that I should be in the medical profession because 1. I want to have the best result for myself by personally seeing the results/ I want to know and be able to access who is the top of the field 2. I can get treated better as a patient cause I'm a docto I know them and can trust them.
What are your opinion?

Hi! I am trying to apply for a position with a non-profit and I'm having a lot of trouble creating a cover letter. This would be my first time working for nonprofit and I want to know what makes for an excellent cover letter when applying for a position.
My research has shown that heading in a personal story and showing your passion is definitely something you want to do but I've found that it's difficult to balance that, while also sounding professional and highlighting skills and or qualifications without sounding disconnected or standard the way most cover letters do.
I've researched the company and have found that my values and passions match theirs as well as my Approach for people but again, it's so easy to get lost in expressing similarities in those areas without highlighting skill set and adding in everything that seems pertinent as well as showing passion or telling a personal story however short still makes the letter too long. I have gone way past over analyzing and could use whatever advice you have on the best cover letters you've seen for someone applying for a non-profit roles and what made them so good or any advice in general. Thank you in advance very much for help!

Hi main account here and I really don’t care but long story short I work in nyc as a bartender and have been in the industry for almost 17 years. While I was working with this ”company” I had something happen to me that I never thought would happen. One of my managers works for a brand and also a full time salary employee. When I was casually speaking about entering a competition for said brand he literally slapped me. I was in shock. My first instinct was to punch them back full force but decided to keep my cool. Then a new manager came on and he’s very open about his sexuality and would call me pet names and answer to my questions with “yes daddy?” I was just disgusted. I’m not anti gay or anything either since I’m bi but just felt like enough was enough. Told them I wasn’t interested and a week gos by and he and another manager decided to say that they smelled alcohol on my breath and I needed to go take a blood test. I don’t have health insurance so that would have cost me 200 or more just to walk in. Money I didn’t have because I just got an apartment. They said it was my responsibility to pay for the test and since I didn’t pay for it I was terminated. Then I let the cat out of the bag and told hr everything and they just ignored me. Is there something I can do legally for physical, psychological and emotional abuse from this company? Also thanks for hearing me out if you got this far 🫂

I always worry that my obsession with this subject is using up my time in the one life I have fussing about a life that simply may not be there. But I don’t know what to do about that, so the next best thing is to try to get to grips with what we appear to have, warts and all. In doing this, I believe the project requires brutal honesty, a setting aside of almost ALL our assumptions concerning the subject, and then a strong sober look at “ok, what do we have”. Do we have anything? Well, maybe. We also have some elephants in the house, which we seem very reluctant to look at, but which we have to look at if we want to deal with the realities here.
Elephant number one: 85% of people who pass near death have no near death experience. This is a biggie. How come the majority of people who come close have no experience? I don’t hold any truck with the idea that they are all secretly having experiences but “can’t remember them”. That is so obviously a damage limitation argument that I won’t waste any time on it. It would be one thing if 15% of people DIDN’T have an experience, but 15% being the people who DO is a serious problem.
Alright so let’s bite the bullet and assume that what we seem to have is what we actually have, only 15% have experiences. It does suggest that NDEs are the special case and not the norm. In other words, the norm is simply to pass across to whatever at actual death, assuming there is something to pass across to. NDEs seem aimed at the living and those who are returning to life.
Elephant number two: NDEs are not particularly prevalent in the elderly. You may not be aware of this, but look into it, if you doubt my word. Of course the elderly do score higher on deathbed visions, visitations in hospice, etc, but in actual NDES they score much lower. Again, so far as near death experiences are concerned at least, it seems the phenomenon has its eyes on the younger person, presumably when there is still some life left to be influenced.
Elephant number 3: We spend very little of our time talking about other life forms. And this is a serious failing. If there is going to be a cosmic truth featuring all consciousness, how could those forms be left out? Yet name me the experience that involves llamas, or sharks, or cobras, or wild boars. So are these creatures there in the afterlife or not? And if they are, what would they be? I think what this shows up is that we are asking the question in the wrong way. If there IS a way, then in some sense all of these shapes are temporary reflections of consciousness. It makes no sense to grant permanence to the shapes, only to the shaper (if anything)
Elephant number 4: There is no time. But what does this mean, really? It could mean one of several things. If time were considered an acting “force” then without this force you could not experience any of the phenomena of time, such as event or causation, in much the same way, if there were no gravity, we could not experience the phenomena of gravity, such as weight and being on a ground. It could also mean that we aren’t subject to time as an external force but time could still take shape if we started an event sequence. But this does mean that events would not be generally connected in a causal sequence. For instance, let’s say you and I in our spirit bodies went for a stroll by a spirit river. We couldn’t later have a “memory” of this event because there would be no general later.
Elephant number 5: suffering and pointless lives. This is a big one for me. It is plainly evident, for anyone willing to look, that many people’s lives consist of pointless suffering,, meaning that there is no one driving this goddamn show. As well, animals are just as prone to lives of short, pointless suffering as humans. Conceivably this suffering might contribute to long term evolution on this planet. It is difficult to see it contributing to much of anything else. Moreover, it makes a mockery of planned lives. Who is going to plan a life where their parents are shot by robbers while they are still an infant in the cot and then the infant dies of starvation because no one came until it is too late? (just one of many examples that could be taken).
So again, if we are to AVOID ASSUMPTIONS, are there any hopeful or positive takeaways from these facts?
Yes. 1) we are here. This is already something of a miracle. And if we can be here once then we could be here again, or for that matter somewhere else, again, in a different form. It’s not so completely impossible.
2) On the other hand, although we are here, our existence seems entirely spontaneous and unplanned. We seem to “pop up” like daisies in a field, and the daisies are either fortunate enough to be in a patch of sunlight and grow, or else unfortunate enough to be under a hoof and snapped before they’ve even had a chance to flower. That does not speak of planning to me. It speaks of a universe where raw consciousness is a “force” perhaps, but paradoxically not a very aware force. Or, at least not very aware yet.

Hi! I am trying to apply for a position with a non-profit and I'm having a lot of trouble creating a cover letter. This would be my first time working for nonprofit and I want to know what makes for an excellent cover letter when applying for a position.
My research has shown that heading in a personal story and showing your passion is definitely something you want to do but I've found that it's difficult to balance that, while also sounding professional and highlighting skills and or qualifications without sounding disconnected or standard the way most cover letters do.
I've researched the company and have found that my values and passions match theirs as well as my Approach for people but again, it's so easy to get lost in expressing similarities in those areas without highlighting skill set and adding in everything that seems pertinent as well as showing passion or telling a personal story however short still makes the letter too long. I have gone way past over analyzing and could use whatever advice you have on the best cover letters you've seen for someone applying for a non-profit roles and what made them so good or any advice in general. Thank you in advance very much for help!

For those of you that have worked your entire adult life or lived on a strict budget you see the beggars and think they live on easy street. As far as labor goes it does look easy but this is not a life I would want. To wake up everyday with my only purpose in the day being to talk strangers out of money. To have to rely on complete strangers for every single thing you need. To not even be able to go get some food without begging. To not have any plans at all for your future. This one is especially hard if the beggar is over 40. If they are over 40 and they haven't been paying into social security and have no savings and no retirement and no plan. I couldn't do it. The stress of it would eat at me. You have one off week where you get banned and you are on the street. You have no self respect or pride left and you humiliate yourself on the internet for not that much money.
We all know the internet is forever. Tiktok does not exist in a bubble the behavior you display online can and will come back to haunt you in real life. Every beggar and scammer I watched long enough ended up paranoid and stressed out about strangers and it almost never looks like they are having any fun. I have yet to see any of them reach their goal of becoming a top tiktoker. They just end up spiraling and ranting on LIVE.
Maybe it seems easy because they don't have to work and they don't budget but they also don't have most of their basic needs met and haven't reached very basic milestones in life. They often don't even have a drivers license or a bank account. Some of them are pushing 50 and still have never been independent. IMAGINE THAT. Imagine being middle aged and you cannot even just go buy yourself groceries or pay your own phone. Imagine how you would feel turning on tiktok yet again to beg strangers. It couldn't be me.
Don't underestimate the value of your financial independence and your life being peaceful enough to get a bit bored. In 2024 if you have stable and boring and a budget you are winning.