Mom of 2, first is a girl 2 years 2 months second is a boy 8.5 months. Our daughter blew through every milestone. She was the happiest, most engaged, best sleeping baby I’ve ever met! And I still had crippling anxiety about everything. Google was my best friend and worst enemy. But now at 2 she’s continuing to surprise us with her language and physical growth. Making me feel silly for the stress.
But this undoubtedly has lead my husband and I to question if our son is developing “on track”. I know we’ve all heard “boys develop slower” but like do they? Our Ped blows everything off and my anxiety is starting to peak again. He just over all isn’t a super happy smiley baby, he doesn’t babble, mainly just frustrated/annoyed noises, makes eye contact, occasionally responds to his name, is almost crawling, sleeps good (only wakes maybe once a night needing his binky then goes back down and naps on a regular schedule), hit or miss with finishing bottles, and JUST got into solid foods but only really likes purées.
WHY IS THE STRESS TAKING OVER MY LIFE? It’s all I think about every day. It’s taking a toll on my marriage, my job performance, my ability to be mom to first LO. Help? I maybe need reassurance or even confirmation?

I am a two time Iraq veteran, and I just lost my mom. I met an individual, I will call him Bob. At first it was romantic, but I quickly realized he was a piece of shit. Anyways, I had already bought stuff to replace my floor, and agreed to let him continue to do some work. During this time money would go missing, but I thought I had misplaced it. Well he continued to be a piece of shit so I fired and blocked him. Then two weeks ago he got ahold of me telling me he was going to be evicted and begging for help. I had some work I really needed to be done and agreed. When he came he brought this greasy guy with him. It was very uncomfortable. Then a couple of days later I found out they stole a checkbook and wrote out $6,500 in checks to themselves. I called the police and the bank. My issue is Bob was on probation, and I know of several times he has violated it. He stole my old license plates and was picked up driving with no license, insurance, and stolen plates. They let him go with a fine. Bob has been harassing me telling me if he goes to jail it will be my fault, and that he wants to see me face to face. I have also found out that Bob is known to retaliate to his victims and has a history of domestic violence. He also stole my keys and had copies made. So I got a protection order. But the cops can’t serve it, because he is hiding. My sense of safety has been destroyed, my PTSD symptoms are out of control, I am having a $4000 security system installed. Bob is also saying that he is on meth and can’t control his actions. I feel like the system is FAILING. Why do they keep letting this violent drug abusing offender out? He has been caught breaking the law multiple times while on probation and all they do is give him fines. Now Bob is saying he is going to treatment so he doesn’t go to jail. This is bullshit, if he has a meth problem why wasn’t it showing up on his weekly drug tests. And if it was why isn’t he in jail? I need help and the cops aren’t doing it, should I get a lawyer? The victims advocate can’t help me until they serve him, but he is hiding. And I know that I should have done more background research on this individual, but I had just lost my mom and wasn’t in the best frame of mind.

My IB exams will be over tomorrow (it’s listening Dw). Here’s my take for future students. IB is not worth doing, I will try to include all the popular aspects— could be useful for parents and students interested.

1. Cost

Let’s be real. IB is hella expensive with little to no ROI for its worth. I spent 15lakhs (almost $15,000) inr for 2 years while my friend doing a different program spent 2lakhs inr ($2000) (can be more cheaper). And now we both are going through a similasame college process for international.

1. Credits

Let’s be real you can just take IB exams for IB certificates and get IB credits. If you’re doing JEE you guys already cover more than our syllabus except for options, which are relatively easier. Just check in with your current program and IB to see if the syllabus is similar—at most they are the same.

1. Prestige

If you’re going in IB for prestige you’ll make a big fool of yourself. Yes I know with time management you can do everything, the reality is NO. You’ll see your friends completing their 12th way before you (in my case it happened not sure about others) the only prestige you’ll feel is for those 2 years you can tell yourself you did the IB but no one will care.

1. Mental health

Well all subreddits related to IB cover this no need to go through it again but yes not worth it. Much better with other programs

1. Ease into first year

Okay let’s be honest here. You will know how to do an academic report better than the rest, you will nail your first year. What’s next? A person who hasn’t done the IB will soon get to your level after 1-2 semester. Then what? Did you honestly pay $15,000 for “easing into university” which already costs multiple life savings? Just do an online course on academic report in summer (can be free if you’re smart) and you’re better off than us.

1. bETtEr tImE ManAgemEnt sKillS

Bro stfu. Are you seriously paying so much to learn time management? All I see when people are arguing about why you should do IB is that it forces you to manage your time. What kind of a lame argument is that? You utilize time management, for that matter all skills, in your daily life. Want to improve time management? Do school, join sports, start an NGO/clubs— there time management cheaper than IB.

1. Universities prefer IB students more

Okay no. That’s just a marketing scheme and sadly I was caught in it. Do you really think a university will prefer one program over the other? Discriminating against the fortunate and the unfortunate? Please don’t be like me and fall into this trap, schools and IB only want your money, for that matter all programs in this world, Education is a business please get that through your head. My own university says that we compare IB students against IB STUDENTS, so what’s the point?
Ofcourse there are more reasons and ofcourse I might be wrong in some. I would do the IB again if there is more ROI to it, for now there isn’t. I would have saved a lot of mental and financial stress both for my family and myself if I didn’t do the IB. I truly regret taking this program not because it was hard but how unnecessary it was.

I’ve always been really into ghost stories, or urban legends in general. The White Lady, haunted dolls, vampires, black eyed children, that kind of stuff. I know that, today, people my age aren’t big fans of that kind of horror anymore, preferring it things like the Backrooms, analog horror, all the new kinds of scary media. Honestly, I get it, things do need to evolve, and when we see everything that’s happening in the world, it’s understandable that a good old ghost story don’t do the job anymore.

Still, the “old fashioned” horror (it’s not that old, but things move fast on the internet) is always my jam. I grew up watching youtubers investigating haunted places, ghost hunting, with all their accessories, EMF meters, their little radio thing that they use to listen to radio frequencies so that they can hear any interference, their antenna that beeps when something approaches it, voice recorders, special flashlights, and let me tell you that all this, it was doing it for me.

So, since my, probably 7 years, I dreamt of doing these things myself. Of course, I tried everything a young boy is able to do, like Ouija or stupidly walking around my house with my phone filming, hoping that some random deceased person with unfinished business will show up to, I don’t know, have a chat. I wish I could say that other people’s judgement doesn’t affect me, but that would be a lie, so, going in to high school, I had to socially tone down my interest for those things in order to have friends. None of my friends and classmates knew about my persisting passion for ghosts and creepy stories.

I realize that keeping this such a secret is a bit ridiculous, especially approaching my 18^th birthday, but, you know, it would be even weirder to reveal it after hiding it for almost 6 years like it was something super taboo. So here I was, I started hiding my passion at 12 to avoid other’s judging it, and I’m now still hiding it at 17 to avoid others judging the fact that I hid it… A bit pathetic I got to admit.

Anyway, everything started a few days ago. I have an art history class at school and the teacher really likes to give us big works of research. This time, he had a new idea, the whole class will be divided into groups of two, and each group will receive a building from our city that the teacher had choose for his architectural and artistic interests, and we’ll have to give it a visit and write an analysis on the different things we’ll notice and link it to what we saw in class. Since all the buildings were not public places, he had asked the authorization of every property’s owner.

Honestly, this could have been worse. This actually sounded kinda cool to do. Now, what I was concerned about was who will be my partner. Obviously, I was hoping for one of my friends. After explaining the rules and exact instructions for the work, he started to announce the groups. I was waiting to hear my name, anxious, as all my friends were slowly starting to be put into their groups.

“Joshua!” The teacher said (yeah that’s my name). “You will be with…” I was holding on to my chair. “… Elizabeth!”

I turned to Elizabeth, and we looked at each other. Neither one of us seemed excited. It wasn’t a terrible pair, I thought to myself, I just didn’t know what to think of it exactly. Elizabeth was a pretty popular girl, not that I was an outcast or anything, but she was still way more popular than me. I didn’t know much more about her, despite the fact that we were in the same class since my first year of high school, but it looked like she was going to be an okay partner.

The teacher then gave us our building. I won’t reveal the real name of what he gave us so I’ll call it “Guaraldi’s Street 22”. Apparently, it was a pretty old house that had somewhat of an historic value to it. The teacher gave us some information so we wouldn’t stumble there without any prior knowledge. The owner was an old woman who had always lived there. She was apparently very glad to open her doors to young students and was ready to answer any questions we could have. He warned us that she had a weak audition and that we would have to speak loudly. The teacher then recommended us to do a little bit of research before going there, so we could already have some idea of where we were entering.

I then found myself in front of Elizabeth. I think the last time we even talked to each other was months ago when she was distributing a test to the class and that I said “Thanks”, so, yeah, not a lot of background. I noticed, and I don’t know why it took me so long, I guess I never paid much attention to her, that she was dressed in kind of an old style, she wore some clearly used dungarees. The date the teacher had scheduled for our visit was on Sunday, and we were Thursday.

“So, hum, I guess, we can both do research on our side, and we’ll meet, maybe at lunch break tomorrow to get on the same page. Is that good for you?” She asked me.

“Yeah, that’s good, we can do that.”

“Okay, then, see you tomorrow.” She said.

“See you.”

On that she turned her feet and left for her break. The rest of the day went by and I got back home. As usual, my mom wasn’t there, she often has to work late as she’s a single mom to me and my little sister Rosa. I ate my diner and went to my room. I opened my computer to start my research. It wasn’t hard to find information, even though things were repeating themselves a lot: “so much historical meaning for the city”, “a perfect example of “art-deco” architecture”, “a house filled with stories”. There was a lot of talk by local medias about it, but not much actual facts.

It was so weak, that I had to go to page 2 of the search results on google, or, as I like to call them, “the abyss of the internet” (I’m exaggerating a bit, but it’s not often that you have to go there).
Then, something caught my eyes. It was a forum about paranormal experiences, and the address was mentioned on a post. I immediately clicked on it and read the whole thing. It wasn’t exactly the most thrilling story I’ve read, but here’s what it basically said.

Apparently, the owner opened the house as a cottage during the summer, and the person posting was narrating what he experienced during his passage there. He described a very special and kinda suffocating vibe that was apparently all around the house, and the feeling of being observed all the time. He also talked about hearing voices at random moments. They were brief but often mentioned his name. The end of his testimony talked about his last night, when he said he saw a little child with no facial expression in front of his bed, who slowly started to climb into it and grabbed his legs, trying to pull him outside of his bed. The poster said he eventually succeeded to push the kid away, despite his unreal strength, and that the boy ended up running out of the room, laughing. When he spoke to the owner about it the next morning, she said that it must have been his imagination playing tricks on him, as she didn’t believe in paranormal and that nothing similar ever happened to her.

This wasn’t much, it could have been a complete lie, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t peak my curiosity. The story was as basic as it could be, but it was so specific for it to happen in that place, which was absolutely not famous, and even less for any paranormal events. I kept that in the back of my mind and continued my research, but I didn’t find much more, so I went to sleep.

As I was lying in my bed, I was thinking. What if the person who posted his story said the truth. This was the first time I was going to enter somewhere that old and charged with history, this could be the perfect place for my first ghost-hunt. But of course, I was going for school and won’t be alone, plus, it’s not really respectful to the owner, who kindly opened the doors of her family house to us. And even if I wanted to, I’d be constantly with Elizabeth, so, it was not really an option. I looked at the EMF meter I received for a birthday on my shelf and thought to myself that this would be for another time.

The next day, as planned, I met with Elizabeth at lunch break. We started to share the results of our research, where I did not include the post from the forum for obvious reasons. We talked a bit before coming to a clear conclusion.

“Yeah, the thing is, we have the same exact stuff, there isn’t much interesting infos to be found online, except very surface level stuff.” She said.

“Yes, I think we should prepare the questions we want to ask the owner instead.” I answered.

“You’re right, do you think you can have yours for Sunday?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

We exchanged a bit more and eventually went back to class.

On Saturday, I prepared a few questions to ask the owner.

Then came today, Sunday. The meeting was planned at 11AM. I woke up normally, took a breakfast, got dressed, everything. Before leaving my room, I took one last look at the room and I saw my EMF meter. It was like he was begging me to take him. I grabbed it and left. I didn’t know if I would actually use it, but I had it. It had an option where instead of lighting the small lamps he was vibrating, so I activated that and put it in my pocket.

I arrived at the house and Elizabeth was already waiting for me. We knocked and we could hear the owner walking towards the door saying “Yes, yes, just a second.” She opened and she looked like the sweetest thing ever. She was short and had a naturally kind face. We could see that she was clearly dressed and make up for the occasion. She welcomed us and let us in happily. The hallway was very pretty, I understood why our teacher got us this house, it was indeed very interesting. The walls were covered with paintings and old pictures, mostly portraits. On everyone of these, the people had a very serious look, but that’s not unusual for old pictures.

We walked to the living room where she served us tea and we sat together.

“So, I think you have some questions for me?” She asked. You could see that she was very glad to talk. “Don’t be shy, I’m open.”

Elizabeth started to ask her first question then I did, and we could ask her everything.

The house was her family’s for many generations, but it hadn’t always been theirs. All the persons in the hallway, paintings or pictures, were previous habitants of the house, and they went as far as the 15th century, so, yeah, it was all pretty old. She said they could only know the identity of some of the first generations but that a lot of the people were non identified. She answered a lot of other questions regarding the architectural and artistic heritage of the building, and she was surprisingly very interesting to listen to. Her enthusiasm and kindness were contagious, and we both couldn’t help but ask more questions.

Eventually, we arrived to the end of our list, and it was time for us to visit, take notes, analyze, all that. She asked us not to touch anything, as a lot of things had a lot of value, but let us wander free in the house. She said she’ll be making cookies for when we’ll be done. Elizabeth and I found ourselves alone in the living room and finished our tea.

“God,… She’s adorable.” Said Elizabeth with a smile.

“Yes, she’s so sweet, I wasn’t expecting that.” I said.

“Let’s, maybe start with there.” She said, pointing to the room besides us.

We got up and entered it. The walls were covered by huge bookshelves. Elizabeth started to take notes, looking at the room, and I started inspecting the books. There was probably a more than a thousand books, and some of them looked super old. I read the titles of some of them, and the least I could say was that it needed to be rearranged. “Cooking Asian Food”, “Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince”, some old book with the title erased, and even a CD in the middle, it was a bit random.

We eventually moved on to the hallway. It was a bit oppressing with all those eyes who seemed to observe us. Elizabeth did mention how it felt a bit weird and we started to take notes again. At some point, my look stopped on one painting at the back of the hall. It was a young lady, dressed classically, maybe a bit poorly even, for someone who would have lived there. She was kinda pretty, if I’m being honest. But the reason why it caught my eyes was that it was the only one who was smiling. All the other people represented looked dead serious, but her, she smiled. A sweet, even caring and warm smile. I noticed that it seemed like she was staring at me. Of course, a lot of paintings give that same impression, but it was more intense on her.

My heart skipped a beat. I was sure that I just saw her winked to me. I let out a gasp. I was convinced she winked at me. The vibe went from slightly oppressive to extremely heavy. Then we both heard it.

“Elizabeth.”

An unrecognizable voice had just whispered. Elizabeth turned to me.

“Did you say that?” She asked.

“Elizabeth.”

A younger voice this time. We were facing each other, so we knew it couldn’t be one of us this time, and the owner was in the kitchen. Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide and she slowly walked towards me.

“Elizabeth.”

She jumped.

“WHAT THE… fuck?” I let out. We were looking around us.

“Joshua, I don’t like this…”

“Yeah, me neither.”

We were frozen in place, with all the paintings looking right to us.

“Elizabeth.”

That time it was a deep voice, and it came from behind us. We turned. Slowly, all the faces of the paintings and pictures started to clearly move. They were opening their eyes wide and opening their mouths, maintaining their serious, and now even melancholic look.

“Holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck is that, what is it!” Elizabeth was mumbling, panicking as I was starting to breathe faster.

All the people started to say her name together on repeat: “Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth…” I turned my head to the painting of the young lady from earlier, and she was the only one that wasn’t moving, still the same smile, she looked at peace.

I don’t remember exactly what I was whispering at that moment, but we were both freaking out.

We heard some scratching noise. Long, dirty hands with sharp nails, almost inhumans, were piercing the pictures and paintings. The eyes of the people were becoming all black, and their jaws were opening more than humanly possible as they kept on repeating her name. The hands were all getting closer from us. We were now touching one another, completely surrounded by those hands. Then, they moved way faster and a lot of them got their nails right into Elizabeth’s skin and pierced it while descending all over her body.

She screamed loudly out of pain. It was a terrifying scream. All the hands got to their pictures and back inside of it while closing what they pierced. Soon, the pictures and paintings were back to normal, but Elizabeth was bleeding from all over her body and was on the floor, crying. I got to her level and tried as much as possible to reassure her, but I wasn’t very effective as I was myself in shock and terrified.
We heard the owner walk towards us.

“What’s happening to you two? I heard screams, are you okay?”

She entered the hallway and saw the scene. She looked completely shocked.

“But what happened?” She asked.

Both of us were unable to answer to her, we had no idea what to say that wouldn’t make us sound crazy, so we just looked at her with whatever faces we were making at that moment. She didn’t wait long and went to take a first aid kid. She sat down and put some bandages all over Elizabeth, as I was reflecting on what happened. When she was done, we both wanted to leave, so we said that we had what we needed for now. She looked sorry and packed some cookies for each of us. As we opened the door to leave, she articulated one last phrase.

“I hope you’ll come back.” She had a look and a tone of sadness. We got out and were now on the street.

We both looked at each other. She was covered in bands, like she got into a huge fight. I started to speak but she lifted her hand.

“Not today. Another one.” She said. “I’ll see you at school.” And she left.

I got on my way too and gave one last look to the house. The old owner was watching me from her window, and I couldn’t tell what her expression was.

I was too tired so I ignored it and went back to my house.

I’m posting this now that I’m back at home. I have no news of Elizabeth, but she did add me on Instagram, so…

I have no idea what I should do now, I have so many questions, so, if anyone has any theories, I’ll take it. I’m also open to questions of course…

The campaign that I am in is the wild beyond the witch light. There are other party members they are a black chromatic Dragonborn wizard and a bearded vulture Aarakocra barbarian and the dungeon master their character is a Tiefling rogue character is not in the campaign and there’s also another wizard and lastly a bard which is weird because the dungeon master should never have their own character and the dungeon master was playing favorites with the Dragonborn player and the Aarakocra player right now we’re in the witch light carnival 🎡 when I was in clubs in the dungeons and dragons club I was so nervous/scared because I did not know what to do. I do not know what to say. I was scared and I was anxious. Because the other players got their characters done, but I didn’t and I was constantly changing my character because because I want to fit into the world the lore and the characters and I know in the wild and the witch is the Feywild however, when I tried to ask to the DM see which one would be the most spitting for their campaign however they said, and I quote I don’t want to spoil my campaign “” which I was like okay however every time when we had clubs in school and this was for dungeons and dragons, something always felt off or fishy even you can say odd The DM didn’t have the dungeon master guide only the players handbook The other players didn’t want to help me out or even the dungeon master And they said go figure out yourself and the thing was I was new to dungeons and dragons and I was trying to make a decision for what class and what race I want to pick however, I got so stressed that I did not know what to do and the dungeon master didn’t even help they just said just impulse and the thing was I can’t. I have to think and figure it out I can’t just act on impulse. Not to even mention, they were being rude the other players the Dragonborn wizard player and the A And they were being vulgar and using vulgar language and also mentioning inappropriate things wow, that is happening. They did not even want. To talk to me or even figure out what I’m doing even the DM do not want to either While we had clubs, I was so anxious scared, and even nervous like I said not to mention, I have anxiety players at the table, had ADHD and I had autism and you know what I’m proud that I am autistic but anyway where was I? Oh yeah. They were distracted and they didn’t even want to pay attention to me. or even acknowledge that I am at their table and in my mind I’m thinking do they even want me in their group at all? Because sometimes when we didn’t have clubs, they give me weird glances and looks and felt suspicious while we had clubs for dungeons and dragons it didn’t felt right you can even say strange and they are so many red flags and signs that I did not saw but now I’m realizing they did not even want to me in their group at all they were talking behind my back and secretly pacifically the Dragonborn and the DM, whispering I felt so frustrated and confused in my mind I was thinking what are they hiding and what are they not telling me? Because I am not stupid I’m smart. I knew something felt weird. I don’t have Tasha’s cauldron of everything abd Xananathar’s guide to everything The people at table said he is so innocent like a lamb 🐑 and I felt so used/manipulated not noticing what was truly going on and I love dungeons and dragons. I like it a fantasy role-playing RPG and you can make your own story and characters basically everything But I felt so sad because I wish I had a better First time experience playing D&D, but I sadly didn’t got that and I they were even lying to me I’m a coward and I couldn’t even muster up the courage to say something by the way the second wizard and the barred were not in the campaign I was in. It was just the wizard and the barbarian but to all dungeon masters do you think it’s a good reason for my frustration? And the reason why I was constantly changing my character is because I wanted to know what my character was, and how it would fit in the story to Dungeon masters isn’t it? As a role to invite players into your
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Two months ago, I posted on Blind looking for a NYC LeetCode study buddy and was surprised to receive over 100 responses. This led to the formation of a study group. While there were some a lot of “so cringe” comments—pretty expected from Blind—the feedback was largely positive.
I’ve joked with my friend that this is my "leetcode hate club." For 12 years, I avoided LeetCode since it had nothing to do with my front-end engineering role, and it seems barely relevant even for backend positions. However, given the job market, I realized I had to suck it up and bite the bullet. It wasn’t about whether LC was relevant. It was a question of “do I want to get a job with good WLB that pays well”.
I still hate LC. It’s a chore. But at least I formed more of an understanding of why LC was used. It isn’t about mimicking real-world job skills but rather about providing a method for companies to filter through thousands of applicants in an over-saturated market. Leetcode is used to assesses skills like adapting to new systems quickly, recognizing patterns, and solving ambiguous problems.
Despite my reservations, the study group has made the experience more tolerable, even helping me pass a technical screen for Meta. The recruiter noted my need for improvement in speed and coding abilities, but highlighted my excellent communication, honed by repeatedly explaining concepts out loud in the group.
I’m now looking for advice on applying for positions at mid to large tech companies known for good work-life balance. What are your recommendations?
EDIT: If you're interested, linkies :)

• Discord
• EventBrite
• MailingList

I’m trying to understand if I’m the problem or if there’s really something to this. I am surrounded by Cancers (by blood or career, not by choice) and they ALL annoy tf out of me to the point where I’ve had to keep my own Cancer mom at arm’s length bc of not being able to stand her personality. Here are the common Cancer traits that I’ve noticed:

• Self-absorbed, they make everything about THEM. Example: I casually mention I have a headache and they immediately have to one-up me with their own headache story and how they also didn’t sleep well and their nose hairs hurt. Or someone mentions going through a breakup and they suddenly have some long, sad breakup story of their own to tell. They always claim to “know exactly how you feel” but they’re not even remotely close to knowing and have no desire to understand. They just want to talk about themselves.
• Poor listeners, including frequently interrupting/trying to finish others’ sentences.
• Passive aggressive!!! Whiny and sniffling about something always but won’t just outright tell you what tf is wrong when you ask them. Why should I have to play 20 questions to get someone to just say what they want/need? Cancers can’t EVER seem to express themselves without passive aggressive whining. It’s exhausting.
• Emotionally manipulative behavior. All the Cancers I know try to win attention and compliments by making self-effacing comments like “I’m so ugly” or “I’m so fat.” It’s so cringey and self-centered.
• They use gifts (sometimes money) to try to win people over and then get unreasonably sad/mopey if the recipient isn’t over the top thrilled and gushing with gratitude and adoration
• Instead of having an actual argument, they love to play the martyr and will shut down and play the punching bag instead of working out disagreements through conversation
• They naively claim to be super “independent”, but they’re actually just too self-obsessed to have healthy relationships, so they naturally end up alone
• They are OBSESSED with the past and can’t let go. They’re never forward-thinking or solution-driven. Every Cancer I know just loves to commiserate about what went wrong in the past and dwell in their sad thoughts about what could have been, instead of taking any action to fix or improve things.
• They brag about the same things for YEARS. They once hit a home run in little league and haven’t played sports since then, but, at age 40, they still tell the story annually and brag how athletic they are. Or someone once hit on them at a bar in college and at age 73 they still brag about how “hot” they looked that night.
• They are lazy. They spend 40 seconds cleaning one window and act like they expect an award for world’s best housekeeper. They never have any energy and love to just sit around doing anything but being productive.
• They expect people to make a big deal over them whenever they enter a room and then act like Eeyore if everyone doesn’t drop everything to gush over them and thank them for their presence. Then they’ll pull you aside and say things like “Does this outfit look okay?” when we all know what they’re really asking is: Why didn’t everyone notice me and drop everything to tell me how great I look?

I have many more qualms with Cancers but these are the main traits that I find extremely off-putting. It’s the ONLY sign that I don’t enjoy being with! I really want to know if I am the only one who feels this way about Cancers or if others notice it too.
(FYI: I’m also a water sign, a healthcare provider, an empath, and a nurturer. I am not simply insensitive or cold-hearted. I just can’t stand those personality traits I mentioned above. I’m very much open to being reproached and the possibility that I’m the problem. Lay it on me!)

I have an 8 year old mini dachshund who I have had since he was a puppy. He is grey, has alopecia, is overall what one may consider a breeding nightmare. I have had him all 8 years. He isn’t a bad dog, but his anxiety has only gotten worse and worse to the point where we feel terrible for him but he’s also driving us clinically insane. He barks 24-7. Literally 24/7. He cannot and will not relax. Everything has him completely on edge. The only time he settles a bit is at night, in his crate. Any noise, the ice maker, the child, me sneezing, a door opening, an ant farting, makes him go berserk. He doesn’t respond to any commands when he’s in one of his fits. There is no way to redirect him, we have tried it all. It has just gotten worse. I’m legitimately worried he’s going to bark his heart into stopping one of these days.
I think we are at the point where he needs medication to help him cope. I have tried so hard to avoid this, but I’m not entirely sure why. I have had and have fostered so many dogs over the years and he has been singlehandedly the most challenging dog. I have tried explaining this to the vets but I think they’d need to spend an hour in my home to understand.
Has anyone medicated for this reason? If so, what did your vet prescribe? How did it work? Was your dog finally able to relax and not be on edge 24/7?

Hi there!
Boy, I had a lot to say about this one. So far, the Zero series has been a blast. Really excited to keep diving into them! I've heard the ZX series is also good, but a bit weird... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
As always, if you read all this rambling nonsense, thank you!

Mega Man Zero 2
A game sequel is a great opportunity to fine-tune a great or flawed game. Where Mega Man Zero set the stage for yet another Mega Man spinoff series, Zero 2 is where it begins to find its footing—but not without tripping a bit.
I think Zero 2 can be summed up like this: it is more Mega Man Zero. If you liked that game, you will like this game. It carries over much of what that game established and adds a few minor QOL tweaks to make it shine. Sadly, I think the flaws it doesn’t address is what holds Zero 2 back from being truly great.
Let’s start with the good stuff.
The storyline here is a big step-up. With these games, it’s clear Capcom wanted to place a greater focus on the characters themselves, along with storylines that are a bit more complex than “wake up Mega Man the same asshole you’ve fought for 10 years is, to everyone’s surprise, being an asshole”. The game’s main villain, for example, is a well-meaning chap that starts off on your side but becomes corrupt thanks to what seems to be an intense desire to prove himself—a desire that leads to a ton of collateral damage to both allies and enemies. We establish what I imagine will be a key theme going forward: whatever the hell the Dark Elf is, it seems to latch onto personality quirks that it can use to its advantage and crank them up to 11. Just about every boss you fight exhibits this, especially in the refight stages. It’s not quite going Maverick; something about it feels more sinister, somehow.
The elf system returns, and using them still tanks your rank, but this time you can at least find sub tanks out in the world. A new upgrade system rewards you for playing through levels in specific ways (kill X amount of enemies with a dash attack, kill Y amount of enemies with the buster, etc.) and grants you new forms that do everything from turning your saber combo into a single powerful swing or letting you roly-poly-blenderman your way across stages (a personal favorite, for sure).
Another upgrade system, one that I have mixed feelings on, is EX forms. Bosses still don’t drop their weapons, but if you clear a level while your rank is A or higher, you’ll unlock a unique, often powerful ability. I’m mixed on this because on one hand, rewarding skilled play is great. It incentivizes more playthroughs and taking the time to master the game’s systems (and, indeed, I do really want to play this one again and see if I can improve! And I wanna try hard mode! Mega Man games do not typically have this effect on me!). On the other… well. I don’t think it’s very fun to grant awards that ultimately make the game easier and more fun… to highly skilled players only. I feel like they could’ve balanced this better. If nothing else, tying the “damage” points to how much health you have at the end of a boss vs. how much damage you took throughout the level may have balanced it out more.
Or perhaps I should simply “git gud” as the kids say. (Do the kids still say this? Sorry. I’m an old)
One thing to the game’s detriment is that weapon upgrades return, and they’re just as clunky as before. Kill X enemies with a weapon and you’ll unlock a new ability for it, and just like Zero 1, the charge shot takes way too long to get to. Let me charge my damn shots, Capcom! Why make me wait?
The other returning flaws are harder to blame the game for—i.e., the GBA’s screen size making it harder to avoid damage from off-screen (and spikes, Capcom please, you do not need to put spikes at the bottom of a long drop, who hurt you?). Things like that.
Along with returning flaws come a handful of new ones. The most significant one being the Chain Rod. I don’t really know how to sugar coat this: the Chain Rod sucks. As a weapon it’s mostly fine, I guess. But the utility is bafflingly poor. The intended use of it is to use it as a grappling hook, swinging across ceilings to avoid spikes or to reach higher, hard-to-reach spots. The problem is that it feels awful to use. Building momentum simply isn’t possible—it stops you dead in your tracks unless you manage to angle the shot just right during a jump. Maybe my brain is just hard-wired to use these things a certain way (Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV, and even Environmental Station Alpha comes to mind) but there was almost never a point where using this thing felt better than just jumping across a gap or finding some other way to get to an Elf.
That aside, when I say this game is “more Mega Man Zero” that does mean all the good things as well. Boss fights? Sublime. Zero’s controls? Smooth. The spritework? Immaculate. Ultimately, I feel that Zero 2 is an improvement over Zero 1 in almost every conceivable way. But there are enough little things carried over from the first that I’m left wanting more. It is for that reason that I’m giving it a slightly lower score.
8/10

Classic Series 1-4 Classic Series 5-6 Classic Series 7-8 Classic Series 9-10
Mega Man X Mega Man X2 Mega Man X3 Mega Man X4
Mega Man X5 Mega Man X6 Mega Man X7 Mega Man X8
Mega Man Zero

Okay maybe not obsessed but I sort of try a little hard to get more karma sometimes. This isn’t my main account, but whenever I see a rising post I always try to comment some joke or something cheeky first to get the most karma, and idk why but its sort of addicting. I even get annoyed if my comment gets buried by someone who gets more upvotes on a comment, and honestly I don’t really wanna feel obsessed with karma. I know its just fake internet points, but its kind of addicting

Throw away account to remain anonymous. I ‘31F’ have been in a long term relationship with my Bf ‘41M’ for a little over 8 years. I love him, he is.. maybe was.. my person. We are not perfect and have had our fair share of disagreements, but he is the love of my life. The problem is that I recently found out he had been lying to me about our finances. He has about 2 months worth of bills saved up in the bank at the moment. Which honestly would not be that bad, if it wasn’t for the fact that he makes just a little less than 6 figures, and that his work fluctuates to the point that he is sometimes not working for weeks sometimes months at a time. While I work a standard 9-5 and make less than 30k a year. Now this isn’t the actual problem, we could have worked that part out. We could have sat down, made a budget, look at things we could cut out of our spending even if just temporarily to build up his savings. The problem is he lied to me about it. He also didn’t realize that he had lied to me about it because the last time I asked was a month or so ago and he told me had as much in his account as he does now. (It should have grown as he has had steady work, and was even on a 3 week work trip where he worked almost every day). And while I would not have been thrilled about this, I would not have been considering breaking up with him if he had just been honest about it. I know this probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but this is not the first time he has lied to me. When I moved here (I grew up in a different state and moved to his state about 6 hours away from where grew up, about 5 years ago) he told me on the way to his moms house to meet her, that he had been lying about living with roommates, and had actually been living with his mom and off and on his nephews. He had told me he was embarrassed, and told me before going to his moms in case she mentioned it. While a bit odd, him living with his mom would not have bothered me. I feel like it’s smart to live with family if you get along with them well enough to do so, and don’t really have a reason/need to live by yourself or with roommates instead. I was deeply hurt that he had lied to me about this. That is not all he had lied to me about. He has also betrayed me in other ways. Him and I while not in an open relationship we do have the occasional ménage à trois. We have rules set up for these occasions as there were misunderstandings, and problems that arose when we were doing them before we became serious. One of the rules is that we have to ask before talking to the person we’re thinking of brining into the bedroom. This is simple enough. Well a few years ago he had a crush on a specific girl let’s call her Kyah ‘00 F’ idr how old she was at the time (him having crushes does not bother me, as I think it is normal to be attracted to people even in a serious relationship). However whenever she was brought up he would start acting weird. I tried getting him to just admit that he was attracted to Kyah as I know what it looks like when he is attracted to someone, and he kept saying things like “it’s not like that” or “I don’t expect anything to happen” and so on. Well we were at a concert that has a pretty big following, think kiss army or dead heads, type of following, so a bunch of us were staying in the same hotel. Kyah wasn’t staying there, but she was there for the parties that happen in the hallways and random rooms. Well she ended up in a room with a friend of ours. Nbd we don’t judge. While this was going on I decided I wanted to go back our (mine and my boyfriends hotel room, which was in this hotel) and take my contacts out as they were bugging me, and to change into comfier clothes. Well I decided instead to text my boyfriend to come back to our room for some fun and it was our anniversary. Well he brought Kyah back with him. He did not ask if this was okay before asking her or bringing her to our room. When I was surprised that she was there and said something like “oh why is she here” Kyah responded to Nik saying “see I told you” as though they had discussed her coming back for this. I then asked about her being in our friends room a little bit ago and Kyah stated “nothing happened, we just took pictures. (My boyfriend and this other friend do photography for these concerts). Something to note about me is that I have pretty bad anxiety, and have trouble sticking up for myself. This gave me a bit of a panic attack, and I ended up kind of freezing and going along with her being there a bit. I was extremely uncomfortable the whole time. We did not do much, and I did finally grow a pair after making out and some other little things, to point out that her underwear was inside out. She stated the other friend she had been with didn’t put them on right. I then said “I thought nothing happened?” She then responded “well he couldn’t get it up”. To which I finally stated that I was not comfortable and that I did not want to continue this. My boyfriend then took her back to her hotel as she was staying at a different one, and I proceeded to take a viscously hot shower and cry as I felt kind of violated. Yes I should have said something earlier. Yes I should have put my foot down. However my boyfriend knows I have anxiety and will go along with things when I’m feeling that way, and he broke the rule. He did not ask. He also didn’t ask her about being in our friend’s hotel room because he “didn’t think she would do anything like that with him”. We fought about this, about him breaking the rules, about him lying about liking her and wanting to invite her to our bedroom, about “not thinking” about her trying to f*ck one of our friends. This went on for a long time. I ultimately forgave him and we decided to work on communication, and build the trust back up. We also no longer invite anyone else to our bedroom as I know longer feel okay with that. With all of that being said, and the recent lie about our finances, combined with the other lies, and the situation with Kyah (which that is not all of the lies or betrayals that he has put me through but I don’t have the time or energy to go through all of them) has me feeling like an idiot for continuously forgiving him and expecting things to change. He even admitted last night that he would not trust me if the roles were reversed. Now I don’t know what to do. As I said before, I love him, and while I get we all make mistakes, this has been a recurring theme in our relationship, and it makes me sad to have to keep doing the work to trust him again. I don’t want to break up, but I also don’t want to keep doing this. I just love him so much. So should I break up with my boyfriend?

Startup success isn’t a mystery; it can be engineered through the right process. This means anyone can learn and teach it. Think of entrepreneurship as a form of management. It’s about creating new products and services in conditions of extreme uncertainty.
At the heart of every startup is the Build-Measure-Learn cycle. Startups turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and learn whether to pivot or persevere. This feedback loop is crucial.
Yet, despite this, many startups fail. Why? Because the allure of a good plan, a solid strategy, and thorough market research. These traditional methods don’t work for startups due to the high level of uncertainty. Startups don’t yet know who their customers are or what their product should be.
Instead of relying on traditional planning, startups should embrace the unpredictability. They need to concentrate on measuring real progress, setting actionable milestones and prioritizing the most crucial tasks. By focusing on these practical steps, startups can navigate uncertainty and find their path to success.

$4,070.12 that’s what I originally invested. As a single mom, I basically cleaned out my checking and savings account. And I just put that money out of my head. It wasn’t mine anymore. It was tribute for something much bigger than me.
Over the last fews years, that money was sitting in the back of my mind. As a person with a MS degree sitting in this bullshit economy where every month I’m spending more on just my standard bills than I was making. A degree that I took out tens of thousands of student loans to get. Trying to take side jobs here and there just so I could scrape by. Rent increased 7%, groceries seemingly skyrocketing, even my utilities were going up. Racking up tens of thousands in debt bc I had no other option while also being one of the “lucky ones” bc I got a 3% COL raise that didn’t even cover my rent increase. Sometimes I would think it might be worth it to take the giant fucking loss I would have experienced and sold my shares. But even then that money wouldn’t have scratched the surface. It would’ve been a month bandaid.
I think knowing that was how I would financially justify it in my head. In my heart, I knew I wasn’t gonna pull it. I’m still not gonna pull it. Not until WS and all those AHs experience even a fraction of the shit they’ve put us through for years.
The economy has been bad for us for decades, since the 70s, really. So the last few years isn’t new. It isn’t just them splitting pies while we fight over crumbs. CEOs, HFs, mega corps, the 1% have been baking whole ass new pies for themselves while we fight over crumbs from our parents’ generation. While they tell us we just need to stop buying in bulk, buy more lentils, budget better, save money even though we can’t pay our bills, don’t do anything that gives us an ounce of joy in this dystopian world bc “Nobody said this would be fun.”
I’m not going to be hyped until they lose their homes, yachts, vacation homes, all their property. Not until their bank accounts look like mine. I’ll pass these shares to my children in a will if that’s what it takes. I won’t be happy until we can pop bottles above them as they cry about losing their homes. I’ll contribute whatever I can to Eat The Rich™️.
https://x.com/opinion/status/1505292742993321993?s=46
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/billionaires-double-wealth-covid-pandemic/
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/03/19/why-now-is-a-smart-time-to-build-emergency-savings.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/video-wall-streeters-mocking-protesters-champagne-2011-9?amp
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

My sister is 11. I am 24(M). I struggle to communicate with her when our mom isn’t present. She lacks attention and respect and often starts yelling for little to no reason and asks us to leave her alone. She’ll slam doors and unironically roast your entire life and make fun of you when we don’t enable her to do whatever she wants. She does it less with my mom and a lot more with me, especially when our mom is busy or not there. She doesn’t clean after her self after any activity she does, she leaves plates with food all over the house and expects us to pick them up and clean after her, her room is a mess all the time. And if we call her out on it and try to make her understand why what she’s doing isn’t okay, she just gets mad and starts yelling and it turns into a shit show and nothing good comes out of it. My mom still manages to get her to take care of herself sometimes, but if she isn’t reminded of it by her, she’ll just act like nothing’s happened.
For context, we have a daycare in a family environment at home that my mom and I have been running for a couple of years and often time we can’t give my sister a lot of attention when she comes home from school right away because we have to take care off the kids and she loves getting attention so I feel like maybe this is something that she does to get it.
I’ve tried so many times to have a discussion with her and involving my parents as well and try to get her to change her ways and her attitude, but nothing ever happens. My parents just get tired of her and ignore her, but I don’t think thats the right approach since she keeps doing it. I’ve gotten mad at her too and also yelled because I have my limits as well and can’t stand to have someone yell in my ears for hours straight and to see her keep acting like this the last 3-4 years. I just don’t know how to deal with this situation to restore my relationship with my sister and help her change her attitude and I’m all out of ideas. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you

I had to get this out somewhere and I guess it’s here, my boyfriend and I have been having some serious trouble we’ve been together for a year and a half now but the whole relationship has been on and off. We’ve had some seriously bad arguments our good periods are amazing and our bad periods are terrible!
We would have very toxic arguments the biggest thing being him getting past my past and him not being emotionally intelligent! He would never want to sit and talk we’d always just argue and he would just gaslight and not acknowledge my feelings I would ask to just talk about something or I would tell him that something is hurting me and he would do it again and again not listening to what I’m saying. I wasn’t perfect at the start of the relationship and I’m sure you can all see I’m definitely not now but I changed a lot positively in this relationship and I felt that he did not do the same, I changed my behaviours stopped being so reactive but he kept provoking me, making jokes that shouldn’t be made, threatening to leave me and causing some sort of argument every few weeks after he pretended to change.
I stayed with him hoping he would changing knowing I couldn’t see myself with anyone else, I’ve even had guys more successful than my partner approach me but lately our relationship has been horrible. I attempted to break up with him because he tried to make me cut contact with my mum (who isn’t the greatest) and said a lot of nasty things to me. I ended up letting him inside he got me flowers, but this wasn’t the first time we’ve been at break up point he had actually tried to use that against me various times. So I tried to leave him twice but I didn’t leave him, the first time I still cared for him so much, the second time which is now I couldn’t care about his actions and did not invest my self fully into the relationship in fear he’d be the same as he was. In saying all of this I know I’m not the victim and I just want to say our relationship has improved a lot compared to the start but it’s still very toxic.
So I had multiple guys hit on my at my workplace recently and this one guy asked for my Snapchat I didn’t give it to him, he than wrote his number down as I needed it for my job and said I can text him if I like. I didn’t text him the first day but than I saw him the next day coming to work. I realised he stood out to me he was handsome but that wasn’t the main thing he was very sweet and caring. We talked and talked messaged than one day he asked me to hang out I rejected it than another day the following week he asked to go for a drive saying he can pick me up from work. I went we sat and talked with wa nice view of the city it was so refreshing he understood me in a way my boyfriend could never when I told him I felt Le he tried to understand why by asking me why do you feel like that and drove deeper into the conversation, something my bf never did for me
Recently my boyfriend has seeemed like he’s trying to work on supporting me emotionally and I feel really guilty for this. So I actually saw this guy two times after and kept talking to him feeling happy and relived when I hung out with him and I can tell he likes me a lot but I don’t want to continue it now
TL;DR CHEATED ON BF EMOTIONALLY, because that’s what he wasn’t providing me with FEELING GUILTY

I had to get this out somewhere and I guess it’s here, my boyfriend and I have been having some serious trouble we’ve been together for a year and a half now but the whole relationship has been on and off. We’ve had some seriously bad arguments our good periods are amazing and our bad periods are terrible!
We would have very toxic arguments the biggest thing being him getting past my past and him not being emotionally intelligent! He would never want to sit and talk we’d always just argue and he would just gaslight and not acknowledge my feelings I would ask to just talk about something or I would tell him that something is hurting me and he would do it again and again not listening to what I’m saying. I wasn’t perfect at the start of the relationship and I’m sure you can all see I’m definitely not now but I changed a lot positively in this relationship and I felt that he did not do the same, I changed my behaviours stopped being so reactive but he kept provoking me, making jokes that shouldn’t be made, threatening to leave me and causing some sort of argument every few weeks after he pretended to change.
I stayed with him hoping he would changing knowing I couldn’t see myself with anyone else, I’ve even had guys more successful than my partner approach me but lately our relationship has been horrible. I attempted to break up with him because he tried to make me cut contact with my mum (who isn’t the greatest) and said a lot of nasty things to me. I ended up letting him inside he got me flowers, but this wasn’t the first time we’ve been at break up point he had actually tried to use that against me various times. So I tried to leave him twice but I didn’t leave him, the first time I still cared for him so much, the second time which is now I couldn’t care about his actions and did not invest my self fully into the relationship in fear he’d be the same as he was. In saying all of this I know I’m not the victim and I just want to say our relationship has improved a lot compared to the start but it’s still very toxic.
So I had multiple guys hit on my at my workplace recently and this one guy asked for my Snapchat I didn’t give it to him, he than wrote his number down as I needed it for my job and said I can text him if I like. I didn’t text him the first day but than I saw him the next day coming to work. I realised he stood out to me he was handsome but that wasn’t the main thing he was very sweet and caring. We talked and talked messaged than one day he asked me to hang out I rejected it than another day the following week he asked to go for a drive saying he can pick me up from work. I went we sat and talked with wa nice view of the city it was so refreshing he understood me in a way my boyfriend could never when I told him I felt Le he tried to understand why by asking me why do you feel like that and drove deeper into the conversation, something my bf never did for me
Recently my boyfriend has seeemed like he’s trying to work on supporting me emotionally and I feel really guilty for this. So I actually saw this guy two times after and kept talking to him feeling happy and relived when I hung out with him and I can tell he likes me a lot but I don’t want to continue it now
TL;DR
CHEATED AND DON’T Know what to doing feeling guilty, cheated emotionally.

I have my first anatomy scan at 13w1d yesterday and got a pretty awful phone call from my doctor. Apparently my daughter has a 3.3mm NT and he told me anything over 3 is not considered normal. He wants me to come back in for a Vistara test to test for Noonan’s Syndrome. He also let me know that the imaging was not the best, but in my mind I’m wondering if that’s just his way of trying to keep his patients calm. However, I do remember the tech yesterday making some jokes that she wasn’t cooperating and I joked back that I also don’t like cameras so there’s that.
I am going in today for the test, but they’re not doing another scan. My next scan with them isn’t until July 1st which will put me at 20 weeks. I don’t know why they won’t look again if he admitted the imaging wasn’t the greatest. Also the Vistara results will take 2-3 weeks and I’m not sure what I should do in the meantime. I called out of work today to go into the doctor and because I keep crying, but I know I have to go on with my life during that time and I don’t know how I will. We also told our family and friends the news on Sunday (Mother’s Day) and I’m regretting it completely.
Should I call my OB and talk to them about amnio or CVS? Should I look into another doctor for anatomy scans for a second opinion, especially since my current doctor isn’t doing another scan? I’m not sure if that’s normal?

Hey friends! To provide some context…
I’ve lost 70 pounds since May of 2023. Mostly by diet, but with moderate exercise too. I’m 22 years old, 5’1 and 133lbs and I seem to just be fluctuating in that area between 129-134. For the past 4 months I’ve been stuck between there. I can’t seem to loose any more which has been super frustrating. I eat around 1400-1600cals a day. I have a minor in nutrition from an accredited university, so I know how to eat balanced and healthy meals. And I try to go on a 2-3mile walk/jog every other day weather permitting. This routine has helped me lose 70lbs… so why isn’t working anymore??
And I know some of you are going to say “you don’t need to lose any more” “you’ve lost enough already”… but I’m not looking for those comments. I just want to know what I can do to get past this plateau and finally reach my goal weight (115-120lbs). Do I need to eat less?? Workout more?? Help please!!

I’ve been dating him for about 2 months and in the first month I didn’t notice because we didn’t kiss or make out until recently. He has no other hygiene issues body-wise but just the bad breath. If it’s a closed mouth kiss it’s manageable but the thought of an open mouth kiss is literally nauseating because I can smell his breath from across the car.
We’ve talked about hygiene before and I told him it’s something I don’t compromise on and he said it’s the same for him too but sometimes it seems he leaves his house without brushing (or doesn’t do a thorough job if he does). It doesn’t seem like a health issue like halitosis because I know that smell, this just seems like a lack of effort.
The first time we French kissed I chewed some gum and gave him some so it wasn’t terrible but a smell still lingered when we were done and also I noticed some food in his teeth but we had just finished eating so that was probably why. The next day I came down with a sore throat and cough which is still here 2 weeks later.
How do I tell him about this? It’s an embarrassing topic and he’s a sensitive sweet person and I don’t want to hurt his feelings and really want to continue this relationship.
Tl:dr: I need to tell my bf of two months that his breath isn’t good. We’re both in our mid twenties.

Before I start this, I just want to answer some question I know I’ll probably have to answer later, or share some information that might be important.

1. I have gone no contact with him. (He tries to bait me into talking to him.) Only my friend group knows about the alcohol.
   
2. I know for a fact he drinks, I was with him once when he did it.
   
3. It’s not his parent’s fault, he sneaks it from open vodka bottles in their refrigerator.
   
4. I know he is drinking while underage, I plan to report him to the school counselor if he doesn’t seek help.
   
5. We’re both gay, though I do not like him like that in any way shape or form. He swears up and down he doesn’t like me like that either, but take that how you will.
   
6. He has allegedly been drinking since he was 7. I can neither confirm nor deny this.
   
7. He blames all of his problems on the alcohol.
   

I, 16m, was friends with another boy, 15m, for roughly 4 years. We used to call each other every day to play games. Every single day for 4 years. Everything was fine until I started hanging out with our other (mutual) friends.
After I started hanging out with other people, he began to get very jealous and bitter towards me and the friend I was talking to. He would act annoyed and upset whenever I would do things with my other friends, even though it’s the same things I would do with him. This is when the arguing began. He would make snarky comments toward me indirectly through his bio on either a game we play together or the app we use to text and call. He would always deny that it is about me, even if it was blatantly obvious. (For example, I used to give myself nicknames on the game we play together. He combined the starting letter of the 3 I've used and said something along the lines of “ABC gave me everything but real love.”)
We would argue like this and he would come to school like nothing happened and act friendly towards me, even if it was obvious that I didn’t want to act friendly with him. He would also frequently block me for absolutely no reason, and unblock me after a few hours. If I asked for a reason, he would get mad and change the subject. Of course, I got tired of this and blocked him back one day. To nobody’s surprise, the next day at school he was talking to me and making jokes like absolutely nothing happened.
One day, he even decided it would be a great idea to ignore me while I was sitting right next to him. I would talk to him, wave my hand in front of him to get his attention, and even tap his shoulder. No response. I obviously got fed up with him and let my friends know in a group chat that he isn’t in what was going on incase they were curious why either of us were annoyed. (This wasn't the best idea, I know, however he gets mad when I hang out or talk to them differently than I do with him so the most logical thing to do was to not let him know when I hang out or text with them.)
Before this next part, I have to go back a little bit. Because we would play games together, we would log into each other’s account to farm or grind for something the other wants. This lead to him knowing my password and email. Since he saw me typing on my phone, he saw the group chat that doesn’t have him in it. He took that as a sign that I was talking shit about him to our friends (I truly was not.) and decided to try and hack my account. Luckily, I’ve always used a secondary email on the games we play, so he only got my old account.
Not knowing that this happened, I forgave him for everything that he did prior. A few days later, at the end of school before I left, we were talking when he said the name of my secondary account. Of course, I asked how he knew about it, and he said he logged in. I obviously got very angry at him for this, as I had not given him permission whatsoever. I told him I would have showed him my messages had he just simply asked. This caused him to get angry at me for being angry at him. (He also got angry at me when he got the notifications that he had been removed from my email. I also changed my passwords, have no fear.)
After discussing this with our mutual friends, they confirmed that what he did was not okay. Because I was getting more distant from him, he thought that he should buddy up to someone else in our friend group. (He barely speaks to anyone else if he doesn’t have to.) Of course, he chose the one person that he supposedly hates based on past events. (Not my story to share, I apologize.)
(I don’t remember this part all too well so take it with a grain of salt.) After a while, I decided to give him another chance. We had a conversation where I brought up all of the issues I had with him in a few paragraphs. (Mainly stuff about boundaries and respecting me. Also for pulling my hair whenever he got the chance even though I told him multiple times on multiple occasions to stop.) His response was changing the subject to something different, and about me. I promptly him shut down, however, as he was bringing up stuff that I didn’t do, insisting that he at least acknowledges his problems instead of pretending everything is fine. This ultimately lead to him getting angry and ending the conversation with his signature “Okay. Bye.”
He then went back to pretending everything was normal with me, though he was talking shit about me in a group chat with our mutual online friends and one of our real life friends (The one he hated that I mentioned previously.) She would tell me everything he said about me, but she didn’t want to get involved so I couldn’t call him out for any of it. At this point, I was just tired of fighting, so I went with it. Many more minor arguments happened after this. I won’t include details for the sake of this post not being too unbearably long, since what happened was basically the previous fight over and over.
A while later, one of our friends called him out for his shit, as I had been letting them know what was going on for every argument we had. He got really heated over this, and told her to kill herself and that he never valued her as a friend. She gave no shits at all. He was promptly removed, or left on his own, from all of the group chats with her in them except our main server. They had each other blocked, though to nobody’s surprise that didn’t stop him from talking about her or to her in the server.
Though 2 out of 5 people in our friend group wanted nothing to do with him, that didn’t stop him from sitting with us and trying to joke around with us like nothing happened. For a while, everything was fine. I wasn’t talking to him, he wasn’t talking to me. Another fight happened between him and the friend he hated before, but that isn’t my story to tell either, sorry. The only thing I can say about the fight is that he mentioned his alcohol addiction.
One thing lead to another and I decided to give him one last chance. Again. So, I had another conversation with him, letting him know that im serious about unfriending him if he doesn’t talk to his therapist about the alcohol, jealousy, and obsession with me.
I gave him until the end of the week to talk to his therapist, or I’m gone. Everything was fine until the weekend. I went on a trip to Dollywood on the weekend, 4 of my friends being there. He of course did not come on the trip, as he isn’t in the school club that took us. I asked him on Sunday if he had talked to his therapist about anything yet, and he had said no. I rightfully blocked him, just as I said I would. He proceeded to play the victim and started asking our friends what he did wrong, pretending that I hadn’t told him anything about blocking him.
I unblocked him momentarily to send a message on why I did it. I told him blatantly that if he didn’t talk to his therapist I would block him, and he did not. I may have been a little harsh with my words, but keep in mind that I have given him many chances to grow and learn from his mistakes that he has not taken. He needs help, and I can’t help him. I wished him the best, but told him that the best is not something I am capable of giving him.
After I blocked him again, he edited one of his messages to “call me out” for not doing what he wanted. He claims that I should’ve just listened to his issues and tell him everything was fine instead of letting him know that what he’s doing is wrong. He doesn’t want help, he wants someone to ignore his problems. I told him that im not that person and im tired of pretending I am. He proceeded to make his bio things along the lines of “You never actually loved me” once more.
After his numerous attempts at getting me to talk to him by making his bio about me, I got fed up. I confronted him, letting him know that I don’t want to be friends with him, I don’t want anything to do with him, and that he needs to stop talking about me in his bio. He of course pretended his issues didn’t exist, instead telling me that he would get help for real this time. I let him know that he just admitted to not trying to get help the first time, and that in lying to me, he broke my trust in him.
Because I knew he wouldn’t try to get help, I blocked him after saying goodbye once more. This is when he started openly shit talking me and the friend that called him out one single time. He changed his bio to things about my body he knew I was insecure about, such as my forehead. While I admit that this wasn’t the best thing to do, I gave him a taste of his own medicine. He’s a bigger individual, and he’s told me that he’s insecure about his weight.
Again, I apologize for what I said to him, I was angry when I said it. He said I have a sixhead, so I retaliated with seventeen stomach and that he can’t be talking about me when he looks 5 years pregnant. I mean no hate to pregnant people, I was angry at him when I said it. I do not condone rudeness towards plus sized or pregnant individuals. Back to the story.
He made a post on a platform we all use about how he hates Taylor Swift fans, especially the blonde ones. (Ironic when he was talking about how he liked her a while ago. Also, the friend that called him out is blonde and a big Taylor Swift fan.) So, in retaliation, our other, OTHER friend commented the username to his twitter account where he actively reposts nsfw images of gay furries, often depicted as children. I was the only person that knew about it, since he reposted such images and showed them to me in class, to my discomfort. I am usually not one to air out dirty laundry like that, however he had done something similar to me a while back, and I honestly didn’t care how it would make him feel.
I took another page out of his book and edited my message since we had each other blocked, telling him to stop shit talking me in his bio, and that I wanted nothing to do with him. Since that happened, he hasn’t made his bio anything about me, instead changing it to some joke about being 5 years pregnant.
Nobody has told me that what I’ve done was wrong, I just would like to make sure that I’m not in the wrong here. Any thoughts would be appreciated.