I (27F) recently met this great guy (30M) at a friend’s work get together. We hit it off instantly. He’s been texting me all day, everyday and we’ve been on a lot of amazing dates. He keeps talking about how he wants to go on a few campings trips together this summer and has a lot of other fun stuff planned for us. He’s even slept over a few times at my house because he likes to cuddle and told me he liked sleeping with me.
The thing is, he recently got out of a 6 year relationship and “wants to be single for a bit.” I totally respect that and wouldn’t want him to just jump into another relationship. So he asked if we can be FWB yesterday. We haven’t slept together yet and the question kind of hurt me.
If he is only wanting to be FWB, why does he talk to me all day, take me out on nice dinner dates, sleepover, etc? Is that normal for a FWB? Could the FWB situation change once his other breakup isn’t as fresh? Or does this sound like it will always be a FWB situation?
TDLR: Met a great guy who recently got out of a 6-year relationship. He texts me all the time, we go on dates, and he plans future activities with me. Despite his affectionate behavior, he asked to be FWB, which hurt me. Is it normal for FWB to act this way, and could it evolve into a relationship once his breakup is less fresh, or will it always remain FWB?

This isn't really humor but it's a fun thought experiment I've been playing with, that I thought this community may enjoy.
Basically, I found a game that asks you to connect 2 random words together using only their synonyms. With all the multiple meanings that words have, it's pretty fun and can be surprising and satisfying. It's got me wondering if it's truly possible to get from any English word to any other English word within 8 (or a different number of) degrees.
I'm curious if anyone has thoughts or a way they would approach this. Maybe I should post it in math instead?
The game for those interested (or in case I butchered this explanation): synonymcircuit.com

Bill Rogers locked the garage door, slid the hose into the driver’s side window, climbed into the back seat, laid down and shut his eyes. When he woke up, he was surrounded by clouds and a blue sky. A man, neither young nor old stood next to him. He wore a coat like an Afghan goat herder, Bill thought, maybe made of sheepskin, or cowhide—tough to say, as Bill was no expert in husbandry. The man was small where Bill was large. Bill was six-three and two hundred and fifty pounds. He had played tight-end in college and lorded his physical stature over small men all his life. He felt it gave him an advantage at contract negotiations. He always made sure to be sitting when the opposing lawyers walked in because his size was hidden. Then he would stand up from behind table—a great reveal, a physical imposition—in an effortless attempt to intimidate the other team. It was mostly an effective strategy. The man, nearly a foot shorter, and a petite lady’s-weight less was standing almost eye-level with Bill. He sheepishly looked at Bill and asked if he was happy now.

“I suppose so,” Bill answered, rather dazed and unaware of all that was happening. “Are you God?” asked Bill. The old man smiled knowingly and set his delicate hand on Bill’s shoulder. “What can I do to make you comfortable?” Bill attempted to stand up but the man’s hand held him in place without applying any extra force. “A scotch would be nice! Do they serve scotch in heaven?” he laughed. The man laughed and gave Bill a scotch.

“Let me tell you, God, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it! When do we go through the pearly gates?”

“I’m afraid you’ve seen too many Hollywood movies. That’s not how it works. Tell me, how was life on Earth?”

“Well, I guess you can tell by how I checked out it wasn’t great. But I am feeling better now. Sometimes you just need a good night’s sleep, I guess, right?”

“I guess so. You weren’t very happy down there. But that’s what I’m here for. You can fix it all now. Tell me, what went wrong in your life?”

“Wait, is this Purgatory then?”

He chuckled, “No. Don’t be silly. What went wrong down there?”

“I knew it—those nuns were all off. Well, for one, I worked too much. I spent 80, 90, 100 hours a week every week for years—hell, probably decades when you add it all up—in the office, chasing the ring, getting the promotion.” His thought broke and he looked at the man and said, “you know I cleared 950-k last year?” Sinking back into his thoughts, “but it wasn’t enough for her. She could give Cleopatra a run for her money. Man she could spend. I worked all the time, always on the road to a different client’s office, eating airport food, never exercising. Traded my health and youth for wealth, then she got to enjoy it. I ended up all alone in my big house, all by myself and my LonelyFans Platinum subscription. Look at me, I got so fat no pretty woman could stand to look at me. If I could do it again, I’d go back and just make 60k a year, keep my health, my good looks, and go to clubs every night and dance with beautiful women. I wasted so much.”

“Wow, thanks for being so honest, Bill. I’m glad you were honest, because now I can give you the chance to fix it. I am going to give you the opportunity to craft the life you always wanted, the life you dreamed of! This is your chance Bill, to do it right this time. You had a full life, you tried out things: some worked, some didn’t—that trip to Tokyo probably didn’t help your marriage, did it; but now that’s all behind, now you get to create the perfect one based on everything you learned. Now you get to play God to yourself. You will have the power to create any life you want: money, women, food, servants, power, glory, the revenge on everybody who did you wrong—anything.”

“Oh, Good Lord, heaven is even better than Mother Superior led on! I get to do that? Now?”

“Yes, I’m granting you this power. Total freedom to do what you want. You deserve it! You’ve earned it, Bill.”

“Ok, so what do I do? Just point and make something happen?”

“Sure,” he said with a chuckle, “everybody always wants to point at things like some Vegas magician. The entire creation was spoken into existence, but ever since Adam people want to point things into existence—whatever makes them happy, I guess. Anyway, you’ve got the power of the Lord, do it however you want!”

Bill pointed to a cloud in front of him and a new truck appeared before his eyes. “Holy moly, I can’t believe it’s real.” The sun reflecting off the chrome was just a big blur to Bill Rogers water-filled eyes. He had to squint to see that it had the turbodiesel engine he had imagined. “I’m not going to get carried away on the wealth. I learned my lesson there. It doesn’t buy happiness. I had eight digits in my savings account,” he looked to see if the man was listening, “and look at where that got me. No, just a simple life for me,” he pointed to a cloud and four-bed, three-bath house with in-law suite and three car garage next to a lush green lawn appeared. It fronted a cul-de-sac. “You can’t take it with you, right?” he laughed.

“Is that it, Bill? What else do you want?”

“Well, like I said, I want to be young and healthy.” His stomach disappeared into his abdominal muscles and the brown spots and wrinkles on his hands vanished into a smooth clear skin.

“And what are you going to do with your time? Go back to your old job?”

“Ohh, you got a good sense of humor, God!” The old man laughed along with Bill. “Like I said, I just want to live a normal life and go to the bars at night, talk to beautiful women. Dance with them, smile, laugh. Have fun, that’s all.”

“Your wish, is my command,” he said, and Bill asked if that is how it really worked, and the old man laughed: “no, but people really started to ask for it after Aladdin got big, so I started doing it.”

“You’re a real people-pleaser, aren’t you, God?”

The small man’s sheepish smile resurfaced and a faint pink tint rose up to his pale cheeks.

“That is it for now, enjoy your new life, Bill. I’ll be back to check on you after a while.”

“Thanks, God, you really are great.”

“Oh, wait, one more thing—I almost forgot. In your newly made, perfect, heavenly life— do you want your children here?”

Bill let out a huge laugh, “of course! How could I forget! Yes, of course, I want to see my children! Not every day—and don’t have the Queen of Sheba bring ‘em by either, if you know what I mean,” he nudged the old man with his elbow, almost knocking his small frame over, “but yes I always regretted not having more time with the kids.”

“Great, I’ll make that happen. I’ll be ba-a-a-a-a-ck,” he said as he turned around.

A door appeared out of nowhere and the old man glided over to it, with his sheepskin coat dragging behind him. The door opened and he walked through it. It began to close, but his coat got caught in the door, and he had to reach back and yank it through. As the coat flew up, Bill thought he saw the tip of a German Sheppard’s tail and wondered if the dog had been there all along, but soon didn’t care as he saw his new neighbor, a young blonde woman in yoga pants and high heels getting into her Mercedes coupe. He tried to get her attention, but she was focused on fixing her lipstick and hair in the mirror as she drove away.

Bill settled down into his new life, got comfortable in his small house and extended cab truck, and began going out to bars and clubs, just as he had imagined. Every night there was a bar to go to filled with beautiful women, and they all were happy to let him buy drinks and chat for a while. Sometimes he would invite one or two to dance and they’d agree, and then disappear with their friends. Other times he would meet a young woman in pub and talk to her; they’d laugh and joke and maybe she would give him her number and maybe not. But he never saw the same woman twice. If he called or texted a woman, she never responded. If he asked a woman if she’d like to go somewhere for coffee she always declined and said she had to get back home.

On the rare chance that a woman did sit down and talk with him, the conversation was always the same: polite introductions, niceties, some flirtatious exchanges. He tried to talk to the beautiful women about life, what they wanted, what mattered to them, but they all just said they liked to have fun to some degree or another.

After three weeks of going to the bars and trying to talk to women, Bill got tired of going out. He stayed at home for a week, then he tried to find his neighbor again. He saw her car in the drive and rang the doorbell, but nobody answered. He only ever saw her driving away.

After a couple slow weeks, he tried going out again, but it was the same routine: a few drinks, a few laughs, nothing to talk about and goodbye, never to be seen again. Bill sat in his truck in the garage and contemplated his after-life. He wiped a tear from his cheek and heard someone knocking on his front door. He let the old man in, and Bill sat down at the barstool.

“Can I take your coat?”

“No, I like to keep it on. I came by to see how you are doing?”

“This isn’t what I thought heaven would be like,” said Bill, hunched forward, hands between his legs, staring at the floor.”

“Heaven?” said the old man, looking up at Bill. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Who are you?”

The old man took off the sheepskin coat and Bill saw the gray and white fur all over his body. The gray tail dragged on the floor, and the old man’s face looked like the snout of a grey wolf.

“This is your own doing, Bill. You made the life you wanted. You’ve had two chances now. This one you are stuck with, forever. No escaping. No crying, no laying down in the back of your truck for eternal sleep. This is the eternal sleep.”

“This is hell.”

“Call it what you will.”

The wolf got down on all fours and walked to the door. “Can you let me out?”

Bill opened the door and the wolf ran outside, almost knocking over the two people walking up Bill’s sidewalk.

“What are you doing here,” he shouted at them.

“We came to see you!”

“No! Get away! Get out of here, go! Go!”

The woman was getting in her Mercedes and looked over to see what the ruckus was about, but then looked away before making eye contact.

“Dad, we missed you! So, we followed you here. The old man told us how to find you! He asked us what our perfect life would be, and we told him ‘we just want to be with our Dad.’”

***
Follow u/quillandtrowel for more at Medium & Twitter (links in bio!).

I’m still in shock by how my coworkers acted over the last 4 days. The amount of whining and complaining for 3 people in their fifties is simply astonishing. To set the stage- we are all well paid professionals in a technology industry. I make about half of what they do (still a lot, but just to put it in perspective). Part of my job is visiting our vendors and typically a panel of experts joins. This visit was in Europe and only 2 days of work. We’re in one of the coolest cities in the EU, I booked a hotel close to every attraction (plenty of free time after work and the day of arrival), and found great restaurants. I’ve been here before and loved the hotel and everything about the city. Cue the whining!

• room is too loud, when the windows are open I can hear the beer garden outside (shocker- when the windows are closed it’s almost silent)
• there was a delivery of beer at 630am that was loud
• the cathedral chimes exist and make noise
• no English stations except CNN on TV
• the bathroom isn’t nice enough
• the taxi to leave our job site took >45 min to arrive due to a bottleneck and my coworkers descended into panic instead of just waiting their turn calmly. They had no where to be, they were just outraged at waiting. They flagged down a young girl we worked with on her drive out and almost asked/heavily hinted she drive us back. I was mortified.
• there’s no Uber. Taxis don’t take credit cards and have a different booking process than the us.

Two full days of complaints in one of the coolest places ever. I get no place is perfect, but every town and country is different. You can’t expect US conveniences in Europe at all places, get over it! Traveling wouldn’t be fun otherwise!
I’ve traveled every other week for 6 months and have never complained this much over those entire 6 months. Kill me if I ever get as entitled as those people- working a measly 16 hours over 4 days while getting paid $200/hr plus paid to travel plus hired cars and first class airfare, plus free amazing meals and drinks, and free hotel rooms. How am I paid less and the only one that’s grateful?!

Bill Rogers locked the garage door, slid the hose into the driver’s side window, climbed into the back seat, laid down and shut his eyes. When he woke up, he was surrounded by clouds and a blue sky. A man, neither young nor old stood next to him. He wore a coat like an Afghan goat herder, Bill thought, maybe made of sheepskin, or cowhide—tough to say, as Bill was no expert in husbandry. The man was small where Bill was large. Bill was six-three and two hundred and fifty pounds. He had played tight-end in college and lorded his physical stature over small men all his life. He felt it gave him an advantage at contract negotiations. He always made sure to be sitting when the opposing lawyers walked in because his size was hidden. Then he would stand up from behind table—a great reveal, a physical imposition—in an effortless attempt to intimidate the other team. It was mostly an effective strategy. The man, nearly a foot shorter, and a petite lady’s-weight less was standing almost eye-level with Bill. He sheepishly looked at Bill and asked if he was happy now.
“I suppose so,” Bill answered, rather dazed and unaware of all that was happening. “Are you God?” asked Bill. The old man smiled knowingly and set his delicate hand on Bill’s shoulder. “What can I do to make you comfortable?” Bill attempted to stand up but the man’s hand held him in place without applying any extra force. “A scotch would be nice! Do they serve scotch in heaven?” he laughed. The man laughed and gave Bill a scotch.
“Let me tell you, God, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it! When do we go through the pearly gates?”
“I’m afraid you’ve seen too many Hollywood movies. That’s not how it works. Tell me, how was life on Earth?”
“Well, I guess you can tell by how I checked out it wasn’t great. But I am feeling better now. Sometimes you just need a good night’s sleep, I guess, right?”
“I guess so. You weren’t very happy down there. But that’s what I’m here for. You can fix it all now. Tell me, what went wrong in your life?”
“Wait, is this Purgatory then?”
He chuckled, “No. Don’t be silly. What went wrong down there?”
“I knew it—those nuns were all off. Well, for one, I worked too much. I spent 80, 90, 100 hours a week every week for years—hell, probably decades when you add it all up—in the office, chasing the ring, getting the promotion.” His thought broke and he looked at the man and said, “you know I cleared 950-k last year?” Sinking back into his thoughts, “but it wasn’t enough for her. She could give Cleopatra a run for her money. Man she could spend. I worked all the time, always on the road to a different client’s office, eating airport food, never exercising. Traded my health and youth for wealth, then she got to enjoy it. I ended up all alone in my big house, all by myself and my LonelyFans Platinum subscription. Look at me, I got so fat no pretty woman could stand to look at me. If I could do it again, I’d go back and just make 60k a year, keep my health, my good looks, and go to clubs every night and dance with beautiful women. I wasted so much.”
“Wow, thanks for being so honest, Bill. I’m glad you were honest, because now I can give you the chance to fix it. I am going to give you the opportunity to craft the life you always wanted, the life you dreamed of! This is your chance Bill, to do it right this time. You had a full life, you tried out things: some worked, some didn’t—that trip to Tokyo probably didn’t help your marriage, did it; but now that’s all behind, now you get to create the perfect one based on everything you learned. Now you get to play God to yourself. You will have the power to create any life you want: money, women, food, servants, power, glory, the revenge on everybody who did you wrong—anything.”
“Oh, Good Lord, heaven is even better than Mother Superior led on! I get to do that? Now?”
“Yes, I’m granting you this power. Total freedom to do what you want. You deserve it! You’ve earned it, Bill.”
“Ok, so what do I do? Just point and make something happen?”
“Sure,” he said with a chuckle, “everybody always wants to point at things like some Vegas magician. The entire creation was spoken into existence, but ever since Adam people want to point things into existence—whatever makes them happy, I guess. Anyway, you’ve got the power of the Lord, do it however you want!”
Bill pointed to a cloud in front of him and a new truck appeared before his eyes. “Holy moly, I can’t believe it’s real.” The sun reflecting off the chrome was just a big blur to Bill Rogers water-filled eyes. He had to squint to see that it had the turbodiesel engine he had imagined. “I’m not going to get carried away on the wealth. I learned my lesson there. It doesn’t buy happiness. I had eight digits in my savings account,” he looked to see if the man was listening, “and look at where that got me. No, just a simple life for me,” he pointed to a cloud and four-bed, three-bath house with in-law suite and three car garage next to a lush green lawn appeared. It fronted a cul-de-sac. “You can’t take it with you, right?” he laughed.
“Is that it, Bill? What else do you want?”
“Well, like I said, I want to be young and healthy.” His stomach disappeared into his abdominal muscles and the brown spots and wrinkles on his hands vanished into a smooth clear skin.
“And what are you going to do with your time? Go back to your old job?”
“Ohh, you got a good sense of humor, God!” The old man laughed along with Bill. “Like I said, I just want to live a normal life and go to the bars at night, talk to beautiful women. Dance with them, smile, laugh. Have fun, that’s all.”
“Your wish, is my command,” he said, and Bill asked if that is how it really worked, and the old man laughed: “no, but people really started to ask for it after Aladdin got big, so I started doing it.”
“You’re a real people-pleaser, aren’t you, God?”
The small man’s sheepish smile resurfaced and a faint pink tint rose up to his pale cheeks.
“That is it for now, enjoy your new life, Bill. I’ll be back to check on you after a while.”
“Thanks, God, you really are great.”
“Oh, wait, one more thing—I almost forgot. In your newly made, perfect, heavenly life— do you want your children here?”
Bill let out a huge laugh, “of course! How could I forget! Yes, of course, I want to see my children! Not every day—and don’t have the Queen of Sheba bring ‘em by either, if you know what I mean,” he nudged the old man with his elbow, almost knocking his small frame over, “but yes I always regretted not having more time with the kids.”
“Great, I’ll make that happen. I’ll be ba-a-a-a-a-ck,” he said as he turned around.
A door appeared out of nowhere and the old man glided over to it, with his sheepskin coat dragging behind him. The door opened and he walked through it. It began to close, but his coat got caught in the door, and he had to reach back and yank it through. As the coat flew up, Bill thought he saw the tip of a German Sheppard’s tail and wondered if the dog had been there all along, but soon didn’t care as he saw his new neighbor, a young blonde woman in yoga pants and high heels getting into her Mercedes coupe. He tried to get her attention, but she was focused on fixing her lipstick and hair in the mirror as she drove away.
Bill settled down into his new life, got comfortable in his small house and extended cab truck, and began going out to bars and clubs, just as he had imagined. Every night there was a bar to go to filled with beautiful women, and they all were happy to let him buy drinks and chat for a while. Sometimes he would invite one or two to dance and they’d agree, and then disappear with their friends. Other times he would meet a young woman in pub and talk to her; they’d laugh and joke and maybe she would give him her number and maybe not. But he never saw the same woman twice. If he called or texted a woman, she never responded. If he asked a woman if she’d like to go somewhere for coffee she always declined and said she had to get back home.
On the rare chance that a woman did sit down and talk with him, the conversation was always the same: polite introductions, niceties, some flirtatious exchanges. He tried to talk to the beautiful women about life, what they wanted, what mattered to them, but they all just said they liked to have fun to some degree or another.
After three weeks of going to the bars and trying to talk to women, Bill got tired of going out. He stayed at home for a week, then he tried to find his neighbor again. He saw her car in the drive and rang the doorbell, but nobody answered. He only ever saw her driving away.
After a couple slow weeks, he tried going out again, but it was the same routine: a few drinks, a few laughs, nothing to talk about and goodbye, never to be seen again. Bill sat in his truck in the garage and contemplated his after-life. He wiped a tear from his cheek and heard someone knocking on his front door. He let the old man in, and Bill sat down at the barstool.
“Can I take your coat?”
“No, I like to keep it on. I came by to see how you are doing?”
“This isn’t what I thought heaven would be like,” said Bill, hunched forward, hands between his legs, staring at the floor.”
“Heaven?” said the old man, looking up at Bill. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Who are you?”
The old man took off the sheepskin coat and Bill saw the gray and white fur all over his body. The gray tail dragged on the floor, and the old man’s face looked like the snout of a grey wolf.
“This is your own doing, Bill. You made the life you wanted. You’ve had two chances now. This one you are stuck with, forever. No escaping. No crying, no laying down in the back of your truck for eternal sleep. This is the eternal sleep.”
“This is hell.”
“Call it what you will.”
The wolf got down on all fours and walked to the door. “Can you let me out?”
Bill opened the door and the wolf ran outside, almost knocking over the two people walking up Bill’s sidewalk.
“What are you doing here,” he shouted at them.
“We came to see you!”
“No! Get away! Get out of here, go! Go!”
The neighbor was getting into her Mercedes and looked over to see what the yelling was about, but then looked away before she could make eye contact.
“Dad, we missed you! So, we followed you here. The old man told us how to find you! He asked us what our perfect life would be, and we told him ‘we just want to be with our Dad.’”

***
Follow u/quilandtrowel for more at Medium & Twitter. (links in bio)

It’s been a long time I wanted to submit this story to the Potato Queen herself!
It’s a long story, actually it’s two stories in one, because as it involves the same person over more than decade long, it’s worth telling the whole story all at once (and it makes it may more fun too!). I decided to share it because it’s the kind of story that doesn’t seem to happen very often.
Below you will find goodies about an ex, a wedding, a dress, a delivery company and more! Please simply be mindful English is not my first language, trying my best to entertain you all the same.
This story goes back a long way, when (let’s name him) Frank (M) and myself (F) were both in college (both 17 at the time, we’re now 33), young and naive teenagers. We started as friends and eventually decided to be together. We then decided to move to another city together, as I was about to start university.
It went well for a while and then started to go south. So, long story short, after about two years together, we decided to break up. It wasn’t a mean breakup or anything, I think we were mostly disappointed it didn’t work out. Anyway.
We live in the province of Quebec. For those who don’t know, there is this weird tradition of starting and ending about any lease on July 1st. I have no idea why, but Canada’s Day has always been for anybody moving, in this province, a synonym of sweating under the sun, moving boxes, lifting heavy things and ending the day with cold beer and cheap pizza in a new and probably not so clean apartment. Why this context? Because we broke up two weeks before July 1st. It means it was virtually impossible to find another apartment so close to this date. We were about 7 hours away from both our families living on the countryside. We were also awfully broke students. We decided to give it a chance at being roommates.
Yes, it was super awkward at first, really not easy to manage to say the least. We were walking on eggshells and were definitely on edge for a while. There were also some pretty awkward situations, like this one time he decided to bring a one night home as I was sleeping in the adjacent room. Not only that, but the shameful phone call he had to make, waking me up in the middle of the night, so I could unlock the front door because he had forgotten his keys to find out he had brought home an acquaintance of mine. Nowadays I find this story delightfully funny tbh. But on that night, as I couldn’t go back to sleep because the gal decided to show off how an amazing singer she could have been —because, oh boy, this voice carried loudly all the way to my ears for more than an hour — I did not find it funny. I was furious, but prepared myself for the eventuality it would ever happen again. Do you remember the “Tiny Wall Challenges”? Let’s just say I had some games ideas after that night.
Anyway, anybody would probably have walked away but we still deeply cared for each other. We even did better than just survive through this whole year as roommates, we decided to move into a bigger apartment with two other friends. Believe it or not, we stayed there two more years. Moreover, these years were some of the best years and I still keep lots of good memories from this period.
Fast forward to the second part of the story. After being roommates for years, at some point we parted ways and lived our lives. We maintained contact throughout the years and when Frank finally started dating his wife to be, I was absolutely happy for him. He asked her to marry him and she said yes! Our friendship still held such a high place in both our hearts that he asked me to be one of his groomsmen, with his other best friend and his little brother. I felt so honoured, as I was technically a female, to be chosen to be on his side at the wedding.
The bridesmaids chose matching dresses in a beautiful forest green, all from a specialized website from UK, and I was to also be in a dress on the groom’s side, but matching the colour of the other groomsmen suits. With Frank, We all shopped together for their suits, chose a beautiful dark grey for his and a light grey for us, and we were able to match it perfectly with clothing samples I ordered from the website. Everything was going as planned. That being done, I ordered the dress, considering buying two inches heel shoes to go with it. It would take about four months to be done and the dress would arrive about a month and a half before the wedding. I decided to wait for the dress to arrive to pick shoes to go with it.
Four months passed, and I finally received a notice that the dress was on its way. The bridesmaids dresses arrived a bit before mine and they were all absolutely beautiful. As we all ordered from the same shop, we were able to choose different dresses that suited each of our styles, with identical fabrics that made the whole thing look fantastic.
I received the delivery’s notice, saying it was to be delivered by DHL. (If you never had to deal with this delivery company before, let’s just say this in itself is a red flag, but what could I do.)
I chose a delivery date that I could be home all day. I awaited their arrival, and waited. At some point I received a notification that they couldn’t deliver it because there was an error in the address. I called DHL customer service as soon as I read it and could verify with the clerk on the phone that there was no error on the original delivery address and that actually, internally, they miss-wrote a letter of the postal code. The person assured me that the delivery person would be notified and they would then be on their way back.
I waited. It never came.
The next morning, I received a notification that, unable to deliver it, the expeditor had agreed to DESTROY the package! I screamed! Why in the world would the UK online shop allow to destroy a custom made dress that took four months to do?! And why the hell the delivery service didn’t make any other attempt after being responsible of the address error in the first place. I was beyond mad. I called DHL, they confirmed someone at the company had agreed on the destruction of the item. I wrote to the person I was in contact with from the beginning at the online shop (this lovely clerk who clearly never asked for any of this). Over there, they couldn’t find who the hell agreed to this insane request to destroy the dress. They were also appalled and didn’t understand how it could have happened. They could put a request to redo the dress rush, but we first needed to either try to stop the destruction from happening by going to the DHL warehouse directly, or to obtain a proof from DHL that the dress was irreversibly lost forever.
It felt surreal! The fiancées were both furious too. There was only one DHL warehouse we could go to do this kind of request in the city and it was really far. As the clock was ticking, they jumped in their car, joined me, and to the warehouse we went, arriving a few minutes before closing like an epic movie scene. The clerk there was mind blown by the whole situation. It seemed we were too late and the best we could do was to have the proof that, in their system, the dress had effectively transited and was destroyed.
With photos as proof in hand, I forwarded everything to the clerk of the online dress shop. Days passed, as they were awaiting the okay to start sewing a new dress. They were really trying their best to help the situation but it seemed to be a mess over there about the whole situation. We were now a month before the wedding. At some point, I was starting to panic. They finally agreed to redo it, but it would be waaaay too close before the wedding to receive it. Like a few days before kind of close, if nothing happened in transport this time.
I decided to go shopping for another dress. I spent a whole day trying to find the perfect grey that would fit the other groomsmen suits. In the last possible boutique, there was one dress checking all the criteria. I bought the new one and wrote to the first shop, hoping they would agree to refund the lost dress.
I took an appointment later that week to do the adjustments on the new dress. I then shopped for shoes. I found a cute pair with one inch heel that would be perfect for me. I’m not used to walking with heels, so the lower the better after all.
Like all this turmoil wasn’t enough, my family called and told me that my grandfather’s health suddenly decreased. Remember? Seven hours drive from family. I canceled some plans and bought a ticket for the night’s bus ride right after the dress fitting. On that morning, the UK shop agreed to refund the dress. That part was a big relief. I went to the dress fitting. At last, three weeks before the wedding, The second dress would be ready in about seven days. I came back home to gather some things to get back out to catch my bus.
But suddenly, the doorbell rang.
I opened.
Some DHL delivery man casually gave me a package and left.
Yes. That’s what you think.
I closed the door, went to my room, sat on the bed, opened the bag. It was indeed the first dress. I had a melt down. I cried so hard. I put the dress down, looked at it, told it “I’ll deal with you when I come back” and went away to the bus station.
Few days later, coming back from the family, I collected the second dress and dealt with the first one, which no longer fitted the length of the shoes! My MIL at the time knew an old lady who was lovely enough to accommodate me and do the fitting of the first one for a as modest price. I decided to keep it a secret until the wedding day. (These friends wouldn’t do any drama about reveals etc, nor would they think it was stealing any of their thunder, don’t worry about that.)
On the wedding morning, I effectively surprised the bride and groom with both dresses. They were mind blowed, flabbergasted to say the least! I put the original one for the official photoshoot and discretely changed right after dinner for the other one. People around that had followed the incredible adventures were laughing out loud and finding it hilarious that I decided to wear both of them as I had so much troubles!
Quite a story with dresses and with an ex, right? Guess what, I’m also the godmother of their first child!

TW: Mentions of suicide/self-harm, PTSD.
For some context, my girlfriend and I have been going through a rough patch the last few months. She had been spending a lot more time with her friends than me lately during long distance stretches during college, and I started to get scared her friends don’t like me.
I texted one of her friends an apology about my social anxiety and why it was hard for me to connect with her a few times because of battling mental health issues as well as being on the brink of suicide a year ago and I’m still recovering from that slowly.
She straight up tells me she has no intention on being my friend and that her and my girlfriend’s relationship does not concern me. Sucks, but oh well. I figured her friend doesn’t like me because often in situations like these, a significant other’s friend will only hear when you guys have an argument.
I told my girlfriend I’m uncomfortable with her sharing vulnerable details like that to her friends as these things only concern us two, and I asked her either not to tell her friends about whenever we have conflict because it makes me uncomfortable, or to at least defend me and try to help them see two sides to our conflict.
A few weeks later I ask my girlfriend if she’s talked about me at all to her friends. She said yes and I asked if she tried to ‘defend’ me and she said not really. This made me upset.
Flash forward a few months to now, and very suspicious her and her friend are still talking about me without being fair about both sides.
Usually my girlfriend is fine if I use her phone and scroll, or sometimes I look through her notes and she’s fine with it, bottom line is she didn’t care and I don’t care what she does on my phone.
I went to play NYT Games because connections is fun, and I saw a text conversation between her and her friend open that was from a few weeks ago while my gf was asleep. It was of her friend mocking me and shit talking me. She sent a spam of messages that mimicked me during a PTSD or anxiety attack.
I looked up my name in her text conversations as my curiosity and sadness peaked, and there were also messages that mimicked me saying things about how I’m scared she doesn’t love me as she’s been so distant, or a conversation about her wanting to party more, etc, and a few other instances. All of these times my girlfriend said nothing to her friend to tell her to stop or anything.
Should I have looked through my girlfriend’s phone? Probably not, as she was mad at me after. The top thing that bugged me was her friend mimicking a PTSD or Anxiety attack as these have been daily struggles in my life ever since I was in a car crash that totaled my car which sent me down that path of low mental health.
It just all seems weird because her friend said she went through a similar phase when I tried apologizing for not being able to connect those few times because of social anxiety.
Today, after I had a long talk to my girlfriend about where I messed up and how I’ve been feeling her be distant lately which I thought ended pretty well considering she said she wants to stay committed and work through this tough time and she still loves me after resenting me for having mental health issues from a year ago, I got a text from her friend.
To sum it up, her friend basically said that I broke her trust with my girlfriend because those were things she texts my gf that don’t concern me. And she asked me to stay out of their friendship and that she’s been nothing but nice to me and that she’s tried to give me the benefit of the doubt.
So I don’t know how normal something like this is in a relationship, I’ve been trying to do everything I can to make it up to my girlfriend for making her mad and breaking her trust.
Do I text her friend back? What would I say if I did? I feel like I shouldn’t since I’m only focused on healing me and my girlfriend’s relationship and not feeding into this drama that doesn’t concern her friend in the first place. I don’t want to think about her friend anymore, I don’t care if she likes me or not now.
TL;DR: I looked through my girlfriend’s phone because she’s usually fine with when I do. I saw texts from her friend that were mimicking me during a PTSD or anxiety attack, as well as a few other instances of her friend talking bad about me and my girlfriend said nothing to her, even after I told my gf I’m uncomfortable when she shares our disagreements with her friends and I asked her to at least share both sides of the story and defend me if something like this ever happened. Her friend texted me today saying I hurt her trust in my girlfriend because those were things that only concerned her and my gf. Should I text back? I don’t want more drama with her friend because I’m only focused on being a better boyfriend for my girlfriend.

I had this problem with GPT-4. When I speak in French (for example) in voice mode, GPT pretranslates the text into English even before reaching the chat window. So the chat shows that I spoke in English, and GPT responds back in English.
I'm having the exact issue with 4o.

• I speak in a different language
• - It registers a perfect translation in the text chat just in English
• - It responds back to me in English

It happens regularly, but not every single time. I have a native accent in both languages. So, find this very confusing.

This girl at my church had a crush on me. She tried to follow me around and talk to me. But back then I didn’t really like her so I tried avoiding her as much as possible. But as time went on, I realized that she was a pretty nice girl. She always attended church, was good with kids and kind to everyone. I started to open up and we often talked from time to time. But still, it was just a consideration, I didn’t actually like her. One day on my way home from church, the girl sent me a text. I responded to her and we were having a long conversation. We were talking for the whole day. For the next month almost everyday we would talk to each other for even 6 hours long. One day she told me that she liked me for 2 years. I told her that I liked her back because after getting to know her more I actually really liked her. She wanted to keep this a secret at our church because it was a big commitment and I agreed with her. She still told my friend’s sister she can trust and her mother. We decided to hang out at the mall together. We could only hang out for 2 hours since her dad was picking her up and she didn’t want her dad to know. It still seemed like we both had a pretty fun time. But after hanging out I noticed that she was keeping distance from me. The girl that always texted me first never sent me a message for about 3 days. On Sunday I didn’t see her show up to church so I decided to text her why. But the girl that always responded instantly to my texts left me on delivered for hours. I asked her if this wasn’t going to work out and she told me that she still liked me but wasn’t ready for a relationship yet and wanted to stay as friends until there’s something between us in the future. I agreed but I was heart broken. After talking for almost everyday I really fell in love. After about a week later I decided to text her again just as friends. She responded quickly but it didn’t seem like she wanted to talk to me. This made me sad. I really fell in love with her now but now it felt like she hated me. It just doesn’t make sense how a persons mind switches 180 after spending time together once. It wasn’t like she didn’t talk to me at all in person. We often talked together around friends and sometimes in secret. Keep in mind it has only been about 2 weeks since she started to avoid me. Should I wait a little longer or just move on.

Hi 👋🏿 it’s me and I’m going to spend the next minute pitching myself.
Are you in need of a chat buddy, friend, overall partner in foolishness? If yes, then allow me to introduce myself.
I’m a fun loving Northern born, but Southern bred Black woman who can walk into a room and, within seconds, have everyone doubled over in laughter with my quick wit and infectious humor.
I’m the friend you didn't know you needed, with an empathy so deep it's as if I can feel your emotions via text or tone right along with you.
I am the most colorful social butterfly by nature and am on a mission to connect with kindred spirits across the USA.
Life can get so mundane and predictable. Im eager to find new friends to share lively chats and regular discussions on typical and atypical topics.
Get ready to laugh, share, and maybe even discover some things about yourself—because becoming friends with me is similar to an unforgettable journey of somewhat tolerable chaos and a genuine connection.

My school is going to host a summer party and we were planning to attend with my girlfriend to have fun and socialize. I'm a straight transsex guy. Everyone at school is very chill about me and my girlfriend, literally nobody has ever harassed us or called us names, but maybe that's because I go to a very small school with mostly IBDP-focused students so we are all more knowledgeable about these things.
Anyways, I was talking to my mom about what I should wear (I'm out to my mom as trans, she doesn't fully accept it but still rolls with it I guess) and she asks me if I'm going to bring a date. I had already told her about the girl when we were in the talking stage, she doesn't know that things are official yet so I say "maybe" and she asks "Oh is it that girl? (girlfriends's name)?" I say yeah, she's pretty nice and we even plan to wear matching colors- and she stops me, tells me that our relationship is unnatural and that we shouldn't publicly show that we are together, because she thinks that we look like a lesbian couple (we're both straight and I pass well) and that will bring bad reputation to our family.
She doesn't want me to be with her and even threatened me to tell my dad about me being trans so that "she doesn't have to deal with the burden alone" What the hell? Why would she word it like that? I'm just trying to live and make happy memories with my friends and lover.
Note: Sorry for the spelling/grammar mistakes, not a native English speaker. In my country, neither gay nor trans people are protected by law, so I could see her concerns, but we know that the party will be a safe place, plus we don't even publicly show our love THAT much...

Hi! I'm looking to branch out and make a friend or two to check in regularly and/or plumb the depths of the psyche. Mostly looking for text based friends, but I'm open to voice chatting if the conditions are right.
Some fun facts about lil' old me: In a relationship, step-dad. In the trades. Into general and niche spirituality, buddhism, esoteric weirdness. Wholesome. Comfortable being vulnerable. Social anxiety, hence the internet. Practicer of nonviolent communication. Accepting.
What's good?

Okay so i shifted to bangalore for a short term internship from south india in an mnc. I had options to shift to north India but i didn’t because of the language barrier. Even here i know i will have some issues but I thought i can manage it with english since bangalore is a diverse city. To my surprise everyone are north indians including the other interns. I have no choice but to hangout with them. I feel so excluded cuz i don’t know hindi. There are around 20 interns and I’m the only one from south india. They talk in English with me but when we hangout as a group, they talk in hindi. I don’t mind them talking in hindi but these guys make fun of me sometimes for not knowing hindi. Initially it was fine but after sometime it became frustrating. I mean why tf should i learn hindi? I have no plans of shifting to north india ever. And these guys know nothing about english series/songs, their whole world is built within Bollywood so there is no way to connect with them. I was expecting language barrier cuz i don’t know kannada man, not cuz of hindi…

I went on a few dates with this guy. We had a great time, things were going well. He had a busy few weeks coming up with work/personal stuff, so I texted him that I'd love to get together when he's free again. He said he'd love that too. Great! We keep lightly in touch, after three weeks, I ask if he's free coming up. And then I'm hit with a breakup text. I get it, things happen, but I was so crushed that he said he had fun with me and wanted to see me again, and then kept texting me, and changed his mind. I really liked him. This sucks, and I don't understand what's changed and I feel like maybe I should have played harder to get?

I am brown (South Asian, born and raised in the UK) and he is white (Baltic, immigrated to the UK around 10 years ago). We've been with each other for around 15 months, and we are happy together. We are talking marriage and children.
His mother immigrated here 6 months ago. We used to get on very well, to the point she called me her daughter. I helped her with many things since she immigrated, like cooking different meals, letting her learn how to drive with my car, discreetly lending money to fix the broken boiler etc.
But she and my boyfriend have been having arguments that aren't to do with me (He loves her but feels like she's entitled and thankless). The other night she was drunk and randomly texted that she is very sure that I was 'looking to marry a white man' and that 'Polish, Romanians or English men wouldn't marry me because, well you know why.'
I don't know what she meant by that.
When he called her, she just said 'Yes, I'm a casual racist'. He hung up and was really disappointed and sad. He's been super supportive since then. We're trying to find a way to move forwards.
Now, my question is, what do I do? I love him so much but I think this will haunt me forever if I stay in the relationship. Will it get worse if I marry him? Will I get blamed if he has to choose between us? Was it just the drink or is she actually racist?
I feel so down. Can anyone share some advice?

So I (19F) have been with my boyfriend (22M) for almost 2 years. We’ve had issues but always found ways to work through them. We even went to couples therapy. I told him how much I hate it when we have an argument and he just ups and leaves and even talked about it with the therapist and the therapist told him its not a good thing to do and if you are to do it you need to let the other know how long you’ll be gone and what you’re going to do/where. And the one that left needs to be the one to open up the conversation again. Anyways we’ve had a lot of instances where he would just leave and not do any of that and ive had to be the one to open up the conversation again or we would just never talk about it. Or Id have to text him to know what hes doing or when hes coming back because he doesn’t update me. Wich creates a lot of abandonment issues for me and lack of reassurance and just overall makes me anxious because I dont know what will happen with us. So about 3 days ago we had a fight because he got invited to this party on saturday and this party is full of people he thinks are shitty and disgusting and bad people/friends and he has always said he doesnt care to hang out with them theyre not the kind of people he likes. We’ve already been invited to hangout with them in the past and he always refused or didnt want to go. But the worst is that one of his ex bestfriend (a girl) was invited too and this girl made weird remarks about me when we first started going out and she always acted super touchy and close to him and always made comments about him to show me how much she knows him like sexual comments and stuff and she even hit on him many times while we were together and then the moment we took a break at the beginning of the relationship she immediately hit on him and tried to get with him. I just want to say by the time I started going out with him they hadnt even been friends or saw each other for more than 2 years. Anyways, this girl was also invited to the party this Saturday and he always said how he finds her disgusting and a nasty person and he doesn’t care to see her even though she has reached out to him not even long ago and he just left her on read. So when he got invited he saw she was gonna be there and all the people he hates and he proceeds to tell me “do you wanna go this Saturday ?” I said “whos gonna be there ?” He said “so and so and so” and I replied “arent these the people you really dont like and the girl that constantly tries to get you knowing we’re together ?” And he was like “yeahh but I figured itd be fun still” and I really didnt take that well and told him how I think its really weird that suddenly he wants to go when all the other times we were invited he didnt want to and especially the one time shes invited he wants to. He said ok you’re right & I told him how It feels frustrating because I always need to tell him that instead of him being able to figure it out by himself and that its getting old because im constantly telling him I never just get it from him. And he just scoffed got up and left. And as he was leaving I said “yeah okay so thats it youre leaving ?” And he just left. Then came back to get his belt and said “that was uncalled for” and finally left. Now its been 3 days and I havent gotten a text or nothing from him I havent since him or talk to him in 3 days and we usually dont go a day without at least sleeping next to each other. I dont know what to do ? How to feel ? If he finally texts what do I do what do I say ?

I am brown (South Asian, born and raised in the UK) and he is white (Baltic, immigrated to the UK around 10 years ago). We've been with each other for around 15 months, and we are happy together. We are talking marriage and children.
His mother immigrated here 6 months ago. We used to get on very well, to the point she called me her daughter. I helped her with many things since she immigrated, like cooking a lot of different meals, letting her learn how to drive with my car, discreetly lending money to fix the broken boiler etc.
But she and my boyfriend have been having arguments that aren't to do with me (He loves her buy feels like she's entitled and thankless). The other night she was drunk and randomly texted that she is very sure that I was 'looking to marry a white man' and that 'Polish, Romanians or English men wouldn't marry me because, well you know why.'
When he called her, she just said 'Yes, I'm a casual racist'. He hung up and was really disappointed and sad.
Now, my question is, what do I do? I love him so much but I think this will haunt me forever if I stay in the relationship. Will it get worse if I marry him? Will I get blamed if he has to choose between us? Was it just the drink or is she actually racist?
I feel so shit..

TL;DR Got scammed out of a $50 ‘application fee’ for an apartment for my son. Police report made.
I put a post on a local Facebook group page looking for an apartment for my son. I received several private messages shortly after.
One woman sent me pics of a decent place near his job with a realistic price. Gave me landlords name and number.
I texted him and started the process. He sent my son an application which he filled out and I cashapp the fee to him.
He then asked me to send the security deposit. I’m not that stupid. Although I haven’t rented an apartment since before internet, I was in no way going to send him the security deposit. So I told him I’m going to look at the apartment, then if we take it, will sign the lease and give the security deposit.
He left it alone until the day of the viewing. And I left telling him I’m on my way. He again asked for the security deposit so he can give me a receipt so he can give me the keys upon viewing and I said no again. He told me if I chose not to take the apartment, he will refund me. I at least didn’t fall for that.
Got to the apartment and no one there. Waited half hour. I texted and he didn’t answer and when I called, realized I was blocked.
Boy was I pissed! Figured the Facebook lady and ‘landlord’ were same person. It threw me off because she was a Facebook member for a few years and had friends and everything.
So I requested a refund from cashapp and made a police report and then had some fun with the Facebook lady then blocked. Police told me it’s a double scam to get my sons id and ssn, but my son told me the application didn’t even ask for his ssn thank god! If he’s running 30 scams and gets just a few people to fall for it then he’s making a lot of money.
Irritated at myself for falling for that but haven’t done the apartment thing in about 30 years!
Theres a scam for everything now it seems. Ugh

100% of the problems I have in my life is single-handedly caused by my narcissistic parents. Their selfish entitled behavior has fucked my life over a dozens of times, they’re extremely selfish and self centered: they don’t care about my needs AT ALL. My Nmom wants her needs taken care of, even her financially irresponsible ones. She wants me to serve all of them to her with a golden spoon. She wants to be babied like a child. Within the last 2 years I have not been okay at all in any aspect of my life whether it’s education wise, emotional wise, mentally, and physically. I legit have to go to fucking therapy to sort my trauma out that my nparents has caused me. FUCK. I didn’t like a normal life like everyone else who has healthy parents. My parents gave birth to me so I could coddle their ego and serve their needs like a slave. They treat me like shit and dictate how I should be treated, they’re basically indirectly saying how I should be treated as a human being and it’s shit. It’s absolutely awful.
My Nmom is extremely mean to me. Her entire personality is mean, she just a mean person and idk if she’s just like that to me or other people but she’s mean. I live with her and it’s so hard to explain how she treats me. She treats me like a labor slave yk? She wants me to do all her dirty work while she goes out and has so much fun. Shes the type of mother who can help her children out but chooses not to because of her selfish needs and desires matter more.
So I want nothing to do with her. All she does is treat me badly. She doesn’t care about me. She could live her life like normal if I died. My Nmom is always bombarding me with text messages asking if i’m okay and I ate. It boggles my mind because she’s those type of parents who verbally do the most but when it comes to them actually showing that they care they don’t do it. I’m tired of my mother trying to constantly talk to me like she cares about me. She always talks to me if it’s because she wants to talk about herself, the family or if it’s because she needs something or one a rare occasion she wants to act like she cares about me. Like just sto. why can’t she stop? I don’t talk to my Nmom at all unless she talks to me first. I do not speak to my mother at all. The only time we do speak is if she comes to me first, and sometimes I don’t even text back to her because I genuinely don’t wanna talk to her. I hate talking to that women. She only cares about herself. She constantly has to be talking to me and it’s never even about her asking ABOUT ME. About MY life s about what i’m doing and what i’m up to. If she does it’s always because she wants to sabotage it. There’s nothing I want more than my Nmom never speaking to me again. Her actions are TERRIBLE but she fakes a nice caring personality verbally which doesn’t even cost much effort and that’s why she does it.
Her reals self is how she acts towards me physically and personality wise. It doesn’t take much to say ILY to a person you don’t give a fuck about. I’m literally walking to my local job service to help me become employed. This generation is fucked employment wise. I can’t live on good terms with this women because she always picks fights wirh me and always wants something of mine. It’s so toxic and emotionally draining. I cannot. My mom is the problem. I can’t ugh it’s so overwhelming. I can’t find a full time job anywhere and if I do I’ll spend my entire days there because that’s the only way I can decrease my time being around my Nmom.

Hi, I’m 24 year old male, and there is a 23 year old female. She is best friend of my close friend. We know each other for more or less a year, and we met right after my previous break up. I know that she was still struggling with her previous relationship back then (break up, but mine was quick and sudden, hers slow). We hanged out for a few times, but then she said that she is not comfortable with me being freshly out of a previous relationship which I completely understand and understood then as it was early on and my ex was messing with my feelings for a few months after that. But I and that new girl kept texting each other and meeting up occasionally. During last year I dated few girls, and I don’t think she did. It is difficult making any plans with her because she is busy with school friends and other errands. It’s also opinion of our common (best) friend as she mentioned that a few times spontaneously. She wasn’t the quickest responder, but texts with her were always long and thoughtful as we were talking about many topics at the same time. I felt like it wasn’t leading anywhere and that’s why I tried to cut it back a few times. But we were always coming back to the same situation. Recently she texted me that she is missing me and my blabbing. We texted a little and recently I asked if she wants to go to a wedding soon with me and she agreed. We hanged once or twice and she invited me over to her birthday party where we kissed which she initiated. After that me met again twice, she introduced me (kinda, I knew them a little from past year situations) to her friends but without any physical contact. I tried to initiate it but she acted like she doesn’t even think about it. And now I’m in the same situation again wondering if she wants to do anything with me as we have something to do planned but she is busy now with exams and errands but also meeting up with her friends very often. Please comment on that as I’m leaving the uni soon and will live an hour away from her and tell me if maybe I’m retarded for my way of thinking or actions. Or is it her just not being made for being in a relationship? She is also mentioning sometimes that she wants to move abroad after finishing all her education which will take a few more years. Excuse me for these long sentences, English is not my first language