Hey there! Looking for some new people to talk to, down to chat about pretty much anything as long as you can somewhat hold a conversation haha. Not really great at writing these things so I'll just list off some of my interests and things I'm looking for.
About me:
-i like watching sports; baseball, hockey, F1, sometimes basketball.
-i love video games, I play mostly on my PC, but I also have a PS5 and a switch. Right now I'm mostly playing dota 2 and r6 siege, but I have and play a lot of other stuff too.
-I have two cats that I love to death, totally down to show you how cute they are!
I love movies, I have a pretty large physical movie collection of blu rays and 4ks, I especially love horror but I'll watch most genres.
-I also enjoy music a lot, mostly metal, but also pop punk, pop, rap, country, and some other random stuff too. I've been to A LOT of concerts over the past 10 years but haven't been to many recently.
-im pretty introverted, I work a lot and when I'm not working I like to pretty much stay in and relax for the most part.
-i work night shift, i I have a pretty unorthodox schedule and sleep during the day and I'm up all night haha
I have 6 tattoos!
I don't smoke or drink, I don't really mind or care if you do though!
Physically im 6 foot tall hazel eyes with glasses and short brown hair. Medium build, a bit of a dad bod.
That's pretty much it, I'm sure there's a lot more I could include but I'll save that for later. Now here's some things I'm looking for!
What I'm looking for:
-someone who can somewhat hold a conversation and is actually interested in getting to know each other
-down to share selfies and possibly down to voice chat in the near future
down to switch to another platform, I don't really want to use the chat feature on here, sorry.
-open to the possibility of something flirty, and or just friendship. I'm not strictly looking for friendship only.
That's mostly it I think. Shoot me a message with a little about yourself if you're interested

This is a follow up to this post https://www.reddit.com/GayBroTeens/comments/1akyx0l/came_out_to_my_school_in_a_muslim_country_today/
Turns out, my class ain't exactly as accepting as I thought they were. They're currently now avoiding me like the plague. I feel like people now only care about who I wanna fuck as though it's the only side of me that exist.
I'm happy that I can be out to someone but now i'm just a one dimensional gay guy who creeps around. I've tried to talk to people but they seem to think that just talking to me would get me interested in them. Any time I think some guy would actually be (at the very least) treating me nicely, it turns out they have some kind of weird innate distrust of anything I do. I could literally walk around a room and they will speculate on my next 'target' when I was just going to the toilet.
I was once a pretty shy kid, never talking if I didn't have to. I'm semi out of my shell rn but I still don't really know how to interact with people. Anytime I wanna talk to people, it just becomes awkward. I just really want a friend but people seems to think that I just want a "friend" with the word "boy" preceding it.
Even when I get to talk to girls, they'll think of me as their mandatory "gay best friend". I constantly hear other people talk shit about me as though i'm just an imaginary rainbow powered robot that walks and talks, not like an actual human being.
Perhaps I pretended to hit on someone because people thought it was funny. I just wanted people to be happy and laugh. I don't want them to be sad or bored but perhaps I misplayed a move. I'm sorry if I played too far into the stereotype of the heart shaped pupil gay guy. It's my fault for being too short-sighted to see what kind of trouble my actions would bring.
Is it bad that I regret my actions and want to change it? Is it too late now and I should bear any bad repercussions that comes my way? Is it bad I want to change course because i'm afraid of the consequences?

PROOF : https://imgur.com/gallery/oKE6l6L
14 K ROPE ALBUM: https://imgur.com/gallery/UUiN9PV
SCRAP ALBUM: https://imgur.com/gallery/rQ97l8B
*2FA enabled and I refuse to give up my password under any circumstances *
Good evening I have a 20" 14k gold diamond cut rope chain. I got this chain for myself on a different auction site bought sight unseen, and after some thought the chain is a little short for my liking. It is a used chain, but it's in great condition.
I had it tested and verified by a local jeweler and they confirmed it as 14k gold and they stated that the rope was solid. Full transparency it is on the thinner side of the spectrum, I don't have a caliper but I'm guessing it's somewhere around 1.5mm.
It weighs 7.84 grams, of course I am biased but I think it is a very nice chain, I just want to work towards something a little bigger for myself.
I also have some scrap that I'm trying to sell. A 8.25" 10k hollow rope bracelet weighing 1.02 grams and a pair of hollow earrings marked 14k weighing 1.44 grams, the earrings don't have push backs included.
•Asking $370+ $7 USPS 📪Ground Advantage for the chain
•Asking $80+ $7 USPS 📪Ground Advantage for the scrap
•Take both for $445+ $7 USPS📪Ground Advantage
•VENMO and ZELLE Preferred
•Once dropped off at USPS counter my responsibility ends (obviously will help in any way if needed)....
Thanks for looking 👀

Hi! For context - my grandpa is 92 and lives at home in a small house. He is very fortunate to have full time caregivers take care of him at home. He’s very pleasant, calm, and always in good spirits.
Recently, he has started using a hospital bed and is no longer able to stand or walk. However, insurance provided a Hoyer lift and we rented him a nice wheelchair that fits him comfortably and is very easy to push and use. He’s also been assessed for dementia, however it’s at a moderate stage, so he is mostly confused and quiet, but still knows who we are and will engage in short conversations.
His caregivers were trained on how to use the lift and were instructed that he gets into his wheelchair for all of his meals. Staying in bed all day will give him bed sores, and he needs to be upright for his eating.
However, they are not doing it. Each time I have talked to them, they say something like “oh he just wants to sleep so we don’t get him out” and his wheelchair is always folded and disassembled in the corner in the same sport when I come over.
Even more disturbingly, today I went over and he was grasping the edges of his bed asking to get out. His caregiver told him he had to stay in bed. I said no, he wants to get out! We used the Hoyer (worked great and was very easy), got him in the wheelchair, and I took him for a nice walk. However, when bringing him back inside, his caregiver started to pull him up the ramp the wrong way, and he almost slipped out of his wheelchair facing forward. I’m a special education teacher and the first thing we learn wheelchairs always go forwards up a ramp and backwards down a ramp. He was also shoving and pulling him around when positioning him and it was so unsettling and was definitely not correct lifting protocols.
I know we are very privileged that he has these home health caregivers, and they are very kind and they do care about him a lot. I’m also aware that it’s not the most desirable job so the workers aren’t going to be perfect. But I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how to 1.) ensure they are getting him out of his chair daily and 2.) ensure they are using the equipment properly. He is so fortunate to have all of this equipment, so he should be using it! And he’s so fortunate to have 1:1 caregivers, so they should be able to follow the routine and help him be active. He is still his own person with autonomy.
I visit him multiple times a week but I can’t check in as often as I’d like. My only idea was to make a schedule and list of reminders and post it on the wall so they see it. But just wondering if anyone has other ideas or dealt with anything similar. Thanks!

Hello everyone! I wanted to write and share something constructive for this space, that hopefully goes beyond snarking specific names and personalities and helps those who have been harmed in one way or another find a bit of understanding around what happened to them and why.
I've shared pieces of my story here before but the gist is: I am not from the coaching world. I'm from the general spirituality world - from a spiritual modality that has an aspect of divine feminine and divine masculine that has always interested me, but few others in the community. I learned about this whole specific mess listening to love & light confessionals, and went deep into the rabbit hole. The perversion of understanding of masculine/feminine energy dynamics was horrifying but also enlightening. I'm big on learning how NOT to be from people who give me the major ick. This is why I've done a lot of deep diving in general on cults, gurus, and manipulative spirituality in general - and there's a lot to take away if you can go in with this mindset. I'm also hella autistic and love infiltrating niche internet subgroups whose experiences are much different than mine so I can - again - learn from the experieneces of others, and gain more empathy and understanding of the vast human experience.
I was a very forward facing person for the nonprofit I volunteered for for over 4 years. There was no "guru" that I supplicated, however there was a person formally in charge who abused their power and the willingness of others to help the organization, and was known to be cruel in private, when it suited them. I didn't see this person as above me - in fact in a lot of ways they were quite pitiful and needed a lot of help/support in their role - which is what I did, willingly and for practically free. At one point, the entire org sat down and did a call in of this person, however, they were able to push everyone that they couldn't control out of the way and rewrote the story with themselves as the victim (we all know this one). The final falling out happened at the end of 2019, so luckily for them Covid gave them some time to figure out how to run their events without me (they hired a paid staff).
Anyway, I gave many many hundreds of hours to this cause, and then the person in charge was able to take advantage of me and then push me out of the community I had served very seriously for 6 years with rumors that I had been trying to steal money. This is so far beyond the truth, and everyone involved directly knows this, but no one came to dispell the rumor. So, I've been heartbroken by supposedly "spiritual" leaders of a community, that's for sure. In fact listening to Katya was part of the cult deprogramming that me and a group who had left together went through (this group also used, abused, and betrayed me but that's another story!)
So, this isn't going to be about me, I just wanted to share my background. This is about what the divine feminine and the divine masculine "REALLY" are. This may get a bit woo in here but I can't imagine anyone here is afraid of woo. In fact it's the mystery of the spiritual experience that allows these people to cause so much harm. So let me try to remove some of that mystery.
The creation is polarized, in many ways. One of those ways is masculine/feminine. The masculine force is the will, the conscious mind, and that which puts the infinity of possible experience into order. It in and of itself is quite fallible. The feminine force is the subconscious mind - all that is - and the untapped potential of this reservoir. The masculine reaches for the feminine, and if the will (masculine) is properly configured, the unmanifest creation (feminine) will give him something in return. The masculine NEEDS the feminine but the feminine doesn't really NEED the masculine, however it does desire the masculine's attention being focused it its direction (instead of random mundane wordly experiences). And the feminine wants the masculine's attention consistently, lest the feminine will not be consistent at all in its response. This attention can be forceful or gentle, but it must be consistent.
Every human has a balance of masculine/feminine energy in them, and while women are socially conditioned to tend towards feminine expression and men towards masculine, biological sex really has very very little to do with it. There are of course, positive feminine expressions and negative, and positive male expressions and negative. What these polarity goons do is mostly focus on a mix of positive/negative masculine expression for the man, 0 female expression, and then only positive feminine expression for the woman with maybe, possibly, a bit of positive masculine expression (only during working hours when you're in seperate offices, and only if you're paying the bills, ofc)
Typically, we are attracted to partners who "balance" out our spiritual energy - so the "polarization" in a relationship can be anywhere from hyper masc/hyper femme to barely masc/barely femme - and again, this is NOT a hard and fast rule and has almost NOTHING to do with sex other than a general (mostly cultural) bias. The hyper femme/hyper masc scenario can definitely be more, well, exciting and dramatic than a relationship between two people who have very little polarized charge in that way between them. But that's likely why few of these polarity gurus have any experience in longevity of relationships - they are fueling their "twin flame" relationship with manufactured drama and trauma bonding. In reality, in a relationship, you are supposed to grow together and be more willing to meet each other where you are at in the moment, instead of demanding they be a near perfect idealized form before you offer them any attention/respect.
The reason these male teachers push polarity doctrine is literally because of their own wounding of the expression of the masculine/feminine. Men (especially USian men) have been taught that expressing any aspect of their feminine selves is repulsive and weak and probably gay. So, their solution to their own inability to be vulnerable is to attack women - for being "too masculine" - aka some balanced expression of both, normal! They want their women to be 100% pure unformed childlike energy with no will of their own, just a will that can be given to the man. They want them to embody this feminine space as close to 100% of the time so that they are forced into their masculine 100% of the time. Girlies, if you are in your masculine, this makes them feel more in their feminine and - gosh that's just icky and disgusting. You don't want your man to get a boner for you when you're in the masculine - that might make him GAY! In the very least it's totally beta to be attracted to a masculine woman and basically gay anyway. No thanks!
I'm sorry to be facetious, but this is in general a lot of the subconscious and even sometimes conscious thought processes behind these hyper polarity relationships. These are not evolved, embodied people. These are people who are still very invested in the old fashioned human status quo that has served them for a long time. We had the thread a few weeks back with the Desire on Fire lady (ugh her name escapes me) talking about how her husband had to "put her in her place" for being "too masculine" and how he really just "didnt want her" when she was in her masculine, when she was literally just running her business. Masculine wounding almost ALWAYS shows up as men being jealous of women being better at them in their own field - or really successful publicly at all - and this is why women STILL have a hard time breaking into male dominated spaces. We are systemically kept out because men die inside when they feel inferior to women. They were told this wasn't supposed to happen!!!! In fact, the person who spiritually abused me was a man - I see now how he "kept" me as a pet because of my high standing in the community. But this meant I was still firmly below him in certain ways - a much more comfortable place for me to be, someone who challenged him on his "expertise".
This polarity movement is taking a true spiritual concept and distorting it just to set women back. They don't want you to have an opinion or agency - other than "me want money" and "me want sex". They want you to play on Instagram all day and recruit ladies for them to sexually assault at your joint "retreats". They want you to only feel valued if you're made up and dressed up and "desired" by men. None of this internalized self worth stuff, only external male validation is allowed. Ladies, if any of you reading this are with some sort of this type of man, please, I beg you, choose the bear. This is the type of man who leaves you as soon as your body culminates too many signs of being aged. They are entitlted to a specific cartoon image of what they think a "woman" is, and sadly this culture has made young women INCREDIBLY easy to manipulate, so finding another partner is often quite easy for older men. It's all by design.
Here's another spiritual truth that is often obscured: One of the polarities of divinity is the left hand path and the right hand path. The left hand path is the path of control, wealth, using others, egocentrism, etc. The right hand path is about acceptance, generosity, helping others, and sacrifice. The middle path is a path with little to no power - it's the path of comfort, the path most people are on.
When one walks the middle path - i.e. has not really begun to truly develop their spiritual side - they do not yet have spiritual discernment. What happens when they come across someone who has been using spiritual principles to "build their wealth/power" is that they see someone with a spiritual light - and this isn't super common on social media. When we're hungry for it, we're like a moth to the flame. That's why they always know they'll be another mark. The problem then is when we don't have discernment, we cannot tell which "hand" the light is coming from, and often it's very easy to confuse the left hand for the right and vice versa. For instance, I am giving up a large part of my day to write this purely to help others in this community - Carly or MAL or someone might stumble upon this and see it as "evil". But that's because they see the light, but to them it's against their light, so I'm the evil one. But all I'm trying to offer is freedom of mind, and they're mad because they want your bag, and this is dependent on you being confused and them keeping a crumb of clarity behind a paywall. 💰
Now, some of these girlies are walking the "left hand path" a lot better than the others. I dont know many coaches beyond those talked about here, but I would say someone like MAL has a pretty firm grasp on who she is - a scam artist, a liar, and a user. She's always making up stories and whatnot - she's a pathological liar. She will do anything to get her way. This is pretty serious when you've been behaving this way for years and years. Her image is very rigid and polished, and despite showing up unprepared and offering word salad to her paying persons, her "outer circle" (social media feed etc) is much more curated than most of the other coaches I've seen. She's at the top of the pyramid so she has a huge amount of control and influence. If she cracks someday, we'll see it, and usually people struggle to return to the top once they falter. I'm sure she's already showing some signs of paranoia, which is the first sign a high control person is starting to become unhinged.
Then there are the messier girlies, like Carly, and Karen who has recently been more thoroughly exposed here. These ladies show up very vulnerable to social media, and often are struggling with illness - as someone has said here before, Carly's early coaching gigs were about health and dealing with chronic illness, until she realized that space wasn't sexy or profitable. I'm not saying this is the root of all illness, but transient illness can be a sign of a spiritual mismatch in intentions/action - especially with these people who claim to be "healers" or adjacent to that space. You have to walk your talk, or your body begins to show your hypocrisy. There is a part of these ladies who feel they are truly "helping the planet" and get confused internally when the reaction of their "offers" isn't for people to fall down at their feet worshipping them. This is why they say stuff like "wealth is a mindset!" and other magical thinking - most of them have lived privileged lives and have never been "out" of abundance. They think their "luck" is a carefully curated vibration that they can rub off on others. And like, while I believe that being in the vibrations of someone who is more spiritually mature can help "elevate" someone - these people are playing with spiritual practices and, while seeing some results, truly have no clue what they are talking about and dealing with. People who truly understand manifestation, whether left or right hand, are not busting their ass all day on Instagram trying to recruit lukewarm clients for peanuts. Carly tries SO HARD to sell that all of her work is "easy" and she can "take a walk in the middle of the day!" and not work while she's bleeding and whatnot. But girl, you're hustling and thirsty all over Insta all day every day - this is not abundance, this is not wealth and gratitude, it's giving "big empty black hole in my soul that will never be filled except with more money" energy, babe.
Then there are the girlies like xogingy and The Content Queen whose whole brand seems to be just being a mess all over the place. This sells because it makes people think "well I'm messy maybe I can be messy and rich/successful" but the mess for these girls is much more embraced and embodied than with the prim types like Carly and Karen, who want to be pure luxe and sexy and divine feminine perfection. But the luxe and sexy types are really doing the recruiting for their sexual in-person retreats (or clothing optional zooms) because they're just mega horny all the time (which - btw - is another sign of spiritual imbalance)
And that's the thing - being horny all of the time means your energy body is JACKED. It's not a sign of a free flow of creative energy to crave sex all of the time. Of course a major aspect of this is the sexual magic - yes, there is magic in sex, and I think it's where these folks get most of their magic, because they follow left hand sexual magic practice exclusively (control BDSM). They do play rapes (and borderline real rapes and, in some cases, actual real rapes on their clients/partners), orgasm denial, humiliation, pain rituals - all stuff that truly, objectively, isn't good for the soul. And notice how it's almost always one sided - the male being in total control of the female - though, Carly's substack did have a story about how they did a "role reversal" where she raped/humiliated him and that was um, something I read. 😳 But generally it's the women's job to always be turned on and "dripping wet" and whatnot, so that when her masculine partner gets a boner she's ready for him to slide it in. And then that's always the best sex, the sex that you "surrender" to.... On the contrary, sex between "right hand" practitioners tends to leave both partners feeling quite satisfied and sated - heck, even if only one happens to orgasm! Whereas control oriented sex often has orgasm denial which intentionally leaves the person craving more.
All this is to say, no one should feel guilty for being duped, or conned, or confused, even still. Almost all of these people have weaponized spiritual concepts in some ways and are wielding them with the intention to separate you from your money. They actually do have something that works. But they will NEVER sell you the whole story. And the fact is, this experience likely did happen to you because your soul was aching for some sort of uplevel - or initiation. It's just that initiation rarely looks like getting what we want. MAL et al makes it look like initiation is giving a rich lady 5 figures, popping a bottle of champagne, and roleplaying as that rich lady to which you just gave all that money (or at least, roleplaying as her social media feed). But if you're truly in it for the soul, your experience is going to help you uncover your soul. And part of uncovering our souls at this point in time seems to be having some serious spiritual trauma. And I know some people here probably only did this as "playing around" and not serious and unfortunately, playing with spirituality can be can be dangerous in and of itself. These is not to victim blame at all. It just is the nature of the spiritual path that it may growl and bite at you to test your growth. It's not just a sexy pleasure party 24/7, unless you want to step on a LOT of people to get there.
Anyway, this is very long and I'm not sure it's going to even fit into a reddit post at this point. But I just wanted to share some of the spiritual insights I've had over the years (been on my spiritual journey for over a decade at this point). I don't know it all, but I do know that I live with a general peace of mind that I wish I could sell in a coaching package or voxer group. But I can't/won't do that. So I'll keep to my lifelong duty of making longwinded, mega autistic posts on internet forums that might help a few people orient to a less painful or confused frame of mind, free of charge.
But on that note, before I finish, I'll offer my general spiritual advice: Firstly, take a short time every day to do some sort of sitting/meditation. Learning how to quiet the mind is a skill, and it's the first skill required to learn discernment. Once we can quiet the mind, we can start to learn which thoughts are our own and which thoughts we have absorbed from others - and if you haven't begun this process yet, you may be surprised to find out that the vast majority of your thoughts are actually just society, family, teachers, social media, advertising, etc etc, repeating in your mind and taking up valuable real estate. This is the real hurdle to "manifestation" - clearing away all the false desires that get in the way of our true desires. Subsequently, learning about chakras and tuning into my energy body has also given me a good base for insight and clarity that comes from within my own body.
Secondly, just try to think of others before yourself more often than not. Don't justify manipulating people for your own benefit. Oneness means you treat others how you want to be treated - in a gentle, and nurturing way. When we harm others, especially from a spiritual place, we perpetuate harm, and therefore accept that potential harmful treatment of ourselves. Treating others sincerely with reverence and respect, and setting boundaries so that we don't allow people to treat us with disrespect, is how we generate a reality that treats us with reverence and respect by default. A lot easier said than done, but it is possible.
Love and light to you all.

hey so i am (F19) now in college, but the negative comments/experience I had had in high school sticks to me. I had moved around high school freshman - sophomore (covid for half of freshman and full year for sophomore) year i stayed a new high school in a new district, moved again junior year to the old district in a new high school. I had known some people from elementary, tried to catch up, it was good for the first half of the year, but later on it went downhill. people (girls) were not that nice, I would say that I use positive reinforcement in a negative way.
Some girls who I thought were my friends would sometimes say things and in the moment, I would feel for a second that it was hurtful, but because I like to protect myself, I painted it as maybe a joke, them being playful, and I did that for the rest of the school year. It was really the first time people ever really dug at me. I am not good at confrontation and I don't like to see the truth if I know that it will hurt me.
It was the typical things, pretending to be your friends upfront, or making comments surrounding your body, backbiting, being judge mental, making comments surrounding my intelligence, (i would ditch, but i was really sad and I constantly looked for anything to make me happy) I know that from high school to older age, you do hit puberty again and I was a bit skinnier back then and sometimes their comments would revolve around my body and now that I have gained a few pounds I can feel the old comments being reinforced (in my head). Or some comments that I am not that pretty, and somethings I believe in those comments, even though i know they aren't true, I know a part of me believes it. It's hard to think that people who have done you wrong will live a peaceful life.
We live around the same area so smths I fear (even when writing this) that they may see this post or see me and laugh. I have struggled with my sense of self esteem, since I have been little. I tend to cover it by trying to appear confidence, which backfires and I usually end up being cocky. I try to cover it with makeup or my hair, but I know that when I take it all of, it isn't me.
I am obsessed with them and I can find myself ruminating with the idea. I have already talked with a counselor ( i went online for senior year to get mental health) and I fear when I see them (old classmates, not the girls in general) that they smths look at, some have asked, one followed me for a bit, and I know it is none of their business, but it still haunts me.
I constantly feel the need to prove something to them even though they are no longer in my life, maybe my ego is hurt, but I tried talking to counselors and they seem frustrated that I'm stuck in the same situation, so I'm afraid. I want to be better and live free of them.
How do I move forward, live in the present, not fear them anymore, and improve my self esteem. It seems I pretend to be confident ends up in being cocky and cry bcuz deep down I know I’m insecure
please if any advice, whether hard truth or anything nice, I am open

Please be kind and indulge me in my pity party, set to the beat of the death-rattles of my ego:
I used to do alright. I was maybe a 6/10 - cute/nerdy. But in the tech field, almost devoid of females... well, on that deserted island I was a 10. Guys were impressed I could hold my own in tech talk, politics, whatever, I gave them a bit of sh*t, drank them under the table, and before you know it I had them wrapped around my finger. It was fun.
These days, though, I'm a mess: noone looks surprised anymore when i say my age (49), hair's thinning, wrinkles galore, dry skin that itches like mad but also soaking in night sweats, terrible sleep, completely dried up down there, no zest for life, massive brain fog, fatigue, frozen shoulder, saggy bits everywhere, moody and short-tempered. I hate my husband for only 50% valid reasons. He hates the recent me for 100% valid reasons (we'll get through it, though, we're good). I've been scouring this sub lately, and I've decided it's time to get on HRT. Meanwhile...
There's this young guy at work. Just recently we started working on a project together for the first time. He keeps video calling me when he doesn't absolutely have to. We discuss math stuff FOR AN HOUR. He does not ever try to end the call - I do. Make no mistake, he does absolutely nothing beyond being completely professional and simply friendly. Still. You guys, A MALE UNDER 35 ISN'T ACTIVELY AVOIDING ME and I'm like... catching myself thinking he could maybe enjoy talking to me and kinda like me? Like it used to be. 20 years ago it would be. Like maybe he can't see my turkey neck through Teams and it's possible, possibly possible, that with the smoothing filter I could just pass for 35 if he really wanted to believe it? Maybe he's kind of into the cougar thing! Please have a laugh at my expense because I'm old enough to be his mother and he literally has the same name as my son so HOW PATHETIC AM I ?!!?!
And remember (because I barely did) that I listed brain fog? Ya, that hour of math stuff is him running circles around me and me getting him to repeat stuff and barely keeping up. He must think I'm such a ditz, because I would. It's so embarrassing. I cannot possibly be impressing him. So I've lost my looks, sexual power, and now my brain.
All this cougar thought resides strictly in the realm of my pitiful delusions, of course. I don't even know what state this guy lives in; odds are it's not mine. He probably calls me because I'm non-threatening, friendly and remind him of his mother or something. I have (so many) kids and in the real world, am completely devoted to my family. I'm so sad at the loss of my old self, though, and this situation really slapped me in the face with that. but on the other hand... wow! my goodness! you'll have to excuse me, ladies, I think I need to adjust my pessary... seems I'm not completely dead yet!

Okay, now that this is all typed out, I realised this sounds really, really silly. But I don't know what to do, and I've already put some time into writing this, so I might as well post it, and maybe get some much needed insight.
TL;DR: My fiancee's friend is hitting on me, my fiancee doesn't seem to mind and even seems to encourage her behaviour, and I can't make sense of what the hell is happening.
Now this is a story where nothing happens, except a very strong gut feeling that something is out of the ordinary. First things first, I'm not in the US, so I don't want legal advice, because it probably doesn't apply in my country (unless you're brazilian...). Anyway, I (M26) have been engaged to my fiancee, Lara (F29) for about three years, but she's in my life for almost ten years, and we've been dating on and off since 2018. This will be relevant in a while.
Our relationship is great in every sense since the beginning. We're what most would call a "bland" couple, so we mostly don't fight and agree in pretty much everything: life goals, career, bedroom, living standards, work-life balance, you name it. And one thing we always agreed on was that we were monogamous. I have my personal views about open ralationships, that are very strong. Lara's not much, but she agreed that as long as we were a couple, we would be monogamous.
But things started getting a bit weird since this girl, let's call her Amanda, got into her life. So I'm pretty sure Lara met (or reconnected with) Amanda at work, after the Covid restrictions were lifted. And they went into a pretty intimate friendship in a matter of weeks. To the point of spending a lot of time messaging or facetiming each other, going together on girl nights. I found it rather strange at first, because it's so out of character for my fiancee, normally very private and even a little shy, to go from "I just met this person at work" to "she's my best friend".
Well, I confronted her about it, not because I'm jealous or anything, but because it was weird coming from her. She told me that Amanda was, in fact, an old friend of hers from school, and that they used to spend a lot of time together but lost contact, and now are reconnecting. Okay, this explanation went good with me, and I stopped thinking about it, and would not have thought of the matter anymore if it weren't for what happened afterwards.
You see, Amanda is very, VERY flirty towards me. She always strikes up conversation with me, compliments me a lot, makes sexual jokes/innuendo directed at me, and it happens even in front of my fiancee. Honestly, I can't say I'm used to being flirted with, but I know the difference between when someone is being nice and when someone is actually hitting on me. But I let it rest for a while, it might be just how Amanda is. But then something weird happened back in January (not getting into detail, but Amanda crossed some of my boundaries), and I felt the need to confront Lara. I talked to her in a very serious manner, about what I thought Amanda was doing, and asked Lara if she had ever noticed something as well, and if it bothered her. Lara all but laughed at me, told me not to stress over it, and to "go with the flow". She even gave a little wink when she told me that.
From that day onwards, I didn't speak to Lara about the subject anymore, but I kind of noticed that Amanda's flirting started to get more straightforward. She even asked me out (although in a very subtle fashion) once, while Lara was on a work trip. I obviously refused, told her I loved Lara and we were monogamous and stuff, and she shrugged it off. But what is keeping me awake at night is something that happened just yesterday.
As you might know already, the southmost state of my country (Rio Grande do Sul) is going through a very dire situation right now, with terrible floods. I happened to be there traveling for work when the floods hit. I won't get much into the details, but I was scheduled to be there for a week to attend some training sessions and workshops, and I ended up having to stay for a few days more, since all flights were cancelled. I decided to come back via bus, out of my own pocket. It was a very demanding trip, a day and a half in total just to get to [State Capital]. From there, I would have to wait about ten hours for the next bus to [My Town], which would be another three hours.
So I arranged with Lara to make the trip to [State Capital], pick me up at the bus station, and get a hotel room for us to spend the night, so I could get some rest, and we would come back to [My Town] in the morning. She loved the idea, and told me not to worry, that she would get a hotel, and yadda yadda. Well, when she sent me the address, I looked it up and realized it was in fact a love hotel. And a fancy one, by the way. Well, I loved the idea, first because she was paying for it (haha), and second, because we had spent the past two weeks without any intimacy. I reckon she wanted to catch up in more than one sense... But I digress.
Okay, so last night I arrive at the bus station, she gives me the instructions to find where she is parked, I go there, see our car, and as I approach it, almost instantly the door opens... and Amanda comes out. What the heck! She had her hair and makeup done, and I mildly panicked: why was she there? Did something happen to Lara? She was all giggly, too, told me nothing was wrong, but that Lara asked her to come and get me to [Love Hotel]. I stand there, flabbergasted, and she grabs my arm and tries to coax me into the car. Now, I'm a quick thinker of sorts, especially when my gut feelings kick in, so I tapped my pockets, pretended to be anxious (it wasn't very hard, and not much of pretending - I was VERY anxious) and told her that I had forgotten my phone on the bus, so I had an excuse to dart back into the station.
From there, I immediately texted Lara, who laughed at me. I understood at that moment that she was behind it, so I told her I was not going to spend the night with her friend at [Love Hotel], and she just kept laughing and told me it was fine, but that I was "stupid and oblivious" to "miss that opportunity", and that we would talk when I got home. I was very confused by this altercation, and being already tired from the trip, I took a cab, asked him to drive me to the nearest hotel, and booked a room for the night. I spent the night awake, overthinking, and irrationally afraid that Amanda would find me somehow.
I called Lara this morning. we had a quick chat, where she told me that Amanda was a bit disappointed at me but not mad (I didn't even ask), and that I could come back by bus, but she refused to engage in any conversation about the subject. I told her I was feeling confused, in the sense that I really don't understand what's happening, she reassured me everything was fine. I told her that I didn't think so, I was feeling very weird, and she once again told me she wants to talk to me only in person. So what the heck is happening? I booked one more night, so I won't be coming home today. But has anyone here gone through anything similar to this? Why did Amanda "catfish" me? And with Lara's avail, after all? The things that are going to my head is that either Lara wants to "test" me of sorts, or that she is seeing someone else and wants me to "reciprocate". I can't see any other possibility, and honestly, I feel like I don't know my own fiancee anymore. Am I overreacting?

I (23M) decided to take a bank loan to buy a car. It was a big step for me, and I was both nervous and excited about the decision. I asked my mom for help because she's more knowledgeable about these matters. However, she's quite particular—if she's not reminded to do something, she won't do it, and if you remind her too often, she feels pressured.
She advised me not to buy the first car I saw or to make a purchase out of desperation. She also warned against buying a car that was just 'okay.' I was adamant about using only my money because I wanted the car to be solely mine and to avoid any potential arguments with her over financial contributions.
Despite this, my mom took out a loan to help me get a 'nicer' car, even though I had used part of my loan for other expenses. I reluctantly agreed to her help under the condition that it wouldn't lead to any arguments. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened after we got the car.
She also insisted on looking for trucks, claiming I would look 'dumb' getting out of a small car due to my height—I'm 6 feet tall. I didn't agree with her reasoning and continued to send her recommendations for small cars.
To my surprise, she bought a car without my input—the only one she had contacted—and based on her friend's opinion that 'the motor looked nice.' This broke both rules she had set. When she picked me up from work with the car, I immediately noticed several issues: a cracked front window, only two functioning windows, a missing door handle, weak lights, and faulty wipers. Later, we discovered the car leaked and had overheating problems.
The repairs were costly, and my mom had to take out a second loan. This led to a fight because it was the exact situation I wanted to avoid. The car has continued to deteriorate and become more expensive to maintain. Now, my mom complains about the car's condition and claims it's practically hers because she's investing in the repairs, even though the car is registered in my name.
Everytime my mom mentions any issues with the car i tell her to please cut it short bc i'm not comfortable with hesring anything else the car needs to get fixed (the fact i'm going through a heavy depressive episode is not helping either), but i feel one day if she keeps up with this i'll blow up and tell her that is all her fault and that she cost me a nice car i could take care of myself, and that it seems like all she did was scam me out of my money, convince me to take a loan, all for her to mess up big time for something is now not even mine bc all she'll do is gaslight me into just surrendering the car to her.
I understand she's the one that at the end have been investing the most into the car so she'd be right to say that, but i'm not kidding... I feel scammed out of it and i'm tired to not even feel ownership of something i so desperately wanted.
WIBTA? i just need some feedback bc this has been bugging me for a while now

For a little back ground I've been married for 10 years and a few years ago we had something horrific happen in our family and me and my husband both did not cope well at all. We both (mainly me) handled it incredibly badly and our relationship started to break down. Also on mobile and really need to vent so sorry if format is weird and I'm all over the place. Sorry this is long
During this time I got a new job and I loved it and loved my colleagues and made some great friends. During this time "Nice guy" and I started a friendship and I felt comfortable enough talking about my marriage problems. At the time I thought he was just being supportive and not aware of other motives. Eventually "Nice guy" convinced me to cheat on my husband and be with him obviously my husband found out and we took a break.
During this time I started dating "Nice guy" and after a few months I realised I didn't want to be with him, there was no attraction and I found out I hated more about him than I liked and some of it is disgusting such as littering, spitting and the one that really irked me (because I used to work in a fast food chain) was leaving the table a riot because its the workers job to clean it. Anyways During this time I was still in contact with my husband as we had to be due to the family situation and had to know about legal matters.
So I dated "Nice guy" about 6 months maybe less as I had personal things going on as well as mot being attracted and not liking his behaviours. So I broke it off and tried to let him down nicely as possible but unfortunately he mistook this as a "break". Never once did I say break I said finished. I removed his number and didn't have social media at the time apart from reddit and removed him from whatsapp.
During the time we were together my best friend who moved to the otherside of the country so he has never met her added him on Facebook just being curious they never really spoke before this.i just also want to add I'm when I broke it off I got the full shebang of "I don't understand I'm a nice guy" "why would you throw away the one person who ever truly loved you" (lol I've had previous partners and got friends and family that love me) and we can't forget the "I can change."
Anyway I get radio silence for a about a month I get a message on freaking goodreads asking me to contact him because he misses me. I just ignore and delete I've got my own stuff going on and I've really only new him the 9 months I had the job. Next day I get a text saying new number and same misses me. I didn't want to deal with it so I just reply pretending to be someone else and just say they have the wrong number.
Then I get another text the next day and says oh hi OP this is random initial not his. So I have a friend who starts with this initial and she was the last person I had gone out with on a night out she has never had my number ever and wouldn't be able to get it as no one in that friends group have my number and also we weren't super close we would talk now and again. So I say the same thing wrong number and block the number.
Now back to my best friend who lives on the otherside of the country basically he has never met her, never spoke to her until a few weeks ago says he's just wanting to make sure I'm okay my friend replies dryly she's fine. Now to finally get to the title my friend has replied to one message being dry but over the course of the week has sent 16 messages to her which doesn't seem like a lot. I would post but I don't know how to edit the video she sent to protect her name. But these aren't like one word messages these are pages long about how much he misses me and loves me she didn't even open the messages. She accidentally only opened it today and showed me.
Also after I broke it off I left my job due to more illness related than anything else but he was also apart of it and I hate that. I've also still got my work badge that I haven't handed back because I do not want a conversation with him.
Me and my husband and currently going to couples therapy and have talked about everything and trying to fix our marriage my best friend isn't aware of this yet as we've only started the process and don't want People involved yet which is why she hasn't told "Nice guy". I am also very convinced that if he new my address he would turn up. But yeah 16 messages doesn't seem a lot but when there pages long and over a short span of time.
I also don't think she's blocked and deleted him because she tends to just ignore Facebook and let people delete her and she just ignores the messages anyways.
Oh I also wanted to add he admitted to people he was proud that he broke up marriages as his ex was also married. At this point I'm just waiting for a message on some weird app again or another new number. He doesn't know or understand what reddit is so he won't message here but he would know clearly its about him and I would love to just name and shame him.
Sorry its long just had to rant

Hi everyone,
as a preface, I am currently looking for a therapist to help me with this but that takes a while and I wanted to get some input from people with lived experiences. As a heads-up, I will be talking about my personal struggle with my (male)body and sexuality so if you would rather avoid confronting a similar part of yourself, please feel free to skip this one :).
Also, I am thoroughly inexperienced in this area. If I am saying something that might be insensitive, please to tell, I want to be better.
So for starters I am not out to anyone (even myself). I am currently AMAB, straight, have identified as such all my life and use he/him pronouns. However, I have never felt "masculine"; neither in actions, nor my body.
After many years of slight doubts that I suppressed over and over, I want to finally figure out what I really want/am. I am exhibiting some signs of transgenderism, but I am finding it hard to entertain the thought that I really might be. I am currently just dabbling in thought experiments towards slowly loosening my self-image of "just" male some and I have no idea where this might lead.
As for my actual experience, I have always been the "soft" guy. I danced, sang in choirs, liked to go shopping, enjoyed nice clothes, was mostly friends with girls in high school, hated anything stereotypically "male" and it is and always has been hard for me to connect with other people on that "male" friendship level. I have never, however, had the urge to actively outwardly be more feminine either at least when it comes to anything related to mannerism or dress. It's more when I look at the kinds of social interactions my GFs/sistemother have had with their friends, that I find myself craving similar connections.
My biggest inner struggle is permanently my relationship with my body. In a nutshell, I hate my exterior genitals. I will avoid looking in any mirror, only wear tight underwear that prevents me from noticing things moving around. If I'm having a good day and, say, look down while wearing swimming shorts and I see the outline, my mood sours. I cannot really enjoy receiving intimate attention where that thing is the focus (receiving oral is terrible) while I adore giving pleasure. This makes equitable sexual relations ... a struggle (also I consider myself somewhere on the demi-greysexual side). I have felt like this in some way for probably 20 years (I'm 34 ... kinda late to the game of questioning my gender). I experience pretty strong arousal at the thought of being a woman. Whatever sexual imagery I see, whether in real life or in media, I cannot help but imagine myself as the female part. Just seeing male primary genitals is just about the biggest turn-off. I have tried tucking and have had moderately decent results temporarily but have not found it useful or effective for anything more than a quick feel-good around the house and to see how I would feel when I look down and don't see him (spoiler: pretty good). I would like to be better at it.
I don't know that I would call it gender dysphoria though ... I am generally not unhappy living life as a (soft) guy and while I wouldn't mind exploring some and see how I feel, I currently don't know that living my social life as a woman is what I want. If I could choose to by reborn as a woman, sure, I would say yes but with the path I am currently on, that seems very far away.
I guess I am just confused and finally want to address it and try to do justice by myself. I would be grateful for any insights, experiences, resources, kind words, smiling faces :) Y'all are fantastic and I love the positivity here! Cheers!

I'm glad I found this sub because it's apparently the only place where I can vent about this.
So where do I even start, first we had a cat for about almost 3 years(few months short) and it was a disaster, it was fine for a few months but then later it started and kept destroying/ruining stuff: decorations, drawings of my younger brothers, scratching furniture, yowling every night, leaving hair everywhere to the point that it was impossible to remove it completely for months, biting cables of phone chargers, scratching us from time to time for no reason etc. Then we had to go to the vacation in our home country for a few months or a year but couldn't bring the cat because it didn't have a permission or whatever for us to take it to airplane and it would take months to get it, so we left it in shelter with one colleague to look after it.
Then the crazy stuff really begins... As soon as we came back from the vacation, there was this cat in front of the door in the building every day and she kept feeding it, later it turns out it was pregnant and had a litter, mother decides to take in the small kitten with no hesitation which ends up in it shitting all over the house one time when we went outside. I'm talking all over the floor, couch etc... Which angers the mother a bit but guess what she forgives it hours later like nothing happened, then after a bit more time it turns on it had worms in it's poop since surprise: taking a random cat from street which had no checking with the vet or anything can be problematic. She finally agrees to take it outside and let it on streets where it was later taken by some people. Also not to mention how she defends literally anything cats do including destroying wildlife but at the same time says that she is some animal lover.
This is the part where I would like to say that it all ended here, but it didn't...
We once again vent to vacation to our home country next summer and when we returned we went to another place(we have to move a bit for now because of a job of our father, it's temporary thankfully) and this place is a nightmare: whole litter of stray cats in the streets around and literally almost the same situation happened as last time: there was a pregnant cat in front door, mother starts feeding it and makes a litter of 4 of them in total, neighbors can't take it anymore and decide to kick them out and she moves them on the roof. There was multiple attempts of neighbors to kick them out and show them that they are unwelcome here, but to no avail since she made the roof their playground. One neighbor decides to admittedly overreact and literally pushes the cat from the roof and it falls on parked van leaving the 3 kittens up, it survives because it's a cat and runs away, obviously I don't support this act and never would, but the neighbors are so fed up on it that it was only a matter of time before someone would snap. AND THEN, mother takes the 3 kittens IN THE HOUSE immediately and tells the father to call the vet and shelter in order for them to be given for adoption, but until then she will look after them on the balcony. After some time, this cat returns but is hurt and recovers slowly, mother finally takes them out of the house few days later and returns them to the same spot on the roof. Still weeks later no sign of vet calling because it takes time to find people to adopt them.
Now she keeps going to them every single day and spending hours with them, she spends more time daily with random stray cats than with us in home! Few weeks later random stray kitten from the litter in streets gets hurt and she immediately takes it in to nurse it and allows it to sleep in bed, 2 days later she returns it. And now she is absolutely baffled and furious because the neighborhood doesn't give a single shit about stray litters on streets. She just goes around on and on and on about how neighbors are assholes and bad yada yada(except 3 of them who also feed them) because they don't feed stray hordes on streets like this is an animal shelter and not the place where people live and was talking shit about one woman because she saw her being scared to pass because of one cat and swatted it (she most probably has a phobia) and said that ''she was overreacting like it's a dinosaur''. There aren't any foxes, coyotes or birds of prey here so they are free to run amok everywhere and unfortunately the animal control here is very bad unless it's about something bigger.
And now here we are, she goes on the roof every day to spend time with litter she made and observes them like they're animals of Savannah or apes, as soon as she hears some cat meowing or yowling outside, she rushes to find it to feed it, goes in and out of the home like 50 times a day because of it, spends a lot of money on cat food etc. Thankfully we're here not for long more and we'll hopefully soon settle down on the place where we were before father had to start travelling because of job and be free from this because there strays actually aren't that much present and few that it had aren't allowed in or near the building thankfully.

Hi everyone, I’m new to Reddit and it’s nice to see communities like this. I’m having a panic attack right now, I’m under control and it’s been happening so long that even though I can’t breathe and my heart feels like it’s beating funny I know I’m not going to die necessarily, although it feels like it.
I had a TBI in 2021 that haunted my military career, I ended up getting out. During that healing process I had bouts of anxiety and panic, as well as DPDR which is a whole nother ball of wax.
Since then I have been improving, but it is hard! Today for the first time in a long time, I had a small redbull and drank a beer, I wanted to test my limits and see if any improvement has come over the years. I’m sober, I don’t drink, no drugs, no tobacco/nicotine not even caffeine. Not because I choose not to, I can’t! I was sitting in my chair watching a movie and my throat got tight, chest too. Heart felt like it was beating funny, palms got sweaty, got nauseous, I was panicking. I still am, but for some reason writing this out makes me feel better, relieved maybe?
Ladies and gents, what gives? When does it end? Does it end? It’s been close to three years now and I’m always anxious. I’m always paranoid and on edge. I’m prescribed medications and they DO help but sometimes the physical symptoms are so intense it overpowers the meds, and myself! I can’t self talk myself out of it and have to suffer the duration.
I’m afraid I know the answer to the question, but does the suffering ever end or do I just learn to live with it how it is.
Thank u for reading this far, any help is greatly appreciated 👍🏻

“I attended middle school with her, although we did not attend high school together (she instead attended a high school that was supposed to help students gain college credits. She earned two liberal arts degrees while there in Social and Behavioral Sciences and Natural Sciences. She now attends an HCBU, and has on her LinkedIn profile that she is presently working toward graduating from her college with a degree in Health Sciences, Pre Med, and a minor in Military Science. She is apart of her school’s Army ROTC.)
I remember that a lot of people in middle school did not like her (although that was also the case for me,) and I understood why. She seemed noticeably introverted, yet also didn’t seem like the kind of person, at least from my perspective, who would try to appease you in the way I imagine a lot of people feel the stereotypical woman might. She had a strong glare (I remember mentioning this to my then best friend’s mom, who agreed with the suggestion) and stood out to me as being weird (it wasn’t necessarily anything she said or did - not her personality, exactly - it’s just the strong glare I mentioned, like she didn’t tend to look sincerely happy nor would she pretend to be unless she was around friends of hers. I remember that she didn’t tend to look happy, in my opinion. It’s possible that she was depressed, or she may have just tended to look irritable, I don’t know. She didn’t strike me as being the kind of person who would make an effort to be polite, struck me as being tomboyish and unladylike, the kind of person who wouldn’t try to change the way she was for you - I wasn’t used to it. Seemed competitive, too. I had truly never interacted with a girl who was like that before. She also struck me as being smart, although she was in the normal math class whereas I was in the advanced one (I was known for being smarter, but thought it should have been her. However, I did notice after looking at her LinkedIn profile that there were more grammatical errors than I expected.)
I remember that she and her friend (who I later on ended up being on good terms with) decided early on that they disliked me, although I hadn’t done anything to them, which bothered me. They also once used me for food in sixth grade, which had also bothered/upset me.
I remember that my former best friend had issues with her ranging back to elementary school, and that in sixth grade in particular they were competing for the attention of an ISFP they’d both been friends with since elementary school. This girl is the one who won the ISFP’s attention/was officially her best friend by the time they were in seventh grade. However, around seventh or eighth grade (it’s been so long that I no longer quite remember,) she “ditched” (in the words of my former best friend) the ISFP and the other friend I’d mentioned in favor of a new crowd. I actually remember my former best friend suggested that the people in her new crowd didn’t like her, either (although she hung out with them throughout eighth grade, and briefly went to high school in person with one of them as a junior whilst presumably taking courses at the other high school online, so I assume that she never knew this/didn’t read them well enough to know or understand this.) I notice that she unfollowed the ISFP at some point as a senior, though the ISFP never unfollowed her (she strikes me as being the kind of person who likely took note of the fact that the ISFP’s life doesn’t seem to be heading in a good direction - the ISFP was abused a few years ago, and has had substance use issues since, in addition to having had to repeat a year of high school. She also unfollowed my former best friend, and my former best friend recently unfollowed her back.)
She figured out that I was the one who owned the middle school gossip account (although most of our peers already suspected, and technically, this girl couldn’t prove it either.) She figured this out because she remembered that I was standing nearby when she told my former best friend who she had a crush on (I was being mean and told our peers who she was crushing on.) However, she never directly confronted me about the matter, even though she told my former best friend that she suspected it to be me. She later on changed her mind when I was kind to her friend who lost the role for graduation speaker to me toward the end of eighth grade (but she was right the first time.)
I noticed around junior year that she has actually turned out to be quite nice looking, even though I had once meanly suggested that she was fat in middle school (she was a tad bit chubby, though as an adult I’m inclined to suggest that this was likely simply baby fat/that with us being so young there wasn’t really anything wrong with this.) She does seem to wear makeup, but also has nice style (she is light skinned, and has a looser hair texture, which are likely factors in me thinking she’s attractive, if I’m being honest - she’s mixed race, with a black mother and white father.) I can’t possibly know, but she gives off the impression to me of being someone who knows that she’s attractive (just something about her energy/facial expressions in photos. She has her Instagram account public now.)”
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That’s all it was. A game.
Something my friends and I used to play during the summer when we had nothing better to do. I never expected that it would get so out of hand.
I never expected it to come back long after recovery.
To anyone reading, please don’t do what I did.
I’m putting this out there to warn people.
On that warm summer evening, we played the role of Pandora.
Except, the monsters we released were far worse than what’s told in stories.
Because stories end.
And this doesn’t.
I still remember the date. July 16, 2013. I was an upcoming senior in high school while the others were getting prepared for their freshman year of college, raving on about their majors, life plans, dorms, you get the point. The summer had been bittersweet as those months would be the last I’d see them for a while. Because of this, Anthony, Lola, Eliza, and I would spend the bulk of our time together going to festivals and various camping trips, trying to make the most out of the summer while we could. On that day, the day I wish I could forget, Eliza had run late to one of our hangouts at my place. This was odd since as an Ivy league student, she was usually early or right on time to these kind of things. Half past three, we heard her knocking on my door rapidly, which was also out of character considering that she was usually the calm one in our group. A bit worried, I hurried down the stairs with Anthony and Lola following close behind, expecting Eliza to be in hysterics due to her frantic behavior. When I opened the door, however, there she was with a bright smile on her face, her red hair getting in the way of her eyes, which were a dark green shade. She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held a brown box in the other, and she was bouncing up and down as she usually does when she’s about to talk about something exciting.
“You’ll never believe what I found.” Eliza’s voice could barely hold her impatience as she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off once she crossed over my threshold.
“What’s up with you today?” Anthony questioned, looking more confused than concerned now.
“I’ll show you guys in a minute. Can we go up to your room, Felix?” Eliza looked over at me with her trademark smile, knowing damn well we were all too curious to just leave that box unopened. Without a word, I led the group up to my room and shut the door after everyone had walked in. Anthony took his usual spot on my beanbag and unzipped his hoodie, which had the MSM logo sprawled across the front in big red letters. He adjusted his dark rimmed glasses and took on his usual stoic expression. Lola wore a dark blue FIT shirt, which she revealed more of when she moved her locs over her shoulder as she sat on my desk chair and wheeled over to us. As she did, the various necklaces she wore clinked against each other. Eliza herself was the smartest out of the group, and probably in the whole school as well. She had gotten accepted into multiple prestigious schools, but ultimately settled for Harvard to pursue a degree in some obscure philanthropic career. Unlike Anthony and Lola, Eliza wore her regular outfit –usually a white tank top and jeans– and sat on my bed with the box in her lap. I took a seat next to her to get a closer look.
“So what’d you find?” The others moved closer.
“Something we probably haven’t thought about for a really long time. Do you guys remember that one game we used to play in middle school? The one we made after Felix joined our class?” Eliza looked at our puzzled faces to see if we had connected the dots, but her clue didn’t seem to strike any of us with familiarity.
“After Felix joined? Didn’t we just hang out or something that weekend?” Anthony questioned.
“We did, but there was something else,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “you guys seriously don’t remember?”
At that moment, I saw Lola’s eyes light up and a thin smile grew on her lips, something she always did whenever she was able to figure something out.
“You mean that little map game we played? Where we would go out to the woods and explore?”
Both Anthony and I seemed to have remembered as well with the mention of a ‘map game.’ I chimed in, “ yeah I remember! Every once in a while when we were all bored, we’d pick a random spot on a map to go to and explore there for a bit, right? When did we stop doing that anyways? I remember really enjoying it.”
“Well life happens,” Eliza responded to me, “but I was thinking of things to do for the rest of the summer when I suddenly remembered that game! That’s why I was so late for our meetup today, I was looking through my attic for this.” Eliza shook the box slightly and a couple things clattered around inside.
“There’s no way.” Anthony sounded like he was in disbelief.
“You mean…?” Lola sat forward in the chair. Eliza smirked, her adventurous nature creeping out as realization swept over us like a wave.
“Mhm! I found the map we used to use as well as the things we collected from our little escapades.” With that, Eliza opened the box, revealing a folded piece of paper and various trinkets scattered over the bottom of the capsule. Lola squealed with excitement and immediately snatched the box from Eliza, who simply chuckled and leaned back on the bed.
“No way! Everything’s still in here!” Lola digged through the box and placed whatever objects she found across the blanket. Anthony got up and sat at the foot of my bed, to observe our findings more closely. There was a piece of some clay pottery, some rusty springs and scraps of metal, an old digital camera, and some other random stuff I can’t recall to memory right now. Anthony picked up a spring and turned it in his palm.
“Shit man, this is from that abandoned junkyard we found in 8th grade…that feels like such a long time ago now.”
I examined the piece of pottery with Eliza looking over my shoulder. Lola picked up the digital camera.
“Do you remember where this came from?” I turned to Eliza and held up my discovery.
“No clue,” she shrugged. It must have been a while ago if even she didn’t remember. I turned the piece over and grew curious when I saw weird symbols inscribed on the inside of it. I squinted a bit, trying to discern some sort of pattern within the scribbles.
I turned to Eliza again, “hey, what do you think-”
“OH MY GOD GUYS IT STILL WORKS!” Lola’s voice went up a whole octave as she motioned to us.
The rest of us looked up as she turned the camera to face us. There were various photos we went through. All of us at lakes, museums, exploring the woods; everything we did from 7th grade until my freshman year seemed to be documented. The last photo was arguable the best and msot bittersweet. It was a picture of the whole group from a while ago. We were sitting at Eliza’s dinner table with a giant chocolate cake on the middle of it adorned with two candles shaped like the numbers one and five. Eliza was talking to me in the photo. Her hair was even more red at the time and she wore it in a braid. I looked about the same in the photo as I did then, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over my body and face. I was smiling sheepishly at Eliza. I now knew why Anthony said it was obvious I had a crush on her in 8th grade. Lola went through the most changes out of all of us. At the time in the photo, she had her hair straightened and side-swept, with a bright pink streak in her bangs. She wore clunky jewlery and a frilly skirt underneath a long tank top, leaning over the table to cut another slice of cake. All of us had birthday hats on except for Anthony, who kept his sitting on the table. He held up a peace sign staring straight into the camera with a stoic expression. He looked like a statue compared to the rest of us, who were laughing and smiling. You could tell he was having fun, though.
“Well don’t you look like a ray of sunshine,” Lola snickered as Anthony shot her a dirty look.
“At least I didn’t go through some weird scene phase in freshman year,” He smiled and watched Lola’s face, knowing she was blushing despite her dark skin which made it practically invisible. I let a laugh slip out, but quickly stifled it knowing that if I kept going it would mean death. Lola side-eyed me and continued, “I was using my creative liberty to experiment with my options as an artist,” she said with an overly-posh accent that made Eliza laugh.
“Yeah Anthony, don’t be such a downer,” Eliza teased. Anthony simply rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile to pretend like he was mad at all of us. He looked into the box and picked up the paper we left, unfolding it with a hint of excitement and curiosity. When he looked at it, only two words came out of his mouth.
“Holy shit.”
“What, what is it?” Lola tried to look at the other side of the paper, but Anthony quickly held it out of her view.
“What if I didn’t want to show you?” A smile crept onto his face. This was one of those rare moments where he’d be in the moos to joke around with us.
“Don’t be a dick bro,” I said, laughing as I went to grab for the paper. Anthony just held it up in the air and pushed me off of him and I landed on my floor. While he was distracted, though, Eliza took her chance and snatched the paper right out of his hand.
“You boys need to learn to be nice,” she warned in her jokingly stern voice as she unfolded the paper and spread it out onto my bed. We all leaned over to look.
It was a map of a couple towns including ours. There were around ten small star stickers placed on different areas on the map near the streets the four of us lived in. On the top of the map, a couple words were scrawled in black sharpie; “Pick a Place!” I could see everyone’s faces light up.
“Oh my god it’s our map!” Lola shouted and pointed to one of the stars near her street, “this was where we found that old junkyard right?”
Eliza smiled, “I remember that. It feels like such a long time ago now.” She pointed to another star, “and this is where we found that lake we made a hideout of. I still remember swimming in there in 8th grade…”
The four of us reminisced for a while, talking about where we had gone and what we did there, and how impressive it was that we didn’t get tetanus from that junkyard. After nearly an hour of conversation, Eliza asked something that made all of us stop.
“So how about it guys? Do you want to do one last round before the summer ends?”
The rest of us looked around at each other. It was clear we all wanted to do it. Eliza seemed to catch on and she nodded.
“Who wants to pick where we go?”
“How about you do the honors?” Lola suggested, motioning towards the map. “You’re the one that brought this stuff in anyways.”
Eliza raised her eyebrow but didn’t object. Without a word, she examined the map for a few minutes, then placed her finger on one spot a bit far from my house.
“How about here?”
“You think we can make it that far?” Anthony asked.
“Well, we can drive now so why not?”
“You sure there’s some type of trail we can drive on? That spot looks pretty deep in the woods”
“We can find a path to drive on for a bit then walk the rest of the way. C’mon guys, this is probably our last chance to do something like this! Felix, you can drive right?”
Eliza and the rest turned to me with a hopeful expression. I had to comply.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
All three of them cheered and high fived each other, looking pretty excited to go on one last adventure.
“So when do we leave?” I questioned.
Eliza flashed that smile again, “right now.”
“Right now?!”
“Hell yeah,” Lola chimed in. “It shouldn’t take that long, right?”
“I guess…” Even then I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I didn’t feel prepared enough to go on some random trip into the woods. I needed to pack food, water, flashlights, I had no idea how long this was going to take. Little did I know that those things would be the least of my worries a couple hours from then. I wish I could go back and convince my 17-year-old self that it wasn’t worth it, that I should just convince my friends to stay and talk for the rest of the day. I wish Eliza had never remembered that stupid game. In a way, I’m almost mad at her for what happened, but I know it wasn’t anyones fault. We just wanted to have fun. I wish we could’ve just had fun. But God had a different plan for us. One that made me think Satan himself devised it instead. On July 16, 2013, Anthony He, Lola Smith, Eliza Landserson, and Felix Johanson went on an adventure that none of them were ready for.
Author's Note:
If you just read all of that then thank you so so so much for doing so! I'm a rookie writer, so feel free to comment any constructive criticism you might have if you have actual writing experience! This is the first silly little story I'm posting here, so I hope you enjoyed :)

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but one of my favorite, creepy parts of Starfield was the mini quest of the Pale Lady. I don't know if this was meant to be some devious supernatural cosmic entity, a Starborn, or something else, but I want more of it.
So, Bethesda, or our phenomenally talented CK modders, please expand on the Pale Lady quest. A quest objective started from the initial ship contact to a larger vessel like the Colander or maybe a custom POI for those of us who like horror that's not so in your face but makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Thanks!

Hi! I'm currently a student in med school, that has alot more free time that she should (mostly because of procrastination), and I'm looking for some quality conversations that could be long term if energies are matched.
My interests are reading, listening to music, cooking (even though I don't have much time for it) and just trying my best to make the most out of the little time that we have. I also love to eat, but with my stature it doesn't show that.
Physical attributes if that's essential to you: I'm black (or afro-Caribbean), 5'3 (160cm), of average build, with short black hair, and very dark brown eyes.
I'm not looking for anything in particular (as long as it's SFW) so Ig this is just more of a go with the flow kind of thing. Thanks for reading and I hope you'll have a blessed day.

ೃ༄🐛ೃ༄ introduction ೃ༄🐛ೃ༄

if you are involved in the shifting community, you may have seen the mention of some sort of 'lifa app' with no explanation as to what it is. sometimes, in scripts, it will say stuff such as...
'when i shift to this reality, i will have a lifa app to check in on my cr self and it cannot be deleted or destroyed.'
but what is the app that everyone is talking about? is it an actual app or sort of app in another reality that everyone just knows of?
in this post, i will be explaining the lifa app as a full guide of how to use it. its features, and what it is.

༊·˚🌿 what is the lifa app? ༊·˚🌿

the lifa app is a reality shifting based app that lets you keep track of your dr or multiple drs in literally every way imaginable. from the time it is to your memories. it even gives you diary entries for yourself. it is meant to be used as a tool to help shifters keep track of all of their information about them and their dr. it also allows a gateway to meet other shifters like yourself and shift with them to the same reality.

｡･ﾟﾟ･ 🥞 🥯 features 🥯 🥞 ･ﾟﾟ･｡

the lifa app has many features. the main ones you can see first are dr details, visualizations, group shifting, sharing.
let's go over each feature one by one.

: ̗̀➛ dr details

the first thing that you will get when you are greeted by this an i icon that says about this dr. when you click on it, you are able to type the location and a background story about your desired reality.
: ̗̀➛ time
this feature allows you to add a time and date to your dr. time will pass the same as it does here. for example in my dr, it is currently november 19, 2130 and is 1:47 pm. i chose to freeze time in this dr and submitted it.
: ̗̀➛ theme
this holds the name of what your dr is called, the icon it has, and the background of it when you click on the app. you can also choose the font color and a background tint as well. it also holds your name in your dr.
: ̗̀➛ timeline
you are able to establish a timeline of your desired reality before the point that you shift. i recommend keeping it brief to the important stuff. main instances of childhood and things that you remember with the same importance as you do now.
: ̗̀➛ notion script
this feature is if you have a script on the website notion script. it is a website in which you can gather and fill in shifting templates and is a great way to organize yourself. this is not necessary though. there are other features you can use for your script on here.
: ̗̀➛ about me
this is just a section where you write all about yourself. your name, your age, nicknames, safe word, height, hometown, ethnicity, race, nationality, sexuality, pronouns, gender, language(s), positive traits, negative traits, habit, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and skills.
: ̗̀➛ relationships
when you enter this tab, it will take you to a screen that has a place where you can add family members, friends, pets, significant other(s) or 'other'. the other tab has you in it.
when you decide to add let's say a friend, you start off by adding their name. then there age, closeness, and appearance. you can follow that up by adding a photo of said friend. you can type in relationship dynamic, how you met, and extra info. the format is the exact same no matter the type of relationship aside from pets.
the pet section is a little bit different. you add their name, age, species, pet bed, size, and about them.
there is also a recorder option where you can move around the placements of these characters.
: ̗̀➛ scenarios
this includes upcoming scenarios that you had planned, past scenarios that you did while in your reality, desired upcoming scenarios that include no date but you want to do or have plans to do. finally, you have memories which has no date. these are things that you will automatically remember when in your dr.
it's just a brief section where you can type in a title and add as much as you want of details of that memory. you can add a photo and select if it has a date or if it is a past memory or not.
: ̗̀➛ calendar
this just has the date of your dr. you can also create events on specific dates. that's pretty much it, this section is short.
: ̗̀➛ diary
you can write diary entires. talk about your day, memories, anything that may make you feel closer to your dr. this section is also short.
: ̗̀➛ playlist
so is this one. you make a playlist. and link the playlist, whenever you open the playlist, you get a new tab that takes you to that playlist to listen. i use it to keep my shifting subliminal playlist, but you don't have to.
: ̗̀➛ hero/villain
this is a tab within a tab so i'm bolding it. the first tab is customize, but that feature is locked behind a paywall with a monthly subscription of $3.99. i will talk about the subscription later.
then you have powers. you type the name of it and what your powers do. you have weapons which have the same explanation as powers. missions means you can make your own missions.
then there is combat skills. you list your strength, speed, agility, intelligence, compatibility, stamina, and flexibility out of five. then you can add your backstory. it's a blank sheet where you can type it out.
next is costumes where you describe what your costume looks like.
ally team includes your team name, how well you work together, specific events and upcoming battles, and other details. you can also add relationships from your relationship section and names of that.
enemy team is relatively the same. a team name, specific events or battles, other details, and can once again, select relationship with each member.
finally, there is timeline which has a title and description. you can also add scenarios if needed.
thankfully, that is thee last feature about dr details and we can now move on to visualizations.

: ̗̀➛ visualizations ‧₊˚🖇️✩

this tab focuses all on the visual aspects of your desired reality. even if you can't visualize, you can still use these to get a good idea on what things will look like.
: ̗̀➛ appearence
you can add a hair claim, face claim, body claim, hand claim, voice claim, and specific features claim. personally, i think that the last one could be explained easily in body or face claim.
either way, when you press one of these tabs, you can type in a detailed description on what you look like. now, i didn't notice at first but all the way at the bottom will be a small section that says add photo to which you can go into your gallery and choose a photo for yourself on that specific claim.
: ̗̀➛ wardrobe
this section will include an area that says wardrobe. you press the giant + sign on the top right hand corner and it takes you to a section that says create wardrobe. all you gotta do is add a title and a description. once you do that, you click on the tab again and then add a photo of a specific outfit of yours. you can add multiple photos, move them around using the recorder option right next to photos.
: ̗̀➛ photo gallery
you can make multiple photo galleries , customize albums of different things relating to your dr.
: ̗̀➛ pinterest boards
here you can add the link to your pinterest board...and a title. that's about it.
: ̗̀➛ wallet
this does not connect to any funds in this reality. it's supposed to keep track of money in your dr. i find this feature a bit dumb tbh and seems to waste more time preparing to shift than actually shifting.
: ̗̀➛ outfits
again, this is the same as wardrobe but more customized. you can add each individual clothing item separately if you wanna do that.
: ̗̀➛ belongings
you add photos and a title of what you own and its sentiment. yeah.
: ̗̀➛ or self
it has a stick figure of you. you list your family, what they're doing, their location, and your action, mood, and location.
: ̗̀➛ music group dr
without paying, you can only add one music group and one album. there is a members tab but you need a monthly subscription in order to access it.
i use this feature in one dr to describe my favorite band to listen to and an album i like. if you wanna add more than one album, then you also need to pay,
: ̗̀➛ school app
this is a doozy and has multiple tabs so this will be rapid fire.
you have your student i.d. report card, schedule.
schedule contains period, subject, and teacher. your school in your dr. you can add a photo, location, mascot, colors, class song, traditions, and history of your school.
you can also add your school uniform if you have one. this includes daily uniform and gym uniform. you can add a school map and a yearbook (????????)
again, these are fine i think but the yearbook seems unnecessary, just script who is in your class with you.
also there's a teacher mode but you can only access that with payment.
: ̗̀➛ chat
you can make a chatroom. and roleplay as every single member in that chatroom...for some reason. i don't need to repeat myself here, you already know what i'm going to say.
: ̗̀➛ chat ai
this is locked behind a paywall. just use character ai, it's free and you don't have a limit of 200 messages per day.
: ̗̀➛ family tree
for some reason you can't add siblings. the only way to add siblings kinda is to make them have the same parents as you on a new family tree.
this is just so not necessary. just write down your siblings in your script. no need for your entire extended bloodline. the universe will figure that out.
: ̗̀➛ places
you add places in your dr.
: ̗̀➛ fame phone
you can make a knock off insta account, twitter account, a wikipedia, and a youtube. again, not needed. just shift. also the settings and notifications features are locked behind a paywall.

: ̗̀➛ group shifting

you need to convert your account into an online account. but you can connect with other people and plan to shift together as a group. for those that don't know, group shifting is where you and one or more people collectively decide to shift to the same dr as different people and basically share an experience in that dr.

: ̗̀➛ sharing

the exact same thing as above. except this time you can just share your dr. you need an account to access this feature. it can give others ideas on scripts, drs, or anything else of the sort. it can be a great way to connect with others.

𓍯𓂃ᥫ᭡.🩹 final thoughts 𓍯𓂃ᥫ᭡.🩹

i think some of its features are helpful! however, other parts of it can be very distracting from shifting. i almost felt like this was an oc maker rather than shifting app. some of these i think didn't need so many features. the amount of features there are is crazy. the features section alone i needed to divide into several sections because it took so much longer to get through than i initially thought. it took about two hours to review each of them and i had to take breaks in between. to a new shifter especially, this would be so overwhelming.
you don't need face claims, body claims, or special features claims. as long as you have a general idea of what you and your desired reality is like then you're fine. this is just gonna over complicate shifting and make it seem more fictional in a way. if anything, this makes you less connected to your desired reality since your focusing so much on this one.
it wouldn't be a waste to download it but i wouldn't recommend buying it. but if you do, then more power to you.
please stay safe and happy shifting ᥫ᭡

I just had to watch my usually grumpy resident cry on the phone while his daughter cried and told him how sorry she was she couldn't bring him home and how much she misses him.
I've seen hearts break, I watched a son walk in to see his mother only to see for the first time she was actively dying.
I've sat with a resident I swore I'd never get attached to for 12 hours while she's passed away
I've tucked people in for the last time
I've had a resident who I advocated so hard that day die later that night due to neglect. The last thing he told me was "I feel like shit and nobody seems to care."
I've been screamed at by a lady who had a stroke and couldn't speak words because I couldn't understand her
I've been beaten so bad my entire arm was bruised and my hair was ripped out
I've worked 32 hours straight
I've talked with a resident who was dying about where we would travel together. She wanted to see the savannas and rainforest.
This job is so mentally and physically exhausting. I'm so tired.

I've owned my Polestar 2 for 3 weeks now and have a lot to say about the car.
TLDR: - Looks good on the outside and inside with performance and plus packs - Pilot pack adds to an interesting driving experience - Range and electric adds to longer journeys due to charging time and public charging prices are more expensive than petrol
Model Year: 2021 Interior: WeaveTech in Charcoal with Black ash deco - This option is a little dull to be honest. I haven't been in a Nappa Polestar but in pictures that looks really nice. I believe even the slate would look better. - I do like the comfort of the seat but I have had comfier seats. Where it really shines is the number of adjustments you can make to it. - The golden seat belts to match the brake calipers on the performance pack are a nice touch - The centre console is occupies a lot of space without providing much storage. They have tried to give some of that back with the little side storage on it which I like the concept of - no major comments about the controversial cup holder but I wish the centre storage where the second cup holder is had more space - The infotainment system is a little slow and I wish the screen had a button to turn it off for when it's not needed. Overall though I like the Android OS and can see potential once it has time to mature some more. The risk is Google likes to randomly end projects so who knows if it will get canned in some nearby year. - I really like the integration of Google maps. Firstly into the driver HUD and secondly that it can read the battery level and automatically add stops for charging points - The 360 camera is nice but I wish that the view had rear camera in a split screen. Still it's not too bad as I can use the mirrors at the same time to help. - The design of the gear knob is cool, especially with the Polestar logo. - I have the panoramic roof which I think is really cool. Unfortunately as the driver you do not get to enjoy it much. - I wish the lights had more colour options other than white - I like the music auto plays when I sit in the car - I like that there is no on/off. I just sit and drive. - The Harmon sound system is okay but could be clearer. I haven't played around with the mixer yet so maybe need to adjust that for better sound quality.
Exterior: Midnight Performance Pack - Overall I like the exterior of the car. It was one of the main reasons that I bought it. Especially with the performance pack. - Not 100% sure about the front grill though - The front lights look pretty cool. I like the motion they make when you lock/unlock the car. I have the Pixel lights and seeing them in action is awesome. - I think the back looks really nice. I think the rear light looks futuristic and the motion it does when you lock/unlock the car puts the icing on the cake. - The Polestar logo on the car blends in really nicely and isn't so in your face. - The rimless wing mirrors look great. Now whenever I sit in other cars I notice the ugly frame around the wing mirrors. The blind spot warning lights on them are really useful too. - The car has an interesting stance making it somehow look bigger than it really is - The two tone alloys and eye catching yellow brembo brake calipers make a nice combination
Motor: Long range Dual motor - It makes the range a little too short . It has over 50 miles less range than the long range single motor. Despite this I like having the additional performance power available and therefore I am willing to make the sacrifice. - The reduced range and longer recharge time versus a petrol car does add time to roadtrips unfortunately. Charging prices on the road mean the long journeys are more expensive than a petrol car as well. However for local driving it is great and charging at home is very easy and convenient.
Driving experience - The instant acceleration is fun and for this reason I'm seriously considering getting the performance software upgrade. - The steering, even on the firmest setting is still too light for me and doesn't really feel connected to the road. This is to be expected for this kind of car I guess. There is understeer when pushing it a bit as well. Interesting that you can make the car slide. - I am a convert to single pedal driving it is really nice to not really have to use the brakes. I really like going into corners and not having to use the brake to adjust the speed, as well as when having to come to a stop just letting go of the pedal and slowing nicely to a stop. - I'm undecided whether to have creep on or off. I have it on at the moment but I'm considering turning it off - adaptive cruise control with the lane control is amazing on motorways, the car is almost driving itself. Not so useful in local driving, especially in the UK but there's nothing wrong with old fashioned less autonomous driving - I had a fun experience with the rear collision detection. I thought the seatbelts were trying to choke me but after a moment realised that the car is trying to protect me when it thought someone was going to hit me from behind. I love that feature.
Keys: - The fat keys are too big but I barely use them - the active lifestyle key is slim and combined with the touch sensitive door handles suits me very well - I do not believe in my phone enough yet to use it as a full time key however it is very convenient when I just need to go to the car for any quick reason. I don't have to take my key with me because the phone is the key making it a lot more convenient. The polestar app is fairly limited but it's useful to see the battery charge, whether you forgot to lock it and where the car currently is.
One last point that I didn't really know where to fit is that I really like the online documentation that is available for the car, it's really clear and explains a lot of things and I can search through it using Google
Let's see what the next few weeks, months and years brings.