Accept invitation to phone interview

I met a girl on Hinge two weeks ago and we started texting and talking on the phone a lot. We were planning to meet after a week but ended up wanting to see each other sooner and went bowling. Then we made out in her car and told each other we liked one another. A couple days later, she invited me to her house and we slept together (my first time with a girl). The next day, she asked me to meet her best friend.
We’ve been texting and talking on the phone nonstop but all of the sudden she’s acting weird. So we made a plan a week in advance for her to come to where I live and we’d get dinner. I sent her an itinerary on Google Maps with plans for the date (beach, dinner, going to the casino) and thought that would be a cute gesture. She didn’t look at it and the night before told me that she had a golf tournament the next day and would maybe not be able to come because she’d probably be drinking a lot.
Up until the moment she told me she would “maybe” not be coming, she was texting me nonstop. Then when I was asking about why she couldn’t come I asked her to call me (she told me to call her anytime because she likes talking on the phone) and she wouldn’t call me.
I just feel kind of stupid and used right now. This whole time she was telling me that lesbians just move really fast (uhauling) and this was normal. She even took me driving to see the kind of house she wants to buy. I thought that meant something. And now she’s blowing me off and I’m so hurt and confused. Like why not just not drink a lot at the tournament? Why wait until the last minute to say she “maybe” couldn’t come?
If anyone has any sort of insight or advice or can relate I’d appreciate it so much because I feel so hurt right now and don’t know if I should stop talking to her. My heart is broken and it’s only been two weeks :(

Level 45+ pls
Please do not send friend requests unless you are active and intend to attempt interaction DAILY. I am very active and send gifts daily, I try to open in return a couple of times a week. There is no need to co-ordinate opening as I will ensure you have gifts to open for ultra/best for you to open at your convenience(please don't wait too long). Ideally looking for people who want to work towards BEST friends, please don't add unless you are willing to go for that also. Feel free to send me remote raid invitations anytime, will accept if available. Code - 4893 3339 3190

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This is more so about an event that happened a month ago but the crushing weight of it all has set in and I want to use it as a precautionary tale for anyone else in the future. Apologies for the ramble/length of it in advance.
I had gotten into my dream program for my discipline but I was mentally and spiritually not ready. Once I received the offer in February, I was excited but it slowly turned into a deep fear and distain to the point of my chest hurting, incessant headaches, getting regular heart palpitations. My discipline is (or was) computational biology and I had begun to sow seeds of doubt/overthinking in my applications during the winter before. I somehow slowly began to convince myself I’d never amount to any great phd student and my work would be worthless and terrible if I even tried. I ruminated unendingly, stressed unendingly of having forgotten how to code and would never love it again, and that my masters and undergrad theses that I had worked incessantly on in undergrad and masters school were all worthless and built off of the work of others rather than anything I was actually proud of. I didn’t want to acknowledge I was capable, I convinced myself I hated what I accomplished and I’d be miserable if I tried to find joy in what I did again.
During my visits to the most beautiful campus I’d dreamed of for so long, I felt a deep pit of hate towards what I’d do if I was there and that I’d be slaving away for nothing useful for anyone. I dissociated during my interviews with the faculty during the visit, only thinking about how this wouldn’t work out, giving my spiel about my research, and feeling pained whenever they complimented me on how impressed they were with my application. I was angered constantly by how happy the PhD students were with their quality of life. I asked them questions like “how often do you work 12 hour days alone? How do you manage depression with your work? ” I explained how I worked for two years in isolation in a basement lab on two separate 200 page theses in the span of two years on top of some pubs in undergrad and was wondering if there was any similar sense of stress and loneliness. They looked confused.
This pain morphed into a warped idea of: “I’d be bettemore useful being a doctor instead because at least I could help people and the work load wouldn’t be as stressful. It’s more stable and sounds easier! I’ve shadowed a few times, I could do that! Looks fun!”
I got obsessed with analyzing the volatility of my industry and the way contributing to this science would be terrible for humanity. That AI would displace the coding jobs, that there were too many PhDs in the world and not enough MDs. I convinced myself I hated coding. I convinced myself I hated doing science.
The PI who was interested in me was so excited to work with me, I was excited to work with him but my doubt and fear mounted everyday and I increasingly convinced myself it wouldn’t be good for me to do this and I needed to be a doctor instead. The idea that I was taking up space from people who actually wanted this spot became a mounting burden mentally as well.
Up to this point, the whole year I’d been living at home with my parents with no friends so the mounting depression and loneliness led to excessive rumination on how I needed to not do the PhD.
Then the April 15 deadline. I didn’t press accept or deny. I pressed back and forth between the two options on the portal, then the timer ran out. And it all set in what I had done.
Instead of the relief and calm I hoped for once it ran out, I was met only with a deep sense of grief and despair. I informed the PI who was interested in me about what happened and he immediately called my phone. I explained how I just couldn’t at this time, that I just had too many doubts. He told me “it sounds like you just have imposter syndrome, in my 30years I hadn’t seen an applicant at your level for a while, I think you’d be a great scientist, if you still are interested we can get you in.” Then it finally set in. I am a scientist, i need to create knowledge, I just had developed an unhealthy relationship with my work in the past and had distorted who I actually am through endless rumination.
In the end, I didn’t get in. The whole dept understood my situation and were willing to still accept but the head of the grad school said no. Nothing could be done after the deadline. The program wants me to reapply next year as they really loved my application but now Im honestly just trying to figure out if I’ll ever even get in again in a year and whether I should give up at this point.
Don’t let the your thoughts on why things won’t work out dictate how it can work out for you. You don’t have to know everything or be completely competent in all the disciplines entering in. Doing a PhD is about being trained to figure that out. I have to learn to forgive myself for denying myself the opportunity to try.

Successor : u/Intel81994
Hi,
I first found this subreddit and Neville's works in 2018 so I thought I'd share my success/experiences.
I've never posted here, only lurked... daily. I often see people post tiny wins in here like manifesting a test result or a few hundred dollars. I don't see many huge wins except occasionally, or multi-year life changing creations.
Well, I'm not where I want to be bc my goals have gotten a lot bigger, but I've come a long way and finding this work in 2018 changed my life so I want to share with you how.
Not to discourage, but small wins are nothing compared to the deep life changes and incredible abundance you can create in knowing who you really are - just think - there are people out there, several, who own $10M+ houses, multi-millionaires, many came from nothing.
I'm not saying that's the only thing worth striving for or even the source of joy, of course. But my point is anything you want, someone else out there has done it, they are just humans like myself and you.
So here's how my life turned around since 2018 and what I created. The HOW I did so is no different than what you already read on this sub every day.
Neville has been my favorite teacher and this is the MAIN sub I have read over the last few years. I own all of his books and have read them several times.
I regard his methods as most influential for me. This may come off as some motivational story but truth is I use Neville's methods daily and always try to understand and control my beliefs to grow.
Here is how my life changed completely after DOING the work:

• MONEY/TRAVEL : I went from -50k in debt running my own online fitness coaching business at my lowest point not knowing how I would pay rent (long story but I was young and not skilled enough in business at this time to really build a team and 7 figure business like I wanted),

to acquiring amazing skills being an intrapreneur working in a small startup online with a terrific mentor (I manifested this exact position with SATS), traveled the world a crazy amount in the exact places I had wanted to and met a ton of cool people (SATS), over 27 countries now, and grew my net worth to over 250k from 2018-2021.
To my current goals, this is really nothing now and I now surround myself with people doing a ton more than me. So I'm not preaching here, it's just levels to the game right.
I now work professionally in the crypto industry, but also have skills and knowledge to a few types of online businesses in the consulting & marketing space, as well as make money from markets/trading, which is a great vehicle because there are effectively no limits.
I can live anywhere I want, have plenty of cushion and money to live mostly how I want (have larger goals now), have time freedom as well, and most of all, love growth and feel great striving for more. I did SATS to get my current gig.
I've also been trading the last 2 years and no it's not easy, in fact you're competing against algorithms and the best minds in the world so the learning curve is quite steep.
Trading is not easy money, but the potential is there. Besides, trading is just one vehicle, it's not value-additive to the market like businesses are, so I believe it's best used in conjunction with a business/job, and investing longer term is better.
Anyway I turned <40k into ~350K in crypto, and a separate stock portfolio last year.
And yes a lot of that crypto growth was market timing and luck with everything going on, monetary policy and all, and I know people who turned less into several million and also plenty who got liquidated and lost millions. I still spent a lot of time and skill to create that, point is I created all of it in various forms.

• FITNESS/HEALTH: I achieved a more fit and better body than 98% of men have. This was a result of hard work plus these methods and was in 2018 when I decided to undergo a bodybuilding prep for a photoshoot. Great size, leanness, abs, I had been lifting for years but never gotten this in shape.

It was not easy, but I looked incredible, and the exact city/water background scene I had visualized for the photos happened. You can scroll to my IG posts from early 2018 for pics proof.
My health is impeccable and I've for sure made other physical changes, and I think I somehow changed my gf's looks to become better over time too. She was always quite cute though. I'm still very much in shape but now do yoga daily for last few years, as well as lifting.

• LOCATION/LIVING: I manifested the EXACT view I used to visualize in the center of my major city, with a gorgeous view of the ocean and city both, for a great price and have lived here for last 3 years now. In a luxury high rise. I can see ships and yachts right outside my balcony every day. It's literally grander than I even knew to imagine just 5 years ago.
  
• MORE FINANCE: Over the last 2 years my investments and more were doing so well sometimes - not always - that I often was able to have some months making 20-40k, point is I was not worried about work.
  

I also believe parallel realities are real and I used to visualize Bitcoin going to 50k back in 2019 when it had stayed below <10k for 2 years. This was not all due to bitcoin, but rather all sorts of investments, but yes crypto as well.
Some was luck, some was skill and work. All was my creation. I also got quite decent at trading and managing a portfolio that I not only managed to publicly call the exact day of the market TOP in november 2021 but also sniped the bottom in July. Intuition plus knowledge.
So I kept this money, it is not bleeding out in my portfolio with the market. I've devoted a LOT into mastering this craft but again, self concept and Neville helped.
I got hacked for 60k-70k a few months back and chose to give it new meaning and manifested a career change to crypto industry, landing a position making over 10k per month (I'm not happy with this at my current standards of income, but I'm grateful), that I am growing to 20k per month of active income now with other streams.
What's interesting in my recent career manifestation is I decided I want a position that basically pays me to do what I already do (I was independently researching and managing a multi-6 figure crypto portfolio... over a quarter million dollars combined money that I was managing. )
I now get paid a full time 6 fig salary to do nothing extra from what I was already doing and barely work on the actual job with plenty of time for other stuff.
I just decided it was done and that's it. Also of course it's remote... knowing what I know, I will only consider remote jobs (never worked in a physical office and I've actually never had a w2 job before this, always doing sales and stuff or my own thing).
I have been working on increasing my standard to 25k per month minimum of active income generation. Had a lot of ideas come through. I’m just not the type to have a job I think but I have to figure out what I can build again.
Compared to who I want to be at a later date that’s also nothing much. Again, levels to the game.
Now also working on growing a business in this space. This hack event was pretty traumatic but I now see how I 100% manifested it. And I can choose to also create something far greater out of the event now.
With every job I've ever had, I've never worked in an office. I've only ever been remote or online because this is the only thing I was willing to accept. Being a digital nomad has been my norm since I graduated college.
Be specific in what you want and do not settle.
I went to a top 5 US public university and even manifested myself to lead a large pre-med club on campus (I was a pre med student) before I knew Neville. I'm now very glad I chose to go my own route instead of medicine for several reasons beyond scope of this post but anyway.

• SP: Manifested my SP (gf) back in 2018 and we have a great relationship going on 6 years now (together since 2016). I focus more on self love and feeling I AM God rather than seeking it externally. My consciousness and inner connection is my source of sustenance.
  
• Honestly there are so many other crazy little things I can't possibly keep track. Every day I have synchronicities like crazy still. I don't give them much meaning but just take it to mean that I am aligned.
  

My best mental model/tips

• Delude yourself into knowing that imagination is MORE real than the 3d. The 3d is 'old news.' Meaning it's a shadow world. The real creation is happening in your imagination, and there is a time lag in this physical world.

Live in your imagination and tune out anything that does not serve keeping you in an optimal state where you feel in control. The more you focus on things that are meant to distract you or displease you, which state do you create from?

• I do SATS during the day, works fine for me, I don't think it matters much if day/night, but you need to do it. Follow a guided hypnosis session to get deeper into trance first if it helps.
  
• Act and trust deeply that life is leading you to what you want, and the meaning you give to events is literally what molds your future. Choose empowering meanings. Stop being a victim.
  

Make a resolve to never think of yourself as a victim of forces out there, the economy, evil people, whatever it is. You want to control your reality then act like it internally.

• Make a daily routine checklist and stick to it so you internally feel in control of your reality. Mine is: SATS or revision, meditate or breathwork, EFT or writing, cold shower, no phone in the morning, wake at 6am, and of course I exercise daily in some form. I use a spreadsheet to make sure I hit my routines for the day so I don't be a victim but rather stay in control. This is critical for me.
  
• As long as you occupy the realms of consciousness that you want, the result WILL come via downloads and hunches and thoughts, and insane physical things will happen that will 'seem like it would have happened anyway' so don't worry about the how.
  

Random Musings
The thing with manifesting is we sometimes take a passive route and wait for things to happen to us (and sure this is fine and still works), but think- if you don't grow your mental, emotional, skills container to deal with large amounts of money, or a team, or skills to sell and market and manage money... if you suddenly get 500K or 1M, how are you going to hold on to it?
If you lack personal power and execution skills, say you suddenly win 5M from the lottery, do you have the skills to keep it and make decisions at a level that can fluctuate several millions? It's stressful and requires thinking completely differently.
You have to 'stress test' your consciousness and expand your container.
I know that because I got hacked (stolen) ~70k it means nothing because the version of me who makes multi-7 figures a year deals with fluctuations of multi-6 figures in his portfolio all the time, it's part of the game. and I HAVE dealt with 6 figure fluctuations in my portfolio before this hack so it wasn't super new in that sense.
You know time is not real, it's all happening now, Creation is already finished, so you should also know that the way to 'hack' time is making decisions from a place of the future version of yourself you already are.
Make a commitment to stop playing small and settling for crumbs. Why would you get hung up on the one limited way your ego thinks that abundance has to manifest in your life, or love, instead of just feeling the emotions themselves, knowing it's done, and letting your life color it in in grander ways than you could have imagined.
Funny little manifestations and things happen literally every day that I just take it as reflections of me being in my creative power.
Something crazy/funny that happened was on our last trip, I told my girlfriend 'hey, how funny and weird would it be to see a parrot meowing?' - then next day we sit at a cafe and there is a parrot in a cage outside, meowing loudly. The most bizarre manifestation, I didn't even intend for it, just asked hey would it not be funny. Things like this happen so often, I can't keep track.
There is nothing new to learn. Just do the techniques and do self care rituals and get lost in your work. Feel the feeling of utter abundance and freedom now and it will happen.
We live in an advanced economy with the internet, it has never been easier to start or fund a business compared to even 50 years ago (see interest rates), distribution has never been easier, so if you know these tools, why would you not create the biggest dream you can imagine? Why settle for a free $200?
I realize there are levels people go through however so I don't mean to belittle, but now that I have been through so much and grown, I know there is nothing separating myself from multi millions and VC's and creators of large companies except belief, work, and time in this reality.
I have the knowledge, belief, and skills to not need a job if I don't want one. I can instead offer something to the market and be independent.
I'm telling you this stuff works and is sustainable. You can be as specific as you want and get whatever you want, and trust that with the turns life takes you through, it is a BRIDGE meant to turn you into the person to get and sustain what you say you want. Decide it and it is so.
I am someone who is a first generation American immigrant, my parents moved to the US from India when I was 5 and we had very little here. I grew up 'lower' middle class, and didn't have the best money programming from parents, but I always did well in school.
I KNOW I am going to be the first multi millionaire in my family. It's all in how you think about yourself/self concept and the work you do from that mindset. Do actions and shift your environment in accordance with who you want to be.
I always splurge on self care now and do things like fly business class or pay more for a better room because that's who I internally am. Just find a way to produce more and let it flow instead of shrinking yourself to be someone you’re not in your 4D
I don't try to scrimp and penny pinch, I let money flow. Even though getting stolen 70k was traumatic, oh well, I chose to give it a better, empowering meaning and my reality shifted.
That's all I have to say. Do the work. Stop procrastinating with learning. All the teachers, scripture, it's all the same Truth at the core. Learning is fine because you learn different mental models at different points of your life but you need to do the work.
I've been fortunate to not only have explored TONS of teachers and books in this realm, you name it I've probably read it or have a copy, I've also HAD mentors and WORKED directly under multi millionaires older and more experienced than me who know this work very well and knew Neville specifically, and it's the real deal. I did sales for someone in the online coaching space was was very well off and had decades of success and spoke of Neville very often, it was really cool.
Proof of the Law
I don't know what more proof you need that the Law is real. All religions throughout eternity have known this, Neville just distilled the same Truth through his own methods that work really well in my opinion and I personally love his interpretation of scripture.
The most successful people in the world are usually consciously (and some unconsciously) doing these same actions. Just do the work and focus on it coming from a good place of knowing that it's done. You don't need to know HOW but you just need to know the plane is going to somehow land one day.
I just come back to Neville every time, because his methods are simple and philosophies work well for how I think. I've done tons of psychedelic mushrooms over the years which luckily made me very open to this sort of thinking, before that I was very rigid and too '3d scientific' minded in my thinking. Keep in mind there is actually nothing 'unscientific' about the Law... modern science has its own limitations in that we cannot measure many things.
What used to be called magic in years past is now under the realm of science right? I'm not saying I don't value logic and science... I have a science degree from a top 5 university.
I'm just saying your ego mind which wants to keep you stuck and surviving uses the excuse of logic and science when that's actually not the full scope of how reality works, we are incredibly limited in our conscious understanding of reality.... we don't even know what we're doing here on a floating rock in infinite space and we can hardly see much of the light spectrum as it is.
So remember that when your ego tries to believe in your limitations and the 3d reality only. You being here is magic that even the most advanced science does not know the answer to. Do scientists know fundamentally why there is something at all instead of nothing?
Anyway, one more thing is I've never been shy of making relatively bold and fast decisions, investing in a mentor (for business) and just generally betting on myself.
Because getting around people who think bigger than you and don't settle is a hack and it's worth every penny. There is a reason millionaires hang with other millionaires.
I'm not saying to cut people out of your life (unless toxic) but rather to seek proximity and get around winners or pay to join some mastermind in business or whatever you need to do to network in your realm.
Just last week I invested 7.5k for get into a network of high performing young male entrepreneurs just because I want a better network in real life and work on business tactics and execution. When I was 23 I invested 25k that I did not have at the time (I made it happen and earned it back) to get a business mentor. So I use all of this in combo with Neville's methods primarily. I really like revision method as well.
The act of DECISION literally creates a parallel reality and becomes the new bridge to your manifestation.

I’m 17 F and my sister is 21. We haven’t been really close ever like in our entire lives but I don’t know I still kinda just trusted her because there were moments where she was there and yeah. Like in December I was going through a breakup and went into her room and cried about it. I never mentioned that it was a girl but she used neutral pronouns and I think there was just a silent agreement that like we both knew if that makes sense. And like i think I’ve also had a couple mess ups in the past where I’ve left a journal out and also I got in trouble and my phone was looked through. And also I have another sister who I did come out too but that was in 6th grade and maybe she told my other sister but I’m not sure. But yeah today just downstairs me and my sister just had like a little fight like it wasn’t that big she just annoyed me and I raised my voice and told her to like stay out of something. Then she responds with, “keep acting like this and I’m going to tell dad you’re gay” yeah and like she also added, “yeah you thought j didn’t know, now you’re not talking back” yeah like just so hurtful I don’t know. For context my family is super religious and also immigrated from East Africa and like just very cultural. It’s just I didn’t think my sister would say something like that, it was just so hurtful. And it’s not like I didn’t know my parents were homophobic and stuff and maybe I kinda thought my sisters were too but I always just kinda thought it wouldn’t matter to them as much as it mattered to my parents. And even if my parents you know didn’t accept me I would have mt sisters. And like yeah I guess this just kinda proved it wrong. Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big thing because it’s not like she told you know well she still might. It’s jsur more like how could she say that like and the way she said it was jsur so full of hate. And I’m just wondering like what did I genuinely do to her and like just what did I do to deserve to be in a family that’s just so full of hate. Yeah just feeling really alone because I don’t even though they really suck I jsur really want to be comforted by my family yup.
Sorry btw bad grammar bad sentence structure I’m crying and wanted to jsur get it out give me some advice guys

Do you think Firefly will join the express in 2.3?
Tbh I rather her stay a stellaron hunter but I can see why people want her to join the express. I do think there is some cope with this idea but a little more believable than the whole Aventurine will become a Mask fool and leave the IPC after his fake death idea all because he got a tavern invitation in the past.
Lot of people have the idea Sunday will join the Stellaron Hunters and she'll leave for the express. I think Sunday joining will be cool but I rather not it be at the cost of Sam leaving since Sunday and Kafka kinda overlap with both having charisma and voice based powers. Also with 2.3 probably going to be shorter than the rest of the Penacony story, if Firefly joins it kinda kills the interactions we should get with her and the rest of the hunters since they won't interact as much anymore.
Her joining the express to find a cure to entropy loss syndrome doesn't seem likely since shes already travelled through the cosmos as a hunter and all the medical consultation say its pointless. She even accepts she'll die eventually but wants to live a life worth remembering.
The whole unimaginable rewards, and 3rd death is kinda like the crux of the idea. Her 3rd death will be metaphorical for Sam dying and joining the express which I don't see simply because hes a wanted criminal that feels no guilt for slaughtering villains and I don't see her wanting to tarnish the express reputation for having such a member or bringing danger to them. I actually see the death thing as either metaphorically or literally about her dying since a lot of dialog about her say her life is short but shes dazzling. She wants to be remembered by Firefly on her tombstone and I think that was the reward Elio was talking about since she made friends with the express, other ppl on Penacony like Acheron know her deeds and she even experienced a sweet dream of a life without worrying about Entropy loss syndrome. When she dies eventually people will remember her as Firefly not to mention the hunters seem amicable with her.

my boss enlists me in hiding his multiple affairs from his wife
Originally posted to Ask A Manager
TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, abuse of authority
Original Post Jan 30, 2017
My boss is having multiple affairs. I am his assistant, so I know about all his visitors and his schedule. He is married, but he often has visits from two different women, and he outright told me to never tell his wife about them. When either of them visit, he locks his door and tells me he is not to be disturbed. This happens almost weekly.
He sometimes asks me to book local hotel rooms for an hour or an afternoon, and he sometimes buys jewelry and flowers for the two women he sees regularly. I know this because he sends me out to pick up the jewelry (which I later see them wearing) or asks me to have the flowers sent to them. He never does anything like this for his wife. One of the women just had a baby who is named after my boss and has his surname.
One time, his wife showed up for a surprise visit to take him out to lunch, and he directed me to lie that the woman who was in his office was there for a job interview. He also submits expenses from his business trips (where he has traveled alone) and I have to re-calculate everything because he has upgraded the company-provided hotel room to a better one on his personal credit card and bought breakfast for more than one person the next morning. When this happens, he tells me he had “company.” There was also an incident where he came to work panicked because he said he accidentally used his company credit card at a strip club. He sent me to retrieve it and pay his tab with cash, but the address he sent me to was actually a massage parlor.
Normally I honestly don’t care what people do in their own private lives, but I hate that I’m part of his lies to his wife. She is a nice person and she is dealing with a heart condition that just required surgery. I know they don’t have an open relationship because my boss lies to her and also directs me to lie to her about his actions. He says she can never know. I get sick whenever I think about what he is doing. I know a way I can out him to his wife anonymously. Do you think I should let her know, or is this none of my business and I need to stay out of it?
Update March 9, 2017
Two days after you published my letter, my boss was served with divorce papers here at work. His wife publicly outed his affairs, and she sent copies of emails and text messages sent between him and the two women he was having affairs with, as well as one of the escorts he was seeing regularly, to some people here at our office (including me), his relatives, and some of their friends. She also sent these to the two women and the escort, and some of their relatives and colleagues at work. The texts and emails prove that all three of them not only knew he was married but that he was seeing other women besides each one of them. They also include his acknowledgement he fathered a child outside of his marriage and evidence he used funds from the joint account and his wife’s pay to spend money on them, as well as for the random women he cheated with when he was out of town on business.
His wife has filed alienation of affection lawsuits against the two women and the escort he was cheating with regularly. All of three of them kept calling and coming to see him here at work to confront him after they were outed to people and served with the lawsuit papers, and I heard them talking (sometimes yelling) about it each time and him saying his wife moved out the day he was served with divorce papers and he has no way to contact except through her lawyer (hey have no children and apparently she has cut all contact).
I played dumb the entire time and no one, including his wife, has accused me of knowing anything or asked me if I did.
Before all of this happened, after reading your response and the responses in the comments, I decided to seriously start looking for another job. The same week my letter was published, there was an opening inside my company for a receptionist in a different division. The company usually posts jobs internally before they look externally, and since I’m classified as admin and the posting is for an administrative position, I didn’t have to apply and could just put in for a transfer.
They gave it to me, and I have been in my new job for two weeks now. I love it so far. I spend all day on the phone with people or talking with people who have come in to see or meet with my colleagues. The division has over 100 people, so while I have a screen where I can search for people by name and receive memos and things through email, I don’t have a computer that I am stuck staring at for hours a day. It’s definitely not for everyone but I love dealing with people all day and having no other responsibilities or a mountain of tasks or paperwork to do. My new colleagues have been welcoming and while everyone is talking about what is going on with my boss, no one has brought me into the drama and it only gets talked about around me the same as it would any other person. I don’t engage in any gossip and I certainly don’t talk about what I know, even though no one has asked.
I now have set hours, don’t ever have to work outside of those hours (no overtime or weekends or holidays) and no company cell phone. Since all my work involves dealing with people during working hours at work, I couldn’t do work at home even if I wanted to. Work is now separate from home, and overall I am much more relaxed because I have a clear line between working and not working and I don’t have to deal with my boss and his drama any more.
Thank you for your response to my question and to all the people who were supportive in the comments. I felt better knowing my feelings were valid and I wasn’t overreacting or wrong to be upset.
(Also there was some speculation in the comments about whether my boss could be engaging in some kind of embezzlement or falsifying because he had me separating expenses. There was nothing like that going on. The company has a policy where they will reimburse business expenses put on personal debit or credit cards. Non-work expenses are not allowed to be on company cards. So if the company paid for a hotel room when my boss traveled on business and he upgraded to a better room, the company would only reimburse or pay the original room price and he would have to pay for the rest of the upgrade. I would separate personal and work expenses before submitting them. This is in line with the company handbook and everyone always does it this way. There were no issues with him or me because of it. As for him using the company credit card at the massage parlor, they are legal where we are and since he had the charges reversed the same day and submitted proof of the reversal, the company never had an issue because he followed policy and hadn’t used the card for anything illegal.)
Final Update Oct 20, 2017
My former boss was fired. His wife outed a fourth woman for sleeping with him, same as the others. She works here. Having an affair with a subordinate and the multiple yelling matches with the other three women here at the office was enough to get him fired. The fourth woman was married (unlike the other three) and her husband filed for divorce after she was outed. She took job somewhere else but left amicably and was not fired like my former boss was. At least two of the women his wife was suing are settling with her to avoid it going to trial. The yelling matches he was having made it clear she wasn’t using the lawsuits as a bargaining chip and would not drop them in exchange for stuff from him.
Now that both he and the woman from here that he was having an affair with are gone, things have calmed down. No one has mentioned the affair in weeks and everything here is boring again. I don’t mind the lack of gossip and am still enjoying my new job and great colleagues. I got a small bonus at my yearly review because my boss was so happy with my work. I love my new colleagues and they have been nothing but welcoming to me.
(Also there was speculation in the comments in my first update about whether his wife outed the escort for her affair or being an escort. The answer is both. I don’t agree with her actions but I empathize with how much pain the affairs have caused her.)
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I (21F) decided to drop out of university a couple of months ago after my third attempt at a degree. Bluntly, I just don’t think the way it works is for me. I’m ADHD/ASD Level 1 and, partially as a result of that, I’m an extremely literal person and I learn through examples of a concept or way of thinking in practice. I had to spend hours and hours of my time a week seeking out examples of every single topic I learnt in a class (say, I was in a class about political theory when I was trying out political science and they mentioned historical relativism, I then had to spend hours searching for examples of historical relativism to understand it). I also struggle a lot with hyper focus and there’d be days where I’d just read without food or even more than one or two bathroom breaks from 8am in the morning to 8pm at night. As you can imagine, I got super burnt out and I’d crash and burn and end up majorly depressed within a year, but then a few months later I’d convince myself that it was just because I didn’t like the material and try again. Thankfully, I finally picked up on the cycle and I walked away for good. Maybe I’ll try again in my mid or late 20s, but, right now, I’m done.
I still live with my parents and, when I told them I dropped out of uni full-stop, they just said: “It’s absolutely fine that you’re not in uni for now, but you need to get a full-time job ASAP if you want to continue living here” and I jumped right on it. My dad works in hospital administration and his manager told him to tell me to send my resume to HR there and they’ll maybe hook me up with something. Within a week, I got an interview with one department that I thought went solidly despite my utter lack of experience in hospitals or even in administration (my only work experience before has been nannying and working in OSHC/tutoring centres casually). The department head called me about a week later saying I wasn’t successful for that particular position but they really liked “my personality” and all my references were great and they were passing my resume onto other department heads.
A couple of weeks later, I got a call from an administration manager that oversaw the hospital’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit and she wanted me to come in and “meet everyone”. I thought this just was code for another interview so I got super prepped and came in ready to be grilled. As it turns out, the manager just met me in the building that all the heads and managers work out of it and took me to the unit. I met the head nurse and her and the manager just sat me down and told me all about the unit, warned me about some of the challenges (ward accepts children and seeing brain-damaged children come who have to stay there on their own for an extended period doing rehab with little understanding of what’s going on is, of course, distressing + majority of patients in the ward are young men who sometimes get argumentative and aggressive), assured me that I’d do several weeks worth of training so that I’d feel adequately prepared, allowed me to ask questions and gave me a tour of the entire unit afterwards. In the end, the head nurse said: “Looking forward to seeing on the 27th!” as she said goodbye. I was totally flabbergasted because it wasn’t even an interview - just a good, informative chat.
The admin manager told me as she was seeing me off that I didn’t have to accept the position if I didn’t want it, but I “have the job” and to please let her know within a couple of days what I decided. I have my reservations about how I’ll handle it (I’ve worked with disabled children in tutoring/OSHC but this is a lot different) but I really want to give it a try + I kind of need a job so I called her the next day saying I’d love to take up the position. I’m still kind of in shock. As I said in the title, I basically got offered this job on a silver platter and I’m in absolute disbelief about how this has all happened and how I just suddenly got a job on a random Tuesday. Like wtf?
I got sent some paperwork yesterday about the job and the minimum pay is $2820 a fortnight which is utterly INSANE. No, I’m not going to be rich, but, as someone who’s always worked casually around school and never earned over $700 a fortnight, I still can’t fathom that amount of money. Even after I take out tax, mandatory HECS (student loan system in Australia) repayments and the amount of rent my parents are charging, I’m still pocketing $1800 a fortnight. I can’t even believe it. I didn’t think it was possible for 21-year-olds without a degree to earn that much. I don’t even want to tell anyone around me because I’m afraid it’s some mistake.
I won’t lie. There are some cons. The job is from 7:30 to 3:30 M-F and, because of how far I live from the hospital and the fact that I can’t drive for medical reasons, I’ll have to get up before 5:30 in the morning. The admin manager also mentioned to me that the unit doesn’t really ‘do’ overtime and if I clock out after my scheduled finish time, a record of that time is kept and I can eventually apply for an extra leave day with it. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, there’s elements of the job I have mixed feelings about. I have a lot of trouble comforting people, so if a distressed patient or family member approaches me (which, in a brain injury unit, is probably going to be common), I’m not really sure what else to say other than: “Oh… Oh.. I’m sorry… That really sucks… Oh… Oh…” Nevertheless, both of those pitfalls still don’t seem to justify the 72k a year to me… It’s not like I’m literally taking care of these patients, I’m just talking to people coming in and answering emails and phones.
I’m super scared that there’s something that’s being hidden from me and that’s why they were so eager to get me, an inexperienced 21 year old, into the position. I tried to ask my mum the other day: “What if they’re just saying that the patients are ‘argumentative’, but in reality they throw chairs and spit at the admin or you’ll have to pull 11 hour shifts on the regular with no proper overtime and that’s why they’re so desperate to find someone?” My mum told me that I was being ridiculous and I’m “underselling myself” and she’s sure it will be fine… but I’m not 100% certain. I’m sure there has to be at least some level of transparency and professionalism because it’s a public hospital and it’s fully accountable to the government (the Australian health system is reassuring sometimes!), but there’s nothing strictly stopping them from straight up lying about what I’m in for when I start this job.
I really want an objective perspective on this because everyone I’ve personally tried talking about this to has brushed me off and said they’re sure I’ll be great… But I don’t ask if they think I’ll be great, I’m asking if they think this job is straight up too good to be true and they’re just dancing around the question. Randoms, what do you think?

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A few weeks ago, my friend let me know that the place she works was hiring. It's a nonprofit, and the position is basically administrative in nature. I don't have a lot of experience managing programs and handling funding for things, which I told my friend. But I do like the overall mission of the place, so I told her I'd throw my hat into the ring when the job opened up. Somehow, I got an invitation to interview and I'm trying to nail down the details for that. My friend texted me to say that she was happy I got called in and mentioned that she'll be part of the panel.
On the one hand, I think that's going to be helpful in keeping me less nervous, if only because it won't be a bunch of strangers. On the other, she already knows what misgivings I have about the job because it doesn't quite align with what I've done before.
How do I handle this situation? We had a call scheduled next week for ostensibly social reasons but she did say we should discuss this thing. I feel like it would be gauche to ask her to tell me all the questions they're preparing. But at the same time, I do want to do well on the interview and get the job (I kinda need the money lol). Should I even talk to her about the interview? idk, I'm all ears for any tips.

TLDR: My boyfriend just broke up with me out of nowhere and I just want to get over him but I don’t know how
I was with my boyfriend for a year and a half and he ended things with me on Sunday.
At the start things were magical. I was the happiest I’d ever been and I think he was too.
I fell into a deep depression around July last year (whatever you do don’t go on the rod it will ruin your life) and I became a shell of myself. I got really really insecure about a lot of things but especially my relationship. I was terrified he would stop loving me and leave me.
In September I had a massive breakdown and we almost broke up but we decided to stay together. Things did get a bit better in that I started to feel better mentally but I never really felt right.
I would still worry so much about him leaving me. I was so anxious all the time I could barely function.
He spent Christmas with me and my family and then we went away for almost a month in January. I thought things would be getting better.
I just couldn’t shake the insecurity I had though and I started to resent the way he made me feel. I would daydream about breaking up with him just to hurt him or some how getting hurt or sick so he would worry about me.
He wasn’t perfect. I know that. But I did love him. He sometimes wasn’t very nice and would hurt my feelings and make me think that I was just being sensitive.
Things had been quite off since Easter. I was in more of a funk than I had been in quite a while and it felt like my entire life was just so empty and futile.
I didn’t see him a lot during this because this time of year is very busy at his work and I just put everything up to me not feeling great mentally and him being stressed and busy.
My 21st birthday was at the end of April and I was absolutely dreading it.
He took two days off to spend it with me on my birthday and I was so happy to be able to see him and things were so fine and he was the most beautiful Facebook post for me and I remembered why I loved him so much.
My party was on the Saturday of that week and again he came and spent the afternoon with me and looked after me while I was violently hungover on Sunday. We had been talking for so long about moving into together and we had another conversation about it on Sunday. Everything again seemed to be fine.
I started an antidepressant on Monday in an attempt to pull myself together and help control my anxiety. I was pretty sick this first week as I heard can be expected when starting this medication.
The next Saturday he invited me out to a family friend’s bonfire. He was so mean to me this night. He didn’t really talk to me and he didn’t sit near me. I was sort of left to try and talk to his mom.
We got home that night and he laid on his phone before saying goodnight and going to sleep. This was not very usual for us. We would usually cuddle and talk or have sex, just spend time together in bed. I was left feeling so confused and worried. I didn’t know what I had done.
The next day I was understandably a little demure as I continued to worry about what I had done to upset him. And he made a point to keep asking me if I had had a good night. Which I had not. Because of him. I didn’t say this.
I cried the entire hour long drive home. I thought I was just reacting badly to my medication.
The next week I started to feel better with my medication and my spirits started lifting. We still didn’t really text a lot during the day but I was able to recognise that he was probably just busy and he wasn’t going to leave me at the drop of a hat.
On Saturday we had plans to go out with his friends for dinner. He asked me to come over that day, he was going to take the day off the spend with me.
When I got there he was acting so weird again. Being cold and antisocial and quite short with me. I just figured he was stressed or something and he eventually warmed up a little by dinner.
But when we got home the same thing happened again and he completely froze me out and went to sleep immediately. I was so worried I didn’t sleep.
The next morning we had breakfast with his mom and she showed me his baby album. Things were fine.
When I got home I decided to text him and just ask if everything was okay or if I was just imagining things to be a bit off and he responded with no things are not alright I’ll phone you later.
A delightful message to receive.
He then drove all the way to my house and preceded to tell me that he just didn’t care about me when we were apart. He said he wanted to break up with me since SEPTEMBER when we last had this conversation. And he felt like staying with me would be settling.
But he said he still wanted to see me and be friends with me and he didn’t want to lose me. Upon my asking what being friends would look like he explained that we would still do pretty much everything we always have done just not have sex anymore.
He was here for over three hours and probably cried more than I did.
Now i am heartbroken. I can’t believe that I will never see him or his friends and his family every again. I just don’t know what to do with my self. I wasted over a year of my life with him and he said he didn’t love me for almost half of it
But I’m also relieved. I don’t have to worry about him judging me or leaving me. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my chest. I want to hate him but I can’t. I can see now that our relationship was probably over for a while now or at the very least I haven’t been happy with it for a while but I am still so sad.
I am worried he will want to get back together again but I am also so worried that he won’t. I just don’t know how to stop thinking about it. I want it so bad but I also don’t know if I can do it again.
I miss him so much, he was my person for so long and I just don’t know how to get over it.
I can’t stop thinking about all of the plans we had made all of the this was so looking forward to doing with him.
I just want to get into a new relationship not because I really need one, I have my fried and my family, I feel less alone now than I did with him. But it was so nice having a person. (I do recognise that it is waaaay too early to be thinking about getting into any sort of new relationship)
The thought that I will have to date again kills me too. Boy are so foul and mean and how do you even meet people outside of dating apps.
But I also don’t ever want to have to trust a boy again because it will just end the same way again I’m just not good enough.
Anyway, I’m so sorry for all of that but yeah how do I get over this and stop thinking about him?

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AITA? I think I really need some help about whether or not I have been the asshole here. I invited a friend to accompany me to a charity ball last weekend. He happily accepted and drove around 1 and 1/2 hours to get to my house. It was a ball that was being thrown for my boyfriend's charity so we were guests at it and on our best behaviour. During the night we were talking about bidding in the auction and also buying bricks for the new building that the charity was putting up. My friend said he was happy to buy his brick for £50 and he also bid in the auction and accidentally won something that he didn't really want for £80.
I agreed to buy the thing for £80 off him because it was closer to where I lived. Therefore, I'd spent £80 more than I meant to. It's worth noting that I also paid for his ticket for £50 which he knew about. When the charity people came to take his money for the brick I said hey... Why don't you buy two bricks?
He initially refused and I joked come on dude. This bit is on me... I pushed it and said I've bought something from the auction from you. It's already less than you planned to spend and also less than the dinner ticket. It's also worth noting that I did this in front of two beautiful 18-year-old girls (he is over 50).
He immediately got incredibly upset at me and said that he did not expect to be spoken to like that and left the ball and drove all the way home. I found it very unusual because we often joke around like that and that wasn't an unusual thing to say to each other. We joke around and make fun of each other. But I really think that I hit a sensitive spot for him. I apologised at the time and tried to make it up SO MUCH but he had none of it.
I'm now struggling to apologise after thinking about it, because I'm not sure what happened and I'm not sure that I was wrong so guys help me out. AITA?

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My older brother is my parent's favorite. It's always been this way. Now he's married and they have a baby together. I've lived my entire life in my brother's shadow. My parents support him more, talk to him more, care about him more, prioritize him more, loan him money that I sure as hell never got, help him with his retirement account and adult advice stuff more, all the things more than the other 3 children they have. What is interesting is the 3 of us are really struggling in life however my brother is doing really well, has a great job, and seemingly a great life with his family. But hey I dunno I'm just on the outside and the one that isn't the favorite.
My parents built a house 3 mins from my brother's house. Recently, I spent $700 to visit my parent's new house and try to take a budget vacation because it is located 20 mins from the beach. My brother and his wife totally took advantage of my mom and had her cook them food, take care of their baby, all this crap. My mom just did it. No one cared that I was a guest or visiting for 4 days trying to take a very-needed vacation and spend time with my mom. My brother owns two houses but they decided to basically move in to my parents house while I was there, and not because I was in town. It was all. about. them. Per usual. My brother didn't care his wife didn't care my mom didn't care (my dad wasn't there.) There are more details but this post will get too long.
It dawned on me on this trip that this is likely why I've always struggled with self-worth issues. I've always been interacted with in a way where my simple existence is just not good enough. Even when I used to try really hard that was never good enough either. This favoritism has not changed and has amplified with my parent's favorite daughter in law and grandchild. I first told my parents my feelings, calmly. They dismissed them and told me no I'm wrong. I told my mom separately again, she dismissed my point of view. She would continue to text or call me sometimes pretending everything was normal and like I never said anything and just to talk (aka my feelings don't exist again.) So today I reiterated to her which turned into an explosive argument that I have felt deprioritized my entire life and that trip it became so clear to me that no matter what even if you love me if my brother and/or his wife are in a 60 mile radius, they will take any and all attention and I will be dropped like a hot potato no matter how far I travel to enjoy spending time with my parent. I was told that I was wrong and lot of other things which did not sound like acknowledgement. "I'm sorry you feel that way." Was the closest I got. I have no interest in continuing a damaging relationship that causes further harm when I am treated like a second class citizen anytime the favorites are around. No Christmas, no phone calls, no texts, no stupid family group chat they invited the favorite in law into. F it. They know I feel like this, and still dismiss my feelings. My mom cried a little when I told her I have no interest in continuing communication, but she still didn't acknowledge anyway that I felt. This hurts me to not speak with her anymore.
Would you cut them off?

Cigarettes and rebellion have always gone hand-in-hand, and in an age of cigarette packet-sized health warnings, now more than ever, smoking a fag says: 'I do not give a fuck.' But if Brandon Flowers is hoping to strike a seditious pose by sparking up at the start of the interview, it's not going according to plan. The Killers' frontman is on all fours rooting through the junk that carpets the anteroom at the band's rehearsal space. "Has anyone seen my lighter?" he asks, rocking back on his heels. The question hangs in the air while Brandon cocks his head, waiting for an answer like a meerkat listening for a predator. Twenty-five years old and with a delicate bone structure, there's something almost dainty about him. Receiving no response, he returns to his search. "Oh, Jeez," he sighs. "I had it just a minute ago."
It's a scene that emphatically does not suggest a rebel without a cause. The mess isn't helping. The Killers' HQ - an industrial unit sandwiched between a construction supplier and the offices of a housing development just off Dean Martin Drive in West Las Vegas - is ankle-deep in designer clothing. A Dior Homme suit lies crumpled by the door; there's a pile of shoes topped like a sundae by a pair of Marc Jacobs trainers; and anyone wishing to enter the shoebox room the band use as an office must negotiate a mountain of discarded jeans. Many items are identifiable as coming from the wardrobe of Hot Fuss, The Killers' hugely successful 2004 debut album - triple platinum in the UK with two weeks at Number One and five million sold worldwide. Look! There are the shirts, ties and suit jackets they wore when they thrilled Glastonbury 2005 with indie rock anthems Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me. That was the crowning moment of a two-and-a-half year tour that finally concluded in October of last year. It seems that after playing that final date in Miami, they returned to Vegas and shrugged off their image onto the floor of this bland white box.
Now a fine layer of dust covers the dead clothes. The Killers have no further use for white tuxedos on their second album, Sam's Town. Today, Brandon wears a black polo shirt, black pin-stripe waistcoat, black jeans and black boots. Where there used to be a layer of foundation, there is now a beard - an untrimmed beard at that. Dave Keuning (30, guitar), Mark Stoermer (29, bass) and Ronnie Vannucci (29, drums) all echo Brandon's black ensemble. Ronnie has added Aviator shades and a handlebar moustache for a dash of motorcycle cop, Dave's frizzy bubble of hair gives him a Marc Bolan-ish air, and there's something very teenage about Mark's scuffed Vans.
Short of walking around wearing sandwich boards saying, "Our new record is a bit heavier than the last one," The Killers couldn't hope to communicate that message more effectively. And they have gained some musical girth on Sam's Town. The pop hooks that made Hot Fuss so irresistible survive intact - see the ringing guitar riffs on first single When You Were Young - but there's a newfound punchiness, coupled with an epic sweep. The minor-to-major uplifts on Bones are fabulously dramatic, the coda to Why Do I Keep Counting? thrillingly intense. Comparisons to Bruce Springsteen have been made. If they overstate the case a little, they are at leaset qualitatively accurate. The Killers are back and this time it's serious - they've got the bootlace ties to prove it.
"Hey, it says here that Springsteen's headlining Glastonbury next year," shouts Ronnie, who's flicking through the NME. He nods sagely at the page without looking up.
"Really?" asks Dave, nicknamed Crazy Dave on account of his alledgedly volatile nature.
"The Boss is headlining one night, we're playing second on the bill the next night and Kylie's headlining the Sunday," says Brandon, charging like a bull through Michael Eavis' as-yet-unannounced line-up with what subsequently proves to be a characteristic gaucheness.
But that lighter is proving elusive. This being America, none of the people hurrying to-and-fro prepping the world for the release of Sam's Town smokes. Manager Robert Reynolds - Bobby Rey to the band - barks into his mobile, booking his band onto eye-wateringly demanding tours. "We're going to make a lot of money," he cackles to himself before switching calls to make a series of stern pronouncements on legal matters. Dave, Mark and Ronnie disappear for a jam session. Artwork is approved, B-sides are decided on and schedules are hammered out.
"I can't find it," Brandon says, finally. But he's not going to be denied the opportunity to underline The Killers reinvention with a puff of smoke. "Let's go to the gas station. I'll have to buy one. It's too busy to talk here anyway."
+
Brandon's black (of course) Volkswagen Touraeg four-wheel drive is barrelling down West Flamingo Road into town. "I was a bell boy there," he says, pointing out of the driver's window at the stucco facade of the Gold Coast casino. "I was working there when we were signed."
Coming from Las Vegas, it is perhaps inevitable that casinos play a big part in The Killers' story; not only is Sam's Town named after one, it was recorded in one, too.
The band began writing songs while on the road with Hot Fuss, turning up early for soundchecks to run through new ideas. On a trip home to Vegas, George Maloof, a hotelier known for cultivating famous friends, invited them to record the album in the new studio he'd built at The Palms, his flagship hotel-cum-gambling den. When the tour finished in October 2005, they returned to Vegas and spent five month finessing the songs they'd sketched out on the road. Then, in February, they decampled to the third floor studio at The Palms and recorded Sam's Town over 11 weeks.
Producer Flood (U2, Depeche Mode) encouraged them to experiment. They overdubbed, fiddled with synthesizers and played with new equipment. It took them five weeks to get the backing vocals right. The band sang the harmonies, then double-tracked them four times. The end result recalls Queen wondering, "Is this is the real life? Is this just fantasy?" When Ronnie, a trained classical percussionist, brought some kettledrums down, eyebrows were raised; but the fabulously bombastic coda on Why Do I Keep Counting? vindicates his indulgence.
"That's kind of the Ben Hur of the album," he says. He's not wrong. Sam's Town is a record on an epic scale. "Yeah, it has drama," he continues. "But, at the same time, I think it's a little more exposed than Hot Fuss. It's a little more naked. Last time it was about a lot of fictional things." By "fictional", Ronnie means that Hot Fuss wore its predominantly British influences for all to see. Brandon's taste in music is rabidly Anglophile - he constantly references The Smiths, The Cure and Joy Division - and it showed. By contrast, Sam's Town is an unequivocally American record. The lyrical imagery is pure American dream - cars, girls, wide-open spaces and escaping to a better life. "We're burning down the highway skyline/On the back of a hurricane that started turning/When you were young," sings Brandon on When You Were Young. That's the basis of the Springsteen comparisons then, though the lack of pathos more closely recalls another blue-collar rocker from New Jersey - Jon Bon Jovi.
The phrase "this town" recurs throughout the album, and it's always receding into the distance as The Killers escape to a new life. "This town was made for passing through/I never did get along with everybody else," sings Brandon on This River Is Wild. On Read My Mind he "never really gave up on breaking out of this two-star town", while on the title track he offers something of an explanation: "Nobody ever had a dream round here."
"With the first record, there was this feeling that there was this world out there that we didn't know," says Mark later in the day. Before The Killers, he studied philosophy: now he's their quiet one. "We wanted to get out and away from this and be somewhere else. We hadn't had a lot of experience - hadn't travelled much - then we were gone for three years. We didn't sit down and say that we wanted to make a record about how we're glad to be home, but that's what happened naturally."
It's not an angsty record. The Killers have already escaped with Hot Fuss, and, having done so, they view the experience fondly now they're back. There's a mistiness to Brandon's eyes as he explains how the album got it's name.
"Sam's Town is a casino on the edge of Vegas," he says. "I grew up in Henderson, which is out on the way to the Hoover Dam. My mom and dad lived in a trailer park, and my dad used to hitchhike up and down Boulder Highway, which is the only way you could get to Vegas. Sam's Town was the first thing you saw on your way in to town. So, when you're driving down Boulder Highway from Henderson, I always thought you finally knew you were getting somewhere when you saw Sam's Town. It was kind of like a beacon."
"It's not a completely American album," contines Brandon. "We still have our English influence, but we're also from the Wild West. Somehow we've managed to unify all that on this album. it's just such a perfect resemblence of what we are."
At the petrol station, Brandon rummages through the glove box looking for change to buy a lighter. "This is a great album," he says, pointing at Highway Companion, the latest from iconic American rocker Tom Petty. "I've always been a big fan of his. He's such a great American artist."
Yes, Brandon: we get the point.
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When Brandon finally lights his cigarette, he smokes it awkwardly, like a child mimicking something he's seen the grown-ups doing. However, when he cheerfully admits that, "I feel the same mentally as I did when I was 12," it's not a knowing nod to the fact that he sometimes behaves like a loveably precocious child, but a reference to an unusually comprehensive grounding in pop music at an early age.
When Brandon sings about "this town", he doesn't mean Las Vegas. He means Nephi, Utah or Henderson, Nevada, where he spent his childhood. His parents are Mormon and he is the youngest of six children. "I was a surprise," he says. "I've got a 42-year-old sister." If he was issues about his "surprise" status, he chooses to gloss over them. "It turned out perfect because my brother was a teenager when I was a kid," he says. "He would bring home things like Rattle And Hum by U2 and I would watch it. I remember he bought Live In Dallas by Morrissey. It was always him watching these things, or his door was shut and you'd hear The Head On The Door by The Cure blasting through the house and rattling the walls."
The Killers were formed when Brandon answered an advert Dave had placed in a local paper in late 2002. Dave cited Oasis as a big influence; Brandon had seen them play recently and responded; and, as Dave has said in previous interviews: "He was the only person to reply to my ad who wasn't a complete freak." However, the band was born in Brandon's brothers bedroom.
"His room was like a shrine," enthuses Brandon. "It was a holy place. I wish I could show you a picture of it. It was covered in posters. There'd be a big picture of Elvis wearing a bow tie that just said 'The Smiths' [the artwork for The Smiths 1987 single Shoplifters Of The World Unite]. You had The Cure wearing face paint [the artwork to The Cure's 1985 single In Between Days] - all that kind of stuff. I remember Morrissey being on the cover of the NME, with the halo [from 1985] - stuff like that. You just wanted to know about these people 'cause they were so cool. My brother seemed like such a cool person. But he was a teenager, so he wasn't going to be that nice to me, a kid."
Brandon was fascinated by his brother's collection of music, magazines and posters, but he was denied access to them - officially, at least. "I would sneak in," he says. "I knew he'd be angry if he found out, but I would go in as soon as he left the house." For a long time Brandon was too scared to actually play anything. "That didn't come 'til later. I just used to go in there because I liked it. Then I got to the point where I'd actually take a tape out and put it in. It took more guts to do that."
It was a life-changing moment. "I was ten and the first song I played was Sing Your Life by Morrissey. I remember dancing about to it."
The lyrics to Sing Your Life include the lines, "Sing your life/Just walk right up to the microphone/And name all the things that you love/All the things that you loathe." It's intriguing to wonder what Morrissey makes of the neophyte he inspired with these lines.
Eventually, Brandon inherited his brother's tape collection. "It was around the same time CDs started coming out in a big way. He started buying CDs and gave me his tapes. And that was it: it took off from there. I got a hundred of the best albums - all the New Order, all the Morrissey, all The Smiths, The Beatles. I started buying posters. I went to see The Cure in concert. It was just kind of a continuation of my brother. And it was nice because, though my parents were strict, they were already used to it from him. There was no, 'My dad doesn't understand me,' or any of that kind of stuff. My mum likes The Smiths."
Brandon was 13 and his favourite band was late-'70s/early-'80s American new wavers The Cars, and particularly their jaw-droppingly catchy 1979 single Just What I Needed.
"I wouldn't exist without that song," he says. "That was the one. I remember driving around with my mum when I was 13, and we're living in Nephi - a really small town - and I felt so cool when I put that song on. Like: 'I have something that none of these kids I'm going to middle school with tomorrow have.' That excitement is what music's about, isn't it? That's why I understand the mentality of people that don't like us because we've sold so many records. I used to like it when no one else knew about a band. So I get that - I do."
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Brandon's first band was called Blush Response. It was never going to work out. Not because he refused to move to Los Angeles with them, but because he is utterly - comically - shameless. He's given to making outrageously boastful statements like: "It's not like the '60s, '70s and '80s now. There are only a few bands around that are really good, that just do it. I mean, there's what, five or six of us?"
For the record, in Brandon's estimation, those bands are Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, of course, The Killers.
"I don't want people to think I'm lumping myself with other people just to make us sound cool," he says. Really? It sort of sounds like you are. But he just steamrolls through it. "Yeah, but you know what I mean," he says, grinning at his own cheekiness. He's so disgracefully forward you can't help but laugh along with him - Oh you are awful, Brandon! But joking aside, The Killers are the most commercially successful of all the bands he mentions.
Later, back at the rehearsal space, the band run through Sam's Town at deafening volume in preparation for the forthcoming tour - first the US, then the world. The infectious, almost contagious, chorus of When You Were Young sounds fabulous, as do the U2-like guitars and Twin Peaks synths of Read My Mind. Meanwhile, Smile Like You Mean It and Somebody Told Me benefit from the newfound harder edge.
They somewhat heavy-handedly underline the new direction by playing Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Get It On by T Rex. That's the thing: The Killers are not a subtle band. Their songs are like a wet kiss from a girl who's a bit too drunk. They are big and brash, and not everyone loves them for it. Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me might go down as well at hip nightclubs as they do on the festival circuit, but the DJs play them with the same guilty look they wear when playing a pop record.
"I hate that," says Brandon. "Like writing a song you can hum somehow cheapens it? It makes me think of this quote by Morrissey. Everybody knows how he read Oscar Wilde, Keats and Yates when he was growing up and that he wanted to be a writer. He was talking to this journalist who asked why he hadn't become a writer, and Morrissey said: 'What I do is more powerful than what you do because I can write down these words and you get it to a melody. How can you beat that?' I'm of the same opinion. I don't understand why a good melody that's memorable is a bad thing."
Being dismissed as pop particular aggrieves Ronnie. "When we first came out we got compared to Duran Duran all the time. Jesus Christ! We got a keyboard player now all of a sudden he's Nick Rhodes! Come on!"
"The people who criticise us for being too poppy don't get it," agrees Mark. "I think that's the problem with a lot of rock music. People are afraid to write a song any more. Either that or they can't. And that attitude hurts music in general. The best bands ever have all written great songs. You can still do it and do it intelligently and it can be original. This isn't a studio creation with a producer writing these songs for us. We're not Avril Lavigne, or something like that. We're a real band writing real songs, just like a punk band would do, except that we write pop songs."
You get the impression that The Killers knack for showboating pop hooks that border on vulgar is inextricably tied up with the brazen side of Brandon's personality. But while his ebullient charisma, not to mention the songs themselves, mitigates his outrageousness, there is a less attractive side to his ego. He has a combative streak. He can't resist taking pot shots at emo bands, notably Fall Out Boy, whith whom The Killers share an A&R man.
Has he heard how many emo kids it takes to change a light bulb? "No." None. They just sit in the dark and cry. It's a full 30 seconds before he stops laughing. When he does he admits: "Yeah, we've had problems with other bands. You know, when you walk in the room it's like..." He whistles the theme to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. "We're like gangs."
And while the other members of the band are diplomatic on the subject of Brandon, you don't have to read too deeply between the lines to conclude that there have been internal issues, too.
"Some people will think Brandon's the big genius," says Dave, visibly bridling. "There are songs, such as Why Do I Keep Counting?, where he's written every note. But there are others, like When You Were Young, that were more of a collaboration - like Mr Brightside, where I had some of the music and Brandon came up with the lyrics. We always have arguments about who wrote what. The truth is that we all help in that process."
When asked how success affected them, Ronnie says: "There were certain things that needed adjusting. When you're on tour for two years, people can get a little needy. It doesn't help that you're surrounded by yes men and everybody's working for you. At times we've had to say, 'Who do you think you are?' to people. No one wears the trousers, but some people would like to. I think if it wasn't for the people in the band kicking each other in the ass... Let's just say there was some ass-kickin'."
It doesn't take a genius to work out whose ass needed kicking most often.
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It's the following day and The Killers are back at their rehearsal space. The topic of discussion is what to wear in the video for Bones, the second single. It's a big deal: the director is Tim Burton. "I feel like Frank Sinatra when I sing it," announces Brandon. "With maybe a little bit of Morrissey and a little bit of Elvis, too."
Of course he does. But if securing the services of Tim Burton tells you one thing, it's that The Killers are about to get even bigger, perhaps even make the leap to the same level as Coldplay et al. Already stars, they are about to become superstars. Brandon can hardly wait.
"Do you know that Rolling Stone didn't want to put us on the cover last time," he says indignantly. "They didn't think we were stars. We sold five million albums! What more do they want from a band?"
Whatever was required, Brandon would be happy to do most things. "I'll do stuff that some people don't want to do, 'cause I want people to hear the music," he says. However, even he has limits. "The Rolling Stone thing made the record label think: 'What can we do to make them stars?' If I go on vacation with my wife, do they have to send somebody to be there to take pictures of me? Is that how you become a star? I don't want that. I walked down the red carpet one time and I realised I don't like it. But you don't have to walk down the red carpet for people to hear your music. We do still have some of that indie blood running through our veins."
He heads off at a tangent: "When you walk around Liverpool, you think of The Beatles, or you go to Manchester and you think of The Smiths or Oasis. I want you to come to Las Vegas and think of Sam's Town. And I think we've started to capture that, which is a truer version of The Killers, 'cause that's where we're from."
He pauses.
"I used to live across the street from Sam's Town. Maybe it'll be like our Abbey Road where people go to take pictures."
Is that what he'd like?
"I wouldn't mind it," he says, desperately hoping it will come true.
He puts a cigarette between his lips, looks down at his trouser pockets and pats them in search of the lighter he bought yesterday.
"Hey, I don't suppose you've got one?"