After my previous toxic relationship with a covert narcicist, I spent a year without dating to heal myself and reassess my close relationships. I realized how precious it was to have a healthy person in my life, who can be loyal and love me genuinely.
I met him on Christmas night last year. It was his last night in my city, and I just thought that we would have some nice chats, but it turned out to be one of the best nights in my life ever. He was a medical doctor at entrance level. I was impressed by his honesty, authenticity, intelligence and dominance. We talked about various topics that night and didn’t even worry about time until the restaurant staff reminded us. We spent the night together and had an earth shattering love making. He was all I ever wished for.
We continued to talk after he returned to city. There was so much affection and chemistry between us. He liked me for who I am, validated my feelings and never used me. He had healed me on so many levels without knowing it. I thought he had secure attachment style. But soon, it became more difficult, the uncertainty of the relationship, the difference in communication style, work stress (his job is super draining), the helplessness when we couldn’t be with each other… One day he left me waiting for his video call while he fell asleep. I felt like I wasn’t care for and respected so I told him I needed some days, and when I texted back, he said that he couldn’t stand this and wanted to stop. I told him that his feelings for me and my feelings for him did matter and wished him a good life.
I tried to cope with the sadness and depression of not having him. I had some trips, met new people, but I couldn’t forget him and the feelings I had for him was very intense and I didn't want to have relationship with anyone else. However, I accepted what it was and I didn’t reach out to him at all. I genuinely wished him find a good life partner.
I was surprised when he reached out to me almost 2 months later, and I turned him down as I wanted to have a committed relationship instead of a casual thing. After one week I realized it was too difficult for me to be without him, and texted him back. I told him that we need to have life compatibility and close the distance in order to maintain a relationship. He said that it was difficult but he thought possible. I just needed that sentence from him. The text next days full of affection and he texted me more regularly than last time, I also learnt to focus on my life and stay calm between texts. We mostly had surface checking in message so I was happy when he shared with me his challenge at work for the first time. We were more open to each other after that, but shortly after that he stopped texting me back and went silent for 3 days, even he agreed with me that he would send me a heads up if he needed time instead of just disappearing. I didn’t reach out to him and waited. Then he came back with a casual “Hi babe how are you” and 2 hours later, a breaking up text and blocked me. He said that he didn’t see a future between us and his career just got in the way of knowing me. He believed that I wanted to find someone to settle down permanently soon and he didn’t want to waste my valuable valuable time, he said he was very sorry.
I am heartbroken. I knew he needed both companionship and sex, he had strong feelings to me too but this is too difficult for him. While I was grounded and committed, he was spontaneous and had fear of commitment.
I can wait for him but I see that this long distance relationship is challenging. And I long for being adored and loved by someone next to me, being able to text anytime I want without having to fear of putting stress on them. But for him, I love him for who he is and he inspired me a lot. I don’t want to lose someone like him. Should I keep the door open for him if he ever comes back?
TLDR: I met a decent man once last year we had an on off long distance relationship. He had ended it twice suddenly. Should I keep the door open if he ever comes back?

I used to play DnD in a shop, which was great for meeting new people, but also leads to a bunch of RPG horror stories.
In one campaign, there was a new couple to the store, recently moved in the area. A bit of an age gap between them. They ended up in separate games, with the husband joining our table as our GM made a space so they can join in.
It was a set up where the world is being Corrupted, and our efforts were slowing down the efforts or trying to create setbacks before the final battle against evil. So the DM repeatedly had dangerous situations, and even NPCs we grown attached too, getting killed by the darkness.
So this player joins, and picked a Hunter. He joined when the campaign was first scouting the possible location of the enemies base in the enemies territory. Imagine a party essentially approaching the gates of Mordor from LotR, escorting our wise and powerful mentor who we might as well call Gandalf. The DM was setting up a moment we learn of how terrifying the enemy is, and a “You shalt not pass” moment where our Galdalf sacrifices himself to save us. So when exploring, the Hunter pretty much wants to not want to be involved with fighting the darkness at all (bad fit for party/theme) specifying he stays away at maximum range at all times, and during a troll attack, he was firing at disadvantage whilst my rogue was getting mullered. He was quickly earning some bad rep as a player with the party with his antics, which leads to the horror moment and final straw.
We ended up at a cabin in the woods with a family there. There was something going on and there is a secret, and we needed to learn it from this family. As a party, we were trying to earn some good will with them, and gain their trust. There was a lot of cageyness but it was proceeding like a difficult social encounter could be. Hunter again, was not wanting to the party spirit, stuck to the edges.
There was a DM statement about the little girl in the family knowing something of it whilst she was skirt peeking from behind her mother. The Hunter decided this might be a good way to get the information. He started using some honeycakes to lure out this little girl out in the woods Man in White Van with Free Candy here on the side style. He was giving such details of how he is going to lure her out, going quite remote with this little girl, etc. It was very surreal and spoken as if given this some real thought, far beyond what you would expect for such a play. The DM had the little girl share her information, but he seemed to continue with interacting with her.Player (Cleric) next to me spoke up and said “Calm down now, Jimmy Saville”. Which kind of broke the atmosphere, we laughed and made jokes to defuse it and allowed to snap back from what they were watching. Hunter didnt look too amused.
The DM had the mother realise her daughter was missing, get hysterical and we as party helped her out. We get to girl and Hunter, and Mother goes “What are you doing with my child?”. We expected some kind of apology or excuse from Hunter, we take the rep hit, and he shares his information gathered with us. Except, he doesn't do any of that. Hunter just goes deathly quiet, and just walks away from the party, not even replying to mother or any of us asking questions. 'Right to Remain Silent' style. His actions were coming off weird in character and with his IRL body language. We obviously asked him and prompted him to do some actions, whilst Cleric expressed his own discomfort with jokes referencing Hunter’s character acting like a nonce.
Shortly Hunter’s girlfriend came to the table, saying she had a headache and he left with her. Given he was on his phone, we guessed he got uncomfortable with the situation and used her to bail out. We did feel some guilt about chasing the player away, but we were collectively ‘wtf’ about the experience.
Hunter never turned up at the shop again, which wasnt a big loss for us, as he was a very poor team player and we continued. His wife did return to her table. She left after a month or so.
It was a month after this when the DM was chatting with the other DM, about both the players. And in our Facebook group, he sent a link suggesting we check out it.
Click the link and it was Hunter in a newspaper online from a city from other side of the country. Turned out, he was on sex offender for diddling kids in his role of a church youth pastor. He clearly located across the country to escape his past. As you can imagine with age difference, his wife was one of the those he met within his role and married when she grew older.
Obviously the Cleric was like “I called it! I knew! It just wasnt right with what he was doing”, and yeah, it makes sense in hindsight. We were all very uncomfortable with his play.
And it is the very sickening realisation afterwards that he knew what to do about luring the little girl npc in the woods and his actions around that, because he most likely had very real practical experience of doing that stuff.
Sick.

Tiny mentioned on stream the other day that we need to start cooking up some strategies for tearing apart common talking points we might run into. Figured I'd kick it off with this thread - dont care about I/P or anti lefty stuff so going to focus on election rhetoric
Talking Points for the Election

1. What has Biden done?

We cant use this much at home but if someone whips this out in a talk with Destiny this is probably one of the biggest slam dunks he can get. A professional political commentator openly admitting they haven't kept up with the latest legislation is damning, and it gets a followup - "If you actually followed what was happening you might've known that the policy you said you loved so much with Trump was actually put into practice by Biden" (China tariffs are a huge win for Joe)

1. Senility

The first response to this is always to call it theater. If they push, you pivot this into "If he's senile then why is everything going right?". This is a big point for destiny - you *have* to stop pivoting away from "do you even like biden?" to "wait but trump is worse." Biden has genuine positives you should be leaning on, and at this point people are good at people picking up on that particular pivot so it often ends up looking very political and potentially dishonest. Its especially important to bring up the wins that are bipartisan or that have appealed to any of the versions of the republican party over the last 20 years

1. Immigration

I notice Destiny generally avoids asking questions in arguments because he thinks it can lose for rhetorical reasons, but this is a spot I think it works really well - you lead in with "What issue do you have with Biden's immigration policy?" and when they follow up with one of their halfbaked answers you cut them off with "no no no, whats your issue with *Biden*'s immigration policy?". The point is you want to direct the conversation to the bill thats currently on the floor of congress and either A) fuck them for not knowing about the bill or B) win the back and forth on what you like or dont like about the bill

1. Wokeness

Tiny's been doing great on this topic lately, downplaying the role of college students and throwing a few zingers to show how stupid it is to base political discourse off some suped up 18 year old. The broader followup to make here is you want to make it clear to the audience that you think the democratic party is moving away from immigration and woke. Having this observation aired is so insanely strong among neutral / conservative audiences its almost criminal not slip it in somehow. Destiny's already has it is in arsenal to mention how the far left hasn't seemed to infiltrate the actual democratic party very far, however I think he can be much stronger on this point and you can use the recent immigration bill to group that in here as well

1. "Trump came up with it first!"

Yea but you need an adult to put it into practice. Easy shot. Using rhetoric to consistently frame trump as juvenile or incompetent is super important, and it works x10 if you slip it in on a separate point (because they cant respond to both your point and your insinuation)

1. "But people clearly like the guy!"

The most piers morgan take you can get, takes some tact but you should be able to turn this into your favor by slipping in a "well people like a lot of dumb shit" and then go into a longer point either about celebrity worship or about how the dont focus on policy. Potential TMZ zinger here? Also, when you do this dont say republicans, say "The trump movement" or something similar. Simple word change to make it appeal to tradcons

1. You're just saying that to be a contrarian!

This goes for any point where they try to come up with a background reason for what you're saying. I remember this specifically happening in the candace debate, but it comes up all the time. This is an opportunity because it actually gives you a chance to frame your position in your own words. I'll get into this more in the optics section but pivoting this into "No, I believe this because I've always believed in [good thing]" or "No I believe it because I've read [relevant document] and I found the evidence compelling / hard to deny".

1. Ukraine - Isolationism / The libertarian position

"Just ignore the world until its on your doorstep". Easy zingers here
Content / "Optics" Analysis for Mr. Tiny

1. Clips & Breakdowns

We just had a post this week asking for Destiny to do video essays - that shit's stupid, but its the right energy and a good litmus test for what people are looking for. The way Destiny makes this work is by taking the explanations he already does on stream - you know, when someone asks him a good question in chat and he does the little drawings - and [aieifndc] that into a machine. First step is to approach it correctly - dont wait for the good question to be asked. Come in to the stream ready to launch into an explanation on immigration, I/P, trump lawsuits, vaccine conspiracies, etc. When you find what you want, clip it and edit it either into 8 minutes for youtube or 15s for tiktok and let the algo gods do their thing. You make high quality content because you're generally knowledgeable on the topics at hand - lean on that, the higher quality your explanation the more likely someone's going to share it to their friends

1. Topic Selection

We have a number of opinions we believe, which of those opinions do we lean on to serve me best in this conversation? This is the main game you play if you're ever trying to be smart *and& honest about talking politics. For Destiny this means - younger audiences you lean on anti-conspiracies and avoid I/P, for boomers you focus on bipartisan issues and interest rates, for rightwingers and libertarians mention the guns you have and talk about how much you love america.

1. Positive Optics - Research Streams and dunking on Conspiracy Theorists

Tuning into a destiny stream to see that he brought two lawyers on to read through the latest trump case earned an unbelievable amount of respect for him in my head, I bring it up every time he comes and people are rightfully impressed - this is positive optics. Many aspects of Destiny's day to day work are incredibly impressive and a breath of fresh air to the average joe learning about his work, nearly every American is going to have respect for the guy who actually reads the bills and court cases he's talking about. So yeah, mention that shit more.
Destiny completely underestimates how crucial his takes on conspiracies are right now. When my uncle brings up voting machines or bats in China, I have no idea what to say - Destiny does. You see that big write up I did for talking points about the election? *Nobody* has the anti-conspiracy version of that talking point list - except Destiny. Voters under 26 dont give a fuck about the economy or healthcare, give them ammo to fire at the nutjob on the other end of the dinner table and they'll be willing to look past whatever stupid slur crusade you're on this week.

1. Chummy Buddies :)

"I dont see any possible argument for trump so Im really curious what Ben comes up with here" is possibly the only time I've seen Destiny tip into the most powerful rhetorical tactic of all time - camaraderie. When you kick off with some mildmannered joshing around, you give the impression you're just a couple of reasonable guys who happen to disagree on key topics. Americans splurge at even the idea of that scenario. The Trump supporter guy on the piers morgan appearances tries this approach a lot, and he's a good example of it - often makes concessions to Destiny's points in an effort to seem palatable & visibly laughs at a lot of oneliners from Destiny and Piers. It also throws the opponents off sometimes, because they feel like they cant get as combative when you're being friendly. Its also a good tactic in 2v2 debates, if it looks like you're super friendly with one of the two the other one comes off poorly

1. Hedging on I/P

"Hey listen I know its a contentious topic, I understand why people feel the way they do but from digging more into the topic its just really a lot more complicated from how it looks on the surface"

1. The Next Research

Pretty clear to me that Tiny was a bit disappointed by how shallow the immigration topic was, but this was the wrong perspective on it. Turns out, most of the crucial election topics are this simple. The only hard ones (I/P and the lawsuits) have already been covered. So if you make a big lineup of election topics there's good odds you're done with it by August - Economy, geopolitics, climate change, CHIPS act. I've noticed economics is something especially Destiny tries to toe around, interest rate stuff really isnt that complicated but hey maybe worth bringing Noah Smith on Bridges to help out (he's literally just written a piece on the economic arguments for Biden)

1. Bridges

Milking guests for followup guests. Sometimes you can just directly ask them who'd be a good fit, but its also just a generally good question to ask "Who are the prominent figures in the field right now?" "What books should be people be reading up on if they want to dive deeper?" (And then contact the author). For science and art features its always good to ask about recent work - "Is there any cool research you've seen in the past year or so that the public should be excited about?"

1. Commit to a position! State it clearly!

David Pakman's really good about this - he has a firm stance and he'll keep reiterating it throughout a conversation. Destiny OTOH tends to continuously circle around a conversation by adding evidence and making points - this is important, but if you dont state your point as well then it looks like you're avoiding giving an answer and people become confused on what your position is. The other thing is if people dont have a clear answer on what you believe, they'll start inferring it from the rest of the conversation - they have to guess, and that guess will never be favorable to you. A lot of conservative commentators *have* to circle the point because they dont have a position to stick to, there's no reason for Destiny to be doing it (and should be nailing the conservatives who rely on this tactic)
Thats all I got for now. Sorry in advance if there's any typos

So I have an almost 2 years old cat. I got her when she was only 1 month old. I was in a group chat and one of the members mentioned that his friend is giving away kittens. I said that they’re too small to be given away in this age, but it’s not like the owner would change his mind. I was told that the mother already rejected them and they already know how to do everything. Since I was thinking of getting a cat, I decided to take my fiancé to go take a look at them. We weren’t planning to adopt anyone, it was more of “let’s see, why not go”. When we came to the place there were 4 little kittens. 2 of them looked healthy and they played with each other, but the owner said right away that they’re booked. The owner wasn’t very nice and somehow he didn’t speak the same language as us, so the guy from group chat just translated us few phrases and that’s all. Other two kittens were significantly smaller. One didn’t seem interested in us anyhow and the other was sleeping. It wasn’t a surprise the mother cat rejected them. She looked skinny and exhausted. She wouldn’t let kittens eat from her and she didn’t want to be near them. At this point we decided to go home and we felt somehow uncomfortable. And here’s the thing, we started getting asked “so which one do you take?”. They didn’t seem to take “we will think about”, “we’re not sure”, “we just came to take a look” for an answer. Basically, we were forced to take one. The one that was up was still trying to eat from his mama’s tits, so ofc I wouldn’t take this one and the other was still sleeping even tho we took her in our hands. We decided to take her. Owner got very happy, shoved the kitten in some box he found and sent us away. He said he took them to doctor previously and they’re flea-free. This guy from group chat was trying to hit on me all the way to our house in front of my fiancé (ofc, this is unimportant detail, but still unpleasant). The kitten has woken up to this time. We bought her food and litter with litter box in the nearby store. Luckily for us, she was willing to eat, even tho she had some diarrhea first days, then she got fully weened. She always knew how to use litter, so we were very proud. She seemed fine with us. She didn’t seem to miss her litter at all. Ofc we treated her the best we could. She wasn’t in fact healthy. She had a big ringworm that she passed to us. We took her to the vet and got all fixed (not the castration way hahah). The problems started pretty early. She was driving me crazy.
She would bite and scratch, but we taught her not to do that. After all she was just a kitten. She seemed to be a very bold and not at all affectionate cat. She wouldn’t let us even hug her. She would run away from it like from fire. She was constantly knocking over her glass of water and her bowl of food. Almost every day. We got her a fountain and she destroyed it. She chewed up the cord and she would pull on it and knock over the fountain. Every time she ended up in the bathroom she would push toilet paper from the counter in the toilet. She genuinely didn’t seem to give a single f*** about me. I started getting breakdowns because of her that she didn’t care about either. I said a lot of times during it that I am going to give her away, that she’s going to a shelter. But every time I would calm down and take it back, bc I thought it’s cruel. And I was hoping that it’s just a teenage phase and she will get better with age.
Also the reason I wanted a cat is because I was lonely. I lost my childhood cat few months before. I was grieving a lot. I was in another country and my fiancé was at work most of the time. My depression was at all time bad. I still was not over my childhood cat, but I thought that maybe getting another one would help me with my loneliness. But my new cat was nothing like her. My old cat was calm and cuddly and she would love me so much. I admit ofc not all cats like this. Everyone has different personality. That’s why I kept trying with my new cat.
Despite Grippers (the new cat) being absolute asshole that was indifferent about us, we cared about her a lot and we would constantly think about how she feels. She would still drive me crazy occasionally and I would go on Reddit and read how this is normal and blablabla. Sometimes she would play with me. She also HATED any guests in our house. She would keep near them and bite them when they least expect. She wouldn’t let anyone except for us touch her. Through these two years she freaked out over nothing few times and I had to take her for her not to attack anyone else. My hands would be badly damaged afterwards.
Then I went back to my country for few months and ofc I did everything to be able to take her with me. She hated it there. Then we moved places and she loves our new home. It has an outside and she loves going there. I tried training her to a leash when she was younger, but she hated all the sound and people of a big town, so that failed. She wouldn’t want to go even in the corridor of the building. But now she would run outside at every possibility. And she slowly stopped appearing at home for few hours a day. We were worried she might get pregnant, but apparently all the cats around were girls and she was awful to them too. She would scream at other cats and be very territorial. All other domestic cats were so much calmer than her, so that was embarrassing. Since we just moved we were low on money, but still trying to put some aside to spay her. We tried not letting her out, but she’s the type of cat that will drive you completely nuts until she gets what she wants. Also she would run away from the leash. Ofc I tried that again.
Everything always felt that it’s either her way or she’s gonna meow until you lose your marbles. And then she got knocked up in our garden. Yup, she got pregnant! I was all for spaying her despite that, but my fiancé wasn’t so sure and spaying a pregnant cat costs double and we already didn’t have the money. My fiancé said that maybe she will get nicer if she has babies, so be it. And now she has 6 weeks old kittens. 4 of them. And they all are great! We love them and Grippers is an amazing mom. She gave birth on our bed and didn’t want to leave the bed for the first week they were born. We thought that’s how she shows us that she trusts us.
Yet, she didn’t change. She still doesn’t care for us and only is meowing for food or water from the sink, even tho we bought a new better fountain. She meows a lot and she became even more demanding and she won’t let my fiancé sleep in the morning with her meowing. It really overwhelms him. I learned to detach from her, but the most common phrase in this household became “what do you want?!” directed at her. Sometimes she would meow for pets, but seems like even that should be done on her terms. I started joking that maybe we should find a home for her and not kittens. Suddenly I realized that she’s not a teenager anymore and that I’ve been thinking of her treating us like her slaves for all this time. I realized that there’s always some trouble with her (I know that she’s far from a “bad” or “hard” cat) and that the thought of spending all her life with her is very dreadful to me. Even thinking of ever doing smth for her seemed so lame, bc this cat literally doesn’t care. I had another breakdown that night, but this time I didn’t take my thoughts back. Thinking of her having a house where people can handle her and they won’t be as sensitive as me and my fiancé, a house where she will be loved and taken care of seemed nice. But what felt even better is a relief of not having to deal with her anymore.
Rn I’m planning to wait till kittens are 10 weeks old and adoptable age and find her a home through asking shelters to put advertisement. I want to give her away with one of her kittens since she seemed to care about them so much and I don’t want her to be lonely. Rn I’m thinking if I should give away all of the kittens or should I keep some. I can clearly see which one of them are cuddlier and seem to care about me and the reason I wanted a cat was to feel someone’s presence while I’m alone at home (with grippers I don’t feel this way. Maximum she does is sit beside me across the bed or somewhere else). Keeping any also seems a bit of a risk, bc I’m so scared it’s gonna turn out just like with grippers. It’s a bit complicated, since I get attached to them and I care about them. I’m not sure if I’m being wrong here, so that’s why I’m asking Reddit. Should I keep or give away my cat? Should I keep any kittens? P.S. Please, refrain from telling me off for not spaying my cat, I know that’s bad.

This is a really long story but I’ve been so desperate to just tell it from start to finish so thank you in advance if you make it all the way through.
To provide context to the rest of the story, I (22f) was in a very bad, very controlling relationship for three years. Near to the start of this relationship, I worked at an escape room where I met an awesome group of people and we started to play DND together – DM’d by the guy who ended up becoming my best friend, we'll call him Brad (23m). My ex got worse over time in various ways, but one of which was his jealousy which seemed to focus on Brad. Every time that I would go to DND I would have to remind my ex that Brad was already in a relationship with his long-time partner, Bella, and therefore he did not have feelings for me. This came up constantly and was always a fight.
It was incredibly difficult to escape, but with the support of my three closest friends, Jenna (23f), Millie (26f), and Brad, eventually I got out. I moved back in with my mum, but I was in a very bad mental state at the time and would do everything in my power not to be alone. For this reason, I would have sleepovers at all my close friends’ houses as often as I could – sleeping in Brad and Bella’s closet when I would stay at theirs. I did become closer with all of the other members of my DND group too (there were 7 of us in total) but for the purposes of keeping things simple I will focus on these four. I leaned on these friendships hard. All my friendships had been so monitored and controlled for years before this and I was so excited to be a normal adult finally. For about six months, life was amazing.
It was some time around October that I met my now partner (22m) and we started to form a relationship. He was kind and funny and I was so excited to share it with all my friends. Brad always seemed apprehensive about it, but I figured that was just because of my previous relationship. It was also around this time that Brad started struggling with something but wouldn’t share what. Jenna and I genuinely theorised that he was terminally ill with the way that he was acting. One night, I had driven Brad home from work, and I used the opportunity to ask about it because everyone was really worried. After a bit of coaxing, he told me that he thought that he was polyamorous. He had been with Bella for about five years at this point and he was worried by revealing this to her that he would destroy their relationship. He said that aside from his therapist, I was the first person that he had told and asked me not to tell anyone, which I obviously agreed to. Eventually he told her, and they told the group together, and said that they were going to make it work.
It was about December now, and I moved jobs and fell into a depressive episode. I stopped seeing my friends very much at all, and at the worse of it I had made an attempt at my life. My partner was amazing through this considering how little time we had been together, and not long after I started to get help and rebuild. When I tried to rejoin DND, everything felt different. Brad was suddenly talking over me when my character would try to speak up, wouldn’t have NPCs speak to my character, and really he would hardly look at me. I had tried to meet up with Jenna, Millie, and Brad, to tell them about what had happened with me during my episode, but Brad blew me off every time. I was so stressed that I had done something wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what since I had been away for the past couple of months.
Finally, shit really hit the fan in May at Millie’s wedding. I was standing with Bella while she told the story about her and Brad working out polyamory, and in telling the story she said that she had been the first person that he had told. This threw me for a loop, since I knew that he had told me first, and it massively irked me that he had hid that from her. I left the conversation to find Jenna to tell her, to which she took me aside and told me that Brad had been in love with me for a while now, and I had caused a lot of issues in his and Bella’s relationship. I felt awful for the rest of the wedding and sat on the cold street to vent this all to my partner.
I went to a few DND sessions after that, but I felt so self-conscious about the arguments that I had apparently caused between two friends, and since Brad was basically ignoring me in the sessions anyway, I decided one day to send a short and sweet message to the group thanking them for the years of fun, but that I would be dropping out for now.
My first regret was, when Brad pressed about why I had left, softening the blow as much as possible. I did tell him that I knew about his feelings, but I said that I was mainly leaving for my mental health, which was not true as I was in a much better spot at this point. He was very angry at Jenna for telling me, but otherwise the conversation was fairly civil. He apologised, gave me more context, explained that that was why he had been distant, confirmed that I had been a big issue in his and Bella’s relationship, and explained that I was the reason that he had figured out that he was polyamorous – I expect from me staying over at their house so often. Finally, he told me that I would be welcome back to DND at any time. I said that I was frustrated that he hadn’t spoken to me like an adult because I just thought that he had hated me, and he said that I was just a complicated situation. He also told me not to tell anyone about any of it, but especially Bella that we had had that conversation as he wanted to be the one to do it. Fine. I was upset, but I still figured that I would be able to return to the group at that point.
Months pass, and I haven’t been to any group events for a combination of reasons. I feel too uncomfortable to face Brad and Bella, I figure that removing myself from the situation is the kindest thing to do to give them space, and since I can’t tell anyone else about what happened, I feel socially a bit isolated. No worries, I can rejoin the group again when I feel comfortable, right? I have Millie over one day and she asks why I left. After a bit of back and forth, I think that she knows some level of what happened, but more than that I am just desperate to get this off my chest, so I give a brief, sympathetic overview of the situation. She is an amazing listening ear, which was exactly what I needed because this had been eating me away, and she is very mature when I ask this to not affect her relationship with him. Little did I know that I had just thrown a match into a powder keg.
I’m not totally clear on what happened, but basically Brad hadn’t told Bella that we had had a conversation. Millie accidentally revealed that I had told her, and Bella (rightfully so honestly) was furious with Brad, who then was furious at me for telling Millie. In this second conversation with him, I explained that I had thought that Millie had known to a degree anyway. He kept going on about how much of an impact this had made to his and Bella’s relationship, and I got frustrated and explained that they were actually the sole reason that I had left the group when I did, and it had had a massive impact on me too. He got apologetic, but in retrospect I think it was just trying to tide me over. He told me that Bella was uncomfortable when he and I were in a room together, which put the final nail in the coffin for my hopes to ever return to the group. He still swung the conversation back around to how hard it had all been for them and ended the conversation with a long list of Bella’s insecurities. In retrospect, this was a bit random and I’m not sure why he did that. In any case, I responded with a big paragraph refuting each of her insecurities one by one and talking about how great she is. I wish that I had just sent this message straight to her, as honestly, I doubt, she would have ever seen it.
So now we’ve had two conversations, and I don’t see any way that I can return to the group. Months later again, and I see them for the first time at a Halloween party. I had made a great new group of friends at this party, and given the history, I thought that it was fairly reasonable not to go up and have a chat with them. At one point, I am talking with someone when Brad walks up, without Bella, and says hi to me. Maybe I was petty, but considering Bella wasn’t even there and one of the last things that he had told me was that Bella was uncomfortable when he and I were in a room together, I wasn’t particularly excited to chat. I just said a cordial hi, stayed in the conversation for a minute longer, and then migrated away.
Honestly, I hadn’t even thought twice about this. By this point, I hadn’t seen Jenna for maybe six months, and the rest of the DND group for even longer. The only one who I’ve stayed in contact with is Millie. One day, I ask Millie out for coffee, and about halfway through she has this look of realisation pass her face. She tells me that “she thought I knew” and that was why I had asked her out for coffee. Knew what? Well apparently, Brad and Bella had organised basically a formal meeting with the whole friend group to tell them what had happened with me on that night. Obviously, they had not told me. Millie is amazing and relays to me what happens at the meeting which thankfully is fairly true, but there are two points that irk me. One is that it is entirely “woe is them” focussed, as if I didn’t lose all of my friends, and two is that Brad makes a remark that he thinks that I knew the whole time that he had feeling for me and that I wasn’t just innocent and naive. This is infuriating for me for reasons that I will get to. What actually breaks my heart is that apparently Jenna got up at the meeting and apologised to everyone for telling me in the first place. After that, I had two more people from the group reach out and reconnect, but not everyone and not Jenna.
This all started in July of 2022, and it’s now May of 2024, so I’m largely over it, but here are some of my feelings on the matter. One, I know that I am non-confrontational, and as much as it was initially supposed to be a kindness, I do think there was an element of running away from my problems. Two, my family and close friends kept telling me that I should send screenshots of everything to group chats or tell everyone my perspective. I think that more than anything, I had already lost everyone, and I really didn’t want to turn the group against each other. I think that would have been vindictive and petty and not me. Three, maybe I should have seen the signs that he had feelings for me earlier on, and I feel a lot of guilt about that. However, I had the exact same relationship with him as I did with Millie and Jenna, and I’ve always been of the belief that males and females can absolutely be friends. Maybe my relationships with Millie and Jenna were too close too, but after having been socially isolated for three years I suppose I was and still am hazy about where the boundaries lie. To be so clear, though, nothing ever actually happened. The best clue that I can recall was when he would say I love you man, but that’s the kind of thing that we all said to each other. Otherwise, as far as I was aware, we were just really close friends. Furthermore, I had also just come out of a long-term relationship, where I was frequently convincing my ex that Brad did not have feelings for me. I never told anyone that part because I didn’t want Brad to blame himself, but now that I’ve found out I was wrong, I’ve been going down a spiral about what else my ex may have been right about and what other behaviours he had that may have been justified. I digress. I’ve mourned the loss of my friends and support network more times than I can count, and I am aware that I could have fought to stay in the group and Brad isn’t entirely to blame for that, but it does really frustrate me that, as was clear in the board meeting he and Bella held about me, what I have been through does not seem to even cross their minds. Brad was supposed to have been my best friend. Although, now I can’t help but feel like he, intentionally or not, saw me at a vulnerable point and took advantage of it to get inappropriately close to me, and we were never really “best friends”. If I could erase our entire friendship, I would in a heartbeat. At least then I would still have the rest of my friends. I am open to hearing what people have to say, but as far as I am aware my only crime was being naïve. There are honestly so many more details but this post is already obscenely long. My final note is that my partner is the real MVP as he probably heard me vent and cry about this two dozen times and supported me through all of it. Thank you so much for reading if you made it this far.

My (19M) friend (19M) texted me 3 months ago to tell me that he could no longer speak to me because he is in a committed relationship and he was starting to develop a crush on me. In order to prioritise his boyfriend, whom he loves very much, he had to cut contact with me, for a non-specific amount of time. In his words, it is “dangerous” for us to speak.
This all starts when we were 16- 3 years ago. Something important to know: this did not start platonically. We were two 16 year old boys who had similar interests and who could sustain one another intellectually, and thence began a romantic long-distance summer fling. He is a classical musician and actually composed me some pieces. After a while, it died out because of the distance. We remained friends after the fact, but I most certainly did not forget him. He told me at 16 that I was one of those people you’re told your whole life that you’ll meet. Those words have stuck with me.
For the next two years that followed, contact remained spotty. Any conversation we had revolved around music (mostly), philosophy, life, anything. Usually long conversations, but very infrequent.
Then August 2023 rolls around. I’m 18 and I’m about to begin uni on the other side of the country. In a new city….. in his city. Yes, I moved to his city. Not on purpose. I post my arrival on my Instagram story, and he replies that we must get coffee together sometime soon. Basically, I was head over heels. I had a crush on this guy. He’s a local, so he ended up picking a pizza restaurant. I arrive first and I’m waiting in front of the restaurant, facing the window. All of a sudden, I see his reflection in the window; a guy wearing a violin case like a backpack. I turn around and he crosses the street to come give me a hug. This was our first meeting in person.
We spoke a while in the restaurant. Spoiler: He has had a boyfriend since March at this point (I HAD NO CLUE). At one point in our pizza-filled conversation, he mentions his boyfriend. However, in our language, the word he used can mean either boyfriend or friend. I really didn’t think he was in a relationship, so my delusional ass interpreted it in the platonic sense. After the restaurant, we walked to his music school, where we found a room. I sat on a chair and he took out his violin. He asked me to name any composer and he would play a piece from said composer. I neglected to mention that he is extremely talented. One in a million. If it isn’t obvious, I thought this was a date. It was not a date; not for him at least.
After said encounter, I felt quite disappointed that I didn’t get any romantic vibes from him (duh, it was not a date. He literally mentioned his boyfriend lol). I complained to my old roommate for days about this. My roommate, on some intoxicated bender, texts this guy and tells him that he needs to let me know if he has feelings for me or not. I was furious. My roommate guiltily confessed this to me the following morning. He told my roommate that he is not single and that he is not at all interested in me. He does say, however, that “we would have been the perfect match”; something that he probably shouldn’t have said but it is not something that I will contest. What my roommate did was a gross violation of my boundaries, of course I’m upset. However, in a way, it almost needed to happen. A few days later, I reply to his story about some other restaurant, and he says that his bf/friend (the word is ambiguous in our language) recommended it to him. I ask him if he has a boyfriend and he clears it up then and there. It was after this interaction that my crush dissipated. Knowing that he wasn’t interested in me really helped with me moving onto other guys.
Over the following months, we speak every now and then. When we spoke, the conversations would not end. The kind of conversations where you know that you have to go to bed, so you wished the other person goodnight, yet there you are talking about fucking Ligeti 50 minutes later. Anyways, while I was supposed to working on a philosophy assignment, I told him that I USED to have a crush on him, but I was firm on the fact that I no longer did. I told him the “date” story as a funny anecdote. He had no clue that I ever liked him like that at any point. The conversation got a little awkward, but he told me that he really loves his boyfriend, but that he “does not forget”. He tells me that we would have been a perfect match. Funny.
A little while after, he invites me to one of his concerts at the museum. There, I meet his mother and grandparents. Also, his boyfriend. The concert was great, and the three of us chat for a while afterwards. Unfortunately, he has to leave, but he suggests that I tour the museum with his boyfriend, so his boyfriend and I tour the museum together. Interesting experience. Something important to know: I don’t have the best impression of his boyfriend. Their relationship is (was???) an open relationship and it felt like this guy really had to convince him to join his polyamory, based on what he told me in their conversations. Also, they were apparently on a break at one point earlier in the year because my friend’s mental/physical health was really bad, so to me it seems as though his boyfriend abandoned him in his time of need because the relationship “got hard”, so I already don’t have the best impression of him based on what my friend has told me. Anyways, I honestly thought that his bf was flirting with me??? (I guess he is allowed to because it’s an open relationship, but still…).
Fast forward the following month: we were supposed to see a concert together but something bad happened so he couldn’t attend. I end up buying him a CD which I had signed because this is a very famous pianist who just happened to visit our city. For like 3 months, we didn’t see each other, but I reminded him regularly that I had a specially-signed CD to give him. He has classes next to my apartment sometimes, but we can’t seem to get our schedules to fit…. until the end of February.
He has this class thing where you can invite people to watch you play and get critiqued, which he invited me to! After watching him play, I greet him outside the room and one of his colleagues. Let’s call her F. We all chat a little and I give him his disk. Literally such a mundane interaction.
BUT THEN THREE DAYS LATER, he texts me that he is very sorry, but that we have to cut contact. He has been dishonest toward himself and toward his boyfriend, because he has a crush on me. He doesn’t WANT to have a crush on me. And look, I get it. His relationship is important and he is putting the guy he loves first. You can’t control how you feel about people, but you CAN control what you do about it. So I get it. Wouldn’t I do the same? I told him to promise me that he wouldn’t forget about me completely. I screamed “what the actual fuck” multiple times because I didn’t know how to process this. This is definitely not an event I expected to have in 2024… The only links we have in common are now: we have each other’s phone numbers, we are Facebook friends, and I am friends with F on Facebook because she also happens to be in my programme at uni. But we have not spoken. Not a single word between us since February 24th. I respect his decision, so I will not speak to him.
This guy occupied my mind rent-free. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Frustrating because when he told me that he wasn’t interested back in August, that was enough to help me move on. And all of a sudden, my mind can’t let go of the fact that this guy has a crush on me. This guy, whom my type is kind of based on honestly. Middle of March rolls by, and I meet F (his colleague) again at an event hosted by our programme. We all got drunk, especially me 🤦🏻‍♂️. And of course, being drunk, you have a tendency to bring down your inhibitions. We’re on the bus and she asks me how I know the friend. I tell her it’s a long story, but that I can’t speak to him anymore. I say that “he’s soooo dramatic”. She asks me to explain further, but I tell her that I can’t.
The next day, I felt like an idiot!!! Wow. I almost told her what happened. I don’t need that spreading around his school. I saw a uni therapist at the beginning of April, which didn’t really help much. Every time I took the bus, I would check to see if he too was on the bus. Never was.
BUT THEN, I met someone new. We’ll call him T. T has been successful in getting my mind off of the friend. It’s quite recent, but we’re seeing each other and it’s moving along smoothly. Beginning of May, I barely think about the friend anymore. I have a new guy in my thoughts and I’m very happy about it. So T and I go to see a concert together. Guess who just had to be doing a pre-concert in the waiting hall. The violinist friend. T and I are walking up the stairs and all of a sudden the violinist and I made eye-contact and I basically just had a hot flash. I had not seen this guy since February… And I seriously had to make eye-contact with him while I’m on a date with T???
I feel like my progress is ruined. Ever since I saw him at the concert hall, he is on my mind again. I keep checking his Facebook. I can’t listen to my favourite music without thinking about him. But I refuse to give up the music that feeds my soul just because he likes the same stuff. I feel awful toward T, because I have another guy in my thoughts.
All I know is that this person is special. I have known this for years and he is not someone I could accept never having in my life again. He has never forsaken me. I have a deep desire to share my life with him and to be apart of his, and I am perfectly okay with it being platonic. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to live my life without it being a soap opera.
TL;DR: An old friend that I had a crush on, but no longer had a crush on once I found out that he was in a relationship and was not interested in me, ended up having a crush on me and has had to cut contact with me in order to not be dishonest toward his boyfriend. I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s driving me mad.

My (19M) friend (19M) texted me 3 months ago to tell me that he could no longer speak to me because he is in a committed relationship and he was starting to develop a crush on me. In order to prioritise his boyfriend, whom he loves very much, he had to cut contact with me, for a non-specific amount of time. In his words, it is “dangerous” for us to speak.
This all starts when we were 16- 3 years ago. Something important to know: this did not start platonically. We were two 16 year old boys who had similar interests and who could sustain one another intellectually, and thence began a romantic long-distance summer fling. He is a classical musician and actually composed me some pieces. After a while, it died out because of the distance. We remained friends after the fact, but I most certainly did not forget him. He told me at 16 that I was one of those people you’re told your whole life that you’ll meet. Those words have stuck with me.
For the next two years that followed, contact remained spotty. Any conversation we had revolved around music (mostly), philosophy, life, anything. Usually long conversations, but very infrequent.
Then August 2023 rolls around. I’m 18 and I’m about to begin uni on the other side of the country. In a new city….. in his city. Yes, I moved to his city. Not on purpose. I post my arrival on my Instagram story, and he replies that we must get coffee together sometime soon. Basically, I was head over heels. I had a crush on this guy. He’s a local, so he ended up picking a pizza restaurant. I arrive first and I’m waiting in front of the restaurant, facing the window. All of a sudden, I see his reflection in the window; a guy wearing a violin case like a backpack. I turn around and he crosses the street to come give me a hug. This was our first meeting in person.
We spoke a while in the restaurant. Spoiler: He has had a boyfriend since March at this point (I HAD NO CLUE). At one point in our pizza-filled conversation, he mentions his boyfriend. However, in our language, the word he used can mean either boyfriend or friend. I really didn’t think he was in a relationship, so my delusional ass interpreted it in the platonic sense. After the restaurant, we walked to his music school, where we found a room. I sat on a chair and he took out his violin. He asked me to name any composer and he would play a piece from said composer. I neglected to mention that he is extremely talented. One in a million. If it isn’t obvious, I thought this was a date. It was not a date; not for him at least.
After said encounter, I felt quite disappointed that I didn’t get any romantic vibes from him (duh, it was not a date. He literally mentioned his boyfriend lol). I complained to my old roommate for days about this. My roommate, on some intoxicated bender, texts this guy and tells him that he needs to let me know if he has feelings for me or not. I was furious. My roommate guiltily confessed this to me the following morning. He told my roommate that he is not single and that he is not at all interested in me. He does say, however, that “we would have been the perfect match”; something that he probably shouldn’t have said but it is not something that I will contest. What my roommate did was a gross violation of my boundaries, of course I’m upset. However, in a way, it almost needed to happen. A few days later, I reply to his story about some other restaurant, and he says that his bf/friend (the word is ambiguous in our language) recommended it to him. I ask him if he has a boyfriend and he clears it up then and there. It was after this interaction that my crush dissipated. Knowing that he wasn’t interested in me really helped with me moving onto other guys.
Over the following months, we speak every now and then. When we spoke, the conversations would not end. The kind of conversations where you know that you have to go to bed, so you wished the other person goodnight, yet there you are talking about fucking Ligeti 50 minutes later. Anyways, while I was supposed to working on a philosophy assignment, I told him that I USED to have a crush on him, but I was firm on the fact that I no longer did. I told him the “date” story as a funny anecdote. He had no clue that I ever liked him like that at any point. The conversation got a little awkward, but he told me that he really loves his boyfriend, but that he “does not forget”. He tells me that we would have been a perfect match. Funny.
A little while after, he invites me to one of his concerts at the museum. There, I meet his mother and grandparents. Also, his boyfriend. The concert was great, and the three of us chat for a while afterwards. Unfortunately, he has to leave, but he suggests that I tour the museum with his boyfriend, so his boyfriend and I tour the museum together. Interesting experience. Something important to know: I don’t have the best impression of his boyfriend. Their relationship is (was???) an open relationship and it felt like this guy really had to convince him to join his polyamory, based on what he told me in their conversations. Also, they were apparently on a break at one point earlier in the year because my friend’s mental/physical health was really bad, so to me it seems as though his boyfriend abandoned him in his time of need because the relationship “got hard”, so I already don’t have the best impression of him based on what my friend has told me. Anyways, I honestly thought that his bf was flirting with me??? (I guess he is allowed to because it’s an open relationship, but still…).
Fast forward the following month: we were supposed to see a concert together but something bad happened so he couldn’t attend. I end up buying him a CD which I had signed because this is a very famous pianist who just happened to visit our city. For like 3 months, we didn’t see each other, but I reminded him regularly that I had a specially-signed CD to give him. He has classes next to my apartment sometimes, but we can’t seem to get our schedules to fit…. until the end of February.
He has this class thing where you can invite people to watch you play and get critiqued, which he invited me to! After watching him play, I greet him outside the room and one of his colleagues. Let’s call her F. We all chat a little and I give him his disk. Literally such a mundane interaction.
BUT THEN THREE DAYS LATER, he texts me that he is very sorry, but that we have to cut contact. He has been dishonest toward himself and toward his boyfriend, because he has a crush on me. He doesn’t WANT to have a crush on me. And look, I get it. His relationship is important and he is putting the guy he loves first. You can’t control how you feel about people, but you CAN control what you do about it. So I get it. Wouldn’t I do the same? I told him to promise me that he wouldn’t forget about me completely. I screamed “what the actual fuck” multiple times because I didn’t know how to process this. This is definitely not an event I expected to have in 2024… The only links we have in common are now: we have each other’s phone numbers, we are Facebook friends, and I am friends with F on Facebook because she also happens to be in my programme at uni. But we have not spoken. Not a single word between us since February 24th. I respect his decision, so I will not speak to him.
This guy occupied my mind rent-free. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Frustrating because when he told me that he wasn’t interested back in August, that was enough to help me move on. And all of a sudden, my mind can’t let go of the fact that this guy has a crush on me. This guy, whom my type is kind of based on honestly. Middle of March rolls by, and I meet F (his colleague) again at an event hosted by our programme. We all got drunk, especially me 🤦🏻‍♂️. And of course, being drunk, you have a tendency to bring down your inhibitions. We’re on the bus and she asks me how I know the friend. I tell her it’s a long story, but that I can’t speak to him anymore. I say that “he’s soooo dramatic”. She asks me to explain further, but I tell her that I can’t.
The next day, I felt like an idiot!!! Wow. I almost told her what happened. I don’t need that spreading around his school. I saw a uni therapist at the beginning of April, which didn’t really help much. Every time I took the bus, I would check to see if he too was on the bus. Never was.
BUT THEN, I met someone new. We’ll call him T. T has been successful in getting my mind off of the friend. It’s quite recent, but we’re seeing each other and it’s moving along smoothly. Beginning of May, I barely think about the friend anymore. I have a new guy in my thoughts and I’m very happy about it. So T and I go to see a concert together. Guess who just had to be doing a pre-concert in the waiting hall. The violinist friend. T and I are walking up the stairs and all of a sudden the violinist and I made eye-contact and I basically just had a hot flash. I had not seen this guy since February… And I seriously had to make eye-contact with him while I’m on a date with T???
I feel like my progress is ruined. Ever since I saw him at the concert hall, he is on my mind again. I keep checking his Facebook. I can’t listen to my favourite music without thinking about him. But I refuse to give up the music that feeds my soul just because he likes the same stuff. I feel awful toward T, because I have another guy in my thoughts.
All I know is that this person is special. I have known this for years and he is not someone I could accept never having in my life again. He has never forsaken me. I have a deep desire to share my life with him and to be apart of his, and I am perfectly okay with it being platonic. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to live my life without it being a soap opera.

This is a vent post more than anything. I think the paranoia worn off (both bcs I had a low risk exposure and just somewhat making peace with both potentially possible outcomes), but it's so frustrating since it's been 6 days (7 technically, but its early morning here so ya know) and the lady at reception told me it can take up to 14 days (the site says 9) and by then my 4th gen results would also be considered conclusive. I've heard that people in other parts of the world get their results much faster (I live in a highly developed semi western country btw) which is also so frustrating. The past week I've been just existing and putting my life on hold and I can't imagine an additional week of this BS. If you're going through the same thing we can chat :)

Bare with me as with might be a long and confusing story.
Was with my ex fiancé 25 male (I am 27 female) for almost 6 years. I gave birth to our beautiful daughter 2 years ago. I had many concerns about my ex fiancé since the first day when he called her a bitch in the hospital ( this is the day she was born) I remember feeling absolutely sick to my stomach. ( I will also add that he was not present for the birth of our daughter which I constantly feel guilty about; I had previously made jokes that I did not want him in the room I was not serious at the time but truthfully I already felt so violated I didn't want him seeing what i imagine was a horrific scene) I actually did kick him out of the delivery room but only because he was cussing at me and screaming at me about five minutes before I was about to push, this was the only time I ever cried during labor, and told him to please just leave.
He went to the waiting area and came back shortly after I had my daughter The first thing he said to me is how his mother and whole family said, I was crazy for not allowing him in the delivery room, note, his mom is extremely malicious, manipulative, psychotic narcissist, who demands control of everything if she doesn't get it, she loses her mind but we will get to that part later.
Fast forward to get home from the hospital and the first six months of my daughters life were hell only because of her father he would constantly threaten to break her legs or neck when she was crying. He rarely helped me. I stayed up every night all night when she was a reverse cycling . He constantly insulted me made me feel worthless. One day when we were having a fairly great day he randomly said to me no man would want to be with me because I had a child. He he wanted me to stay home, but as I wanted to contribute, I tried to go back to work a few months later. It was only about three days a week, this lasted for maybe a month his mom would come over during this period of time and his mom physically caught him one morning screaming "shut the fuck up bitch" at our then 3 month old baby.she texted me about it followed by delete this text. I was very naive since I actually deleted the text which i really regret as we are in a custody battle and this would have really helped me out. I know the most shameful part is I know I should've left much sooner I should've left the first time he her called her a bitch but I kept thinking if I continued to talk to him about it, he would get better but it only got worse Me and my daughter end up leaving for a few weeks after physical altercation with her father we stayed with my mom, but after a lot of convincing from her father. We were returned not long after. This did not last long as once again we left permanently about a month after this. From the beginning of us, not getting along and me leaving the first time his mother posted publicly to Facebook and tagged my parents in psychotic rambling post about how terrible a person I am she would send me actual novels number one through 20 of every single thing that's wrong with me
I usually don't stand up for myself but to her I did, I didn't care. She was so absolutely evil and such a narcissist, calling me the worst names I would clarify and correct her often Anyways, while at my mom's house I received a call from my daughters father in the middle of the night He said "you really fucked up this time" screaming you can tell he was in the car driving very fast I was terrified I repeatedly I called him and his mom I believed was coming to harm us and had no idea what he was talking about Turns out, he thinks I myself , or sent someone to his home, or the home we lived in previously to steal his guns, which I would never do I thought this is a just another way for them to continue harassing me even after I had left turns out investigators came to my house twice and I gave them the full story and even suggested his mom did it because I truly believe she did have part in that and wanted to try to get me in trouble anyway she could as is her motive Due to all the concerns I had I did file for primary not sole, but primary custody of my daughter with him having visitation Instead of responding to this one day when I dropped my daughter off on the two days a week, he would have her his mother and her attorney with held my daughter and wouldn't give her back until I signed what but feels like a blackmailing document just to get my daughter back in court this is referred to as under duress In this document, there were so many stipulations, but only to me he would get temporary split custody. Also, they listed my own family members in that could never be around my daughter, their own family. After a judge denied the order for emergency temporary custody they still refused to return her which is why I had to sign the document I hadn't been separated from my daughter, for maybe more than 36 hours in her life now at eight months old, she has been taken from me for more than a week. Signing that document was the hardest thing ever for me, but I couldn't stand to be a part for my daughter any longer His mom continued daily, if not more to make psychotic post about me, and my family post memes about me claiming I owed her money for a car that she bought for me 5 years prior And in five years no one had ever mentioned this car until she was angry. Made post about suing me for the car and I also responded Where are the documents? Where is the contract? I didn't sign anything. His family/mom has money, and she looks down very much and everyone else. In may the same year he was arrested for some very violent scary crimes. I won't go into detail too much, but assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill along with many other charges, kind of sums it up over a random road rage incident with an individual he did not even know.
His bond was very low and he was out within hours still had the same job We went to court for this and what the judge determined is not what happened his attorney, much like every trial would call the judge afterwards and get him to change his mind or send him a document to sign even after signing previous documents likely because this judge didn't care to read through anything His mother continued to make my life a living hell I just wanted so badly to be out of this no more stress no more mental and emotional decay. She actually sent messages to someone one of them was 20,000 words long about me breaking into his car, putting trackers in his car, breaking into his brothers car, smashing his mailbox, paying people to go inside of his job and tell him he was going to kill him , trying to get someone to run him off the road and my favorite hiring someone who he was in the road rage incident with
Obviously this never occurred because if it did, they would have a party to and call the police to get me in trouble as once again this is mothers main goal
During this time, she also sent fake screenshots of text messages allegedly from me to my ex fiancé. They were very obviously fake not the way either of us would ever text/ incorrect contact names no timestamps we also both have iPhones. The messages are green, but she kept insisting the person reviewing the text to " show me show me " a.k.a. harassment my attorney advised me not to say anything they would have her deposed then ask why she's doing this get her to say it on camera, and that was the best way however, after filing for deposition, she actually tried to file for a protection order from ME and no one went through with anything.
I know I can't actually blame this on her, but whenever I was driving without my daughter in the car of my brain would not stop. All I did was rack my brain of what her calculated motive was for sending these text messages they terrified me I thought she was going to murder me, my daughter or son After leaving my third day of a new job and I wrecked my car so bad it was totaled and I am lucky to be alive this same morning I recall telling my friend that morning at work that there's something wrong with me I couldn't sleep I couldn't eat this woman was actually tearing me apart and I thought I was going to get in a car accident. She would text me this whole time pretending to be her son from her sons phone number just crazy long harassing messages when I was at work, she pulled a million stunts trying to make me look bad just would not stop at all costs when was determined to take my daughter for herself. It was very clear she ruined her first child and she wanted another try After filing for her to be deposed, she is now suing me for allegedly over $30,000 which I do not have for the car that she claims I owed money on as well as back rent, which I never agreed to I would pay contributions whenever I could because her son paid nothing for rent or other expenses however there was never an agreement. Recently, during mediation for her suing me, she pulled out false contracts with many errors wrong address, wrong dates for example this car was totaled on Christmas day of 2018. Due to someone rear ending me, the contracts she falsified have a date of January 2019 but why would I sign contracts for a car that was already totaled and no longer in existence she also for forged signatures so terribly it was actually insulting
My attorney could already tell that that was a forged contract because the signatures we're not mine and I stated I would not be paying her a dime as I would like her to get in trouble for fraud, falsifying, documents, and forgery. I'll actually look forward to court even though it's wasting me a whole lot of time and money Which is exactly what she wants.
The worst part of this is a few weeks prior my daughters father has been kind of friendly, which was odd. He wanted to go to movies, I thought, as friends, and was kind of happy to be over with the hateful drama, but he didn't want to just be friends, and I very stupidly, went along with us not realizing in my heart I still had feelings for him After this mediation, which he knew was going to happen, and I knew I was going to make it clear I did not sign anything he got mad and said after promising multiple times and trying to convince me we just need to make rebuild our family trust each other again nothing else matters I foolishly believed him until the day of mediation when he got mad that I did exactly what I said, I was going to do, and said we should try this again when all the court stuff is done, I have never felt so stupid and angry and betrayed in my life I sent him a long text detailing everything that happened the fact that I was reluctant and said no and I resisted he was and he promised this was best for everyone to do and for our daughter to have her parents together and I just wanted my daughter have the best life possible
After ignoring him for a few days, he said he's gonna come over to talk and once again, couldn't make it has he's done many times in the past and said we could do it another day because he had to go to another boys night/meeting with his coworkers, but he was actually going to be drinking and getting fucked up couldn't even take an hour to come talk and see our daughter Fast fwd to tonight and while he was with these friends, I was so infuriated and beyond done I said to him several text messages explaining how terrible he had been a human being, and how stupid I was to actually believe him how we have never had a future after this, and I didn't know I had in my life ever again Embarrassingly they are very, very long text and I like quadruple texted. Haven't heard a word from him I don't think I will and once again the most embarrassing I feel I still have feelings for him, which makes me so angry. I wish he just left me alone and never tried to start anything again I was fine until I agreed to start this all over again I am so devastated and so sad, I wish I had never met him The only thing I'm grateful for is our daughter but I feel badly. Just want these feelings to go away. I'm so upset I've been crying I just don't understand how he could tell me how sorry he was and how much he loved me and just staring and holding me for hours to now three weeks later, going right back up his mom's ass as he will clearly always side with her and never me
This is my first Reddit Post- admittedly, it's very scrambled and this might b more of I fucked up situation or am I an asshole for actually giving him another chance. Keep in mind we still have to go to court for permanent custody and other things. What should I do? I want so badly to ignore him and to not have any feelings for him again but he is the only person I have ever truly loved He now has quite an ego currently of having the upper hand, as I believe he just wanted see if I would take him back and I did and that's all the validation he needed.

Background

I've been working with an all-in-one command project for the past few years and I believe I have fully perfected my format for using all in one commands. The goal of an all-in-one format is to accomplish many commands as wanted, in one command, hence the name. Command blocks have a character limit of 32,500 (this limit only applies in its gui: if you can source a command block with more than that by modded sources other than direct copy/paste, this limit is not applied). It seems like plenty, but it fills up pretty fast even with more optimizations than I ever thought possible. So I made more optimizations to the base way I even use an all-in-one.
It accomplishes a working all-in-one with 451 characters, and uses an additional 39 characters per additional command before actually caring about how many characters the command itself uses. This is, by far, the best I have found, and it's fairly simple too, with a bunch of neat tricks.

Other formats

Most of the time, I see some kinda format with a dying armor stand to separate the falling blocks. No offense to whoever made that, but... what were you thinking? The armor stand doesn't even have predetermined death time nbt??? So you are already committed to waiting a full second before it can even think about running??? When I see an all-in-one these days, it's usually this one which I don't know where it originated from.
There's also mrgarretto - Sure, it's nice if you wanted ye olde style all-in-one-command box, but it's generally not that efficient. It doesn't even work in modern versions, the activator rail falls through the redstone block and doesn't get placed. I'll pretend that's not a problem for now. Once again, it's nice if you want something simple and fast, and it even optimizes the command block layout for you, but that's just about it. Heck it even uses two commands just to get its command blocks activated, like.. WHY. YOU COULD HAVE JUST PUT THE AUTO AND COMMAND DATA IN THE SETBLOCK COMMAND. There's also a random STONE block in the base of the structure, and then it puts the command block to delete it, that's right, off to the side? The most reasonable thing is that it setblocks a redstone block next to the command that removes the all in one structure, in order to delay it a tick, but that's not even necessary as of one of the 1.19 versions (this is why it's somewhat reasonable), and now you can just set a command block as auto by default and it'll still have the delay. Even then, it could have used a different command to data merge it to auto, but instead it used a redstone block, which is only reasonable if it already doesn't care about space. All of this makes somewhat sense though, as it hasn't been deliberately updated to work nicely in modern versions.
Anyways that was my rant about other formats w/web generators. Moving on.

My format

As I'm sure some people will ask, is it a generator? Short answer, no. I have no intention of making it into a generator and nor do I recommend it, half of this is because I don't know html, the other half is because it is simply too limited unless you already make use of a million possible configurations. Sure, it's easy to input a few commands and let it do the work for you, but by the time you care enough to get into specifics and more advanced command, you might as well already be familiar enough with the nbt to just do it manually. This is how I do it and it just makes the most practical sense in terms of a long-term project: it's not even that much more effort. The hardest part about working without a generator is getting into the habit of removing all of the line-return characters before copying the command, to make use of as many possible characters as you can. This of course assumes you already separate command by line, which, you really should. Personally, I work with my all-in-one's in vscode for minecraft-specific text highlighting and easy multi-line editing with middle click.
Anyways, getting to the point, this is my all-in-one:

summon falling_block ~ ~1.8 ~ {BlockState:{Name:redstone_block},Motion:[.0,-2.0],Passengers:[{id:falling_block,BlockState:{Name:activator_rail},Passengers:[{id:command_block_minecart,Command:"gamerule commandBlockOutput false"},{id:command_block_minecart,Command:"setblock ~ ~-2 ~ repeating_command_block{auto:1,Command:'fill ~ ~ ~ ~ ~2 ~ air'}"}, {id:command_block_minecart,Command:"say Efficient All In One Format! Made by Lizard16."}, {id:command_block_minecart,Command:"execute align xz run kill [type=command_block_minecart,dy=0]"}]}]} 

Three parts, the start, the content, and the end. This runs as fast as possible: on the 4th tick after it was placed. This is due to a limitation in the way command block minecart delay must have been coded: they physically cannot run until the 4th tick of their life. Then on the 5th tick, the command block is activated that destroys the structure due to necessary delay due to command execution order. It works by summoning a falling block, the redstone block to power the command block minecarts, with its a passenger of the activator rail. Because the redstone block lands immediately, the activator rail stays in place where it was when summoned. The command block minecarts are then passengers of the activator rail, and the activator rail lands on its 4th tick: this does 2 things: make it impossible to move the minecarts with a player hitbox before they are ready to activate, and remove the completely quiet sound that minecarts make when landing for some reason that takes up the sound cap for some reason. The kill command is run as an execute command to do two things: to make it only kill the command block minecarts part of the structure, and to make it work on servers with the essentials plugin. It also turns off command block output every time: which is needed the first time, but can be skipped in future times, but there's no reason to not include it. Generally I respect people's gamerule choices: this is not one of them, there is literally no useful reason for command block output to be on, other than potentially debugging, but even then, just look at the command's last output instead of chat.
To use it, just copy the middle line, paste on a new line, and write the next command in the string. The commands are completely deterministic and they are run in the precise order they are as passengers.
The only "problem" with it is that it doesn't bother to check if the space above it is empty before summoning, because that'll use more characters for a mostly useless function. Everyone who has ever seen any kind of all-in-one should know they use vertical space, and I won't be concerning myself with this issue. However, I once again take pride in the fact that mine requires the least amount of empty space that I've seen, at a whole three blocks: the command block to run the command, the redstone block, and the activator rail.
If you already have the commands for a desired all-in-one, then any text editor that allows you to edit multiple lines separately will be easy to apply this to, I use vscode. Something else I like to do is align the lines such that the command is at the beginning, and at the end of that command, the formatting for the next command block minecart starts and ends there, which means most of the formatting for a command lies in the line above it. It's a bit weird to get used to but I think it's somewhat nicer to edit with.
Overall, it's nothing fancy: just the base format for making an all-in-one work, and to my knowledge, the optimizations I have made have made it the smallest one there is, which is useful to people like me who have a hard time fitting what they want in the character limit even with an insane amount of optimization: every character helps.
If I forgot anything or there's anything I aut to add, let me know!

I’m looking for advice. I (25F) am the leaseholder of my 2-bedroom apartment, and I am on the lookout for someone to fill my open second bedroom. Roommates I meet from Facebook usually have a bad track record, and I tend to think until all the right questions have been asked and that they are gonna be as nice as they seem… until that’s not the case. I end up realizing where I went wrong on some occasions: my last roommate I let in had no experience living away from home and family (20-21F), and she showed herself as being very immature on several occasions and also had some diagnosed mental disorders that she took medication for but did not regularly keep in touch with a therapist, so I saw things escalating worse and her taking such personal approaches to things I would ask (such as the kitchen being cleaned after she gets done, my stuff being taken care of, sustainable approaches for utilities, etc.), which led to me having to give her the notice to move (without leaving her high and dry… I gave her a list of places to look which was way more help than I had when I first started). When I first saw a Facebook post of hers in a group, she said she was moving for work, so I made the mistake of assuming she was older than she was, and she was actually moving and getting a job down here to be close to her boyfriend she met on an app and had been seeing for less than a year. So I saw more red flags being raised the more I found out, and she was rude to our neighbors on occasion (who I’ve never had beef with), and her boyfriend was always over when she was off work (and always left messes, which she chuckled at as if it was “cute”), but I was waiting it out to see where I needed to put my foot down. Another one of my roommates through Facebook was during my senior year of college, which she stayed up downing liquor with her friends all night and constantly kept me up, so the lesson learned there was to ask how much drinking and partying they do. That was also a place where I was not there first, so I ultimately accepted that I just needed to wait it out until I could find somewhere else. I never have more than two of anything when I’m having drinks, and I’m pretty much past the stage of the party scene being appealing to me. I don’t smoke, I don’t stay up super late (and I have epilepsy, so sleep deprivation is super triggering and borderline deadly for me anyway if I’m kept up).
All of this to ask: in my new search, in my pursuits, what questions do I ask? And how would I know they’d tell me the truth? I admit that I am on the pickier side when it comes to my things being taken care of. I was raised with the mindset of being mindful of how to take care of the things you work hard for, so I am particular about the way the dishes are washed so that nothing gets ruined or cracked, straightening up the common spaces after you’ve been in them, using good cleaning supplies when cleaning the house. My dishes also cost a lot of money, and I have plates and glassware on the fragile side (so while they’re dishwasher safe, they can’t be crowded together in there and I especially am a hard charger about rinsing off the dishes before loading them… and some of my stuff is strictly handwash only). I used to get made fun of for it and was even gaslit into thinking I had OCD, so in wanting to know my mind and how I worked, I went to get a psych evaluation, and I’m in the clear of any mental disorders. I’m very organized as well, and I’ve worked in restaurants and event venues where you really practice keeping things as neat as possible even when you’re super busy and it feels like you have 5 things to do at once. I was also raised in keeping a neat house (by a single mom who worked 2 jobs and took care of her parents living on the other side of town, so nobody was busier than she was), so I carried over an especially appreciative and mindful mindset from those years, and I’m diligent about the high standards I set because they are not without reason.

_ _ _ _ _
Impact and introduction
_ _ _ _ _
His first thoughts about his little predicament were that it was nothing like the anime he’d watched.
Finding yourself suddenly free falling from hundreds of thousands of feet in the sky was significantly more terrifying than it had seemed while cozied up in his bed, wrapped up in three-plus blankets and contently slurping his microwave ramen.
That said, he felt justified in screaming like a little girl. “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!” What was happening? Where was he? He had just stepped out of his house for a ramen run at the nearest gas station, and now this was happening. Great, just great, now he wasn’t going to be able to watch anymore anime- he stopped suddenly. “Oh, of course,” he muttered to himself, “That’s what’s going on here.” He was suddenly as stoic as a knight in shining armor as he plummeted through the sky, and he pushed the slightly problematic matter of falling out of his mind and focused on what would be important: His story. First: his name was Caen Eloso. He came from a strange other world with wondrous technology that left nothing to the imagination. Caen was what was in his third year at his school, Hansen Academy High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where teenagers his age were taught arithmetic, science and language punctuation before they went off into the world on their own. Colorado was one of fifty individually operating states in his home country called America, which was home to more than three hundred million people and overseen by a President.. America was located on one of 7 continents in his world, called Earth. There were a great many other countries besides America, of which he knew varying amounts about their cultures that he could give little tidbits of information about, but he figured he knew the most about Japan. Japan was basically heaven. The Japanese people were responsible for creating the best possible thing that his world had to offer, a wondrous thing called anime. He had dedicated his life to exploring every nook and cranny that was connected to the world of anime, and there was nothing that brought him more happiness than binging.
However, he figured he oughta remember some cooler stuff about Earth (he couldn’t really expect many people to weeb out with his stories without watching anime in person) if he ever found himself in a tight spot and needed to, say, entertain a dragon or something. Because…
He was ninety-nine percent sure that he had just been isekai’d.

That’s why, while plummeting to what seemed to be his inevitable doom, he kept a level head. Ignoring the previous screaming-like-a-five-year-old fit. Because, of course, anyone that was summoned to another world via falling from the sky always survived; it was kind of a given, otherwise the story wouldn’t get anywhere, duh. Whether it be due to some miraculous vitality, impossible superpowers, a one-time “safe-landing” provided by the dude that summoned them, or (and what he personally was hoping for) a rescue from some either super-shy or super-pissy elf hottie in possession of a huge rack… of swords, you pervert, that dressed in some skimpy armor (that really would do nothing to protect the vital organs, from a defensive standpoint) and who would kick off the protagonist’s harem.
When he actually gave it thought, he realized he wasn’t really all that interested in a harem, and kinda found the thought of one IRL gross. Like, did he even have to explain? But he knew that if he’d said that in an online chat with one of his internet buddies, they would definitely try to overrun his laptop with viruses. In what was now his previous life, he had had little to no experience with talking to girls, let alone “getting some action”. He really hadn’t seen the point, considering how difficult 3D girls were to handle. That said, he never really got into the hardcore otaku-type 2D obsession stuff, like buying lewd figurines and pasting posters all over your room and buying body pillows of your favorite waifu. He was just a hardcore watcher, and that kind of made-up for his lack of other tendencies. He would frequently spend 12+ hours a day shacked up in his room in 6 hour sessions of binging anime at 1.5 times speed; (he wanted to get in as much watching as possible) and that was only on weekdays. Yeah. With school. (Needless to say his grades weren’t exactly top notch) But weekends were another story, with him usually staying up till four in the morning on Friday night and then sleeping until twelve, when he would wake up and choose whether or not to eat before watching until he was told to get off, and then stuffing his fat face in the kitchen to his heart’s content. The point was, he had originally decided he didn’t want to “waste time” on a girlfriend. (Not that he was exactly confident he would be on anyone's radar if he were to try)
Anyways, more and more, (before he found himself falling from the sky of his new world) Caen had found himself feeling lonelier and more depressed as time went by, and so, he decided that in his new life he was going to quit his otaku and introvert tendencies and find the love of his life in what was to be his new world. Quite the goal.
With his mind made up, (this was some relatively quick thinking given the situation; he’d been falling for about four and a half minutes before coming upon this decision and entirely giving up on his old world and everything he had loved in it) (Besides his love of anime) he realized something… interesting. He hadn’t noticed it due to being lost in thought and not being capable of feeling it (probably his magical protection or something that came with being summoned), but he was currently a ball of flame. If he had been wearing clothes earlier during his fall, and he hadn’t actually bothered to check because of his little fit, they were long since burnt to a crisp. Even though he was certain he had a grasp on the situation, he couldn’t stop himself from freaking out just a little bit, especially as he felt himself growing closer and closer to the ground. ‘Alright, you can rescue me now,’ he muttered to himself, though his words were lost to the wind. His eyes widened. He realized he was too fast, far too fast. This entry was apparently going to be very flashy, which he wasn’t against, but… He could hardly gauge distance before he had halved it. Twenty thousand feet, ten thousand feet, five thousand, he broke through low hanging cloud cover, two thousand.. He shut his eyes as tight as he could and pulled his limbs in tight while covering his ears to brace himself and-
Boom.
_ _ _ _ _
Learning to walk and not-squirrels
_ _ _ _ _
The sound of impact deafens him. He instantaneously loses awareness of anything else besides the sound, but somehow remains conscious, unaware of if he had completely shattered into a million billion pieces or not. For time out of mind he couldn’t move any part of himself. His ears ring and his head throbbed something awful. He could not conceive what would make him capable of surviving a fall like that. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he opened an eye to gauge his surroundings…
He was in a crater. Caen had expected as much, but his jaw literally dropped in surprise, something he thought no one actually did. It was at least eight hundred feet from edge-to-edge and four hundred feet deep, the ground smoldering, red-hot and smoky, but surprisingly only warm where he lay (thank you, summoners). He must’ve stayed stagnant longer than he thought for it to have cooled enough to touch. He slowly pushed himself into a seated position, sitting on his right leg and letting his left arm rest on his left leg, which he had bent at the knee. He once again surveyed his crater by twisting his head around.
Quite the entrance. “I guess this fits into the one-time no fall damage category…” he muttered to himself, running his hand through his hair, making note that it was surprisingly silky. “Cause there’s no way this is a vitality thing, right? Way too overpowered.” For a minute he sat like that, until he realized that something was tugging on the back of his mind. At first he ignored it like he would a buzzing insect, but it kept poking at his subconscious. And then he was hit with it with as much force as when his sister sent him to Jupiter for accidentally breaking her new phone; that wasn’t his voice. ‘Huh?’ Neither was that. His eyes darted to the sides of his vision where it gently rested on the sides of his face. His hair. It was much, much longer than it was in his old world, reaching as far as to hang below his pecs. It was shiny and straight, and didn’t look like it had ever been cut. But that didn’t startle him as much as its color did.
Caen thought back to the fairy tales and stuff of his childhood, and about how they tended to over exaggerate the features of their characters and the objects in them so that the average kid could understand it better, with phrases like “as beautiful as a freshly-picked flower”, “as strong as a bull”, “as bright as the sun itself”, and “as white as snow”. Well, now he wasn’t so assuming that those were mere stories and not just incredible experiences from the writers, because he was witnessing something impossibly… beautiful. Because his hair was white. A stark white, with an almost silvery sheen to it. Like when you wake up the morning after a snowstorm and open your window to see if school is canceled, and the snow blinds you when you look at it because it's reflecting the morning sun. Beautiful. He quite literally couldn’t think of another word for it. Slowly, he reached up to touch it again, once again feeling the impossibly smooth sensation. It glided over his fingers like water. And then he saw the fingers of his hand. Long and slender, perfect and unblemished. He was dumbfounded. ‘Are these really… mine?’ he asked quietly with his new voice. ‘A new body was always possible, I suppose, but I thought if that were to happen I would first have to be reincarnated and grow up with it myself. Did this body… come into existence just for me when I got here? I would hate it if I kicked out someone's soul so mine could stay here or whatever.’ He stood shakily. He was tall. Taller than in his other life, where he’d stood at around five-ten, Caen figured he was now around six-two. And, what he found almost as shocking as his hair, was that he was fit. Or perhaps thin would be a better word, something he had never been before. His stomach felt strange to him as it no longer bulged, and when on a whim he attempted the stretches he wasn’t close to being capable of before, he did so with ease. He could reach his feet when he sat and stretched out his legs, and he could even easily touch his toes. He was in the middle of attempting to put his foot behind his head when he realized he should probably get a move on and get out of there. He guessed that he most likely looked like a meteor for any settlement within a few hundred miles of his crash site. He quickly tapped his foot on a particularly smoldery-looking piece of earth to test if he could withstand the heat like before. He once again found it to be only pleasantly warm. With that reassurance in mind, he decided to get himself out of the crater. That was, before he realized he’d need to learn to walk again. He fell hard and broke his fall with his arms. His muscles felt unused and unfamiliar, though the movement of his arms came more naturally than the rest. At first, his legs were very wobbly and his knees shook and moved sharply if he strained them too much or too little, causing them to buckle and him to fall and roll back down to the center of the crater when he tried to walk out. It didn’t help that it was a pretty consistently steep climb to the edge. He must have been at it for at least an hour. But the distance was good practice for him, and with a lot of rolling in the scorched earth he finally managed to get himself to the edge. The adjustment period wasn’t that awful, considering, and he felt he should be kind of proud for learning so quickly. (At least that's how he thought of it) He stood up on the rim of the crater to see exactly where he was. A pretty considerable distance away he could see trees ringing the crater site, and he decided that he had landed in a forest. The further away from the edge the less burnt and bent the trees were, from the shockwave that came with the force of the impact, he decided. He sat down, leaned back and let his feet rest on the decline of the crater. It was incredible. It felt like he’d just woken up after twelve hours of sleep, and his mind was buzzing with activity like he hadn’t experienced before. Everything was so fresh. He didn’t feel tired or winded at all, and he saw everything in vivid detail, even though all there was to see was the smoldering earth and the forest in the distance. He even tried breathing in deep with his nose, but all he got was burnt dirt and he started coughing from the smokiness of it. Despite this, he smiled. He hadn’t felt like this in ages, a thought he had believed was reserved for seventy-year-olds after getting their backs adjusted by a chiropractor. He jumped up, deciding that the first thing he should do would be to find a settlement of some sort, or at least a stream so that he could drink some water. He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but the thought of a cool liquid down his throat made him shiver. He also wanted to eat something, and decided to keep an eye out for nuts or berries in the forest that looked innocent enough. And so he started his trek. Soon he was walking on long, springy grass and gazing at all kinds of fauna that was surprisingly familiar. He couldn’t really see a difference in the trees or bushes at first, but when he plucked a leaf from the low hanging branch of a tree that looked like the one in his backyard, he saw that the pattern of the veins was definitely different, if not by much. He could at least tell that, since he had played under that tree when he was little. He also saw a lot of strange forest critters, and his heightened senses picked up on their presences like a radar. Soon there were dozens of them watching him from the trees, giving him a wide berth but for some reason following, so he still caught a few glances. Most had bushy tails and large ears with short whiskers on their little snouts, and tiny little heads that looked like those of baby foxes. The overwhelming majority were a sandy brown, but a few times he also saw one that looked blue and one that looked red, and even one that was pink, but these were always directly in the shadows of the trees and bushes and would dart away as soon as he tried for a closer look. A different species that looked like a miniature boar no larger than a bowling ball, complete with tusks, a stubby tail and hooves, trotted directly trotted directly through his path with its head held high in what looked like a show of contempt before disappearing into a bush. It was totally adorable and he regretted not trying to pick it up before it had disappeared. He winced internally as he thought of how many of these balls of fluff were incinerated in his landing. Slowly, as he trekked on, the creatures became more and more daring, darting past him and soon getting in his full view shamelessly, but they didn’t seem to have any ill intent, so he really didn’t mind. At least, they didn’t look predatory. (though he inwardly didn’t trust that idea from his knowledge of anime) Suddenly, one that was much larger than the others, probably the pack leader, scurried directly in front of him and stood on its short hind legs, its arms drawn together. It was similar to the way squirrels “stood”. Caen paused mid-step. It had some sort of presence, and its pose seemed to indicate that it wanted him to sit down so they could have a conversation. Unlike the other not-squirrels, (as he decided to temporarily call them) this one’s coat looked much fluffier and was a rich, chocolate brown, and its ears had white tufts at the ends. Its tail twitched and he also noticed that towards the tip of it the hair was also white. It gave off some sort of aura. Caen crouched. ‘Hey there, little guy. What can I do for you?’ He asked in the same voice he would use for a cute dog or other friendly animal. It tilted its head and he had to stop himself from launching at it in a surprise hug attack. It stared at him for a little longer. Then, out of nowhere, it beckoned to him with a little arm, turned, and started running off. For a second, Caen stayed crouched, dumbfounded at what he’d just witnessed, until dozens of the hiding squirrels started running in the same direction as the big one. He shook it off and decided this was supposed to be his first big event in his story, and so he started sprinting after it, because these little guys were speedy. He ran for more than ten minutes, almost losing track of the pack until he caught glimpses of a bushy tail or fluffy ears that kept him on their trail. Since his endurance was off the charts now, he actually enjoyed the chase, and took the opportunity to breathe in the rich forest aroma as he ran. Soon, he broke out into a small clearing, where he saw the leader “standing” beside the mouth of a cave. The once again shy not-squirrels all hid in the trees and bushes that surrounded the clearing, and all he could see were their cute little button eyes glimmering in the leaves. There must have been hundreds of them. He hesitatingly walked over to the giant not-squirrel (because that was what it was in comparison) and crouched down again. ‘Do you want me to go inside there?’ He asked, pointing at the cave, and turning his gaze to the eyes of the creature. It stared at him uncomprehendingly, its black eyes giving no indication of some great intelligence that secretly lurked. He sighed. ‘Might as well,’ he muttered, walking over the cave entrance. It was as dark as one would imagine, but there appeared to be a faint candle light of sorts dancing on the walls around a bend about a hundred feet in. It also smelled heavily like some sort of crushed herb he was unfamiliar with. It almost overshadowed the rancid smell of rotting flesh. He narrowed his eyes at the giant not-squirrel and the rest of the pack hiding in the bushes before walking in. There was definitely something alive in here, and from the smell, it or they were dying.
_ _ _ _ _
Elf hotties and magic
_ _ _ _ _
The further into the cave he went, the more overwhelming the stench of death became. Caen gave himself a second to regain his composure, then covered his nose as he turned the bend. His eyes widened in shock. A pretty girl with silver hair and sharply tipped ears lay upon a bed of leaves, naked save several fern leaves that provided her the barest of modesty. Her form was softly illuminated by several low burning candles that framed her. A singular giant fern rested on her stomach, covering where James guessed the mortal wound was inflicted. Her eyes were closed and she breathed shallowly, and sweat was beaded all over her body. The different colored not-squirrels he had seen earlier were all gathered there, watching her intently, but quickly turned their heads as they heard his bare feet shuffling on the stone floor. All three of them were there, the red, blue, and pink furred not-squirrels, as well as a green one that he hadn’t seen before. They stared at him for several seconds before all but the green not-squirrels scurried behind him. The green one leaned its head down and seemed to whisper something in the ear of the elf. Caen’s world slowed. Her eyes crept open, a rich, deep purple that seemed to shimmer with silver dust like stars. She ever so slightly turned her head to look at the not-squirrel questioningly, and then her gaze drifted to Caen. As their eyes met, he felt a shiver and a volt of electricity passed invisibly between them through their gaze. Her eyes widened with what looked like disbelief, and she smiled at him ever so softly. Caen felt entranced. There was something special about this girl, something so very special, and he felt a stirring in his chest that made his stomach twinge, but not unpleasantly. She beckoned to him with a finger and he slowly approached her and knelt. Those few steps, with her eyes fixated on his, and his on hers, felt like eternity, and he couldn’t break the gaze if he wanted. ‘Greetings, White One.’ She said softly, still not breaking eye contact. Her voice sounded as though it were made to sing. ‘I apologize… I… was meant to be there to greet you upon your arrival. The best I could manage was providing you a safe entrance from the heavens.’ She said sadly, and a tear welled up in the corner of her eye. He hesitatingly reached out a hand and cupped her face, gently wiping away the tear with his thumb. She shouldn’t cry. He knew that, somehow, that it was wrong, that she shouldn’t ever have to experience sadness like that. She breathed in sharply at his touch, and then her gaze softened. ‘Who… are you?’ He asked quietly. She smiled sadly and tears flowed freely on the back of his hand. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t have the leisure to cry with you. I am glad that my friends were able to escort you here and provide you with safe company, for the forest is a very dangerous place, but… more than that, I am glad that I was able to see you… at… least once…’
Her eyes drifted closed. He quickly grabbed her arm and was hugely relieved to find a pulse, ever so faint.
She is so close to death, White One.
She has been holding out so that she could meet you, White One.
She has been waiting so very long for you, White One.
She spent what little mana she had left providing you safe entry into our world, White one.
These sweet-sounding voices echoed in his mind, though all of melancholy tone. He slowly stood and turned to face the not-squirrels.
Please save our Silver Lady, White One.
This voice was deep and strained with pain and suffering. In front of him stood the pack leader. He sat just in front of the other four not-squirrels, all mimicking his position. All Caen could do was nod, even though he was dazed and had no idea how he would be able to help her at all. ‘Show me the wound.’ he declared in a voice that sounded much more confident than he felt.
The four different colored not-squirrels glanced at the leader, and, the words still echoing inside of Caen’s mind like before, he said, ‘Do as the White One proclaims.’ They unhesitatingly scurried to their “Silver Lady” and carefully removed the large fern. Caen did not react how he thought he would. He saw it and his body shook, but not with disgust, or surprise, or horror, but with rage. He clenched his fists and the muscles in his arms grew taut as his fingernails dug into his palms. Her stomach had been ferociously torn open, revealing a sight that was best kept undescribed. His voice shook with power as he spat, “Who… Who did this… to her?”
His head snapped to the not-squirrel leader, his wild, hateful eyes boring into the creature. “We do not know, White One,

TL;DR - Stop letting cis people hold all the power over your access to care. GenderGP has failed our community and that’s it.
Like the title says, let’s talk about GenderGP.
Not about the information I can’t share due to contractual obligations, but the things I can that are a public detriment and largely ethical issues that impact your continuity of care and community safely.
I’m really not interested in someone here gaslighting what all my colleagues went through, telling us to get over it, move on, and enabling Helen to continue what she’s doing with zero accountability.
So please, don’t belittle the absolutely horrific experience we went through because bootlicking Helen sounds more favourable.
In January 2024, we had enough staff. There had been large hiring in the fall to accompany the increase of received pathways. Nine new staff had been taken on from October to December. The majority being community members themselves. The workload was manageable with proper leadership and guidance.
Let’s remember that our community already deals with significant socioeconomic factors that make it difficult to find jobs at all. The large majority of us were passionate about this area of work, both because we had lived experiences, and because we wanted to make a difference in what we couldn’t achieve in public healthcare with the prevalent systemic issues. Many of us had multiple jobs or were going to school as well.
We were contractors (the people remaining still are) with limited rights. We knew what that meant. Our contracts stipulated that if we were to have our contracts ended, OR if we decided to leave the company, we’d need to give or be given 60 days notice. We could be terminated for a number of reasons, none of them listed on the contracts stated for “restructuring.” Note: all of the new contracts after spring do not have this clause, they can fire people without notice or reason, and already have.
Our entire functionality of services - from the portal that was used, CRM that existed, records, etc., was absolutely outdated, there is no denying that. There were a lot of places to pull information from that made tasks difficult. But all of the teams knew their roles and where to get the information so that while things could be improved, at least they could continue to run as they were in the meantime. We all know mistakes happen and that it’s shit when they do, but at least we could make it right the best way we could.
GGP had already dumped significant money into developing a Salesforce tool for all your CRM needs. It was getting to a point it could have been functional and ready to launch to improve everything I stated above. There was an entire experienced IT/systems development team that existed to get this prepared over the last two years. Public emails were already going to patients from the application to update details, this isn’t unknown information.
Instead of that being finalised, Helen fired the entire systems team without warning, leaving everything to do with Salesforce fucked over because no one who remained knew anything about maintaining it. She also fired the entire media and marketing team mid-last year.
She had teams that could do everything you can possibly think of that is going to shit right now.
Late last year, we all did employee surveys about our working experiences and motivation to stay with the company. The results were glowing, we were content. There would always be things we wanted to change, but that exists with any company. It’s not an attack to make suggestions, if we stay complacent in anything, it makes us ignorant to what can improve and that’s it. And as community members with lived experiences, of course we had things we’d like to change.
We were told another employee survey would be sent out in the new year, and then, all the below happened before it came out.
In late January we were told we needed to start using the Healthy Hormones website in everything we did. From the prescriptions team using it to ensure bloods were up to date, to pathology using it answer any and all questions from the page that existed, to queries using it to direct people there. And to be clear, we already did these things, it's not like the tools didn't already exist. This slowed down everyone’s work significantly, which in hindsight, feels entirely intentional at this point because then she can go and proclaim that: “Oh shucks, these changes were awfully necessary, can’t you see!”
It slowed us down because none of us were trained on any of it (new tools, website in general) and even though we all knew the answer to the situation or things being asked, they didn’t exist on the Healthy Hormones pages. So, then we would need to raise that it didn’t exist, or that a tool wasn’t accurate, or whatever the fuck else, and then wait to get a response about how to respond. A response we already knew, had accurate protocols for, and could even provide an answer ourselves if she wanted it so badly on the Healthy Hormones page. But nah, we had to wait for her to pump out a ChatGPT produced answer to advise because she thought we were idiots.
And what did ChatGPT produce? Things like claiming Spironolactone isn’t a diuretic or that GGP doesn’t prescribe diuretics, or that etc etc etc. We had clinical providers feeding us ChatGPT content to respond with instead of individually responding to patients about their results and concerns, taking zero responsibility for their tailored needs.
Oh, right, but Helen will point and say that all those posts were created by a licensed professional, so obviously it makes it a-okay then. Sure, let’s ignore that just because she signs off on something doesn’t make it any better when it has clearly not been reviewed properly. Not to mention the largely confusing non-sensical descriptions on posts that are inaccessible, ableist, and don't answer questions as they pertain to the service.
We know that ChatGPT is ethically harmful. We know that AI in general is going to cause ramifications in healthcare unregulated. We aired out concerns on this. We were ignored.
It was very clear that us needing to send everything and anything through to be put on some new website we weren’t even made aware of, was with the intention of likely getting rid of us. When raised, our HR team told us: “No, no, we’ll make sure everyone is redeployed, or that the low performers will be the only ones offboarded! Everything is totally fine.”
(Note: Yes, yes, never trust HR, many of us were well aware of this and did not put much stock in anything they said - which as of writing this, two of the three were fired too, so, fuck us all I guess.)
Now, there is something to be said about positives related to automation. There are ways to code forms to produce the data we need to properly advise on. There was a way for Helen to go about this entirely, that she was informed on by people with these expertise, that she ignored. There were way more logical ways of going about literally everything she did. However, the ethical aspects that pertain to patient centered care impose a level of responsibility that Healthy Hormones, GGP, and Helen proclaim to no longer take.
Any manner of gender affirming care should have the final treatment recommendation oversight of a qualified professional or multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals that:

1. Take your full medical history into consideration, especially any new medication or changes,
2. Review your care goals and any gaps that you feel are creating barriers to achieving the results you desire,
3. Review abnormalities in test results that could be attributed by your HRT to advise,
4. Ensure you are providing informed consent to any changes that impact your ongoing care (ie. an opt-out from changes in services like automation, or sudden changes that impact how you receive your prescriptions that could create health concerns from unexpected withdrawal of hormones),
5. Provide surveys about ongoing patient experiences and addresses areas of improvement,
6. Produce records and data requests promptly to be GDPR compliant, and
7. Address formal issues you have related to concerns with the facility management or ongoing care services in a timely fashion.

The idea that all of the above would instead by handled and answered by the Healthy Hormones (cough GenderGPT cough) page deeply worried all of us.
Ofc, one day the ideal world would be largely OTC HRT (remember HRT is easier to manage than diabetes and many, many other conditions), but most people aren’t ready to have that conversation.
So, with all that in mind, back to the continued fuckery of earlier this year.
Member Enrolment which was the team that used to process new intake forms and liaise internally with clinical staff to ensure any concerns were medically assessed. Their entire team was destroyed in February, without warning.
Yes, they did struggle with the ongoing forms received. However, other teams were able to shift over advisors to be able to accommodate and if there hadn’t been so much uncertainty in everything Helen was doing from the top, that could’ve been easily rectified with a change management process. Many things were easily rectified by simply utilising the people she already had and caring that they had opinions that mattered. Other teams were also in a positive position metrics-wise to be able to send advisors over to assist with the uptick.
But instead of fixing a super easy problem, she decided to make it infinitely worse and told the Member Enrolment team, without warning, in the middle of a random work day in February that they were no longer enrolment advisors and were being “redeployed” to other teams, with no training. A team of +10 people suddenly without homes and no proper HR protocols followed to ensure this didn’t completely destroy people’s morale.
We were lied to, repeatedly.
One second, HR is telling us (and if I’m being honest, I don’t blame any of them - Helen is a fucking rollercoaster and was likely changing things every two seconds and they were just the scapegoats) there is a rollout plan for the next bunch of quarters into next year and that the only time anyone would potentially lose their jobs is at the end of every quarter and it would be based on performance.
In this same messaging, we’re finally finding out (even if it was literally already launched and being used) GGP is being separated into three entities (this was posted on Healthy Hormones too). GGP would be about a community hub space, Healthy Hormones would be about facilitating the automation of care and where people were getting information, the Health & Wellbeing Directory would be a place for a host of new session types and the opportunity for us to move over and that the great majority of us would continue to have jobs.
We were a little over 100 people at the start of 2024. Over 50% of that number was the entirety of the Healthcare Admin teams - the people who handled new enrolment, general enquiries, prescriptions, pathology, learning and development, and medicines management with partners. Everyone else was the Clinical + Wellbeing Team - so our psychologist, counsellors, doctors, wellbeing advisors (people who do the Follow Up Sessions, previous Ask Us Anything) and nurses.
The next second, we’re being told that a number of people would be imminently offboarded, a number somewhere in the double digits. We were told it could be anyone from the most recently onboarded staff, part timers, or based on poor performance. Immediately, all of our teams grew frantic about the uncertainty and (un)shockingly morale continued to plummet.
(I should also say that the internal structure of GGP was Helen > Head of Healthcare / HR > Team Managers > Team Leads, and no one from TM/TL level was being told anything or was invited way too late to meetings weeks after decisions had been apparently made that impacted the teams)
Next we’re filling out the next employee survey and trying to air our concerns about AI from a community perspective and that we feel entirely uncertain about our prospects because the messaging has been vague and it seems to be changing very quickly. We just wanted clarity, communication, and empathy so we could return to a state of functional across the teams instead of all of our mental wellbeing's tanking. We never found out the results of the survey, despite being told we would, likely because it did not make Helen look great compared to the previous one.
When the firings suddenly weren’t happening for when we thought they were, the shit show burst.
Without warning, multiple changes happened in quick succession. We came into work on a Monday and had no access to responding or sending messages in the communication tool. We had no access to new patient files or even what was going on with issued prescriptions from the new page (a new page we weren’t even told was launching). We could barely advise on the old messages that asked about all these new changes because of this. We asked, over and over, to be able to do our job and handle complaints, for this access. Helen refused and refused to properly tell us what the fuck was going on.
From January to mid March, we were dragged through a clusterfuck of uncertainty, enormous stress, and being gaslit every day. Every day we were being pummeled with unclear information, changing guidance, thinking we would be fired, etc. Then, silence.
On March 15th, 2024 - 47 of the remaining 87 staff were fired. The entire healthcare admin team that I expanded on earlier was completely fired. We had a brief chance to review the post that went on our internal HQ page, telling us it wasn’t our fault and they wished us the best for anyone who was no longer required. Then, we’re all being removed without getting to say goodbye except for HR calls if we wanted them with two people most of us barely knew. Many of us had been there for years. It didn’t matter.
Then, Helen is on a call that same morning with the clinical and wellbeing team telling them that the whole reason this is happening is because of internal errors that the entire team she just fired were doing. She didn’t even tell them how many people were fired. And (contrary to the HQ post) stated that this needed to happen because of it and that automation would prevent errors. That her random group of data analysts (roles she never positioned to team members she already had) that were the HR Talent Lead’s family members in the Phillipines were replacements for us when she hadn’t even trained them properly to do prescription lines. That this was all for the greater good.
Helen is sitting there telling everyone to get on board and be positive in everything they do and say, or go. It's not about honesty or transparency, it's about who is desperate enough to stay for a paycheque because they have no alternatives. The majority of us have not been able to find work.
Nevermind that all of the protocols that existed internally were approved and maintained by her. That she is the one responsible and signed off on any issues that existed for all the tools we had internally that told us what prescriptions to issue, what to look for on blood test results, how to advise, etc. Nevermind that all we did was follow her instruction. No one was going lone wolf. Mistakes were outliers, not the norm. They happen with any company. There was a means to improve what her concerns may be, without decimating the company and ongoing care. Instead, she made us all look like the problem because a mirror is too hard to find.
I don’t know what I want from this post. I adored the job I did as much as I hated it from a capitalistic part of wishing public healthcare was good enough we didn’t need this at all. I gave my all to my job. It made me feel fulfilled. I have been heartbroken for months about all of this. I have had my mental wellbeing deteriorate to a point of resurgence of conditions I haven’t had in decades.
I wasn’t ignorant to who Helen was, I knew that there was a certain greed that Helen exudes in everything she does. She has multiple family members and their friends employed with the company that weren't amongst the ones fired, it’s not hard to deduce that money is the main factor for why GGP is the way it is now. I just thought that at some level, she did care about us based on everything she puts out publicly.
I just wish the community understood they deserve better instead of letting Helen get away with this. I also wish if we were going to media about this, it wasn’t the Times or whoever else that has a very clear agenda on how to paint our community’s needs.
Stop giving all the power to cis people who don’t care about you. Helen cares about money. She is a performative ally at best but a viper behind closed doors. She is a licensed doctor, with an investor on her shoulder telling her he’ll make her millions so she can continue to be the scummy landlord, multi-villa-having cretin that she is.
She doesn’t care about the opinions of her staff because she considers herself superior. She will not accept opinions that oppose hers and will bully, undermine, or ostracise you for speaking up. She treated all of the healthcare advisors like we didn’t know fuck all and only ever considered the doctor who agreed with her as anyone worth having an opinion. Her ego has gotten to such a point she truly thinks she’s our community’s saviour. Stop allowing her to have this complex.
She knows damn well how to ensure patient safety is maintained and how to implement healthcare projects properly, she just doesn’t care. She wants guaranteed money, fast, regardless of the consequential outcome.
She was fully informed about every single issue that is happening now. She was told how this should have been refined before large scale launching. She already had staff that were all experts about what she is doing now that could’ve helped make this successful. She was told by many people, many people who even left before this year, that this was not the way to go. She treats our healthcare like she owns a candy shop, from the way shit’s phrased on the website, to the infantilising way she looks at complaints or our community in general.
She deserves to be held accountable without destroying private care at the same time.
Continuing to let her hold all the cards, is deteriorating the validity of private healthcare in the UK/EU. Policy makers will continue to hold her as an example set that private healthcare is dangerous, rather than turning a light on the fact that public healthcare is the thing that is killing our community.
She doesn’t deserve your respect, she doesn’t deserve your money, help the other companies thrive if you have the money to spend on them, but stop enabling Helen at every turn.

Should i reach out and apologize to him? Please help. Any insights would be appreciated.
Should I reach out and apologize? Please help, any insights would really help me.
Hi, everyone. I'm 20F and my ex 22M has recently broken up, 2 days ago specifically. He broke up with me and told me that is he is tired and that our relationship is going nowhere. The reason is that we've been having arguments for I think 2 weeks before he decided to end it.
Now, to be honest, I realized that I picked a lot of fights because I felt insecure and I feared that he's going to abandon me. For context, I was passive aggressive with my tone and that made him defensive. I opened up about my feelings with him liking this celebrity girl on TikTok and I felt like he is more attracted to her than me because I've been posting a lot of pictures and he didn't complemented me and I just felt like I am unattractive and that maybe he don't want me anymore. (Looking back, I honestly think that I am immature with this one and I recognize that I relied on him for validation and assurance that I was still attractive for him.)
To continue, he said that okay he'll stop liking to make me comfortable and yada yada. After that 2 days later, he started reposting again this girl on tiktok and started sharing her pics, now this made me panic, I know, ridiculous. He started going off on me about how I am so immature and he just want someone who doesn't control her. I was hurt by what he said.
From this argument, we started to have another argument and another and another and it just keeps piling up. So, I decided to communicate with him. I know I did my best to keep my composure while communicating this on chat since we're LDR. I didn't become passive aggressive, I wasn't rude with him, No cussing or whatever, I talked with gentleness as much as possible as I don't want to make anything worse.
I told him that we need to communicate, I was sorry for being so insecure and I'll just support him if he wants to be a fanboy over that girl, that I was just feeling insecure at that time and needed compliment from him. Basically, I was sending paragraphs to him to really address the issues that we're having during the past few weeks and also to really apologize. He essentially told me to "shut my mouth" and he just wants a relationship that has peace, he said that can I just please stop talking and such and this made me feel extremely unheard and invalidated cuz I know all I want is communication and reassurance from him that we're gonna be okay even after all the fights.
After he said that, he was cold to me during the following days, I was being distant too since I was hurt and since I didnt wanna make things more complicated by opening up again my feelings, I didn't really talk that much. Fast forward he said that we should meet, we ate food and he was saying "sorry" and he said that he thought we will talk and I was nonchalant during our meet. I was really hurt and this was not to punish him, but the things that was running through my head is that he didn't really listen to me and invalidated me during the times that I wanted to really talk and what difference it would make if we will talk in person if he doesn't understand where i'm coming from.
So we didn't had that much talk. After that night, he decided to unfriend me on facebook w/o communicating so I asked what's the problem and he said he felt disrespected by our last meet since I didn't really talk. And then I apologized and said that I did that cuz he basically told me prior to meeting up to shut up and that's what I'm trying to give him. (Not to be rude or whatever) I was just trying to really give him what I thought he wants.
After that he broke up with me and I can't help thinking that maybe I was really the problem and maybe I should apologize to him. I don't know if I want him back, I am just questioning myself right now. Please help. :(

Why did the farmer visit the pharmacy? To speak with the farm-assist.
Hi and welcome to my post! Wanted to start off with a funny to me dad joke.
Nice to meet you, I'm Dylan! To put it simple, I am a single 22 year old man who has been pretty lonely in life and lacking in female connection and interaction. And part of what comes with that is the desire to be intimate with a person. I am very mature for my age and will always be respectful of your boundaries and feelings, especially with anything sexual. Lately all I have is myself when it comes to sexual desires, so I would like to have someone to keep company with in that regard too.
I'm just relaxing at work before it's time to go home and thinking about and burning a woodwick candle. Perfect for when there's a storm outside. I love candles! 🕯️ Sometimes a campfire outside on a fall night or a crackling WoodWick candle is a relaxing constant among our busy and hectic world. It's nice to just disconnect, feel grounded and happy in your own little cozy space. Feeling calm and collected and at peace. Something that fewer people take the time to do these days.
I am seeking a woman around my age or older to build a close connection with that could possibly lead to a relationship and something intimate which includes the possibility of teasing/sharing pics etc. but only when we were comfortable. Figured I would be open in my Intentions as that's the best way to be.
You:
Kind, respectful, and easy going.
Comfortable with the idea of eventually sharing intimate things together.
Willing to eventually move off of Reddit.
Want something genuine and fun!
Are honest in your intentions and a good person to be around!
That's about it, we will get along great I know it.
I've been feeling a little bummed out lately. I always try and stay happy and see the best in things. But.. I've just been so alone. Most of my whole childhood and adult years have been spent feeling lonely. I grew up surrounded by cornfields which was peaceful but also has a lonely aspect to it. My family never really were close and never did anything as a family really. And part of it too is the fact that I never had any neighbors my age to interact with. But aside from that, my adult life has been very lonely. I'm just always by myself. I barely have any meaningful adult relationships or experiences, or even any friends.
I work a 3-11 job in building maintenance at my company world headquarters building which I love, but again it's very lonely. I work the off shift so the building is always empty. I don't get normal social interaction with people my age or a chance to build relationships. I only have 3 older men as co-workers and we are mostly in the basement away from any people on the floors from knowing our existence. I always walk the floors and see office people laughing and chatting with their coworkers and I just don't have that kind of experience. And just.. no one knows I exist really. Everyone probably assumes I have a lot of friends, but I'm struggling inside with being so alone and trying to meet people and get past the "hi how are you?" "I'm good thanks" stage. Most people don't seem to want to talk beyond that. And most women are already in relationships and thus it would seem weird to approach them in an office setting trying to get to know them deeper. But man those "hi how are yous" are the only real interactions I get during my day.. so thus I decided to come here lol. Rant over, sorry! I promise I'm not a downer. 😅
Now for some things about me!
As you can tell, I am very mature for my age and am polite and have good grammar which unfortunately not everyone my age does anymore lol. I am not active at all on social media/internet culture really and don't know much about all the slang the younger people these days use. I feel like I'm 50. 🤣
I am left handed which is pretty cool. I'm not much of a party person or a drinker, I much prefer a quiet night at home and maybe a beer or two on a weekend but that's about it. I am simple and stay out of drama and trouble and don't get much into politics or other things that cause drama with people. I much prefer a relaxing campfire and a night at home and to just let the world keep on turning haha. I consider myself pretty intelligent and mature, especially for my age which is why I'm open to older ladies.
Physically I'm 180 pounds, have brown hair, green eyes, and a typical build. There's a few pictures on my profile.
Some of my hobbies are:
• Photography
I have a Nikon D200 and D5500 that I love to shoot with. I love nature scenes, abstract, black and white/goth kinda photography, sunsets, etc. it's so fun to just let your mind explore. It's not about what camera you have, but those who are behind the camera! I'm gonna try and photograph the northern lights tonight!
• Cooking and baking
I loveeee to cook and bake! I enjoy making various meals but also love to just have a frozen pizza once in awhile or something like that. I recently made homemade chili which turned out great. I love to bake, especially in the fall! I love pies, cakes, pastries, cookies, etc. I restored a vintage KitchenAid mixer that needed tbe gearbox rebuilt. Eventually I would love to practice home canning my own food.
• Music
Oh my gosh, I like so much!! Alternative rock, punk, post punk, electronic, synth pop, psychedelic rock, hard rock, etc. I am very non judgemental and open when it comes to music. My three current favorite bands are Type O Negative, Joy Division, and the Cure.
• Nature walks and camping
I really enjoy camping, making fires, and relaxing by a campfire. I love to take walks outside and just enjoy the beauty and simplicity of nature. It's wonderful, especially in a world so focused on everything digital.
• Repairing things
I'm a maintenance guy and one of my hobbies is electronics repair so I am good with my hands and just all around good at troubleshooting and fixing all sorts of things around the house. Last week I helped my elderly neighbor get his tractor started, it needed a new component in the starting circuit. So I'm pretty handy which... Comes in handy! 😂
• Autumn 🍁
This isn't a hobby per say, but man do I love the fall!!! It's my absolute favorite time of the year. Oh my gosh. The beautiful colors, crisp cool air, misty and foggy days, rain, lack of bugs, being cuddled up with a candle or by the fire drinking a tea, etc. I love it! There's only two seasons for me. Fall, and waiting for fall! Haha.
• Scented Candles and incense
Going along with my love for fall, I absolutely love candles! I have like 30 something lol. 😂 Currently my favorite are WoodWick, which are owned by Yankee candle. They have such a soothing crackle and the scents are great! I also love to burn incense from time to time as well. I have cottagecore hippie vibes.
• Old houses and architecture
I love old houses! Especially 1900s and Victorian era homes. Old homes have so much character to them and are just so beautiful from a time when people took pride in their craft. I strongly dislike the modern cookie cutter cheap construction of homes today. I would love to live in an old home one day. I also love their architecture and uniqueness, as well as architecture of old cathedrals and other buildings.
• Relaxing
Basic I know, but sometimes on the weekend I just love to get cozy in bed and relax and put on a YouTube video or an album! 😊
That's about it for me, I'm a pretty laid back and simple person. My ideal person is someone who is respectful and honest! I am very straightforward and open minded and would hope that you are as well.
If I seem interesting to you at all I would love to hear from you!
Thank you so much for reading.

Who is Gary Renard:
Gary is a famous ACIM author. He has written “The Disappearance of the Universe”. He claims to be the reincarnation of the disciple Thomas and he claims his book came to him by inflesh ascended masters. He calls these Arten and Pursah. Purshah is supposedly a future incarnation of Thomas, and Arten a future incarnation of Saint Thaddeus.
Who is Bruce MacDonald:
Following a NDE, Bruce had some mystical experiences. He claims after this he was able to talk to God, Jesus, and in a past life he was the disciple Thomas. He wrote two books about this including “The Thomas Book Near Death, a Quest and a New Gospel by the Twin Brother of Jesus”. There he recounts his adventures as a disciple in Jesus’s inner circle and relays supposedly new teachings about Jesus.
Tragically it appears he died somewhat recently and his website went offline. That had a ton of interesting information about Gary Renard, Thomas, and even the Course in Miracles. But…the good news is much of it is still available from archive.org. Here is an archived sitemap.
The Thomas Conflict:
They both claim to be Thomas! This is extra funny when you consider the original meaning of the word Thomas means twin.
Let’s start with Gary Renard’s claims:

• Supposedly there is a famous past life channeler “Kevin Ryserson”. He was able to interview the incorporeal entity known as Ahtun Re. And Ahtun Re in turn provides many detailed and interesting celebrity past life details. You can read them here (some are jaw dropping…eg Trump = Nero, Putin = Caesar, Biden = Emperor Theodosius). He was friends with Gary and claimed publicly that Gary Renard is the reincarnation of Thomas.
• Gary claims that Pursah is the reincarnation of Saint Thomas and Arten is the reincarnation of St. Thaddaeus…but per Bruce Thaddeaeus is an alias for Didymos Judas Thomas the disciple, so are Arten and Pursah (and Gary) the same person?

Let’s go now to Bruce’s side:

• Kevin Ryserson/Ahtun Re publicly proclaimed that Bruce was not the disciple Thomas, but rather a later scribe who wrote down the Gospel of Thomas.
• But Bruce claimed that Kevin privately told him he was indeed the reincarnation of Thomas, but didn’t want to go public to jeopardize his friendship with Gary.
• Bruce also proclaims his private guides and and Ahtun Re himself confirmed he was the real Thomas
• Bruce claims that Gary is unaware that St. Thomas and Didymos Judas Thomas were separate people, yet impossibly Gary claims to be both. Bruce says a separate person wrote the gospel of Thomas (not Thomas himself) which he claims Gary doesn’t realize.

Did Gary Renard Plagiarize Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer
In 1945 the Gospel of Thomas was discovered. Scholars Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer translated this into English (http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html).
Renard claimed the ascended master Pursah (future Thomas from the past) dictated to him a new and corrected version of the Gospel of Thomas. This was put into the book “Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas”.
However it appears Bruce did differential analysis on this and the Patterson/Meyer version and discovered they often were identical.
That can’t be. The Gospel of Thomas was written in coptic, but was likely seeded from Greek or Aramic sources. An ascended master like Pursah should be able to go straight to the source to explain what these teachings meant. Yet these are too similar to existing English translations. For translation work this is just too coincidental. Anybody familiar with language translations knows there is a fair degree of subjectivity that happens in the process. A lack of variance between two translations is suspicious.
Now there are differences…but many are minor and perhaps “token”. What’s even stranger is the location of the “token differences”. They are mostly placed in the early verses and gradually tapered off. As if Gary (or a source for Gary) got tired of “improving” the verses and got lazy in the end and just copy/pasted.
Greg Mackie Chimes in:
https://circleofa.org/library/gary-renard/
Some of Greg’s claims are unfair (like his criticism of the ascended master concept)...but some of his critiques are well done and raise legit questions about the audacity of Gary’s “ascended masters”. Examples:

• Arten: An issue of Time Magazine in the 1970s had the words “God is dead” on the cover (121). (He doesn’t say “on the cover,” but it is clear that he is referring to the famous Time Magazine cover.) Actually, the issue came out in 1966 and had “Is God dead?” on the cover.
• Arten: The Jefferson Bible “will be made available soon for those who want to see it” (218). It has been available at least since 1904 (some sources say 1903), when it was first published.
• Pursah: Pursah implies that the Muslim holy month of Ramadan occurs around the same time as Christmas (297). Ramadan is based on the lunar calendar and therefore can occur any time of year.
• Pursah: “Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire…by law any other religions or spiritual ideas were outlawed” (50). Constantine legalized and supported Christianity, but he did not make it the only legal religion of the Roman Empire. This was done by a later emperor, Theodosius (who reigned from 379 to 395 C.E.).
• Arten: “The United States…has much more of a responsibility when it comes to diffusing situations than anybody else does” (337). This one is worthy of George W. Bush; the correct word is not “diffusing” but “defusing.”

Robert Perry Chimes in:
https://circleofa.org/library/why-dont-the-masters-have-an-original-thought/
Robert observes that many of Purah’s channeled teachings sound coincidentally VERY similar to the teachings of Wapnick and use Ken’s unique language. He goes into great detail on this. An example:

Pursah: “You romanticize the South American rainforest by thinking it’s one of the holiest spots on earth. If you could observe in accelerated motion what goes on underneath the ground there, you would see that the roots of trees actually compete with each other for the water”
Wapnick: “We admire the beauties and wondrous delicacies of nature. Yet within this same world we perceive competition and destructiveness….Trees’ roots strangle neighboring roots seeking their rightful soil.”

If Gary were using ascended masters as a literary device this would make sense. Gary was a HUGE fan of Ken’s. It would be logical if some of his mannerisms rubbed off on Gary. But for an ascended master to plagiarize Ken seems a bit odd.
Gary Reacts to Robert Perry and Bruce MacDonald:
https://www.garyrenard.com/FraudAccusations.html
Gary very angrily defends himself against both complaints. Examples:

This latest, ludicrous controversy is being championed and promoted by Robert Perry and the so-called "Circle of Atonement." Robert has a long track record of attacking other A Course in Miracles teachers, including Ken Wapnick and myself. For 15 years, Robert has been the most divisive force in the A Course in Miracles community. His actions over this long period of time are an insult to everything that A Course in Miracles stands for.
…
As for Robert Perry, his jealousy of me is so severe I think at this point the only thing that would stop him from trying to attack me would be if someone drove a wooden stake through his heart.
…
Robert Perry will try to tell you this isn't personal with him. Don't believe him. He'll try to tell you that he's a "scholar." A scholar? That's odd. I don't see a PhD next to his name. How honest is that?

Jesus Twin Theory
Bruce MacDonald believes that Jesus had relatives who were his disciples…and this included his twin brother Didymos Judas Thomas. The words Didymos and Thomas actually mean twin. Judas was a common name and note this wasn’t the same Judas that sold Jesus. All that said though, I don’t believe this part of the story. Twin is more likely to be symbolic (more on this below).
Kim MIchaels Chimes In:
Jesus (per Kim) explains that the disciples did not write any of the gospels directly. Also he didn’t dictate them, but there was some inspiration: https://ascendedmasteranswers.com/gospel-of-thomas/
Jesus (per Kim) when asked if any disciples (specifically Thomas) were fallen beings, admits some were. On Thomas he says he has moved on and made his ascension: https://ascendedmasteranswers.com/gospel-of-thomas/
Jesus (per Kim) is asked if Judas Thomas is the biological twin brother of Jesus. Jesus indicates no. Rather family terms were used for spirit ranks. First there was brother, then bride, then twin (these were figurative not literal terms). Thomas reached twin status, which allowed Jesus to communicate with him more effectively. This seems to contradict Bruce’s testimony. https://ascendedmasteranswers.com/judas-thomas/ & https://ascendedmasteranswers.com/becoming-a-twin-of-jesus/
Mother Mary (per Kim) responds to a question about the “The Disappearance of the Universe”. She claims this is not a legit book. Masters don’t travel back in time to teach to themselves. The true messagers for DU are actually coming from a lower mental realm and not the ascended realm. She is generally dismissive of DU: https://ascendedmasteranswers.com/ideas-from-the-disappearance-of-the-universe-by-gary-renard/
Gary’s Weird Connections:
Gary claims he found a girl who was the reincarnation of Helen Schucman. Apparently Ken agreed. Gary even posted a picture of him and the girl on Facebook.
Included in the photo is his wife Cindy who Gary claims is the reincarnation of Thaddeus. Bruce MacDonald claims that Thaddeus was not a separate person in the bible but was actually an alias for Thomas. So did Gary marry himself?
Even more confusing….on top of this there is actually a woman on this Reddit forum (I won’t dox her) who claims David Hoffmeister said she was the incarnation of Helen. But when David told Gary this, Gary said he already found his reincarnated Helen.
Reddit User Predicts Content for Gary’s 3rd Book
https://www.reddit.com/ACIM/comments/ecxr3b/comment/fbgc40k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This is odd…how could a Reddit user predict what content an ascended master would dictate to Gary for a future yet unwritten book?
Simon Magus Connection
https://web.archive.org/web/20210411093059/http://thomastwin.com/20%20A%20ACIM,%20Simon%20and%20Trinity.html
Simon per the bible was a magician and trickster. He’s considered a somewhat malevolent entity. Bruce MacDonald claims he was shown a vision in which it was revealed that th Gary was the reincarnation of Simon Magus and he is tricking people now as he did previously.

I have heard of at least two people who have had the experience of Simon Magus trying to “possess” their bodies since they were children, even trying to push them out of the body to take over. It would seem that, instead of withdrawing into the spiritual realms between lives, Simon Magus has remained as a “ghost,” a kind of psychic vampire who maintains his life in the astral realms by feeding on the lives of the living through the centuries. The people I have communicated with or heard of have had the strong sense of a negative male presence trying to take over their lives, draining their energy, alienating other people and claiming to be Simon Magus. In one case, this Simon actually insisted that the person who was the victim of this kind of “psychic vampirism” should read A Course in Miracles, in order to make the person more aware of the philosophy of Simon Magus and the Simonians. There was also a female presence which seemed to be Helen. I heard this from someone who was so traumatized by the disembodied Simon Magus since childhood that they searched on Google for anything to do with Simon and found my website, which confirmed for them all they had been experiencing. Fortunately, I have been able to help through The Prayer of Silence and The Thomas Book.

Thomas Book per Bruce MacDonald
Bruce claims this was dictated to him from Thomas…but it was also an experiential event. He believes he was there as Thomas in a previous life.
The contents of the book are interesting. This includes some unique takes. Eg He goes into detail on the background of Mary Magdalene and Jesus and how they were married early, but he left her early on to focus on his spiritual work.
The most extraordinary claim is of the crucifixion. Thomas claims that the disciples knew that Jesus would be executed. But they didn’t have photographs back then and knew the Romans could have difficulty identifying Jesus. So they hatched a plan to have “Saul” impersonate Jesus. He would be executed in the place of Jesus. The three ring leaders of this plan were Judas, Thomas and Peter (the three hot heads). They actually kidnapped Jesus and hid him away during the trial. Thomas believed a fake Jesus was crucified (hence the doubting Thomas meme), but Peter is irate and claims the real Jesus ended up on the cross which Thomas doesn’t believe because he was in charge of guarding the kidnapped Jesus. It is possible Jesus bi-located (masters can do this) to throw off this plan. Certainly both Mary’s saw Jesus on the cross…they would have recognized a fake Jesus.
What’s also interesting is the contempt that Thomas has for Peter in much of this book. To Thomas Peter is very dogmatic and overly critical of sex. Thomas was also not a fan of the essenes (which Peter was among), and was upset that apparently Joseph and Mary were kicked out of the essene community for minor rule violations.
Bruce MacDonald on the dictation of ACIM
https://web.archive.org/web/20210411093059/http://thomastwin.com/20%20A%20ACIM,%20Simon%20and%20Trinity.html

My Inner Guide tells me that A Course in Miracles was dictated by Simon Magus.
I dreamed I was in a house with many rooms. In them were people who had been turned into wooden statues, struggling to get out of their wooden confines. I knew immediately that they were living under a spell, so I went from room to room removing the spell “in the name of Jesus and of God.” Once the spell was removed, the people jumped up, looked around in a frightened way, realized they had been trapped in this house, and fled.
I then found the area in which the wizard put spells on people, his “workshop,” complete with intricately tangled paraphernalia hanging from the walls and ceiling. I cleansed the area of all psychic power and sealed it “in the name of Jesus and of God” so that the wizard would never again be able to entrap the unwary.
After I had completed this cleansing process, the wizard came into the entrance hallway where I stood. His face seemed familiar. I had thought this wizard would be frightening, but he was very friendly, with a round, smiling, jovial and pink face. He attempted, laughingly and in great good humour, to put a spell on me as well. I looked directly at him and, “in the name of Jesus and of God,” removed his power to cast spells.
That was the end of the dream. I have not met Gary Renard in the flesh but, when I woke, I realized the smiling man looked exactly like the pictures I had seen on his website.
The basic premise of the Course is that the world we experience is an illusion. This is similar to what Simon taught while alive. Simon Magus taught that Helen was an incarnation of the "thought of God," through which the angels were created. However, the angels, not God, then created the world. Since God did not create the world, it is an illusion. Simon taught that, to achieve salvation and union with God, it was necessary to realize that the world was not created by God but was an illusion created by the angels. Once his converts realized that, then the universe would disappear and they would experience oneness with God.

The Bruce MacDonald Jesus provides detailed insight into ACIM
https://web.archive.org/web/20190718234659/http://thomastwin.com/21%20A%20Jesus,%20God%20and%20ACIM.html (scroll all the way down to “Yeshua said it would be best for him to start”)
Robert Perry asks Bruce to ask Jesus about the Course. He does and the answers are very interesting.
It’s too long to repost here, but this Jesus is largely critical of the Course. He states the real author was impersonating him (something other sources have said) and its teachings are mostly incorrect (eg the Course indicates God is very far away when he isn’t). This Jesus also cites some examples of the Course changing between third person, “we”, and “I” when referring to Jesus as evidence something is up. This Jesus also says that Gary was not Thomas, and that Pursah and Arten are not ascended masters. This Jesus also says Simon Magus was the real author of the Course.

This brings us back to the actual authors of ACIM. I have asserted through Bruce MacDonald elsewhere on this website that the book was written by a first century magician by the name of Simon Magus.
That is only partly accurate, of course. In the same way as Judas Thomas was the ego centre of a particular Individuality (Spiritual Centre of Consciousness) in the first century, and Bruce MacDonald is the incarnation of that same Individuality in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, so Simon Magus and Gary Renard are the incarnations of a particular Individuality who is exploring the potential and the limits of the Docetic philosophy.
Individualities, Spirits, those centers of spiritual consciousness which are manifestations of the Divine Source, can choose to explore anything they wish – God has given them freedom to explore what they will.
It is technically this Individuality which is exploring Doceticism. It is this Spirit who developed the philosophy, partly in the incarnate state and partly between lives. The shorthand version of that is to say that Simon Magus developed the philosophy, since a major part of any of these explorations must take place in the body, and then, after developing and refining the philosophy further in the discarnate state, dictated it through Helen Schucman as A Course in Miracles.
Simon Magus was not the only one involved, but he was the primary focus of the Soul Group exploring the philosophy. And Gary Renard is not the only one involved in ACIM now, although he is the direct incarnation of what we can call the "Simon Magus Individuality." Ken Wapnick and a larger group of souls are also involved, although Renard is the present focus who will ultimately lead to its demise.

Robert Perry did write a response to these critiques of the Course. In general he was dismissive: https://circleofa.org/library/response-bruce-macdonalds-views/
Bruce then responds to the response: https://web.archive.org/web/20210618175625/http://thomastwin.com/22%20A%20Reaction%20to%20ACIM.html
Conclusions:
All these crazy stories are enough to make one suspect of ANY divine revelation or channeled source. My personal opinion is that Gary Renard is not consciously deceiving his followers. But, he is getting guidance from incorporeal life forms who are NOT ascended masters and ARE interested in deception. In this sense Gary is more of a victim, but he does he deserves blame for not showing discernment. I’m sure there are many instances by which these “ascended masters” behaved strangely and showed red flags to Gary who I suspect is loath to reveal these publicly.
As for Bruce, I don’t know what to think. He came from a more orthodox christian background and this may have jaded his view on the Course. He does make mistakes. But some of what he says rings true.
I don’t think either was the real Thomas. Although I think the disciple Thomas might have been one of the entities that was communicating to Bruce.

Some of you may have read my post a few weeks ago about a shelter I'd been volunteering at since last July and how confused and frustrated I was because they don't post most of their cats on their website or Facebook for 2 months (sometimes longer). I deleted the post because i was so scared someone would recognize it and retaliate, but they terminated me as a volunteer for "asking too many questions," so now I don't care.
Some background: There was zero reason for this--I'm not talking about cats who were feral or cats who came in with significant injuries or illnesses. And it didn't take them 2 months to get their cats fixed either so that wasn't the reason (which I don't know why they wouldn't at least post them before being fixed anyway). They'd also not be moved up to adoptable areas and would be stuck in these two small rooms in the very back of the shelter right next to the super loud dog kennels--just a nightmare space to put any cats in, let alone all the newer ones who are terrified to begin with. And no, it wasn't due to stray hold (which is only 5 days there) because they'd do the same thing with owner surrendered cats too, who have no hold at this shelter.
Well, I finally brought up my concerns to them--and I did so in the nicest way humanly possible and was not judgmental, rude or anything like that, just offered to help them write bios or take photos or do website updates, if they needed help. I reached out to a board member first, who ignored me. Then I spoke to their feline program manager directly and she didn't answer any of my questions about their process, but she let me write ONE bio for a cat I was super close to and whose adoption fee I had sponsored--a super sweet, healthy 16-year-old named Max whose owner had died and who they left stuck in the back rooms for over 6 weeks for no reason whatsoever. Then they finally moved him up and he still wasn't on their website for 2 more weeks. Guess what? Literally a day after I wrote my bio and they posted him, he was adopted (they said they saw him online and fell in love). That's what happens when you actually let the public know your cats exist.
And then, a week later, I decided to kindly ask one more time if I could assist with anything to help get cats posted sooner (and this time I CCd the shelter director on the email just in case she wasn't even aware this was happening--and by her response, she seemed clueless but also didn't seem to care). I got an incredibly rude and belittling response back from the cat manager because apparently the board member I had reached out to weeks prior who had ignored me forwarded my questions/concerns to her and the director, and she was livid and berated me for contacting a board member. I'm sorry but at other shelters I've volunteered at we were allowed to speak to board members.
They then "terminated" me as a volunteer two weeks ago for "asking too many questions over the past week," telling me "we THOUGHT we had someone here helping cats, but we didn't." They didn't even give me the courtesy of calling or emailing me to tell me this. Instead, they still made me drive 40 minutes to my early morning regular Saturday shift, then immediately pulled me into a room and told me this. They were completely rude and unprofessional about all of it, never thanked me for the countless hours I spent there, my donations nearly every week (I even bought my own gloves because they didn't provide them and cat toys and catnip every week because half their cats wouldn't even have a single toy in their cage!), etc.
Anyway, since some of you seemed to be making excuses for them or trying to think of logical reasons last time, I will let you know the reasons they gave me for some of the cats:

1. They don't move neutered cats up "until the testosterone leaks out of their urine and it isn't stinky anymore" (however, even after they move them up, they STILL wouldn't post them online for at least an entire week later, oftentimes 2 or 3 weeks or never!). This one is way, way out there.
2. A cat who has been there since December and has had intermittent diarrhea is still not posted. A staff member even told me their vet thinks it's from shelter stress. Well, their reason for not posting him? "It wouldn't be fair to Valvoline or to his new family. We want to get his diarrhea under control first."
3. "Me and my staff need time to get to know the cats. We can't adopt them out if we know nothing about them." Not only is this insane, but even after they were there for 2 months, the staff would know very little about them. I would know which cats liked to play, what their favorite toys were, which ones were crazy about catnip, which ones liked to be brushed, where their favorite spots to be pet were, if they liked treats or not--but they hardly ever knew any of that when I'd mention something. Because I actually paid attention to them and spent time with them.

There were a few other nonsensical excuses both the cat manager and their director gave me, but not a single good reason was provided. They are incompetent, toxic, and I will not miss never seeing them again but I do feel bad for the cats stuck there. And for anyone who wants to blame this on me, their own volunteer coordinator quit last year because she told me she was so disrespected and the place was toxic, and others have had similar experiences. I was never anything other than friendly and respectful to them and spent a ton of time there and did a really good job with both cleaning and just connecting with the cats. I could go on and on about how awful the place is in many different ways, but this is already way too long.

So the other week I matched with a girl off Hinge, we got on really well. She decided to give me her number yesterday and we got chatting on Whatsapp.
I posted a silly video of myself to her with food saying "are you jealous?" and her response was "who else do you send videos like that to?" At first I thought she was joking, it turned out she was serious and not happy.
We're both 30 years of age and this is teenage behaviour. We spoke about dating at 30 and how annoying dating is so I thought we got on well with that ironically enough. I just left it and told her I'm going to sleep after she was basically accusing me of sending videos to other girls, her attitude just changed after the video it was odd...
Anyway, today is when it all happened. She said she didn't appreciate my attitude, and I said I didn't really appreciate hers either. I then said that maybe this is why you're struggling to date in your 30's?. That was a low blow on my part I'll admit and it wasn't something I was proud of saying, however, we had the conversation about dating in our 30s beforehand so there was context. Anyway, she was obviously not happy with the response, got angry at me, and blocked me, so I thought whatever, but I was a bit sad about how it turned out.
Anyway... Hours later I got a message from some random woman and a screenshot containing this anonymous post on "Are We Dating The Same Guy" facebook group. This was with all my photos, the video, and it was saying "Watch out if you date (my name), he comes across nice then becomes extremely abusive". Now kudos to that woman who sent me it, I really appreciated it. My biggest concern, and hers (the reason she sent me it) is that she posted my phone number in the screenshots, as well as all my pictures, and left out the beginning of the conversation the part where she accused me of talking to other girls and just the part where I said that comment to her.
I had no idea these groups even existed, I just found out today and I'm flabbergasted to say the least... It's even put me off dating. I've now gone down a rabbit hole of reading all the stories about it and I just don't feel comfortable with dating anymore...
How is this stuff allowed or legal? Okay yes, I did make a mean comment which I wasn't proud of, but to post my phone number, name, and pictures in some facebook group anonymously doesn't sound right or moral? A group that has thousands of followers... Luckily I've not had any other messages from randomers, and I was even thinking of deactivating my LinkedIn, but then I realised I've not actually done anything wrong to be in trouble for that. I just find it really sick to be honest, is this what women do? It makes me think have I ever been posted before just for having an argument with someone? Is that all it takes? I just can't believe this is allowed, I don't appreciate having my personal info shared on a group without my consent where I can't defend myself.
I've asked her to take it down but she has blocked me, so there's nothing I can do about it.