I am not entirely sure how to write this so please excuse the word vomit that is about to happen. Thank you.
I am an 18 year old online college student and I've always had a bit of trouble making friends and being able to keep them. My anxious tendency's make it hard for me to fully understand why someone would truly want to be my friend. I'm in therapy trying to work this my issues and trying to find better ways of communication. While I've only been in therapy for a short while I, personally, feel like made a ton of progress. I have contacted old friends and have made a couple new ones. I wouldn't go as far to say that I don't struggle with responding but I eventually will.
A big part of my anxiety is that I might take up "too much space", that my behavior would be "too much", that I would be annoying, and ultimately that people would hate be and I'd be lonely. My anxiety sometimes blinds me and I can't tell who I can and can't trust. I see the word alone being used a lot when people use it to describe how they feel but I don't feel alone. The word alone in the dictionary reads "having no one present" and the work lonely in the dictionary reads "without companions; solitary; cut off from others". I believe that the word lonely fits the description of my feeling better than alone. I know that I enjoy my alone time - my space - but for a long time I couldn't tell the difference between the two.
The first time I ever really felt my anxiety was in middle school. My younger self was much more open and optimistic than I am now. I still had that child-like wonder and sense of safety; like nothing could ever go wrong. I wish that feeling never left. As it is for most people, middle school was horrible. I remember being eccentric, happy, and very talkative. This was a direct hit for those "mean girl clicks" everyone had encountered in middle school. At that time I never really understand how cruel the world could truly be. This was the moment I truly felt the anxiety click in, hearing people talk behind your back then be so loving and caring to your face.I won't say that I am a saint because I know that I have also had rude conversations behind peoples backs and I can say nothing eats me alive more then knowing how rude I was. I know that it is almost impossible to get people to not talk about you behind your back, it happens to everyone but this never stopped me from trying.
Those "mean girl clicks" used to talk about how I'm too loud, annoying, they hated my hair, the way I dressed, etc. And I can positively say this went on with me though my entire life. I started dressing in all black, I would speak unless spoken to, I would keep my opinion to myself unless cued otherwise; I did all of this and more just to try and keep the attention off of me. I would keep a book with me at all times so I didn't disrupt anyone so that wouldn't be annoying. I was so fearful of seeing self-centered, being too much to handle, annoying, egotistical, and entitled to how much damage I was doing to my self worth in the long run. I wanted to so anything to avoid being those words because I thought that it would earn me friends; I thought that it would finally make me worthy.
All of this is to say that this was of living followed me though my life. Anytime someone needed something I was the first to volunteer, I wanted to help everyone in every way I could, I wanted to be a natural friend of people. A neutral friend - someone who was like enough to keep around but not noticeable enough to be talked about behind their back. I did this with everyone I met at school, work, family, etc. With this my therapist has helped me open up more and I've gotten more comfortable with myself and the fact that it's okay for me to take up space. However, I am still very aware of how I am acting and how I might be perceived. I think three times about what I am going to say before I say it to make sure I don't say anything that can hurt someone. Does it still accidentally happen, yes, but I am always empathic about it and I always apologize.
I have been in a bit of a job switch recently and I am working with people much older than me and I have had a hard time with management. My most recent bosses and have rude, unforgiving, and disrespectful. Now I understand that not all jobs will be perfect and for the most part you just have to deal with it but as I've said above I take comments that are made to me seriously. I know this can be a bad thing to do but my anxiety had a tendency to pick it up and run with it. My employer makes the schedule on a monthly basis, I am a full-time employee, and for the past two months I have worked 20-25 days each month and now the new schedule (June) I am only scheduled to work for 11 days. With quick math working 11 days can't pay my car insurance let alone the car note. I was understandably, in my opinion, upset and I took it up with them the next day so that I was not speaking out of anger in the moment. When I brought it up to my employer the next morning they told me that 30% of my productivity can from them helping me and the other 70% came from me working alone. I was essentially told that my productivity level was too low and that if I wanted to work more then I need to "prove myself". This honestly stirred a lot of my past worried and anxieties about never be good enough and not being worthy. And while that's not what was explicitly said it is what my anxiety heard.
When I finally got home (I live with a relative) they asked me what was wrong and I had explained the situation with that and I that I felt like I was being productive and trying my hardest. They had brought up the idea that my productivity level might be the issue and when I asked further I was met with one of the more gut-wrenching comments I have ever had anyone say about me. They told me that I act entitled. I have been called many things but for be being called entitled, one of the very things I have tried so hard not to be, it completely broke me inside. I have entered a few inserts below about my "Being Entitled" search.
Entitled - Adjective - Google Definition

• Believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

What does it mean to be entitled? - Cambridge.org

• Feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it just because you are who you are.

How do entitled people behave? - Well Mind Article

• Demanding special treatment, expecting others to do things for you, not showing gratitude, and the need for constant adornment.

Example of being entitled - Psychologytoday.org

• You see your own interest more interesting than others. See your goal and desires to be more valid than others. You disregard rules that are intended for everyones comfort.

What does entitled mean as an insult?

• In many cases, describing someone as entitled may be a criticism of their behavior or attitude, suggesting that they display a lack of humility or an unrealistic sense of self-importance.

With going though and finding all of these articles describing what an entitled person acts like I don't think that I fit into this category. I try so hard to make everyone happy to make sure that their days are going good. I have always shown gratitude when someone does something for me and I have a tendency to say that "I am sorry" even if it has nothing to do with me. They called me entitled on Monday the 27th of May and it is not June 2nd and I never received an apology. This evening I brought it up during a discussion and they asked if it was really still think about it. Part of me wanted to say no that it was just a joke, bottle it up, and move on but I didn't. Instead I said, yes I am, you never said sorry for being rude me, and all they said was that they were being honest. I told them I understand honesty but they could have brought it up in a nice more adult manner. They brushed me off and told be I was being a baby about it that I should take it for face value and "re-evaluate myself". They were never specific about any time I was acting "entitled". When I brought up why it was rude to me and that it was a main center point for my anxiety and that my therapist was helping me finally get through it; they told be that my therapist can't be the only person I talk to about my feelings. They told me that this is not what she is here for. That I needed to talk to my friends and family instead. But this is the problem, I thought that I was so safe with this relative (emotions wise) and now I have been proven wrong so I don't see any reason I would open up to them now. I also brought up the point that it is hard for me to make friends. They looked and me and said well I try and get you to go out to clubs and events but I just don't find it easy to make friends like that. I like quiet spaces where things are calm but even in settings like those it's so hard for me to make friends.
They still never apologized and I truly don't think that they will. I've been dwelling on their comment about me being entitled everyday. And everyday it makes me more and more anxious, I've noticed myself being more secluded to avoid stepping on anyones toes. I think what I am looking for here is opinions that aren't mine or theirs. I know that was a lot to read but if you did I would appreciate some feedback. Do I seem entitled? Do I deserve an apology? How do I deal with something like this because I am completely lost.
Thank you for reading my word-vomit <3

I genuinely don't know what to do in this situation. I can't tell if I have issues or what, but I feel like a monster for how I am feeling right now. I'm on my last year of high school before I go to college, so, I think I need to unload some stuff here right now. This might be a long vent, but here it goes.
Way before my mom got cancer, me and her have a very complicated relationship, you know, the typical teenager and traditional, old school parents kinda thing. Understandably, I'm known to be a lazy, spoiled, arrogant, and selfish kid, who doesn't give a shit about anybody else except for himself. Since I was younger, that was how I was raised, I had everything already ready on my hands. Besides that, I have some attention/ focus issues, as I would daydream unusually way too much and I have low understanding skills, thus always getting left behind by my classmates. I have high self-awareness on my flaws, and that is part of the problem.
My mother has always been strict with me and my older brother, for a good reason. She grew up very.poor and had to work hard for decades to get to where we are. This took a massive toll on her health, as she now has an autoimmune condition and her body had been failing her. I always considered my brother to the favorite child, because he's the smartest, most diligent, and loyal kid in the family -- unlike me. My mom has always claimed that she loves us all equally, but she always compares me to my brother, and even my friends, who are always winning trophies and getting top grades in school. I never won a trophy or medal before, and never got the top grades.
School was always something I struggled with. I'm pretty sure I have ADHD but I haven't confirmed yet. I tried asking my mom if I could perhaps see a doctor or try to get her attention on my problems, but my mom is the type of parents that doesn't believe in mental health and just called me a "lazy, selfish, brat". She uses the claim that "You haven't suffered before, there are others having worst than you" and etc. She brushes away my problems, claiming them to be a negative flaw of mine. Not only that, she is also homophobic, much to the dismay of my closeted self. I know about my flaws and I've been trying to better myself, but because of the things that I did, my mother has zero trust in me and continued to treat me as if I was going to do something bad again.
Because of this, thoughts of suicide and even more violent thoughts arrived. There were many times where I had attempted to do it, but I was too much of a coward, another flaw that my mom pointed out. Quarantine took a massive impact on me and I have felt like absolute shit. My mind became so down in the deeps, that I even developed an unhealthy addiction to something that I am too ashamed to mention here, but just so you know, it is something that ruined my life, relationships and my sleep. Nobody knows that I have this addiction.
Then, at one point, I broke down and told my mom about my issues and how I attempted suicide. But all she did was brush it off and used those same words again, and then it became a joke. Since then, my emotions went from sad and utterly depressed, to just full on anger and hatred. Me and my mom would get into more frequent arguments and such, but it was nothing too big and wasn't that much. But that all changed a few months back.
A few months back, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It broke her and the family apart. I hated seeing my mom in this condition, always in pain, crying and screaming because of the painful medicine and treatment, and just, she was in absolute pain. But she still continued work from the early morning until the late of evening, just to support us. I tried doing my best to help her, but she told to just "focus on my studies and graduate". I even offered to find a job or something besides school, but she told me that it was stupid and that a child shouldn't have to do this. My mom still cares about me, despite the fact that she was slowly dying.
However, perhaps because of the treatment and the fact that she doesn't have much time left. my mother became much more angrier. Everyday now, she would shout and berate people, from waiters in restaurants, the entire family (even my grandparents), my father, and me. My brother is living abroad in a different country, which means that he doesn't understand what's happening on home, which is why I couldn't talk much about my mom with him because he always assumes I'm overreacting.
Eventually, all that anger and frustration that my mom felt, all came down to me. She would take out it out me verbally and emotionally, by berating me, screaming at me in public, and calling me all sorts of terrible things. She wants to see me become perfect and succeed, thus why, I believe she was being super strict with me. I stopped fighting back with her and I just endured all the anger, as I knew that if I retorted, she would die quicker.
However, I guess the breaking point was an argument in the hospital. There was a miscommunication between me and her, which led to the worst berating of my life. She called me a "heartless brat" and "a piece of shit", and claimed that I don't love her and I only want her alive for the money. I couldn't take it anymore so I shouted back, and told her that I wish I was never born to be her child, and then I stormed out from the hospital, unable to keep myself calm any longer.
And now since then, our relationship has been growing more complicated. Some days, she would be fine and happy to be with me and the rest of the family. But on most days, she would just explode. The berating got worse with me, especially how she told me that she would rather die than see me become a failure. I have also grown more violent, as I would now punch or hit my head on the walls, and I wanted to kill myself not because of my depression, but because of pure anger and spite at everything. I started treating everybody like shit, always getting angry at them and secretly feeling hatred and envy towards my friends. I had thoughts of beating people up or hurting others physically, and some more violent thoughts, but I just couldn't find the right chance to do that. I even planned my suicide and secretly wrote a note, ready to use it when the time comes.
As I am typing this now, me and my mom had another big fight regarding a schoolwork of mine. In one of our classes, we were supposed to have some kind of project fair, basically presenting our essay. It was supposed to tomorrow, but the dumbass, boring teacher that everybody hates moved it to Tuesday -- the day that me, my family, and mom will be going out of the country to treat my mom at an advanced hospital. The teacher then claimed that for those who did not show up, they will get a zero. The teacher is known to hate teaching his students, doesn't bother to make the class engaging, and would give people low scores no matter what. Because of this, my mom had to admit about her cancer to the teacher and why I should present tomorrow, instead of Tuesday. My teacher luckily agreed and I would be presenting it tomorrow alone, which is fine. My mom emailed me the message about that news. However, I accidentally misread something in the message, which would become a terrible fault of mine. Today, when my mom was talking the project to me, there was a word that I didn't recognize and tried to ask what she meant. This exploded her and she screamed, berated me for the entire afternoon, because I had misread one word.
Now, I have locked myself up in my bedroom, typing this. I want to just jump out from my window and end it there. My mom always told me that the reason for her cancer, was because of me. So if I just end myself now, I don't think my mom will be in pain anymore. I know my mom doesn't mean what she said, but words hurt a lot more than anything. I want to get out of here, but at the same time, I want to stay. If I try to talk about this with my mom, she'll just berate me again and call me ungrateful again. I think I'm in my breaking point and I don't know what to do. I hate myself, and I want to end it. I can't take it anymore.
Am I being selfish? I'm sorry that this is a long vent, I just need to release some steam. I love my mom so much and she has made so many sacrifices, just to feed us and build a roof over our heads. I want to help her, but I am genuinely conflicted. Hopefully one day, I can resolve our relationship. I don't know what to do. I just want my mom to understand me.

My research into to attending post-baccalaureate programs becomes an obstacle due to my low GPA of 2.583. I graduated from the University of Michigan in 2021 in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic. During this time, I was struggling horribly with my personal life and my mental health and did poorly in my final few semesters in college.
At the time, I was intending on majoring in Romance Languages and Literature with a concentration in Spanish while following the pre-med track and picking up a double major in a core science (i.e Chemistry). However, the outcome that is now scarring my transcripts is essentially that I still need to take or need to retake every medical prerequisite course. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with no minor and a GPA of 2.583.
With my current credentials, what I need is to boost by GPA, and take and retake essentially all prerequisites for medical school. I have come to a dead end with Master's programs, as I do not technically have a background in sciences and have a below average GPA. Similarly, I am ineligible for post-baccalaureate programs as well. What does the process for going back to school look like now? Is it possible to take a second bachelor's program? Is there another route for me as a non-traditional student? Should I do some community college to qualify for a post-bacc?
I would appreciate any feedback, resources or advice. Thank you

Thanks to this subreddit I found about the DNA Detectives group on Facebook. I posted my AncestryDNA results - which a couple people said were amazingly high - and with their help I was able to quickly find my biological family. They even found a high school yearbook photo of my mother which made me get very emotional and break down crying. So far no luck on the father's side, even though he's on AncestryDNA with 3,445 cM. All I know is his name.
Unfortunately my mother died in 2021, but I still have living relatives in my area and they want to meet me. One of my aunts is going to call me tomorrow, I'm very nervous but excited.

For example, my (F18) ex (M20), said the first time he ever O* was because he looked up porn out of curiosity (after hearing about it in school) when he was 11. To me, that is frightening, that he conditioned himself to look at porn and THEN became horny..
Since then, always been using porn, can't stop himself etc.. A reason I left him is because I realised his decade anniversary for porn was coming up 😭.
We actually had a good sex life though. No prevalent issue with him not being able to keep it up etc..
I still left him bc I couldn't believe him when he said that "I'll always be enough and he'll always be able to cum from sex with me". My main worry was that we'd grow old, my body growing old but him still conditioning himself to cum from looking at 18 year old bodies. That's what scares me and pushed me to leave him. And what stops me from trying to text him again.
And also if I ever became pregnant, gave birth and my vagina being looser and him having death grip.
I want to know if what he said could possibly be true. I understand compartmentalisation. He said that jerking off and porn was completely different from the emotional aspect of sex. So he also implied that death grip wouldn't be an issue regarding sex because the mindset is different.

Forgive the lengthy paragraphs. Going to best describe my situation best I can to get the most accurate advice while not getting too personal. Wasn't my intent to write a life story but figured the detail would help get a better picture.
I'm currently talking to an Army recruiter and in the process of having my complex sent to MEPS for a prescreen with the paperwork I had regarding pharmacy records, hospital stay, and counseling. I been doing research on the waiver processes because I know I will need one and decided to research the Navy's guidelines since I heard they were fairly liberal with how they handle waivers in case the Army didn't work out. That's just what I heard, don't know how true it is. Looking through, I came across that if you had recurrent depression episodes, which I assume means more than one instance, then your chances of a waiver are essentially zero. Upon reading that, I got heavily discouraged but still taking my shot.
My situation is this:
(First instance) When I was 14, I got diagnosed with MDD and was on antidepressants until I was 16. I didn't have the best family or social life growing up and dealt with instances of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse from family members who loved to drink (major alcoholism) or had anger problems which were sometimes taken out on me. I also attended a ghetto public school where I was often bullied or harassed since I didn't talk to anyone and being "different" since by this time I was in a depression due to home life and was known as the "white boy" where kids joked about me being a school shooter because I seemed like a stereotype. My parents married other people who also had their own issues that invited more various forms of abuse. In middle school, I became so fed up with life that I went to the counselor expressing suicidal thoughts because of my circumstances and wanted help. I ended up getting therapy and reluctant parents who had to sit with me in some sessions so I could voice my disdain. Suffice to say, my parents opted for medication instead rather than changing behaviors and my environment. Since it was so long ago, I don't remember all the details of the meetings. I do know it was very multi-layered between family, school, and my lifestyle at the time. Once I became 16 and became involved with a good group of religious kids at my high school and extracurricular activities, my depression started to naturally fade away and I got off my medication. At this time also, I ended up finishing my Eagle Scout and also joined a church which provided me an amazing support group, friends, and meaning to life. For once, I felt truly happy.
TL;DR Shit luck, bad upbringing, bad lifestyle, got better once I got older and developed more freedoms to get away from home and become my own person.
In my senior year of high school, I tried joining the Marines since I always wanted to be in the military as a career but because I made the decision to be honest about my psychiatric background, I got denied and was told I needed to wait another year before applying for a waiver. Distraught, I ended up going on a mission for my church instead for two years in Europe.
Coming back home in 2017 and not knowing what to do with my life now, I went to college since that is what every other kid was doing. In 2018, I saw a Marine recruiter walking around and felt a spark which motivated me to give the military another try. In Arizona, my home state, one of my old psychiatrists threw away my medical records since Arizona law allowed her to do that 3 years after my 18th birthday if I never had any issues (clean slate, if I remember this correctly) since then. I told my dad this who encouraged me to lie to the recruiter about my mental health history. I didn't feel good about doing that but went with his advice anyway. I made it through MEPS with no problems but when it came for the final meetup with the Marine liaison to sign the papers, he questioned my previous attempt to join which is where I confessed the story. MEPS then disqualified me and told me to bring in more paperwork. The recruiters were upset but liked me so much they were willing to help me go through the waiver process since I was really motivated. However, I got burnt out on the waiver process and also because I needed a letter from my parents detailing their side of the story which I know they wouldn't admit to their faults (which the recruiters agreed since they heard my dad screaming and yelling when I told him what I did on the ride back from MEPS lol).
(Second instance) So with the military out of the picture, I was completely lost in life and didn't know what else to do since I never anticipated to be in this situation. I ended up working weird side jobs in 2018 and going back to Europe to teach English before coming back to the US. I was 22 at the time and just barely starting college which made me feel self conscious when everyone else was 18 and already knew what they wanted to study. I felt far behind. I decided to pursue a degree regardless since I didn't want to be a college dropout. In 2020, I met a girl from my precalculus class and we started talking once the pandemic hit around March or so. We eventually became infatuated with each other and would talk over the phone and zoom each other every day. I also met her family before at a wedding reception and they took a liking to me and flew me up to Alaska to visit them and their cabin at the end of 2020. I was planning on proposing to this girl and thought I struck gold. Eventually, it came to be that she had issues with commitment and was scared of things going further so she decided to cut off all relationship status which threw me in a loop. During this time, I was still struggling with being self conscious due to my age in comparison to others, had financial difficulties since my family couldn't afford me to go to college and I didn't qualify for scholarships, my best friends getting married and ending communications, social isolation due to the pandemic, and lack of job prospects being that I was stuck in a rural Idaho college town during this time. So all this together added up and I felt like I failed life and I was the problem which sent me into an emotional distress. Having suicidal thoughts again, I sent myself into a behavioral health facility so I could calm down and not do anything drastic. I was released after two days and saw a counselor at my university. I was on medication for two months before getting off once I had time to recover after everything that happened. After taking some time away from college to get money to pay for the medical events, I went back and got my degree in Bioinformatics & Data Science.
TL;DR Covid life, college kid issues, isolation in rural Idaho, and relationship drama took it's toll on me
It's been a little over 3 years now and here I am again. I'm 27 with a degree and been struggling to find a job in this current market. However, the military always keeps coming back in my mind since nothing else in the civilian sector really excites me or gives the same meaning and purpose as military service. I really do think I belong in there. So this is my "three strikes and you're out" where I am going for the third shot in hopes something sticks.
If you read this far, you probably think I'm just a liability ready to happen. In truth, I would love to think I am someone who means well and wants to do the right thing but was dealt with a bad hand in life outside my control and without much direction. I remember always being told by people that if you are struggling emotionally, get help; and that's what I did. However, obviously when you are going through those emotional distress episodes, you tend to say things you don't actually mean which end up on the paperwork. In hindsight, I probably could've handled some situations better but that's easier to say now when I'm older than back then and much of the detail usually doesn't get expressed to the counselors properly.
So I guess my question is, what are the odds of the Army, or any branch, viewing an individual case like this and giving it a consideration? Is it a hard no since it was technically two different episodes of depression with SI which is "recurrent" or is there some leeway since mine was situational? I tried doing the right thing in getting help and I have been doing far better now for 3 years. My recruiter said she has worked with people who have been through worse and those she thought couldn't get in but had their waivers approved but a part of me doesn't know if she is being entirely honest since recruiters can sometimes give false hope. Thoughts?

Inebriated Conversations

After eight long and grueling hours, we began our rapid descent from the heavens. I never really got the: “did it hurt when you fell from heaven” pickup line until we hit the tarmac. The force of the impact nearly knocked my head into the seat in front of me, so fuck yeah, it hurt when I fell from heaven. I’d imagine even Lucifer himself had a softer landing than we did. He also didn’t have to endure the stomach churning and nauseating food that was served on the plane, but I digress, at least we had finally reached our destination. A land not so far away that only varied in appearance, but the truth was this mystical and magical land, deep down, was no different from the place I grew up or attend college. As I waited in purgatory, the security line, I began wondering if I was dreaming. Was I really in London or even a different country for that matter? The line, which seemed so much longer than the European and the U.K., line was filled with fellow Americans. Perhaps they are still acrimonious about us beating them in the Revolutionary War, so they decided that this was ample punishment for our victory. Whatever the case, we finally made it through security, then collected our bags. I saw my relatively new bag with the bowtie on the handle and was relieved that it had not been lost or left in the United States. We met our tour guide, Emma, who at first glance seemed to be very different. She had an unusual hair cut that was much shorter than ones most woman her age would have, but I soon learned that her appearance, much like London’s, would not be any indication of what lies beyond. When we finally escaped from limbo, the airport, we were put on a coach bus, and taken to our hotel. I was exhausted and in need of a shower, but all I could do was drop my luggage off, then swiftly return to the lobby. As we stood outside in the crisp, refreshing air, we were handed our subway passes, or as they say, “tube passes.” We followed our guide, Emma, on a short walk to the underground. When our group finally descended the stairs and made our way to the map, a map Virgil couldn’t even navigate, we began our journey that involved the same punishment as those afforded to people in the eighth level of hell. We walked endlessly, 10.6 miles, and viewed the most popular tourist attractions London had to offer. I was surrounded by beautiful statues, fantastic architecture, and attractive people whose dialect could captivate almost anyone. At first, like everyone else, I was completely and utterly captivated by it all, because it was a completely different world. Our group finished the day with a mile and a half walk to the Globe Theatre, where we saw Shakespeare’s play, Comedy of Errors. My fellow students and I stood, as our professors sat comfortably watching the play. During the production, all I could think about was my numb legs and my aching feet. I tried drowning the pain with a few glasses of overly priced and nasty wines, but my attempt was to no avail. For once in my life, I knew what it was like to experience actual physical agony, not just the tedious and never-ending emotional kind. It wasn’t the lake of fire or some frozen wasteland, but that shit was still excruciating. After the play, we struggled to find a new passageway to the hot and crowded underworld, the tube, but luckily, I had service on my phone, so we found it. We finally made it back to the hotel around eleven in the evening. After a long day of flying and an excess of walking, I had never been as excited as I was to climb into a bed that was, quite frankly, too small for my six-foot-five physique. To anyone reading this, don’t worry, I’m not planning on giving a day to day synopsis of what I saw while I was abroad, because the sights aren’t what truly matter. I mean, I could just rant about Buckingham Palace and its beauty, Windsor Castle and its enormous layout, the Tower of London and its history, the Natural History Museum and its priceless artifacts, Stratford upon Avon and Shakespeare’s life, Oxford and it’s impressive library, Cornwall and its tranquil beaches, the Minack Theatre and its sublimity, or the Ashmolean Museum and its Jeff Koons exhibition, but that shit has no genuine meaning to it. I’m not going to waste your time by writing about some tourist sites that you could see in almost any travel magazine about the U.K., so if that’s what you are looking for stop reading. I suggest you pick up a travel magazine and read it until you are content, but if you want to read something real, then I suggest you continue. The reality is, the things I’ll take from this trip are the inebriated conversations I had with others. I not only gave these people advice about their lives; I learned something new about my own. I, ***** *******, am the Barstool Prophet, who descended from the heavens prepared to spout wisdom and retardation. Before I divulge the serious and deep conversations I experienced abroad, I want to let you know that the other person and I were under the influence of alcohol. I know what you are thinking, but alcohol has been a part of human culture since 7,000 B.C.; to put that into perspective, man invented alcohol before the wheel. From what I've seen in my lifetime some people drink to forget, some drink to remember, some drink to punish themselves, and some drink to converse with others. I fall into the latter category, but while I was in the U.K., I encountered people whose purpose for drinking was similar to mine as well as people that would fall in the other categories. I never really got the saying, "It's better to be a glass half full person, than a glass half empty person." I get the whole positivity aspect of the saying; however, I'd trust a "glass half empty person" far more, because they'd just order another drink. I am in no way trying to promote alcoholism; in reality, I am just trying to explain how alcohol can fuel an in-depth conversation. The Latin proverb "In Vino Veritas" states that "In Wine there is Truth"; wiser words have never been spoken. Alcohol allows people to speak their hidden thoughts and desires, especially to a stranger like me. 

Emma

As I stated earlier, Emma was our tour guide, who sported a relatively short and somewhat masculine haircut. Luckily, I had consumed enough alcohol at the time of her arrival to ask her why she chose that specific style. After giving me a vague: “because I like it” response, she clutched her glass of wine and forced it down. We talked about her occupation and how lonely traveling could get, but she seemed like she was familiar with the feeling of loneliness. She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said, “I want to be a lawyer.” Emma slammed her glass down and began to laugh hysterically; she said, “Seriously?” I found her response quite peculiar until she revealed that her ex-husband was a lawyer. He was devoted to his job and always worked long hours, which did not bother her, at first. I surmise that his lack of interest in her is what led to their separation. After a long moment of silence, I gulped my drink down and gained the courage to ask: “do you think the relationship you had with him prepared you for this job?” She paused and began to think intently. She took a sip of her wine, laughed, and said, “I guess so, that’s one positive thing I got out of the relationship.” The chat continued with talk of food, politics, weather, and other small-talk topics, but then we somehow made it back to her haircut. Emma told me that she was bi-sexual, which, despite the tell-tell signs in her appearance, isn’t something she shares with most people. I told her that homophobia and racism is a major part of the culture that I grew up in, which surprised her. She couldn’t comprehend how someone with that upbringing could be so openminded. I responded with one word and one word only, “Self-Awareness.” I came to the realization that in life people are consciously and unconsciously molded by those around them, but at the end of the day, it is their choice to decide who they are and what they believe. Emma’s marriage may not have been picture perfect, but she was still able to take something positive from it. As much as we don’t want to admit it, even the worst of our relationships impact us in a positive way. 

Phillip Goldsmith

Before I get into this incredibly intense and somewhat depressing story, I’d like to describe its setting. I was sitting on a red velvet couch, drinking Jack Daniels Honey in a tall glass with one ice cube. I know what you are thinking, but I was not in a strip club. Our hotel’s game room/ bar area looked like an American strip club, not that I’ve ever been in one. Like seriously, if a few poles and dancers were added, I’d feel like I was at the Red Carpet, which is a strip club near where I live, but again, I may or may not have been there. I had finished half my bottle when Phil walked in, and I could immediately tell that he was hurting on the inside. Excluding dumbass frat guys, not very many people drink vodka straight out of the bottle with the intention of finishing it. He sat next to us, so I reached my hand out and said, “Hey man, what’s your name?” He said, “Hello, I am Phillip Goldsmith.” I responded as anyone would and said, “That’s a badass name!” We talked about life, love, and women as most guys do. We were both close to finishing our bottles when I noticed a tattoo on his arm that said, “Harry.” Who was this Harry? He certainly didn’t strike me as a Royalist, so I knew he didn’t just get the prince’s name on his arm for shits and giggles. I gulped down a few more sips of my drink and slowly placed it back down. I looked him in the eyes and said, “who is Harry?” His response shook every bone in my body to their core. After holding his tears back and ingesting some more of his vodka, Phil looked at me and said that “Harry was his son.” Was? He continued speaking, and I learned that Harry died three days after he was born. That tragic loss would result in a few other loses in his life, his wife, and his faith. Phil told me that he used to go to his grave on his birthday and Christmas, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t see a point in it any longer. Surprisingly I felt the urge to tell him that “God loved him and that he would see his son again.” I am in no way a prolific believer; I’d probably put myself in the wayward son category. However, something came over me, and I felt like I needed to tell him that. We had both finished our drinks, and as we were saying our goodbyes, he thanked me. I don’t know why, but he did. My encounter with Phil taught me that when you meet someone, you don’t know what they are going through, but through love and compassion, you can have a positive impact on them. 

Lexie

Lexie is a beautiful and intelligent young lady from Kansas City, Missouri. We met and chatted throughout the week because she was a part of our EF group. One night, after Lexie and I had more than our share of wine, we began to talk about our plans for the future. Before I tell this story, you must know, I have the unfortunate handicap of flirtation when I drink, but she was able to move past my impulsive outburst. I think my accidental comments about her beautiful eyes, stunning smile, and cute laugh allowed her to open up to me. Despite what you are thinking, I like to flirt because I enjoy making women smile, I don’t always do it for self-serving reasons. Anyways, as I said, we started discussing our plans for the future, but one can’t divulge their future in an inebriated state without discussing their past. I gave my whole spiel about wanting to be a prosecutor who would later become a congressman, then a Supreme Court or D.C. Circuit Court justice. She said, “Wow! That’s quite the plan. I want to go into Law as well.” I hastily responded by saying, “That’s sexy. I could see it.” We both laughed, but then she said, “I don’t know though, Law School is hard.” She didn’t strike me as a person who couldn’t handle a challenge, so I asked, “Why do you think you wouldn’t excel? You present yourself as someone who does.” She tried not to blush, then sipped her extremely sweet white wine. I know it was sweet because I made the unfortunate decision of trying it; it was so sweet that even a rock would get a hangover from it. Anyways, she started talking about high school and how people thought she was unintelligent. I laughed and thought about how I experienced that very same thing. I said, “Fuck that, screw them. God, high school girls are mean. Do you actually believe that crap?” She giggled and said, “Of course not, but it’s still in the back of my head.” I grabbed another beer from Raj, the bartender at the hotel. Yes, we were on a first name basis; did you expect anything less from the barstool profit? I sat back down and leaned in, intent on getting this point across to Lexie. I sipped my beer, ever so casually, and said, “Listen, we all remember the immature negatives of our high school existence, but this is now. At some point, we have to grow up into the people we want to be, not who everyone tells us to be.” She then asked, “Why are you so wise?” (You are probably thinking “sure she did,” but I swear that is what she said; I’m not a narcissist using creative license to praise myself.) I accredited it to my amazing parents as well as the shitty ex-girlfriends, situations, and friends I had experienced. We continued talking about a lot of random things like abortion, racism in America, and other pseudo-political topics. It was 3 am. when we finally decided it was time to go to bed. I hugged her and told her to use those negative voices as motivation. Again, I was thanked for the conversation, which, at this point, seems to be a normal thing for strangers to do. My conversation with Lexie made me realize that, when we travel, the baggage we carry isn’t only the physical kind. That tedious and deep emotional baggage also comes along for the journey. Most people, who travel somewhere, will lose a physical part of their baggage, like a sock, shirt, or something of that nature. Lexie did something most could not and do not, she left a piece of her emotional baggage, the night I spoke to her in the bar. 

Szymon

Szymon was in the bar area when I got to the hotel. He had a very interesting accent, which was far different from the ones I had heard that week, so I asked, “Where are you from?” He said, in a relatively drunken manner, “I am from Poland. You’re from America, aren’t you.” I responded with a firm: “Yes.” The conversation proceeded with small talk, but as I had a few more beers, the topics shifted to more serious topics. I was recently in a Holocaust history class, so of course, the first serious thing I asked was if he had been to Warsaw to see the Concentration Camps. He paused in silence, so I said, “Talk about hell on Earth, the holocaust was some fucked up shit.” After saying that he seemed to gain the courage to tell me that he was Jewish. He told me about the things his parents endured as children and how his grandfather had died in a concentration camp. He told me how he had rejected his faith after hearing these horrible stories. He said to me, “What could faith do for someone. The Jews have been persecuted countless times for it.” I understood where he was coming from, but at the same time, I didn’t. He had real reasons for his existential doubt, and I truly could not say the same. I got a shot of vodka from Raj; threw it back, and said, “Our faith shapes our decisions in life, even if we tell ourselves it doesn’t.” He sat pondering my words, but he seemed bored of the discussions about faith. I quickly changed the subject and asked him, “Why are you in London?” I learned that he travels all over continental Europe cleaning asbestos out of old buildings. I responded as any young person would and said, “that’s cool. I’d love to travel all over Europe.” He said, “it might be for a young single guy, but I hardly see my kids. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if my wife cheated on me.” I couldn’t believe he would say something that personal, but then again, that’s what alcohol does. I suggested that he quit the job and find one closer to home. He laughed and said, “Ugh… you sound like my wife right now.” I bought him another beer and said, “maybe you should listen to her.” He looked at me and said, “maybe you are right ha-ha.” My conversation with Szymon taught me that it doesn’t matter how much money you make or how many places you get to travel on the company’s dime. What matters in life is family and the ones you love. By the time we stopped talking, I could hardly understand him, but he shook my hand and said, “have fun in London.” I laughed and said, “I will, call your wife tonight and tell her you love her.” He smiled and nodded, assuring me he would. It was time to leave, so I packed my things and got ready to go to the airport. I finally boarded my fiery chariot that would bring me back to the heavens. I forced down a few shots of Jack Daniels, closed my eyes, and wondered if the Barstool Prophet would have a second coming. Would I ever return to this amazing city and spout words of wisdom and retardation? Would I ever drink two whole liters of cider and wake up with a black eye? Well, that one is a definite no, but so many questions are left unanswered. Did I actually impact those that I talked to? Did they even remember the conversation? As much as I want to believe I did, I’ll never know. We don’t know what this life holds or what our encounters with strangers will yield; all we can do is give it our best shot and live like we are dying… (Que inspiring music). 

Let me know if the foundation of this sardonic and surface level literature reference writing has potential… first ever post!

Okay, loaded title, I know, but I'm just really lost right now, so let's start from the beginning...
I'm a first gen female brown student - I go to a pretty prestigious university on a full-ride as a Biochemistry major. First freshman semester was subpar - I knew I could do better, I got distracted with new friends and stuff, but all my classes were fine, except Gen Chem I; I got a D- (the lowest passing grade at my university) which plummeted my GPA to begin with. I took AP Chemistry in high school and exceled, however, that was at my tiny poor high school with 68 kids in my graduating class. I developed test anxiety since coming to college, something I never experienced in high school or ever in my life before. It's like I felt like I knew what I was doing but I just kept messing up and getting nervous, thinking about what other people are doing or thinking about the exam. Anyway, I ended first semester with a 2.46 - not my best work, but I honestly felt like I didn't do my best, I barely studied or even knew how to and I paid the price for that, clearly.
Second semester freshman year, all my time was consumed with Genetics; at my school, the recommended science courses for first & second semester were Gen Chem 1 and Gen Bio 1 then Gen Chem 2 and Genetics - the class kicked my ass. I actually put a lot of effort into the class and I still only got C's on the exams - after the curve & after endless hours of studying and tutoring. I ended the second semester with a 2.70 overall which allowed me to keep my scholarship - I need to maintain a 2.5 overall to have it. I started going to the counseling center this semester which I feel like helped me handle emotions better, but didn't really help in terms of academics. I wanted test accommodations for my test anxiety (I am not diagnosed nor trying to say I am, I simply wanted to be able to take tests in a less crowded space), however, I found out the Learning Support Services at my university can really only offer accommodations to people with diagnosed mental illnesses, meaning I would have to go to an outside therapist to get diagnosed - my counseling center guy wouldn't cut it.
Fast forward to a few days ago - I get an email saying I am on academic probation for my technical GPA which is a measly 1.97 - I need a 2.0 to get off of probation. It dips below 2.0 because of my Gen Chem 1 grade, which is why I decided to meet with my advisor - who hasn't really helped me thus far in my college career. The university recommends you take no more than 13-14 credits on probation and he said the same, however, I feel like I can handle it? I am planning to take my usual 18 credits next semester however, the only new science course I am taking would be Orgo 1. I'm taking Orgo 1 & Lab, ASL 1 & Lab, Intro to Medical Humanities, a required Writing course, and retaking Gen Chem 1. However, if I get an A in Gen Chem 1, that new grade wouldn't replace the other D-, they would only be averaged together. I was meant to take Physics this year too, but for my major and a Bio major, it's fine to take Physics junior year. My advisor wants me to drop Intro to Medical Humanities but I feel like it would be an easier class to take and although it wouldn't help my technical GPA, it would bring my cumulative GPA up.
Oh and by the way, I am also taking a Medical Terminology class this summer - it's worth 3 credits and seems to be an easy A.
That's my spiel - I am just really confused and scared and don't know what to do. I genuinely enjoy my university and what I'm learning I just feel like I've fallen too far behind and it takes me so much longer to learn material than it takes other people. Being a PA has been my goal and dream for years but I am beginning to think I am not cut out for this. I don't seem to know how to study or what study method works best for me. I am currently in the Honors college and I need a 3.33 within the next 3 semesters to stay in - meaning I essentially need all A's (at least that's what I'm aiming for) in all my classes fall and spring semester. I never failed an exam or got the grades I did now in high school and I just don't know what to do, I feel like no matter how hard I try, I still fail and I am just so scared of messing up and ruining everything. I have one shot to fix this and I need solid advice; tips for Orgo? tips on handling test anxiety & imposter syndrome? is it possible to pick myself up from this? I have a 2.58 with 37 credits.
No one in my life knows about this except for me - not my family, friends, or boyfriend. I feel embarrassed and ashamed and guilty. I just really need some advice on this, anything is appreciated. I really don't want to give up on myself but I can't get kicked out of university and lose everything.
I also forgot to mention that this summer I surprisingly earned myself a research mentor who I will be working with this summer and next year, fall and spring semesters. I am trying to figure out if Bio or Biochem is a better major for me but clearly I have to push that to the side right now and focus on my GPA as a whole.
Thank you guys.

Everything is going wrong I can’t do nothing right I lost my apartment I almost lost my phone number Feel like I almost lose my job I can’t do anything right Fail at school Lost my last couple of jobs How am I not suicidal after everything I’m lucky for my family my friends and my love one , I would been homeless by now Is it worth it? Living I never felt this deep in depression. Is this how it is? Feel so low, so weak, so powerless I want to be normal, I want to be normal smart like everyone else How come I’m not suicidal after everything Maybe I’m reaching close to it. I’m not like everyone else I’m stupid I wish I wasn’t. I wish my fiancé leave me, for a better life Or at least leave her with my family so she’ll be in good hands I’m weak My emotions, I never felt this weak Is this what it feel like? Reaching my limits with human emotions? I’m breaking Maybe I am reaching close I don’t know It hard to talk to anyone Feel like nobody understands James your not stupid James life happens James if you work hard enough you’ll be okay James your just 22 James just live your life James James James James James I don’t wanna go to therapy, I have a habit of lying, making it seem it’s not bad. Don’t want them to think bad of me Saying everything okay, I got it Don’t worry I got it It’s my fault I got it It’ll be okay I’ll think of something I don’t know now It’s hard to smiles Even the usual fake smile I feel like it’ll just little bit more, I reach to a place I won’t get out mentally….. I’m so tired I want to sleep This pain in my chest and heart increases everyday I wish I didn’t exist, then maybe….i don’t know I feel bad for anyone that knows me They took great care of me I’m lost, everything is my fault I’m a stupid human I hate they say I’m not, I am, always think I know something when I don’t I don’t know anymore It’s as they say Can someone kill me? I don't have the courage to commit suicide, so I'm waiting for someone to kill me. I wonder if there is a god who does that... I just wish to be normal like everyone else

I was listening to this song and it had me thinking about him. I want to go back and i want to start over. i want to graduate and try again. A part of me hopes he sees my instagram post and another part of me hopes he thinks of me. a lot of me hopes he'll sees that i can change and have changed and want to be better. I want to graduate high school in 2025 and do my best once im graduated. i want him to see that i do love him im just confused by my own emotions. i don't hear everything i don't see everything and i ignore the red flags in my family and him but i love them both. i love him and i love how he made me feel. I cared so much for him and i knew i cared so much for him because i would bawl like a baby when something happened. i lied to him, i argued with him, i yelled at him and i hate myself for it. I wouldn't listen all the time and i wouldn't think all the time and it was a problem and its a problem i want to think. tuning out the world has become so easy and its un involuntary at times. i get lost in the bad stuff but forgot all the good stuff, how he made me tea with painkillers for my migraines, how he would hold my hands and kiss me, i miss how we'd play Minecraft, i miss how we would sing to each other in the dark under my stars and monster cans at late hours, i miss waking up to his good mornings and string of text, i miss the falling asleep in his arms so easily after school. i miss everything and was to focused on the bad. I see what i did wrong and i see how good he was but i still know what he did bad but he could change in a day and i couldn't in a week. i miss calling by 4 letter instead if 6, its upsetting. The "i dint miss you and i cant look at you in the eyes" is a punch to get that i understand. Does he think im a monster though. i don't think I'll ever know. I want a chance again when we're 18, but it wont happen if he sees me as an evil person. and if i never talk to him again i can never show him i changed. But nothing will be the same. not to him but i know people change just some take time and i need time. i still need time but i have had time to figure out and clear my head. i miss him, i want to show him i changed. one day.
i pinned this on my instagram with a song i heard today that fits so well, i hope he sees it, he has insta, i just hope he or someone he knows sees it

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, (im 24 now) my siblings and I would constantly spend the night at my moms house & dads house because they were divorced. But, this particular time in summer, my mom had picked up my siblings to spend the summer with them except me because I had summer school.
My dad was somewhat abusive & I would hate to stay here by myself, with my step siblings. That made me really emotional & I would cry for hours & hours until I cried myself asleep. I woke up during the night, im guessing around 12am. I sat up & I seen my little brother sitting under my computer desk.. I just woke up so my mind was still processing everything. I asked him, “you guys are home already?”. (Just stares at me & didn’t say anything) which freaked me out, I got up & bolted towards my room door & I remember looking under the desk right before going out the door & he was gone. I ran towards my dads room & asked where was my brother & they wasn’t going to be home till the end of the summer.
Now I don’t know if this has to do with me being emotional & crying all day but this scares me till this day. I hope you guys enjoy my story, sorry it isn’t much.

I honestly am a complete failure and I serve no actual purpose in this world other than to be the butt of the joke. I am utterly pathetic and suicide would probably be the best course of action. Yes, people will mourn my death, but eventually they will realize my absence really changes nothing and, if anything, probably makes life a lot easier.
Most people who have seen me absolutely hate me. Not just people I have met... people I have simply been around. They can sense my weakness and believe me to be a blight on the world... and they are not wrong. Some people just aren't meant to be born and it's why I think eugenics should make a comeback (hate me for that opinion all you want I do not care in the slightest).
I have no real talents nor am I intelligent in the slightest. I failed at school and ended up getting kicked out in Junior year. I am clearly incompetent and should be stomped out of existence. I should have the worst things imaginable done to me. I shouldn't even have the same rights as everyone else has. I should lynched for other people's entertainment.
I do not care what you tell me absolutely NOTHING will change my mind. I simply made this to vent my emotions. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there and stop having them bottled up inside. This will likely be the last thing I ever post on the Internet. Goodbye.

I’m not going to lie, I used to have no faith in dating apps. I thought that all the people I found on Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble were all people I could never click with in real life. But then I did it. My friend and I took the jump. We downloaded a dating app and tried to come up with funny answers to Hinge prompts to make my profile the best it could be. What started off as a joke, slowly turned into something that made us excited. We looked forward to showing each other the guys we matched with and the conversations that were started.
We giggled as we made each other’s accounts, choosing the hottest pictures of us and creating the most ridiculous responses to the Hinge prompts that would be on our profiles. We hoped to find someone who could match our silly energy and find someone that we could be authentic with: We wanted to find someone who would encourage us to delete the app.
Hinge prompts are like interview-based questions that make things a little more interesting than a generic bio with your name and age. All prompts have a 150-character limit so the answers should be short and clever. You can even use a voice prompt but the point is to show off what makes you, you: uniqueness is key. So, if you’re looking to beef up your profile, here are 36 Hinge prompt answers to add to your profile.
Oh, and PS, some of these are actually from my Hinge feed and are the perfect way to get into someone’s DMs. Jussayin’.
“Dating me is like…”
Be transparent and give a glimpse into what it is like to be with you.
“Reading a really good book…but you’re dyslexic.”
“Having TSA Pre-Check.”
“You know that feeling of closing dozens of Chrome tabs after finishing your last final before a holiday.”
“Finding a pair of jeans that fit perfectly on the first try.”
“My Most Irrational Fear”
From heights to clowns, this is a great place to talk about your fears.
“Finding out I’m allergic to food while eating it.”
“Fear itself?”
“You ignoring my profile.”
“Swallowing seeds because I was told a plant would sprout in my belly.”
“Green Flags I look for…”
Get a little deeper about your type. What are you looking for? Be open and honest.
“Using a fork properly, rather than stabbing at your food”
“Being good with kids.”
“Survival skills. If we ever get stranded on a desert island, you should know what to do.”
“Always has room for dessert.”
“A Shower Thought I Recently Had…”
This prompt is a great way to show off your humor. Be creative with this.
“Is Punxsutawney Phil emotionally okay?”
“It’s illegal to own one guinea pig in Switzerland because they get lonely.”
“Water is not wet.”
“Aliens invaded the moon on July 20th, 1969.”
“We’re the Same Type of Weird If…”
This is definitely a more lighthearted prompt. Pick something that is totally unique about yourself.
“You enjoy the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, too.”
“You can eat pickles at any time of the day.”
“You still play with Legos.”
“You pour the milk before the cereal.”
“First Round Is on Me If…”
Be assertive! Skip the small talk and invite your match to drinks. Don’t be super easy though. Pose a challenge.
“You can beat me at bowling. I’ll accept Wii Bowling.”
“You can beat me at today’s Wordle.”
“You can quote [movie].”
“If you can beat an escape room.”
“Unusual Skills”
Showcase some niche interests. Anything that comes with a story is perfect if you want to keep the convo going.
“Belly dancing.”
“I can catch basically any reptile.”
“Notorious alarm setter who can still sleep past their alarm.”
“I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue.”
“Let’s Debate About…”
Controversial topics can get the ball rolling. This could be serious or maybe something flirty.
“Pineapple on pizza?”
“Brunch should never be before 1 p.m.”
“It’s acceptable to eat a tomato like how you eat an apple.”
“A morning person can never be trusted.”
“Together, We Could…”
Outline a dream date! Highlight your favorite ways to get to know someone
“Cook a nice dish and drink a bottle of wine.”
“Rule the world.”
“Be like when oxygen and magnesium get together… because people will be saying OMg.”
“Backpack our way through Europe: Paris, Florence, and Madrid are on my bucket list.”
Overall, Hinge prompts allow you to showcase yourself, your passions, and what you are looking for. Successful prompt responses should show a bit of your humor and vulnerability. Don’t be afraid to be genuine. These are the perfect way to kick-start conversations with matches. Dig deep. Good luck!

ok i’ll try to be brief here. i (16f) am a rising senior in high school - this is my last summer here in my hometown. i am the oldest of 4 children (10m, 8f, 1f), and for that reason, i am expected by my mother and uncle (39f and 44m respectively) to be responsible and a good role model and to essentially do parental duties whilst they use me as bragging material (we’re asian so you can imagine how it’s like).
i have been researching and working towards getting into my dream school since 5th grade, and since college application season is on the rise again, i am really locking in and trying to get things together (first gen college student so it’s new to everyone). i was talking to my 8f sister casually, and she mentioned that this would be my last summer as a true teenager. i was like “haha yeah, can’t believe that i’ll likely be across the country in less than a year or so” - my sister went silent and then she started to break down. i immediately started asking her what was wrong and if she needed something. she just hugged me and we stood there for a bit until my mother came.
she didn’t notice that my sister was crying until she heard her sniffling, and then she (my mother) went right into grilling me (“why is she crying under your care”, “what did you do”, etc). i explained that my sister was getting emotional because i was going off to college soon and i guess she was already beginning to feel distant or something. my mother stared at me and then brought my uncle out, and she proceeded to tell him that “[my name] is guilting [sister] and trying to turn her against us, and she’s showing me attitude!!”
my uncle ofc believed my mother and he started to brutally insult me (like this was worse than normal), saying that i need to appreciate the fact that he took care of me after my father’s passing and that i’m a horrible influence on my siblings. i began crying in rage because literally all i have done is provide them with numerous achievements and accolades for them to shove in our relatives’ faces. my crying worsened the situation and i had to stop before it got out of hand.
i went upstairs and replayed everything in my head and felt that had i just laughed my sister’s comment off and changed topics, none of what happened afterwards would have unfolded. now i feel an immense amount of guilt and no one is speaking to me. was i the scallywag (i think that word is funny so i’ll use it) here?
(please be honest, thank you so much for reading all of that - i guess i lied about it being brief 😅)

‼️Definition: By relationship i don’t mean the Haram type. (the relationship was long distance btw)
Break ups can really mess you up.
I’ve been dating a girl 3 years older than me for about a year or so. Our relationship was one of those dream come true ones, everything so much better than my all previous relationships, the conversations, the chemistry and the energy was so much better. I was head over heels for her, we discussed marriage and she was ready but I wasn’t due to school and everything that was going on, our agreement was that we would get married after a year or two. Things were progressed right direction until it wasn’t, the relationship became stagnant, and it all started with a few disagreements on what we both needed in the future. Now looking back, it was really unnecessary and ridiculous for both of us to argue about this that have yet to happen. One of those was, where we would live, I wanted to stay in the west but she didn’t.
In the end we decided to end things in good standing and that was it, a beautiful relationship just ended for no absolute reason.
Where does the habitual ghosting come from you ask. After that relationship I wasn’t able to move on mentally and emotionally, after her, I talked to multiple women and after few days or weeks, I find myself quickly losing interest so I ghost them. I do know I’m doing something wrong but I’m too afraid to tell them I’m not interested. I’ve done this horrible thing multiple times and now I feel like their Curses have reached me. Some are still texting me wondering what happened and some already blocked me, I’m still hung up on the first girl that It has become so difficult for me to move on.
For the past two weeks I’ve been disciplining myself to not approach, talk to or entertain any women until I can emotionally and mentally mature.

so it’s been almost 9 months since i (23f) broke up with my ex whom i was with for 5 years (23m). i had emotionally detached from him long before i actually ended things. i guess i was just waiting for things to get better but they never did so i ended things because i thought that was what was best for myself at the time. since moving back to my hometown after graduating from college (where he also lives) i can’t get him off my mind. i don’t know if it comes from the fact ive been single for two months already since my last relationship (a mistake really, he was a pos, not the same guy as my ex of 5 years who was genuinely a great guy, we were just incompatible) or if it’s just the memories of what we had together because we were high school sweethearts. i don’t plan on reaching out or anything of the sort. from what i’ve heard from my sister who is still friends with him on snapchat (no, it doesn’t bother me), he has a girlfriend now and im definitely not going to message him or try to contact him (that’s really a gross thing to do knowing he has a gf). i’ve known for a while that he has a new gf but since moving back home, i think about him constantly. i guess i just wanted to get it off my chest. i wish him the best truly but i also can’t get him off my mind.
tldr: i can’t get my ex who has a new gf now off my mind since moving back to my hometown after graduating college.

Im one of those people who like to check people’s birthdays and log them into my online calendar. I’m not into astrology but I’m having second thoughts on that. Every person I’ve met who has been a dick to me or anyone in my vicinity is a Gemini.
Example 1 (I’ll say more in another post) There is this one girl (let’s call her Bethany) who is a straight up narcissist and manipulator that is cunning and two faced. She’s ruined the lives of many people in my school, including my own. One time, she broke into my friend’s house and mentally upset her to the point where she wanted to die (calling her fat, an idiot, and making her feel that she was a bad friend). Then a bunch of other people claimed she was flirting with different men which I eventually saw with my own eyes. Then she wanted me to write her notes for her debate (I left the club and I said no) but she kept harassing me and emotionally blackmailed me which ended up in me helping her. Her excuse for everything is that she doesn’t know how to be friends with people even though she’s being bitchy on purpose and lacks empathy. There are so many other things she’s done that I can’t even keep track of.
Extra:
Most of my classmates want to do some kind of revenge on her. The plan is that we all do something separate and never tell each other so we can avoid snitching. I’ve never done revenge but I’m willing to do it because she has fucked up all of our lives. Is there any ideas I can try without getting caught?

10th: Jessica “Sugar” Kiper 1.0 (Gabon - 3rd)

oh yeah, jessica kiper from gilmore girls
u/SMC0629:
Sugar has had such a weird history when it comes to her reception among the fandom. It feels like she either didn't get the respect she deserved, or was super misunderstood. I think she has one of the best journeys throughout the entire show, it's almost unparalleled. She goes from being a seemingly insignificant member of Kota, to becoming so much more scrappy on Fang, showing her truly entertaining personality and how she doesn't take shit from anyone. She's even pretty intelligent, and reads people well, something that is CRUCICAL throughout the season in terms of the strategy. I also really appreciate how the show doesn't shy away from showing her emotional moments, as someone who is the same way I think it's super relatable. She's also just got so many quotables, it's ridiculous, even more than Crystal if you ask me. All in all, a near-perfect character who goes toe to toe with Randy in terms of being my favorite on Gabon.
~
u/DryBonesKing:
Like with Shane, I really wonder how Sugar passed her psyche evaluation to make the cast, but I’m so grateful she did. Sugar is contention for having one of the best stories of all time, filled with religious metaphor, deep story moments, and just plain old simple “fucking hilarious scenes”. Sugar simultaneously gives too many fucks and not enough fucks at any given point, and she’s able to balance both mindsets at any point to a literal perfect degree.
I’ve seen some takes that praise Sugar for single-handedly making the narrative of Gabon about herself, and while I do think the story does revolve around her, I do want to pushback just ever so slightly since I think there is sometimes a soft implication that Sugar might be acting. I think it sometimes is not acknowledged how fragile of a state Sugar really was in this game and how truly emotionally devastating the events of the game were. It’s especially notable in her relationships this game with Ace, Kenny, and Bob, and how tight she is with all three of them and how betrayed she ends up feeling by the first two. There is just a natural spontaneous energy within her as she wrestles with her actions and what she needs to do to make peace with herself and it’s just so engaging.
u/Schroeswald had an amazing write-up that I recommend everyone read when you all get the chance. I’d love to add my own deeper thoughts on her as well, but I’ll just leave it at this for now. So glad she made it back to Endgame.
Overall Rank - 11/821 ~
u/Zanthosus:
I’m not the biggest fan of Gabon. I’ve made that clear throughout the rankdown. But one thing I will say about the season is that Sugar is absolutely incredible and singlehandedly saves the entire thing from being an overly negative and pessimistic slog. She wears her heart on her sleeve, plays with her emotions first, and creates a lot of fun chaos both intentionally and by accident. She’s spectacular. Simple as that.
~
u/Regnisyak1:
Sugar, Sugar! Sugar is a woman of many characters, but more importantly the main character of Gabon. Sugar’s emotional outbursts can be a lot, but I think they are tied very nicely to the story about her playing for her father, and it creates a variable season like Gabon that thrives off of its emotions and allows people to be themselves. Her relationships with Crystal, Bob, Matty, and Ace were incredible, and the pin-up model, one that would expect to be underestimated, eventually ran the season like the Marines, though in a chaotic way to the end. Love her, when I rewatched Gabon she flew to my endgame.
Personal Rank: 13/821. 10/10.
~
u/ninjedi1:
Sugar is unique, as there is multiple ways to look at her story. She could be the girl out there dealing with her emotions and managed to grow as a person, someone who was dragged along and once had power abused it to get her way, or many others. No matter what way you choose to interpret Sugar, there's something interesting about each perspective of her and is another person that helps make Gabon as great of a season as it is.
~~~~~
Tommyroxs45:
Sugar Kiper 1.0:
Sugar, a substance often known as sweet, good to the taste, bad for the health. Does sugar taste good in the moment? Yeah, but overtime it rots the teeth, becoming a negative presence on your life. Had good intentions and felt good but too much hurts.
You know exactly who this definition also applies to… Sugar Kiper.
Sugar has one of the top 3 best stories in the history of Survivor. Period. Paragraph. Her complete control of the game, while being a complete mess made for some of the most complex emotional gameplay ever seen on the show. Every single person she interacted with, had a relationship with her and usually was betrayed by her due to her emotions getting in the way of her gameplay, and I absolutely love it.
At the start, she's just seen as this pin-up girl, but as the game goes on, she becomes more and more wrecked with her emotions and doesn’t even play for herself. She wants to play the hero, by letting all of the good guys get to the end while blowing up her own game, but when she tries to play hero we get everyone else seeing her as “evil”. Becoming one of the most emotional and well told stories of the downfall of a person who was ultimately grieving and trying to play to help others.
We almost never see a hero get a downfall arc, because what is there to give, they are the selfless ones they should always be on the rise. But the great thing about Gabon, is that when someone is a hero, everyone else sees them as a villain because everyone is the villain and they feed off each other.
She throws everything away, her relationships, her game, and even her morals to make sure that the bad guys don’t win and someone she likes does. She will do anything to let that happen. And what makes it so tragic is that she doesn’t get rewarded for it ultimately, she is panned and driven to breakdowns over the feelings everyone else has for her. She was trying to make everyone feel good but it doesn’t work out because of the way she does it, and it’s a dark story but it’s what makes her so amazing.
This is present all throughout her story allowing for her to build as she goes, making it so deep. With her idol find on Exile Island and then her relationship and eventual betrayal of Ace. The premerge does a great job of setting her up, while not having a particular breakout moment. We see how her emotions and grief are impacting her and how it just gets worse and worse as the game goes on. While her story and overall memorability ultimately ramps up a lot at the merge. The premerge sets up a really good tone for the post merge portion to follow.
You can tell she has such good intentions and a big heart but just doesn’t know how to show it and is struggling with grief at the same time. She wants to be loved, and give everyone else the best chance they can get and have an optimal outcome but she can’t do that without pissing everyone off. You know it’s not coming from a place of malice, while her comments towards people like Corinne, Randy, and Crystal were negative, they weren’t wrong, they were bullies, and she called them out on it and sent them home so the nice people like Susie, Bob, and Matty could all get to the end.
That’s what makes her rivalries with these people so legendary, especially Randy obviously. While she has great dynamics with everyone on the season, and we see them explored to their fullest potential, by far her most notable ones are with 6 people, YES 6 PEOPLE! That’s how damn good her influence is that she single handedly in a key point in 6 peoples stories. (7 if you include Ace pre merge)…
Bob, Matty, Kenny, Crystal, Corinne, and Randy. So much of these people’s stories revolve around Sugar and her antics. Every single one of them is legendary, through either her grief, her quips, her heart, or her strategy she makes these stories what they are, none of these people would be the same without her.
Bob:
Bob and Sugar’s relationship is the seasons close. Her seeing him as her father, after her father had just passed before she came out, is such an impactful and honestly kind of beautiful storyline. It’s riddled with darkness but you see a light there, that she sees him in that light and throws away everything to pave the way for him to win and take control over his moves so he could win in the end. I’ll go into this moment later but one of my favorite scenes in the whole show is when Sugar is about to cry as her vote for Matty is read at the final four vote. It’s just perfect.
Matty:
Another one of the good guys just like Bob. They were close out there and you could see a family bond growing between them. Like brother and sister, and they dictated so much of the game together when Crystal and Kenny started to be too big for their britches. Her having to vote him out at the final four vote is tragic, powerful, beautiful, and symbolic of everything Sugar had done up to that point. You can feel her heart being cut in half after Matty loses, it’s like choosing between her father or her brother, and she completely breaks. The music in the background as Matty loses, knowing it was at the hands of Sugar, someone who he thought he could count on as a best friend and wouldn’t hurt him like that, it’s definitely in my top 10 favorite scenes of Survivor. It just sums up the season in a more impactful way than I have seen anything ever do prior or since.
Kenny:
Ah Kenny, what’s there to say about Kenny and Sugar. Their relationship is complicated, and that is probably an understatement, but damn is it good. Ken in a way, manipulates Sugar, often in her head about what to do and trying to play for the underdog. She knows what he is trying to do, but her heart won’t let her break away from it until the final 6 where she puts her foot down and flips on them. She realizes he’s a villain but doesn’t want to break his heart until he just gets too powerful to where he’s interrupting her journey, her path, her game to make the good guys win, and she can’t have that happen.
Her idol play was more of an act rather than a play. She wanted everyone to see that Kenny was evil and that she was doing this for the greater good. Now did everyone else see it like that, no, and that’s what makes it so great, she has great intentions, but it just doesn’t come off that way. Kenny is ultimately left heart broken and felt entitled to her heart, and for her to take that away from him left him pissed. To where we get a very funny one on one end but also a very telling jury speech from Kenny explaining his feelings for Sugar and how she took away his heart.
Crystal:
Sugar is the reason for Crystal’s downfall. Her relationship with Kenny just got too big for the game and were intruding on Sugar’s perfect story of getting the good guys to the end. Her jury speech to Sugar also represents Sugar’s mishandling of her emotions and calling out Crystal as a bully did not help that. Crystal was somebody on Sugar’s side and laughed with her at Randy’s misfortunes, being turned on definitely left a bad taste in her mouth, just crumbling Sugar’s mental state further and further. Showing how she’s pushing away everybody, even the ones who she aligned with and kept with, because of her motive and her grief.
Corinne:
Before I start I just want to say, fuck Corinne. Okay, now that is out of the way, Corinne is actually really good for Sugar’s story. Corinne is a bitch, a bully, and a terrible person, no bullshit, that’s who she is. However, she really plays up Sugar’s role on the season, being this opposition to her and everything she does. Someone who just has pure hate at the heart that owns it. She underestimates Sugar, until Sugar flips the game on its head for her and is all “woe is me!!” It’s really funny. She falls at the hands of Sugar and it is oh so satisfying.
Of course though what else could I bring up other than her jury speech. It’s awful towards Sugar, and one of the worst things ever said to somebody on the show. However, it really sums up Sugar’s story, with everyone’s opinions on her, her emotions, and her heart just trying to be full while being stomped on at every corner. I hate it as a moment for Corinne but as a moment for Sugar, it’s really works and is a dark way to bring Sugar’s story to a close but it was the only way that was gonna close.
Randy:
This is THE relationship of the season. Their rivalry is one of the most iconic of all time. It’s a lot like Jane and Marty where they just hate each other, do anything to bring out the worst in each other, and do not hold any personal punches back. Randy’s boot episode is in my top 10 favorite episodes of all time because of these two. The auction shenanigans where Randy gets pissed because of Sugar. Then, she tells Bob to give Randy the fake idol, and then laughs after Randy plays it. It is the funniest episode of all time and it’s not close.
They are so iconic together, it’s why Gabon is looked at the way it is today, because of these two and their relationship, or lack thereof. I mostly adore it for entertainment reasons but it also greatly lifts up both of their stories as well. Randy is a grumpy old man who has very little in his life and just spews his hatred out on others, and Sugar doesn’t see it as a lonely old man, she sees him as a complete asshole and someone who just has too much pure vile for no reason. He plays up her role of the “protector” and she plays up his role as “the old ass”. It works perfectly for the season both from a story perspective and especially an entertainment perspective, it’s T.V GOLD!
Sugar’s Final Tribal
I mentioned it previously, but her final tribal is the summation of her character and all the things she did during the game. She has a huge heart and is struggling so much with her emotions and breakdowns, to where this is just the huge snowball crashing into the tree. She is absolutely panned and it’s tragic, dark, but the perfect and most satisfying way to end her story. She is mentally broken at this point being out there for 39 days and just to be beaten down again and again for her chaos even if she had the heart behind it. It's sad but it’s serious and the way it should end.
Final Thoughts
Sugar is an absolutely phenomenal character. Her struggle with grief vs emotions vs game is an iconic story that has never been done as well ever in the history of the show. She genuinely has no faults as a character and has so many of the iconic moments that make Gabon what it is. She has such a sweet soul but it became damaging overtime as too much of her antics intruded on others peoples games.
In any other season, Sugar would be loved, and appreciated and supported, but in Gabon she’s hated and that’s why her dynamics are what make Sugar, Sugar! She works off everybody around her perfectly making some of the most iconic storylines ever seen. She’s such a deep and complex person that anybody that she interacts with is automatically made into a great story because she just has these relationships that feed into her emotions and her grief that are shown and told fantastically by the edit.
I adore Sugar, she is easily in my top 10 of all time and will always be there. She has a story unparalleled by anyone else and for that, I appreciate both her and the edit for being able to pull off one of the best stories of all time. Just like sugar, Sugar is a sweet character but one that has side effects but I still love her anyways.
SMC0629: 12
DryBonesKing: 10
Zanthosus: 8
Tommyroxs45: 5
Regnisyak1: 10
DavidW1208: 17
ninjedi1: 14
Average Placement: 10.857
Total Points: 76
Standard Deviation: 3.394 (5th Lowest)
Won Tiebreaker

Thank you guys for all your nice comments on my previous post! Here's my followup post walking through the anthology - I apologize for the delay, but I wanted to sit with this half of the album a bit longer. This analysis will be slightly different: first I’ll go through themes present throughout the anthology, and then walk through each song individually, since it’s not as consecutive of a story as the first album. As with my first analysis, I tend to also stay away from literal details as proof that a song is about a certain subject or muse – to me, it’s easier to understand the album when you think first about what the song’s overarching meaning is, rather than getting caught up in literal details (and I think Taylor often throws these in as red herrings). Moreover, it’s important to note that it’s likely that the literal detail she’s thrown in is one that only she and the muse will understand (i.e. her referencing a lilac skirt in imgonnagetyouback is unlikely to be one we’ve ever seen her wearing in public, so it’s useless to paternity test based on that detail!).
Firstly, the word anthology means a collection of assorted literary works. As a result, I think there are more themes scattered through this album, and it’s meant to be a little harder to parse than the first one. I think this album is what TTPD would have been before it crystallized into a tighter theme – similar to the 3 AM tracks for Midnights, the majority of which were written prior to the standard edition’s tracks.
There are a few themes throughout this album. From a romantic context, to me, this album is primarily about Joe. I’ll walk through why I believe that, but this album feels less muddled to me in terms of its muses, and I think that is in part due to the fact that her self-described mania from the standard edition is not a theme on the anthology. This work also covers her own relationship to celebrity and fame, and how that affects her romantic relationships and her personal life in general. And finally, I think the final theme throughout this collection is the idea of childhood, of formative experiences, and how our author goes about processing events that happen to her.
The Black Dog
What happens when you intimately know someone, when you share every aspect of your life with someone, and then it's over? Six weeks after their breakup, she’s barely holding it together (“I move through the world with the heartbroken”). She even tried to rebound her pain away (“I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary”), and wasn’t able to succeed. Meanwhile, she sees him go to a bar, and she has the sudden realization that he may be able to do what she failed to do – he might be able to move on, with someone new. Reckoning with that realization is horrifying. If he is able to pull it off, what does that mean about the love they shared? When he had told her for years that he was who he was for her, and her alone?
You said I needed a bravе man
Then proceeded to play him
Until I believed it too
And it kills me
How could they go from being so intimate that they shower together, that she’s aware of his every move, to being so distant from each other that she wonders if making her fall in love with him was a hazing? And the cruelest part of it is – she doesn’t want either one of them to be able to move on, and give validity to the fact that they weren’t right for each other, even though she knows they have to. Moreover, she’s already *tried* to move on at this point, and failed – she tried to manufacture a counterfeit version of their intimacy, but what if he’s able to perfectly replicate it? And to really drive in the knife, what if it’s with someone younger than her?
And you jump up, but she's too young to know this song
That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming
Given that a theme throughout the first album was her feeling like she’d given him so much of her youth, so much of her childbearing years, with nothing to show for it, what does it feel like to know that he can essentially reset time, by being with a younger woman, but she’ll never be able to get that time back?
imgonnagetyouback
We know that her and Joe took a break or two while they were together (see: Hits Different, The Great War, in addition to PR articles). To me, this song is about when you do take that break from your partner, and you’re trying to make a point to them that they’re not going to find anyone better than you (I can tell when somebody still wants me, come clean) – the two of you are too intimately intertwined to find a suitable replacement. You know what to wear, what to say, what to do to bring them back to you:
I, I hear thе whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine
This song also has a lot of similarities to So Long, London, which is why I attribute it to Joe. To me, it provides a deeper story to some of the lines she touches on in So Long, London:
I didn't opt in to be your odd man out
I founded the club she's heard great things about
And to some of the lines in Hits Different:
I washed my hands of us at the club
You made a mess of me
I pictured you with other girls in love
Then threw up on the street
//
Bet I could still melt your world
Argumentative, antithetical dream girl
imgonnagetyouback is a story of one-upmanship – of trying to out-jealous your partner, of proving to them that nobody knows them better than you do. And maybe this time when they’re both playing this game, it works:
Push the reset button, we're becomin' something new
Say you got somebody, I'll say I got someone too
Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leavin' here with you
//
We broke all the pieces, but still wanna play the game (Oh)
Told my friends I hate you, but I love you just the same
Pick your poison, babe, I'm poison either way
The spacing to me is a deliberate red herring (the 1975 very famously made a song called fallingforyou), and a way to illustrate that the subject of the song wants space from her – but she’s not going to give it to him. This is another theme that calls back to Joe – in So Long, London, she describes him as constantly pulling away (Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away). Matty didn’t pull away – he was all in for two weeks, until he chose to ghost her, and leave abruptly. There was no slow death, no push and pull to her relationship with Matty – it was a meteoric rise and fall.
The Albatross
This song feels like a sister song to “peace” – she describes what it’s like to love her. It’s a little more twisted, however, as she describes her love for her partner as both a danger, and a rescue from the danger she’s imposing on him by being involved with him:
Wise men once said
"Wild winds are death to the candle"
A rose by any other name is a scandal
Cautions issued, he stood
Shooting the messengers
They tried to warn him about her
She’s described herself as wind and liquor in her relationship with Joe previously, in Mastermind:
I'm the wind in our free-flowing sails
And the liquor in our cocktails
She has empathy for the narrator, but disdain for herself. There’s also acceptance though: she knows that she tried to prevent it, and tried to warn him about the danger she posed. In the end though, he chose this life with her, and he chose the danger – there’s only so much she can protect him from.
The devil that you know
Looks now more like an angel
I'm the life you chose
And all this terrible danger
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
This song feels like another sister song to The Black Dog – how does she cope with the idea that her long-time partner might move on? How does she cope with the fact that if she chooses to leave, she also chooses the future in which they both move on? A future in which they don’t know each other? It also touches on her wondering if she should move on with Matty, and how feasible it would be to know someone else instead of her partner:
If you want to tear my world apart
Just say you've always wondered
This song, more than anything else, illustrates that moving on with Matty was nothing but a way to move past Joe – what she really wants, more than anything, is a response greater than indifference from Joe:
As the decade would play us for fools
And you saw my bones out with somebody new
Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school
And you just watched it happen
There’s also the realization that Joe may never love who she is now – who she was at the beginning of their relationship will always be who he prefers:
If you want to break my cold, cold heart
Just say, 'I loved you the way that you were'
She’s trying desperately to find some way to make up for the fact that she had to leave Joe, that there was nothing she could do to stay – she tried changing everything about herself, but still, the need to leave him eventually caught up with her:
I changed into goddesses, villains and fools
Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules
All to outrun my desertion of you
And you just watched it
And she wonders whether despite his indifference, and the distance between them, she should still stay:
Could it be enough to just float in your orbit
Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses
Cooler in theory but not if you force it
To be, it just didn't happen
But now, they are merely ghosts of who they once were – it’s not possible to force the relationship anymore.
How Did It End?
When a long-term relationship ends, you can point to the factors that led to its demise: a difference of opinions on money, on marriage, on children, and so forth. It is easy to determine the “what” and the “why” of an ending. But what is harder to diagnose is how you both became the versions of yourselves that weren’t on the same page, that were unable to discuss these topics, that couldn’t move past these dilemmas. That is much, much harder to pinpoint, and this is the question Taylor asks in this song. She knows what killed them:
We hereby conduct this post-mortem
He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsman
//
We were blind to unforeseen circumstances
We learn the right steps to different dances (ohh)
And fell victim to interlopers' glances
Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?
But what she still doesn't know is how it happened – how did it end? She also finds the empathy from the media and from the public to be false and selfish – they only want to know what happened to feverishly spread the news like wildfire.
Come one, come all
It's happenin' again
The empathetic hunger descends
We'll tell no one
Except all of our friends
We must know
How did it end?
//
Soon they'll go home to their husbands
Smug 'cause they know they can trust him
Then feverishly calling their cousins (ohh)
//
Say it once again with feeling
What the feeding frenzy wants more than anything is gossip, and they don’t care that she is utterly lost – lost as to why this happened, and lost physically and mentally:
Guess who we ran into at the shops?
Walking in circles like she was lost
How does she give an answer to quell the empathetic hunger, when she herself doesn’t understand exactly how it happened?
So High School
In an album that touches so much on feeling like she’s running out of time to have the future that she wants, and running out of youth to give the various men who come into her life, it is interesting and heartwarming that the song about Travis on the anthology is one that describes being with him as regaining her youth:
The brink of a wrinkle in time
Bittersweet sixteen suddenly
Moreover, another detail to note in this song is the difference in how she describes alcohol and drugs – in nearly every other song on TTPD, alcohol is a vice she uses in her moments of despair, and drugs are what her previous partners turn to in their moments of strife (she also describes the influence of drugs on her partners as something she detests – “sinking in stoned oblivion” and “you needed me but you needed drugs more”). With Travis, she’s not imbibing in any substances – instead, his thoughts and jokes are enough for her:
I'll drink what you think, and I'm high
From smoking your jokes all damn night
Travis is giving her back her youth, making sober promises, and the impression that we get is that they’re building this dreamlike reality together – it’s wholesome, all-American, and high-school-inspired, yet still grounded in something tangible, unlike the promise of fate and destiny, which powered her relationship with Joe and her entanglement with Matty.
I Hate It Here
More than anything, I think this song illustrates how Taylor sometimes uses escapism and maladaptive daydreaming to ignore the reality of the situation she’s dealing with. She recognizes that it’s not possible to stay where she is, locked inside this prison of stagnation and boredom:
If comfort is a construct
I don't believe in good luck
Now that I know what's what
She recognizes that this isn’t what she used to be, and that she never intended to choose this life of secrecy, perhaps alluding to all those years she spent “locked inside her house”:
You see I was a debutante in another life but
Now I seem to be scared to go outside
She describes herself as finding hope in the places her mind creates (seemingly alluding to her creation of characters and places for folklore and evermore):
I hate it here so I will go to
secret gardens in my mind
People need a key to get to
The only one is mine
I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child
And her escapism into her past, and imaginings of what could have been:
I hate it here so I will go to
Lunar valleys in my mind
When they found a better planet
Only the gentle survived
I dreamed about it in the dark
The night I felt like I might die
All throughout the song, there’s recognition that she doesn’t want to be here – she doesn’t want to feel as if the only place she can be free is in these imaginary worlds she creates. But there’s also concession – is she perhaps only destined for an eternal consolation prize? For loneliness? For imagined romanticism? For the fantasy of how she imagined her life and her love to be?
I'm lonely but I'm good
I'm bitter but I swear I'm fine
I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on
purpose
This place made me feel worthless
Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me,
and in my fantasies I rise above it
And way up there, I actually love it
​​thanK you aIMee
This song, along with a few others in the latter half of the anthology, discusses the loss of innocence she felt in key moments of her life. This one quite obviously alludes to Kim Kardashian, and their infamous feud. I will make a separate post on this, but I think people describing this song as petty may not remember the depth of the hate aimed at Taylor in 2016. Kim and Kanye organized a revenge porn music video for Famous, and held a museum exhibit so that people could take pictures with the naked dolls. The night the snapchat videos were released, every Kardashian family member descended upon social media to gleefully celebrate the #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty. The amount of hate Taylor got was so unprecedented that Instagram actually built their comment filtration system because of this incident. It really was that bad.
And every baby step Taylor took (for example, even just posting that she had a good 2017 was met with immediate media backlash) was quite literally mocked across the internet. People thought the reputation era was cringey, that she was over, and that she deserved everyone’s ire because she was “proven” to be a liar. She describes this in the song:
Each time that Aimee stomped across my grave
And then she wrote headlines in the local paper
Laughing at each baby step I'd take
And it was always the same searing pain
But the whole time, despite the pain and blood, she was dreaming of the day that she would heal, and dreaming of the day that she would climb her way back to to the mountaintop:
And our town, it looks so small from way up here
//
So I pushed each boulder up that hill
Your words were still just ringing in my head, ringing in my head
What still irks her though, is that this bully who created this entire hate train and organized her downfall will pretend as if it never happened – she will undoubtedly reframe things to make our subject seem overdramatic, petty, and unable to move past the incidents of years ago. Taylor, however, has always been clear about one thing: sometimes, no amount of time can heal you from something that deeply traumatized you.
I Look in People’s Windows
This song to me feels like a sister song to The Black Dog, but a few months after the official end of a relationship. A sub theme that runs through Taylor’s songs about the Joe breakup is the loss of being understood – when you are no longer with a long-term partner, how do you cope with the fact that you move the world knowing everything about this person, but at the same time, not knowing them anymore? Would you peek into their windows just to get a glimpse of what their life looks like now? As anyone who has gone through a breakup knows, the hardest part is often not being privy to the mundane details of that person’s world – their dinner parties, their wine, their friends, and so on.
I look in people's windows
Transfixed by rose golden glows
They have their friends over to drink nice wine
I look in people's windows
In case you're at their table
What if your eyes looked up and met mine
One more time
The Prophecy
The prophecy is devastating. More so than any other song Taylor has ever written, it is full of desperation and longing. All she asks for is to be known, to be understood – to not be perceived as an idea of a woman, or a starlet with no humanity:
Please
I've been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don't want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
It’s striking especially considering how much she laments that leaving Joe means she’s giving up being known – it’s also striking given the fact that in the epilogue poem, she states that neither Joe or Matty ever truly knew her:
He never even scratched the surface
of me.
None of them did.
What she desires beyond fame, beyond notoriety, beyond money, is to be loved and to be known. The song also alludes to her being in therapy, and to finding some sort of consolation that she will find someone to share her life with:
I'm so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates
I'm just a paperweight
In shades of greige
Spending my last coin so someone will tell me
It'll be ok
Cassandra
This track is a sister song to ​​thanK you aIMee, and continues exploring the theme of fraught public womanhood we see in Clara Bow and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me. In this song, Taylor discusses how the validation of women is never publicized in the way that the crucifixion of them is:
When the first stone's thrown, there's screaming
In the streets, there's a raging riot
When it's "Burn the bitch, " they're shrieking
When the truth comes out, it's quiet
Moreover, when women speak up about an issue, they’re often viewed as overdramatic, and unserious. Cassandra, in Greek mythology, was cursed by Apollo to always predict the future accurately, but never be believed. We see this happen every day to women in politics, in the media, and in pop culture:
So, they killed Cassandra first 'cause she feared the worst
And tried to tell the town
So, they set my life in flames, I regret to say
Do you believe me now?
And for Taylor, it’s reminiscent of all the times she’s been the first to speak out about something in the industry – for example, against Scooter Braun and his well-established pattern of bullying, or of the exploitation of artists on streaming services – but never been supported broadly by her peers. They believe her later, but at that point, very few people give her the credit for speaking up in the first place. It’s reminiscent of the Kimye scandal. When the news broke originally, the hatred she received was widespread. But when she was acquitted by the long-form video that leaked, it didn’t receive anywhere near the level of coverage that the original scandal received.
Peter
Peter is another song that touches on both the male muses for this album, and in turn, on the promises various men have given her over her life (we’ll circle back to this in The Manuscript!). It also touches on the theme of waiting that’s seen throughout this album, especially on her songs about Joe – how much time is enough time to give?
Both Matty and Joe were 25 when they met her, and it’s abundantly clear that both men made promises to her: promises of marriage, of children, and of a future. But how long can she wait for these promises to be fulfilled? To Joe, she gives six years of her life and youth, and to Matty, she gives him a chance to prove that he was reformed from the time she knew him last: both men eventually fail. Neither man is ready to give up their childish whims, and she has no choice but to lose hope that either of them ever will.
And you said you'd come and get me but you were 25
And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired
Lost to the lost boys chapter of your life
Forgive me Peter, please know that I tried
To hold onto the days when you were mine
But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light
Another thing to note is the interesting double meaning of the song title. To peter also means to diminish gradually – much like her faith in both men’s promises.
The Bolter
A lot of the songs Taylor has written about Joe in this album deal with the question of “when is the right time to leave?” When you know that things are stagnant, and you know that you’ve given everything you have to a relationship, you know that you have to leave – but it’s easy to convince yourself if you have a history of “leaving before you get left” that you should ride out this wave, and that this pain might just be temporary.
The Bolter, to me, reflects on Taylor’s history – it seems like she prided herself on being able to see the warning signs, and being able to get out in time.
She's been many places with
Men of many faces
First, they're off to the races
And she's laughing drawin' aces
But, none of it is changin'
That the chariot is waitin'
Hearts are hers for the breakin'
There's an escape in escaping
It’s relevant to TTPD, because likely, she saw not bolting as a sign of growth and maturity. You know that you’ve grown as a person when you don’t abandon ship at the first sign of trouble, but what if there are so many signs of trouble that the truly mature thing to do would be to leave?
Robin
Robin leads into this theme of childhood and innocence that we see further in The Manuscript. The track name is also the name of Aaron Dessner’s child. She ponders how beautiful and sweet it is that we work so hard to protect childhood naivete:
Strings tied to levers,
slowed down clocks tethered,
all this showmanship
To keep it, for you,
In sweetness
And there’s an element of wistfulness to it – don’t we sometimes wish that we could also be protected from the worst the world has to offer?
You have no room in your dreams for regrets
You have no idea
The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean
You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline
But now we'll curtail your curiosity
The Manuscript
This song is perhaps the most climactic song on the album. It covers her romantic history up until that point, and starts at the moment she feels everything went awry – and it predates Joe and Matty. Instead, it calls back to the first time she experienced a proper heartbreak, and the first time she lost her childlike innocence in the world – her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal (a time she described as her transition from childhood to womanhood). She describes how they compared licenses, and how he told her that if they had sex, and it was as good as the conversation was, then they would get married, and have a family. He was the first man to make her these promises:
He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was
Soon they'd be pushin' strollers
But soon it was over
He tells her that it’s ok that they have an age gap, because she’s so advanced for her age:
She thought about how he said since she was so wise beyond her years
Everything had been above board
She wasn't sure
While dating him, she desperately wants to be older, and starts emulating his behavior:
In the age of him, she wished she was thirty
And made coffee every morning in a French press
And when it’s over, she regresses, and turns back into a child – unable to sleep alone without the comfort of her mother, and unable to eat anything substantial besides the sugary cereal of her youth:
Afterwards she only ate kids' cereal
And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed
She forces herself to date boys her own age, to not rely on the maturity of an older man to guide her through adulthood, but she can’t help but feel disappointed in their youth:
Then she dated boys who were her own age
With dart boards on the backs of their doors
Finally, as she creates the All Too Well short film, she recognizes the damage he did to her, and how the consequences of that affair have shaped her life since:
And the years passed
Like scenes of a show
The Professor said to write what you know
Lookin' backwards
Might be the only way to move forward
Then the actors
Were hitting their marks
And the slow dance
Was alight with the sparks
And the tears fell
In synchronicity with the score
And at last
She knew what the agony had been for
Everything calls back to this first man, and these original promises – everything she’s been chasing since is reminiscent of this first scar. And just like how releasing All Too Well transformed and healed her, she hopes that by releasing this additional manuscript into the world, it will heal her again. As she describes in the epilogue poem, she is entering all her thoughts, emotions, and pain into evidence – she now asks the audience to process it with her, and thus conclude this process of healing.
The only thing that's left is the manuscript
One last souvenir from my trip to your shores
Now and then I reread the manuscript
But the story isn't mine anymore
If you read all of this - thank you! I enjoyed writing it, and I'm excited to discuss with you all in the replies :)

(sorry, i don’t know where to post this as i can’t find ph support communities. this is quite long)
hello everyone, new panganay here—my kuya passed away recently, and ako na yung sumunod sa kanya. dalawa na lang kaming magkapatid ngayon.
a few years ago, my mother got diagnosed with stage iv cancer. she got better after radiotherapy and medications pero unfortunately, she was diagnosed last month with tumor recurrence. she’s more stable ngayon but marami na nag arise na complications sa iba’t ibang organs nya.
my younger brother and i have been taking care of her for a month na (we basically live in the hospital, but we still go to work/school. father is working far away) but things don’t get any better. naghire naman kami ng bantay in the morning para may kapalitan kami but di sila tumatagal since my mother has been very difficult to deal with (even before pa siya nagkasakit)
ngayon, gusto na niya makauwi and ma discharge, pero hindi niya tinutulungan ang sarili niya. she isn’t honest sa mga nararamdaman niya, di niya sinasabi sa doctonurse kung alin o saan ang masakit. minsan tumatanggi siya sa gamot and procedure. minsan inaaway pa kami, wala raw kaming kwentang bantay, wag daw siyang pagsabihan, etc. she also says na hindi namin siya kayang iwan dahil nanay namin siya. sinisigawan din nya ang attending nurses sa kanya. she’s like this even nung unang hospitalization niya years ago.
lagi naming sinasabi sa sarili namin na effect ng gamot or sakit kaya ganun na siya paligid niya pero nakakapagod na kasi and nakakaubos na ng pasensya. lagi rin siyang galit sa akin (idk, she’s been like that before kaya nag move out ako for work sa NCR)
as a panganay, what should i do aside sa maging more patient sa kanya? sa mga nagkaroon ng sick and difficult parents, san kayo kumuha ng lakas ng loob?
nakaka frustrate na as it’s taking a toll on me emotionally (i’ve been crying a lot recently due to the situation ng family and my work) and also mentally kasi my father and my brother is depending on me pag decision making sa ospital (consent on doctors and treatments)
thanks for your insights

for a long time- heck my whole life even, I have always been alone and have never had anyone with me. I had acquaintances and people I would say hi to since I’m friendly to everyone, but that’s all, I was your simple floater friend, and I’ve never had a single real friend and it never helped that at home I also had no one as well since I have emotionally-absent parents. before at my old school, I would always spend my lunch in the bathroom stall, and was always kept to myself and so I was used to that lifestyle. now that I’ve moved school, things have slightly changed, and yet I still feel so empty and lonely. I would hang out with people and talk to them, yet I don’t feel as if they’re even my friends- yeah, we’re on good terms but i feel like i’m simply just their last option to talk to and I would get envious inside of how they can go on with life happy with friends and amazing parents and an amazing life, while i’m out here so empty, and I feel so guilty and an idiot for thinking like this. I genuinely hate feeling like this and I’m starting to distance myself from them, but it hurts so bad to be alone for your whole life and want people with you, but at the same time genuinely can’t see anyone as a friend and feel like i’m just clowning or embarrassing myself when i’m with them, and it’s genuinely ruining me so badly to the point I can’t spend a day without breaking down into tears

***Throwaway. Not sure if this letter belongs here, but I really need to get this out somewhere. We're currently only a month into NC and I can't handle not being able to send this to her. But, I want to respect her space and will wait until she is ready. anyway, here it is:
I want to begin by stating that the sole purpose of this letter is to take responsibility of all my actions in our relationship, something I couldn't do while we were together due to my immaturity and lack of awareness. I did not take responsibility for anything. I planned on keeping this in my drafts and not sending it. I was afraid of how you would react to this. I'm not anticipating a response from you, I simply want to express this to you because it's long overdue. I never had the chance to sincerely and completely apologize for how I exploited your trust, compassion, and love.
at the 2 year mark of our relationship I started to become manipulative, insecure, needy, immature, and I stonewalled in our arguments/disagreements constantly. I broke down, withdrew from what was going on and tried to avoid it by not communicating back to you, which put a lot of damage on us and especially you as a person overtime. I never made you feel heard. Only now I see how much it has wounded you emotionally and, I truly never intended to cause you such distress. I was completely unaware of how disgusting everything I was saying and doing to you was. It was only after you left that I finally saw the full result of my own actions. While I should have been building you up I was doing the complete opposite. I got jealous over things you never did and that was a reflection of how insecure I was about myself. All you did was try to show me love and compassion every single day and I took advantage of it. How I handled our relationship was completely horrible and I truly regret doing that to you.
I am sorry for the numerous times that I manipulated you into not doing something for our relationship, when in reality it was for my own selfish reasons. Who do I think I am? No person should have control over another person and what they can do or not do in a relationship. I made you sacrifice your happiness and sanity for mine. I selfishly prioritized my own version of happiness and completely rejected your desires and needs. My actions were the result of my insecurities, traumas, and fears, which I deeply regret projecting onto you and I am so sorry for doing so. I am finally seeking the help I need to address these underlying issues. You told me time after time to work on it and I always failed to do so.
if you ever find yourself blaming yourself for anything that has happened in our relationship, please don't. Everything was completely my fault and I could’ve handled our situations more maturely. I had the inability to do what I said I was going to do; by not focusing on the inner work necessary to grow as a person and becoming a healthier partner. I look back at who I was, and I don’t recognize that person at all. I see an immature and childish boy who lost himself, grew complacent and went back to his high school mentality. I remember you saying something related to “i have no self confidence” or something like that and in that moment it was so low that I got offended by it. WHAT A WUSS. I was ignorant about my own issues and didn’t have the courage to do the inner work necessary to grow and as a result I continued to lash out at you or blame my past for the way I am. I couldn't stand myself or look in the mirror and face the person I was; I constantly questioned you and made you feel no trust from my end because I was so insecure within myself.
You were the first person in my life to ever show me what true affection felt like. I have never ever felt anything close to how you made me feel ever since the first night we met. you saw me in a way that no other person could and it felt like you always managed to see the good in me. As Zach Bryan says in his song, "the only bad you've ever done, was to see the good in me." It hits harder now. The day I lost you is the day I finally realized that I pushed you over the edge and I have no idea how I could do that to such an amazing and loving person like yourself. It was only then, that I decided to take action, and actually put in the work to be a healthier and loving partner. I became to comfortable with the fact that I would never lose you. I truly fckn regret it. I don't forgive myself for the way I acted and handled things in the relationship, but I'm growing and learning from the mistakes I made to be a more mature and loving partner. I'm sorry it took all that pain for me to take action.
I refused to respect the boundaries you were giving to me. I didn't listen to the hints you made and didn’t realize that it was something you wanted and needed from me. I overlooked it because again, I wasn’t aware of anything. I completely understand why you are so pissed off and possibly over me. I am ashamed of the way I have behaved in this relationship. no person should have to put up with that AT ALL. I understand an apology alone cannot undo the damage I have done, but I want you to know that I'm committed to making amends, if the opportunity to prove myself ever arises. But, after everything I've done, I don't know if that is or will ever be possible for you.
I just wanted to say thank you for forcing me to rebuild and becoming a better version of myself. you made me want to be more in tune and aware from within. I became so unattractive in your eyes and I know you couldn't stand who I turned into. I grew complacent and lost that happy, loving person you fell in love with. I'm not expecting you to stay as a friend or take me back as a partner. I now completely understand how badly I took advantage of your time and love throughout our relationship. no matter what happens, just know I love you with everything in me and always will, no matter what happens between us. You will always have a special place in my heart until that casket drops.
I'm truly, TRULY, sorry for giving you such an unhealthy commitment for the time we’ve been together.
B.