When I was in a university studying audio tech, there was an ambient/tape-loop producer whose records literally got me through every brutal burnout. Let’s call him 'K.'

His whole persona was built around almost monastic analog purity. He didn't use social media at all, he only released on limited-run cassette, did not have internet (as much as I know) and his few interviews spoke about 'preserving the tactile fragility of electromagnetic tape' or something like 'surrendering to tape hiss as a meditation on impermanence.' Well, wording is a bit pretentious, but the sound is quite contrary. So I owned all five of his vinyl pressings. I bought a very used 1983 Marantz deck specifically because he mentioned using one in a 2017 interview.

And last month, through a mutual friend at a modular synth collective, I got asked to be his studio assistant for a three-day recording residency in an industrial loft outside Leipzig. Conveniently enough, I was not far away from Germany at that period, before leaving for southern France. So, I was extra excited, I didn't sleep well for couple of nights

The reality was a complete train crash, or car crash, or a shipwreck, i did not figure out how to call this, yet

K is not a monk of sound, at all.. the man is deeply entitled, and essentially chain-smoking 45-year-old, also known as ‘scoof’, and he likely have not serviced a piece of gear in a decade 

Therefore within two hours of arriving, I realized he barely understood basic gain staging. Half his 'legendary vintage saturation' was just digital clipping from a cheap USB interface running into the red. When a reel-to-reel deck started chewing tape, no adjusting of tension arms followed, he instead kicked the casing and ordered me to go buy him specific Turkish cigarettes (as if i do not have better things to do there? Sorry)

Worse, on day two, he pulled up a folder on a beaten-up MacBook labeled 'Royalty_Free_Textures_2018.' He dragged pre-made Splice pads onto a DAW timeline (remember, an intire image of him was made as someone who opposes all of the digital paradigm), then outed them through an off-the-shelf distortion pedal, recorded thirty seconds oncassette, said: 'That’s the opening track for the new vinyl. Label wants it by Friday.'

When I very sweetly-gently asked if we were going to build the tape loop from the modular patches we spent three hours tuning, he laughed and said: 'Audiophiles buy the aesthetic on the sleeve notes, Lyra. Trust me nobody can tell what’s real once you slap 40% reverb on it, sad but true’

On day 3 of all that, he demanded I stay until 4:00 AM to clean the studio floor and assemble 50 cassette j-cards by hand while he went to dinner with the gallery curator. He didn't offer to cover my train ticket back to Berlin, even though we likely discussed a bit different conditions before.

I took the 6:00 AM regional train home yesterday, unusually, with my headphones off. For the last 4 years or so, even since my teen years in Vilnius, I looked at this man's catalog as proof that slow and meticulous craft still had a sacred place in modern music. Imagine how seeing him and such kind of lazy opportunism dressed up in boutique marketing hit harder than I expected. I get why people dislike ai music (or ‘music’), but this I did dislike even more.

Now literally packing up his records to donate to a thrift store this afternoon. This man’s music doesn't sound mystical anymore; i would always remember that someone cutting corners on a dirty sofa, bruh

I'm a licensed counselor, and lately I've been seeing a lot of discourse about friendships between single and married women that I find really interesting. People are finally putting words to something I've noticed for years, both professionally and personally, which is that we have a social hierarchy around relationships that we don't really acknowledge.

I don't think most married people consciously believe their time is more valuable than a single person's, but we've normalized treating certain obligations as more legitimate than others. "I can't because of my husband," or "We have to work around the kids," generally ends the conversation, and rightfully so, because those are real obligations. Where it gets uncomfortable is when "I have more people to consider" quietly becomes "therefore you should be the one who accommodates me." I've heard variations of this dynamic more times than I can count, and eventually the flexible person's flexibility can stop being viewed as something they're giving and start being treated as part of their role.

I saw a post recently that illustrated this perfectly. A woman invited her longtime friend on a hiking trip she'd planned for herself, and the friend brought her husband last minute, who had physical limitations at the time, OP changed a lot of what she'd planned to accommodate them. Years later, OP planned another solo trip and the same friend wanted to come, except this time OP made it clear she wasn't changing her plans. Her friend immediately started suggesting things that would work better for her, OP essentially said, "You're welcome to come, but I'm still doing what I planned," and suddenly there was tension.

What interests me as a counselor was that the major variable that changed was how much one person was willing to bend. Relationships develop roles without us realizing it, and if you've been the accommodating friend for fifteen years, people can become accustomed to that flexibility and even subconsciously entitled to it. Sometimes a boundary feels like a slight simply because somebody benefited from you not having one before.

Marriage can make this particularly complicated because building a life with someone inherently requires giving up some individual autonomy. You have another person's schedule, career, finances, family, needs and feelings to consider, and presumably what you gain from that partnership makes those compromises worthwhile. The uncomfortable truth is that the compromises you made within your marriage don't automatically become your single friend's compromises too, and there's a difference between mutual compromise and asking the person with more freedom to sacrifice some of it because you have less.

There's also a contradiction in how we talk about single people. We're constantly reminded of everything we're supposedly missing, but when we enjoy one of the actual benefits of being single, it's suddenly, "Must be nice to book a trip without consulting anybody," or "Must be nice to move wherever you want." Frankly, sometimes it fucking is. Partnership comes with benefits single people don't have, and singlehood comes with freedoms married people don't have. A married woman can love her husband and occasionally envy her friend's freedom just as easily as a single woman can love her independence and occasionally envy companionship.

I think this is also why some lifelong friendships hit growing pains in adulthood. If you met your best friend when you were 10, you weren't screening each other for adult lifestyle compatibility; you were 10. Twenty-five years later, one of you might be married with children while the other is single, one might want suburbia while the other wants to move across the country, and one might love shopping while the other wants to spend their day on the beach.

We're so attached to "best friends forever" that we interpret any change as rejection when sometimes the friendship is simply being asked to grow along with the people in it. And at times sometimes a boundary simply exposes an expectation nobody realized existed until somebody stopped meeting it, and that's probably what interests me most about this whole conversation. Underneath the married-versus-single debate is a much bigger question about whether we actually give different versions of adulthood equal respect. Your marriage and family deserve respect, but so do someone else's career, friendships, plans, independence and solitude.

Married commitments deserve respect as much as single commitments do too.

My gf works at a Chickfila near a highschool and she’s been in charge of hiring and filtering applications.
I don’t even know how to start. 70-80% of the applications are horrible. You’d think these applications are being submitted by 4th graders. I’m not going to pretend to be a perfect grammatically correct person, but I know when to adjust my tone and professionalism.
Most of the applicants are 16-19 and they can’t even punctuate. No commas, no periods, no apostrophes, horrible spelling (someone genuinely spelt the article ‘a’ as ‘ah’ and ‘when’ as ‘wen’), sentences that abruptly end before they were clearly supposed to, and completely non sensical sentences. If that isn’t the case, it tends to be blatantly obvious AI.
Or sometimes its both which makes it even more obvious. 4th grade level writing that immediately switches to robotic college level writing is very comedic.

It’s hard to let these applications even go through. Typically when you give them a chance, they show up in casual unprofessional clothes. I understand that a lot of children aren’t fortunate enough to have nicer clothes, but at the very least you’d expect a professional attitude.
I don’t know if its always been this bad, but I personally feel like I encounter more young adults or highschoolers that struggle with basic literacy or articulation.
AI isn’t helping either. Because parents and teachers just see a rising grade and they don’t tend to dig any deeper. Writing essays sucked so much in school but learning how to articulate your thoughts and write them down in coherent sentences is so important.

When I (f, 26) found out my ex (m, 28) was cheating on me from the other girl, he confessed in the meanest way possible. It was obvious he had no regret and no respect for me whatsoever. I actually don’t think I’ve ever held this much hate towards someone in my heart the way I do him. But that’s beside the point. I immediately stopped communicating with him after his confession was so cruel. I refused to give him the satisfaction of torturing me further. But I also desperately wanted him to be held accountable for his actions. He was a total momma’s boy and honestly his mom was the first parent of a significant other that I really connected with. But I knew better than to think she’d ever be in my side over her son. But that’s just it. My ex had 2 younger brothers, also her sons, who I knew she would actually care about protecting. One of which was only 15. Now, context, I’d give my ex some of my prescribed adderall when he had a test coming up. He’s an adult and I’m adult and listen okay we’ve done worse things. However! right before I found out about the cheating, I’d found out that he was giving his child brother my adderall that I’d given to him, the 28-year-old grown man. I was so so not okay with the idea that he was using my prescription to introduce his 15 year old kid brother to amphetamines. But I hadn’t figured out how to broach the topic with him yet before the cheating came to light. Im being so serious when I say telling his mom that he was giving her youngest son drugs was the most satisfying petty revenge I’ve ever taken. And based on the nasty texts he sent me after I talked to his mom, it definitely worked. ❤️ and I still got to look like a saint because I gave zero mention to his mom as to why we broke up other than that he was giving his brother my pills.

My cousin was found dead in his bed about 10 months ago.

I still replay that day in my head over and over every day. We arrived at my uncle's house while the priests were still praying over him. I remember the sound of my mom screaming every day. I remember holding her and my aunt while the medical examiner removed his body from the house.

His family never told us what the cause of death was. He just went to bed and never woke up. He was young. Since then I've been thinking maybe it was an unknown heart condition or a pulmonary embolism. He was always just a ray of sunshine and so pure of heart I never thought it could be anything other than a medical event.

I have trouble sleeping at night because I keep checking if my husband is still breathing. I dont feel like that should've been a traumatic day for me, but I guess I am experiencing some signs of trauma.

Even though we had grown apart as we got older, we still grew up together and he was my family. It was really hurting me that his family had not shared the cause of death with us. I never got any closure. We were just left in the dark as if we were strangers to them. My mother is worried that it could have been a hereditary heart condition.

Last week I found out that the case status of the autopsy report is public information on the county's Institute of Forensic Sciences website, so I went there to look it up. I thought maybe the case was still open or the autopsy was inconclusive and maybe that was why his family hadn't told us anything.

I didnt realize that when I looked up the case status it would show me the manner and cause of death 😞 so this was how I found out my cousin had committed suicide with a medication used to treat bipolar depression.

I feel so guilty that I know something I wasn't supposed to know. I feel like I've violated their privacy. At the same time I want to talk to my mom about it so badly but I know I shouldn't because I dont want to spread information I wasn't even supposed to have in the first place. I feel guilty for keeping it from her. She screamed and cried for him as if he was her own son.

The only person I've told is my husband. He was out of town for work when I called him and we haven't talked about it again since then. He is absolutely exhausted when he comes home from work it just doesn't feel right to trouble him with this. He's been working 7 days a week lately.

I just really needed to get it off my chest...

For some context, a year or so ago there was a huge scandal going around the office because of some panties that were left on the shelf in the womens restroom. Now flashback to a year or so ago. It was one of those days where you are behind on laundry and have to grab whatever you can to wear. I had to wear the most uncomfortabe pair of sexy lace undies to work since everything else was dirty. Halfway through the day I decided I would rather go commando than sit at my desk uncomfortable for a second longer. I went to the restroom, removed the panties, and placed them on the shelf above the toilet while putting my pants back on. During the process of putting my pants back on I guess I forgot to grab the panties but grabbed my purse and walked out. (I thought I had put them in the purse) Now about an hour later I come out to the break room to see a crowd of people around that partiular stall. I walk over to see them holding my panties up with a ruler to throw them away. I am mortified but I keep my cool. I ask if anyone knows who left them there and they all act like they have no clue. The HR manager told everyone she was going to watch the cameras back to try and narrow down who it could be. For the next week I was walking around parinoid thinking at anytime I would be called to HR about the panties. People were talking around the office for weeks about who the "Panty Bandit" could have been. It has now been 2 years since the panty incident and no one knows that I was the panty bandit. I am writing this now as I am sitting in the restroom about to do the same thing, however, I put them in my purse this time.

I make around 6 figures and barely work. Officially, you're expected to clock in at 8:30. I come in around 9:00, sometimes earlier or later depending on my schedule or what I have in the morning; it doesn't have to be work-related. I take 3-hour lunches, and I leave for the gym at 5 pm. Around once a week, I leave at noon for lunch and don't go back; I can make an excuse and sometimes people don't even ask. I make the equivalent of six figures, and have been working like this for the past 5 years. I am 27M, and part of me is conflicted on what I am doing. No one really cares what I do as long as I am available to discuss topics and situations in the company, and to make decisions relative to my department. I make close to zero mistakes.

The reason I am conflicted is that sometimes I just feel like I am wasting my early years by not working extra hard for my finances. I have this constant pressure to build my own fortune and to build something of my own to become an entrepeneur. I have this subtle urge to always better myself and I feel a little stagnant, but sometimes I am thankful for all the freetime I have and how I am coasting through life. I can also travel whenever I want, I just need to be available 7 days a week for calls and texts.

I’m 23. He’s 24. I’m two days away from my due date with our second child. He’s a great dad, maybe a little absent but that’s more because he’s had to work so much to keep us afloat.
I take it back, good dads don’t hit their pregnant wives.
Anyway, we were arguing about money. He has been spending so much more than he’s earning, and actually hindered my ability to earn money by being careless. I sold something online and he was tasked with taking it to the post office and packaging the item to send to the buyer. He apparently just threw the item into a huge box and it broke before it got to the buyer, so I lost an expensive item and had to refund all the money.
I asked him about why he didn’t package it like I had asked and he said he didn’t know he had to do all that. We got a little heated because I was upset about the situation and he started screaming in my face. It’s no excuse, but I have a lot of childhood trauma from being physically abused so I warned him about three times to get out of my face and he kept screaming “make me” I used an open palm on his chest and pushed him backwards. I shouldn’t have touched him, that’s on me. He came back even more aggressively and I tried to walk into a different room. He followed me and shoved me maybe three times trying to block my way. After that he screamed in my face until I started crying, then he left the room and slammed the door so hard the house shook. I lost it, all these memories and feeling came flooding back and I threw over a small side table and knocked an unlit candle on the floor. He burst back into the room and slammed his elbow into my back, then pinned my arms behind my back while I was begging him to stop and let me go because he was hurting me. He told me since he pays for everything I have no rights to anything and shouldn’t touch anything. He then threw me forward onto the ground and screamed at me until I literally pissed myself in fear on the ground and shut down. I don’t even remember what happened after, but I think I cried for a long time before I pulled myself up, took a shower, and now I’m laying on the couch while he’s sleeping comfortably in bed. I’m so on edge and scared.

We’ve had a really hard month but I’ve been very checked out emotionally, and I think I’m in some sort of depression. I am really struggling and to be honest I have been contemplating killing myself, but my kid needs me and I have one that is gonna be born in a matter of days. I can’t kill him because I’m unhappy. And I can’t leave either of them with him, especially not after this. I don’t know what to do.

EDIT

I know now that I should leave. It’s never just one time. I’ll be making some calls tomorrow and compiling proof of my bruises and scratches from this ordeal. I will make a report when I go to have the baby as there’s no other way to do it without alerting him and potentially making things a lot worse. Calling the police in the past has only ever made situations worse for me so I’m very anxious about all this, but I’m gonna try my damnedest to do right by my kids. I’ll make myself scarce until the baby comes (which is fairly easy considering he is almost never home) and avoid any confrontation. Maybe the state will provide a place to stay long enough for my family to come and get me and the kids, maybe with my evidence he’ll be held in jail until I’m gone and we’re safe.
Even if I don’t feel like saving myself, I would go to hell and back for my kids. They will have the life I never got to, and they won’t grow up around an angry man.

The world feels horrible right now but it feels like it’s getting worse. Global warming, capitalism, political instability, violence, I mean, what if I die now only to wake up to an even worse world

We were in a car accident several months ago. A drunk driver t-boned us on the way to church for a wedding. Our younger children were riding with their aunt, so it was only me, my wife and our older daughter.

My wife was killed in the crash. Our daughter was badly injured. She survived, but is paralyzed from the waist down.

The days are unbearable. She had been struggling with her mental health, but the death of her mother and the loss of her mobility has only made things worse. She had to miss the rest of the 8th grade and her graduation because she was in the hospital. She struggles to do simple tasks like eat or brush her hair and she hates the things she used to love. She can't play basketball anymore because of her injuries.

It breaks my heart when she is crying, when she is staring off into space, when she talks about the things she used to do. It's like a part of her died that day.

Recently, she's been lashing out at me. Screaming, hitting, running me down with her wheelchair. She tells me she hates me, that I should have died in that crash. She knows what happened, but in her head, it is my fault.

I keep asking myself what if I just let her stay home? What if I let her go on that stupid trip her class was taking. Things would be different.

I know they would be different. But our reality is that she is facing the rest of her life in a wheelchair, without her mother, with injuries that will haunt her until the end.

She hates me. In her head, the accident was my fault.

And Im starting to think she is right.

That’s it, I don’t have a best friend and I’m nobody’s best friend. I just want to be someone’s favorite I guess.

I (31f) went on a date the other night with a guy (28m) who had some similar likes. We met on Tinder and I had listed horror movies, anime, ect., and we had some of those things in common. At one point during dinner, though, he asked me what my favorite horror movie was, and I was about to answer he cut me off.

He told me I couldn't say Scream, Child's Play, Final Destination, or The Shining. Because they are basic horror movies, that arent even good. I was thrown off cause I'm pretty sure he wanted to start a debate or something about it. Cause I had a Scream wallpaper on my phone, and I know he saw it when I showed him something on it. Granted I like these movies so it threw me off on how they shouldn't be listed.

I answered with Thir13n Ghosts (I know I have shit taste. I've liked this movie since I was a kid). He told me he'd never seen it, and I know it's not popular, so it's not surprising. He then told me his favorite is Halloween and went on a rant about how he was superior to any other horror movies. Something about comparing Jason and Michael Myers. idk man, I'm not into either Halloween or Friday the 13th.

I was so confused cause I feel like Halloween is probably a basic answer. Idk why he thought that it wasn't. I tried bringing up that I liked the Scream series, but only like the first 3 movies. He told me I had basic taste in movies. That I must not actually watch horror movies. That I must only watch whats popular. He then kept talking about Halloween like it's his baby. I literally could not talk about anything cause he just wanted to brag about Halloween and how strong and cool Michael Myers is.

The date soured pretty quickly because who the fuck insults someone on a first date? I was annoyed even after we changed the topic so after we ate I went home.

I'm not saying I have great taste in media in general. Hell, I don't really watch anything anymore and just listen to youtube videos talking about random topics.

If I watch something though, it's horror. I have a large collection of horror movies, even if they're awful like The Gingerdead Man or The Evil Bong. It's well known to my family and friends that I love Horror. wtf was he on about?

I’m a 26 year old woman, and I feel like a shell of a person.

I work a 9 to 5 I can’t stand. My co-workers are all boomers and rude. I’m the only POC and Gen Z. I don’t get paid enough to leave my parents house.

My ex situationship who is also my personal trainer (became this AFTER we stopped messing around…whole other can of worms…) has a girlfriend now and he is happy. This is like my third time being the trial person for someone else to figure out what they want.

My ex best friend got a high paying job, lives in California now in some actor’s guest house, and slowly distanced herself from me until she cut me off.

Im not religious or spiritual, and that puts a distance between me and a lot of the people I speak to. I’m not open with my views, unless asked directly. But I don’t have some higher power or magical energy I can believe in to give me any mental tether to any of the bullshit here.

Still recovering from (a particularly traumatic event I won’t say cause I don’t want to get flagged).

Spend all my free time in the gym, because lifting I the only thing that makes me feel anything, but don’t feel apart of any fitness or gym community.

Anyone else I try to speak to only uses me as a sounding board for their day or problems. I am not allowed to talk about myself, because they get distracted and their eyes glaze over and they don’t care.

I do what is required of me all day, with no energy or will, feeling like a zombie. No real purpose in it. I haven’t felt happiness in years. I don’t feel like a woman or even a human, really.

Just a ghost, smoking my day away cause it’s my only friend.

as the title states i (21f) like my bestfriends (20f) boyfriend (20m). they’ve been going out for a couple of months, but we’ve all been part of the same friend group for a couple of months before that. we met him on the same day, both giggled ah he’s so cute the usual girly talk and it was acknowledged that we both kinda have a crush. then he started pursuing her and at first we all thought it wasn’t gonna be anything serious, they were just hooking up but they made it official about a week ago.

my feelings never went away, every time we hung out i couldn’t help but think of him romantically. i think we would be a much better match long term, they don’t have that much stuff in common, their goals are totally different, i can’t help but think that the only reason he chose her is because she is truly the most beautiful girl literally ever. i’ve liked at least 2 guys, not including her bf, that ended up liking her and asking her out.

i guess a part of me feels inadequate and that’s not her fault at all, i just really hoped with him it would be different and it wasn’t. sometimes i don’t want the guys that i talk to to meet her or see what she looks like even, because i feel like they’ll prefer her over me.

and i truly am happy that she has found a good guy, but i wish he would’ve chosen me. i would never try anything with him and i never will, but i’m afraid i will distance myself from her as their relationship progresses. i don’t wanna hang out around him because i can’t hide shit i always blush and stuff, but idk how not to without just looking weird, because we were friends before. after it was obvious that he likes her, it was never again acknowledged that i like him, it was just assumed that she’s the only one that still does, which ig makes sense but also now i can‘t talk to literally anyone about it because i’ll just sound like a jealous freak. we were set up exactly the same, she just got luckier because he liked her back. idk what to do, it eats me alive but i don’t wanna tell her because i‘m scared of losing her.

i know there’s a ton of posts like this on here and sounds childish but i really just hope these feelings go away and that i don’t lose her or myself in the process.

My (F18) mother (F56) started using ChatGPT since late 2025 and I hate it.

My uncle (M52) and one of my mom's colleagues (F40) warmed my mom up to using generative AI. Before this, my mother was very much against using generative AI and shamed those who did so.

At first, she only used it for translation difficulties (she's a 1st gen immigrant) to express herself better at work inquiries, which deteriorated into her not even writing her texts anymore and having ChatGPT write everything for her. I always had an issue with translating on ChatGPT, especially once she stopped writing the texts herself and had AI generate everything for her. I always told her that if she wants to use a translator, she should maybe look into DeepL or something like that. But no. Whenever I do, she feels offended and lectures me for at least half an hour on how nobody in our household supports her, how we're always busy, and how ChatGPT is the only thing "willing" to help her (not an overexaggeration unfortunately).

For at least half a year, she has been using AI for literally everything.

Visiting a nutritionist to help her lose weight? No. ChatGPT.

Using online Maps to locate something? No. I'll just ask ChatGPT to give me the location instead of looking it up myself.

Engaging in a conversation/dicussion with me and my brother (M16) whenever we have an "odd" question? No. Ask ChatGPT.

This is not my mom anymore. I really don't want to sound overdramatic, but she has really changed since using ChatGPT. She has started encouraging me, my brother, and father (M55) to use it too. My dad recently lost his job, doesn't want to learn the regional language and now has to send multiple job applications per month so we receive financial help from the government. All of his applications have been done with AI. Me and my brother have criticised this on several occaisions. No reasonable company will accept an application written by AI, they use AI detectors to filter out applications. But whenever we do so, we're yelled at by both of our parents and they repeat the same things my mom does whenever she only gets mad at me over AI.

I'm honestly tired. I miss my mom. I hate how I can't have a conversation anymore, without her bringing up ChatGPT to some extent or using it as a means to shut down my initiative to start a conversation with her.

I have brought up how excessively relying on ChatGPT as she does fries her brain, but she doesn't want to listenand would much rather lecture me.

Sorry if this is all over the place. It's just that this has been bothering me a lot, especially after the whole unemployment thing of my dad, so I thought I'd post about it here.

Throwaway account. I feel so unbelievably horrible about this and it still keeps me up at night because I should have known better. There's a good chance that I'm just overly sensitive right now because I'm having PMS, but I literally can't go to sleep because I still feel so bad and anxious over this.

For context, when I was 19, I once joined a community Discord server of which general atmosphere was just this very restless, vulgar and raunchy vibe, you know the ones. Think like okbuddy kind of a server (this was a particularly sexual one I would say), the sort where people just say the most out of pocket stuff to each other with very little filter and it's the norm there, and I'm the sort of a person who can enjoy that so I went in. There were NSFW channels as well, but labelled correctly, so there wasn't straight up porn on any unrelated channel, but more or less NSFW discussions were had on the general channels.

What happened was that someone, whom I wholly thought was over 18 because it didn't even cross my mind that minors could be on such a server, told the entire chat on a general channel something along the lines of "I'm going to go jerk off now" to which I 100% jokingly responded with "pics or didn't happen". People were openly telling each other the weirdest stuff on the normal channels and I thought that it was nothing that out of the norm. After that, multiple people started (rightfully) telling me that "wtf he's a minor", and I very quickly found out that the person I told the joke to was a 15-year-old. I was so shocked that I just left with the server without another word which was such a bad course of action, I should have apologized and said something else rather than just leaving.

I've never been or never even thought about being attracted to minors or anyone even a few years younger than me (for context, the age of consent in my country is 16), and if I knew that the person was 15, I would never have said anything to him. I should've known better and not have even thrown a joke like that around in the first place. I know this might sound so silly but I'm afraid that I'll face some legal consequences over this even though it happened two and a half years ago now, and I know that there's nothing I could do to fix this now. I just feel so horrible about myself, and I don't know anymore if these feelings are disproportionate or not. Any rational view on this is very much appreciated, thank you.

-I’ve never been in a relationship and have had sex twice

-I’m making 55k a year and it’s the most money I’ve ever made

-on autism spectrum, when I was younger the advice I’d get was “try dating someone else with autism”, “try finding girls who just want to be friends”, “just try finding someone who’s nice”, things that sound like how people talk to twelve year olds with special needs (none of my friends or family think I can have a girlfriend)

-ugly, sites like lookrank and attractivenesstest give me a 4/10 which is like bottom 20 percent. I get my hair cut regularly, groom my beard, cleared up my acne and I still look like a loser. People have made jokes about my looks my entire life. In the past people would make jokes about how weird and ugly I am to impress girls who thought it was funny

-severe treatment resistant anxiety and depression, any “help” you suggest I have tried it

-sometimes when I get really upset I cry or even throw a tantrum, I cry at least once a week thinking about how much of a loser I am

-I have persistent erectile dysfunction from a reaction to medications years ago that only partly responds to meds

-I’ve been on one “date” in my 30s with someone I really like, it was the most fun I’ve had in my life but when she invited me to her apartment I got anxious and made up a dumb excuse when I thought about how disgusted she’d be by my performance so she left without giving my contact info. My friends all told me she was probably a prostitute or trying to rob me since they don’t believe an attractive normal woman would want me. I went home and cried thinking about how she’d laugh if she could see me

Is it best to give up at this point? Sometimes I feel like maybe I can meet someone through my friends or my interests (even though the women my friends know ignore me) and I’ve always dreamed of having a partner who’s cool, funny, pretty, nice, has the same interests as me but I don’t think that’s realistic. I feel like my only chance is to either

1. ⁠Be alone forever
   
2. ⁠Find someone as fucked up as me and we can be platonic life partners since we won’t be attracted to each other

Either way I’ll be miserable forever

What can I do?

I haven’t felt beautiful since he cheated on me. I looked for a gentler way to say it, some softer sentence that would round off the edges, but the truth doesn’t need decoration. It is exactly that plain. That simple.

There was a version of me who used to take photos in the mirror before leaving the house, not out of vanity but out of something closer to joy, a small private delight in how the light hit a new dress, in the way a haircut could make a whole week feel different. That version of me is not gone, exactly. She’s just gone quiet. Folded up somewhere I don’t visit anymore.

Now there is an emptiness where that joy used to live. I don’t buy new clothes as much. I don’t do my hair. I don’t put on makeup, not because I’ve decided against beauty on principle, but because every act of self-adornment has become a hallway that leads back to the same room: the one where I found out, the one where everything I thought I knew rearranged itself without my permission. Every picture he takes of me or bad photo I see of myself makes me want to claw at my skin.

In a way I felt as if it doesn’t matter anymore how much effort I put into myself, in the end he still cheated on me anyway. Every little effort is a reminder of that.

I stayed. I chose to forgive him, and I meant it, or I’m trying to mean it, one day at a time. But underneath that forgiveness is a harder, quieter reckoning, because the person I actually can’t forgive isn’t him. It’s me. Me, for staying. Me, for choosing the familiar ache over the unknown one. Me, for looking at the wreckage and deciding to live in it rather than walk away.

I don’t know yet if that was weakness or courage. Maybe some days it’s both. Maybe the staying and the not-forgiving-myself are two threads of the same rope, and I’m still learning how to hold them without either one cutting into my hands.

I don’t have the ending to this yet. I’m not sure anyone gets to skip to it. But I wanted to write down, plainly, without the flowery language I went looking for and couldn’t find: I haven’t felt beautiful in a long time. And I am still here anyway.

To my family, my friends, and my colleagues, I’m the calm person. The one who has their life figured out, who doesn't panic, who gives good advice, and who handles problems without making a scene.

But truth is, I feel like I'm completely winging it every single day.

Nobody ever checks in on the "strong friend." Nobody asks if I'm doing okay because they just assume I always am. I’ve built this silent standard for myself where showing vulnerability or admitting that I'm overwhelmed feels like letting everyone down.

I don't need advice or solutions. I just needed to put this somewhere where I don't have to keep pretending that I have everything under control.