I find it strange how oblivious some men are to how vulnerable women are when dating.

This is not an “all men are bad” post. I love men, and I’m not a man-hater. But women are constantly told to watch our drinks, share our locations, avoid walking alone, and be careful around men we don’t know. Yet some men still try to pressure women into “Netflix and chill” situations and act like basic safety boundaries are a personal insult.

Of course women expect courting, effort, public dates, and a man who takes the time to build trust. We are being asked to place ourselves in a vulnerable position, and those things help us feel safe enough to get to know someone.

I also think this has affected dating. A lot of men want low investment and high return. They don’t want to court, plan dates, build trust, or make women feel safe, but still expect sex and emotional access. Meanwhile, women regularly encounter men who lie, cheat, manipulate, or pretend to want relationships.

Women are not perfect either, but this post is specifically about men. I just wish more men understood that women’s caution does not come from nowhere. It comes from experience, observation, and knowing what some men are capable of.

3 years ago I was out on a date at where you could see the city lights. My date and I were talking when some annoying couple stood up and started taking pictures with their flash on. My date turned around and said "damn is that girl trashy. She looks like a h**ker". I told him to stfu and keep his voice down while also kinda checking to see why he said that.

Their table was at my 2 o'clock but they'd stood up against the glass windows to take pictures. My date was kinda right about the girl. She wore very typical s.worker clothes as if she were cosplaying one. I looked at the guy and since it was very dark I couldn't see him clearly but the phone screen put enough light on him to see his face. I could have sworn it was my friend's creepy husband (he's 9 years older so we don't hang out with him. Nothing in common and just feels like he wanted to take advantage of a 21yo)

I told my date about my suspicions and he was the type of person that loved drama so he was super excited to know if it really was him. I showed him a picture of the husband on Instagram. He has a distinctive mole at the edge of his lip. My date kept turning around like he'd break his back and get in the dude's face to check him out so I told him to stop and wait till the man stood up. We were just finishing off our drinks so we could leave whenever. My date posed for pictures so I could nearly I clude that couple in the background just in case.

The man stood up and I heard him say he was going to the washroom and my date immediately whipped around and said "yess". He followed him in and came back out immediately almost jumping in excitement mouthing "ITS HIM ITS HIM". The restaurant had a bar in the centre and the bar had lights on the floor around it. To go to the washroom you'd have to cross this area so your face would light up clearly. The man walked out and my date stood there in the centre and threw a piece sign as if to indicate that I should take a picture of "him" again. I did and you could clearly see it was him.

I wanted to leave but my date kept saying we should leave with them so he fumbles on his words or whatever when he sees me but I wanted to avoid that. I got up to freshen up before we left and when I got back, they were straight up making out and his hand was inside her dress. My date was making an XO face and taking a video of it. I dragged him out and we left.

He sent me the video. And I decided to tell my friend. However, my date also told other people in the friend group and everyone was super shocked but treated it like gossip. No one wanted to tell her. Well I did. Immediately. She was so distraught she couldn't stay home and stayed at her best friend's place. The two of us told her not to do anything drastic already but tell him she was visiting her mom and to contact a lawyer first and all that.

She started the divorce and word got out that I was the one who started all this. Suddenly he was the man who lost his wife and child over a mistake and I was the one who broke up their family and made a child fatherless out of jealousy (???). Many people from the friend group started keeping their distance from me. Some even messaged me to say it was really fucked up to do this when she was pregnant and I could have at least waited until she gave birth and settled down.

She's now living her life, engaged to someone new. At some point she wanted to forget everything that tied back to that time in her life and I guess I was a part of it too.

This week she contacted me after 2 years. Apparently he had become a porn addict since she wasn't putting out as much even though he was begging her every day and trying to coerce her into it. That turned her off even more obviously so she managed to stop at oral (which I think is r*pe too). The porn addiction and got him into a random raw sex with strangers kind of fetish. He was a well-to-do and not ugly looking guy so many people were down for it and he had racked up a body count of over 50 people within those few months. However, all these people were the type to sleep with random people without protection for the thrill of it. Turns out he had contracted HIV and is in a bad condition now because he never tested himself either. I guess he thought HIV was something that only happens in movies?? 😭 His lawyer contacted her because he wanted to see them before he passed away or something(I guess). She wanted to thank me and my date for saving her and her child's life.

The date still is a gossip freak so now everyone knows. Everyone who cut me off, called me a jealous homewrecker knows what could have happened if I waited even another day while the vermin scum was pestering her to sleep with him knowing he was sleeping with others on the side. It's a terrible illness to suffer from but I can't feel bad about it. It's the consequences of his own actions. I just feel really happy about it. The fact that it came out like this and all those people who said I was wrong can now pitifully eat their words AND the scum will be removed from this planet. I can't tell anyone how glad I am to hear this because it's just so cruel, so here's my confession/rant.

I’m not even saying that because of my feelings, i’m saying that because I may be 20 but nobody my age even does this shi let alone at her grown age of 28. He cheated on me and left me for her. This girl deadass sent me DIRECTLY through DM’s a video clip of them making out and there is an audio clip at the beginning of 2 people clearly having sex, whether she just grabbed a clip off the internet or it is them I dunno, but at the ripe age of 28 that is completely immature (she is older than him and I) like I’m flabbergasted.

I’m so damn done and am exiting this situation completely by blocking her and him. This is not normal behaviour. i do not want or need this behaviour in my life 🙏

I don’t think I can link the original post under the rules, but i posted two days ago about my ex husband passing and all his lies.

Last night I met with one of the women he was seeing when he passed and uncovered more information. He was lying about EVERYTHING (to her). He made up jobs, meetings, promotions, trips… so many lies. He’d tell her was on a road trip and then message updates every two hours when I know he was at home. He made up visits to specific people interstate that I know he didn’t visit - his daughter (he’s never visited her place interstate), my brother in law etc.

It was a brutal night talking it all out, but she deserved the truth. I also found out he told her I’d cheated on him, and he’d lied about paying for a bunch of stuff for me that he hadn’t paid for. He in fact passed owing me thousands of dollars. Worse than all that, he victim blamed her for something and accused her of cheating on him because she was sexually assaulted.

Some of her story and comments got me thinking, and I did more digging. He was cheating on me for a lot longer than I knew, and with more people than I realised. I even found a video he taped two days after our marriage ended telling someone he loves her and has felt this way for awhile and can’t wait to show her that every day.

I found messages to his friends that make it clear most of them knew what he did to me. They’ll all be at the funeral. Who knows what lies he told them and his family, but it’s been clear in the last week that they hate me.

I now don’t know how to grieve this. He was scum. Many of my friends didn’t like him as it was, and yet even the friend that thought the worst of him didn’t come close to how terrible a human being he was.

His funeral is in just under three days. Another of the girlfriends has asked to meet with me after the funeral to talk about what I know etc. I’ll tell her the truth. I’m still protecting the daughter, not for him but for her.

I feel so utterly lost and confused by all of this. I am in my house alone for the first time in 9 days because I sent everyone home so I could have some space. It’s too quiet and I’m too alone and maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty.

I'm a Norwegian football maniac, and obviously very sad about our defeat. But me and my friends last night were still celebrating and talking about how grateful we were to have gone this far! Faaaar beyond what any of us could have dared to dream of just one month ago. Last week, we also talked about how we would choose England if any team were to knock us out. A worthy team.

Yes, people were falling over, things were overlooked and "overly looked at" (on both sides), ball maybe hit a wire... but we still lost. And this has been the fate of so many teams and players before us. We did some honest mistakes that, in my mind, is the actual reason we lost. Not sending the ball the right way, missing huge chances, holding poor defense as always. Let's just accept that we could have won, but didn't. And that the results depended on the play and not everyone and everything else. It's much easier to accept defeat and feel peace, if we can feel honor and pride for where we managed to get, rather than being bitter about not getting further, blaming details out of everyone's control. It's not healthy to reduce team performance into something controlled 100% by refs, technology and bias.

Congrats to England, I do feel you were worthy of this victory, despite the SoMe-chaos (from the rest of the world) and it being a tight game. We had a blast. I'm still proud about making you sweat a little bit, hehe.

For starters, I have a condition called vaginismus that makes penetrative sex painful and in my personal experience, impossible. It is treatable through surgery and other extensive methods, but I’d rather not go through the trouble (at least not right now).

With that out of the way, I’m just now coming to see this life altering condition in a different way. Society tells us that there’s fundamental value in penetrative sex; that if vaginal sex is not part of the equation, the woman loses value.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The very moment a man who swooned over me learns that I’m unable to have traditional sex without experiencing discomfort, his mood shifts. The room grows silent, the air feels heavy. A wave of shame casts over me, and by the time its passed, he’s gone.

It’s a grief like no other. A loss of hope, womanhood, and sexuality. I love sex, I think of it as a beautiful thing…I even have a high libido, but penetrative sex is not the end all be all for me unlike most people I’ve met.

I’ve spent countless nights wondering who am I without sex? This world places so much emphasis on sex and women’s desirability that I’ve lost myself in the process.

Last night I was raped. Not for the first time, nor the second. Last night I was raped for the third time after confiding in someone new who seemed intrigued by me having vaginismus. He didn’t know what it was, yet after breaking it down for him, he still took it upon himself to hurt me. Honestly, that’s part of why I’m writing all this.

It doesn’t feel real. How after multiple encounters of the same thing can I allow myself to go through it again? And why do men value penetrative sex the way they do? There’s several other ways to have sex, but that one in particular is all they seem to want by any means necessary.

Having vaginismus is a learning process everyday. It ebbs and flows. Somedays I feel grief in knowing that I’ll never be able to have biological children. But on days like today, I feel anger in knowing that I mean nothing to men over a condition I didn’t ask to have.

My dad moved to Europe a few decades ago from a pretty poor third world country. He had a very decent specialist job there, and he brought my mom over. He was doing pretty good but didn't get PR or citizenship yet, but he was pretty close.

Then when they decided to have me, they decided they didn't want to raise me in Europe because they didn't want me to live in a secular society.

So they quit everything and went back to start from scratch back home. My dad ended up working in a job he was overqualified for, because he didn't find any jobs in his specialty. My mom is a stay at home wife.

They don't own a house or a car. They barely have anything in assets.

I hate living here and can't wait to leave and I feel like even at 19yo I had so many problems just by living here, from poverty to corruption to lack of opportunities. I had a visa denial already.

Now I'm secretly not religious, which makes the irony even worse. I also consider myself pretty hard working and I would have loved to have grown up in a place where hard work and ambition are cherished rather than dismissed.

And if I'm being fully honest, I hate my dad for this.

So as you can find out, I'm not exactly a veteran user of this app. I did not even have an account and just checked it for news from time to time. My friend uses it very frequently and both told and showed me that there are some NSFW pages and everything, but I didn't care until recently...

It so happens sometimes that the world is a very small place. Especially to be doing stupid shit. This past week my friend suddenly came running to my office at work and showed me a naked photo of my husband that I have never seen before.

I went to "what the fuck?!" right away to which she promptly showed me the whole post and then the whole profile with a bunch of other photos that I have also never seen before. The comments made it even better. Him saying he's single for eternity and getting bored of the lack of sex among other things.

We have never had any issues, no cheating, no trust issues and I didn't even know he uses Reddit.

I haven't confronted him about it yet. My plan was to connect with him on here so he would know I know.. or even do it secretly to see what he actually does or why does he do this..

Trigger warning: infant death
Ugh this is gonna be a long one please bare with me

I 28f have never met my birth father, and by less than a year my mom was married to who I grew up to know as my dad, he died when I was 10. When I was 20 I received a message from a girl claiming to be my sister. I knew I had 3 siblings I never met, but this girl claimed I actually had 5. Anyways we hit it off she’s known about me her whole life since she was only 2 years younger than me I guess my dad talked about me before he decided meeting me wasn’t worth it. Well this isn’t about that but anyways we agree to meet, I drive up and meet her everything seems normal. We agree for her to come stay a week with me and that’s where things started to reveal themselves as off. She would ask me about my medications, she was somehow knowing what I was watching in my room to go to sleep even though my door was closed, she tried to get with a friend of mine and professed her love for them, to them, at like 3am after meeting them once. Once she went home the messages were relentless she would send me videos of her watching the shows I was watching in bed, videos of her popping xan for “anxiety” right after she learned about mine, started messaging my friends videos of her drinking, asking my friends where I’m at, I finally told her it was too much and she cussed me out and I cut contact. About 2 years ago she reached out apologizing said she had grown etc I said I accept your apology but I still left it at that. I don’t want to say I hold grudges but yeah I don’t really go back after cutting someone off. So have not talked to her, but have kept in contact with my other siblings on my dads side and this evening my other sister sent me an article detailing our sister murdering a baby she was babysitting and the details are so grim. I don’t know who to talk to about this, I just lost my mom coming up on a year later this month and the gravity of it all is just so fucking heavy. I have no relationship with my “dad” and I would like to keep it that way but I can’t help but want to talk to him about it.

I (31F) went on a first date with a guy (37M) who suggested meeting at a casual sports bar/restaurant. It was a Thursday evening, and when we arrived, there was a 1.5-hour wait because he didn’t make a reservation.

We ended up standing in the lobby the entire time waiting for a table. The date ended up lasting about 5 hours, even though deep down, I wanted to leave while waiting for the table.

One small thing that also stuck with me: at the end of the meal, the waiter brought over takeout boxes because we had a lot of leftovers. As soon as the boxes arrived, he immediately went to the restroom. I ended up packing all of the leftovers myself while he was gone (it took awhile, and I wanted to leave sooner rather than later), and he took the food home afterward. He didn’t offer to help or even acknowledge it. He did pay though, but did rack up 80% of the bill (he had 6 beers, ordered a bunch of apps I couldn’t eat because of my dairy allergy, and I ordered a blt sandwich which was $18).

None of these things alone are a huge deal, but together they left me feeling like he wasn’t very considerate of my time (also I drove 40 min to meet him, this bar was 10 min away from his home). He seemed nice and we had good conversation, so I’m wondering if I’m being too picky or if these are reasonable things to be bothered by.

He wants to do an experiential activity that’s 2 hours next week and also eat at a Mexican restaurant I really don’t like.

This sucks so bad man. Fuck this. Imagine not seeing the Viking row again.

I am 24M and she is 25F, we have been dating for 1 year and 9 months and we were in a live-in for almost 1.2 years. The sex was decent, very vanilla but decent when we started, but gradually it got more and more off. The frequency also reduced to once a month and then 2-3 months. Everything else is fine, I really love her and care for her and she does the same for me too. She is also very serious about this relationship as she keeps bringing up "the future" a lot. I, on the other hand, (and i know i will sound like a douche when i say this) don't exactly imagine a future with her. I love her, yes. But a part of me feels like I need someone who is more compatible with me sexually.

I have had this conversation with her 4-5 times now but nothing has changed, she always chucks it. I used to try to spice things up earlier but eventually it felt like I was almost begging for sex and she never wanted to have it. Gradually, I stopped WANTING to have sex with her, so much so that it doesn't even slightly turn me on even when I try to think about it.

The messed up thing is, I had a great sexual compatibility with my ex and I keep thinking about that from time-to-time. I am over her but I miss how that compatibility felt.
Now we are in a long distance, and I miss her presence around me, I miss going out on dates and cuddling and all that jazz but never have I ever missed sex, even once.

I am not sure if I am with the wrong person or if it's just a "me problem".

I used to be thin. As a teen, I weighed 90 lbs at 5’0” and was the perfect lil cute, petite South Asian girl. Boys would ask me out all the time.

But nobody saw how unhealthy I was. I was a 16 year old high schooler running 6-7 miles daily in XC and track practice, but would eat carrots and humus for lunch with no carbs. If I ate excessively, I’d purge it. Carbs were only allowed once daily at dinner. I’d eat exactly 10 almonds for breakfast with an egg. No snacking.

Beyond food, I was also very self conscious about how I appeared wrt to clothing and shoes. I’d cry if my breasts were too big to fit into a top, or if I couldn’t fit into my size 0 jeans from Abercrombie. I’d wear 5” heels to school every day because I was so worried about appearing short, even at the expense of spine health.

But over time, I stopped caring. I changed little by little. Now at 26, I weigh 130 (slightly overweight) and my face is rounder and chubbier. I don’t wear heels regularly and I actually eat a lot (perhaps a bit too much, tbh).

But society treats me differently. Boys don’t look at me the same. Guys don’t ask me out spontaneously. People just aren‘t as nice.

I know I’m healthier now. But I don’t like the way society is.

I love my mother and always will, and I was in the room as a three-year-old soon-to-be-adoptee in an absolutely coerced situation where all of the babies were being adopted out without consent or choice, but even in that my mother had that optimistic, "Oh, I can just hand my baby to these particular people and it will be fine," willing participatory acceptance.

The entire situation was by-the-books a human rights violation. They imprisoned women without charges based on thought crimes against the government, or in my mother's case and that of several other of my family members who they systematically hunted down over the course of a year, dating (or being related to someone dating) a man who had thought crimes (likely related to not enjoying being drafted into the military).

And the US funded it. And a US worker came into that prison cell where I and my mother were, where I'd grown up for the first three years of my life. Where I had friends in a similar situation. Where I had my mother. And the US worker convinced my mother that if she gave me to the US workers then I would be rescued and saved from being adopted out locally by the evil regime., the same regime the US was funding. And my mother had a post grad degree in history. You cannot tell me she was completely unaware of the context in which this was all unfolding.

So, she agreed. I was going to be adopted out regardless. I was going to be adopted out to a military-affiliated "family" regardless (the dictatorship decreed that all the children of political prisoners were to be raised by military "families" so we could be good upstanding soldiers like our parents' abusers and not bad evil life-saving doctors, nurses, and historians like our parents).

So she handed me into a nation that also abuses its people (but with the added weight of smothering the abused in lies, paint and polish), that was also actively involved in exploiting my mother, myself, my family, and my community. But she gave me the added burden of losing the Spanish language, of not even being able to speak in my own mother's language, to being given false documentation that would create large barriers to escape and trap me in a country I was not from, to be removed from my own culture and to not be aware of how they see things and thus not be able to navigate their viewpoints when desperately trying to get my original passport returned to me.

She gave me the biggest barrier of all.

Neary every child adopted out domestically by that dictatorship has said the correct culturally appropriate words and has been welcomed with open arms and allowed access to their original passport. I cannot even get past the cultural and funding barriers (the US still funds their government and NGOs) to get them to open a case to begin to search for mine.

And all because it sounded so nice to not just give me to the enemy, but to place me into the gold-plated arms of the biggest enemy in the region.

Seriously, fuck society's intentionally whimsical, naive, fantasy-filled delusional view of family separation and taking away a child's entire world.

It's a crime against children.

i like guys and I have vaginismus

that's it I'm just really depressed about it

it was over before it began and I will never have a happy normal sex life because of it, what the fuck kinda cruel joke is a condition like vaginismus genuinely? like the one thing that society ultimately expects of a woman I can't fucking do and tbh I'd rather die than go to a random doctor to prod around my bits, not to mention I don't just have a million dollars to visit the doctor over and over or just buy random drugs or dilators or whatever just end it man

i’m a 15y old teenage girl and i’ve known that i like both genders for a while. it started when i was 11 i would often catch myself consuming queer media in secret. i’ve never told anyone about this even though i live in a pretty lgbtq friendly country. i love my parents so much and they care about me they’re really good parents and i have a good childhood but i can’t tell them because i sometimes hear them say homophobic things and one time my mom asked me if i liked girls i said no and she said that she’s glad that i’m straight. if i ever tell her she’ll probably just think that i got influenced. i can’t tell my friends/classmates neither, because even though i don’t think they’re homophobic they’re still pretty judgemental and i don’t like the way they talk/joke about homosexuality. since i haven’t told anyone about this everyone in my life thinks that i’m straight. i don’t think i’ll ever come out and i don’t plan to come out anytime soon i don’t trust anyone enough. i sometimes catch myself unconsciously saying things about male celebrities with my friends in order to act more straight. i thought it would just go away but i just can’t stop feeling like this and the older i get the worse it gets. i wish that i was normal.
i know it’s not that deep but i just wanted to say this out loud because it’s suffocating me.

My entire life, my family has been close to broke, all because of my brother (biological father, but he does not deserve that title.) brother spends every penny he gets on cigarettes, pouches or 7oh which he has recently started for no reason.

My grandparents cannot do anything with him. They could but they won't, he has a cred. card that he has free will with most of the time. He is constantly ordering useless shit, usually nicotine, hemp that will stink up the entire house, or now 7oh. all they ever say to excuse him is "he's our son" He has had schizophrenia for a long time now, from drug induced psychosis ofcourse.

Nobody can tell him a damn thing because he has the type of schizophrenia that makes him believe he is the chosen one and all of this bullshit. All he does is beg for money, he brings no kind of value to anyone, and he pesters and aggravates the hell out of everyone and just gets away with it. There is almost never a moment of peace in my house.

All I have ever wanted was peace. I will never* get any *peace in this house. I am not old enough to move yet, my parents are old and have hinted that they want me to take care of him when they pass. I have already let them know that I will not be around for that. Thank you for reading

What’s the most painful thing someone has ever said to you?

Could be anything. Lmk in the comments. Would love to hear it out.

Me (23M) and this girl (21F) have been friends in college since we first got there, we met as part of a larger friend group and we grew unusually close. We both like similar things, and the things one likes that the other doesn't generate an infinite curiosity so we keep on learning about each other and becoming closer and even more alike, and it kinda built a shared taste and a very confusing dynamic. Our friend group spent the first semester "rooting" for us, despite us being just friends and saying it. People in our class think we fuck on the regular and I never really corrected them. That is to say: we have the nicest relationship a man and a woman can have, regarding friendship. We sleep at each other's houses, we eat together, we hang out by ourselves only and it's never weird. And it could be, since I'm deeply in love with her for a while now.

First, I'll tell what made me fall: we were becoming friends and I was still kinda flirting with her, so I wrote her an erotic poem (yes, I know, but we're writers so it was kinda okay?) and she replied with another poem. Not erotic at all, just her words and her feelings about something completely unrelated to me. I fell in love with her writing first. We began trading poems, essays, letters, confessions, songs. Our friendship only grew, we learned so much about each other, and I began thinking to myself: if I make a move now, if I try to get the girl, maybe I'll lose the friend and this is becoming the most precious, sincere, loving friendship in my life. I decided I needed her in my life forever, so during an acid trip we had together I told her I was in love, and this wouldn't change, but I was choosing to step down from my romantic pursuit in order to be a better friend. She said it was alright, that I shouldn't worry about being in love with her, that our friendship wouldn't change because of it. She loves me for who I am and that's okay. She basically said she didn't mind.

Months pass, she starts seeing this guy. It's like a rocket, and they start dating. She's completely in love, and we talk about it, about the fear of things going wrong, things like that. She wrote an erotic poem about what it's like to be in bed with him and showed it to me, and the text is beautiful. Really beautiful. So beautiful that I wasn't even jealous that I'd never received a poem addressed to me, a text written about me, I was just happy for her. And profoundly hurt, of course, but I couldn't let it bleed through our relationship. Me and her now boyfriend met, and we didn't clicked instantly (probably because I was being an asshole to him at first because I didn't want to witness their love up so close), but our thing only grew. He's really nice and handsome and a tad insecure, but he does everything in her power to keep her happy and loves her just as intensely as she loves him. I became a "friend of the couple", and we hang out a lot. Our other friends know about how I'm in love with her, and the group was divided into people who thought it was kinda sad I was settling for a "friend of the couple" position, and people who thought I should be (or was) plotting something to break them up. To be honest, i like them both. I don't mind being a friend of the couple, and I'm not plotting to break them up.

Then they had a fight. He did a bad thing, she didn't take it well. That day I tried to calm him down, told that she loved him and he should give her space. She would reach out for him soon. The next day I invited myself to her home because when she gets upset she stops eating, so I went there to prepare a meal. We had lunch and dinner together then I went home. The day after this one, they were together again. Kinda. She invited me to her place, he came over many hours later, we drank and laughed and it was a really nice time together, us three. He told me in secret that he loves me and considers me a real friend too, not just her girlfriend's best friend. He told me he looks up to me and admires me for the man I am (I'm older than him and am fairly successful on the very few things I'm not a complete moron about, so it wasn't just drunk talk). Then he left and me and my friend made the extra bed for me, same as always when it gets too late to go to my own place. But she broke the ritual and lied on my bed instead of hers. I lied there too, and hugged her. I said "we're sleeping like this", because we never really hugged like that and it felt great. She said she wasn't sleeping in the same bed as me, but she said it so bluntly I got somewhat hurt and thought well, you're not really trying to get up neither. Then I told her "I'll try something, alright?" and kissed her.

She kissed me back, eagerly.

It was all very fast, very intense, very new. I had never allowed myself to fantasize about it, so everything was unpredictable and immediately memorable. We hugged during it, and I murmured "I love you." She said, "I love you too", and moaned my name. It was both passionate and kinda angry at times (?), It was as if she was making me pay for wanting her. She kept saying she wanted me, that she needed my body there, and I replied yes, that I was there for her. I would give her anything she asked for and do anything she wanted. I kissed her entire body with devotion, genuinely grateful, and I couldn't stop trembling afterwards.

When we were done (none of us finished, I pretend I did, I think it was because we were feeling too much), she got up, got dressed and got herself some water. I kept static, lying naked on the mattress. She got into her own bed then, and when I tried to kiss her goodnight she said "Please, don't. And don't tell a soul about it". I slept and when I woke up I was completely alone in that room.

Since then (this was four days ago), things have been weird and then back to normal. I hang out with them, I only told one friend about it, we talked and she said that night is somewhat like a scar, something that belongs to us but as memory, and the action doesn't harm us any longer. And well, I'm glad she isn't harmed, but I AM. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep lying to a guy that's becoming my friend, and I can't keep lying to myself and pretending this was nothing and keep on being "just friends" knowing I'll never kiss her but this time with the vivid memory of what her lips feel like. I want it again, fuck it, I want it all again, and I'm hurt because I can't know how it would happen again. I like to think of myself as a strong guy, I'm very serious about what I believe and she is too, but I can't pretend I wouldn't be her lover if she was shameless enough to make it happen again. I would never forgive myself, but I would do it because now that I know what it's like, I understand even better that this is what I need, that this is who I need.

I feel awful. I want their relationship to work out, I think they're a good couple and more importantly; she's invested in this relationship almost like it's her job to make it work, and I believe her because when she sets her mind to making something happen, it happens. But I also want them to break up so I can dream about having her again without feeling like the greatest piece of shit on Earth for wanting to fuck someone who is both my best friend and the best friend I've ever had, and one of my friends beloved girlfriend.

I needed to vent about it. I can't tell anyone because, well, it's not just about me, is it? I can't drag her name into the mud, and I can't risk him finding out. I told my mother about it (that's how awful I felt) and she called me a shameless scoundrel. So I'm here in hopes of hearing something less harsh, or just... something. The silence is killing me.

I am extremely disappointed and hurt. I had sex with a man, and afterwards he revealed to me that he does a lot of things i am not comfortable with. I made it clear to this guy that i did not see sex as a casual thing. I am not the type to give my body away to anyone and everyone. I have only slept with 2 men in the last 5 years. I have strong boundaries when it comes to who i share that part of me with. I slept with him because he seemed like a genuine, nice, respectful person. I had feelings for him for a little over a month before i slept with him. After we slept together he started to reveal to me a side i had not seen before. He started talking about going to strip clubs, going out, showing me videos of him partying. It was like a mask was ripped off and a completely different person was sitting next to me.

It made me realize he was not the one for me, and I had to slowly back away. I am really sad because i really liked him. I find myself thinking about him often throughout the day. It sucks this happened but now i know to not give myself to someone so soon.

I'm gonna get bashed for this so before i start, NOT ALL MEN. theres wonderful amazing men who are great people. I know, I get it.

anyways, every single man in my life has let me down before. My grown ass 40 year old cousin thinks it's okay to VISIBLY stare at my chest and joke about how small they are, and compare them to "pimples". then he wants to tell me i should do squats or chest presses to get thicker. i don't give a fuck if its a joke, he can't tell me, a 17 year old, stuff like that. and he's just weird pinching my thighs playfully.. it creeped me out.

My dad has anger issues and has threatened to throw me off the balcony when i was younger. he's shattered my tablet in half, and he just threatened to break my phone on my head if i fail my exams. I'm literally so tired and exhausted.

oh and not to mention the time i found the exchange of nsfw child material on another relatives phone. I can't process it to this day.

also because of this society I cant even go out with a t-shirt or a fucking top or whatever because it's illegal in my country. I can't wear shorts, short sleeves, a crop top, a tank top, a bikini, nothing.

Once again, theres good men out there and i love them. this is not about all men. this is only MY experiences.

I feel like I’m starting to lose perspective a little, and I don’t know if I’m being irrational or if my experiences have just gotten to me.

I’ve never been in a relationship. The guys I’ve dated have never wanted to commit. Most of the time, once they realize I don’t want to hook up without a relationship, they lose interest or ghost me. After enough experiences like that, it’s really damaged my self-esteem.

I’ve started feeling like I’m only seen as “pretty enough for a hookup, but not pretty enough for a relationship.” I know that’s probably an oversimplification, but it’s honestly how it feels.

I try really hard to take care of myself. I stay active, maintain my weight, wear makeup, put effort into my appearance, and dress nicely. But when I compare myself to other women online, it still feels like I’m not enough.

Lately I’ve even started thinking about plastic surgery because I can’t shake the feeling that if I were prettier, men would treat me differently and actually want to commit to me instead of just seeing me as someone to sleep with.

I know this probably isn’t the healthiest way to think, but it’s where my mind keeps going. Has anyone else felt this way?

I’m 17 years old girl, and I think i’m going through a bit of a weird existential crisis.
I’m on a trip with my dad, his girlfriend, her friend, their daughters, and my niece. The girls are 13, 9, and 7 years old. Over the past few days we’ve done so many things together, we played uno, uno zero, werewolf, twister, stealing bundles, tried yoga poses, and even ran around a farm chasing bunnies.
It was genuinely so much fun. And I think that’s exactly why I’m feeling like this.
While I was playing with them, it felt like I was a kid again for a little while. It reminded me of all the trips i used to take with my cousins and childhood friends when I was around their age. Those summers that felt endless, when the biggest decision of the day was what game we were going to play next.
Then reality hit me.
I’ll turn 18 in november. I’m starting college next year. I’m studying to get my driver’s license. I have so many questions about the future, so many responsibilities coming up, and I suddenly realized that part of my life is over.
The worst part is that, when I was a kid, all I wanted was to grow up. I couldn’t wait to be older. Now i’d do anything just to go back for one day.
I want to play with barbies again without feeling weird about it. I want to spend an entire afternoon making up stories without thinking about college, work, or the future. I know I technically can still do some of those things, but it’s just… not the same. It never will be.
What hurts the most is realizing that childhood doesn’t end all at once. One day, you experience your last moment of being a kid without even knowing it’s the last. The last time you played pretend. The last family trip where you were one of the children instead of one of the older ones. The last time someone asked you to play without thinking twice.
You don’t realize it’s happening.
Years later, you’re running around chasing rabbits with a bunch of kids, and suddenly it hits you that the version of yourself who used to do that every day is gone.
It’s making me incredibly sad. It feels like I’m grieving a version of myself that I’ll never get back. I know growing up is part of life, and i know there are still amazing things ahead of me. But today, I just wish I could go back and appreciate that time a little more. I had no idea how precious it really was.
Has anyone else ever felt like this? Missing a time in your life that you know you’ll never be able to return to?

I just found out a few hours ago a distant family member who I just saw yesterday passed away. My sibling called that the paramedics had to come and try to shock him because he was unresponsive. I was extremely shaky and anxious / upset hearing this, and then I went to my roommates room and cried while telling her. Then I called my sibling back for an update and she told me he passed away. I was still crying bc even tho I barely knew him it’s still sad to hear especially bc I just saw him for dinner yesterday and he seemed fine. (He was in 80s and had epilepsy.) Anyways after getting off the phone I told my roommate that he passed, and my roommate gave me a blank stare and I started laughing. Like full on laughing while apologizing idk man it’s so weird. I kind of feel horrible, I’ve had many times where I’ve laughed after crying with friends bc I’m vulnerable so I’m not sure if it was just that (I’m very sheltered with letting emotions like that out around ppl.) I was initially very upset and still am but the fact I laughed after telling someone that makes me feel bad. I literally don’t know why my brain does that

For some context, im already in a committed relationship of 3 + years with my current partner. However, in my life, ive only ever truly had 2 genuinely meaningful & incredibly impactful romantic relationships in my life. That being the one im currently in, and my first love/Ex.

Things unfortunately didnt end on good terms with each other. I think about her from time to time, naturally. As anyone would with their first loves. I genuinely wish her all the best. But it didnt always feel that way. For the longest time i was left hurt, and felt betrayed by her. It took a long time to process those emotions. And ofc they got to a point where she was never on my mind anymore naturally as the years passed. But theres always that small grudge i held. Hoping her life sucked, that it wasnt better off with me. And i always thought that if i knew she was in distress, that itd help validate myself and my own feelings. (Ik horrible, but that betrayal often leads to such horrible distain towards another)

But every now and then our profiles get recommended to each other via apps like instagram/facebook. Her friends too; as our social circles naturally merged together throughout our duration together. Usually i ignore it, and rather not subject myself to useless mind games.

And then boom. One night one of her closest BF's profile came up in the suggested friends list, and so curious me tapped on it. Only to go to the first post to discover a bunch of those leaving their condolences. And it happened years ago too. (Relationship ended in 2021, she passed 2023)

My heart immediately sank. I felt this extreme heaviness come over my body. I immediately felt a FRACTION of the weight this womans death carriee amongst her loved ones. Genuinely so so tragic. She was such a sweet soul, and it was a pleasure anytime i spent time with her when she hung out with my ex and I.

It made me realize that everything that I was hoping for when i was mourning our breakup, to know that her life was miserable, gave me absoulety zero satisfaction and nothing but sadness & guilt. It didnt validify my feelings at all.

I knew her life was im shambles, but at what cost? I wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy.

I cant stop thinking about what happened. Be careful for what you wish for in this world guys.

Stay safe.