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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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No such thing. Ask away!
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Do you mean the only factor you considered is my then-age?
I can testify with great confidence that I wasn't remarkably attracted to her in a sexual way. In that regard I found her moderately cute, somewhat pretty, and a few girls and boys of our age much more so. My feelings were primarily platonic. They developed over the years and consisted mostly of platonic affection, the romantic attraction was the consequence of it.
You're self aware enough to ask the questions but lack the humility to accept the answers.
OP is def looking for bias-confirmation that if they do this it's all going to magically be perfect and solve all their sadness.
typical internet nonsense
You provided no answer but "my experience tells me so". No explanation, no proof, nothing. IDK, my experience tells me to reject bare appeals to authorutily, where even the level and source of your authority (age, sociological education maybe) wasn't something you bothered to explain.
I provided you answers, you're just not emotionally intelligent enough to recognize them or humble enough to accept them.
Listen.
Don't tell her.
For your sake.
Good luck. You, specifically, are gonna need it.
I heard and counted your answer. Your answer was prefaced with a personal attack. You tried to invalidate the feelings I had and reflected on for years, the feelings that once motivated me to become a substantially better person, knowing me and the situation from a 726-character post. That personal attack was used as a part of your argument, so I found it reasonable to argue with it. By the number of downvotes, it seems the community largely agrees with the image you've got in your head, although I would argue you couldn't have enough information from my post to make the loud claims you made.
How old are you, man? I’m guessing early 20s? You’re gonna find out the world doesn’t run on logic and you can’t always act on feelings impulsively
Great point. Man, I wish I would have known this in my 20's. The world doesn't run on logic, AND it can severely punish those who think it does. lol
But even in my 20's I wasn't quite as naive as OP seems to be based on his replies in this thread so far.
Other people do not know how you feel. It may well be love. But it may not be worth bringing up to her, she may get the wrong impression like others here. I wish society encouraged honesty, but I don't know what's best here.
K but I don't need to telepathically know how they feel when by their own words I can see that they're conflating attraction with love.
You seem to want to help OP. But you're actually reenforcing a very unhealthy mindset. Given your admission that you don't know what's best here it is rather irresponsible of you to baselessly undermine the consensus.
Some of the people here are family men who actually do know what we're talking about. To falsely equate your "I don't know" with experience driven advice, is a disservice to OP.
Men need to be more honestly with themselves about when they're just being horny.
Some of the shit I read on Lemmy always suprises me, until I remember that. lol
I think those of us who actually have been married, have families, and have been in working society for a while are pretty rare here on Lemmy.
The way a lot of posters on here talk, makes me wonder if they have even been in relationships before.
Once ya have kids to provide for, and learn how shit works, perceptions about the world become a lot more realistic and focused.
IMO a big, post-internet, problem is that people aren't experiencing foundational relationships as children/teens that were the learning experiences to prepare people deeper connections like marriage. People are growing up without learning the ability to trust or discern trustworthiness; and many other things that we can only learn through experience.
As per Maslow's Pyramid, everyone is overworked and suck in bottom tier survival mode rendering them psychologically incapable of prioritizing emotional and relationship needs. So we get people who see interpersonal situations in black and white with villains and hero's instead of people.
Agreed. I started noticing it on Reddit a few years ago, and now that a new generation is reaching adulthood on both Reddit and Lemmy, it's even more obvious. More people are reaching their 20s without having developed the social skills and real-world experiences that previous generations picked up naturally.
Society has always had socially awkward or isolated people, but technology has def amplified the problem. When I was younger, I spent most of my time around other people because there wasn't an easy way to retreat into a digital world.
That constant face-to-face interaction forced people to learn how to socialize, resolve conflicts, and build relationships. Now too many people are missing out on that.
The number of socially maladjusted people online today is crazy now. I also think that besides just more social awkwardness and lack of marriages, it's leading to more stalking and fixation issues for those same people.
I've had people obsessively follow and harass me on Lemmy just because I post news articles they don't like. Not new behavior, but the scale of it seems greater than ever.
When people struggle to form meaningful connections and feel little control over their lives, online conflicts can become an unhealthy substitute for real accomplishment or social belonging. Which leads to less relationships, and more stalking and unhealthy obsessions.
And a special shoutout to my personal Lemmy stalker, who will want to downvote this comment. A perfect example of my point. Hopefully this discussion causes him to self-reflect and refrain from doing that so he can move on. EDIT: He didn't refrain. Hi, NewPerspective. lol
lol I had a guy make 4 alternates of my account on other instances to downvote me because he didn't like what I said to "another user" (his alt).
On reddit I used to frequent a lot of IRL fight footage type subreddits and used to foolishly engage the comments and get dogpiled until I realized I was talking to people who'd never even gone to a bar much less seen a bar fight.
Yep, my stalker has his main account that he follows me with, but he starts new accounts to pile up the downvotes on my comments for a view days, then he either gets banned or he just deletes them. But he always calls me the same weird nickname in them to make sure I know it's him, so he's not even trying to disguise himself. It's weird! LMAO
Oh, and my stalker is downvoting my comments in this very thread. LMAO Right on schedule! (Hi NewPerspective! Your lemvote. org stats - Total post upvotes: 1. Total post downvotes: 1644. lolololol)
Like who the fuck has such a sad life that they obsess about someone on Lemmy of all places? Oh, the exact same kind of people we're discussing! The lack of social interaction just messes with their brain.
On another note tho, I wonder if they can be taught to change that. I know brain elasticity is a thing, and people can learn new habits, but i wonder of stalkers like that can rewire themselves. Are there any former stalkers who talk about that transition?
I know that some socially awkward people can focus on themselves and sorta get over it, end up dating, marrying, getting along with others in the workplace, etc. But I wonder if the extreme ones like stalkers can. I gotta look that up!
I'm talking to a guy at the bottom of a dogpile right now and there's this weird other account that I apparently blocked in the past commenting and downvoting lol.
So like I'd assume its similar to healing from any emotional trauma. Like I realized dating someone whose parents didnt teach them unconditional love meant that they viewed all love towards them as fundamentally conditional. Ultimately it takes someone capable of giving that love until they figure it out. Which isn't me anymore.
Yeah, change like that does require self-reflection, which a lot of these types just don't know how to do.
In understand and agree with what you are saying all in all but you are being a little too harsh in your tone and maybe also in some assumptions about OP, I think. The best advice comes in a form that is digestible for the recipient.. If giving advice is what you are doing and not telling OP off, that is. Anyways, as I said, I agree with you but I just felt your were being almost a little unfair 😌
Read back. I wasn't harsh until OP responded disingenuously.
As far as this person. I specifically dislike when people play devils advocate while knowing they don't actually know enough. Especially when they're reenforcing toxic male behaviours towards women.
The person I'm replying to is genuinely doing harm to OP by feeding into their confirmation bias. Lets not forget I'm telling OP not to do something that could have life changing social consequences... especially if they go about it in the socially inept way they present themselves.
Kindly fuck off with your assumptions. When I was young, I chose not to have children because my parents were unable to raise me without traumatic fear and pain, and I never wanted anyone else to feel that.
I love someone, but we are not together and likely never will be.
Would you be upset if someone told you that you don't love your wife?
Stop pretending to know things you cannot know. Your experience is not everyone's.
You? No. My father? yes.
The fact that you think I'm assuming things about your life shows that you're reacting defensively instead of maturely considering what's being presented to you.
I am reacting defensively, you attacked OP by pretending to know their mind and confidently asserting you know they are wrong when you can't possibly know that. It's a pretty shitty thing to do and it'd be wrong of me not to point that out.
Here's one for you: you don't actually love your father, it's stockholm syndrome. How do I know? It happened to me, therefore it must also be your experience.
Does that feel good?
lmao I did not attack OP. Read back. They started it and you're being ridiculous.