I'm not really into trans people, so I only date cis men. Not trans men, not nonbinary people, and not women of any kind. However, my former boyfriend is now my girlfriend, and IDK how to tell her I don't like women without her taking it the wrong way.

I wrote:

Hey, L,

I know you're probably asleep, but I kind of needed to talk about something. I want you to know that I fully support you coming out as trans. I think it's good that you're finally your true self. However, I wanted to say that I'm straight. I'm, unfortunately, not that into women, which you are. I'm sorry, it's just my preference. Know, please, that we can still be friends and I can support your true womanly self along the way, but I'm not interested in women and I can't keep dating someone and lying about how I feel.

I hope you understand, E 🙂

i posted this to get any advice i can get. he and i (both men) have only been together for 3 months but i really love him and want to support him. he's had a hard life and struggles with mental health and always feeling empty or depressed. sometimes, i watch his streams and ask about the game he's playing, and i don't even mind that he plays video games to cope or plays them at all, but he barely talks to me. we are long-distance, too, so i can't go visit him in-person. he doesn't really have time to talk due to playing his game and doesn't wanna stop and be affectionate or talk or anything when he's busy with the game. he does it constantly to the point where literally all he does is game and we barely talk from it, idk what to do.

My friend who I post about, the problem is that she wants to be this great person who everyone worships and wants to be a symbol of the world and her country, etc. She always talks about it and when I tell her that I'm a normal person who's never achieved that either, she goes on about how her friends are all famous and she's not and how she wants to be worshipped but doesn't think she can achieve it and doesn't do anything to achieve it.

She constantly wants reassurance that she'll be worshipped by everyone and very beautiful.

I am 27 years old and I am a single mother of a 12 year old son (Yes I had him at 15). I have been single for a few years now ever since I left my son’s biological father who used to abuse me physically/sexually. He developed alcohol problems later in our relationship and he could barely keep a job, and he ended up developing extreme anger issues as a result. His abuse was mostly behind closed doors and never in front of my son. A few years later now, he calls me from another number explaining how he finished rehab, meets with a therapist weekly, and meditates every morning. He apologized a ton and he only asked to meet with my son and I in a casual environment to check up on us. (He explicitly said he doesn’t expect me to forgive him). I have not and will never forgive him, nor will I ever re-enter a relationship with him, but he does sound like a different person, so should I meet with him?

i've posted here before. i'm in an mlm relationship with my boyfriend of only 3 months. he struggles with depression and is probably addicted to video games as his coping mechanism. he said he didn't know if he still loved me last night and that he didn't know if we should even be dating because people would see him as a bad bf.

he also said that most of the time, he feels excited and happy to see me and hear from me as i'm the perfect bf, but sometimes he feels nothing for me due to his depression or stress and that while he usually bounces back to being happy again, he knows in his heart he likes me. he says he wants to stay with me and doesn't want me to break up. i don't wanna have to either.

he also says that he can't feel love for me like he once could with his exes issac and gabriel due to trauma, although he still loves me. he barely makes time for me. sometimes he's busy, which i get, but for the remaining time, he has time but spends 99% of it on playing games and doesn't even "have time" to play games with me because he tends to put his interests first. he also said that he was a horrible bf, and that makes me sad, because he really isn't. he just isn't affectionate even if i ask him to because it's "the way he is".

i've mostly heard from others that his love for me is platonic or that he does have feelings for me, but doesn't know what he wants.

My fiancé is convinced that his friend absolutely despises him and doesn’t care and my sister is convinced our grandmother doesn’t care about her. I don’t know what to do because they both are insistent this person absolutely hates them and won’t listen to their side, especially my sister. My sister gets verbally violent and angry, and threatens me because she doesn’t wanna hear the other side.

he says he wants to stay but then he said he doesn’t know if he has feelings for me and if we should date, then he says he really likes me and wants to date, and when i asked him for clarification he just told me he wants to sleep.

he doesn't wanna end things either but it makes me sad sometimes how he acts and what he says

(i’m going to sleep too, will answer in the morning)

So my (24F) friend Jaiden (24F) has come from, according to her, an abusive family in Asia. We are online friends but don't know each other in real life. She wants to be the greatest person alive and constantly talks about how she wants to be this very great, multitalented person who's an actress, model, fantastic artist, etc. and how she wants to be famous but then talks about how she's horrible and will never be this all the time and IDK how to help anymore. I listen but she always asks me if I think she can be this person.

Been struggling alot recently. . Trying to get over someone special and friends tell me "she's just another girl". I get they mean well, but sometimes she isn't just another girl. How do you convince yourself it isn't the end?

I once posted in this community about an incident with the HVAC repair guy that nearly upended our relationship. (TW b/c there is a description of self harm) We stuck it out since then. Went to couples therapy, etc. It helped for a while, but at some point it ran its course.

Today, we're worse off than we were before therapy. I'm so exhausted. I feel tense and like I have to walk on eggshells around her. I really thought she was the one, and now I just don't know what to think anymore.

How do you know when it's time for things to end? I'm worried it'll be a terrible mistake to end things, but at the same time, it might be for the best.

my bf of almost three months (we've been friends for about a year or two) is always feeling stressed, depressed, or empty. i want to help him, so im just there with him and remind him that i'm there even when he doesn't feel like talking or we don't have much to say.

due to his feelings, he also doesn't know what he wants, and while he loves me, he doesn't know if he wants to talk to me and be around me or not. it makes me really sad, he's also had a bad childhood. i wanna be there for him but he also doesn't know what he wants and i feel sad thinking about and worrying about how sad he is.

he's been reading my messages and not replying or being offline more than usual.

I'm currently dating a woman long-distance. She lives in Poland. I thought I liked her romantically, but I think I just liked having a friend who cares about me. I view her as more like a sister and at this point, she's part of our family. However, I don't think I like women or at least definitely prefer men, and I want a man to go out with. How do I politely break up with her after all this? Is it worth it?

I'm (18F) personally not sad that my S/O (17M) wants to focus more on his studies. In fact, I'm happy for him and want to encourage him. Plus, I will focus on my studies, friends, loved ones, hobbies, etc.

But we can't talk much because he needs to do his schoolwork for his last year of high school. How can we make a relationship work without much talking? I asked him what we could do and he had no idea.

I(mid 30s dude) am seeing this lady(mid 30s lady), we have different political opinions and talk pretty openly about it. It's interesting, she voted for Trump, was homeschooled/raised christian, very nationalistic and buys his crypto alongside some other crypto, I bought the Communist manifesto while hanging out with her and express all of my opinions boldly. No issues so far, literally.

However over the last few months I've realized a theme in her beliefs, they're all fringe and fake. She wants to go to a chiropractor, she loves the military and believes Trump is a good guy. She dislikes vaccines and believes in psuedo quack medicine yet smokes and vapes. She's an absolute fool and I know it stems from her homeschooling.

Now I have a pretty strong grasp of history and when we discuss the stuff she doesn't understand I find just talking about the history makes her think at least slightly different. But obviously that isn't gonna work long term.

Now I care about this person, I'm not head over heels in love or anything but I don't want her to be this stupid. I dunno how to flat out tell her, "hey your education was poor and it shows," how do you tell someone they're very ignorant in a way that they can put it together themselves. Honestly truly, how?

Update, my bf (21m) i (22m) talked to, and he just said “i dunno 🤷‍♂️” the whole time i spoke to him about our interests and such. and i told him i didn’t feel heard (he said ok) and “i dunno” every time i said anything he just said “i dunno”. and then i asked if he liked my interests and he didn’t know.

And then he said he seriously didn’t know and that he was sorry to make me feel that way, but that he was conflicted.

and i asked him if he wanted to hang out sometime and do our own thing and he said “idk maybe 🤷‍♂️”

my bf alex (21m) always expects me (22m) to watch his movies, and his videos. and i do, and i watch all the tiktoks and instagram reels he sends me. but when i send him something, he doesn’t look at it and says “he’ll do it later” but doesn’t.

he also doesn’t like my interests at all and doesn’t want to do things with me, but wants me to do his interests like playing fortnite. i do not like fortnite at all.

So, this is a very complicated story and actually I feel like I'd have to write a book to explain it all. I'll keep it short and leave out a ton. I was severely bullied in school since grade one due to a skin condition. It doesn't matter which, it was very visible, all over my body. Teachers did nothing. It was the nineties in a small little village in the middle of nowhere. In third grade one teacher ask me why I don't take medicine or cover up with make-up so I wouldn't get bullied. My parents didn't do anything either, not even take me to a doctor.

In 7th grade my condition had gotten better, but now I was bullied for my clothes. My parents were horrible and didn't allow me to buy my own clothes, if I did I'd find it cut to pieces shortly after. My skin was also still not good, though not as severe. So I was bullied for dressing weirdly and for having bad skin. However in 7th grade I became part of a friendship group of 4. All outsiders for various reasons. And life was Ok. I still got bullied the most out of us four because of my skin. I was told to hide it with makeup and when I said I can't wear makeup due to allergic reactions the bullies said to "tough it out", because "noone wants to see that". I just stuck to our group and tried to ignore them. However in hindsight I feel like the other three never took the bullying seriously, since they were never the target. They were just more or less outsiders because they weren't interested in fashion, party etc.

One of the four was Lydia. Lydia didn't fit in because she was from an ultraconservative family and wasn't allowed to do many things. However, during our last two years of school her parents became less strict after her oldest brother moved out and cut contact at 18. She started hanging out with the others, going to parties etc. During our last few weeks I was repeatedly the butt of jokes. And she started defending my bullies, saying it's not that serious.

There was a kind of yearbook where everybody wrote comments about the classmates. The ones about me were all along the lines of "doesn't know what a shower is" "Someone please teach her about soap" and some nasty nicknames mocking my hobby I didn't even know they had for me. I've tried so often to defend myself and explain my skin condition and that it's genetic, yet up to the very last day everybody kept bullying me saying I'm dirty and disgusting.

I talked about it with my three friends and said I wanted to protest and have it taken out before the yearbook gets printed. (The list with everybodies comments had circled before printing.) Lydia told me I'm sensitive, that I shouldn't take it so serious and I shouldn't censor all critism of me. I was so shocked by her saying that. She used to be on my side.

Shortly after we graduated she moved away and didn't stay in contact. I tried a few times, said I could come visit her one day, but at first I only got one-sentence-answers, later nothing. I sent her a small gift and card on her first birthday after graduation, she replied with a short thanks, sent me a generic textmessage on my birthday and we never spoke again.

Now someone wants to organize the 20 year reunion of our highschool class. I was added to a whatsapp group - not sure where they got my number from - and Lydia contacted me. The usual small talk. How's life been, how many kids, yadada. I way shocked enough to be suddenly added to that group. It brought back so many bad memories, I wanted to cry, I wanted to write into the group how I wish they'd all die the most horrible, painful death. I didn't, I just left the group without any comment. I did answer Lydia and am doing the small talk, but inside all I want to ask is "how could you betray me like that? Why did you do that to me?"

I mean I guess I know the answer. I stayed losely in contact with another member of our group. A few month after graduation the topic came up and she said she didn't think I was bullied, because I "could have just covered up with makeup like they said I should and worn more fashionable clothes". Since I didn't, I chose to be ridiculed. I guess that would be the answer if I asked Lydia.

I don't know what kind of answer I'm expecting here, I'm just very confused and hurt and don't know how to behave. Ignore her? Block her? Ask her about it? Would that change anything? It would hurt so much if she just told me I was never bullied and I'm sensitive or asked for it. I don't know has anyone got advise? Has anyone who was bullied been in a similar position? What would you do?

i have nothing to worry about now, but i am curious for the future. i (american, 19m) plan to move to europe, possibly to spain and visiting countries like portugal, france, and italy.

if the visiting doesn’t work out, then just living in spain. however, my fiancée (18f) will be staying in the u.s. with her family if i move.

i will be 7h ahead of her. now, she has dated someone from southeast Asia as a younger teen, but they broke up due to the fact that my fiancée would wake up when her ex had just gone to bed.

i suppose we could manage, like if she usually gets up at 9:00, it’d be 4pm for me, but idk.

So I discovered the hard and painful way that my 5 year friendship with my autistic friend (same age/gender), as a autistic person, isn't quite at the point yet where sleepovers make sense. However me and my friend live 2 hours apart on exact opposite ends of the same city. So I'm not exactly sure what our options are for hanging out in person; considering we live quite far from each other, but sleepovers are impractical and don't make sense yet.

Since both of us are autistic and young, we don't exactly have the money for restaurants or movies. Plus the city libraries close at 4:45pm on Saturdays and Sundays, meaning that when we have the weekend off, options for meeting is limited. Living 2 hours apart from each other makes meeting for a meal quite time expensive, since one of us would have a 4 hour round trip commute. Meeting in the evening means leaving at 7:25 p.m. for a 10pm bedtime, or going to bed after midnight if we were to meet til 10pm.

For me in particular, I come from a particularly very toxic family, so meeting at my home isn't exactly the best idea, and I have a desire to be less reliant on texting/voice chatting; and put greater value on face to face interaction with my friend. I only recently met with my friend's family for the first time attending his graduation, at his now-alta mater, on his behalf.

So what are good options/activites for me and my friend to hang out IRL in this situation? The two of us can't drive due to our autism. We both rely on the city public transport's bus and subway system for transportation and will need to do so for the rest of our lives. (Both of us do like trains, and we tend to prefer deep convos and share our obsessions with minecraft, weather, transportation, etc.; but we are comfortable with other activites like going walking outside together, etc.)

I (18F) have a sister (14F) who I love a lot, but I don’t know how to help her. She thinks I’m always mad at her or that I hate her.

She’s very sensitive to tone, so she assumed that if something isn’t said in the way she wants, that they want her to leave and DESPISE her.

She also tends to think if you don’t absolutely approve of her and love everything she does, that you hate her. She has tried sabotaging many friendships under the belief that they hate her and want to abandon her. She goes from thinking they’re wonderful to thinking they’re terrible people very quickly.

yes, the title is correct and not bait 👍

i (22x) have a friend/acquaintance (25m) who is friends with a 13f irl, but people are calling him a weirdo.

he has no romantic relations with this girl and knows her through her dad (40s, m) but people are still calling him a creep and idk how to help besides saying he isn’t. it’s not like he went out of his way to go “hi im looking for 13 year old girls, wanna be friends?”

i feel really bad for the girl and i hope he doesn’t have any bad feelings or intentions, but i’ve heard from him he’s done nothing but mentor her and tutor her.

(i wasn’t there idk if i can truly believe it, but still)

I have a friend (18M) who always tells me when someone is being rude. Specifically it was one dude in senior year. I have since graduated. I am no longer in high school.

It doesn’t seem to be from a place of cruelty but rather ignorance and trying to be “funny” by going “ahahaha autistic woman hahahaha!”

The school counselor, however, told him to point that out was unintentionally offensive (He is also autistic and can’t understand certain social things sometimes.)

Hey folks, hope all are well!! Need some outside perspective on a situation. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Apologies for the wall of text… added background, current state, questions at the end.

Background - I recently met someone at work (last week). They are new, I’ve been there a while. They manage projects, I work in IT. They were running a new project I was part of.

This person sounded really cool just listening to them. Meaning, funny, good personality, smart, etc. After the team meeting, I reached out to let them know I could help, if they had questions. They actually said they did.

That lead to some conversation both work and personal (surface level stuff, e.g. where do you live, how did your get into your line of work, etc.).

That lead to a few more short conversations last week. I also added them on LinkedIn.

Current State - I didn’t ask their relationship status in any conversations. They do make it seem like they are single. Based purely on how they talk about themselves.

Friday, trading messages at work. They say, “if I don’t talk to you have a great weekend”. I reply “same to you, but if you get bored feel free to say hi”.

Sunday they reach out via LinkedIn. We trade a few messages there. One one of which they send me a pic of them and their pet.

In my head I say @$!? it, I’ll give them my number. Proceed to give number. They say “going to shower, will message you when done”. They never message me… wait to see if they do on Monday. Thinking maybe they fell asleep, etc.

Monday… nothing… I was busy and didn’t reach out on LinkedIn. Plus I started thinking maybe they changed their mind about chatting. Maybe there is something else I don’t know about. Maybe cold feet about giving me their number.

Tuesday… at work, nothing from them. I reach out in the afternoon to say hi. Don’t mention anything about the weekend. Ask how their day was, etc.

Response was more personal than I expected. Meaning they called me a pet name, traded messages, were acting “cute” for better way to explain it.

Mentioned if they were free to chat, let me know. Said they “really wanted to” but were busy finishing up stuff before they go on vacation.

Say nothing else, today ends, no message outside of work as of this writing.

Question - am I being played? Meaning is this someone who may be bored, or unhappy in a relationship and me showing some interest is making them appear interested? Is there something else, some new trend I’m not aware of on the internet 🙂

Could I be walking into a trap (e.g. they’re married or significant other) and I’ll start getting threatening texts 🤨

Am I overthinking this and should let it play out more? They will be away all next week on vacation. 🤔

I’m confused Lemmy and don’t have the mental energy / prowess to handle something that’s gonna be bad mojo!! I may not be smart enough to even figure out what’s happening 🙂

my (22nb, 22ftm[?]) friend mark (20m) lived in poland since he was 4. he speaks russian, polish, and english.

his English isn’t the best sometimes, and he has foreign accent. he is in love with a woman (24f) he wants to date, but she only speaks English and his family only speaks russian and polish too. he is almost always talking to family on call the whole time in russian, and it gets awkward because she also can’t understand it.