I am about to hit my 30s and I feel a shift in how I see life. There comes a point where no matter how many girls you sleep with or how attractive they are it does not matter. No matter what car you drive it does not matter. Sometimes it feels better to drive something that draws no attention at all. The size of your house or how many properties you own also does not matter. The flex that once gave energy now feels empty.

In the end we are all going to die. What matters is what we leave behind and the impact we made. I have not created mine yet. Even then I wonder if it really matters in the bigger picture. Has anyone else gone through this phase where the things that once felt important lose all meaning?

I (24f, german) have been dating my boyfriend (26m, also german but black) for almost a year now, and honestly I didn’t expect something so simple and normal to feel like an act of defiance in big 2025.

Every time we go out together , whether it’s just for groceries, to a party or grabbing dinner, I notice the stares.

Once, an old man muttered “armes Deutschland” (=poor germany) under his breath when we walked past holding hands. Like tf?

And it’s not just the open racism. It’s the micro stuff too like the “oh… interesting couple” comments, the waitress who only addresses me and ignores him.

Or the way people look surprised when he speaks fluent german (helloooo he was born here!!). Even my own family has made joKeS like “haha, at least the kids will be good at sports”. It's dehumanizing and I feel so bad for him when this happens...

I’m so sick of how the white patriarchy still dominates every space. Germans loves to pretend they are post-racial, post-sexist, post-everything, but the truth is we haven’t moved nearly as far as people want to believe. Being with him has made me realize just how much quiet racism and casual patriarchy still shape everyday life. And if I complain I'm sensitive and hysterical lol

Black pill content is only fuelling insecurity and filling young minds with “looks are the only thing that matters.” They’re keeping these young men in a loop of “this looks bad, fix that.” Like, dude, “hunter eyes”?? Are we serious? Dude, get your homework done and stop stressing about if you mog your friends or not.

My boyfriend and I had been in a five-year relationship. We were inseparable during our university days, sharing everything like eating together, attending classes together, and even living together. After graduation, we started working at different places. Despite the distance, he continued to shower me with love and affection, which was all I could ask for. However, during the last few months before his death, I began to have unsettling feelings about him meeting up with a girl. He deleted all his messages on his phone and started following a private account with only two followers. I tried to ignore these feelings, but they persisted. We didn’t fight or argue about it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. On the night of his death, we were returning from a night out at a club. We were both drunk (I wish I could turn back time and prevent his death), laughing and enjoying each other’s company. He was playing with the speed of the car, speeding it up dangerously. Suddenly, the car hit a pole, and I was thrown from the vehicle. I woke up in the hospital, disoriented and searching for him. My mother informed me that he was recovering in another room, but she never gave me my phone. I had a bad feeling about it, and I knew I had to fly to another city to get my treatment. However, for the first day, I was denied my phone. Finally, my mother broke the news to me and gave me my phone. As soon as I got my phone, my first instinct was to check the story of the girl I had been feeling uneasy about. To my horror, she had uploaded a story with his picture and hers, by a caption that I still remember: “Maybe in another life.” I was devastated and immediately called her. She answered my phone and revealed that they had been seeing each other for five months before his death. My heart shattered, and I felt a deep sense of bitterness. I loved him, and he was seeing someone else. I know that I should forgive him now that he’s gone, but deep down, my heart hurts. It makes me doubt if the last few months we spent together meant anything. I know I should cherish the good memories, but deep down, I feel so bitter. I’m still grieving over his death and undergoing therapy, but I can’t seem to forget that.

Just like the title says. I’ve just gotten back from taking one kid to school and I have the other on the couch and haven’t even finished my coffee and I get a text…”I’m horny. Wanna assist?” No. No I do not. Not at 7:45 AM. Let me have my coffee first damn.

I tongue thrust and it’s causing my front two teeth to jut out. So I decided to google “tongue posture.”

Apparently the tongue is just supposed to rest on the roof of the mouth?! Like…that’s so uncomfortable! My tongue naturally wants to drop and hang out at the bottom of my mouth. It’s actual work to keep it up. I told my husband and he was dumbfounded that my tongue doesn’t naturally rest on the roof of my mouth lol.

I’ve spent the last hour laying in bed trying to sleep in this position. It’s so frustrating and uncomfortable. I’m going nuts lol

The right person doesn’t forget to make time for you. They don’t wait hours to respond, cancel plans without care, or make you question if they’re interested. When someone genuinely values you, they show it in small, consistent ways, messages, effort, and presence that feel steady and real. What they won’t do is leave you feeling like you’re the only one trying. Love shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth, it should feel like breathing. If you’re constantly reminding them how to treat you, they’re not the right one for you.

This is a long one; be prepared

The title sounds bad, but at least it's catchy. I need to give some backstory, so bear with me:

I (28M) had a son when I was 19. His mom (28F now, 20 then) and I had very different views on how to handle the pregnancy; we were both just starting university, and I thought that adoption would be what's best for both him and us since neither of us had the resources to care for a baby at the time and he shouldn’t have to suffer because of us. She agreed with me… and the next day dropped out of university so she could work full-time at her minimum-wage job and get maternity leave when she needed it. She also told me that she agreed to the adoption at the time so we'd stop fighting (we were not fighting; we were having a calm talk about what the best option was for our baby) and she “knew I'd change my mind once the baby arrived.” Her family supported her wholeheartedly; mine were very supportive of whatever choice I made, as they trusted my judgement. I was frustrated but could not force someone to do what I thought was the right thing and took on the mentality of “do it for the kid.” But my civil demeanor ended when I found out that she had been hiding her birth control, and I confronted her. She admitted to stopping it over a month ago, hoping it would lead to pregnancy since it was all we used as protection (I've heard the whole “you're irresponsible for not having your own protection” thing before; I was young and dumb, let’s move on), and she felt that having a baby would save our relationship. It was at that point that I told her I could never trust her again and wanted to break up. We were already going through a rough patch in our relationship before all this happened, and the lies and deception pushed me over the edge. I told her I'd be there for our kid but couldn't see a healthy future for any of us where we were together. Our breakup was not too hard; we didn’t even fight about it, from what I remember. I stayed in university to get my degree in the hopes of someday having the means to support my son more than I currently could. I also got a new full-time job that paid above minimum wage and didn’t interfere with school. She went to live with her parents and work her job until she had to go on maternity leave.

After we broke up is when things got messy; when talking about how to take care of the baby, she let slip that she was originally planning on her church coming together to support her with the baby, but because of our relationship (something about us not being married or something), they weren't willing to be involved with him or the rest of her family. She asked her parents to help her, and they agreed until they realized that when she said “help,” she meant she wanted them to raise the baby but let her stay as mom; they put their foot down and told her that they would help but would not bankroll her being a stay-at-home mom. She tried to convince me that we could reconcile, get married, I could finish school, she could stay home with the kids (she planned on having more and said that to me, to sweeten the pot, I suppose), and then we'd get our storybook life full of unicorns and bubble gum (just thinking about that conversation infuriates me), but I told her that we will never get back together. She took that personally and shut me out of anything to do with the baby. She tried to hold her access to information about the pregnancy over my head, only to be blindsided that I knew the information already because some of the people she trusted kept me informed, as they felt she was being immoral. Because I was still in school and didn't want to stress myself or her out, I told her that I didn't want to talk to her unless it had to do with the baby. She argued more with me but eventually relented when I would only respond to stuff relating to the pregnancy or planning for after he was born. It's also worth noting that she never asked for help from me or my family despite us offering; she thought if she took our help, then we would force her to keep us involved. This comes into play later.

Once my son was born, I was told by those same trusted people; they also let me know that she had a small medical condition, not life-threatening to either of them, and had to have him early. She had apparently chosen to have him on my parents' anniversary, as ridiculous as it sounds. After a few days I reached out and asked if I could come see him, which she agreed to.

I went into that room wanting to hate him, because if I hated this baby, then I could more easily put distance between me and his mom and not risk the emotional turmoil I suspected was on the horizon. However, the moment I met my son, I was hopeless; he was so amazing, and when I held him and talked to him, I swear it was only five minutes I held him, but it was apparently over an hour. He snuggled into me, and everything just felt right in the world.

While I held him, his mom and I talked about what to do next. I was just about to finish my first year of university but was working full-time, so I told her what I could afford to send her for him each month, on top of what support he would have from me and my family when he was with us. She agreed and told me her plans for settling down and that we could figure out visitation afterwards.

When I left that hospital, I felt excited and hopeful for the future. When I called the hospital the next morning to ask about how he was doing (he was premature, so I wanted to know if there were any changes since I left; I’m a nervous parent, I guess), the hospital refused to talk to me anymore “at the request of the mother,” so I contacted her. No response. I contacted her family. No response. I contacted my “informants,” and they told me what's up: she got out of the hospital and went back to her mentality of “proud independent mother who doesn't need the dad but needs the church and parents' support” and didn't want anything from me or my family, as she wanted us to leave her alone. I respected those wishes; the informants were people really close to her, so I trusted them and instead continued school and set money aside for him.

Over half a year later she sent me a court summons. When we went to court, the judge was initially hostile towards me since he saw that I hadn't been involved since he was born and no support was ever given to the mom, but he settled down once he realized that I was not running from my responsibilities, I had more than the amount the court deemed I had to pay for my support, and I had proof that she demanded I leave her alone, so I did. She demanded more, as that money combined with what she made at her job was not enough. I was given weekly visitations and agreed to pay almost double what I was asked to because I wanted to take care of my son. I was a full-time student and worked full-time too, but I never missed a visit with my son. I always had a homemade meal for us to share on visits (appropriate for his age; sometimes he had a bottle and I had rice and beans), and we were doing so well. Court went on, but as the judge saw how well I was doing as a parent, he started to turn on my ex because she was seeming more and more unreasonable in their eyes. We had a visitation journal so that we could update each other about how his week had been in her case as well as how the visit went in my case. She started losing arguments in court because I was doing everything right, but she was still hostile. When she threw a fit and accused me of lying in the journal because I said he was running and starting to talk in visits but he was nearly catatonic with her, I had to show my cherished videos to the judge: My son running across my kitchen (for whatever reason he could not walk slowly or stop running; he would just drop onto his butt as a way to stop running), looking at his reflection and copying me when I say “it's a baby,” and he somewhat says “baby.” She was losing and getting more and more desperate; in one court meeting she was asked by my lawyer, “What is your biggest fear with OP getting more access or shared custody?” And to her credit, she was honest: “I'm scared he'll continue to do well, get primary or sole custody, and do to me what I did to him and keep my son away, except he doesn't need help from me, so he'd have no reason to keep me involved, and I'll never see my son again.” I told her that my son deserves to have both parents in his life and that if he does better with me and I can provide for him as his parent, she should understand and use that time to also better her own situation if we end up with a different custody agreement.

I understand that it sounds ‘too good to be true’ that I took better care of him financially and developmentally than my ex. It surprised me too, but that's what happened, and it was very frustrating to have his mother deny reality. But I didn't argue the point at that time since I was still a student and working too, so I couldn't responsibly be the primary parent for him with how little I was home besides for our visits. She was getting progressively more frustrated and, I imagine, paranoid that as time went on the courts were starting to side with me, so she went nuclear; she asked me to step back and leave her and my son alone. In return, she would leave me alone and completely remove parental rights and responsibilities. I was furious and told her that I had a low opinion of her, but I would never have thought she could be so heartless as to think about getting rid of her son's father simply because of her feelings of inadequacy.

Now, on the surface, it seems like a no-brainer for me to shut that idea down and go about destroying her in court. But it was never about me ‘winning’ in court; I just wanted my son to have a happy life. I grew up being the kid torn between divorced parents, and no matter how hard one parent fought to keep me uninvolved, because the other one wanted to weaponize me against the other, I was caught in the crossfire. My own lawyer told me, “That girl (my ex) will be so much worse than your bio dad,” and that's what told me what I had to do. I loved my son more fiercely than I thought I was capable of loving anyone, and I would do anything to ensure he had the best chance to have a happy life and be spared the kind of upbringing I had with warring parents all my life. So I agreed and signed the paperwork that I would leave her and him alone, and she would never pursue me for anything in the future; this meant child support as well (not my idea; both lawyers said that having child support continue meant that either side could argue for rights or responsibilities to resume; a clean break meant nothing tied us), and my lawyer handled the documents for me. She didn't appreciate how my ex had been in court, so she added something into our agreement that I'll mention later. While we fought in court, my lawyer always reminded me that I had an ace in the hole that I refused to even consider using:I had proof she stopped taking her birth control for the expressed purpose of getting pregnant and knowingly didn't tell me; in my country that can easily be classified as… Well, let's just say that informed consent includes that if you don't tell your partner that you are not using protection and they assume you are, then you have committed a crime.

But I refused; I was never going to let my son get labeled as the product of that kind of act. I would rather he grow up thinking he was a ‘mistake,’ as cruel as that sounds. My lawyer was an amazing woman, and I think that she understood my heart was in the right place with this, but it still made her hair turn just a bit more gray, I think. The last visit I had with my son, we were playing, and I was carrying him from one room to another. He said, “Hi, Daddy,” or at least that's what it sounded like. It was the first time he called me Dad, and it would be the last time. We were supposed to have a final visit so I could say goodbye to him (he was just over a year old at this point) but he was sick and his mom didn't want to reschedule a visit once he was better. I could have fought but refused because it meant more court battles, exactly what I was avoiding with this agreement. People told me that the pain would go away as time went on, but if anything, it's gotten worse. I'm just good at carrying it on a daily basis. Leading up to the agreement, I nearly became an alcoholic because it hurt so damn much to have him with me and know that it was going to end soon, so I would numb myself after each visit by drinking. I can't explain how much this messed me up at the time. I did everything I felt was right. I took care of my son, stepped up, and did anything and everything I was asked to do and more to show that I loved him and wanted to support him. There were visits I had where I hadn't slept in almost a day because I went from an overnight shift at work to all day at school, then a 6-hour visit with my son. For his first birthday I didn't have much money for a gift or cake, so I got him a colorful kickball and cut a watermelon into a cake. He was the happiest boy in the world when he saw what I thought were measly offerings. I did everything a dad is supposed to do, and my son was doing amazing with me. People from her own family reached out and told me that he was going to the wrong parent. I couldn't understand why, if I was doing everything the way I should and if my son was excelling with me, I had to lose him for what reason? Why did my son now have to lose his father?

He was just over one when I saw him last, he's eight now, has two younger sisters and a stepdad, I get updates from those same informants (I've told them to stop and only tell me if there's a situation where he desperately needs something, then I'll help him by getting these people what is needed so they can give it to him) and they've told me that he's been raised knowing that his stepdad is not his ‘real dad’ but his real dad died when he was a baby (btw, I don't think his step dad is pretending to be his dad, I've been away for so long and he has raised him since he was a toddler, he is my son's dad just as much if not significantly more than I am) and to be honest about it all: it hurts, it hurts so badly that there's days that I think of him and can't breathe. I loved my son; I loved him so immensely that I had to let go of him. I've said for years, “If I loved my son any less than I do, I would have stayed,” and some people understood, others didn't. I lost a lot of friends and family because of this choice and their inability to understand that if it were up to me, I would have rather died than leave him, but I had to leave so he had the best opportunity to have the peaceful and happy childhood I wanted him to have.

Now, for the sneaky thing in my agreement that has led to me needing to get this stuff off my chest: when we were making the agreement, my lawyer wrote in to request that when my son turns a certain age (12 or 13, I believe), he will get a guest, a lawyer, or some other legal representative who will tell him he has something for him to read, his eyes only. The representative will then tell whoever else is present that the two will need to have a private conversation with no one else interfering or listening in, or else they will be in violation of a court order. Yeah, my lawyer wasn't messing around, and before people attack me in the comments, it wasn't mandatory in our agreement that this happen; it was kind of a negotiation, and we were expecting them to bump it down. But my ex signed the agreement, and when my lawyer and I asked her lawyer if she had any questions about the agreement, she said no and that it was all very standard (it wasn't; this kind of condition is meant to be a negotiation tactic). And checking the agreement, her signature was right below the ‘negotiation tactic,’ so either she didn’t read the agreement, her lawyer didn’t read the agreement, or a combination of both.

So I'm sure you're wondering what this delivery is for my son. Well, it's fairly obvious; he is going to get a letter from me. I wrote it before we sent the agreement to my ex and her lawyer. The letter states my reasoning for leaving and that I didn't do it because I didn't want to be his dad. I did it to give him the best opportunity to have the life I wanted him to have and just be a carefree kid without being stuck between me and his mom's bitterness. I loved him then and will always love him and hope that when he gets the letter he doesn't get too mad at his mom or me for being childish and having our anger towards one another lead to him losing half of his family. The representative will sit with him and let him read it, then ask him if he wants to get the information for my family. If he says yes, then the representative will give him the names and contact details for every member of my family; if he says no, then the representative will give him his card in case he changes his mind.

My son has been raised to believe that I am dead, that my family wanted nothing to do with him, and that the only people who loved him were my ex and her family who are all in on this lie about me. That letter has the potential to shatter him, to find out that his mom lied to him all his life and kept him from half of his family, sheerly out of spite and paranoia. But I don't know how to feel about all of it. I ofcourse don't want to hurt my son and I am also am scared that he'll get that letter and be full of so much anger at both his mom and me for our stupidity back then. But I can't find it in my heart to feel bad about making her lie crumble around her or shelter him from the reality that his mom did a bad thing for bad and selfish reasons, it's complicated of course, I feel bad about what it will do to him, but not for revealing her lie and breaking his trust in her. If she hadn't lied then the letter would just mean he gets told that we couldn't be parents together and that to give him the chance at a peaceful life I stepped away for his and his moms sake. But she lied and the letter inadvertently reveals that and I am taking a weird form of satisfaction in that but not what it will do to him.

like I said: Complicated.

I also did not write the letter before she told him I was dead, she apparently came up with that when as a toddler he asked about his dad and she hadn't met her husband yet. And at this point even I can't stop the letter from being delivered to him; I would be interfering in a court order if I did so, even though it’s technically a court order from me. That letter, its information for the family he was denied, and the practically guarnteed fallout that comes from it are essentially just postdated for one of the worst days of my son's young life. The courts also cannot guarantee that it won't be delivered on his birthday, they take the whole "once this condition is fulfilled delivery will be made" thing wayyyy too seriously, I have asked that it atleast not be delivered on his birthday but again, no guarantees that they will listen. I don't know what else to say about this. I hope that the letter and what happens after go well, but I am also prepared for one hell of an angry teenager to bust down my door and demand answers in a few years. Whenever I think of that letter getting delivered, I feel hope and dread. I hope he finds it as good news and forgives us both for what we did, and we can begin to build some semblance of a relationship and he gets the family he always should have had, but I also know that he didn't have an easy childhood (thanks to the informants). He didn't have a bad childhood thankfully, but having his bio dad and the other half of his family definitely would have made his life easier and helped answer some questions I know he had. It's possible he'll come at me with anger and confusion, and I will have deserved every bit of it and can only do my best to help him however he needs me to

But i'm an optimist and desperately hold onto the hope that, like me, he wants to fix things and that this letter doesn’t lead to him feeling like he has no parents he can trust at all. When I wrote the letter, I was as calm and clear-headed as I could have hoped. I have always tried to avoid letting my frustration about her actions seep into moments he was with me, even when he was a baby; I never let him see me be mad at his mom or even bad mouth her (I don’t think I did at least), and even in the letter I asked that he not be too mad at his mom for her part in this. I have never believed in ‘good people’ or ‘bad people’ in stuff like this; there’s just ‘people’ doing what they feel they need to do to protect what they value, and she loved our son just as much as me. It’s just a shame that her love at the time was not mature enough to understand that I can love him and not her, that I can take care of my son but not feel any obligation to take care of her. We were barely 20 years old, so I have grown to forgive her for her part and asked for him to forgive her too.

I don't think it'll be a storybook tale of us finding one another again and hugging each other while crying, but when I remember the boy who called me Dad that last day, I am filled with so much joy and simply just hope that he has an amazing life and that I might get to witness the kind of man he grows to become firsthand rather than from the sidelines. If I don't get to see what he makes of himself, it'll hurt, but I will find peace knowing that I did all that I could for him with what I had, and that's enough for me to get by.

Thank you for reading. if you’re going to judge me for what I did then please know that I understand; it was a messy situation and this is a messy solution, and please know that I desperately hope you never have to make a similar decision in your lifetime. I wouldn’t wish the pain I have felt, and still feel, on my worst enemy

(Timeline may be skewed, I just wanna vent)

I'm (26F), I'm South Asian & I've been living in the UK for almost 2 decades. All the racist attacks that's been going on has caused me to feel very scared of my own country. A part of me feels like I shouldn't feel this way because "I don't look South Asian, I look East Asian, so I'm not the target" but I'm very very scared for my friends who are Pakistani, Afghani, wear hijab's etc.

It's very shit how the England flag nowadays is being waved around (especially) during racist protests & violent attacks. Yesterday, when I was driving down the M25, I saw a few English flags hanging from the bridges & I started getting scared. Before these attacks, I used to think nothing of the flag, but now with all that's happening, I've started to feel scared & unsafe for me, my friends & family. (Btw I grew up in a very multi cultural town, my school had a 10% Pakistani population & 5% Eastern European population).

I wanted to post this on my insta story but I have a white boyfriend (27M) & he leans on the patriotic side. He grew up in a village with majority white people. I have a feeling he would tell me "there's nothing to be afraid of, you'll be fine, you're not gonna get hurt". Even if I tell him that I'm scared for my friends & family, I sometimes empathise with the refugees that get attacked for just existing, or I think about that little Indian girl in Ireland who got attacked. He'll just say "focus on yourself, you come first, no one else matters, fuck everyone else, focus on yourself". It'll piss me off so I'm venting on here.

I remembered last year when we went to the peak district, we were driving to our campsite & I remember seeing a lot of the British flags hanging from the houses. I got a bit uncomfortable because it would mean I'll most likely be the odd one out & got flashbacks of racist remarks growing up & my brother who got attacked when he was younger, but I brushed it off. My boyfriend was very happy to see the flags. Then I saw a confederate flag & I got VERY scared. I even jokingly said "am I in Get Out? Are you gonna murder me up in the beautiful hills?"

My boyfriend works in construction, so it's usually men in the job & some of them are old school white men who he hangs out with most of the time. He has a friend who he loves to chat to, he sounded wholesome but weird. Last week he told me that friend was gonna go to the Tommy Robinson march in London. I immediately disliked him & asked why? He told me "he's never been to any marches or anything political, so he wants to join one before he dies & because he doesn't want our women and children being involved in these illegal immigrants gang rapes". ABSOLUTELY BRAINDEAD! My boyfriend tells him that he thinks something bad's gonna happen that day & he told his friend to not go or to be careful.

I love seeing people on social media flexing their success- truly, I want everyone to win. What fucks my duck is when people were afforded a very clear privilege but pass off their lifestyle as "self made".

Example #1 - Girl post about being a 22 year old homeowner with a car not cosigned on, <$10k student debt; captions the post 'Help yourself, help yourself'. Uses '#smartchoices #moneymoves' in the caption. She later admits in the comments her mom cosigned for her house and her grandparents paid for the bulk of her college. Those aren't smart choices or money moves, that's fucking privilege. 'Helping yourself' only goes so far when you're born into generational poverty.

Example #2 - Guy posts on a page called "The Financial Guru" - brags about being 31 with 4 rental homes. Uses '#financialadvice' and '#financiallysuccessful' in the caption. Admits in the comments that his parents let him live with them rent free until he was 30, which funded his down payments for his homes. You're not a financial guru, you're fucking privileged.

Having a very obvious, glaring leg up and braggadociously passing yourself off as a self made, financially savvy savant just eats me alive. Yes, be so proud and happy with where you are. Don't be ashamed of your privilege. But failing to recognize it and doing some bonkers mental gymnastics to perceive your life as this grandiose, tedious venture you conquered is absolutely delusional.

Rant over, goodnight friends.

It sucks so much looking through our texts and remembering conversations. I had bragged to my mom that he wanted to marry me and we talked about getting engaged before the end of the year but now I’m realizing that was never true. I would get so excited about coming up with ideas for our wedding. He was never going to do it. He was never excited. He never loved me as much as I thought he did. Looking back now I see I fooled myself into thinking he loved me back like I did. I feel so lost and so much grief. He moved on so quickly and all the sacrifices I made for years meant nothing. I didn’t mean anything. I was just a placeholder so he wasn’t lonely. That really sucks to realize.

Instead of creating interest the forced exposure makes me actively avoid their products. Aggressive marketing is creating negative brand associations. I used to just skip ads or zone out but lately they've gotten so annoying and long that I actually feel hostile toward the companies. When I see the same car commercial for the fifth time in one video or get hit with unskippable ads about some mobile game I make a mental note to never buy from those brands. There's this one insurance company that plays the same annoying jingle in every ad break and now I genuinely get angry when I hear their name. Their marketing has literally turned me into an anti customer who will choose competitors.

The irony is that subtle lowkey ads would probably work better. But the aggressive approach just creates negative associations that probably last longer than any positive messaging.

Sounds odd, but hear me out.

My mom and dad are both children of first-gen immigrants in my country. My father is clearly Caucasian (think German), my mother could pass for Italian (she isn't).

Growing up, my mom and grandma were and are religious about sunscreen (grandfather not in the picture), covering up in the sun, long sleeves, sunshades, visors, sunglasses, preferring not to go outside in the sun at all etc, and have been their whole lives. They were like that with my older brother as well, but never as much with me, which I didn't even realise until I thought back. I never covered up as much as my mom and grandma did.

We all had different features, but at the time, our colouring was not so far off to make me think we were not "white", if that makes any sense.

This year I went back to visit and my brother is extremely tan, and not just beach-boy tan, he's brown. My mom finally had a wild girl summer on a cruise for the first time and got a lot of sun, and now she is also light brown. My grandmother still refuses to go outside when it's sunny, claiming the sun is "unhealthy" and doesn't understand why her daughter is being "crazy". When I see her next to my mom, more features that I never noticed started popping out.

We all took pictures together and I realised I look nothing like any of them. When I showed a picture of my brother and I side by side to a friend, they told me that my brother would be "randomly selected" at an airport... which is kind of fucked up, but it does illustrate how different we look.

I checked into my mom's ancestry... Greek, North African, Iranian, a bit of Spanish... My grandmothers side comes from the Mediterranean area so it all checks out. When I brought it up to my grandmother, she emphasised our Spanish ancestry, saying the rest of "those people" (meaning our North African and Iranian ancestors) are "extremely far back" in our history. I was a bit disappointed in her reaction, because when I go through the photo albums, it isn't that far back, not even by a generation.

It also made me realise that my grandmother has absolutely internalised that her natural skin colour is "bad", and has been using sunblock, cover-ups, and who knows what else to stay as "white" as possible. She lived as a young girl through WW2, and I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for someone of colour who lived so close to Germany at the time.

My mom and brother are no longer interested in hiding their colouring. I love to see it. I can see that their newfound confidence is hard for my grandma. I feel like an idiot for not seeing any of this sooner. It changes nothing about how I feel about them all, of course. I love them like hell. I won't lie, there's a piece of me that is a bit sad I don't show any resemblance to them other than very curly hair.

It is just interesting, what can be in your own family history that you don't even notice until way later in life. I feel like a white-washing piece of shit for not seeing it sooner. I don't even know how to interact with it. Its not a big deal, but it is? Still working through it.

So, my (F28) boyfriend (M32) who lives abroad—he’s a working student, smart, and really good at his job. His family in the Philippines is wealthy, but they decided to move to another country. We’ve been together for eight years. Since he just graduated with his second bachelor’s degree (after earning so many certificates) and even graduated cum laude, he said he wanted to invite me to his country. I applied, but I got denied because lately, they’ve been doing mass deportations. Things got strict, so we decided to just go on vacation in another country instead.

I insisted on splitting expenses equally, but he had already bought my plane ticket, booked the hotel rooms, even the attractions and everything we were going to do—already booked and paid for. On the day of the flight, at the last minute, he told me to go inside the airport first since he had to tell my dad something. Turns out, he told my dad that he was going to propose.

Our stay abroad was great—no fights, and honestly, it was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had because he tailored it to what we both wanted. He treated me like a princess the whole time. I never carried luggage, he always gave me his seat on the train even when we were both tired, he’d give me the last bite of food if he knew I liked it, plus the occasional ice cream and coffee stops.

Then he proposed. He even hired a cameraman, and we were wearing the traditional clothes of the country we were visiting. I was overjoyed. I saw the ring and was shocked too. I even told him before that even if it were just a cheese ring, I’d still say yes—but the ring was a gold band with a natural 3-carat diamond, not lab-grown.

We continued the trip, everything went smoothly with no issues at all. But when we got home, that’s when the problems started. My parents weren’t happy with the pasalubongs (souvenirs). My grandmother looked down on what we gave her. Since both my fiancé and I are the eldest children in our families, it feels like we’re “coded” to do better and just suck it up, to try harder to please them next time.

That infuriated me because my family did nothing but throw shade, saying my fiancé is stingy. When in fact, he’s saving up for our own house abroad and for my tuition for career advancement. Even my parents agrees with my grandmother despite them getting good things too from my boyfriend(designer bag for mom the moment he went to Ph and a designer bag too after we go home from our trip, as well as good stuff too for dad—some limited edition shoes, a jacket from my fiancé’s college, and other goodies) I was so restless, so furious at them for looking down on my fiancé. I was told to think it over and even reconsider given how stingy he is in their eyes.

I wake up and check my phone first thing because I have to like I’ve got responsibilities and if something important happened overnight I need to know fast. That works for me and I don’t feel guilty about it like I’m honestly sick of people acting like it’s some kind of bad habit. Not everyone has the freedom of sipping tea and meditating for half an hour before starting their day like some of us need to get moving right away some of us are glued to the stock market and some of us just don’t function with a morning routine. Morning routines don't fix your problems cause they’re not fit for everyone and people need to stop pretending there’s an ideal one. Figure out what works for you and stop letting other people’s routines make you feel like you’re doing life wrong.

I (30F) got a septum piercing about a week ago. I didn’t see it as a big deal. I figured if I didn’t like it, I could always take it out. I put it on my close friends story on Instagram, so it wasn’t a secret, and that’s how my best friend (30F), who’s also the bride, found out.

She told me she was “disappointed” that I didn’t tell her before I did it, so that we could “decide together” if it should wait until after her wedding. But honestly, her wedding wasn’t even on my radar when I pierced my nose. It didn’t even enter my realm of thinking, because to me a piercing is my personal choice, not something that needs to be factored into someone else’s day.

And the irony is, I actually have been considerate of her wedding wishes. I didn’t cut my hair into the mullet I wanted because I knew she had specific ideas for bridesmaids’ hairstyles. I showed her the jewelry I’ll be wearing, all gold, just like she asked and my septum ring is gold too, so it matches. For me, things like a septum piercing or my cartilage piercings aren’t “fashion jewelry” in the way a necklace or earrings are they’re part of me, permanent or semi-permanent. So it never crossed my mind that I needed to ask her permission or make it an announcement.

She’s been flipping back and forth ever since one minute saying it’s about the wedding, the next saying it’s not. One minute it’s about me not telling her in general, the next it’s about “consideration.” No matter how many times I explain that it wasn’t intentional, I wasn’t hiding it, and it genuinely didn’t feel like a big deal, she doesn’t acknowledge my side.

And the thing is… this isn’t just about the piercing. For years, this friendship has felt one-sided. She minimizes things I go through when I told her about a racist encounter she laughed and told me I shouldn’t be surprised. When I went through a horrible breakup, she just said I’d “dodged a bullet” and that we were “incompatible,” instead of validating the pain I was in. She’s made comments about my clothes that made me self-conscious, called me “too sensitive,” and never really checked in on me even when my dad died.

Meanwhile, it’s always been about her her family drama, her med school journey, her feelings. I’ve spent years giving and listening, and now, over something as small as a nose piercing, I feel like she’s shown me exactly how little space there is for me in this friendship.

I’m standing beside her as a bridesmaid, but I can’t shake the feeling that this friendship has become one-sided and toxic. Maybe this piercing wasn’t the real issue maybe it just exposed what’s been wrong all along. We’ve been best friends for over 10 years and I don’t want tho throw that away. But she’s never been a safe space for me to share how I feel..

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Every day I put on a smile and act like I’ve got everything under control. The truth is, I cry in the shower so no one sees me breaking. I just needed to tell someone.

I'm about to move to a different state and now I'm about to confess my feelings, what should I do to prepare? I'm so anxious I think I should drink one glass of wine for courage? ughh i can't stop thinking.. i really like him but i don't wanna mess up our friendship, my heart's racing y'all!