I’m in a pretty bad situation. My pay barely covers monthly utilities, transport for all my family members, HDB rent, medication for my parents, groceries & and my little brother’s school fees & costs.

I’m working on a contract basis for a IT company as well as a Grab delivery rider on the weekends. 7 days a week.

Total monthly I’m able to bring back combined $3k. I’m the sole breadwinner for my family.

Once I get into NS in a couple of months, 80% of my pay will be taken away. I have no interest in serving NS at all, because pay is completely messed up.

Like even I heard financial assistance max is $500. Even then it’ll be $1130. Nowhere close to what I need to run my household.

If the army is willing to pay for all my house bills, medications & other bills, I’ll accept $630 with my mouth shut.

Who do I approach before NS? My principal focus is on my parents medicines, HDB rent & school fees. Food & transport I’ll manage. I need someone to cover the full costs of those.

I dont care abt the SAF, NS or anyone at all. My family comes first. I’ve no intention in NS life other than caring for my family & till my little brother is able to find a job after his poly studies.

I need some solutions, becos idw AWOL or go to prison for putting my family first.

Netizens’ comments

• hi i’m a clerk who handles financial assistance for my unit. it does not cap out at $500 and i’ve seen it go up to $2k+ in certain situations.
  Go to your S1 or relevant commander and explain to him your financial situation. They will help kickstart the FAS procedure.
  I will say it is a rather slow process so do provide the necessary documents ASAP. They will ask for copy of all IC’s, CPF statements of all family members, divorce letters and alimony details(if applicable) and a commander may conduct a house visit.
  More documents may be required in more obscure scenarios. DM me if you need more information regarding this.

• There are SAF financial assistance schemes that can help to alleviate your financial burden if your household income is sufficiently low.
  Alternatively, if you seek proper approval for your superiors you may be granted permission to work elsewhere to earn additional income, on a case-by-case basis.
  Stay strong bro!

My appearance is not suitable for dating… I’ve received a lot of rejections… in my lifetime.

I recently joined a dating app so called kind of high-end dating apps…

It had member requirements like good career, or NUS graduates, people with high income, or women with good looks, etc. Anyway, I joined with my diploma, but it’s kind of frustrating because I see girls contacting me just based on my accomplishment. I’m afraid to meet them for same reason too.

I want to love them regardless of what I’ve achieved, but where can I find someone like that? I don’t have much confidence. It is too late?

Here are what netizens think:

• It takes more than appearance to attract a woman. And lack of a handsome face can be offset by career accomplishments, fitness and your behavior. With good career accomplishments, you set the stage right for someone to give you a chance. With fitness, you make her feel attracted to you to continue the date and relationship. With good behavior, you make her feel comfortable and she will find you the package to go for. Keep that up and you got yourself a stable relationship to consider if you should marry her. By then you will have a different set of problems.

• Please don’t depend on dating apps. They actually stunt a person’s interpersonal and communication skills. Everything is filtered to the point where you can’t tell how much you see online about the other person, is the truth. Just find more real world activities to do and then meet people organically.

• You need to work on your self esteem before you try to welcome someone in your life.

• I always believe there will be someone out there ready for you, it is a matter of time. What you need to do now is to live well. Do the things that make you happy, give the sense of achievement to build up your own belief. When you live well, you will generate positivity, it will naturally attract the person with the same frequency.

I sleep with my mother in law while me and my wife were separated.

Last year me and my wife were going through a separation and it was pretty hard for me. Before the separation I was helping her mom with some renovations she wanted for her house so I would still regularly go over.

One day I noticed she was drinking pretty heavily during the day and I know she has a drinking problem , so I mostly ignored her while I was working

but then I came in the house to tell her I was leaving and she just started talking to me about the issues she was having with her husband.

I started drinking with her talking about everything we were both going through and eventually we ended up getting intimate on the bed.

The next day she called me upset that it happened and she told me she wouldn’t tell anyone about this, that we should just pretend it didn’t happen and I agreed.

Me and my wife are back together and her and her husband are still married but nobody but us knows what happened an I often feel guilty about what I did.

Netizens’ comments

1. You are a pig, cheating on her with her own mother.
2. I can’t believe you thought we’d side with you… You’re a fkin loser. You and her mom!
3. Well, if you had a discreet affair nobody would know. But of the 4 billion women to screw, this is at the pinnacle of the stupid list. Not only will it destroy your marriage, it will destroy the trust between mother and daughter.
4. If you and your wife are “nearing divorce” just do it. Don’t be a coward.
5. You know that what you’re doing is wrong but you’re too scared to do what’s right. Karma will take care of this situation since you will not.

I (36F) have been friends with a guy (48M), we will call him Rob, for years. He’s a very wealthy and successful guy, does very well for himself, and has no kids, never been married before, etc.

He is a serial dater and his goal is to date the hottest girls he can. He spends sometimes thousands on them every week in buying them gifts, dinners, and straight up giving them cash.

It’s his thing and one of the ways he likes to spend his money. Whatever floats his boat, his life, his money, I don’t judge and if he’s happy then I’m happy for him.

However, recently, he went through an awful breakup that sent him spiraling and I was there every day and night to talk to him on the phone, offer him advice, read his sometimes over a hundred messages a day and otherwise console him.

We’re talking hours every day that I was spending on him and it went on for weeks. Quite honestly, it was exhausting after a while and there was definitely a lot of trauma dumping going on.

I am a single mom who works full time and I don’t always have a lot of free time or mental energy but I did my best to support him.

He recently invited me out to dinner saying that he “owes me” for all of the support I’ve given him, so we went out to a really nice restaurant and had a nice dinner, until the end.

The check arrived and he stated “Alright, we’re splitting this thing.” I was shocked, as he wanted this dinner and invited me!

When I questioned him and also informed him that I had to pay $100+ to a babysitter to be able to go out with him, he insisted that he’s not paying for me, that we are just friends.

I’m able to support myself and my kids obviously but going out is a treat because of how costly everything gets, $100 is a lot for me.

I sent him my half and left shortly after, somewhat upset, as I felt blindsided by this and also felt that he should’ve treated, given the fact that he invited me and also because he makes exponentially more than me and knows my struggles sometimes as a single mom.

tl/dr: Wealthy friend made me pay half of the expensive dinner bill even though he invited me to the dinner and he knows what a financial burden it is for me to go out.

I am a guy in my late 20s who has never really had a conversation with a woman

I am in my late 20s and I have no real experience being around women. I am straight FYI. I never really talked with girls in school.

I am a shy person and throughout my life to the current day I have no experience talking or being around women in any real capacity aside from my mom.

I interact with women at work and but I have never talked with a woman my age outside of the traditional work or school environment.

I have never been to prom, flirted with a girl, or have had any “normal” conversations with a woman. Women are pretty foreign to me and I don’t know how to talk to them on anything really.

Whether those “things” are something like abortion or a hobby. I am never really around women outside of work. I have occasional conversation with a woman like 15 years older than me but that is it.

I have never, for example, talked with a woman in her mid 20s. Considering I am getting older women just become more and more foreign to me.

I was thinking of trying dancing to be around more people, especially women. What do you think? Women are just so foreign to me.

Women just kinda scare me. The only time a woman ever reached out to me was a girl in school feigning interest in me and dared by her friends. I still carry the social scars of school where I was looked down on by everyone.

Netizens’ comments

1. First. Don’t bring up abortion in your first hundred conversations with women.
2. “Hey nice weather we are having, how do you feel about abortion” OP I would say maybe look up some normal conversations starters something along those lines
3. stop viewing women as another species. you’re just alienating yourself. you have no reason to be afraid of women, you’re only holding yourself back by giving into your fear. start by just talking to ur co-workers or something. or go out with friends who have girlfriends. most women talk about the exact same things guys talk about, just with more giggles. the more you treat women like you’d treat any of your guy friends, the more they’ll like you. they don’t want to feel objectified. most of all, be interested in them. just ask a ton of questions. or just find urself a gay guy you can tag along with.

Askes for a 15k raise to come back into the office…….buuut

I was hired on with a hybrid schedule, three days in the office, 2 remote. This worked with my wife’s and childs schedule.

A few months ago I was ask what it would take to come back to the office 5 days a week and I told some a 15k salary increase. Months went by without an update and I thought they just forgot, until last week.

My boss called me into the office and said, they’d be able to give me 10k, not the 15k. Since it was lower than I asked for, I said at the moment I can only come in for four days a week. He asked how soon until I can make it five and I didn’t confirm on anything.

Am I wrong for not coming back in for five days because they gave me less than I asked for?

BTW nothing is in writing, this was all done taking to my boss one on one.

Netizens’ comments

1. Until it’s in writing you don’t even have the 10.
2. I mean this is what will happen. Year end comes and you ask for your yearly raise, they will go lol no we gave you a raise we believe covers your next few years well.
3. “how soon until you can make it 5 days?” “As soon as those extra 5k come my way”
4. Honestly, for $10k more pay, I wouldn’t even give them an extra day in the office. Sure, it covers the extra expenses, and more, but being forced to go to a specific location for a job I can do perfectly well from home is SO demoralising.
   This whole RTO push reeks of desperation to maintain control over their worker drones, and frankly, any employer pushing it without a very good, tangible, reason can f right off.