I had an unfortunate, confusing intimate encounter with a man yesterday. I have no one to talk to about it right now.

Basically, a few days ago I [24F] matched with a guy we’ll call “C” [25M] on bumble and we kinda hit it off. He said he was interested in a fwb situation, which would be unknown territory for me, but I agreed because, well, I thought he was cute and it would be fun.

After some chatting, we arranged to meet in a public space (my suggestion) for coffee, and the plan was for me to go to his place with him after for amorous activities. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily the safest play but I took precautions and I never really felt I was in danger.

Here’s the rub: the man who met me at the coffee shop didn’t quite match who I saw in the photos on his profile.

Okay, I could tell he was the same person but it was clear those pictures were quite old. Now I don’t like to be the judgey type but I’ll be honest, I wasn’t into it. I just didn’t find his current appearance attractive—it wasn’t a match, what more can I say?

Anyways I sat facing him, engaging in casual conversation, all the while trying to figure out how I was going to get out of it.

Eventually, he suggested we head to his place. He was clearly getting impatient. From our past conversations, I’m sure he had high expectations for how this “date” was going to go (and I guess that’s my fault for being upfront and specific with him about my boundaries regarding intimacy).

I don’t know if it was my nerves or if I was feeling pressure, but I agreed. I texted my mom the address and went over. He walked me up and introduced me to a pretty messy apartment (not that I’m in any position to judge lol).

Once I sat down I was straight up with him and asked if he really wanted to be friends or if he just wanted the benefits. I was getting the sense from our conversation that it really was the latter, but he just evaded the question.

We returned to idle chit-chat until eventually, he disrobed and, well, I did what I told him I wanted to do before I knew what he actually looked like.

It was bad. I’ll spare you all the details, but he was not very hygienic, which I didn’t find out until I was in the act. He also did nothing for me at all the whole time.

And like I said, I just didn’t find him attractive. It was the perfect storm for awful S. And looking back on it I feel so confused, so stupid wondering why I would have consented to that knowing I wouldn’t like it. Why would I go through with it even though there were ways for me to get out of it? Anyways, after he was satisfied he basically told me to leave.

That cemented for me the fact that he was only taking advantage of me all along. Maybe I should have caught on sooner, but I am kinda new to dating and romance. I got home and did my best to numb myself, and I sent him a concise message saying I didn’t want to see him again.

I’m sure my therapist and I can break down the nitty-grittyof how my anxiety and other mental health/social challenges could have played a role in this mistake. But I need to hear from other women, too.

Has anyone else ever felt so much pressure from the expectations of others that they’ve made a mistake or even harmed themselves, emotionally or otherwise?

How do I stand up for myself and say no in a situation like this? I was scared to hurt his feelings, or insult him somehow, or worse make him angry.

I feel like there’s so much emphasis on getting men to listen when women say no, which is great, but I also think we should invest time into teaching girls how to say no in the first place.

Anyways, thank you for reading if you made it this far. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’d like. Please, feel free to tell me if I’m off my rocker.

Does leaving the corporate ladder matter?

Need some advice from experienced entrepreneurs or people who have been through it all.

My husband and I are tech professionals nearing our 30s. I’ve been a believer of the corporate ladder for as long as I remember, but one day I realized that I didn’t want the rules anymore. I wanted to live my own life, work at my own hours, and yet have time to take care of my children. Moreover, corporate salary is fixed for a few years regardless of effort, while the amount you can make in a business has no ceiling and scales with effort.

So I asked my husband to work with me on a side hustle last year. We are both in tech and are quite good at (and enjoy) building apps, so it took off quite quickly. Gradually, the year-long endeavour covered the salaries of our high paying tech jobs, although we only spend around 3-4h a day working on it while juggling our full-time jobs 8h a day.

These days, I feel like we are nearing burn out, and probably also quite done with feeling guilty not putting 100% in our jobs (and disappointing our managers who happen to both trust each of us a lot). With the money we make on the side with much less effort, vs our full-time jobs which pay the same salaries regardless of effort, we can no longer convince ourselves to give anything to our corporate jobs. Honestly, it has made us very unhappy everyday having to turn up to our jobs knowing all these. The extra time from leaving our jobs will let us scale the business and also actually enjoy our lives and contribute to causes we believe in, while still making money to fund our lifestyle.

However, we are at the peak of our careers, with my husband and I each being senior executives at big tech with strong trust from our managers and colleagues. I feel like given our trajectory, we would do very well if we stay in corporate. Moreover, I’m also unsure of other side effects like losing credibility from not having a corporate title. When we leave, our effective income will also be halved immediately, and the safety net is gone. Our skills will also be fully dependent on our own growth efforts rather than guided by corporate and the network from corporate. I’m unsure of the full spectrum of costs we have to bear in the future.

Has any entrepreneurs here regretted leaving their high paying corporate jobs? Any other advice is also appreciated.

A man shared how he can’t take spicy food but he then went to a restaurant with only spicy food as it was his wife’s birthday.

Here is the story:

My wife’s birthday was this past weekend and she wanted to go to this specialty Sichuan restaurant because she is from that region. Sichuan food is known to be really spicy, and is a lot more than I can handle. She knows I can’t do spicy, and we’ve been trying to work on my tolerance with her cooking, but it’s still not that good.

I told her this and suggested we go to a regular Chinese restaurant, but she claimed it’s not the same. She said there will be non spicy options and at worst, she can ask them to make it not spicy. She clung to me and gave me those cute eyes that I couldn’t say no to, so I gave in and agreed. It’s her birthday so I didn’t want to ruin her day.

Well turns out I did anyway. We were at the restaurant and the entire menu was in Chinese. They had an english one but it didn’t really tell me what was spicy and what wasn’t. I let her order a few dishes, the food came, and it was all spicy. Even the ones she said weren’t. I tried to eat it, but I couldn’t so I asked her if she can ask them to make it less spicy.

She told me to take it slowly and to eat more rice. But I wasn’t enjoying it and asked her again. She got a little huffy but called the waiter over. The waiter kind of gave me a look, like one of those confused “why are you here?” looks, but took a dish back. It came back out and it was not as spicy but still has a kick. I think it was the sauce they’re using or something.

I told the waiter it’s still spicy for me, and the waiter said they can’t make it any less spicy than that. My wife was getting embarrassed I think, because the tables next to us were all looking now. When the waiter went away, I asked her if we can go to another restaurant. She said she didn’t want to, since we’re already here and we already have food on the table.

I started getting frustrated and saying that we’ve been out all day, and I haven’t eaten and now I won’t be able to eat because everything is spicy. She told me to just eat the rice and we’ll get something for me after.

I got really offended by that and got up and left, walked around for a bit to cool down then came back to see her by our car. She was furious and said I embarrassed her. I said she knew I couldn’t handle spicy, and she said I shouldn’t have agreed to the restaurant.

In hindsight, I could’ve probably eaten the dish that came back with a lot of rice…but I wouldn’t enjoy it. I don’t think I can get used to spicy food.

I have been dating my bf I met on Tinder for 4.5yrs. During the initial phase of seeing each other (non exclusively), I was also seeing another guy (who had a car and often bring me to nice restaurants and offered to fetch me home after dates). I openly told these guys about the other guys that I was seeing and not rushing into a relationship.

So my bf often got anxious whenever I go on dates with other guys and wanted me to be exclusive to him. He would text me everyday and always making plans to meet up. We meet almost every other day since our first date and I began to like him. One day after going on a date with another guy and the guy about to send me home, my bf insisted that I don’t sit my date’s car. He insisted to “fetch” me home by booking a GRAB since he doesn’t have a car.

After seeing his sincerity, I decided to be with him out of the 3 guys I dated. We clicked better in terms of conversations and I like that we share common interest including food and bubble teas.

I also told him that for future dates, we could stick to commuting via public transport as it was unnecessary for him that to take mrt to meet me then book grab to send me home then take mrt again to go to his home.

But after 2nd year together, especially entering the 3rd year, I began to feel that I was taken for granted. He no longer love me and want to go out on dates with me. He is just a lazy person who refuses to do anything everyday.

Oh ya, I moved in with him during CB because I couldn’t bear being separated from him. I still remember I missed him so much that we decided to meet at Fairprice lol.

I wanted to do things together with him at home, such as cooking, dalgona coffee and diy bbt, but he is always lazy. Then we continued staying together after CB but he just got lazier. He doesn’t even do chores and change bedsheets.

When he wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t brush his teeth. He will just sit at the sofa, scroll FB, Insta, TikTok and play games. Even when it’s lunch time, he still don’t bother to ask me out for lunch. He is just abnormal and doesn’t get hungry.

When I offered to cook, he would sometimes angry that I made the house dirty. I always clean up after that but he still didn’t like that the house gets Smokey. I grow up appreciating my mom’s home cook, I don’t know why he doesn’t. I asked him why he is so unappreciative, I feel a lot of men would have wanted their gf to cook homecooked meals for them. He said he just doesn’t appreciate food and hated eating. I felt very cheated as this was not the person he said he was when we were dating. On our first few dates he always made me believe that we shared the same passion and hobbies. Whenever I ask him out on easy and cheap dates such as cycling or hiking , he’s always disinterested and just wanna stay at home. When I suggest holidays, he would say he want to go on cruise where he can sit and relax.

I have expressed this to him several times but he is still like this. I said his laziness is too extreme that even when he is bored of me, he is even too lazy to break up with me. One day he just hurt my feelings and say “I only want sx and you don’t give that to me” so it got me crying. He apologised after that.

Before the relationship, I told him beforehand that I am a virgin and that my second ex cheated on me because I refused to do pre-marital sx with him. He said he understood and willing to wait till after marriage. But then now he behave like that. He said, “u try ask around any Singaporean men willing to date you for 4 years without sx. That’s friend. Not gf bf”.

We have had arguments over (other things) where he left me crying cause I felt like he didn’t give a shit about this relationship. Then he often promise to change but then fall back to be the same person later.

Now ever since that “sx talk” he try to be nice to me again but I don’t know how long he can stay like this before being ignorant again. I don’t know if I should end this and find someone else. Or is it too much to ask for premarital sx today?

My (31m)wife (29f), now ex. We’ve been together for over a decade and engaged for about two and a half years. school sweethearts, two years ago she gave birth to our son.

Since then she’s decided to go to nursing school so our son can have a better future. To make this possible, I’ve worked overtime, cooked dinner every night, watched my son every afternoon, put him to bed myself, and done household chores, bent over backwards for this family. To give her a chance to pass these rigorous classes so we could get ahead in life.

Tonight, literally a few hours ago, my life came crumbling down.

One of the very few nights we get to ourselves since our son was born we decided to go out to a bar/ dance club with some friends.

At one point I tell her I’m going outside to smoke, she says she’s going to dance with her girlfriend. I tell her all right I’ll be back in a few

Halfway out I realized I’d forgotten the cigarettes in her purse as she smokes it occasionally. I come back into the dance floor and find her making out with a complete stranger, I sit back and stare in complete shock for a few seconds. I can’t even process what is happening. Then I snap back to reality and split her off from this effing guy.

I lost it, I screamed at her what the F is wrong with you, and left the bar.

My family, my sons family destroyed for what? It makes zero sense to me. I am so devastated beyond words.

As a child of divorce, this is my worst nightmare, I gave her and my son my all. Every fibre of my being went into being a good father and husband. All of that thrown away for a drunken hookup with a stranger.

I’m reeling, I feel sick. My mom has my son for the night thank god but I am just lost. This all happened three hours ago and I’m so heartbroken I can’t think straight. I locked her out of the house and told her to go to her parents. She’s begging me to listen to reason, that he took advantage of her. Maybe if I hadn’t sat there and watched her I’d have fallen for that gaslight.

I don’t even know what I want from this post. I just need to vent. I’m broken, mostly for my son that will never know growing up with his family intact, the same nightmare I lived through.

I’m so shocked and hurt. I just don’t know.

I found out that my boyfriend of 2 years is married and has kids, I’m showing myself to his family tomorrow at his church.

I’m just so confused right now and need to talk to somebody.

I’ve been seeing this guy “Adam, 32” for 2 years. We don’t live together but he visits me on weekends. I never met his family, friends or been to his house.

3 weeks ago, I found out that he’s actually married and has 2 kids, I was devastated and in a state of disbelief but most of all, I was mad, especially after I confirmed this via his wife’s social media account.

We’re still talking and I haven’t broken up with him yet…I planned and decided to show myself to his family on Sunday at his church and let them know that he used me and took advantage, I plan on ending it right there and then.

I’m doing this tomorrow and no one knows except myself, He’s still texting me lies thinking that I’m stupid or ignorant.

I feel terrible but something’s pushing me to do this. Don’t know if it’s anger or feeling bad for his wife and kids..

I just…I’m not gonna lie I’m worried this might backfire on me but at this point, I have nothing to lose, I just feel like I need to get my respect and dignity back after being lied to and fooled for 2 years.

I (42f) told my 19-year-old daughter who currently lives with her fiancé (36m), that she must either choose us or her soon-to-be husband, unfortunately, who she met when she was newly turned 18 at her father’s (49m) business conference.

He has made it seem like we are the bad guys who don’t want them together but that is not it.

We don’t want them together because of who she has become. She is now distant, only gives us bland replies which we know he has indoctrinated her with, she hasn’t spoken to her father at all because she doesn’t want “work issues” between them, which again wouldn’t happen.

He lavishes her with materialistic gifts just so he can manipulate her into loving him or his “company”. He proposed to her just after a year of their relationship.

Now that Christmas is near, we invited her and him over because we knew she wouldn’t come if we didn’t invite him. She still declined and told us she was going to his families bungalow. We tried to tell her they can come a couple of days after Christmas and she still declined.

That is when I called her and told her, “this isn’t going to be tolerated by me or your father any longer”. I informed her that she must either respect our wishes or his and that “it’s either us or him, who do you pick?” and she just told us to sleep because we seemed sleep deprived of the foolish questions we were asking.

I haven’t spoken to her since (three days ago) but am I wrong for giving her this ultimatum?

A while ago, my friend brought up that she had seen my boyfriend on Tinder, which obviously was cause for concern. This wasn’t the first time there had been hints of infidelity since I would see flirty texts and innuendo pop up on his phone all the time, but he would claim that they were jokes from friends. I haven’t been able to confirm nor deny this statement, that they’re jokes from friends, but it’s still questionable.

When I asked him why he still had a Tinder profile, he said he just opened the app to check if his account was still there. This makes enough sense to me, except he also edited his bio and added more photos, so this wasn’t a quick check to see if his account was still being shown, in addition his account was still up even after so evidently he didn’t delete it.

A while later, when my friend said he’s still on, I asked him why he’s still using the app and he said to make friends, which seemed dubious to me. With that said, he hasn’t been on for the last few weeks, but I think that’s because he broke his phone, rather than because of my concerns.

Later, I had another friend he didn’t know essentially catfish him to see if he would respond and sure enough he did. And from my interpretation, the messages he sent were more than just friendly, with innuendo and everything.

I’ve already brought this all up before and he’s had excuses (the flirty texts are old and from friends, he opened the app to check, he’s just using it to make friends, etc) and through my posts, I’ve come to the conclusion to try and confront him one last time, see what he says.

But my most conclusive piece of evidence is the fact that I catfished him and I don’t know how to reveal that. I’ve already brought up the other pieces of evidence before, but I should’ve saved it all up and presented it at once because by doing it in small chunks, I allowed him to create little lies and time to think about an excuse. So I don’t know how to bring up the older pieces of evidence without coming across as really naggy.

I don’t want to just dump him without any explanation, but I also can’t think of a way to bring up that last piece of info without looking like a complete psycho. In addition, there was some glitch where my friend and I lost the Tinder chats so I don’t even have any screenshots to confront him with.

I’d like to have some evidence just so I can watch him squirm and also make it clear that I knew what was happening. I don’t know, maybe this way he won’t do it to someone else.