A couple of months ago, I made a new friend via a group of mutual friends and saw this girl whom I thought was really pretty and has a good personality.

She likes someone else from our group and they have been hanging out together exclusively, though they don’t consider themselves dating.

Whenever I meet this group of friends, I try not to interact too much with this girl directly as I’m afraid that I may grow to like her (because I already find her very attractive) but I’m already attached in a stable relationship.

We all met up today to gamble at one of our friend’s houses.

During the initial mingling, somehow she ended up sitting next to me on the couch and she started talking to me, asking me about my vacation as I just returned from an overseas trip.

I know this just seems like small talk but I thought it was still nice that she bothered to ask me some details of it.

Then when the group started playing blackjack, I had already sat down but she also ended up choosing a seat just next to me, even though it was not the only empty seat available.

Throughout the entire session, she was seated quite closely to me; our arms touched at some points, she also crossed her legs in which they were sticking into my direction and body language wise, she was also seated in such a way that she was kinda facing my side profile.

To be honest, I know she doesn’t like me in any sort of special way but somehow, it still felt nice to be sorta sharing that close physical space with her for that 4 hours. I will not dare to dream of anything more nor take actions of any kind because I’m not the kind to cheat and I do love my gf.

To others who know about this, they will probably just brush it off as an eyecandy but all my past exes started off as my eye candies whom I found attractive and we eventually got together.

I’m meeting this same group of friends tmr again and my gf will be coming along too. I think I’ll just maintain lesser direct interactions with her, but the fact that I’m having random thought of her is annoying me. Not seeking any advice here, just wanted to get this off my chest.

My (24f) best friend (26m) of 12 years is a great person with many desirable traits. He is educated and has a good career and I’m really proud of him for his accomplishments. Since we were kids I’ve always noticed he had really bad hygiene habits, but chalked it up to him being a teenage boy. Now that we’re older I’ve seen that his hygiene has not improved with age. He goes to the gym at least 3 times per week but never showers more than once per week, never brushes his teeth, and only does laundry when the clothes are completely stiff. I’ve dropped little hints like if we stay the night somewhere together I’ll ask if he packed shower supplies, and in the mornings I’ll offer to leave my toothpaste out if he wants to use it. I’ve found myself no longer inviting him places because it’s embarrassing when he shows up greasy, smelly and with an inch thick of plaque on his teeth.

Last month he told me he had a crush on one of my newer friends and asked if she was single. I told him that she was, but only recently single and isn’t looking for anything right now. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and decided to contact her himself to ask her out. When she declined, she lied and said she was seeing someone. He knew that one of us was lying to him. When he confronted me I told him that everyone I know thinks he is disgusting because of his hygiene, they don’t want to be near him much less date him. He denied having bad hygiene, and said he does shower and brush his teeth. He left, and hasn’t talked to me in over a month insisting I need to apologize and set the record straight to everyone we know. I think I’m doing him a favor in the long run and he should appreciate my honesty because he is the one who confronted me about why I lied to him about my friend.

My dad is a wildly successful business owner with a tech recruitment agency with operations in New York City and San Francisco, and a net worth in the tens of millions.

We live in a bungalow in Bukit Timah. He always told me and my older brother that we should never aim to be corporate slaves because if one were to commit to working hard for anyone, it should only be for ourselves.

I have been told this multiple times for nearly 30 years of my life. He is also of the opinion that people who strive to do very well in school and for their company, will rarely create life-changing wealth, because they are too socialized to doing well for others.

I have done well in school.

I went to the best IP school and I graduated FCH from law school. Near the top of my cohort. I then got a masters from Cambridge, where I was also near the top of my cohort.

Now that I’ve gotten a big four law job, I feel that my life is comfortable, I make good money, my bosses love me, and I feel no incentive to make it on my own. I was even told in passing that if I keep up my work I could make partner one day.

On the other hand, my older brother is a bioengineer, didn’t do that well for A-levels, graduated from the University of Michigan and then UC Davis, quit his pharma job to start an agricultural technology company in California with four of his friends from college that recently fundraised at an 8-figure valuation.

Recently there was even an acquisition attempt that was rejected. Needless to say, my dad has started to overwhelmingly favour him over me. He went to the same IP school as I did he was just very lazy about schoolwork.

I have a weird upbringing in that I used to bring home great grades from school and my dad was never impressed. My brother is a tinkerer and he built a PC at the age of 14 and back then my dad couldn’t stop bragging to relatives about it. At 16 he wrote a password manager on iOS that made a few thousand dollars in its first year and I literally have not seen my dad so proud about anything that I’ve ever done before. Not even when I was in the Humanities Programme and ranked 3rd on a literature block test in my JC cohort of 1000 people.

One thing he has never done is gave me explicit instructions to do anything.

He has always believed in giving us a lot of freedom to try things and to fail. What affects me deeply is his unwillingness to show any regard towards those who are not inclined to challenge conventional life goals. I once overheard a conversation between him and my mom in the bedroom after he showed absolutely no reaction when I ranked first in my sec 2 class.

He told my mom, “all he did was work very hard studying to do well on an exam, what’s so special about that?” That hurt me deeply. He has this deep distaste for what he believes to be a “typical Singaporean philosophy”—do well in school, get a good job, promote, make some money, retire. Which I frankly don’t know where he got it from since he also went to Raffles College, and he also has a degree from Cambridge.

I respect him greatly and I just wish to get some approval from him. I’m just not an enterprising person by nature. I find it odd that someone would look down on people who do well academically and aim to do well at their jobs. If my brother’s startup hadn’t been an immediate success he would have been working for no pay and no reward for 5 years.

The amount of money I saved in the past 3 years alone gets me 80% of the way to making a downpayment on my first apartment. There was no risk involved. If I keep being on this trajectory I’d have more money than I know what to do with anyway. I honestly don’t need anymore than $5 million to retire comfortably.

I don’t hate my brother. I’m incredibly proud of him even though I used to not be able to stand it when his exam was literally 24 hours away and he’d be twiddling his pen in the living room watching anime. It always seemed to me that he was squandering his talent since I know him to be very intelligent.

He learns things ridiculously quickly. Nevertheless I think the world values all sorts of people and I am incredibly happy that he has the creative energy that startup founders often share.

I just don’t understand why my dad values people like him and not people who can really take an instruction and deliver the best work.

Long story regarding my relationship, please bear with me as I’m looking to help couples that are going through this phase or eventually will go through it.

5 months ago, I decided to end things with my bf of 3 years. During our last quarrel, i felt that we were not compatible and I don’t see a future with him anymore.

I’m looking for a guy that will treat me well, and he is not treating me the way I want to be treated. He is putting way too much priorities over his life and his friends over me. We only meet once a week and it probably was just dinner depending on availability and there were no new activities in our life and it felt that our whole relationship has gone into a stagnant phase, and both of us were not growing at all. Sparks started dying off, I felt like I deserved better, and eventually convinced myself to give up the relationship. And also to make things clear, there wasn’t abuse or cheating involved in our relationship.

2-3 weeks after the breakup(he continued trying for another 4-6weeks), he started coming back to beg me to stay, something that he would never have done for me before. He started saying sweet things like how our break up has affected him and how he can’t live without me. How much he wanted me back in his life and how he would change for me.

At that point of time, i still love him and care for him, but I think this relationship is not going to get anywhere, I spent weeks to convince myself that leaving is for the better good. I was overwhelmed with negative emotions and everything he said just turned me off. So of course I started ghosting him, and took weeks to reply him, despite him sending the long messages about how much he missed me and asking me to meet. Eventually he stopped trying.

I’m actually a stubbornly strong lady, the first two months of letting go, I was in pain, I still love him alot and can’t let go of him. But I told myself it’s going to get better without him. I forced myself to believe that it is over, I will have a better future ahead of me, I will find someone that will treat me better. Everyday, I told myself I will never return to my ex, I deserve better than him. The first month of no texting, I just felt neutral, it doesn’t hurt me as much, as I thought I have already moved on.

Fast forward to a month later after he stopped texting me, I broke down.

The emptiness inside me start to swallow me up. I realised I can’t let go of him, I can’t give him up, my life is not the same without him. The months I spent to convince myself that he is not the right one, fell right through. I was in so much pain, I can’t sleep properly at night, I can’t even set my mind straight.

So finally last month, I let down my ego and reached out to him(lucky he didn’t blocked me). Turns out he is still waiting for me. He told me how happy he is to receive my text, he waited me for patiently all this while cause he felt like I needed the space. He never gave up on us despite my no replies and my resistance to meet him. And now we are back together. Spending the Christmas and New Year together.

He is totally a changed man now. He held to his promises so far for 2 months, I can see he really changed. He is putting his 101% into our relationship now. I guess this is where they say “only know how to treasure it when you lose it”. And the pain that I felt during the break, it’s something I never want to experience again, and I thank god for him not giving up on me during our break up period. In fact this break up period made us realise how much we love each other and strengthen our relationship even more.

To all the couples out there, if there were not lying, cheating, abusing in your relationship, even though at some point you lose all your spark and want to give up on the relationship, asked for a break up, it’s very normal, it’s part of life, sometimes it takes space to deepen your love for each other. If he seems sincere in coming back to your life, there is no harm trying again, at the very worst, you can breakup again in another 1-2 months if you noticed he didn’t change. Don’t let the ego of yourself of not going back to your Ex stand in the way, if he can drop his ego to beg for you to stay, likewise you can do the same.

At the end of the day, we just want a guy that is willing to love us, fight for us and never give up on us.

It’s never easy for a guy to start begging a girl. Likewise, do not give up on your SO. Sometimes we can be really stupid and needs a breakup to realise what we really want.

Of course that is if your SO, is still willing to fight for you. Good luck to all the couples out there and wish your relationship all the best!

Backing out of an offer while they are processing my visa

Hi all, I recently accepted an job offer through email. I told them I would accept the role through email but have not signed the actual contract yet. I believe they are processing my visa at the moment.

I got another opportunity for a different company that offers significantly higher pay then the current offer.

I just want to see if anyone else here had a similar experience and how did it go?

Also if I were to send an email to the first company asking them to cancel my visa and withdraw me from their job application, would there any problems or repercussions?

Netizens’ comments

• Not sure if the company has actually started processing your visa yet because there is paperwork that you must fill out and return, which they will submit to MOM. Typically, the process begins once you sign a formal contract. In any case, it is best to withdraw your application if you have no plans on taking the job.
• Please also sign the contract with the new company before rescinding on the earlier offer.
• I don’t think any company in general would start applying for Visa before signing the contract. If it is an employment pass you can check it online the status of the visa. Not sure about the repercussions. If the first company is professional they will understand.

It all started with a few beers at the family reunion. We do this yearly at a chalet and we eat and drink alot.

We had all gotten together and I had brought a case of beer. My cousin, who I had grown up with, had also brought a few beers of her own.

We had been talking and drinking for a few hours, and the night started to get a little wild.

Before I knew it, my cousin and I had had a few too many beers. We were both feeling a bit buzzed and decided to take a walk to clear our heads. As we were walking, we started to get a little closer. We ended up in a passionate embrace and the next thing I knew, we were in bed together.

My other cousins have already gone home as they got so drunk.

I’m not sure what came over me, but I felt like I was in a trance. I knew that this was wrong, but something inside me just kept saying “do it.” I felt like I was in a dream and I just couldn’t resist. I’m not sure how long we stayed in bed together, but I know that it was long enough for me to realize what I had done.

When I woke up the next morning, I was filled with guilt and shame. I couldn’t believe that I had slept with my cousin. I knew that it was wrong and that it could have serious consequences. I was scared to think about what could happen if anyone found out.

The next few days were a blur. I was so ashamed of myself, and I just wanted to forget what had happened. I tried to stay away from my cousin, but I was too scared to tell anyone. I was ashamed to even think about what I had done.

A few weeks later, I finally mustered up the courage to talk to my cousin about what had happened. We both agreed that it was wrong, but we also agreed not to tell anyone. We both wanted to keep it a secret, and we both wanted to forget about it.

I still feel guilty about what happened. I know that I shouldn’t have done it, and I regret it every day. I also know that it was wrong and that it could have serious consequences if anyone found out. I hope that by keeping it a secret, I can eventually move on and not let it affect my relationship with my cousin.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure if it was wrong or not to sleep with my cousin after we drank too much beer. All I know is that it happened, and I can’t take it back. I’m not sure how I’m ever going to move on from it, but I know that I need to find a way to forgive myself and not let it consume me.