My sister and I both met a guy on a night out. He was very drunk at the time and kept saying he found my sister very attractive.

I met him a couple of weeks later (without my sister) and egged him on to go for her, but apart from that we had a good conversation and got on well together.

I respond to my ex colleague’s daily good night texts. Am I unintentionally dating this guy? My friends say I am even though he’s married and twice my age. I’m 27 and he’s in his early 50s.

I left my previous job 6 months ago and my favorite ex colleague (who’s in senior management of a different dept) kept in touch with me. I’m pretty sure he does this with many colleagues.

The one thing he started doing after he left was send me “good night” texts. He never did it when I worked at the firm, and I doubt he sends that to his male coworkers.

But I always thought he just sent that to a bunch of people in his life.

I confronted him about the good night texts and he dodged my question by saying that colleagues had mixed feelings about the daily MORNING digest emails he sends out to a few hundred people everyday. When I left the company, he added my personal email to the distribution list so that I still get his daily morning email.

Am I in the wrong for responding to his daily good night texts?

He’s married. I like him because he’s always been supportive. He has said some alarming things over the phone such as “if we were married/engaged, etc”.

He has never mentioned his wife to me, which is odd because he talks about everyone else in his family (dogs, cats, daughter, extended family, etc) – I’ve only heard of her through other colleague.

My friends think I’m helping him cheat on his wife by responding to daily good night texts. He hasn’t missed a day in 5 months.

Aladdin looking for Princess

I grew up in a very run-down rental HDB in the poorest part of Sg and I didn’t get to go to school. However, I consider myself pretty street-smart and eloquent.

If I wasn’t born on the wrong side of the tracks, things would have been very different for someone like me.

I can no longer see a future for myself because of my background and upbringing but I believe that I could escape poverty if I could somehow could end up with an educated girl from a rich family. I am thinking of an only-child daughter? Or two daughters family to avoid unnecessary family politics.

Sometimes I feel bad when I think about it but upon reflection the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. The rich don’t feel bad when they take advantage of loopholes in the system meant to help the poor like me. This is the only way for me to escape my fate.

I hope somewhere out there a rich girl reading this will give an Aladdin like me, a diamond in the rough, a chance to break out of my circumstances. And realise my own potential.

Here are what netizens think:

• There are lots of people out there who was born poor, didn’t have a proper education but somehow make a niche for themselves. That’s because they don’t waste time on fantasising about marrying a rich girl. They go out and make their own money.

• You’re just hopeless if you’re reading this. Don’t be lazy. Work hard. Count your blessing

• Think many Aladdins looking for princess and many Cinderellas looking for prince too…..

• If you can get access to the internet, there will always be ways to work yourself and your family out of poverty. All the best!

• Born poor but doesn’t work hard and expects to be wealthy. You need to wake up, Aladdin had a genie that granted wishes. If he didn’t have that genie, he wouldn’t have had any chance with the princess….

“I’m a woman in my 30s, and recently I came to know this 16 y.o guy who finished his O-levels and is working as a part timer at my workplace. He was a temp worker and on his last day, after our shift ended, we had a chat over a meal at the staff canteen.

He seems like a nice, shy guy. I think we had quite a good chat then, atmosphere wasn’t awkward and the conversation flows well.

During our chat, he asked for my social media account (I think he phrased it across two times) but I did not give him, as then I was thinking since I might not be going there to work again hence probably “pointless” to keep in contact as I am kinda tired of those one-off/drifted friendships, and also I am not that active on social media.

And we departed from there and walked in different directions. Somehow we managed to end up in the same train cabin (the train was pretty crowded), I noticed him but I think he did not see me.

So on my way back home, I suddenly felt bad and regret that I rejected him (in a nice way) for not adding him as friend on my social media.. I mean he at a young age, probably would have mustered all his courage to ask me for it whereas I did not appreciate that.

Also after that I think it would be quite interesting to have such young friend (which can be like a younger brother to me if the friendship goes on) to share about perspective in life etc since huge age gap.

Somehow this regret feeling of losing a potential friend have been going on in my head. I am not sure whether if still able to meet this guy again or anyone who is that young age with good and mature character (based on first impression of him, he seems to be that way).

Maybe if fate allows and we will meet again or the saying – the right people will be in our life? So even if we do not meet again, I shouldn’t be as bothered about it as everyone we meet in life is kinda fated?

Maybe I am thinking too much and that I should not feel so deeply about this and I should just open up and make more new friends? Probably I am feeling this way as I don’t feel the closeness I have with my other friends hence it felt like I have lose a potential new “long-term” friend (I don’t know).

This is just a rant. Anyone who have similar experience, may kindly share your story too. Or any comments or suggestions what I should do or change in my thoughts etc are welcome too!”

Editor’s note: Hmm, fishy…

How do I open up to my conservative friends and family about our girlfriend in a polyamorous (MFF) relationship?

My wife and I have been happily married for 4 years. Six months ago, we both found a girl (I’ll refer to her as C) who melted our hearts. We both went on separate dates with C and eventually she moved in with us.

My wife isn’t mentally prepared to have children yet, but C recently got off contraception after a consensus decision.

We never felt a need to talk about our relationship with others, and many of them think we are just close friends, but we realize it has become somewhat pressing that I inform those around me about our relationship.

When we first started dating, I was able to open up about all of the ups and downs to my best (male) friend. But one day, his fiancee audited his texts and told her that she didn’t approve of him talking to me about polyamory – which I thought was quite petty and insecure – and so I lost that pillar of support.

Many of my close friends are in very committed marriages that motivate their normative views of what makes an acceptable family unit. I tried to steer conversations towards this topic a few times, but no one seems to take it seriously.

The most frustrating response is when you can tell that they think it’s some form of infidelity or fetish.

I also tried to gauge my parents’ opinion on this and asked casually if they were OK if I sought a second wife.

But my mother was vehemently against it with all kinds of non sequitur reasoning, such as “You don’t have enough time to take care of both wives.” (I’m usually the one being taken care of!)

And now that my parents have warmed up to my wife and really dote on her, I feel they’ll be even more outraged if they knew I was about to start a family with C.

My wife and I want C to feel co-equal in our relationship and don’t want her to have an awkward introduction to my friends or family.

It’s quite frustrating that everyone is accepting of the relationship in my wife’s and C’s social circles (my wife is American and C is Dutch), but it is only my Singaporean side that comes across as dogmatic and intolerant.

“I have been married for about a month and the romance is dying fast, because I am discovering my husband has many weird habits whenever he thinks he’s not being watched.

For example, when he watches football on the couch and doesn’t realize I am doing work on the table behind, he will slide his hand underneath his shorts and scratch his private parts, before bringing said hand up to his nose and taking a deep, invigorating breath, as if one were doing meditation.

Other times, the scratching results in some dirt that he rubs between his thumb and forefinger into a little grey ball of death, which he EATS.

Lastly, sometimes the scratching dislodges a strand of pubic hair, which he examines with keen interest in the same way David Attenborough looks at insects on plants, before sucking on it.

I have gone down on him many times and I can assure yall that it is not Bengawan Solo down there.

So why is he smelling, eating and sucking on by-products of his nether region? Do all guys do these?? How do yall cope with this disgusting side of your husbands/bfs???”

I want to abandon this account if I get weird DMs.

Paying my boyfriend’s credit card debt…

How stupid of an idea is this?

My situation:

1. This month my boyfriend of 3 years is moving from overseas to be with me!
2. A lot of the external factors that kept him spending (friends who couldn’t pay rent, etc) are going to disappear, and even though he is moving to a high-cost-of-living city, his expenses are going to drop dramatically
3. He has a lot of credit card debt. I don’t know the exact amount. At least $10k, possibly up to $15k.
4. We are both in well-paying professions. He already has a job for when he moves up here, and if it falls through, he’ll be able to get another one easily.
5. I have significant savings and a high savings rate.
6. He is looking forward to his credit card debt disappearing once and for all.
7. There’s a very good chance that in the future we will get married, and then “my” and “your” money will turn into “our” money. So him being in a financial rut effects my future.

So here’s my idea: Currently, I have a spreadsheet for my family and I that tallies up the monthly expenses (rent, utilities, extra things like if I pick up cat food etc). When the boyfriend moves in, the sheet will be adjusted to add him in.

Instead of him paying me that $X a month, I will extend to him an interest free loan for that amount, and he will contribute that much more towards his credit card debt (along with him paying considerable amounts of his own money; this would basically be helping him pay it down faster) .

Once his credit card debt is paid off, he will start paying me back. If the relationship dissolves, he will still owe me the money, it will still be interest free because I’m a kind soul.

Has anybody else here tried something like this? How did it go? Am I crazy for doing this? It just kills me that he’s probably paying 20%+ in interest (did I mention that he frequently forgets to pay things on time? Fortunately two months ago we sat down and I helped him set up autopay for all of his accounts).

The only flaw I see with this plan is that this upcoming year, I was planning to start paying my parents back for Uni (I owe the about $28k, in the form of an interest free loan.

After you subtract this loan, my networth is till around $140k). My family and I were planning to discuss the terms of this repayment over Christmas.

My dad hinted that faster payoffs mean that they will reduce the amount I owe them (ie, just gift me money) so I don’t know if paying for my boyfriend’s major reoccurring expenses will get in the way of this. I don’t think it will; I’ve got a decent amount sitting around uninvested, so since it’s not making me any money anyway, I’ll probably just hand my parents a significant percentage of the loan in a lump sum.

To make it clear, my idea was not to simply be paying a lump sum to eliminate his debts. It would be to defer his portion of rent/utilities/etc until after his cc debt was handled, so that he could pay it down faster.

Got called at a wedding. Walked away without saying anything.

(33M)Went to a wedding last week, first one since COVID. Thought I’d spend a little on a new suit. Tailored. Got dressed up. The wedding was fun enough, but then…

I went to get some air and on the way back, one of the bridesmaid (Late 20s) and two female friends (Late 20s)were standing near the door leading to the dinner hall, clearing scanning for someone.

Bridesmaid: “Look for the hot guy in the blue suit.”

(I’m in a new tailored blue suit)

Friend: Yeah he was hot….

(I walk past…)

Friend #2: Is that him?

Bridemaid: Ew, no he’s ugly.

(I continue walking, pretending I didn’t hear)

I don’t think they were there to judge me directly, I think they were just loud and didn’t realize that I heard the whole thing, but still it was cruel and I spent the evening doom scrolling. This has taught be an important lesson, no matter how much I spend on clothes, watches, haircuts. I’m just ugly. My face is doomed. Last time I dare to hope.

Anyway, I walked away without saying anything, which was tough, but when I got home and tired to sleep, it just kept replaying, over and over and over.

I hate my life so much sometimes, honestly.