I accidentally found out my coworkers don’t like me.

Today I tried to do a nice thing for one of my coworkers. She mentioned she had a craving and so when I was getting my lunch I picked up the food and drink she wanted too on a whim.

I gave it to her and went to the breakroom to eat.

I guess I got the wrong type and flavor. When I came back from my lunch she told me to ignore the instant message she sent me.

Naturally I read it since it was the first thing that popped up when i logged in. It was some not-so-nice things about me that she meant to send to our other coworker.

I tried to keep my composure but I had to go to the bathroom to cry. I’ve always been kind of an outcast, but this was a huge blow because I thought my coworkers genuinely liked me.

I feel like even at 28, no matter how hard I try to fit in and be nice, I somehow mess it up.

Netizens’ comments

• Your coworkers don’t deserve someone like you
• Stop doing them favors, keep it strictly work related.
• Unkind people never like anyone. They don’t even like each other, they just enjoy being nasty together.
• This is a reflection of your coworkers and not you. You sounds like the best coworker ever and your coworkers sound like children gossiping and passing notes. Who insults someone who provides such a kind gesture? Garbage. OP, you sound awesome.

As a male, what can you do if a drunk female friend touches you inappropriately?

I don’t feel comfortable telling this to anyone so I’ll just anonymously say it here and leave out most of the details.

A few months back I was in a chalet with a group of friends and one female friend seemed to be particularly drunk. At one point she was touching me at various places that I was not comfortable with (chest and groin area).

Part of me thinks that it’s not intentional and she doesn’t realise what she was doing since she was drunk. But the other part of me thinks that it could be her using her “drunkardness” as an excuse?

But either way even if it was intentional, I don’t think there’s much you can do as a guy? Go the police? They might be laughing me out of the police post. Confide in my friends about it? They might just be teasing me about it.

Though there might be a possibility that I am just overreacting even though I’m still affected by the incident.

Netizens’ comments

• Make a police report immediately. This comment section smh. Imagine if the roles were reversed. Ppl here would be slamming the guy. He would no doubt be reported. His life would be over. Why should it be any different just because she is a woman?
• If a guy did that to a girl he would’ve been arrested already. So just report police if she does it again and make sure you have evidence
• The police will take you seriously if you are considering to do a report, but sadly, society as a whole won’t.

Coworker thinks I am looking for job coz I am on LinkedIn and told boss

I use LinkedIn to read articles and some interesting technical topics. My cubicle mate seems he’s been spying me for long. He says something like oh you’ve been on LinkedIn all day hor.

I want to be polite so I asked him whether he is on LinkedIn so that I will connect him. He said “No, not active”

Then proceed to say “What are you looking for? Hope you are not looking to change” I thought he joked. Later in afternoon team meeting, he joked in front of Boss and team “Nanda has been active on LinkedIn. We better learn his codes before he leave them to us”

Made me look bad in front of Boss! I’ve been furious all day. How do you deal with this kind of a-hole?

FYI, I don’t want to leave (yet, at least for 2 years). I just want my coworker a-hole to leave me alone.

Sometime, there are down time that we have nothing to do. I use LinkedIn during those time. Compare with my other team mates like they are either playing MLBB or tiktok on their phones, I read articles.

Netizens’ comments

• When you do leave and manager asked the reason, just blame it all on this colleague. “I was just reading news, but then xxx intrude my privacy, put me in bad spot, and i felt bad & pressured (self-fulfilling prophecy), so the best thing is for me to resign”
• Might have to thank him. Maybe a raise is on the way if they don’t want to lose you.
• Actually can be a blessing in disguise as maybe your boss may look into your welfare and pay. of course if your boss asks you then just explain that you are not looking for any new opportunity at the moment.
• ‘Well I am not leaving but when i finally decide to leave, it’ll be because of xxx’s constant minding of my business’

As my husband packed his bags for a business trip, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. He had been acting strange all week, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“Are you sure you want to go on this trip?” I asked, trying to hide my concern.

“Of course,” he replied, avoiding my gaze. “It’s an important opportunity for my career.”

I didn’t believe him. Something was definitely wrong, and I was determined to find out what it was.

I followed him into the bedroom, where he was finishing up his packing. I sat down on the bed and watched him, trying to read his body language.

“Who is this trip for, exactly?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

My husband paused for a moment, then turned to face me. “It’s for my boss,” he said, his voice strained.

I felt a surge of anger and betrayal. My husband’s boss was a woman, and I had always suspected that he had feelings for her. Now, it seemed like those suspicions were confirmed.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said, standing up and facing him. “I don’t trust her, and I don’t trust you.”

My husband’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice rising in anger. “I’m not doing anything wrong!”

“I don’t care,” I replied, my voice shaking. “I don’t want you to go on this trip. I don’t want you to be alone with her. I don’t want you to have the opportunity to do something that you’ll regret.”

My husband tried to argue, but I wouldn’t listen. I was determined to stop him from going on the trip, no matter what it took.

In the end, my husband reluctantly agreed to cancel the trip. He was furious with me, but I didn’t care. I knew that I had made the right decision, and I was willing to face his anger if it meant protecting our marriage.

Over the next few weeks, my husband and I had many difficult conversations. We talked about his feelings for his boss, and I made it clear that I would not tolerate any infidelity.

Eventually, my husband agreed to transfer to a different department at work, one that didn’t have a female boss. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.

His salary decreased by 15%. But looking back, I know that I made the right decision. I may have caused some tension in our relationship, but I also prevented something much worse from happening. And for that, I am grateful.

As a young man, I was always a little reckless with money.

I had a credit card and I used it often, without really thinking about the consequences. I figured that as long as I could swipe the card and get what I wanted, there was no need to worry about paying the bill.

But that all changed when I received a red demand letter in the mail. It was from my credit card company, and it said that I had failed to make a payment to my account. I was shocked. I had no idea that I had let my balance get so high.

I quickly went through my purchases, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong. I saw that I had charged a lot of clothes, gadgets, and meals out with my friends. I had even used the card to pay for a trip to KL with some buddies.

But now, looking at the red demand letter, I realized that all of those expenses had added up. I owed the credit card company a lot of money, and I had no idea how I was going to pay it off.

Panic set in. I didn’t want to default on my credit card, but I also didn’t have the funds to pay the full amount. I called the credit card company and explained my situation, hoping they would work with me.

To my surprise, they were actually quite understanding. They offered me a payment plan, which would allow me to pay off my balance over time. I was relieved, and I quickly accepted the offer.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The experience taught me a valuable lesson about the dangers of using credit cards without thinking about the consequences. I realized that I needed to be more responsible with my money, and to make sure I could afford what I was buying before I swiped the card.

From then on, I made a conscious effort to change my spending habits. I started keeping a budget, and I made sure to pay off my credit card balance in full each month. I also cut back on unnecessary expenses, and focused on building my savings.

It wasn’t always easy, but over time, I was able to get my finances back on track. And I never forgot the lesson that the red demand letter had taught me: credit cards are a useful tool, but they need to be used responsibly.

I’m in my late 30s, so I’m more of a millennial than a Gen Z, but recently, my company has been taking more and more interns, who are Gen Z (and mostly chinese), and here’s my experience with them that I cannot comprehend.

During COVID-19, I was working from home, and because of cut back work, I found myself spending a lot more time on Instagram than normal. There were a few posts about how Asians in America were getting spit on, hit, and the likes of it. It’s really upsetting, and in the bottom of the comments section (you know how if someone you followed comments on a post, it’s the first comment that shows up) I see one of my interns commented some lengthy passage about fighting racism against Asians everywhere. I “liked” that comment and “liked” the post, and scrolled on.

In the next batch of interns, (I’ve had 3 batches on interns since that post), the same thing happens. I’m on Instagram, see some post about racism against Asians in America, one of my interns post a lengthy comment (or make a story), I “like” the comment/story and scroll on. There’s this one particular intern that comments about her experience fighting racism where she mentions that her boss (not me) called her “the Chinese one” when referring to her (she very conveniently didn’t mention how there were only 2 interns that day, her and another Indian girl, and the Indian girl was called “the Indian one”). Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t see how that was remotely racist, or even how she “fought” racism.

Recently, there’s a meme of John Cena going around where he says, “早上好，我喜欢冰淇淋” (bing chilling meme) or something to that effect, and again, one of my interns makes a story about how this is incredibly racist, and how she feels like this is a hate crime against Chinese people and the Chinese language. She then shared a tiktok (completely unrelated to the bing chilling meme) where the creator was sharing her experience growing up in a family who has a heavy PRC accent in America. The creator was clearly very emotional and I felt bad, but my intern shared the story with the caption “We need to stand up for ourselves”.

I don’t know if it’s just me being ignorant, but why are they (my interns who do this) so obsessed with making other people’s experiences their own? The more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Like complaining about racism while living in America makes sense. It’s a famously racist nation where Asians (Chinese people) do get hate crimed. But we live in Singapore, where the majority race is Chinese, so what racism are you (my interns) facing? Why do you need to stand up for yourself? It’s one thing to be empathetic, it’s another thing to impose someone else’s experience on yourself just because you happen to have the same skin tone.

I’ve also noticed that all the experiences I’ve had are with my female Chinese interns (this “trend” of placing Chinese-Americans stories as their own happened a lot of times, I just wrote down the most memorable ones) but I don’t really know what to make of that.

Edit: A lot of people in the comments think that when I say Chinese interns, I’m talking about PRCs. I’m not, these are Singaporean-Chinese interns

Netizens’ comments

• Playing the victim is very popular these days.
• A lot of young people nowadays are severely lacking in self-identity so they just blindly ape from whatever’s trending on social media. Maybe you’ve noticed this, maybe not, but successive generations have become more and more insecure about everything in their lives including their self-identity.
  
  That’s why as you said, you see them blindly latching onto foreign issues and feeling vicarious outrage over things that have nothing to do with them, simply because they think they share something in common with whoever’s on the losing end in whatever shitty situation is happening abroad. We are defined not only by knowing who we are, but also who we are not, and what we stand for/against. Lose that fundamental grounding of self-awareness and confidence in one’s own identity, and suddenly the other legs holding up one’s self-image (who we are not, what we stand for/against) become inflated in importance beyond all reasonable proportion.
  
  This is not something anybody can help with apart from oneself, in this case the female Chinese interns you mention. I guess this is the real-life manifestation of a description often used on SG Chinese females as “blank sheets of paper” without character or personality (or shallow ones at best): anyone and anything can draw on them and they simply accept it with learned helplessness and zero critical thinking.
• Imo, the younger generation (Gen Z) are more exposed to social media where they have easy access to look at their peers’ lives. This leads them to compare themselves more with their peers. So they’re more vulnerable to feel insecurities compared to the generations before them.
• You gotta recognise that they have been living in a bubble all their lives.
  Right now, they are looking outside their bubble, and it is dangerous/offensive to them. Although they are still in a safe space.
  Dude, you can’t change anything. Just stop liking their comments.
• people just want to be the victim soo badly nowadays. like how everyone self diagnoses themselves- maybe they want pity or sympathy??
  i’ve had friends support BLM and voice out against all the hate crime in US but when i shared my personal racist stories, they turn a blind eye or try to justify the other party.

I’m bothered that a girl I used to sleep with is now getting with my coworker and has asked me to lie that we didn’t sleep together.

2 and a half years ago I had a couple nights with a girl I work with on the same team. It was never anything serious and with Covid happening as well it naturally fizzled out. No drama and we stayed amicable.

Only now she has been transferred into the exact same team as me again and has entered into a very non-subtle FWB situation with one of my other coworkers who I get on pretty well with.

He has a thing about not sleeping with women somebody else he knows already slept with, and he got a hint that something had happened between me and her so asked her.

She lied to him and told him no, then called me to ask that I confirm the story.

For me what happened between us is well in the past, but this request has pissed me off and honestly I don’t know why.

I feel a bit disrespected but then also, it’s over and I don’t want to do it again or anything.

I offended a guy because I took my bf to the restaurant he introduced me to

So I (19f) hung out once or twice with this guy from my school. One day he told me to put on a nice dress and meet him at 8 because he was taking me out.

I told him that no, he wasn’t. He was 31 and I found the age gap creepy. He was really mad and cried that he “thought my answer would be different”. I never talked to him again.

Well fast forward a few months and I’m dating an amazing guy. He was my friend for so long, and I should mention that this other guy didn’t like him for some reason.

my bf and I frequently go to the restaurant that he and I went to once. He said it was his favorite place. It’s right next to my school and is a very popular spot.

Well we just bumped into the guy and he looked so offended. He said I disrespected him and the things he loves by bringing my boyfriend to the place HE introduced me to.

I feel really guilty and I don’t know if I should keep going to the restaurant. He texted me later and said I was just rubbing it in that I’m dating someone else by going to a place I know he likes with another guy.

I don’t know what to say or do, and I feel like I did something wrong.

As I lay in bed with my husband, I could feel the tension building between us. We had been trying to have S all night, but no matter what we did, it just wasn’t happening.

“Maybe we need some lubricant,” I suggested, hoping to break the tension.

My husband let out a frustrated sigh and rolled his eyes. “We don’t have any, and I’m too lazy to go buy some,”.

I felt a surge of anger and disappointment. Was he really so unwilling to put in the effort to make our S life better?

“Fine,” I snapped. “What do you suggest we do then?”

My husband didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be thinking, his brow furrowed in concentration. Finally, he spoke.

“I know this might sound crazy, but what if we use engine oil instead?” he said, a look of desperation on his face.

I was stunned. Using engine oil as a lubricant was a terrible idea. It was dangerous and could cause serious damage to our bodies.

“Are you insane?” I shouted, jumping out of bed. “We can’t use engine oil as lubricant! It’s not safe!”

He then replied: “How about vegetable oil?”.

My husband tried to defend himself, but I wasn’t having any of it. I was furious that he would even suggest something so reckless and irresponsible.

“I’m sorry, okay?” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to come up with a solution to our problem.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You need to start taking our S life seriously,” I said, grabbing my robe and storming out of the room.

I spent the rest of the night on the couch, fuming over my husband’s careless suggestion. I couldn’t believe he would even consider using engine oil as a lubricant. It was just another example of how little he cared about our relationship and our intimacy.

The next day, I decided to take action. I went to the store and bought some lubricant, determined to never let our S life suffer again because of my husband’s laziness.

As I handed it to him, I looked him in the eye and said, “Never, ever suggest using engine oil as lubricant again. It’s dangerous and it’s not something we will ever do.”

My husband nodded, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t realize how serious this was.”

I could tell he was sincere, and I forgave him. But I also made it clear that our S life was important to me, and that I expected him to put in the effort to make it better.

From then on, we made sure to always have lubricant on hand, and our S life improved significantly. I was relieved and grateful that we had addressed the issue before it caused any real harm. And my husband learned a valuable lesson about the importance of taking our intimacy seriously.

Hi everyone,

I need some outside perspective on a situation with my sister. She recently got engaged and is planning a big, expensive wedding.

She’s asked me and our other siblings to contribute financially to the wedding, but I’ve refused. I don’t think it’s fair for me to have to pay for her wedding when I have my own financial responsibilities and goals.

My sister is furious with me and says I’m being selfish and unfair. She’s even threatening to cut me out of the wedding party if I don’t contribute. Our other siblings are siding with her, but I still don’t think I’m in the wrong.

What would you do in this situation? I want to support my sister, but I also don’t want to sacrifice my own financial stability for her wedding. What do you guys think?

Thanks for your input.

Netizens’ comments

• If sister is going to be irresponsible with money, it is ironic to the Nth degree that she would get pissed at someone who is responsible with money.
• Yeah, unless there is some serious missing information here (i.e. sister paid for his wedding/school fees/bail/medical bills/etc with the expectation of reciprocity), OP is in no way obligated to contribute to his sister’s wedding.
• this is ridiculous! Who plans a wedding and expects everyone else to pay for it.