How to turn someone down but not hurt his feelings?

I have a male colleague who i am close to. We work together closely and as a friend we also hang out quite a bit.

All along i knew he had a thing for me but i was not ready to reciprocate.

Recently things begin to get more “escalated” as he offers to do more “boyfriend” type stuff like sending me home, lovey-dovey messages and small gifts.

Recently i came back from a work trip, and he told me “he missed me” and asked me out for dinner.

How should i turn down his advances but not hurt his feelings.

I dont want to ruin this friendship and working relationship.

Should I outright just have a proactive conversation with him about how i only see him as a friend to set things straight?

Here are what netizens think:

• There is no way to reject him without hurting him. Stop accepting his affections and tell him you do not have feelings for him. Anything you accept from him is going to confuse him so play your own part in this and don’t lead him on anymore.

• If he refuses to accept it and if it escalates, you may want to involve a male friend for your own safety.

• It happened to me before and the guy didn’t accept my rejection till a male friend stood up for me. Sometimes some men just don’t take no for an answer.

• Say it directly and clearly that you have no romantic interest in or feelings for him.

• The longer you drag this, the more you are “leading him on”, the more it will hurt both of you when the eventual conversation happens.

• take a step back and dont reply his messages so immediately. since he has feelings for u, u cannot be as close anymore. saying it direct will hurt him.

• I think you should ignore his messages and get a guy to go with you if you want to set things straight with him

• Don’t lead him on. Should tell him direct and if you don’t want to hurt him do it discreetly. Tell him you appreciate his friendship but not more then that. Then try not have lunch or dinner with him and DON’T hang out with him. Don’t take his free ride home.

• Don’t say one thing (like you don’t like him) and do another (leading him on by going out to have dinner or taking his car ride to office or him). You will confuse him

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For context I have lactose intolerance and I’m a big coffee drinker.

Anyway, I go to Starbucks and I get my usual with dairy free milk. I feel I always have to make it extra clear that I can only have dairy free milk or else I reap the consequences.

Now, I can’t necessarily say to the barista “please make sure it’s dairy free milk otherwise in 20 minutes I will be on the toilet while my butt burns in pain as liquid flows through me” as that might be too vulgar, right?

However, it is a very thin line between you not crapping your pants vs you crapping your pants. Sometimes they don’t pay attention as to what’s written on the cup and they simply forget, and you also don’t wanna be the customer to micro manage them and say “uhmmmm you sure this isn’t whole milk?” anyway, I digress.

Didn’t pay attention either to make sure they didn’t grab the whole milk. I drank my coffee while walking and window shopping when all of a sudden I feel the guttural sound in my bowels and immediately think “oh no”

I rush to the toilets on the first floor, just my luck it’s closed for cleaning. I hop on thé elevator quickly to go one floor up but the elevator goes one floor down to pick someone up and of course said person has to stop at the ground floor once more.

We reach the ground floor a second time and people keep getting on and the elevator doors won’t close and at this point I’m clenching my butt so hard I’m quite sure everyone can hear it.

The elevator doors close and we finally go one floor up and at this point I start believing in god talking to myself “please dear god don’t let me shit myself in front of everyone in the elevator”

my bowels were churning by this point, my face started sweating, it wasn’t going well.

Take into account this all happened within a matter of 2-3 minutes but to me every second felt like an eternity. I rush out of the elevator trying not to speed walk to make it obvious, reach the washroom, and sprint to the first toilet I see.

I hate sitting on public toilet so I’m building a birds nest with toilet paper (trying to anyway). This is where I made my grave mistake. I should’ve just pulled my pants down and sat on the toilet. I would’ve made it had I not done that.

So yeah, had it not been for the barista that gave me whole milk, for the man that had to make the elevator stop twice, for the amount of people holding up the elevator as well…I wouldn’t be here telling this story.

I’d like to finish this story by saying this is the second time this year this has happened.

Looking for some help to make sense of the state of my marriage. My husband (45m) and I (36f) have been married for 9 years, together for 12.

We have two young children. If you had asked me last week how we were, I would have said great. We’re the best we’ve ever been in terms of our relationship, finances, and intimate life.

We own our own home, and he is doing well in his job. We don’t have a ton of stress, we make time for our relationship.

Which is why I was blindsided on Saturday morning when I caught him texting an escort for an dirty massage. This is not the first time he’s done such a thing.

I first caught him going in 2012 before we were married. He swore he only went for the massage and only went for a happy ending twice (yes I realize how ridiculous this sounds as I type it out.).

He started going to therapy for addiction and gambling (which is a whole other story) and they came to the conclusion that he sought out these massages as a way of coping with his stressful job (he’s in finance). And he committed to our relationship and stopped. For a while.

I later caught him again in 2016 calling an escort for a massage. He swore he didn’t go, just that he was looking. He went to therapy again, and we went to couples counseling. And again, it worked. For a while.

Until Saturday. He apologized, but I didn’t see the remorse I would have liked. He immediately started looking for a therapist and had a session. After said session, he revealed that he in fact lied to me in 2016 and did go see an escort for a massage 3-4 times, but swears it’s just for a happy ending.

He told the therapist that he has enough respect for me not to sleep with or receive bjs from them. Whatever that means. He doesn’t see this as cheating the way I see this as cheating.

It’s hard for me to make sense of the need. He said (and this is a direct quote), “I have a wandering eye for other women and this is my way to get around that.” He says he likes sneaking around, he says it feels naughty.

We have a great intimate life. It is better than it’s ever been. I do all the things: I give head, I’m enthusiastic, I enjoy it and in fact I have a higher libido than him. Which is why it’s so confusing. I think I’d be able to make more sense if we weren’t getting it on in bed, or if our relationship wasn’t so good. Why isn’t that enough? Why is he willing to risk it all for a hand job?

I feel stuck. He makes quite a bit more than I do. I don’t want to leave him, but how can we keep going? He says he wants to make it work. He’s been calling more therapists. Has anyone been through something similar?

My ten year old son can’t stand affection between his father and I

If I hug my husband, my son will come over after and hug me for longer. When he sees my husband kiss me, my son will glare at his father.

He will quietly make comments like “get away from my mother”. I have boundaries around our children, this is innocent pecks and hugs.

He groans when he hears his dad come home. He has told me he wishes that our family was just me, him and his little sister. I tried to get him to explain why he feels this way but he refused.

I have always been attentive and affectionate with my son. I reassure him all of the time that he will always be my baby and he means the world to me.

I spend more time with my kids then my husband (because of his work schedule) so it’s not him being neglected. My husband is the stricter parent but he’s never mistreated our son.

I’m scared that no matter what I do this won’t change. I feel lost and I’m stressed.

I’ve just found out my parents are alive and that they have other children.

I (18F) was born when my parents were still in school (16/17ish). I have lived with my aunt and uncle on my Dad’s side since my parents “died” in an accident when I was almost 2.

My aunt and uncle didn’t really like my parents as they thought they were irresponsible for having me so young and so I didn’t know much about them growing up.

It was my 18th birthday a couple of days ago and my aunt told me that I had some visitors, the visitors turned out to be my parents and their three other children.

I didn’t really know how to feel, but my aunt let them in and they explained some things. It turns out that they actually weren’t dead, they just didn’t have the means or really want to raise me.

My aunt and uncle told me they were “dead” because apparently they weren’t ever really planning on coming back for me, but my siblings wanted to meet me so they did.

All five of them seem like they want to get to know me, and my parents seem kind of remorseful but I don’t think I believe them.

They literally abandoned me for almost my whole life because they weren’t able to raise me, but the oldest of their kids is 15.

So they decided to have another kid a year after giving me away because they weren’t able to raise a kid?? I don’t really know how to feel about any of this, and I kind of hate my parents, especially because when I was growing up I always wished that I remembered them and that they were still alive.

Need a place to rant and chose here, ignore/hide if you have a problem with this.

Struggling student so I use Shopee a lot.

It is really scamming people frequently these days and I’m very annoyed. In their games, you can win product vouchers. I got one, and immediately after that the seller removed the product from their shop, now I’m left with a voucher of no use.

I spoke to the seller and they said it’s sold out, they don’t know when it’s coming back and since the voucher is from Shopee they said to ask Shopee.

As of today it has been several weeks. Within these weeks I have approached Shopee multiple times with alternatives like how about another similar product? I don’t mind another equivalent, doesn’t have to be that one. They said no, the voucher is only for this product that NO LONGER EXISTS.

What a joke. Also this is the third time that this has happened. Any of you experienced the same? Am I the a**hole for being angry?

How many of you won’t be mad at this?

Gamers out there imagine this – you invest time/money on your games right? Imagine you press upgrade or you won a boss, but at the end of it you see no change to your level, inventory or xp. Then when you ask customer service they tell you that they can’t do anything even though it’s their game. You can only wait till they feel like it.

Also auntys and uncles you buy Toto 4D right? Imagine you win, then the counter says oh we ran out of prize money so you wait, when we have money we let you know again.

And the timeline for when you’ll get your prize is unknown. How many of you would be chill about that?

Seriously?

simei recruiter at bus stop with sick mother?

TLDR: Anyone experienced an old man with elderly mother asking for directions to nearby hospital who then went on to try to get you to join his potential start up company?

I encountered a man who sought help to find the pick up location for the shuttle bus service to the hospital. He was pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair who he said was his mother. I helped him to google to find out where the bus stopped and showed him the way, and while I was walking towards the direction of the bus stop, he made some small talk and asked if I was a student. Unassumingly, I replied that I was a postgrad student.

Suddenly, he brought up the fact that he was intending to set up a start up to solve data issues – and went on to talk abt alot of stuff and said that he wanted to share information with me and asked for my contact.

Skeptical, I said that I was uncomfortable and asked why he would ask a random person on the street to join his company.

He then reasoned that my school had piqued his interest and that he feels like he could learn alot from me. I kept refusing to share my contact and telling him that I wouldnt be able to commit to that. I asked if he had a linkedin account, and then he checked with me multiple times on how to spell ‘linkedin’ – like he didn’t know what it was. He then proceeded to walk back to where his ‘mother’ in a wheelchair was and took his laptop bag which had alot of files in them.

He opened the files and showed me sheets of tables that contained random amounts of expenses on them, and a couple of “financial” reports to assure me that it wasn’t a sham. He also took out multiple envelopes filled with STACKS OF $100 (they were super thick) and he said something along the lines of “see, i’m really doing business” and he proceeded to try to get my contact again.

I told him that I was not going to give him my contact and I told him to pass me his contact and I’ll decide if I want to contact him. He told me his name was Nitin and gave me his HP number. I then said that I had to leave, and he tried to set up a f2f meeting and even said he would bring his mother along so that I would feel safe. I said no thanks and left.

Have any other girls experienced this? Quite worried if there are creeps out there who seem legit.

Additional info:

• He showed me pictures of a bungalow he claimed he was building for his team mates (these pictures were dated back to sep 2021 – can see from iphone camera)
• He was using a broken iphone SE with internet connection – why couldnt he have googled information on the shuttle bus location, right?
• He really didn’t know what linkedin was – at one point he tried to google it and wasn’t even sure which hyperlink to click on to go the website
• His said mother was sitting on the wheelchair and staring into space (she looked dazed, zoned out) in the middle of a busy bus stop
• He says he lives in Windy Heights

Netizens’ comments

• Look. Rule of thumb. If it feels like a trap, it very likely is. The woman could very well be his mother. In which case she could eother be pretending or really sick. Either way, guy’s a POS.
  Just ignore it and move on. These agents are very creative with their methods of getting attention.
• so i’m curious, the mother legit sick and just sat in the wheelchair all this while? good teamwork sia

Random question. Overheard two aunties talking at a hawker centre about this 377A and the convo went something like this.

A: woah 377A repeal now all can love leh

B: that one is the gay one is it?

A: yes the man to man now legal already. Good good I support this shows we are open and supportive

B: oh you support ah?

A: ya eh good what why?

B: I not leh. if ah your son come home and say “mummy I have a boyfriend” how?

A: siao ah he only can date girl else how to give birth and have children

Confusion struck me for a minute. Can you support something but be against it when it comes to your own children? Is it really supportive then?

Or is it the whole I’m open to inter racial relationships but when it comes to my daughter I’m against it kinda thing?

Netizens’ comments

• People can talk freely until it hits too close to home. There is even a survey that shows how many people claim to support compared to the number that actually support their loved ones.
• Spot on. Theres the legal aspect and the societal aspect. The former is relatively easier to change, the latter is much much harder.
• People want to appear inclusive and supportive, but not at the expense of their own comfort zone. It’s hypocritical, but better than being completely against it..I guess? A small step forward is a step nonetheless

I wanna quit, how do i say this?

just ended my shift, first day being a gift wrapper. Tired and demotivated as the way i wrapped for customers wasn’t up to standards. customers even said “Give me the some wrapping paper, I go home wrap.”

I was stressing the entire time, i realised I wasn’t cut for this job at all. I want to quit.

But how do I say it to my manager as it’s quite embarrassing that i have only worked for one day and I still have like two shifts left this week.

I don’t have the motivation do this kind of things right. I will probably go back to my original jobs (f&b) as I feel like I could do better than gift wrapping.

any advices on how to tell my manager about it? thank u

Netizens’ comments

1. During my part time job during uni break I worked in popular – stationery dept.
   Unfortunately I had to wrap gifts when my supervisor wasn’t around.
   Everytime I wrapped gifts I took too long and it’s really very ugly. Some customers even stopped me and wrap it in front of me. I don’t blame them, I suck. I kept doing my job anyway and tried to improve.
   My opinion, keep at it. If anything else its teaching u about the importance of grit.
2. Hi OP- I know this is really demotivating, but stick with it.
   Tell people it’s your first day and you’re still learning how to do it nice.
   The stakes are INCREDIBLY low, you will not ruin anyones Christmas and nobody will die.
   Worth sticking it out and making that money. Unless, of Course it’s easy for you to pick up something else.

Need some advice here. I’ve recently received 2 potential internship opportunities and need some help in deciding and also to maintain the relationship between myself and the organisations.

Just in case it’s relevant to note, it’s for the real estate & development industry.

I’ve approached Company A first to ask for an internship opportunity but shortly received another offer few hours later from Company B.

Here are some profiling:

Company A

– A subsidiary of a publicly listed company in the industry

– Potential opportunity for growth (to jump into or be recognised by the mother company)

– Response for internship opportunity was not firm. I was told to just email them and they’ll ‘see what they can do’

Company B

– A government agency

– (commonly seen as a superior party by the older generations I suppose)

– Firm and keen response from the employer; sounds almost guaranteed that I’ll get the internship

Both of the job scope seem to be something I’d enjoy in, so assuming the pay and location of the workplace are the same,

1) Which company should I go for?

2) How do I politely reject the other, while still maintaining the relationship for future opportunities?

Especially since I’m the one who approached Company A myself, what should I do if I decide to go with Company B?

Thanks and have a great December!