I’ve been dating a girl for 3 weeks. I’m breaking up with her already.
My new GF invited me to a dinner wifh her parents. Cool, why not. I’m serious about her so I think it was fine for me to meet them (in my culture, it’s highly encouraged for parents to meet their kids’ new partners regardless if they’re already an adult or not).

When I finally met them, I noticed that her dad was quiet. Like, EXTREMELY quiet. It was like he’s a statue or a ghost. The only time I heard his voice was when he introduced himself to me and it sounded like a whisper.

Her mom, on the other hand, had a booming voice. Her laugh could shake the entire house and her actions and reactions were so over-the-top. I felt awkward and drained of energy just by watching and listening to her.

We ate dinner and my GF and her mom were so loud to the point where they would even scream while laughing so hard while they would slap the table.

But the thing that made me frown was that her mom would hit her dad whenever she would laugh. And it wasn’t a friendly hit, either. It would probably classify as a hard slap every single time. I could see her dad twitch in either pain or surprise, too.

It was hard watching and listening to them so I excused myself to the comfort room to compose myself. When I got out, I saw her dad standing by the hallway and he seems to be waiting for me.

His exact words were, “Be careful. They’re the same. You’ll get hurt in more ways than one.” and then he went back to the dining room.

The entire evening went by with no more words coming out of him. It was literally just her mom talking endlessly.

Those words stuck to me like glue and, even now, I hear it loudly in my head.

It made me see my GF’s red flags so clearly. The way she would casually (and painfully) hit and slap me while laughing or excited, the way she would ALWAYS find something to punch or kick or scream at when she’s angry, and how she would throw things in frustration or whenever she would lose in games like UNO. There was one time where she screamed at my face so loud that I heard ringing in my ears.

The signs are all there, and I pity her dad who’s been enduring that kind of treatment for decades from her and her mom. I truly hope that he gets out of there someday.

That’s all. Wish me luck, guys.

Should I lend my friend money

I have this friend that in recent months I have realised, only contacts me when she needs something from me, never to hang out.

This year we have only spoken twice and both times it was just to ask me to lend her money. She has yet to return me the money I lent her previously.

Naturally I’m already kind of irritated that the only time she thinks of me is when she needs money, if not it’s all crickets from her. Seriously, even now that I’m down with covid, not even a “get well soon”. Just “lend me money”.

Kind of annoyed by her but also wondering if I should just do a good deed and help her.

Am I the a-hole if I say Idw to lend her money although yes I am in a financially secure n stable position and technically I can lend her the money….

What would you do?

Edit: people seem to think I am a guy trying to get into her pants but I’m a girl so no, my friend cannot offer me anything that I want physically.

My wife tracks me using “find my phone”

Me and my wife are married for a long time now. I travel a lot for work and meet a lot of customers before covid.

That includes dinner meeting which usually run late. I have my iPad connected to the same ac as my phone.

In 2019, when I came home once after a dinner meeting , I saw that the find my phone app was in the background.

I have a habit of closing all the background apps when I’m done. I thought my wife must have accidentally opened it.

The same week I had another meeting, I came home and I found the app open in the background again.

So I started checking when the app is running in the background and it’s always when I’m out late or travelling. I decided not to talk to my wife about it since I don’t feel any good coming out of it.

P.s., I always tell her where I’m going, who I’m going with and try to keep her in the loop as much as I can.

Netizens’ comments

• Literally, just talk to her about it. Be up front, hey I noticed that you are checking my location “how come?” You are in a relationship, you should be able to talk about it without games.
• Some nights my boyfriend is late from work. Once he dozed off while driving home and ever since then when I see he’s particularly late home instead of bothering him by calling him (distractions while driving, if at work could get in trouble) I just check to make sure he’s not on the side of a road. Ik not everyone uses it for safety but that’s why we use it
• My husband and I both use it. We use it as a safety tool and a way to know when to prepare for whatever it is we might need. For example if he’s not home when I think he should be, I’ll check and make sure he’s not stuck in a ditch somewhere needing help. He says he does the same when I’m out with friends.

Car rental company is threatening to send legal debt collectors to my house, what should I do?

Hi, I’m currently in a sticky situation where my current company which I have a contract with is refusing to fix the car which I use to work.

Context: I am required to pay weekly rentals until the contract ends which is not until next year April/May.

I had gotten into an accident about 2 weeks ago (fault was with the other party), and ever since then the car has not been fixed.

The company has openly stated that they will not fix the car, and have requested that I come to collect the car in its damaged state as they “do not have enough money from the insurance to repair it”.

Furthermore, the car is somehow more damaged than before and I have photos to prove it.

As I do not want to use the damaged car and the company does not want to fix the car, can they actually legally pursue me?

As far as I have read, no where in the contract forces them to fix the car, and therefore do not know if I have any legal highground here.

Chances of getting an office job with zero qualifications? Specifically in the Admin/HR/Accounting line, but I’d take anything I can get.

I’m currently working full time retail while pursuing a part time degree. Lately it’s been getting harder and harder for me to balance my classes and my work as I’m working full 11 hour shifts. In essence, whenever I’m scheduled to work, it essentially locks me out of doing whatever else on that day, be it finishing my school work/projects or attending classes in general.

Until I’m able to graduate, at the moment I’m setting my sights on a normal 8.30am to 5.30pm office job as it allows me to attend my classes normally, which are always in the evening, and having 2 guaranteed days off on the weekends to do my schoolwork and fulfill real life obligations. More than anything though, I just want to get out of retail. The huge caveat to this is that I have literal zero qualifications for jobs like these as all my prior qualifications have to do with art, designing, or retail.

Most jobs I’ve been browsing on sites like jobstreet do expect a diploma qualification at the minimum even for entry level positions. I haven’t begun sending my resume and portfolio yet but I just want to get some insights for now, because if this doesn’t pan out, I will need to think of a Plan B. Thanks!

Tldr; Looking to transition from retail into a entry level 8.30am to 5.30pm office job in admin/HR/accounting with zero qualifications while pursuing a part time degree. What are my chances of landing jobs like these? And are there any tips to enhance my chances?

My date and I have been dating for close to 2 years. She mentioned that she was a single mum before we decided to try things out. She’s my first relationship. During the first 8months of our r/s, it was perfect. She would come over to my place almost every weekend and my parents really loved and doted on her. Sometimes my mum even mentioned that it seems like she’s gained a new daughter in her life. They very much agree that we can get married following her and help to support us to get a dream use of our own. We decided to come clean with my parents after and I was hesitant to ask her to be my GF despite her signaling that she needed me to ask verbally. In front of family and friends, we would still call each other BF and GF. But something held me back and I couldn’t ask the question as I kind of wanted my parents’ “approval”. I know that if my parents could accept, I couldn’t be the BEST BF for her. It was an internal battle that I have to fight within myself. Nonetheless, I really treated her as GF. I brought her to meet all my friends and relatives. She can check my phone anytime she wants and I’ve been giving her full transparency and access to whatever she wants and needs as she’s quite insecure due to her previous r/s. As for her kids, we hang out once in a while and we are pretty much comfortable with each other. They like me as a fun uncle and won’t mind if their mum would find a ‘new’ man that truly loves her like me.

After breaking the news to my parents, my mother was initially still quite receptive for a month. As a woman, I believe that she can understand and be empathetic given that she’s experienced similar events before. (Cheating and etc) As the months go by, she starts to react differently and act up every now and then. I admit that it was a really complex and sticky situation and I was immature in handling this situation. As a result, my “date” has to compromise on some occasions and I had to make her wait or cancel her because I wanted to maintain a good impression of her in front of my parents. Since then, my GF stopped coming over, we usually hang out outside once to twice a week. The situation with my parents has been damaging our relationship in a certain sense as we do not really get to share a common space and private time together. I am unable to go over to her place either. We are like two homeless people whenever we hang out or date. Sometimes, it does feel terrible that even the basic physical companionship of a relationship cannot be provided. Although, we were much bonded in other ways – daily video calls and etc. Doing work together and all.

There were multiple events in the past where my parents had acted up unreasonably and things became really hard to manage. Sometimes, my GF and I will have to give in. Both of us did hit our boiling point and blew up. My parents and I went through several countless conversations to talk about this issue. At end of the day, the conclusion was that they couldn’t accept the situation of the two kids. They can’t seem to even see things from any other point of view or perspective. When trying to hold an argument they could not even provide a reasonable and sound statement. It will always end up with ” I just cannot accept”.

My parents are traditional and they do not share a loving relationship together. Hence, throughout the past two decades or so, I unknowingly became the pillar of emotional/mental support for the family. It’s like I’ve become their entire world and not part of their world. It’s pressurizing and quite burdensome but they don’t seem to understand what’s the issue here. They have expectations of wanting to live together even when I find a wife or have a family. My mum has some paranoia – she thinks that she’s going to lose a son if I were to move out or marry my date.

At the end of the day, they just simply couldn’t let go and even wanted to use my name to purchase a landed property together. (LOL, knowing that my date and them cannot leave together) They have many excuses like – say is for its investment and my own good but just cannot accept that it’s for their own selfishness. Trying to guilt-trip me by saying things like where got parents beg children to buy property together, I only do it for your own good and why am I wrong? In the past, I would give in as I was brainwashed by this emotional manipulation for years. But now, I would not and the reason is simple, the love you have for others might not be how he/she is receiving. Some love is burdensome and some love can be damaging. I guessed it’s because I’ve been cordoning to this behavior and know I’ve suddenly changed my view and attitude in a 360 degrees manner. For them, they will never reflect on themselves and perhaps even blame my date for changing “ME” not knowing that their attitude is toxic all this while.

In addition, within the family tree, there were no cases of relatives or friends who are in such situations. Which makes it even more difficult for them to accept or even try to adapt to such a situation. Furthermore, since young, my parents have always wanted to stay or have a closely kneaded relationship with me but knowing the situation that I’m in now, it’s going to be hard. A Daughter-in-law and mother-in-law r/s is actually difficult to handle when living under one roof, not to mention living under one roof with another 2 kids who do not share the ‘same blood’. For myself, I always felt that one should live for yourself and not for others. Just because maybe relatives will judge and I will sacrifice my r/s for these ‘potential’ gossips that could cause an irreversible change that would affect my life? Dating a single mum is not a crime. Just because an r/s failed, a woman has to suffer and the bare the full consequences just because they have their kids along with them?

After 8 months of honeymoon and a year of dealing with the ‘situation’, we went through like 4 months of the cold-war period before. I guessed the damage was done. She started to lose confidence in my ability to deal with issues for years and that the past issues are always brought up every now and then. Currently, both my mum and my date are also in a really awkward and uncomfortable situation to even meet up again. Both of them are kind-hearted souls yet the situation has caused this unresolvable conflict between them. My date has never wanted to see me torn between the both of them. She would never want me to leave my family for her or else she will have to be the ‘black sheep’ in the family forever. My mum understood this fact totally, but there isn’t a perfect win-win situation.

Right now, I can still hold proper and deep conversations with both my mum and my date. But either side has to ‘sacrifice’. My date told me that she has already reached her limit regarding the situation and she said that she doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with this anymore. I know that time is ticking and every action from now counts. I went all out during the last discussion with my parents – stating that I will choose my date and we will work on this journey together as one just like any other ‘normal’ relationship. My parents said that they will think about it and a solution but it will not be a perfect one.

My date is now pressing for an answer from my parent’s side to see if we can really move forward in this relationship. We started to go on staycays and plan for oversea trips together without my parents knowing. Quite sad to know that even at the age of 30, simple decisions like this cannot be respected and have to result in lying and hiding. I just want to be a man for her and provide her with the basic security that any woman would want to have with no restrictions – from parents and etc.

Both of us really want to move forward as she is not young anymore and the kids are growing up every year. Minimally, she will try to work on us only if my parent’s response is not an upright rejection. The reason is that my parents will never be able to accept her completely and she has to live accept this and lived with her head held low for the rest of her life.

Any advice from anyone who has been through a similar situation?

How do you deal with burn out

Recently resigned from my job and currently serving my 2 months notice period. Even though I have leaves to utilize, I only have enough leaves for a week.

Everyday I drag myself to work feeling I might cry and breakdown before I get to the office.

One of the reasons for the burn out would be the KPI. I feel that I was running at 100% capacity everyday and only hitting half the KPI which was so demoralizing cause I started to doubt if I was really hardworking.

After resignation I wanted to be like my seniors and chill out a bit hitting 50-80% capacity. But since my KPI numbers were already so low it would be pretty obvious that I was slacking. But I’m so tired and filled with so much anxiety constantly.

Any advise on how to deal with this burn out while I serve the rest of my notice period?

Existential crisis over my height

As a 30-year-old 170cm guy, sometimes I cant help it but feel some sort of existential crisis whenever I see people posting about their height.

The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that I have been evergreen since the day I was born, meaning that I might never ever get a girlfriend in this life.

I am not young anymore by the way.

I have only 1 simple request, the girl should be around (155cm to 165cm) so that I can feel taller without looking at our relative reflections. Yes, people may judge me for being shallow but I have even tried my luck wooing taller ladies, but no chance at all, so I simply lowered my expectations.

Another thing is girls my age or born in my era are mostly taken or married, so I have no other alternatives other than going for older ones (Against the norm) or younger ones. Yet for the latter, most of them are above 170cm since they have access to better nutrition and fast food since young, so chances of success are nonexistent since they will consider better options out there.

Also, most of the young ladies I observe out there (visually) from some distance, do not have the height in my comfortable zone. I would say my eye level is not sufficiently high to feel signifcantly taller, since my eyes are at most abit taller than theirs. You just cant feel that “height difference shiokness” that the taller guys have relative to shorter girls. It is really that unfair and I need to be able to feel that difference ( At least 5cm more) in order to get romantically/ sexually attracted to the gal ( I really dont know if it is just me)…

Now that my parents are not young anymore, I really wish to settle down soon and start my own family. The thing is, the market out there is really bad as explained by the above factors.

Another phenomenon is that most of my peers are married/ attached. Coincidentally, most of them are at least mid 175 to 190cm and due to my small social circle, I dont have any shorter friends to disprove my assumption.

Will I be doomed to eternal loneliness like Voyager 1? The problem now is I want a partner that can give me that kind of attraction which is possible only in that height range, of course, character also matters but now, availability is the problem…. There are not enough shorter girls out there.

So recently, we found out that one of my classmates (let’s name him Y) is a habitual liar, and has been gaslighting us for almost a year.

On a few occasions, he would quote our professors on things that we need to do in order to fulfil certain criteria of our assignments. When we try to clarify with our professors on these “requests” later, they would say they didn’t speak to Y at all, and didn’t make any such requests. When we confront Y, he would then said he has misspoke, deny the facts or mention that we may have remembered them wrongly.

On other occasions, Y would miss some of our project meetings claiming that he was sick. But then later we had to find out from another friend X who happened to be a personal friend of him, that he was not sick and even went out with X and other friends on those times he claimed to be sick. When we confronted Y again, he continued to insist that he has been sick and say we are overreacting.

To be honest, we have no idea what has triggered Y to treat us with the toxic behaviour since we know each other from the start, and we have not offended him once yet. It has become a little difficult of late to be working with him for assignments and this behaviour of his has affected other people apparently who are not in our course.

Any advice on what we should do?

Found out a guy I was dating was dating several other girls

Met this guy from a dating app. We decided to get together after a few meet ups and I literally fall in love with him.

Confessed to him and he said the same to me. We agreed that this will be a serious RS and promised not looking around anymore. I deleted the app thereafter.

During the RS, he refused to let me meet his parent and friends, he said this is between 2 of us, what’s the point of involving others? I thought okay maybe we need to be more stable before meeting each other friends and parents. He will always been busy and giving excuses not to meet. We can only meet once a week and I’m always the one initiating. I find it pretty weird and fishy.

So one day at his place, I noticed he was still using dating apps to chat with several girls at the same time, meet them, ask them to his place. He somehow will plans his days of the week well to meet different girls.

He used the same tricks and methods to fish those girls depends on what the girls want. If they are looking for serious RS, he will them that he is also looking for serious RS. If they are looking for causal then good for him, can just deal immediately.

He will called them pretty, sweetie, babe, etc. tells them they are the only one he want and only have them with all kinds of sweet words. In fact he only want to sleep with them and he don’t use protection at all despite the girls’ requests. I dunno why those girls okay with it?

The contents he chats with them are the same as how he talk to me as well.

I also notice he follows a lot of girls on IG.

We had a big fight over this and we broke off.

Are his behaviors normal or is he actually sick?

Why are girls nowadays looking for ons and fwb? Is this norm in this society now?

FYI: he’s totally not good looking.