I am stuck and I just need help in dating.

Things like height, looks, race, physique due to medical condition, balding, skin conditions (incurable), etc. make it difficult to date. A lot of times these things are beyond a person’s control. Sometimes, they may not even be bad things but the main populace has a lower perception because of them. I am gonna call these things “downers” for simplicity sake.

You may say whatever you want but I have seen (from my own experience as well as peers) how much difference these downers make.

I have more than one of these downers which makes it even worse. I strongly believed that I would not let these downers dictate my life.

I tried my best to make the best out of what I could do. I improved myself in areas that I was weak and tried to present my strengths in a better manner. Some examples would be conversational skills, having more empathy to others, exercising (within my abilities) and controlling my emotions a lot better.

To be honest, it kind of worked but not the way that I expected it to. I started to make more friends and more people also trusted me. People actually come to me to have random or fun chats (things like these never happened before).

So what went wrong?

All of these friends are either male or married/attached females. It took quite some time for them to see my true self so yes, it takes some time for people to see my “better” side.

Dating apps don’t do these as most of them are based off pics or short desc. (I really tried my best to put a good profile but it is just hard). I get very little matches, mostly no matches.

I tried joining activities (sports, dating, social, etc.) to meet new people but most of the time, it is either the time spent is too short for them to see me, people are already taken or they are more interested in people without downers.

After all the effort, no progress at all……

Why do I feel so sad today?

Because something happened and it hit me really hard, like super hard……

One of my female friends saw potential in me and tried to recommend me to her friend. It was suppose to like a blind date thing (no photos). I was very hopeful because my friend said that she would highlight my strengths while describing me to her. Now that I think back, she didn’t really describe much about her friend but I was open to meet anyone at this point. She said that I had a very good chance with her.

However, she told me that her friend was not interested. She said that she heard about my downer and immediately rejected me. She did not give her a chance to describe about my personality or strengths. She was not even willing to meet me.

I don’t know why but this incident kind of crushed my confidence….

I don’t know why I am being equated to something that is beyond my control and not being evaluated for my personality.

I have no idea how to proceed anymore.

I feel lost.

Please help me…..

How do I (23F) tell my boyfriend (30M) that his comedy is bad
My boyfriend has recently gotten into stand up comedy, and he loves it which is great! He has met a lot of cool people and has been doing open mics for a couple months now. The only thing is, he isn’t very good.

Now I know people need practice before they’re good at anything and comedy is one of them, but I get second hand embarrassment really bad and I can barely stand going to these open mics anymore just to watch him bomb every time.

He got a couple laughs the other night and it has sent him into this idea that he’s really good, and has been asking places to give him a full hour set. I cannot watch him do comedy for an hour. He posted one of his sets online and people were commenting either things along the lines of “oof” “yikes” or “good try” and he still can’t grasp that maybe he isn’t as good as he thinks and needs to work on material.

What drives me the most crazy is he doesn’t change his material, he has been reusing the same jokes that historically haven’t gotten laughs over and over again expecting them to finally get a one.

I know I’m probably being a bad girlfriend but if I have to sit though his comedy one more time I’m going to have a brain aneurysm.

Local employer being childish and judgmental

So I was previously employed in a company. During the interview, everything was painted so beautifully, and the interviewer did whatever they can to make you go onboard.

They claims that everybody is nice and friendly, no politics and it’s a nice environment.

So being a fresh graduate, thought everything was genuine and just joined the company, and even had to pay for joining the company.

But as soon as I joined, it was the start of my nightmare. The staffs were all in their own groups, messing around during work, and nobody was doing work seriously.

They hired interns to do cold calling for them so that their existing staff don’t have to. The interns did cold calling for the whole period, and didn’t learn anything else.

Apparently their logbook to submit back to their schools was just, cold calling everyday. I really pity them for doing work for other people.

Anyway, the boss is very fake. He would pretend to ask about your progress, and if he knows that you’re near to closing a sale, he would take the lead from you and end up closing himself.

So after a few months, one if my colleague didn’t managed to close any sales. And this became the reason that she was terminated on the spot.

However, the next day, one of the colleagues messaged her and said the real reason why she was terminated.

There was a negative review posted online about the company. The boss assumed and insisted she was the one that posted it, without any clarifications.

So now everything became clear to her. An employer that doesn’t seek any clarification from the staff and pointed finger at that person and fired her on the spot.

Where’s the logic to this. And some time after she left, this company still calls and disturbs her family and talked bad about her! Is this company sick?

After hearing this from a female colleague JC, I immediately tendered my resignation and left shortly after. How can such people run a company. I really hope they get their retribution soon. Poor girl.

Does anyone else hate their husband?

Omg I detest him

Married for 7 years with a child

Super misogynistic and prideful, earns less than me and I pay for most things at home and for child. Still has the cheek to say that I am too proud to let him pay, when he doesn’t contribute at all! What he wants is to pay for meals whenever he wants to and I should be super grateful for that.

Not good looking with muffin top over flowing and does not keep up with appearance

D— small like cocktail sausage and never satisfied me once.

I work full time from home, earning much more than him, cooking, doing housework and fetching kid daily, he only helps once a week with housework and he said that I should be grateful and he can say and do whatever he wants since he “helps”, as in it’s my duty. Still can show me black face when bad mood. And I can’t do the same if not will turn into argument.

I don’t take a single cent from him and why should I put up with all these?

Seriously why am I still in this marriage? I guess I would have walked out if not for my child.

Does anyone hate their husbands too?

Instead of focusing on perception, I’ll give you a list of the kind of universities that scholars typically choose to earn degrees at. Let’s just say I have a wealth of experience in this area as I have 3 degrees from 2 T1 university in America where I have rubbed shoulders with scholars all the time. Disclaimer: I’m not a scholar. I just have rich parents. No need to sugarcoat this.

Tier 1: MIT (seems to be the holy grail nowadays), Harvard (generally for the MPA as a finishing degree), Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial. No student from Singapore would choose any other university if they had an offer to study at any university in this set. These are schools that are off-the-charts in terms of popularity and there’s no debate about this. MIT was always my dream but I could only go as far as its neighbor. Not smart enough.

Tier 2: UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Chicago, Duke, UIUC, any Ivy League university not mentioned in Tier 1. CMU and JHU are less common but still considered very prestigious. I’d put UCL in this tier. There is an extraordinary number of scholars opting for UCL (perhaps it’s a safety) but they almost always do an additional masters from a Tier 1.

Tier 3: Any public Ivy. This includes schools like Virginia, the rest of the UC system, UT Austin, University of Washington, BU etc. These schools are unusual choices, which are often chosen for idiosyncratic reasons (i.e having family in that area, or wishing to get a more authentic experience).

Tier 4: Here’s where the local unis come in. Any school below this tier, including ALL Australian universities, will be at least weakly dominated by NUS/SMU/NTU in preference. Many would pick NUS for medicine or law over going overseas.

Note that the tier list does not reflect the quality of students. Every scholar I know were outstanding students. Admissions are random, especially for US universities. Sometimes you just miss at all your first 10 choices despite having all As. It’s not uncommon. Says nothing about how well you lead. If anything, being good at school only demonstrates your ability to do good work. Leadership is something very different.

In any case, here are several examples of politicians in Singapore who have done remarkably despite having done a first degree at lesser-known universities.

Lawrence Wong is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Khaw Boon Wan went to the University of Newcastle. Teo Chee Hean went to the University of Manchester. Iswaran went to the University of Adelaide. Lim Swee Say went to Loughborough University. Mah Bow Tan, UNSW. Yeo Cheow Tong went to the University of Western Australia.

Those who give your parents money after you started working, how much do you give your parents?

Worth discussing since there was an article that talks about the Maintenance of Parents Act. It is a good idea to know what the rate is like, so I have some leverage in future discussions over such payments.

To help everyone, please include:

How much you are paying your parents each month?

What is covered under the payment? Could include expenses that would have been incurred by you, or your parents’ expenses

E.g I pay $700 a month for lodging in my parents home. That includes air conditioning at night, home cooked food, and groceries during family grocery trips.

Netizens’ comments

• I only gave $300 when I started working. After 9 years I’m giving $500. I’m 30 this year earning about 9k a month.
  $500 is for her day to day living expenses. She stays with my grandma and aunt so no housing payment to payoff.
  I don’t give much because:
  • im the youngest out of 3 (we have a huge age gap between siblings)
  • my father died when I was young, leaving only my mom. She’s semi retired going on holidays every month
  • I’m investing the rest for my own retirement.
  • I have 2 kids of my own with my own bills to settle.
  • once I increase I will never decrease. I have never failed a “payment” as well.
    Also I believe that its a personal responsibility for your own retirement. We are the sandwiched generation, I don’t want to burden my kids and will not expect them to give me any sort of allowance.
    But I do buy dinner and food and other stuff over
• I give $600 monthly to my mum. I feel it’s insufficient considering that she has gone through so much for me but this is what I can afford currently. Now my mum told me she is helping me to save some of the money so I wish I could more 😢
• $700 and staying at your parent’s? That’s not giving to your parents but covering your own expenses/consumption with free lodging. Not to forget your laundry gets done too.
• My mum is still working and my dad has a good retirement sum (used to be quite high ranking in his vocation). I used to give $300 since there’s 4 of us giving money monthly, and I increased it to $350 after 2 siblings moved out and stopped contributing. Plus I got a slight pay increase. My sum covers utilities and any home cooked meals. I hardly use the aircon and eat very little, so that’s my justification lol. I do give more when I get my performance + year end bonus
  I pay for family meals and groceries at times but they will still trf me back :’) I’m also the main caregiver to my niece so most of her miscellaneous expenses are borne by me.
• Depends on how much I earn myself la. But if it’s I’ll give my mum 300 ish if I earn 2-3k when I hit 10k I’ll give her 1k a month.

Running red lights in Singapore

I’ve witnessed more and more cars with blatant disregard for the red light usually at night. And it’s not like they were trying to beat the red light by millisecs. are the 12 points and $400 not deterrent enough?

Just witnessed a passenger van go straight on a red. And that was after a full 1-2s. I was waiting to cross when I noticed the van (a full ~3 car lengths away from the stop line) not decelerating whereas the other cars on the other lanes were already coming to a halt. True enough it went straight through without stopping.

The other time, this “BMW” decided to turn right at a cross junction when the lights were not in his favour. Again, it was not like it couldn’t stop in time. The lights were full seconds solid red.

So yea, usually we are speechless and don’t have time to react to take pic/video when these cars run the light. I noticed there was a polcam on the lamppost. so just after i got back, i decided to write in to report to the TP giving them the approx time and the vehicle plate which I roughly made out. I also informed them to refer to the polcam with lamppost number (if there is any footage they can recover)

I wonder if they would action on it

I’m F31 and I accidentally got involved with my blood relative. I have 3 triplets.

David and I have always had an active S life and he’s met all my family. We have been dating for around 3 1/2 years now and everyone loves him.

My Mom and Dad adore him, and always insist I bring him over with me when I come around. I love David, truly. David and I decided to have lunch out with the family while the kids were at school.

Everyone kept joking around saying how I and David looked so alike and how we should do a DNA Test. I agreed because it sounded fun, the thought of David being blood related to me wasn’t even close in my head.

But, who doesn’t want to take a DNA Test at least once in their lifetime? Time skip to when we are getting our results for our DNA Test. We are shocked to find out we are blood-related. I am baffled. I didn’t know what to do and neither did David.

The first thing I think of is how our kids are now inbred. Inbred children often have health issues and most of the time don’t even live past 50. I am disgusted with myself, knowing that I have doomed my kids for a bad life.

But I’m also thinking of how this is still the love of my life. David is my one and only soulmate. I love that man with all my heart. I contact my mom only an hour after we got the results asking her what she knew about a possible brother I had.

She said that before I was born, she was only 16 and gave a baby up for adoption since, at the time, it was extremely hard to get an abortion. I asked her why she didn’t tell me, why didn’t she actually bring up an issue when I and David looked so alike. He is my half-brother.

She responded by telling me that she believed there was no possible way that David could actually be blood-related since David’s adoptive mother didn’t even live nearby. I am shocked as SINGAPORE IS SO SMALL and doesn’t know what to do.

I will not be breaking up with David. My parents have cut off all contact with me because of this. Telling me that it was disgusting that I’m staying with him. But I don’t know what to tell them. I love David with everything I have.

You guys need to understand that these scenarios happen to people. Although it’s extremely unlikely, pretty much anything you can think of that’s possible has or will happen. I know this is a hard story to take in but instead of shitting on me, please give me advice for this situation. I wouldn’t bait about something as serious or as weird as incest with the father of my children. Please stop assuming the worst about me.