So I’ve spent about 2 years being single. 2018 was when I had my last relationship. 2019 I had some failed attempts at dating but was really too preoccupied with some turbulent times at my job and dealing with some family drama to even bother using a dating app. 2020 Covid happened and since it’s not going away anytime soon I’ve recently started to do the whole dating app thing. And I feel like I’ve kind of hit a brick wall.

It seems like one of 2 scenarios happens with most of the people I match with: The first is when I start talking to them and possibly go on a date with them and it becomes quickly apparent that there’s just nothing there. We quickly run out of things to talk about. We struggle to find common interests, or more awkwardly find that we have opposite taste/interests/hobbies. It’s possible that we may be still attracted to one another on a physical level but it becomes obvious that there’s no substance there.

The second scenario is that the person I match with do find a lot to talk about and find common interests, and have that more friendly connection but after meeting in person I find that I’m not attracted to them. I might still very much enjoy talking to them but in terms of their personality, mannerisms etc it just makes the relationship very platonic for me and I can’t really get past that. Usually I cease talking to them because I don’t want to lead someone on.

This gets frustrating after a while because it’s really not often that I meet someone that I can click with and connect both on a mental/emotional and physical level. Except for recently, I met someone [29M] who I really clicked with right off the bat. Long text message exchanges all day every day type of deal, for a couple weeks. We went on a date, it went great, hung out at his place afterwards, had a helluva lot of fun (no hook up, just a couple drinks and good conversation), made plans for another date a couple days later. Except when that day came, he texted me that morning to say that he isn’t interested in dating due to personal issues and apologized if he wasted my time. I was kind of dumbfounded to say the least so out of not knowing what to say I asked him if it was me or if I was weird or something and he said that he just wasn’t over quite his last relationship yet. Which, I get what that feels like. But at the same time, it bums me out. 

I feel the COVID affects much more than people think, it has practically destroyed our lives.

9 months ago, my husband was at a friends birthday party, and he was drunk, and he got a BJ from some early-20s girl who was at the party, and then they apparently had S for a few seconds before he stopped and left. He told me the next day what happened. I was devastated, and also somewhat relieved. I am gonna be honest, there is an attractiveness gap between us, in that he is a very hot, fit guy and I am a chubby short woman lol.

I have, somewhat, always SLIGHTLY suspected cheating, its always been in the back of my mind since we started dating, like “why would he not cheat on me? he could get any girl he wanted”. But it was never too big for me to really think THAT much about it. ANYWAYS, when he told me that, some part of me was relieved, in that I know now that he does feel bad about cheating and that he isn’t banging supermodels every week while I’m at work.​

I was still devastated though to a large extent, and I told my sister and mother about it and we talked for a while. They really wanted me to leave him, they have absolutely zero tolerance for it, but I was pretty torn and wanted to stay. I ended up staying. We do have an amazing marriage together, and one drunken mistake that he right away apologized over… it seems absolutely absurd that I could just give up my 13-year marriage over it. We are very happy together, I couldn’t even really imagine my life without him. Hes a bit of an goofball idiot but thats okay.​

But my family, they are seemingly angry with me over my decision. They bring it up to me a LOT, how they hate him, how they think I need to leave him, and how horrible cheaters are. I’ve told them, please, stop bringing this up, its my marriage. They just won’t listen, its like they think I am under some kind of spell.

Did my husband put a gong tao on me?​

My sister is the bravest, most intelligent, and most beautiful person I know.

She survived a relationship where her bf beats her. It took her some time, but she was able to pick herself up and is thriving. I admire her so much for her strength.

She confined to me that she contracted genital herpes. She discovered it after she had escaped. It took a toll on her emotionally and mentally.

I was with her whenever she got depressed about her diagnosis

To make her feel better, I did extensive research during the time to let her know how common herpes is and it’s extremely manageable.

In the process, we ended up educating ourselves on it a lot and we both learned a lot about it. It helped with her coping with her diagnosis.

Whenever she feels down, I remind her about what we learned. Taking medication to prevent transmission is really no different than taking birth control and the odds of transmitting are very low.

The odds of getting pregnant on birth control are just the same as catching herpes when someone is on medication.

After a while, she finally was able to go back out there and date again. She was dating this great guy who I thought was a great match for her.

She then tells me that she decided that he wasn’t the one for her because he was a divorced single dad and she doesn’t want to be a stepmom.

I tried to very gently tell her that, although herpes isn’t life threatening, her having herpes doesn’t give her much options and that the herpes stigma unfortunately provides her with the worst case scenario.

It sucks, but if we’re being realistic, people sadly look down on people with herpes.

People would rather date single parents as opposed to someone like her, someone with herpes.

When I told her this, it offended and hurt her when I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to make her see that at this point, her standards shouldn’t be as high as they are because now her dating pool is limited.

It’s even more limited now since we are both in our 30s. So, if she wants to settle down soon, she needs really think about lowering her standards.

Editor’s notes: You’re talking about stigma and yet stigmatizing her, hypocrisy.

I was around 4-5 years old but it’s still something that I remember up till this day. My mom and I still talk about it.

My cousin was around 12 when he died. We all went to Mandai to attend his funeral services and also keep my aunt company because she was in mourning. From what I can remember, he only had the common flu, which led him to being hospitalized, eventually becoming paralyzed then unable to speak until he passed away.

My family and I lived at my aunts house for a little bit when my mom and dad were newlyweds. I was like 2-3 years old. My mom would tell me about how my cousin would always carry me around and how happy he was to because he always wanted a younger sibling.

I was too young to process his death.

Before his burial, my mom and I were in the guest bedroom, which had a sliding glass window that had these thin white curtains covering it. That window faced the corridor. I was sitting on the floor while my mom sat on the bed to comb my hair and style it. I was singing a commercial song over and over again, until I heard someone clapping enthusiastically outside in the corridor. I looked over to the sliding doors and I see my cousin, standing just outside. It looked like I was looking at him through a monitor.

I got excited to see him because he just looked so happy over my singing, I remember telling my mom “Mom! Jonathan’s outside, he keeps clapping!” I remember my mom just widening her eyes and picking me up then running us both out of the room LOL.

There was a lot of activity before and after his death. A couple of hours before he passed away, my dad and my aunt fell asleep at the hospital because they were keeping him company. My dad woke up then his pager started going off.

There was also my little brothers toy truck that you could ride around with that had buttons that made sounds when you push them that kept going off, even being spammed repeatedly. Random shadows would literally run at you then disappear. Things would get shoved off of surfaces with an intent to break. It got to the point that we didn’t think it was my cousin anymore. I remember me and my little brother huddled under a blanket, terrified while my parents yelled something along the lines of “Jonathan, you need to stop, youre scaring the children and now you’re starting to scare us too.”

That’s most of what I can remember from it but I will never forget what happened.

It’s my 21st birthday, and all I wanted was to have all the people I love sharing space and good vibes. I provide everything, snacks, drinks, entertainment – all you had to do was show up.

I know you can’t do nice things for people and expect it to be reciprocated, but I have always gone above and beyond for my friends.

For example, a few years back before the travel restriction my friend expressed that all she wanted for her birthday was a trip. Without hesitation, I took it upon myself to book the Airbnb, communicate with our friends about travel plans, create an itinerary, and gather everyone at the airport for the perfect trip. I love her, and I wanted her birthday to be special without her having to lift a finger.

I would never ask my friends to do all that for me. I just asked for them to show up. One by one, my friends explained they each had something come up and they couldn’t make it to the party. I let everyone know a month and a half in advance when the party was going to be.

For context, nothing has happened to make people not want to come. Everyone just wound up finding something more important to do. At the very least, I expected them to ask me out to dinner a different night or something like that. But nothing. I feel like not even my closest friends truly care about me the way I care about them, and it’s breaking my heart.

I feel stupid writing this, but I just wanted to get it off my chest.

What netizens think:

• I just wanna say that you’re an awesome person. I always feel guilty when people plan awesome birthdays for me because I’m not the kind of person who can do the same, but they always tell me they just like me being there, so I try to make it if I can. So the people you invited.. especially for them not to ask for a rain check of some sort, that’s just… really mean. I’m really sorry. 🙁

• Wishing you a happy birthday belatedly. Please gift yourself with some new real friends. As for the existing ones I’d classify them as acquaintances and only put in the same amount of effort doing anything for them that they put into coming to your birthday spread.

• Spent my 29th birthday single, crying at a bar and alone. No one even called me. Spent my 30th birthday on a wonderful vacation with my hot new boyfriend, surrounded by friends and having the time of my life. Things will get better 🙂

A couple of hours ago, I had to attend a mandatory google meet for an after-school club. It’s important to note that I have rather severe social anxiety, and I do not like talking during these meets or in any way drawing attention to myself.

Unfortunately, questions were being asked, and everyone had to respond. Even worse, my mic suddenly decided to stop working. There was an awkward silence as people waited for me to answer the question and I frantically typed out my answer and excuse for not being able to speak. Crisis averted.

To avoid this from happening again, I typed out the rest of my answers in advance. However, unlike when typing in a google doc, pressing enter sends what you wrote. It does not go down to the next line. Cue another panic as I realized I interrupted someone with an answer to a question I had not yet been asked.

I quickly apologized and, in an anxiety-fueled rage, moaned in frustration.

Boom. Mic turns on.

Someone briefly informed me that my mic seems to have started working. I chose to ignore them, and instead stared at my computer screen in horror for the next couple of minutes.

The next time it was my turn to speak (about 15min later), I casually mentioned that I figured out the problem, and proceeded as if nothing has happened.

I do not know how many people noticed, nor do I know why my mic stopped and then suddenly started working. All I know is that this will haunt me for the rest of days.

I just needed to ask this here because it has frankly never happened to me before.

I have a crush on a coursemate. He knows I like him because I’ve talked about it and some of his friends have heard it and then told him. So he knows. However, he doesn’t feel the same. We’ve been chatting regularly for 8 months and he has never expressed interest in me in any way. I also know from a mutual friend of ours that he talks to several girls (he has never mentioned any of them to me when I ask him how his dating life is going, in fact he never talks about his dating life with me for some weird reason).

Now, I find it super odd given the fact he knows I like him, he doesn’t feel the same, that he continues interacting with me and initiating contact. He isn’t initiating hang outs and we don’t hang out at school (we barely speak in class) but he will send me stuff on Snapchat, ask questions and initiate conversations. He will watch tv shows and play games that he knows I watch/play, and often base conversations around it. He will also send stuff on snap late night when he is out drinking/doing stuff.

I’m not super experienced, but most guys will freak out if you tell them you like them romantically (as in have feelings) and they don’t feel the same. They won’t contact you at all and they definitely won’t be hanging around you. Or have I misunderstood something? Because this is how I feel when someone has a crush on me and I don’t feel the same. I feel like I have to distance myself for a while, and I definitely won’t be initiating any conversations so that I don’t give the wrong impression that there is a chance of romance.

Why is he still interacting with me despite not being into me and knowing I’m into him romantically? Is this indicate of something weird that gives off red flags?

My partner wants to transition and I feel like I lost the love of my life.

We have been together for nearly seven years, since our schooling days. I love her with all my heart and want to support her in any way I can, but she told me how they feel towards me is now platonic and it really hurts that I can’t be supportive because I know I’m going to lose the person I fell in love with.

It really sucks to mourn the loss of a person who is still alive. This is the end of our relationship and I’m holding her hand while we walk through it together.

Deep inside, I know this will make her so much happier. I hope I can find peace knowing that she is slowly finding herself.

I was gonna propose this year.

Netizens’ comments

• Man that’s rough, hope you find silver lining at the end of this.

• Sorry dude, that’s rough. Sounds like you’re handling this as best as one possibly could. The pain will ease with time, but in the meanwhile hang in there!

• IMO, This person put themselves first and you should too. If it hurts you to walk them through this process then let them figure out someone else to hold their hand through it. It’s not cool to be the only one in agony while you’re propping your partner up. I’m glad they found their happiness, but you should go and do that too

I got really drunk last night and ended up blowing a bunch of money on Macdonald. I spent 44 dollars possibly just on the food. It was at least 44 dollars total.

I first was just gonna get the 2 apple pies then I thought maybe I would get 2 of those and this and that. Then I noticed the nuggets 20 pack. I ate all of them with several burgers.

It’s bad because they did not modify my order when I requested (and paid extra) for special oprder.. no cheese being one. I got extra mayo and all sorts of things but I don’t think I got it.

I am also lactose intolerant and still ate almost everything anyways. It is now early in the morning and my stomach feels bloated and not very good. I thought I was gonna puke earlier but I think I am OK.

I haven’t done this in a long time but I pull a stunt like this every now and then.

I am a bit disappointed in myself too because my original plan was to make chicken and vegetable fried rice. I had just worked 13 days in a row though and was feeling lazy anyways.

Oh well. Life goes on. I guess it’s OK to blow money every now and then and eat unhealthily – it’s not gonna kill me. I just don’t feel great about it. Oh well.

Here are what netizens think:

• I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t help but laugh while reading this. This is such an iconic stoned story, and I’m sure down the road you’ll look back at this and die of laughter

• I mean you could consider it a reward after working for 2 weeks straight. It sounds like a lot of fun tbh

• Damn spending $44 at mac is actually kinda impressive

• I have this issue too. I can’t stop myself from binge eating if I get too drunk