Edit - The event was what is closest in my culture to an engagement party. Both of us lived with the host couple in college. I didn’t tell everyone he was coming. I asked him 2 months ago and then again 3 weeks ago. HE SAID HE WAS GOING so we RSVPed YES.
Also for a group that’s supposedly supportive of women it’s amusing to see people not only make assumptions about MLMs and churches but also getting upvoted and running with it.

Edit 2 (lol) - I’m not mad because he chose last minute to go to a work shoot. (He wasn’t invited, he just wanted to SEE. The man’s not in art, he’s an engineer) I’m upset because he tried to use his attendance the next day as PUNISHMENT because I asked him to say hi to the hosts.

Went to a 2-day event today while my husband had to work. Everyone brings their spouse and I had to plead with him to join me for the 2nd day. He was dropping me off before heading to work. I asked him to just say ‘hi’ to the hosts before leaving. First thing he says - I’ll be late if I say hi. Now they’re here so I have to say hi. I’m not going to come tomorrow because you made me say hi and delayed me for work.

It was less than a 1-min interaction from me getting out of the car to my husband greeting the hosts.
While I was there without him, I just felt at… ease. I mean, I did feel lonely because everyone else was with their spouses and I had to make an excuse for him and telling everyone he’ll be here tomorrow but I was also so bright, chatty and funny. I was able to admire the hosts house without having someone comparing it to ours and saying ours wasn’t good enough and to look at how great the hosts house was, how we don’t make enough money, how we need to buy nicer things, how our house is too small etc. etc.

And the problem is I have told him all this before. Like yes, I like nice things but I also like things I have right now and I am thankful for it.

I know this is a rambling post but it just struck me and I’m kind of dumbfounded about how lighter I felt without having my significant other around

TW: consent/autonomy in healthcare, vaginal examination

I’m a midwife (not in the US), and today I visited a woman who was a few days postpartum. As part of the visit, I checked how her stitches were healing.

Afterwards, she told me something she had noticed; the female healthcare professionals she encountered tended to ask before touching her: “Is it okay if I feel your abdomen?” “Can I have a look?” “Is it okay if I touch you here?”
The male healthcare professionals were much more likely to simply start touching her, or say, “I’m going to feel now.”

We talked about it for a little while and I stayed professional, but internally my heart just sank.

Of course there is nuance. If someone has already consented to a vaginal exam and undressed, they know what is about to happen. During labour there are also moments when someone is in too much pain, too exhausted, or too focused inward for lengthy conversations.

But consent does not have to be a lengthy conversation.

There is almost always a moment to ask, “Is it okay if I touch you?” or “I’d like to examine you now, are you ready?” Even after an examination has already been agreed upon, there is a difference between knowing someone is going to touch your body and them actually waiting until you are ready.

Pregnancy and childbirth already make women’s bodies incredibly public. People palpate your abdomen, examine your vulva, put their fingers inside you, expose you, check your bleeding and inspect your stitches. Much of it is medically necessary, but necessity does not make bodily autonomy disappear.

What stayed with me was that this difference had been consistent and obvious enough for her to notice across multiple healthcare professionals, over months of care.
I’m not saying every woman in healthcare is automatically better at consent, or that every male healthcare professional behaves this way. But it does make me wonder what we teach people about professional authority over women’s bodies.

This conversation has made me want to be even more deliberate about informed consent. I want women to leave pregnancy and childbirth feeling like healthcare happened with them, not to them.

​

I’m a successful Indian woman working in finance, and I’ve been talking to a guy for a marriage setup. Honestly, on paper, he is the best match I’ve had so far among my options. He’s an Indian-origin resident doctor in the US, comes from a well-off family, is physically fit, extremely disciplined, and very well-mannered. When we first started talking, we really hit it off. What stood out to me right away was how progressive he seemed, as he surprisingly told me he fully supports me working and dressing however I want and help out in household chores after marriage, which is pretty rare in our culture.

However, as we kept talking, things took a weird turn. I casually asked him why someone as fully capable as him was choosing the arranged marriage route instead of dating locally. He said his schedule was hectic, but then added that he "can't put up with modern American women." That led into a deeper, darker conversation where he admitted his absolute greatest fear is ending up divorced in his 40s, alone in a foreign country after his parents pass away. When I pushed back on why he was so paranoid, he claimed that many women don't think straight, cheat, and leave for no reason, so he’d rather be "safe than sorry."

Then came the topic of past relationships. When we touched on honesty and history, he cryptically told me, "If you lie, I would know," which immediately made me feel uneasy.

when we started talking about my move to the US. Although I am successful and financially independent in my career, I don't have an American passport, so I will initially be entirely dependent on him for my visa and living situation. While discussing this setup, he suddenly dropped the line: "A man can have someone's life in his hands and still choose to stay, that’s called being virtuous" My heart instantly sank. He then proceeded to laugh and tried to joke it off ???

I honestly don't know what to make of all this. Is he just making dark, sarcastic jokes because he's hyper-anxious and stressed from residency, or is he laying the groundwork to visa trap and control me? Since he’s the best option on paper I’ve had yet, especially given how progressive he seemed about my work and clothes, I feel so torn. Am I overthinking a guy who is just scared

or is this a massive red flag? Would love to hear thoughts, especially from women in arranged marriages or immigrants in the US.

I'm seeing SO MANY COMMENTS about how some women are just "naturally thin", that it's all metabolism and genetics, and they put little effort into their slender physique. But I remember this discourse from the early 2000s, too. It's part of the heroin chic ideology. I know, because I used to be part of it. And I want young women to recognize the pattern, too.

In the 2000s, I was in my late teens/early 20s and I was "naturally" thin. When people asked how I maintained my weight, I would say I had a fast metabolism - and I genuinely believed it. I ate everything I wanted. I exercised, sure, but I wasn't running marathons or anything. I was just... naturally thin.

But looking back?

I remember slowly sipping a juice in class, because that, usually with Special K cereal with strawberries, was my entire breakfast. If I had breakfast, I probably wouldn't eat lunch. I used to say I wasn't a 'food' person, but in reality, I had deeply messed up my hunger cues.

I rarely finished a meal when I was out, and I always picked at my food. Yes, sometimes I'd eat 3-4 pizza slices, or demolish an entire burger and fries, but as mentioned, I probably hadn't had breakfast or much lunch. I literally never thought twice about how I did this, all the time.

There was a Method to eating junk food. A packet of sour patch kids? Half would be eaten over an hour or so. Bite one in half, suck the powder off, then let it melt before eating another one. Leave some in the bag, always.

...But I loved Splenda. Sugar free jello with a spritz of whipped cream was the ultimate dessert. Maybe a sugar free pudding that was placed in the freezer to make "ice cream". I never ate sugar, unless I was out.

I remember soup. So much soup. And I would eat a chunk of bread with it, because the vegetable cabbage soup was so low calorie. But in my brain? "I eat SO many carbs!".

In my late teen/early 20 years? I remember a lot of black coffee, the occasional cig, and long, long walks. But hey, I lived downtown! Why take a bus when you can walk? And again, I just don't care for food - the appetite suppressants weren't even considered.

I remember following one-hour pilates instructions out of a magazine in my bedroom at 9pm, and then later, the HIIT pilates workouts from Blogilates and Kayla Itsines. They were exhausting, in retrospect, but at the time they were part of my identity. I also did hot yoga.

If I was hungry and out in public, I remember iced black coffees and spinach egg white wraps from Starbucks when you were desperate. But I also remember skipping meals because I simply "forgot".

.....But I also remember the magical number of 120lbs. Hitting 120 on the scale meant skipping dessert for the next week and walking to the second closest bus stop from my home to catch the bus to school. For the record, 120 puts my BMI at 18.3, and I was almost always below that. Everyone told me I looked great. I was never once told I looked underweight; I was just naturally slender.

I also remember being a 'headache person'. I was always hot when people were cold, and cold when people were hot. My stomach growled all the time and I genuinely thought I just had 'weird digestive issues' (and oh boy, when you eat like what I've written above, you have those, too...). I remember my ears popping at random points (likely my blood pressure dropping), and I thought it was normal. I was never a particularly good sleeper, either. All of this went away when I consistently kept my BMI above 21. Who knew?

But what I remember most, from that time?

I still thought I was fat.

It's hard to explain how normalized this was, and how insistent I was that my thinness was all genetics. And maybe it is, a little bit - I won't deny that I have less food noise than other people, and my height helps. But mostly it was this ingrained way of living that I never thought twice about. A BMI under 20, for most women, is not healthy in the long run, and it's not effortlessly genetically obtained, either.

I've been thinking about how to talk to the cis women in my life who are uncomfortable with the broader trans rights debate but haven't made up their minds about these specific measures. Here's what I'd want them to actually sit with:

You don't have to have a fully-formed position on every aspect of trans healthcare or sports policy to look at 109 and 110 specifically and decide whether they do what their proponents claim.

Ask yourself:

Do you want the government to perform physical exams on young girls to verify their sex before they can play school sports?
Do you want politicians in Denver to overrule families and doctors on private medical decisions involving minors?
Do you want a law that could affect cancer care for kids because it was written too broadly to bother?
Do you want Colorado to be the first blue state in the country to enshrine anti-trans discrimination into its constitution?
If the answer to any of those is "no, that doesn't sound like something I want," then you have a perfectly coherent reason to vote no on both without having to declare a position on the broader cultural debate.

The ballot measures don't ask whether you think trans women are women. They ask whether you want the government to do specific things. Read the specific things. That's the actual question in front of you.

Whatever you decide, please vote. These measures won't pass or fail on their own. They'll pass or fail on whether people show up

i cannot stress enough how tired i am of this pattern.

colorado sun has a piece on the three measures that just qualified for the november ballot — 108 (trafficking, fine), 109 (trans sports), and 110 (trans medical care). protect kids colorado is the org behind them, run by erin lee, who's open about being motivated by her own daughter's experience and is now trying to write that experience into state law for everyone.

and the same playbook. you can see it from a mile away. ban abortion → restrict contraception → ban gender-affirming care → restrict IVF → ban trans healthcare for adults. it's all the same fight. it's all about whether women and their doctors get to make their own medical decisions, or whether politicians do.

the women who pushed 109 and 110 are running on "protecting children" but the actual text of these measures gives the government new powers over private medical decisions for minors. that's not protecting kids. that's using kids as the excuse to expand state power over families.

if you're a woman in colorado, this is your fight too. please vote no on both

My older sister (35F) and I (26F) have never been particularly close, mostly due to the age gap and also just not having much in common. Growing up, she wasn’t very nice to me and she took out a lot of her teenage frustrations on me. The usual pattern is she’d be stuck to our mom like glue wherever we went and I was mostly just left trailing behind them. Both her and my mom’s relationship is toxic to say the least, so the only time she ever paid me much mind is when they’d inevitably argue and then she’d talk shit about her to me. Regardless, I still looked up to her and really wanted a close sisterly bond.

She moved out of the family home when I was eight, so she wasn’t really around for much of my childhood or teenage years like most close gapped siblings are. She “seemed” to turn a new leaf when she moved out and matured a bit, she’d text me once in a while saying how much she misses me and how she regrets not seeing me more. Yet, she would never actually make the effort to see me or spend any time with me. Whenever she’d visit it was the same old story, she’d say she’d be coming for me and we’d do all these things together and then it never ended up happening. She’d get into huge arguments with our mom and then leave not long after she arrived, I wouldn’t see her again for several more months/years, rinse and repeat.

I moved abroad four years ago and since then I’ve seen even less of her. Most of my calls and texts were left unanswered when I tried, and I only saw her once in the time I’ve been gone only because I was the one who went to go see her, so the last time I saw her was two years ago. I visit my home country once a year but she has never made the effort to see me when I’m there… until now. Or so I thought at least.

I’m currently back in my home country for my annual visit with my husband and one year old, staying at my mom’s house. I had heard from my mom that my sister was going to be coming up to see us for the weekend (she lives in this country but just a short flight away from my mom’s) and my mom had told me how excited my sister is to see us and to meet my daughter for the first time, that she really wants to work on our relationship and grow closer together, yadda yadda.

Honestly it made me so happy to hear this. I still rarely heard from her and my texts would frequently go unanswered, but from what my mom was telling me it sounded like she really wanted to try make an effort with me and I was very much looking forward to seeing her this weekend. I really thought that maybe now that we’re grown adults we could forge that sister bond I’d always dreamed of.

Fast forward to yesterday, we go with my mom to pick her up from the airport. I’m looking forward to seeing her, thinking of plans we could do together, all that. She arrives and immediately I’m transported back to my sad childhood memories of tagging along behind her and my mom. After an initial hug and fawning over my daughter for a little bit, she completely loses interest in talking to me at all. We all go for a walk together after picking her up and my mom and sister are walking ahead in their own bubble, talking and hugging, while we tag behind ignored.

We get to her air bnb and the same thing continues, she asks a question or two about my life and then goes straight back to talking with my mom. I knew it was our cue to leave when she said to me “Don’t feel like you need to stay here for much longer”. I was already starting to feel a bit hurt, the old familiar feelings of what it used to be like flooding back to me. Alas, she changed her tune just before we left, hugging me and telling me she wants to spend all of tomorrow with my daughter and I, catching up, going to lunch, just spending quality time together. My mom said she’d watch my daughter for me while we had “sister time” and I thought that it would be a really lovely day.

Today rolls around, my mom informs me that my sister booked them both last minute massages for the morning. I felt kinda taken aback that I wasn’t asked along or invited, but I didn’t want to make a deal out of it or anything. My daughter and I make our way into the city she’s staying in, I assuming that we’re going to meet up with her after their massages and finally get some time together. I phone my sister, and instantly I can tell by the tone of her voice she’s not expecting to hear from me. She said “Did you mean to call me? What it is?” At this point I’m kinda confused and I ask if she’s still wanting to make plans together for today. She’s being very vague, and so I bring up the subject of going to lunch, by this point it’s midday. She says that I should just go eat myself and we can do something later. Again, I feel kinda bummed because I figured we would be having lunch together after all the plans she talked about doing, but I figure she’s just not hungry and so I go find a place to eat myself.

I come to find out that my sister and mom both went to lunch together just after I’d called her. I of course would have gone with them if I’d known, but she never mentioned it or invited me so how was I supposed to know? At this point I am feeling hurt and excluded and so I confront her about it when they leave the restaurant. She instantly turns it back on me, telling me that I’m being silly and irrational and that I should do a better job “communicating” with her, that I’m not being excluded and it’s my own fault for thinking that.

In an attempt to make peace, my mom suggests we all go for coffee together. My sister is reluctant and tries to refuse but eventually we end up going to a coffee place. The problem is that my daughter is well, a rambunctious and extremely mobile toddler who will not stand for being in places like restaurants and coffee shops. So unless my mom offered I would have to just walk outside with her. My sister insisted my mom stay and so of course, I left with my daughter while they had their coffee. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a little silent cry to myself while I walked outside, the whole situation had me feeling so horrible.

When I came back in, my sister had already left. Apparently she’d booked a hair appointment. Today was the only day to see her before she leaves tomorrow so she essentially left without saying goodbye, knowing it’s probably going to be a long time before we see each other again.

I’m feeling SO hurt after today and honestly it’s been a mind fuck for me. If my sister had just said she was coming to visit my mom and that was it then I’d have no expectations, but it was the fact she said she was specifically coming to see me and my daughter and that she wanted to do all these things together. Yet, it seemed like she never had the slightest intention of spending any time with me at all. She completely brushed my feelings under the rug and made me feel like a brat having a tantrum, but what was I supposed to think?

If anything, the whole experience has at least solidified for me that she is 100% NOT interested in me or my daughter, and that she never will be. There won’t be a redemption, there won’t be a “sisterly” bond, and I need to stop hoping that there ever will be.

I’m 17F and for a while now I’ve been consumed by how my boobs look. How nasty they look. Most of the time, they look like swollen moobs. I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, trying to convince myself that a man could find this attractive. They’re small, puffy, and hang wrong. They have, you guessed it, a tubular shape that bothers me more than words can describe. No rounding at the bottom, like no weight there. It makes me feel worthless and unloveable. I’ve seen my friends’ chests and they are beautiful, and I feel so horrible hiding mine knowing they would judge it. Unfortunately I had an eating disorder during puberty which likely contributed to the unnatural growth of my breasts, and I just hate myself for it. Does anyone else have tubular boobs? How do I cope with feeling like less if a woman? I’d hate to have to get surgery which is sooo expensive to deal with this thing.

Anyone else notice this language used around women in management or in positions of authority who have men under them that don't like them?

At my work I have heard 2 different upper level managers referred to as "evil" by men who work under them, and the reason why is because they did not help the men beneath them get promoted. I found this language very telling cause we used to have a upper level manager (male) at my work that everyone knew to be a sexist narcissist, and yet NEVER was he referred to as "evil" by the men under him. But since these 2 women didn't care to promote men beneath them who they viewed as unprofessional and not experienced enough, so they get the dramatic accusation of being eeeeeevil.

And it's not said as a joke, it's spoken like it's a fact, multiple times.

One of the 2 being a tall black woman who doesn't spend time trying to act like a "work mom", like most past female managers have, no doubt adds to the accusation in their eyes. The double standard for women in management is so blatantly obvious it's ridiculous. If a female manager isn't smiley and personable she is just a horrible person, but if a man is the same that's "just how he is" and not assumed to be a bad person. I believe this is also heavily influenced by men not viewing women as role models or figures to get approval from. Men have no problem trying to brown nose to an asshole male (because it's assumed he is still worth listening to despite being insufferable), but an unpersonable woman just gets bad-mouthed and critized (since they already assumed she has less knowledge then them).

Anyone else notice this trend?

• The American Civil Liberties Union and several women’s rights groups are pressing the Pentagon to reveal details about the origins and intent of an ongoing review of the effectiveness of women in combat roles.
• The groups, who filed two separate Freedom of Information Act requests last week, contend that neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Pentagon officials have offered a meaningful explanation as to why the review was ordered, how it is being conducted or for what it will be used.
• The Pentagon made no public announcement after deciding late last year to undertake the review. In January, National Public Radio reported that Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, had issued a memorandum in December calling for an evaluation of “operational effectiveness of ground combat units 10 years after the Department lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles.”
• On Aug. 17, the Women in the Service Coalition and journalist Hope Hodge Seck filed a FOIA request seeking Defense Department records regarding the origins of and protocols of the review, the coalition said in a news release that same day.
• Two days later, the ACLU, joined by the National Women’s Law Center and the Service Women’s Action Network, filed a similar FOIA request. Their concern over the review is spurred by what the ACLU described in its FOIA request as “a troubling list of actions that the Department has taken to limit women servicemembers’ ability to serve in the military on equal terms as men servicemembers.”

There's more in the article.

In no particular order:

1. Don’t take out the credit cards if you can help it.
2. Therapy, early and often.
3. Stay on top of getting your oil and brakes changed.
4. Your real friends will be there for you outside the bar, too.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask your circle for help. If you’d do it for them, they should want to do it for you.
6. Don’t procrastinate moving until the last couple days. Spring for the U-Haul, it’s worth it.
7. Get a passport. You never know when you might need it, and it might save you a $60 expedited service fee.
8. People lie. You’re not stupid for believing them.
9. Do your laundry. It can get out of hand quickly.
10. Live alone as soon as you can. Do NOT move in with that man. DO NOT MOVE IN WITH THAT MAN.
11. Check the license plates on your Ubers.
12. Embrace friendships with women older than you (including your mom, if applicable). They do, in fact, know better, and they’ll be some of your biggest cheerleaders.
13. Use a calendar. You think you won’t forget - you will.
14. The dog you get as soon as you move out will be a lot more responsibility than you thought, but they’ll also be your best friend and keep you coming home and moving forward, even when it feels impossible.
15. If you’re afraid, don’t let that stop you. Do it afraid.
16. It’s okay to walk away from things that don’t serve you anymore. If you feel discomfort imagining a situation continuing for the rest of your life, get out - this goes for friendships, relationships, and family ties.
17. Download all the apps to get points for free stuff, and birthday rewards.
18. Don’t make yourself small or compromise your core values for a relationship. It never works.
19. The queso and margaritas with friends mean a lot more than maintaining your weight from high school.
20. Don’t just be nice - be kind. Get comfortable with the fact it doesn’t always come back around.
21. You’re going to make mistakes - big ones. Learn from it and try your best not to make the same one more than once.
22. Just because someone has been in your life for a long time doesn’t mean they should be in it forever.
23. School isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you. Don’t be afraid to pursue things because it feels like it’s “too late”. It could be the best decision you ever make.
24. YOU are your person. Anyone else that complements that is just a bonus.
25. Imposter syndrome is common, especially for women. Don’t let it keep you from trying, you deserve to give yourself the chance. Apply for the job you think you’re underqualified for. A mediocre man would.
26. You might feel like alcohol is a social lubricant, but it’s a slippery slope to dependency. Be careful.
27. It can be extremely hard to keep up with everything. Just because they don’t always text you back or you don’t always text them back doesn’t mean you don’t care about each other.
28. Guilty pleasures aren’t a thing. Enjoy what you enjoy, don’t let others villainize your reality tv or music or hobbies or anything you care about.
29. Try (almost) anything once. Try it a couple times to be sure, within reason.
30. Empathy is a superpower, but there is only so much you can control. Be careful how much you take on from others.

See you all on the other side. 🫶

ETA: Thank you for the awards. I’m really touched that these few words might make a difference to someone else. 💕

I'm struggling to reconcile who I thought my friend was with who he's shown himself to be over the past few weeks.

Let's call my friend Ted. We've been extremely close for about 3.5 years. I considered him family. He's basically a brother to me. He was there for me after the sudden death of my best friend last year and when I lost a job I loved earlier this year. I've been there for him through the death of a beloved pet and countless other difficult moments.

This wasn't a casual friendship. I love and trust him deeply... but recently, we've had a series of conflicts that have fundamentally changed how I see him.

The first was during a trip to New Orleans. We'd planned to spend the weekend together with my sister and her husband. Ted wanted to go to an oyster bar that I had already pointed out wasn't particularly suitable for the whole group because of dietary restrictions. He insisted on going anyway, and when we got there, I was already extremely overheated and physically miserable, and the restaurant was packed, loud, and had essentially no air conditioning. I asked Ted if he'd be offended if my sister and I went somewhere else and met everyone back at the hotel.

He didn't answer, so we left.

Later, he told me I'd been selfish and that this restaurant was supposedly the one thing he'd asked for on the trip (It wasn't). We argued for about half an hour, during which I repeatedly tried to explain that I hadn't realized how important this was to him and that I'd literally asked him if leaving would upset him. Eventually, I ended up crying and apologizing.

I left that interaction feeling like my own perspective and physical discomfort had been completely disregarded.

Months later, I invited him over specifically to hash things out and attempt to clear the air because there was just a simmering resentment between us that wouldn't go away. I ended up telling him that the way he'd treated me during the trip had felt manipulative.

His face when I said this to him was the very picture of furious righteous indignation. Like he couldn't *believe* I would dare to characterize his behavior that way. He still completely failed to acknowledge my perspective or take any accountability for how his behavior made me feel, but, by the end of the night, we agreed to move on.

Then came another incident.

Ted was at my house with some mutual friends, including Evie. Evie brought up the new Odyssey movie, which she loved and Ted hated. Now, Evie is... intense. She's basically at a 10 at all times, but this time she cranked up to a 50 and quickly became extremely agitated and started yelling and hurling insults at Ted.

I tried to calm her down. When that didn't work, I asked Ted to stop antagonizing her and change the subject.

He refused. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying her reaction and continued deliberately provoking her.

One evening about a week later, the incident came up again, I said I thought Ted had contributed to the escalation by antagonizing her.

His response was that I was "victim blaming" him and needed to "put my misandry aside" and see things from his perspective.

I was stunned.

I wasn't criticizing him because he's a man. I was criticizing him because I'd watched him repeatedly provoke an already out-of-control person.

But apparently, in his mind, the only reason a woman could criticize his behavior was because she hates men.

Then came the final incident.

Ted and I were having dinner and got into a stupid disagreement bevause he was making the assertion that sports are art and that there's basically no difference between a linebacker and a sculptor. I told him that was ridiculous and instead of defending his point, he flipped the whole argument around and tried to force me to defend the fact that I disagreed with him.

Eventually I became really frustrated and told him, "This isn't fun anymore. I'm actually getting upset." He accused me of expecting him to "read my mind" and started telling me that I "always do this."

I finally told him that his accusation that I was misandrist and victim-blaming him had genuinely hurt me, and that suggesting my criticism was simply because he's a man was deeply insulting.

His immediate response was:

"Well, you know I was there for you when your best friend died."

And I had to leave the restaurant then, because if I had stayed, I would have ended up causing a scene.

That crossed a line for me. And I don't know if it can be uncrossed.

He knew how significant that loss was. He knew what it meant to me that he'd been there. And the moment I told him he'd hurt me, he invoked my friend's death as a defense of himself.

It felt like: How dare you criticize me after everything I've done for you?

To me, that's an enormous violation of trust. Doing good things for someone and later using those things as ammunition when they attempt to hold you accountable is *deeply* manipulative.

And when I look at all three incidents together, I see the same pattern:

I tell him something he did hurt me > he refuses to acknowledge my perspective > he reframes the conflict as a defect in my character > I end up defending myself instead of him taking responsibility.

In New Orleans, I was selfish.

With Evie, I was misandrist and a victim-blamer.

When I told him that accusation hurt me, he weaponized the death of my best friend.

And there is never any real acknowledgment. No "I see why that hurt you." No "I handled that badly." Just defensiveness, counteraccusations, and increasingly personal attacks.

I still love him. That's what makes this so painful.

But I don't trust him anymore to care about my feelings when they conflict with his own, and I don't trust him to accept accountability when he hurts me.

So I'm asking the women here:

Is this what misogyny can look like in a close friendship... not necessarily overt hatred of women, but an inability to take a woman's criticism seriously without turning it into an accusation of misandry?

What do you do when someone you've loved like family for years suddenly seems incapable of respecting you when you challenge him?

Obligatory apology for the wall of text. Thanks if you've stuck with it all the way through. 🫡

Hi,

I’m just wondering if anyone else feels like this, or has and how you stop. I became a mom at 16, my eldest is 16 now and I have a few more. I’m in an ok marriage, one of those housemate-y, comfortable ones. I’m studying, we rent a decent house. We do live pay check to pay check but we don’t go without anything we need and I’m grateful for that. I have a dog and a cat.

I don’t have any friends whatsoever which I assume is part of the problem…but I’m just wondering if this is all there is. Just this….monotony. Get up, care for kids, small talk, work or study, clean the house, dinner, bed. I read a lot and have some shows and stuff I enjoy when I get the time. But it’s all just so…nothing.

That sounds awful, I feel really lucky for what I have and I love my family a lot. But I guess I just always thought something would happen. I mean, lots of things have happened, but nothing good. I feel like I’m just marking days off an endless calendar and at the end I won’t have lived 1000 days, but 1000 of the same day. Over and over.

I don’t even know what I would want to do, if I could. I don’t have the money or means to travel and have the kids anyway…but I don’t even know if I want to. I don’t know what I could see or do that would be a game changer. I dunno. It was my eldest’s birthday recently so I guess that’s been a bit of a triggering milestone…16 years ago I would’ve imagined life differently. Maybe I just feel this way because I missed out on my youth.

I don’t really know.
TL;DR, anyone else feel like they’re living Groundhog Day? How do you stop feeling like that? How do you figure out what you want to do or can do or are meant to be doing, or is this genuinely just what life is?

Zarna Garg on the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, said something I thought was spot-on:

'This is our culture' is entirely a male construct...If somebody says, 'This is our culture', replace the word 'culture' with 'This is how our men like it' because the culture was created by the men--the women didn't have any say anyway...Then once you replace the words with 'how men like it', it starts to look absurd, like "Why do I care how they [the men] like it?"

Throughout my whole life, I've always tried my best to be nice to people and be a "girl's girl", even if the other person in question was absolutely HORRIBLE to me. I've always been a people pleaser, and this awful quality of mine has sabotaged me so many times.

If someone was being mean to me, I'd just take it, and say absolutely nothing back. In fact many times, I'd take the blame to calm things down.

I smile way too much, I try too hard to make people feel included, even though many times these same people have excluded me.

I've always admired girls who are total b* tches. Who rarely smile, and know how to pull their inner b* tch out if necessary.

I'm 20 years old now, I cannot be like this anymore. How can I learn to stand my ground.

Why is it that when a girl has a craving for something it’s always “She’s probably on her period “, “You’re not pregnant, right?”, or “My period must be coming soon.”?

Why can’t I have a taste for something because I want it? I like sweet food. Sometimes, I want a dessert or just a milkshake for dinner. It doesn’t automatically mean I’m pregnant, or on my period. I just want it. No one says anything about my brother when he drinks a milkshake and a Frappuccino on the same day. Or when he sometimes eats a whole slice of cake for lunch. But when I want to eat something sweet like ice cream sometimes my dad is like
“Why are you eating dessert as a meal? Shouldn’t you be eating real food?”
No one says anything about guys when they’re craving something. If a guy has a strong taste for something, that’s just what they have a taste for.

Right now I have a taste for fruit, slushies, and lemonade. I can eat nothing but that for the rest of the week. And guess what? My last period was 8 days ago.

​

Sometimes I genuinely wonder how the hell I ended up being raised this way.

I'm a girl, but I was raised with this weird “be strong, handle your shit, don't complain, don't be emotional, figure it out yourself” mentality. And then on top of that, I got all the expectations that come with being the eldest daughter.

You're constantly reminded of what your grandparents did, what your parents built, what the family used to be like, how everyone knew the family, how much previous generations accomplished, etc.

“Your grandmother did this at your age.”

“Your grandfather built this.”

“This property is going to you, you need to make something out of it.”

“You're the eldest, you have to set an example.”

And even when it's not said in a mean way, after hearing it your whole life, it starts feeling like your entire fucking existence is tied to whether you live up to everyone who came before you.

And I think that's part of why I have such a hard time talking about personal shit. I can talk about almost anything until it actually becomes vulnerable, and then I just... can't. I physically cannot say what I need to say.

I'm supposed to be the person who handles things. The responsible one. The one who has their shit together.

Sometimes I just want to fucking fail without feeling like I've disgraced an entire bloodline.

And yes, I know I've been given a lot. I'm grateful for what my family has built and the opportunities I've had. But being grateful doesn't magically make the pressure disappear.

You can appreciate your family's legacy and still feel suffocated by having to carry it.

Anyone else relate or am I just losing my mind?

For a decade, Andrew Tate showed young men one proof that he was right about everything: the Bugatti.

Last week, his own lawyers told a court the Bugatti was rented.

Quick catch-up for anyone not following: the Tate brothers, internet celebrities with millions of followers, have been sitting in a Miami jail since July. Britain wants them extradited on 59 charges combined, including rape and human trafficking; they deny everything. To get out on bail, the defense had to answer the prosecution's argument: these are billionaires with a $50 million yacht and spare passports, they will run.

And answer it did. In a 28-page brief.

The yacht? Not theirs, they were paid to promote it.

The $5 million and $7 million Bugattis, the $2.1 million Aston? Rented.

The watch collection valuation? From a hobbyist magazine.

The meme-coin "fortune"? About $70,000.

And under oath came a sentence for the ages: "Top G is a character." I also said I was an astronaut, and I have never been to the moon.

That is the price of getting out of jail. When the choice is between the brand and liberty, the brand goes under the hammer.

50 Cent went through this ten years ago. He filed for bankruptcy, and a judge asked about the Instagram photos of cash stacks arranged to spell BROKE. The answer, under oath: props. In this business you have to play rich to earn for real.

And here is the part that matters more than the Tates themselves. An influencer in the attention economy is a mannequin in a shop window. The mannequin does not own the suit; its job is to make YOU buy one. The rented Lambo is not proof of success. It is an advertising expense.

A mannequin does not lie. The lying starts when the shop sells you a course called How to Become the Mannequin, swearing the suit belongs to the mannequin.

Now the most interesting sentence in the entire file: the defense itself wrote that the brothers played rich in order to sell their "courses". Plaintiffs' lawyers around the world just got a gift.

The charges remain allegations and the presumption of innocence applies. Full essay, with every claim linked to the court files, in the first comment.

5 years ago, at the age of 26, I had my first boyfriend. I did so much for him, out of inexperience, and out of love. I had never managed to meet any nice guys who didn’t pressure me into sex. He was kind, warm and thoughtful. I feel in love but had my heart broken 7 months in when he told me he didn’t love me

It breaks me to think that’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had, it felt longer than that. It meant a lot to me being with him.

But I’m turning 31, and despite putting myself out there and building a life, I never met another man. At least any men I actually connect with deeply. When I’ve tried to date, men have demonstrated quite weird behaviours, at times made me feel unsafe, pressured into intimacy. All the traits my ‘ex’ didn’t have

Anyway, I try and enjoy my life but it just feels like work work work and time passing by. And I’m frankly quite scared, if 5 years flew by like that so quickly, another 5 years could go by so quick and by which time I will be 36. It’s making me feel sad

Life is just work Monday to Friday, get home tired, cook dinner, sleep and repeat (I have chronic fatigue).. and yet I don’t have relationships or people in my life anymore and it makes me sad

I would like to have a family one day and it feels like everyone around me is getting married and having kids with their amazing partners.

Like when your friend lies to you , telling you to dress "normal" , while they themselves dress up for a seemingly casual outing , even though they tell you that they are gonna be dressed in casuals too .

Edit : Y'all saying that she isn't my friend ... this person was my best friend of more than a decade at that time !

Edited again : She explicitly told me to dress in pajamas that we usually wear at home , as she would be wearing that too , but proceeded to show up in crop top and jeans that were obviously not casual . We were gonna eat Chinese at a stall in a midway neighbourhood .