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• 27 Jul, 2026 giving in

  Giving in to depression completely lately. I have lost the plot. Hope I can regain it some time.

  I'm very ultra sensitive to anything. Noises, smells, moods, messes, tone shifts, the slightest rejection, the slightest improvement in other people's lives. I'm so envious, it's not even funny anymore. Comparison is really fucking me over currently. It feels like everyone's lives is so much better than mine, and I didn't even feel that way a few weeks ago. But I'm tired of everyone's cool trips, and shared apartments, and that their partners earn well or even have jobs, that they still have parents they get along with, that they have good friends of their own, that they have people they can message all day that respond, and more. I'm envious of the people that have the type of relationships I want.

  I feel like I'm a bomb about to go off so many times a day. It feels uncontrollable, but so far I have mitigated the worst, somehow. There's just so much anger in me, the type to just come out suddenly, that feels white and hot, that makes your entire body tense up. I feel so defensive, and worthless. I know so much of it is wrong, and it feels like I'm just watching as a virus consumes my brain and changes how I think. Nothing really helps.

  I also don't see treatment as a way to help. I won't get therapy for a variety of reasons, some out of my control. I don't wanna go on antidepressants again because they just make me numb. Nice if the lows aren't so low, but sucks if the highs aren't high either, and they tend to turn me into even more of a robot in the eyes of others. Things need to fundamentally shift in my life, but I don't know how to make that happen. It's all outside of my control.

  Even just 3 weeks ago was a lot better. But it just goes lower and lower. I thought I was already at my lowest and then the following week is even worse. It all feels pointless. Last year was great. I felt very healthy, I did well in university, I did a lot on the side, got married, had a great birthday party... I had a sense of direction, a sense of having arrived. I had a plan, I had options. I had good ideas on what to do to advance and move forward. I was naive in thinking I could do xyz and it pays off and gets me closer.

  This year is just my body falling apart over and over again and some issues always coming up, disappointment after disappointment, disillusionment with my goals and options, and recognizing that my hard work earns me nothing, or at least not enough. I don't like my current job. I tried to change my current job by doing what I can to make it nicer from the inside, and it made it worse. I tried applying elsewhere and it failed. I realized that working in the industry I desired wouldn't be great either and maybe I don't want this as a job. And how, compared to 2025, my body is restricting me more, so maybe I need to stay in my current job that can accommodate that better.

  And also, I just wanna give up. I tried making my work more interesting and ask for more, and either I got none, or people tried to sabotage it or prevent it or are making this hard on me. So why not? Why not do the little work I have each day and then game for hours, or draw, or read? I tried. I tried to be ambitious, ask for more, try to advance, network, go to events, bring in ideas, change jobs both internally and externally, get qualifications, volunteer. It brought me nothing but stress and grief. So why not do the bare minimum and enjoy life? As best as is possible? I already wanna kill myself every second day or so.

  In my current mood/mental illness episode, I have fallen out of love with ambition, with proving my worth, with having goals and achievements and a good CV and a good employer and a few degrees and some papers to my name and a reputation in the space. I think it was a way for me to earn happiness and love, and to have reasons to like myself or be liked by others. But I discovered nothing of that sort comes from it, at least not for me right now. I burn myself out for nothing. I expect something, too much, maybe. And all of these things will not change the political atmosphere, inflation, my spouse's joblessness, my own issues... especially when you have morals.

  I'm increasingly getting tired of that. I understand more and more why some people just commit to being ""evil"" and selfish; working for what gives the most money no matter if it is destructive or run by a fascist, and then use that money to separate themselves from the rest of society, buy comfort and protection, and try to make it as long as possible before we all die. Every day, it lowkey feels sillier and sillier to me that I don't. I don't even like most of society, and as our social security gets reduced everywhere at the moment, it feels like society no longer has your back either. Like you get nothing back from living nicely within it, instead of on top of it.

  And because of economic struggle, extremism and social media, it feels like everyone thinks you suck because of one thing or another, or even wants you dead. It's everyone for themselves sooner than later, I fear. Everyone points at other people to say why they shouldn't have gotten money or support or a voice or lead that group because of xyz flaw or affiliation or privilege. Lots of infighting everywhere.

  And then when push comes to shove, you have almost no money because all those years, you chose to stick to an ethical lowpaid job (gov, NGO, or just a niche company offering a service without being predatory or expanding) while also paying like over 50% of your wage into a social security net that no longer does what it was supposed to, with a pension you will never reach or that will not be enough.

  I've also started playing an MMO to escape a bit, and it makes me think that this is kinda the path forward for me. The MMO is free for a significant chunk of it, and then the subscription costs later on are cheap for what you get. Hundreds of hours of story and other content, able to play games with others, hang out in their apartments and houses, do roleplay, do jobs, trade... maybe this, and stuff like VRChat, Second Life etc. really is the future. Not like the Metaverse, because it just tried to reinvent the wheel in a shitty way when these things are right there.

  But:

  You can just customize your look, irl you can only do so in a limited way, or it is expensive and restrictive, and no one will give you horns or bunny ears irl. You can be whoever you wanna be, irl you are restricted by your body and environment.

  People ingame love your very extra outfit, irl cool outfits are not daily-life-appropriate, impossible to wear, or people harass you over it or take secret videos for TikTok because strangers are free content.

  You can actually earn money and afford nice things ingame. You can actually have a house! You can afford nice furniture and the process isn't nervewracking, as furniture is just easily placed, bought and sold. Irl, you can't afford shit anymore, and all deliveries fucking suck, and measuring around in your apartment is a pain, and belongings seem to hold you back and just cause issues. Especially when you need to move.

  You can run around for hours and do activities you could never do irl. No shitty, ill body to hold you back and have fitness setbacks. No pain. No exhaustion.

  You probably can't just fish, mine ore, blacksmith, fell trees etc. irl, yet ingame you just can, freely, without permits, money, or being on someone else's property or without ruining the environment.

  You know exactly what to do for success, and you actually see what reward you will get and actually get it. Quests are clearly defined, and you just need to do what you're told to progress. None of that applies irl, at least after you finish mandatory school.

  You can meet people from anywhere without leaving your home or paying money. Even the subscription cost is cheaper than activities, cafes, restaurants, or booking some other space with friends regularly. No travel costs, no reliance on shitty public transport or cars. No going outside during catastrophic weather, extreme heat, pandemics and all that, which we will just get more and more of. Online, you can just go to people's plots. No illness transmission risk.

  People are more reliable and show up. Irl, it is a pain to get people to show up. Everyone is busy and already has a full calendar somehow, even weeks in advance, and always with other people or at other places, and never care to plan you in or ask you for your time. Everyone is always online, but doesn't respond, or only responds to people who aren't you. You get like 5 mins of attention for 2 weeks before they drop off again while everyone else around you seems to write each other paragraphs all day. You make plans, and it takes ages for people to rsvp, then some people cancel last minute. But in games like that, you meet people who wanna be there and are very active and there are incentives besides you for them to show up, so they are less flaky. They are much more communicative and community-minded and enjoy social exchange, even if it's just chat. They show up every day, or to set times every week, reliably. They make time, they prioritize, they schedule it in.

  People greet and welcome you. Irl, you are a nuisance, you are a customer, people hate their job, hate that you are there, often don't really greet you or treat you badly.

  Online, you aren't harassed by people spitting everywhere, smoking, vomiting, pissing, littering. You can also just leave, block, mute, report if someone makes you uncomfortable. What exactly happens irl? Nothing. People protect their family and friends. Police don't care. People can just stalk you and there is nothing you can do to evade or make them fade away or hide yourself while outside.

  Online, you can just go there and there is space for you. An MMO cafe isn't full and you won't get turned away, or if the instance is full, just go to another one; it won't be camped 24/7 by pensioners, like irl. You won't get run over or stabbed or blown up in some terrorist attack or by some mentally ill man on the way there.

  I just see no reason anymore to care for the outside, the offline. Offline is where my shit job is, where the shit politics are, where the inflation is, where my body hurts, where any travel or cool event is an expensive disappointment, every visit to a restaurant or cafe feels like a scam, there is garbage everywhere, it stinks, it's dangerous, and the public acts like shit, and cars ruin your life and public transport keeps failing.

  And it's not getting better. No matter what I do, what I refuse to consume, where I put my money, what I vote for. It doesn't matter. I cannot change it. I am perpetually uncomfortable in the offline world. It sickens and disgusts me. I would rather descend into an alternate fake electronic world than deal with this again. I would rather have all my interactions be online in this world, than having almost none, or only ones with significant strain and begging and risk, in the offline world. I would probably prefer to have a relationship or friendship with someone on the other side of the world who makes time and is very available, than with someone who lives close to me or my work yet only makes time every 2 weeks.

  I think my general misanthropy just now is also affected by the fact that I don't seem to get the social contact I need and want lately. I send bids for connection to people and they either get ignored, just emoji reacted to, or it turns south and just causes irritation and annoyance. Like, I sent a funny little quiz to do in the group chat and one person was like "Ugh I won't do it looks exhausting" and someone else screenshotted like every question to rant about how stupid it is. That's not what I wanted it to be... sometimes I paste casual links and then have the most serious discussions about it that I didn't foresee at all. I don't want most of my interactions to be... this. I hate when I need a silly easy little interaction and it ends in arguing or annoyance. People don't respond to polls... no one has aligning schedules for Gartic or whatever... we ask people to hang out and it's like pulling teeth... the people we wanna hang with barely have time, the one that was staying with us just now for 2 days stunk badly the entire time and did other things to set me off and he always brings out the worst in me when playing games together.

  All friends I have are shared and primarily the ones of my spouse, I have basically none of my own. Everyone new we meet is immediately my spouse's friend and not mine, or also mine. I want my own friends, though. And because we are always seen as a unit everywhere against my will, and I can basically not go anywhere without my spouse, I guess the only option I have is online.

  I also have thoughts of self-sabotage. Not show up to my job any longer, cut everyone off, break up, divorce, and die. Stop taking my meds. Stop eating until I starve to death. I just wanna be left alone. I don't have the energy and mental health to withstand all these little rejections and comparisons and disappointments. I don't want any more work at work anymore. Nothing that promises to fill the void or "fulfill me". I wanna do the bare minimum and get by and distract myself with other things so I don't have to be conscious in this body. I wish I could drink alcohol again, and I always have to stop myself to not go back to benzos again. I wish I could do hard drugs and forget myself.

  Even more than that I wish I could receive genuine help, a way out of this that isn't through or dying from it. I wish I could just go somewhere and it gets better. I wish I could take something that makes it better. But just talking it out in some office doesn't help in this case (like it used to, when my problems where manageable within my sphere of control) and numbing myself with SSRIs is less effective than other substances but with way more side effects. What gives.

• 26 Jun, 2026 meme pic

  

• 26 Jun, 2026 working on myself (maybe)

  I think at this point I am here to have an option to change, learn and do it differently, or decide to go my old ways.

  In the past, the interest asymmetry in some friendships and relationships bothered me too much to keep at it. I’d cut people off because I’d rather not have access to them than have this spotty access. I wanted to get over it once and for all instead of having to get over the rejection every other week. Their behavior got me spiraling and I did it to protect myself. I wanted to be the first one to leave instead of being left, and despite it being accidental, their behavior always came off to me as if they could cut off contact with me any time because of how shakey the communication partially was, and mixed signals being sent.

  I dislike that someone who doesn’t feel the same way about you platonically or romantically or is at least way more flakey and reserved can accidentally create an addictive dynamic where you are either in the lowest of lows because they don’t respond when they could, or the highest of highs when they respond and are more talkative than usual. You’re like a puppet that is pulled by strings, and your entire emotional state starts to depend on it.

  It creates this weird reward, this weird feeling of being special when they choose to grace you with attention. Also, false hope, because every time you hope that you have finally made it “in”, into the circle of people they don’t treat like this, but then suddenly they do it again. They inadvertently get you to compete for attention and try to convince them of your worth. 30 people can shower you in love and affection, but that this one is treating you lesser is destroying your brain and it wonders why this one is different. In the worst case, at least.

  I’ve had it so many times before to varying degrees. I thought I had recovered from it, and no longer feel this manipulated or strongly for people, but I am learning now that I just didn’t meet people where I had any asymmetry (or at least I didn’t notice/I must have been the less invested person if there was) for the last few years.

  Now that I am experiencing a person like that again, I recognize that this is still a construction site, a wound. I think I am more sensitive to this stuff because of how hot-and-cold my mum was, super nice one moment and cruel or distanced the next. And me as a kid always hoping that the next time she was nice and caring, it would finally last.

  I don’t like when that happens. It’s unhealthy. But I wonder now: Do I stick it out and finally learn how to deal with it in a healthy manner without losing access to the person? Or do I accept it as a limitation of mine, a boundary, and keep cutting people off as this is a dealbreaker?

  I do wanna be more patient. I wanna learn how to be okay with having to build up trust and reputation with someone over months or years. All I am used to and successful in are connections both on- and offline that are immediately intense and we text a ton and talk about all kinds of things, because these people are open or as “desperate” or lonely or without other commitments or people as I am. I don’t actually know how to integrate into someone’s existing life and connections and not immediately be number 1-2 in their lives. But I think I’d like to learn? Maybe?

  On the other hand, maybe I need to protect myself and realize what I can handle well emotionally and what I can’t, and that maybe I don’t have to put myself through triggering stuff like that.

  But on the third hand (lol), these situations have the chance of happening again and again in my life. So if I could learn to endure the trigger, spot and analyze my emotions, and find a good way to cope while not losing the friendship, wouldn’t that be good?

  It’s easy to see the other party as the asshole, as toxic, as careless. I’ve done ao too in the past in many cases. I felt used, as if I was only good enough in certain moments. But honestly, I don’t think anyone does it on purpose, for nefarious or manipulative reasons. It’s not their fault they want less to do with you or aren’t interested. They could do better communication in some cases, sure, but in many, that is just what they want and anything more crosses a boundary for them, and you gotta respect that without thinking they are hurting you on purpose by dry texting or being hard to meet up with.

  So I think I would like to learn how to not see them as “”abusers”” and how to be more comfortable with temporary or general interest asymmetry.

  How do I do that? One part of me is scared that I am just lying to myself and make excuses for people that treat me like shit and I stay in a bad situation for too long. I remember having this fear since early teen, about a lot of things where this view could apply. But I also have to recognize that someone merely texting less and being less interested in hanging out isn’t treating me badly on purpose.

  So I guess I should start by reaffirming that people can still like and appreciate me without putting me first or second in their life. That it doesn’t say anything about me or them. I almost wanted to affirm that this could be temporary as they build trust and get to know me, but honestly, I don’t wanna affirm hopes and wishful thinking. I can’t know that. I better treat it as a given, forever.

  I don’t wanna think that I can “fix” someone and show my love enough so that their rough shell cracks and they finally trust me enough to like me back the same way. I used to think that way and it was bad; their non-chalance made me escalate my efforts and signals, and it was a waste of energy. I should never feel like my kindness can heal someone or get them to act like I want them to. Even if I know they are capable of the sort of communication and commitment I’d want with them because they have it with other people.

  But I don’t know where to go from here yet.

  I’m a little scared, sad, overwhelmed. It’s a difficult topic for me.

• 26 Jun, 2026 bids for connection

  Having your bids for connection ignored or reacted to in a very reduced and half-assed manner is sad. And you have to remember that it’s normal to feel sad about that, nothing wrong with that.

  Asymmetry in interest and engagement is always hurtful. Someone not caring as much about getting to know you as you care to get to know them always sucks. Like why am I not good enough? Not interesting enough? Why is this not mutual? What do I have to do? Does this say anything about me?

  The actual hurt is not the problem. It’s understandable that you wanna shut that part of you off, feel completely neutral about it and just not care. But that part is just human, and shutting that off shuts off caring about so many things and picking up on subtle signals in ways that are good.

  It’s just a problem when you expect someone else to fix that for you. Harassing that person, pleading for attention, or seeking validation from others. Instead you have to sit through it by yourself and find own ways to cope healthily, and also non-drastically. No thinking about cutting off all contact to avoid the pain, for example.

  Sometimes people need more time. Some are slow to trust people or get invested. Some others are hot and cold. Sometimes people don’t feel well.

  I also sometimes fall into not helpful thoughts like “How did they even make these friends they already have if they behave like this?” But you never know what it took for these friendships. Maybe forced proximity over years via school, or the other people taking on all the work of approaching them and inviting them to stuff, and all that. Or maybe these friendships were made in a time when they were different. Or because they got those friendships, they don’t need any more. They are saturated.

  It kinda sucks being in a world where you get conflicting messages at all times because everything is so global and hyperconnected. You read about how no one owes anyone anything, but also that everyone is lonely and wants more friends, but in real life you might struggle to find people who can make the time for that. So it feels ridiculous, like “I’m here and trying, why does it feel like I’m the only one when everyone allegedly wants this so much?”

  It can also make you feel like an unwanted creep. At least in my experience. Like you keep thinking about what this person likes or what you could do together and wanna ask about their personal life like hobbies etc., but if none of that energy comes back, it feels invasive. Every nice act can feel like a transgression, like something you do for the wrong reasons (even though just being nice to become friends or more is not manipulative or sinister).

  And sometimes, especially when people are hot and cold, you just don’t know - are they just moody like that, or unsure? Are they just being nice entertaining me and then regret it later? What’s the “true” feeling? Should I just keep at it and not expect too much, because this person just needs more time and consistent effort to bring their walls down a little? Or should I take some sort of hint and fuck off?

• 07 Jun, 2026 update

  Didn’t feel like posting for a while, even when things went to shit. Like it was too heavy to write, making it too real. Open and closed the editor a couple times in the last weeks.

  Now things are kinda okay overall, but I feel weirdly depressed; I struggle to find enjoyment in things I like and every day, I don’t feel like getting up for anything, it all feels pointless.

  I had a necessary talk with my spouse that was nerve-wracking and made me wanna throw up during, and I cried too, but later it was fine, and it’s been good since. It still left me reeling because that has to have been the most raw relationship talk we ever had. Marriage does that to you; talks are no longer about small stuff, but things that can affect your relationship for decades. Longterm, fundamental stuff. This one was particularly dicey because it was about sex, among other things.

  I feel a lot of pressure to perform perfectly in all areas of my life; sex was, admittedly, the one steady and repetitive thing I could rely on, not much thinking or creativity needed, as we had found a way that works and is nice for both, and compatible with my otherwise full life, knowing how long things will go on in each encounter before I go and get busy.

  Except my spouse now said they are bored of the routine and want to switch things up and try new things, so that’s no longer the case. It’s another area I have to put effort in and actively participate and think now, no longer a rhythmic and comfortable routine. Admittedly, I have been falling into the same steps and moves because I don’t particularly feel like spontaneity and new stuff when all I can think about is all the things I still have to do afterwards, but I’ll have to make it work.

  At the same time, I have started to develop a crush. It’s annoying, in the sense that it is entirely superficial; I only met that person twice, playing card games together. I barely know anything about them. It’s all looks and details and behavior. I don’t even yet know enough to crush on them as a person. I don’t like that; why can’t it wait until I know them well? Well, a crush is a lack of information, I guess.

  It makes me long for them all day, because my brain desperately wants to confirm my feelings and get to know that person better. It all feels unnecessarily urgent. Crushes really do have you wanna act a fool. I also constantly have to stop myself from imagining scenarios in my head, because that’s the dangerous thing that crushing brains do when they don’t get to see that person; they wanna satisfy the urge anyway, and fill in the blanks by themselves. That sucks though, because you’re making up a version of them in their head that doesn’t exist, and then later on you might be heartbroken that they aren’t who you imagined them to be. Like you’re in love with someone who doesn’t exist, but whose body is walking around.

  But I don’t want that, so I’m keeping it cool. Just continue on. Get to know them better. Resist urgency, fantasies and clown behavior. Then when I am sure, tell my spouse. Then see from there.

  I think it is also an apt time for me to develop a crush, because it at least adds some spice and excitement to my life, something to look forward to, novel. I wonder if brains can develop crushes to keep you going, keep you alive in tough times.

  Honestly, I’d be a little sad if my crush ends, because it has been a nice distraction and positive thing to experience next to disappointment and losses this year. I like experiencing the rush without the actual pressure to find a life partner; I already got mine, so no need to figure out such a deep level of compatibility and all that. Like, I just wanna see where this is going, no need to have to think about kids, cohab, marriage and all that. It can be casual.

  When already married, you no longer experience crushes like the one shot at true love that makes you feel like you gotta conform to what they like to make it work and not waste the chance (more or less). I still wanna impress them and show my best side, but I am too settled and grounded to pretend I am different. I have someone else in my life that I owe things to.

  I am also scared. In all 5 years, we never dated outside the relationship. Together with recent hiccups in our relationship, maybe it will seem like a bad time to my spouse. Maybe they have changed their mind and wanna stay monogamous. And I don’t wanna ruin the friendship we have with my crush. I don’t want my spouse to overanalyze my behavior towards them, or cancel upcoming card game meetings because of it. And of course, I don’t even know yet if that person could even like me that way, and if yes, if their relationship is open.

  Previously, I have never been denied sex, or anything sexual, when I asked it of anyone, and the crushes I chose to pursue always turned out to be mutual. This year, there was a moment my spouse said no to something sexual for the first time ever in my life, and it was an odd and new feeling. I of course respected it, but something in me felt like I had reached my peak and now it’s just downhill from here, now I have to live like many others already did all this time, where sex and requited love is never as guaranteed as it always was for me. I had a good run. What if I don’t have “it” anymore? What if this is the first crush I wanna pursue that rejects me? Am I getting uglier and uglier?

  I also would like this to work out because I’ve been out as polyamorous for 10 years and never got to live it, meanwhile others slide into it accidentally and just work it out randomly on the go. That has me jealous. I was just very busy and not interested in anyone else the past years, so this feels like the one chance… I try not to think of it this way, as it introduces weird pressure, as if this is a once-in-a-lifetime situation when it’s not, but I can’t help but at least acknowledge this scarcity aspect, the jealousy and desire to experience something I have wanted for a decade now, unofficially for even longer, before I knew the terms and all.

  There’s also the issue of when to tell my spouse. Tell now, and risk weirdness as it hasn’t been that long and maybe it’ll fade/I change my mind as I find out more, and then I would have made a big deal out of nothing. Tell later when I’m sure of it means it’ll happen when I am already deeply emotionally invested, and changes the stakes of a “no”. Right now, it could still be a casual “Hey, I find that person cute and wanna get to know them better”, later it would be heavier.

  I just… don’t have practice in how to bring that up. Never had to do it before.

• 06 Apr, 2026 people don't listen or read

  I'm annoyed that people cannot read or listen. They read a headline, the first sentence, the title, and scan for some keywords, and then vomit their advice or opinion at you. They don't care that you already covered that in what you said. They aren't embarrassed. They don't reread or ask questions to clarify anything before they let you know. They don't care.

  Conversing (written or verbal), to them, is about getting words out. These words don't have to be accurate or helpful or follow any kind of etiquette or have anything to do with what you said either. It's just vomit. It's being the fastest to respond. It's all about not having to keep any thoughts to themselves.

  You can say you hate your current TV setup, but that the apartment doesn't allow for rearranging and you don't wanna buy a new one. People will really put effort into letting you know that you should think about rearranging the TV setup or buy a new TV stand.

  You have a problem, and said you have tried x, y, and z solution, and you don't wanna try abc. They'll send a message your way asking if you have already tried y, and that you should also consider abc.

  I cannot hide my disdain for this type of bullshit anymore. I wish I could put you dumb fucks on blast. In the group chat, on the platform, in real life. Unfortunately, you just look like a stuck up bitch if you look at them in anger and ask them whether they haven't listened to you, because you just said that. They'll never acknowledge it. "No you didn't" is the most likely answer, followed with "Umm sorry I just tried to help". Very rarely will anyone actually say "I must have missed that, I'm sorry".

  All I have left is to ignore these stupid ass attempts at bothering me with every fart your brain produces while it attempts to read anything I write. Really, reading responses to stuff I say often reads as if people are fucking compelled to write anything like they're cursed by some spell. Like someone is holding a gun to their head asking them to make up some bullshit response no one needed. Some stuff is so stupid, I doubt even they got something out of it, or needed to get this off their chest. I would be ashamed, man.

  You are wasting both our time, you are wasting my attention and energy. You are eliminating my goodwill. You are eradicating my patience and understanding. You belittle me, in fact, you infantilize me by explaining my own solution attempts back at me as if I am dumb. You make me feel unheard. It's disrespectful. Fucking sit down and shut the fuck up.

• 02 Apr, 2026 outside is full, everything ran out

  There is so much in life I look at and I just wouldn’t be able to explain that to an outside party. It’s a favorite thought exercise for me: to pretend how we would justify this to an alien who can understand the language somehow, or an adult human born yesterday that can somehow understand.

  I don’t understand why we have structured society in a way that makes you feel like you’re unwelcome and everything’s too full and you better just stay home.

  Go outside? Please only walk in that narrow area where everyone else also walks and some people ride their bike. Everything else is dangerous because of cars.

  Everything feels constantly sold out or booked full. You get FOMO everywhere because if you’re not quick there’s none left. Clothes, tickets, tables, whatever. Also feels like groceries and toiletries constantly get rotated out and cancelled.

  You wanna spontaneously go to a fucking cafe or restaurant, full. Some even don’t even let you reserve a table anymore?

  You enter trains, trams and buses to normal and humane times that fit perfectly to when your commitment starts? Full as fuck, no seats, sardine-moding, maybe you have to wait for the next.

  No appointments free at doctor’s offices because booked out for months, especially therapy spots. Meanwhile, we have like 5 hairdressers and 10 kebab places in each street?

  How would you fucking explain this? From a top down view on earth, city builder style, why would you limit the doctor’s offices per city despite long waiting lists and appointment issues? Why would you not send out more public transport options to the busiest times so everyone can fit and find a seat comfortably? Why would you not encourage more availability in recreation and third spaces? Why do we all struggle with only finding out an event happened days or weeks after?

  We are wealthy enough, we could invest more, we could reprioritize, but it’s just not wanted. Just more politics for the fossils. Gerontocracy.

  It discourages me and depresses me. Nothing can happen spontaneously. You suddenly have the urge and energy to do stuff, 200 good reasons why it’s a bad idea immediately pour down on you. It’s better to stay home, because oh damn now you’re in the busy times of public transport and will suffer, better plan ahead next time to leave earlier or pick another time; going by car is expensive with gas and you won’t find parking or the fees are horrible; you arrive to restaurants and cafes just to be turned away, forget concerts etc altogether, hotels feel like they have like 2 rooms total at all times, other events happen at the shittiest times ever, everything is too expensive as well.

  You think “Oh I would like to go out.” But then you realize hmm, should I really spend 40+ Euro on some beverage and food I could make at home? To sit somewhere where children scream and run around, the other person there stinks up the place with their cigarette smell, and someone is sick and coughing? Or you go to the damn park or forest, just for people to play loud music, smoke, spit and harass people? You enter the tram just for it to smell of piss?

  Going out more should be our goal but it’s so discouraged and depressing when you do, unless you can go to a genuine forest and know the good spots, not artificial parks. I swear everywhere you go the benches are occupied too. The grass is full of poop. Motherfucker, where am I supposed to sit and enjoy anything outside? Build more benches and seats!!!

  Depending on the place, you can’t even sit anywhere without being harassed for money or drugs, or things are frequently vandalized and broken.

  And we wonder why people stay inside. Man, outside sucks complete ass! And the rising rent prices contribute too, because why pay so much for barely being there?

• 02 Apr, 2026 some things didn’t change

  I should have realized in school that certain things will never change.

  I will just never be able to make myself give a shit about the minutiae of other people’s lives if we are forced to spend time together by proximity, like school or work.

  I want them to live well and be happy, but I cannot muster the energy to do a convincing act of caring about the fact that they mowed their front lawn yesterday. I’ll just uhuh and yes and oooh and it’s not enough anyway.

  People will say listening is enough and letting them go on and on, but not in my case. They can smell it and they stop talking to me like that, and then everyone else has better relationships with each other at work than they do with me, at least based on how much they talk and what they tell each other.

  I think my behavior is fine among men but in a majority women-based workplace, relationships mean a lot and are always performed in your face, so you feel like the odd one out. I also just never feel like I’d get the same behavior they have towards each other if I talk at my coworkers about meaningless shit (to them) in my life. I have a filter where I think “Why should I tell them that? Why would they care? They wouldn’t understand anyway.” and they don’t, so they talk at each other about boring stuff and it works.

  One coworker will show a picture on the phone and say how the best friend of her cousin did this or that, the other person seems genuinely interested, and then follows up with similar stuff as that. Meanwhile what would I say? I stopped talking to my mum? I tried to plan a MtG game with a friend and postponed it 3 times and now I’m ashamed? They know I go on vacation in 10 days, what else is there to say?

  Even if I share things, I have to do it again and again as everyone just forgets and acts like they just heard that the first time. What gives?

  I think I just genuinely cannot hide how much this bores me. Unless I click with a person, then I just cannot care. And if I actively dislike you, it’s even worse. Your words are like nails on a chalkboard.

  It even happens with people I deeply care about. I can absolutely not focus on anything they’re saying if it’s not relevant to me or my interests, and I don’t do it on purpose. I wanna listen and care, but I don’t control that switch. My mind starts wandering when you yap to me about anime. If you put anything else relevant in the same convo, like chores or an appointment, I won’t hear it.

  At school, I just wanted to be left alone at many times, especially breaks and before the first class. The others all loved talking and screaming and laughing loudly and talking to each other about stuff, but I couldn’t muster the energy. Seems like I’m just like that.

  On the other hand, if I really ask you anything and listen attentively, it means I genuinely care. I can’t fake it.

• 29 Mar, 2026 collage 17

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 23 Mar, 2026 conversation in my head

  Need to get this conversation that’s playing in my head out. It would not exactly happen this way in real life. My parent wouldn’t exactly ask these questions, or not actually acknowledge what I said. On the other hand, some of this is also me reacting to things I think she would be asking or arguing about, or is ranting about to others about this situation, so it’s basically my retorts if that really happened, or we still talked.

  ---

  Me: Our relationship is bad, so I don’t wanna do this anymore.

  Her: But you never put in any effort! There was nothing coming from your side!

  Me: Well, I just never wanted this relationship. It was one-sided. As a child, I shut my feelings for you off as I learned to be scared of you. I learned that your way was the only way, that I couldn’t question or criticize you, or be myself around you. I put on an act, I did the bare minimum, I managed your emotions and just did what you asked of me. It wasn’t safe to do anything else. Doing anything you didn’t expressly asked for was a huge risk to cause further abuse. So of course, instead of having a true genuine desire and drive to spend time with you or interact with you, I just did what you told me and said yes to things you suggested. But on the other hand, this doesn’t acknowledge the things I did and tried at all.

  My attempts to spend time with you or gifts I sent you apparently don’t count. You always say I shouldn’t spend much money, but if I do nothing or something small/handmade, it’s also bad, and if I send you stuff I think you’d like, it’s treated as a burden because you’re always traveling and now have to somehow arrange accepting the parcel. I offer to help with the move or the apartment, you say you don’t need it. Then later, I found out you had help from other people and a little housewarming party I wasn’t invited to. You’re never home. I gift you a gift card so we can go to the cafe more often and even with some friends, but you say “Ugh how many times are we supposed to go there, we’ll never use that up.” as if you don’t care about meeting me more often or together with others.

  And also, if already nothing was coming from my side apparently, and the relationship is bad because of me, I did us both a favor. Nothing should change or feel different to you now, it seems. Nothing to miss that didn’t exist, so I don’t get why you’re sad.

  Her: You’re so ice-cold about this, so unemotional. Did I mean nothing to you?

  Me: This was a decades long process. Since a teen, I dreamed of cutting contact with you. I just couldn’t actually do it until now, over 10 years later. I had so much time preparing me for this, and I always had positive connotations with it, like relief and peace. It was a done deal for me and something kept in the back of my mind for a long, long time. I always searched for the perfect moment and there just wasn’t one. So it happened now.

  Her: But don’t I deserve second chances? Why couldn’t you tell me? Why can’t we work this out? You cut me off after one little mistake…

  Me: Over the years, you had hundreds of chances, thousands of mistakes. During the time I was a child and teen reliant on you, you basically had infinity chances, no repercussions, because what would I do? Cry? Be mean back? You controlled everything and were the only parent. I wasn’t in the position to give chances or make demands. I had to just accept everything. And even if I tried explaining what was wrong or what hurt me, it wasn’t taken seriously, or it was claimed it never happened, I’m too sensitive, I deserved it or whatever.

  In the end, all that ended the discussion (which would usually cause another fight where I got yelled at and accused) was me apologizing for what I alleged or voiced, apologizing for my feelings, and dropping it. I never could ask anything from you, not even acknowledging the problem. On the rare occasions you apologized, I had to immediately accept it and reassure you it wasn’t that bad. I had to forget it instantly and pretend it never happened. There was no room for my real feelings about anything.

  Her: But why didn’t you just tell me all of that now so we could work on it?

  Me: It’s too late. I don’t feel like you’re my mother. You’re a stranger to me and I don’t wanna see you, hear you, smell you. You are triggering to me. Being in contact with you doesn’t make me happy. I see no way to fix 30 years. We are just fundamentally incompatible. We are too different and I can’t make up for all the damaging years or make them disappear. My body, my traumatized brain will always see you as a danger. I will never be able to see a message from you on my lockscreen and not feel drained and terrified.

  I also don’t need huge, terrifying, earth-shaking reasons. I also, aside from this stuff, genuinely don’t like or vibe with you. We have no shared interests, no shared morals, everything feels awkward, your voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. You do unethical shit, like sell tobacco and fuck married men. You protect someone at a bank misusing their privileges to spy on people. You stole from people. You broke my stuff. Who knows about everything I don’t even know yet… you’re just a bad person, or at least bad to me. I have some good memories where you tried, and I am grateful for that, but this doesn’t outweigh the bad.

  It feels like we are only in contact because we “have to be” because we’re “family”. But I’m done repeating the mistakes of my family. You yourself hate your mother and often ignore her messages, so you know how it is. But you’re too scared to cut her off for the same reason. It’s bullshit. Who cares? You also cut off your brother. So don’t act like you don’t know how it is.

• 12 Mar, 2026 the crushing machine

  We have people who understand that society needs that service, so they sacrifice their life, their free-time, their health, a work-life balance, and the ability to earn more just to be our nurses, doctors, EMTs, firefighters and the like.

  Meanwhile we also have people sitting in an office, most of their projects being coding useless or unethical shit, and if you ask them to reconsider working for asshole companies like MS, Google, Palantir etc. and smaller equivalents, they say “well we all have to work” “I have no choice” “I have to earn my money somehow”. You can’t even ask them to make the slightest sacrifice.

  They wouldn’t even have to give up most of what other essential job employees have to give up. They’d just earn a little less and lose the brag of working at FAANG. That’s all.

  I think these people never think about the fact that there are tons of others who willingly, knowingly decide for a career while being aware that it will always pay peanuts and demand their life be structured around the job, and doing it anyway.

  In their mind, everyone is always just maximizing their own gain, so not working somewhere very unethical is just shooting yourself in the foot. Because working for the baddies always pays best, and you wanna be one of the cogs of the power, so you’re not the one being crushed by it. You willingly help run the crushing machine so you’re safe.

• 12 Mar, 2026 older gens are do-ers

  I might be romanticizing things and seeing things through rose-tinted, idealized glasses, but I often get the feeling that older generations had more of a “do-er” mindset. A kinda “if not me then who, someone has to do it, well it can’t just lie around not finished, I’ll do it even when sick and uncomfortable.” kinda vibe.

  Meanwhile younger generations more often feel like “Why should it be me? It wasn’t me who asked for it or did it. Is that explicitly a task in my work contract? Am I getting compensated for this? Someone else will just do it. I don’t owe anyone anything.” We want a village but almost no one wants to be the village for others.

  I felt reminded of this by seeing trash in our shared garden. I feel like the more older people are present, the less time the trash would just lie there. They’d remove it because it bothers them and they want a clean space and know that if they don’t do it, it will be there for a long time. Meanwhile the younger generations, including me, walk past the trash every time thinking “Who did this? The person who did that should remove it. Why should I? No one would thank me for it. Oh, now I am walking past this again, I totally forgot to take care of this last afternoon, and I can’t do it now, because I’m on my way to work…”

  I guess in this scenario, the older gen would be better and right.

  In general, I think the ideal state is somewhere in-between. You can put up boundaries and don’t have to self-sacrifice all the time. You can expect others to step up or ask things of them. You should not be people’s nanny, a doormat, a people-pleaser. You should sometimes say “That’s not my problem.” But on the other hand, if it is quick and easy and doesn’t cost you money or sanity, sometimes just do it so it is done, and not think about it too much. Being the change you wanna see, knowing that if you don’t do it now, no one will.

• 26 Feb, 2026 romanticizing suffering

  I wish so badly that I could romanticize suffering. I can romanticize discomfort, friction, and long term gratification. That builds resilience, discipline and patience.

  But I just cannot get myself to like or enjoy suffering. I cannot see a way in which it is benefitting me or is part of some greater plan. On the other hand, delving into absurdism because of the lack of sense or positive side also doesn’t help me. I can’t accept suffering just for what it is without trying to assign reason and meaning. I need a story. I need to sell it to myself.

  Maybe others who assign deep meaning to suffering talk of a different suffering. Mine just feels hopeless, all-consuming, painful, debilitating, depressing and life-threatening. Maybe they think of suffering as overdrawing their bank account a bit at the end of the month or unrequited love or studying harder for few weeks, getting a job rejection or living with a shitty roommate for a year. If yes, then I guess I am on board.

  But just plain old suffering is absolutely nasty and irredeemable. I truly wish I could go through it with acceptance and trusting that this is life, this is good. When I lie in bed with pain so much I can’t move, or feel like killing myself at work, I just can’t see that as a good thing at all.

  Like oh my god have I not suffered enough? Every time I suffer I feel more sensitive to it next time. I deserve a break. Suffering scares me, it makes me realize how chaotic and unstable everything is, how everything depends on random luck, it all feels unfair and like everything is just survival and competition, and that I am just like everyone else, I’m not the main character with plot armor. It’s terrible.

  If I suffer it doesn’t have to lead to anything good. I’m not an Olympian doing rigorous training. I’m someone with a chronic illness and an unfitting job. Continuing to work there saves my financial survival and that’s it. Suffering from chronic illness doesn’t give me any expertise or useful achievement. Studying hard for an exam can still mean I fail. Months of “suffering” in the gym can be undone with 3 weeks of suffering from disease.

  

  It can’t be all suffering. Please.

  That said, I need a sign from the universe, a blessing, a path forward, an insane lucky coincidence that helps me with my career and/or studies, please.

• 25 Feb, 2026 my goals

  Today, I’m not sure if I can truly achieve my goals, I don’t know if I can manage to realize my dream self, I don’t know if I can consistently show up as my best version, I don’t know if I can live up to my potential. And I don’t mean this in a black-and-white, perfectionist way that wouldn’t allow for slip-ups or variation in performance; that’s normal and already factored in. Instead I mean whether I will be able to achieve it at all, and be able to keep it up even somewhat.

  I feel very weak and vulnerable today. I’m reminded of how sick I am. I think about all the opinions and societal mechanisms that make me feel worthless or like a burden, or that I’m too unreliable. I think of all my lofty dreams and goals and I wonder how the same person that’s rotting in bed today can possibly even work towards it, let alone maintain it. I know things look different on my better days and I have so much energy and drive and resourcefulness when I feel good, but when I feel sick, it all feels so incompatible. In those moments, I just wanna give everything up. Do the bare minimum. Survive and not allow myself to attempt anything because of the inevitable failure.

  It feels like my options for everything are so narrow, too. And I’m not sure how I’ll deal if I never hit my goals.

  I wanna be invited to speak on panels, I wanna have my own Wikipedia page, and I wouldn’t mind writing an article here and there in professional journals. I wanna work in the public sector still, in regulatory if possible, or academia, or an NGO.

  I feel like I’m running out of time to do everything. Death is always around the corner, the new flare up of my conditions is too, meds no longer working… and so much of what I wanna do is gatekept by qualifications that are really expensive or take so long to finish next to work and all. Some are also impossible for me.

  I also would give anything to be able to tolerate my existing work more. Every work e-mail I get right now, even though totally harmless and friendly, for some reason sends me into an internal rage (that I hide on the outside because it’s not a justified feeling and other people should not be the target of my problems and shortcomings). I don’t wanna be mad at the slightest bits of my job, but it feels like a reaction to ongoing issues with it.

• 24 Feb, 2026 collage 16

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 24 Feb, 2026 work woes

  Today at the office is rough. 50% of the problem is me and being really sensitive today, but still. I went in with a mindset of gratitude and appreciating the simplicity and security of the job, trying to be thankful. But it didn’t last long. It’s like sitting in a bunch of thorns, being overly aware of what really bothers and stings you about this work. There are always phases where I feel really lonely at work because while there is no fights/arguments/bullying going on, I don’t relate to my coworkers at all and can’t find a connection.

  And I feel like people at work in general can’t handle it well when they know you haven’t settled for the job, and want more or wanna move on one day. Even if you just study on the side, or they notice you making connections elsewhere in-house or find out you apply elsewhere internally they start resenting you subtly, as if you think you’re better than them or that the job that’s just right for them is somehow trash.

  Months ago I put up my new qualifications at my desk where I put down my bag so I see it when I arrive and leave (corny, I know) and since then I feel like my slightly younger coworker that I share an office with, who tried studying on the side but had to quit it, treats me in a colder way. I never connected the dots until recently.

  I get it’s my fault and I will never make the mistake again of showing ambition at the next workplace or being proud of what I achieved or being open about wanting more. It still sucks though. I never badmouthed the position or work towards them or acted like it’s beneath me. When asked I was just open about what I’d like to do in the future. Lesson learned. Also people don’t invest in you when they think you can leave any minute.

  (2 hours later)

  Sometimes I wonder why I can’t just be happy here, like… didn’t I want a job that’s easy where almost no one bothers me and I can work on my own and leave when I wanna leave past 2pm? Then why does it make me wanna die so much?

  It feels like the root cause is neurodivergence, but I don’t wanna let that count because it feels trivial, childish and overdone. Like I don’t wanna belong to the crowd who seemingly can’t do anything or feels constantly bad at the slightest bit of inconvenience. It’s clearly my fault that I feel so much stress and psychological pain at this situation and it’s unreasonable and not normal. I should just work at shutting it off but nothing helps.

  It’s normal to feel bored from work or wish to work somewhere else sometimes, but it’s not normal to fight against such a resistance to even work, or switch tasks, or to do something that is “too easy”, or feel so bad when working at a task I am not invested in, not passionate about, digital conveyor belt work that will be automated soon (data entry).

  I know it’s always been like this for me (in school I wasn’t writing down exercises or homework etc because I couldn’t get myself to do it when I was good at the subject and could just answer spontaneously). Other people would just be inconvenienced or drag themselves through it or be like “yay easy work, chill”. For me internally it feels like I am dying. It causes me genuine emotional scars. And some sort of trauma??? Which is wild, because I have complex PTSD from being abused most of my time with my parents and from being raped, so I know what it is like and don’t throw that around lightly.

  Being neurodivergent feels like being one year old. It feels like the Princess and the Pea. It feels like paper skin and glass bones. I don’t condone or understand my reactions to these things. It’s like in some areas of life I just can’t function like other people would. It’s like as if someone is severely misophonic and they are ashamed about how much leaves rustling in the wind is making them melt down, because it’s such a normal sound and nothing harmful, but still it sends them into a spiral and there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s me but with normal work occurrences like work that’s too easy or boring or repetitive or not involving my special interests.

  I told my spouse and they said: “That reaction is not just to what you directly are confronted with there, but also what it stands for indirectly, like having a work environment where you don‘t feel at home, being hindered in your professional ambitions, having your creative input stifled by bureaucracy, all those things”

  Which is also true.

  It feels like having luxury problems, though. Being autistic in the white west feels bourgeois. Like people are working in coal mines and dying, and my ass cannot touch corduroy or have a normal day in the office without feeling like this is causing me severe damage to my mental health???

• 06 Jan, 2026 helping others

  I don’t like helping people anymore. Or rather, it depends on the circumstance. If they ask me directly for input and if I know any resources or have any advice or tips, I’m game. But if it’s a general call for help in a public/group place or someone just talking about some struggles, I will no longer bother. Even if it’s just sending a link their way that could help.

  I have received terrible or unfitting advice or resources many times as well, but I just say thank you or that I will look into it either way. Or if I am patient and know the other person could know something better in that direction, I say thanks but gently reword my problem to be a bit more concrete or underline what would help me better. Maybe like: Thank you, I have looked at it and it’s going in the right direction, do you possibly know something for (actual problem better worded)?

  But many people don’t do that, or aren’t capable of it, it seems. Instead, they treat you like an AI bot that delivered a wrong answer. Rude, ungrateful, dismissive, maybe even passive aggressive. Like your response or attempt to help is a silly burden, like you’re fucking stupid for not reading their mind or not knowing the details they failed to provide, which would have altered your understanding and answer.

  The problem has always been there but I assume it will get worse due to AI conversations.

  Bothering to share knowledge when that’s the response of so many people is not worth it. Not my problem then! And if anyone acts weird after I try to help them, I literally just never help them again anymore. Two strike system, maybe even one.

• 03 Jan, 2026 gen x hosting guests

  Gen Xers don’t know how to host people anymore, or how to live multigenerationally. It’s so hard to live with them, then even to stay with them as a guest for the holidays.

  You take a normal looking cup from the shelf with all the cups - “NO, not my special cup!!”

  Is this one okay? “Yes, but no stirring with spoons in them! And no milkfrother hitting the walls!” Okay…

  You cook in their kitchen for yourself, as was agreed upon. These people live in a big home with a variety of pots and pans, many duplicates or equals. But of course, they need the exact pot you are currently using soon. You ask what you can refill it into. Anything you point at, they need later. Bitch, what the hell are you cooking that you need all the pots, pans and casserole dish? I find out later it was fondue. You know, the thing where you just cut everything, put it into bowls and cook it on the table as you’re eating???? Could have just cut the stuff next to us, no pot needed.

  You clean up after yourself, put the things in the dishwasher, wipe the surfaces, and set out the things to dry that you needed to handwash. In general, you have to ask what things can go on the dishwasher and what can’t because judging from the things in and outside the dishwasher, the rules are completely arbitrary. There are pans on the dishwasher I would only wash by hand, and vice versa. Next to always having to ask where everything is, this is a nightmare.

  These clowns repeat your entire cleaning process and reorder the whole dishwasher (where 3/4ths were already put in by themselves) for no reason, just to pretend you didn’t clean up properly. Like, these things weren’t still dirty, visually so, they were out there to dry. Nothing in the dishwasher was upside down, blocking the spray or collecting water, nothing was wasting space or in the wrong area.

  This is only because GenXers are control freaks and contamination freaks in their own home, who need to do everything themselves to fulfill their OCD compulsion of it being done “just right”. They can’t let others do the same things and be okay with it. My mother was the same, who rather ripped the sponge, the dish, the vacuum cleaner, etc. from my hands than let me do it because doing it herself was a ritual that reassured her things were done correctly and everything was “safe”. I’m tired of pretending this GenX behavior is not tied to OCD.

  I understand having your own rules and ideals in your household, as I also lead one. But for gods sake, when I host someone, I suspend these weird rules and am not a little bitch about my friend who doesn’t know any better accidentally putting the bowl into the wrong kitchen drawer after drying it off. I’ll just quietly correct it and move on, and I let good enough be good enough! If something bothers me I tell them in a normal and friendly way and don’t pretend they should have known, because I know households handle things differently. If something is really important to me, I tell them upfront.

  Overnight stays suck too, because you’ll sleep in (as it is a holiday or you slept badly - or you just want to), and you come downstairs to be judged for getting up between 10-11am. I would understand this if we had agreed to have breakfast together at a certain time, but we didn’t. So stop being a bitch for having set the table and waited for hours when no one asked you to. Accept that your guests who took time off from work and drove hours to see you to be there for the holidays want to sleep in. Why can’t you have breakfast on your own early, then a late brunch with us?

  NYE was especially funny in this regard this year. I said I’m sorry, we only got home 4:30 and slept at 5, so we woke up late. They said “Umm yeah we were asleep at only 3:30 too and we were up early!” they said, after they came BACK FROM A NAP AT 4pm. Well yeah bitch, you got up early, but apparently it wasn’t enough sleep huh? Is it maybe understandable that we wanna sleep in one chunk for this time? I won’t need a nap now.

  And forget GenXers when you are ill! They’ll nitpick about you needing a nap, or you cancelling on activities an hour prior, saying shit like “Didn’t you know this earlier?” No bitch, I didn’t! You can come down with a cold, a migraine, diarrhea, vomiting, back pain, menstrual pain etc. anytime!

  You wanna go to your guest room to relax, take a break, play a game, watch stuff, etc? “I don’t know why you’re always in that tiny downstairs guest apartment. I wouldn’t wanna spend my time there!” Meanwhile that’s the area where her DEAD SON used to live (why would you put your disabled son in there if it sucked so much?) and as a good host, why would you put your guests there if it’s terrible, and then even tell them?

  And well, at least I have a proper place to sit down comfortably there? That’s the set of in-laws that only let us in their kitchen and dining room when upstairs in their apartment, everything else is off-limits. I have not once been invited into their living room. I can’t sit on a goddamn dining table chair for 6 hours bitch!! And they also don’t wanna play any card or boardgames, even though they have a ton and we offer to play. They just want you to sit at the table for hours intermittently talking. Sorry, that’s not fun! And my social battery isn’t that great either.

  I also don’t wanna be interrogated what our plans are exactly. It’s okay to ask casually what we’re up to because that’s polite and caring, but not: “So, what’s the plan today? When are you home? When will you leave the house? When will you be back? Where are you going exactly? Why?” Let us breathe, man. Let us keep you updated. We tell them multiple times not to bother waiting for us because we’ll cook ourselves or eat at other people’s houses or go out to eat, and they’ll still be like “So will you be home for dinner? What should be for dinner?” ?!

  When you try to get some answers out of THEM for a change, they’re even more vague and non-committal, so I don’t know what their problem is when we can’t decide yet whether we’ll leave the house at 2pm or 3pm? You’ll ask them “Hey we’re in the area and wanna visit you guys, when’s a good time to come over?” and any normal well-adjusted human being would tell you a slot in their schedule or at least a day, and then we’d accept or make our own suggestions. But no, these clowns will respond with something like “Yes you can come” “We’re mostly home this week” or something like that. Oh my god, just be a bit more specific so it doesn’t go

  “Okay, so Monday?” “No that’s when we have swimming” “Even in the evening?” “No that’s okay” “So Monday evening? When should we arrive?” “You decide. We can eat at 6, or at 7, or at 8.”

  My best advice to give you is: If you want to see someone, and continue to see someone in the future, make it easy to agree upon a day and time. Because at some point, people will otherwise just avoid this hours long or even days or weeks long game of bullshit just for a date and time that fits everyone. AND GENUINELY FITS EVERYONE! No “Well I cancelled my Italian class for you” ass aggressiveness when we show up! We asked what works for you! If you offer it as an option you agree that you’re free!

  You even get equally judged when you don’t have plans and when you do have some, or if you are flexible. They’re mad if you “do nothing” and mad if you’re gone all day to meet other friends and family. Ugh! Our one set of in-laws thankfully is a bit more chill in this and gives us our own key to come and go, but our other set is so controlling about our presence that we are not allowed to take a key with us and we have to ring to be let back in, a measure to know when we come and go like a surveillance system. Only if they’ve already gone to bed, they hide the key outside so we can still get in. Which is nuts; I’d rather give my child the key than leave it outside!

  I also don’t like when you visit and stay with family and they use it as leverage to get you to go places with them not in a “Do you wanna come along?” way, but a “We have to visit grandma and because you’re there during that time too you’ll have to come and suffer with us.” Nah. We are 30 now, not teens. Be serious right now. You cannot hold relying on you over our heads like that anymore. Please.

  When I host people, I accept that they will “do things wrong” and not let it bother me, because I know how uncomfortable it is to be a guest somewhere and guess all the rules or ask all the time. I know they try their best and don’t wanna be a burden. I want them to be comfortable and relaxed, so they can sleep, take breaks, nap etc. however they want to. They can use everything they want to, even my favorite cup. I know they’re just things meant to be used and get signs of usage, so I’m not protecting some average ass cup from normal wear and tear. I’d rather have my friend be happy drinking a huge cup of tea than have a pristine cup.

  I’m tired of being a guest in places that feel like you’re ways overstepping some invisible lines and disappointing people and whose inhabitants have a huge stick up their ass about some things, and act like they wanna catch you in the act of doing something wrong, and who don’t communicate their needs and wants, who’d rather let you make that fauxpas and be mad than preempt it. It’s like they want to be mad and manipulate every situation so they can be mad or make a mean comment.

  This is not normal, and not all households are like this. But GenXer households are so often like this and it’s terrible to grow up in and terrible to visit as a guest. Even as a child, you feel like a guest that’s a burden that never meets expectations once you’re out of your designated room, and I’m tired!

  The communication is poor, the judgment is passive aggressive, and things get twisted and redone because of their untreated and unacknowledged mental illnesses.

  This is a predominantly white western thing, I think. The way Germans, Swedes etc. even kick their child’s friend out for dinner or send it to starve in the child’s room while they eat with their child. It’s a view on hosting and having guests that is so selfish, so focused on having control over guests and not being inconvenienced. I grew up with this and cannot relate to ever wanting to be that way. Elsewhere, this mindset doesn’t fly, and guests are kings you serve and want to have a good time. There is honor and reputation and not embarrassing the family.

  The way white western GenXers treat their guests and family would give extreme secondhand embarrassment to other families from cultures all around the world.

• 30 Dec, 2025 collage 15

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 21 Dec, 2025 alternate universe

  This year, I was finally able to taste how it would have been like to have grown up healthy and well supported.

  My illnesses were finally addressed, I felt normal and was able to do so much, and I am in a healthy environment where I am loved and supported, and I invested a lot into myself financially for my education and career.

  And in a way, it makes me sad. Happy that I got to experience it at all, but sad because I now know how different I could have been if I had the medical and emotional support I needed from the get-go. With my drive, my passion… I could have managed a lot more, and done some things earlier. But I was too sick, too poor, with no friends and an abusive and neglectful family.

  Now I feel like a discount version of myself, a Temu version. But I guess that’s normal… I fear almost no one gets to experience their true potential. Born in specific countries, poor, disabled, a minority etc. can significantly hinder you throughout life and never give you a fair chance.

  So I guess I’m in good company.

  It’s wild to think about the dominoes falling in my life… my mother smoking during pregnancy, me arriving early because of it and having complications, probably having an effect on me being autistic and often very sick in childhood; then come the allergies, then autoimmune issues start and depression, anxiety and C-PTSD come on top that all add on to each other, and the financial hardship. I think the only things not stacked against me are my location, my education, my skin color and still being able to walk.

  I would never like to be below 25 again, no matter what. These aren’t my best years, even if I would have had the ideal upbringing. What I do wish though is that I could snap my fingers and change those years so that I was well loved, healthy and financially supported.

  I’ll never recover from this.

  But also, it’s so interesting: I worry about being 30 and having no proper degree yet, still taking 2-3 years until I’m done, and then continuing to add more, all next to my job. But then I see others with two degrees at 30 years old, worrying about not having much or any practical experience and not knowing how to actually juggle a workload. I also see other 30 year olds who have done two degrees while working full time already, but they’ve had to run on a strict schedule for so long they don’t even know who they are anymore or cannot handle the downtime they finally have after being done with education for good.

  It makes me feel a little better. There are always trade-offs and worries, and even if I already had my degree(s), I would have different things to worry about.

• 19 Dec, 2025 NEET camaraderie

  I understand the camaraderie among unemployed, and how good it is for the soul to connect with someone who knows how hopeless and pointless it feels to apply, without the usual bullshit of “Have you tried going in and asking? Have you looked at this or this? Have you used ChatGPT to do this? What if you reworked your resume once more?”

  But I think it can also be really toxic or at least disadvantageous to get too involved with unemployed people online. I remember parts of my life were this way too, especially during the pandemic: waking up at noon, scrolling on the phone, getting up and slowly eating breakfast, not really getting ready beyond toothbrushing, getting on the computer, chatting for hours, and then hanging in VC from 8pm to 4am, falling into bed at 5, and repeat. It’s nice for a change, as a break.

  But just not something you should do for long, a lot, or the older you get. It just becomes so hard to shift the sleep cycle again, to withstand it at all, and I think it dulls you. There’s just sleep, dopamine seeking and the online world, and then grinding some game together with others until you’re too tired to think. Not much space for anything else.

  It’s something I don’t want my unemployed spouse to fall into. I don’t want us to lead parallel lives where I get up at 5am and they go to bed, and as I return from work at 3pm, they get up an hour prior and haven’t done anything they planned to do productivity/household-wise, so either they don’t get done at all or our time together suffers. I also don’t wanna be woken up in the middle of the night by light, game talk, entering the bathroom to get ready for bed and then coming into bed.

  We don’t need to be entirely synchronized, and I think once a week, on a Friday for example, behavior like above is okay; I don’t have work on Saturday. But other than that, I do value connection, discipline, and not leading too different lives. I just find that engaging too much with it, with online Discord NEET way of living, is robbing a lot of energy and motivation. After a while, it feels like rot.

• 12 Dec, 2025 a mother’s love

  I met my mother again and it made me wanna go no contact forever just like with my dad. It wasn’t outright bad, and the meeting before this one was even good. But I will just never be able to change her hyper-perfectionistic and overly critical ways, and that no matter what, I will never be good enough.

  She can compliment me, but it’s hollow, and other things she says are just backhanded.

  “Are you on Prednisone again?” Is her way of thinking she’s subtle and kind about my face getting chubbier again. For her it’s a win, I guess, because other times she’d just cock her head and just say “Umm, your face has gotten rounder again.”

  I had my hair up, and some of the neck hair fell out and was loose and down my back. She had to comment on it weirdly with that backhanded-ness, saying “Oh yeah, when those fall out of the hairtie, they always look a little greasy…” (nervous) as if it was a common problem everyone has. But it isn’t? And oh my god, it’s just a little hair on my neck, and my hair is fine. Like…?

  Other stuff like “When I see you, I always think jeans would suit you so well, have you ever considered that? You don’t wear any anymore, right?” It’s just infantilizing and stupid, because she thinks this is the polite way to subtly get me to change. It’s not subtle at all, just a slightly less asshole-ish way to say “I think you could dress better”. This shithead sees me 2-3 times a year!

  I’m a 30 year old chronically ill person, an only child whose mother smoked during pregnancy and caused all these health issues for me, and she internally can’t help comparing me to the 5 years younger and healthy triplets she knowns that have been small and underweight all their life and raised to be active, having equally fit and skinny parents. She has made clear in the past that she prefers them over me, even making them better and more expensive gifts.

  Anyway, of course I know what jeans are. I used to wear them because she bought them for me all the time when I was living at her home. I just developed a different taste since moving out almost 10 years ago, and prefer more comfortable clothes like wide flowing leggings.

  It continued with a pityful, cringing look about me keeping some clothes that are already 15 years old that still fit me. I said I will replace one winter coat now because it’s falling apart and unfixable, and she acted like she had to carefully measure her reaction and words while offering me to go shopping together to find new clothes as if she feels sorry for me. Same woman that teenage-me got yelled at by for buying the more expensive strawberries in the supermarket. Now that she earns more, no more frugality, I guess; since those days, she has made more rich friends and she needs to keep up with their wasteful behavior.

  This is so ridiculous, because while I do want new clothes soon, I have enough, and it’s not like money is an issue. Most of them aren’t washed out or full of holes, and the holes that come up get stitched; the ones that are washed out are strictly sleep/home clothes, mostly when I am sick or on my period. I am genuinely not walking around like a hobo with nasty clothes; my work clothes are black and elegant.

  She just genuinely always had the need to constantly buy new clothes, and I don’t. I do that maybe every two years.

  It’s tiring! Especially when we have no good relationship! Especially when we don’t really see each other and she doesn’t really know me! Especially when I have body image issues! Especially when I know she wouldn’t be able to take the reverse.

  Like oh, since seeing you last time, your jowls have dropped further, and your wrinkles have gotten worse! This clown is always filtering her profile images online and it’s happening live within the apps she records them on, so she really thinks that’s what she looks like. She’s so into TikTok and Insta that she has her mind poisoned against her own daughter even more than before on her own.

  She’s so superficial, and since hanging with wealthier people, she’s wasteful with resources and money, and she has become a lot more materialistic. Getting the newest phone, switching to more expensive brands, bragging to me about her new BMW… it’s not how I was raised. This is hard to reconcile with the woman who was over 4k in debt all my youth, who cried over money and rent, who forbid me to flush the toilet for peeing and just allowed it for pooing, who screamed at me for wanting to heat my room, and all that.

  She raised me to be frugal, to not be needy, to not constantly spend money as a hobby, and to be ok with the minimum, and now she practically laughs at me for it.

  She isn’t even in the minority. Most people don’t give a fuck. They think they have earned it, the world is their oyster, everything is hopeless and they can’t change anything so better live it up before death.

  They don’t look at people like me with some sort of respect for the ways we are content with little, are barely buying anything, try to avoid extra plastic, donate to good causes, are vegan, treat our belongings well so they’re still good years later, buy used, use public transport/bikes and don’t fly etc.; instead, pity and disgust and thinking we’re the dumb ones for worrying, caring, and letting it dictate our consumer behavior, and “depriving ourselves”.

  When my mum left my apartment, she said “Oh, I’m so full. I ate so much yesterday. So much meat. I had to. Because of the company’s Christmas festival.” Smirk. After swearing to me up and down for no reason the last few years that she’s basically vegetarian and doesn’t care to eat meat anymore.

  These people will always find ways to “have to”. They will always rationalize the mindless, useless, and needless consumer behavior caused by their environment, especially online. And they have to pretend everyone who isn’t like this is just a poor fucking idiot who’s too woke and emotional, otherwise they would potentially have to face the fact that they’re contributing to something, or not contributing to the right things, or being a huge fucking liar and hypocrite.

  It’s so fucking sad, because I remember one time my mother looked sadly at me in my teens and said “I won’t ever own a house. But I’m sure you will. You definitely will.” Even though she was abusive and disrespectful, she had times where she could see I’m intelligent and hardworking. Now everything is going down the shitter because of her generation and above, my generation cannot afford a house unless there’s inheritance, and this hoe who managed to climb out of poverty is smirking at me about not wearing new clothes all the time. Bitch are you fucking for real? That’s what I should be spending my money on, you cunt?

  You know what makes me infinitely happier than new shit-clothes that don’t last a year? Spending 50 Euro on new pullover every two years that’s organic, fair, high quality and all that. 1k attendance fee for a conference in my niche. 3k for a certificate for my job. 100-200 Euro every semester for my degree. 200+ Euro membership donations to orgs I wanna support. A 6 Euro beverage on the way to work as a treat. Buying new domains.

  I still bought her a 100 Euro coupon for a nice cafe.

• 11 Dec, 2025 growing out of it

  When I moved here 6 years ago, the children of my neighbors used to play in the shared backyard all the time. Now, the backyard is usually unused; the children grew out of the age when they'd meet up there all the time to chase each other, play soccer and use the swing.

  6 years is a lot of time for a child. 6 year olds are suddenly 12, 12 year olds are suddenly 18. So many changes in such a short time... it makes you feel how much is passing you by, and how brief the phases are that feel like forever to a child.

  When I go out the backdoor and follow the street, there is an apartment where the same family has lived the entire time I lived here. Whenever I looked up at their first floor window in the past, it was decorated with children's drawings, sometimes directly on the window via normal paint or even windowcolor. Paper was taped to it or other folded and glued things they did in kindergarten or school. The Christmas time was especially decorated, like an effort to really showcase the children's creativity to the outside; seems like they had almost complete freedom with it, as well. The parents were clearly proud, no matter what their children made, in a good way.

  I remember one time I looked up two years ago and thought: "Wow. One day I will never see this again, as they will have aged out of it." I don't even know this family or their children, but for some reason, seeing some of their creativity changing every other month on that window and especially so around the holidays is something I loved seeing. It was so human, and unpretentious, no fake or forced Pinterest-esque decoration.

  And so it came. This year, the window is covered with pink fairy lights inside. No doubt, it's beautiful, but it made me think about how the children have finally aged out of leaving handprints and other things on the windows for passersby to find.

  Oddly, I feel a little sad, but also happy that I got to witness this for a few years. It was just one family, one city, one little spot, one little apartment in it. But it meant something to me, and now it's over; it was there, and I will always remember it.

• 06 Dec, 2025 i feel really bad

  Rant I wrote when I was suffering from pre-period mental issues (PMDD), I feel better now:

  ---

  “Shitty work will make you believe that nothing even matters.

  I think about new projects, they can’t be realized due to financial or technical restrictions or pure “we have always done it this way”, or they’re things no one really cares about and that we could do without, because they would be compliance work and not much else.

  I take on other projects in-house to fill my time, but every time, it ends up being maybe one meeting a quarter, instead of extra work I can do every day.

  My boss comes to me with new projects, they falter for reasons outside our control.

  I can’t internally transfer and they won’t create new roles.

  All that I do end up doing extra somehow that doesn’t fall under the above scenarios is not honored like it used to be, as leadership cancelled employee premiums.

  I come in despite so much physical pain and struggle because of the weird guilting and shaming and blaming around home office… just to do mindnumbing work 10-90 min and then I’m done. I waste away.

  I feel depressed. Coworkers and my boss are so nice to me and nothing bad is happening, but it’s like the building is cursed, introducing a heavy feeling on my chest whenever I am there that goes away when I leave.

  It is perspective-less, hopeless. I am underworked in the things that interest me and overworked with silence, waiting, and very menial tasks that could be automated.

  It exhausts me so much that it’s hard to go to the equally exhausting second job of searching for another job and applying.

  It feels awful. I’m wasting my time. I’m running against internal walls, I’m told to wait, I’m told it can’t be done, I’m distracted with bullshit projects and vague promises.

  Every time at work, I think about death. I think about jumping out the window, off the roof, or in front of the tram that takes me home. I think of preparing everything for my death, whether by my own hand or a sudden unplanned one. I think about life insurances and leaving my spouse enough.

  Ironically, despite not being a man and having no children, it makes me feel like a Japanese salaryman who is so unhappy with work and life but does it all for his wife and kids, or then, when he dies, he has left them so much in things they didn’t know about until his death.

  I wish I was dead right now. Not really, I actually wanna be alive in a better world with a better body, but since that is impossible, it feels like all that’s still left.

  I don’t know if I have ever been suicidal in a way where anything would have helped that’s always suggested.

  Calling a hotline? What for? It’s not like I have no one to talk to in life about it all. It’s just futile. It just worries people or triggers them or they don’t know a solution either. Especially as problems get more complex as you age. I don’t need advice on what to do. Therapy was good when I was a teen suffering under a mother, because it made me feel heard and sane, not now, when the entire world feels bad, my work is ass but finding new one is difficult and my sick body is complicating everything. You can’t talk yourself out of rent prices and into a better job, can’t talk yourself out of your spouse’s unemployment, can’t talk yourself into getting done with my education faster.

  Clinics? Never understood how it’s supposed to be beneficial. Meeting other sick people, abuse by employees, listening to others’ problems on top, being unable to tackle things in your life, missing work or school, and then being released into the same environment that made you sick, and the effectiveness of the tools you learned fades after 2 weeks. Most people in and out of there aren’t willing to do what it takes, like cutting people off and move, or can’t. So what’s the point? I’d feel miserable being away from home and inform my employer why.

  I feel exhausted, I feel hopeless and stuck, I just want everything to be over. I want the pain to stop. I want to stop being to tired all the time. I feel ugly, I gained some weight back, my hair sucks. I actually don’t wanna die, I wish I wasn’t even born. Literally during all I do since 3 days, I feel so sad constantly, like a huge hole in my chest. I assume it is hormonal, PMDD. I am due for it.

  I want to feel better again. I can’t make myself do anything I need to do like this. I need a pause while I feel better.

  I don’t wanna go to work anymore.”

  ---

  Addendum from 10 days or so later:

  I need people to understand that when someone is suicidal, it really usually isn’t because of this one thing that could be fixed. Yes, there are fringe cases where they die because of being found out or losing their livelihoods or so, but imo these are different and not caused by mental health struggles, but instead a solution to avoid experiencing something else and is a conscious decision.

  The one I mean feels like a switch being flipped inside the head that makes you feel like you have to die now no matter what, a strong urge, a panic. A deep fear that if you don’t do it now, something unfathomably bad will happen and you will suffer tremendously if you don’t preempt it now.

  It’s not rational. It’s not someone calmly taking stock of their life, falling short, and then preparing everything with clarity over a few days or weeks (though that can also happen). It feels more like a frenzy and something you can’t plan for, something that tries to convince you that you can’t even wait until the next day or execute a proper plan; it’s an urge to just take the paths open to you right now.

  The times I was or am suicidal, I don’t care about anything. I know in the above text, I mention my pain and situation, and yes, hotlines can’t fix them, but outside of such a headspace, I also know that in these suicidal moments, I could be in a mansion, a millionaire, and my illnesses cured, and I’d still feel that way. It’s my brain misfiring. At those times, I am just tired of being alive no matter how that life would look like. I feel so overstimulated and sick of it all that I don’t even wanna witness a comfy and easy life any longer. There’s nothing that makes it seem bearable in my head, nothing that is worthwhile. I just want everything to stop. No more awareness, consciousness. I feel out of control when it happens.

  It’s understandable when people who loved a person who killed themselves wonder what else they could have done, and regretted the lack of a message or call, or that they didn’t say this or that in their last interaction. Ultimately, it wouldn’t have changed a thing for many, I think. At least not for me. The reason for these moods or misfirings isn’t an objective lack of appreciation or love, or because someone said a wrong thing. It’s a sick brain that can’t assess or process things correctly right now.

  Narratives around suicide seem to focus on those cases a lot because it’s easier to fix and explain - just be very nice to the person that feels like an unloved burden and they’ll stay! But it helps nothing with the many, many cases of people that sit there comfortably in their own warm homes, happy family, good job, stomach full, loved, financially ok …. and thinking about ending it all. And even they don’t understand why they are so goddamn unhappy.

  So please never blame yourself or replay situations in your head. This is like someone randomly slipping and falling so badly that it instantly breaks their neck. Their brain just decided to do that, and you just are your brain, you can’t separate from it; it’s just like when some brains suddenly decide to go psychotic and paranoid.

  I think a lot of suicides are almost some sort of freak accident that happens on a whim, which is why so many don’t see it coming and there’s no preparation, no letter, etc. and seems out of character. It probably was.

• 06 Dec, 2025 paths are closing

  I’m at my first milestone where some paths are inevitably closing.

  Oh wait, maybe the second. I think there are some paths that close when you don’t persistently train as a young child and have no supportive parents. For example, I will never be a child prodigy. I will also never be one of those teens that already have a startup.

  Okay, so the second. That one means a bit more to me.

  Can I technically study whatever I want when I want? Sure, and I want to until I physically can’t. But what I study at 35-60 won’t be my career anymore, most likely. I’ve locked myself in somewhat. I won’t be any of the things I wondered about pursuing growing up, but something else entirely. No epigeneticist.

  I have also passed the point of being a hypereducated young person; you know, the kind already having a Master’s at 25 or something, and/or a double Bachelor’s degree, and other stuff. I’m late. Not too late, but late. I can’t be 35 with a doctorate. I just found out doctorate and PhD are not entirely the same thing, good to know.

  People wanna see very young impressive people get scholarships, not crusty 30 year olds who should manage it all themselves via a fulltime job, next to disability (or for others: next to family). They are considered to have built something up already, even if that’s less and less true.

  I won’t be impressive, I will just be normal. The older I get, the more the qualifications I have will just be expected and average.

  I assume the next, third point will be an age where I will no longer get any sort of education, cert, degree for my career anymore, just for fun, or not at all. That doesn’t mean I stay dumb from then on and never grow, just that aside from seminars and conferences here and there, that will be it.

  That will also close the door on a doctorate. Do I even wanna do one? Could I do one? I don’t know yet. I won’t apply pressure to decide yet. I need to do my Bachelor’s and Master’s still.

• 28 Nov, 2025 collage 14

  

  

  

  

• 28 Nov, 2025 don’t get it twisted

  Don’t look at supposedly “normal” people performing everything how they ought to and feeling confident doing it, and taking away that you should have to be this type of normal to be confident.

  It’s easier to be confident if you have made a home in the box society put you in. It’s easier to be confident if you get applause just by being who you are. Not everyone has that.

• 28 Nov, 2025 nothing respectful to say

  I hate when people in a normal conversation change it in such a way that you can’t say something that won’t offend them. Things where you can’t (convincingly) lie, things where the answer is obvious, things where you cannot go back on your previous word.

  Most irresponsible person you know asking you sadly: Am I irresponsible? etc

  Like, cool, now I have to ignore that somehow and skip over it, or be forced to be an ass.

  I know of a person that has a talent of always twisting things to be a negative thing targeted at them. For example, if I say “Wow, the losers working at the job center are doing this awful thing to unemployed people” all they’d say would be “Oh, so would I have been a loser too if I had started working there a few months ago?” and the reality is, they wouldn’t have worked there at all; they would have worked at a publisher that’s hired by the job center, and they would not have been a case worker for unemployed people either way.

  I’ve ignored stupid shit like that for a while now, because what do you want me to say? Yes? Yes, because you are one regardless of where you work because of behavior just like this? Should I say no and pretend because we know each other that you’re the special exception? Is it that deep, when what I said was how unemployed people are abused by the workers at the job center again?

  I don’t get it, why do you steer conversations in a way that could force people to insult you? Just so you can cry victim once more, I assume?

  Will I fault a precariously poor person for working for Nestle in one of their thousands of subcontractors? No. Would I roast a well-off person in this western country thats voluntarily working an oppressive asshole job if they could choose of a lot of less oppressive ones? Yes. No matter if we know each other. The fuck?

• 26 Nov, 2025 recognizing faces

  Something I crave, that I assume older generations used to have a lot more, is seeing the same person for something for 10+ years at least, usually longer.

  You can tell it by the way they talk about things, the stories they tell about others and their environment. Always like: yeah that’s our guy Uwe, he’s been doing xyz for us for years! I always go to Ute for my xyz because I’ve known her for 20 years!

  They befriended and knew their postman, because it was the same one for years, he spoke the language and had time to get to know his regulars. Same with the hairdresser, the local favorite café or restaurant waiters, and more.

  I don’t have that experience anymore. Everything around me is ever-changing. Other people move, I move, they switch jobs, get fired, the places go out of business. My parcels get delivered by random people who can’t speak to me. Despite taking the same tram at the same time, there’s no consistency with the driver selection (and we cannot talk either way). Same with the shifts and employees of other places I frequent. People just do not stay where they are 30, 40 years anymore, privately and professionally. More people bounce between big cities.

  And it’s self-reinforcing, because why feel bad about moving if you have no roots here anyway? These types of connections and interactions are your roots. But it doesn’t feel steady when everyone feels so replaceable, distant and like the shop could be gone in a few months.

  Every time I go into the city, there’s a new closure and a new shop. I don’t like that. I want things to stay the same for longer, like it used to be when I was a child.

• 20 Nov, 2025 the proof binder

  Always pissed me off when people are completely dismissive to criticizing their behavior by going “I have never done this, when have I done this?”

  What do you realistically expect me to do?

  I say you did, but I only have a day/general week/“lately”, you don’t believe me because it’s too vague.

  I say you did, but I collected no concrete proof, so you don’t believe me.

  I say you did, and now what? Pull out my binder with screenshots and an excel sheet with dates? And you don’t believe me because this rightfully would be weird and obsessive.

  Man, no matter who you are: There is no way I would still voluntarily talk to you or get you to change if our relationship makes me feel like I need to keep receipts. What the hell? How would we come back from that?

  Logistically, where do I store all that? How do I arrange that knowledge? What about your privacy? What about my time? As if I keep a grudge so hard I track it like a workout.

  You fuckers are why I used to wish for glasses that record and store footage 24/7 so I could replay your shit to you, and something that compiles it all like a bloopers reel. Now we have both, and it’s fucking horrible and dystopian.

  Your question should not be about wanting a specific clock time, while smugly knowing the other person doesn’t fucking know that and you get to feel like you won. Your question should be about the actual details and how you both can move forward from this, or what they expect from you now.

• 19 Nov, 2025 two thoughts

  One: Potential can be scary. If you believe in it and wanna pursue it and make it happen, you have to actually try, which means you can fail, and it can mean more work, more risk, higher standards, more responsibilities. It isn’t just done with one leap of faith… it’s permanently upping the ante, and many small leaps of faith again and again.

  Two: Whenever plans don’t go as smoothly, it always feels to me as if I wasn’t meant to do them, or at least not like this, or during that time. Like for example, plans to visit a location, and first you find out they aren‘t open at the time you initially wanted, then when you go there the way there is long and tedious with traffic jams, the other minor annoyances there before heading back, like food being a little meh, only getting 3 of the 6 things you wanted or whatever. Nothing outright bad, nothing that would make you overtly not enjoy or regret it; just things here and there that cause a bit of discomfort and friction, which make the entire thing feel forced, or as if the universe is sending subtle signs that you did this at the wrong time/place. That you or the place wasn’t ready. Idk

• 18 Nov, 2025 odd experience

  Told my friend that I struggle with going to the office with my illness and all and that I usually reward myself with a treat during commute to ease it, but that I can’t buy that treat right now because of a union strike (not crossing the picket line etc.). She didn’t know they were striking and said “Oh, good to know, I almost bought there yesterday, glad that I didn’t.”

  Then the next morning, I make my way to the office on 3 hours of sleep, exhausted, in pain, without my little treat to help. Friend messages me a while after I arrived at the office just to say that she got herself that treat.

  What was the point of that? I’m confused. It felt like rubbing in that she got herself something I need for comfort that I don’t let myself have right now. Especially weird when the evening before, she was glad she didn’t buy there?

• 18 Nov, 2025 tired of people never following through

  I know I have no right to. They don’t owe me anything. They should do it how they want to, do it for their own fun, to the best of their abilities.

  Maybe they got sick, maybe they got depressed, maybe they lost interest, or other stuff in life came up. It’s not that deep. Someone not finishing that game, that post, that zine, that degree or course, whatever other projects doesn’t meaningfully affect me. People should explore and try stuff.

  But I guess, one part of me is still tired of seeing people greatly announce a new era, a new self, a new project, a new blog, a new series or whatever just for it to fizzle out 99% of the time.

  It feels connected to how impatient I am, and the high standards I set for myself. It’s a projection of my own pressures onto others. I can’t help it, I do think less of someone after a while of witnessing them not ever follow through on anything. The more I see it online and witness how non-committed most people are to their new thing and plan, the less excited I am to hear it, and the less likely I am to keep an eye on it or support it. It feels like a waste of my time.

  It made me realize that people actually continuously working on their project, their craft, whatever - are rare. Sticking to it despite it being hard, or generating no income or attention is rare. Staying at it even after the honeymoon phase of the interest is over is rare. Still doing it even after public interest has moved on or another thing is suddenly trendier is also rare. Most people tend to be pulled in different directions based on current public opinion, attention and money.

  People are also too willing to invest into a new ideal identity instead of who they really are. That makes it hard to stick to things, because they are made with this ideal person in mind, not for the everyday self.

• 15 Nov, 2025 weird

  I wish I had known sooner that there are lots, lots, lots of people out there who will like YOU for YOUR WEIRDNESS. It doesn’t seem that way in school or in certain bubbles you’re in but you will find them. They look at you and go “They’re weird, I like that”. I love soooo many weird people and it’s among the best things about them. It adds so much to the reason why I can vibe with them, even though their weird is so different from each other objectively. After some time, growing up, witnessing bad stuff, seeing corporate conformity and social media blandness, people indeed wake up and go: I need weirdness in my life. And they’ll find you refreshing. That doesn’t mean everyone will love your particular flavor of weird, but enough will!!!

• 12 Nov, 2025 kindness vs fear

  Your problem isn’t being too nice, it’s how you manage fear. You’re trying to avoid rejection instead of accepting it as a normal part of connection. Authenticity doesn’t work when your entire behavior aims for approval. You have to risk that someone might not like you in order to become real. Courage doesn’t arise from thinking, but from acting with an open outcome.

• 06 Nov, 2025 collage 13

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 05 Nov, 2025 using the system

  I recently asked friends if they are investing - ETFs, shares, other stuff.

  Surprisingly, while the most didn't, there were some who did. Even saying they invest "a couple hundred" a month. It even surprised my spouse. It made us think of some people differently; not negatively, just rethinking where they are in life and what they're spending on. You got the impression with some of them that they don't have enough money in general (rejecting stuff because no money), much less having enough to justify investing, so it came as a surprise that they put hundreds into that. Especially as a student? Wild.

  A discussion started about the ethics of it... since if you are investing into the things that do the best and give the most money back, you are usually investing into oil, war, meat, tech, pharma etc. and some of these are downright bad, some are questionable at least. Someone said that the banks invest your money into these things anyway, and if you do it too into more ethical investments, you can change that a bit at least. Which doesn't really make sense to me because if you invest via TradeRepublic into ETFs, that doesn't stop the bank from investing with the rest of your money in the bank? It's just double, more investments and participation in that weird predatory system that rewards perpetual growth, enshittification, exploitation.

  Also, more discussions about how being rich isn't per se unethical - which I found wild to hear from an anticapitalist, a leftist? Where ever there is profit, someone wasn't paid enough. You can only get rich through paying a worker less than what the product made, and if you get payouts because a company did well, it is because of those profits. Then there's day trading too, which is lowkey gambling with people's livelihoods and jobs in a way, but I don't wanna get into that, especially as none of the people are day traders (yet).

  And when I said I can't control what the bank does with my money because I need a bank to hold my money and process it, but I can choose not to invest and therefore lessen unethical investments on my part, the response of that person was that I am just losing money and "Suffering/poverty is not a virtue".

  Which I find wild because investing does not save you from suffering or poverty. At all. You can sink money into it and lose it all, it is not as liquid as it is in your bank account for an emergency, and you are beholden to a lot of geopolitical events and decisions. Some asshole like Trump coughing the other way can ruin your portfolio. That, and there is a lot of space between not investing and suffering.

  Not investing doesn't make you poor. You can go your entire life being able to afford food, a home, and recreation, and probably even a family without investing - depending on your job, location, and possible generational wealth. If you can't, that is not because you aren't investing, it is because of systemic and political failures. Investing won't even meaningfully save you from being unable to afford this, because you have to have money over to spend. To put it in investing, you have to be okay with never seeing again. Which tends to not be the case if you can't afford the above. And you have to invest a ton (or little over a long amount of time, consistently) before it amounts to something, and most will never reach a sum where they can live off of passive income from investing, or it meaningfully supplementing their income.

  So, not investing is most of the time not suffering or living in poverty, especially not as a choice. It isn't living in an ascetic way to be more ideologically pure or handicapping oneself to a shitty life just to not participate. Also, be so for real right now: There is a difference between living a slightly less well-off, and suffering. I think we have lost our way in that regard, always aiming for the most financial success, the bigger house, the bigger car, even more vacations, even further away. It seems many are not okay with living an average life that is good enough. That's sad. And you can see it in that discussion, where not investing and not getting a bit of returns from a system you hate is seen as suffering for virtue. If my life is good enough without investing, why bother participating if I have ethical concerns?

  Personally, I'd rather be poor than participate in something I find terrible that I can avoid; I don't expect this from others, but I do want to point out that an average life here is already better than most of the world, is something you can be proud of and happy with, and it seems ungrateful and greedy to pretend not maximizing your money is bad. It's peak individualism. And of course it is fine to participate in the system you criticize, I don't wanna go "You criticize the system, yet you participate in it. Curious!" I can't choose my participation in many parts, but the ones I can choose, I do. It affects my consumer behavior, where I work, and other things - investing is among them.

  I don't like that many people see how shitty capitalism is and criticize it and want something else, but also seem to have the view that, as long as it is not getting changed any time soon, they should participate as much as possible in it and get their part, get what they can out of it. Like "the system fucks us all, might as well make the best of it" which I honestly don't want for myself. I feel weird trying to extract value out of this system outside of what I absolutely must. I don't wanna think it is okay to play the game and buy into it like a future wannabe billionaire as long as I get something out of it - like, "fuck all the animals, fuck the people in Bangladesh, etc etc. as long as I can get cheap clothes, eat meat, make profit via Nvidia, and get my own house." I'm not wired that way. Seeing the world that way got us here in the first place and is something we deeply fault boomers for.

  Investing is participating in a system that rewards those who are already well-off enough to even do it, who have access to certain information and education, can handle gambling and risk well, and many who don't give a fuck that they are profiting off of companies doing well that actively kill us, poison us, destroy the environment, and more. It rewards people with parents who start you early, too. It's often presented as this equalizer, as some nice system for the every day lowlives to make an additional buck no matter who or where you are, but I don't buy it. It depends too much on access and existing wealth.

  If the numbers go up, you know Rheinmetall has delivered tools to kill once again and made money off of human suffering, and Nvidia helps AI advancement and all problems that come with it, and companies like Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Bayer etc. have once again successfully held treatments and cures hostage behind horrific fees and contracts, etc. etc.

  I don't know why you'd want that little bit of blood money; the good sustainable ethical stuff is just not nearly as successful.

  Even if we buy into the fact that this helps ensure financial security in the future - that means we are systematically starved by the system (issues with affording groceries, affording rent, affording a house, affording children, issues with pensions and retirement for future generations ...) so that we invest the little we have into their companies again who squeeze the world and us dry and don't pay us enough. And we do that because saving the money in a bank account is presented as not good enough, as wasted, as yielding you less than it could on the market; when in reality, it is there and if big whales in the space start selling like crazy, they just take your money with you. You are, in worst case, enriching others.

  My spouse said something I agree with as well: That they don't think of bank money as needing to yield revenue, to generate more money. They think of the bank as an institute that needs to hold their money and that's it. I agree. I never once felt like the money in my bank account should magically procreate to be more. It's digital numbers to pay for stuff. I don't care if that view is childish. I think it's normal if you aren't completely capitalism-poisoned.

  Also, fittingly:

  

• 25 Oct, 2025 i chose to speak up

  In a recent argument, I got told that I should use my social capital for something that moves the needle. Not much more info than that. I chose not to ask further, because the other party was clearly hurt and that reply wasn’t entirely thought through.

  What social capital are we talking about? My real life social capital, my online social capital? The one between us?

  Offline, I guess I try to be a good influence by modeling a certain lifestyle and answering questions about it, helping people ease into it. I’m working in a job that controls the safety of an entire industry that is very important for our survival. I volunteer for a good cause on the side, too, but the work is more digital; it’s not a soup kitchen, after all.

  Online (elsewhere than here), I try to talk about important issues and try to discredit and question some structures and companies, and try to educate about 12k people a month. I share links to helpful and interesting essays and sources, too.

  If we are talking about interpersonal capital, the rapport we have built between each other, then I don’t really know how to move the needle (get someone to change their mind, I assume?) if the person says they won’t read the text I sent that contains the arguments. And honestly even if they did, I can’t influence what they take away from it. So if you choose not to engage with it and would not even consider changing your mind just based on how I criticized you, it is impossible for me to move the needle.

  If it’s meant as a broader thing - like “You could do something more valuable with your time!” - then I disagree, too. Typing up some arguments for 20 seconds, then replying twice for 2 seconds and then choosing to drop it and move on cost me virtually no time. The stuff I detailed above is going on as usual and aren’t lessened to focus on talking to a friend.

  I think that person knows all this though, it was probably just said defensively, and if I had engaged further and deconstructed that part, it would have just seemed like I was out to humiliate them or find fault in anything they say, so I didn’t.

  It also revealed something else to me. The same person has admired me in the past for other online endeavors, especially the one mentioned above. I am able to work and study, they are unfortunately not able to. I do create things that, according to feedback I get, has changed some opinions and inspired lifestyle changes. You can’t say the same for the other person, who is isolated at home and makes cool creative stuff that they sadly almost never actually finish or release. So the pointer to using my social capital is clearly a little path to something the other person maybe feels insecure about.

  It reminds me of when I roll my eyes at rich people and make jokes about them wiping their tears with dollar bills as they sit in the Mercedes, or think “Why don’t you just shut up and enjoy your indoor pool.”

  My immediate reaction was to think “You don’t wanna go there” because honestly, who does it benefit? I may be squandering my time I could use for the important stuff, but by objective standards, you have not even built anything to squander. I also don’t like going there because it quickly gets ableist and equating able-bodied, neurotypical standards of success and the ability to generate capital with being a good person and/or doing good things, and that’s just wrong. We are both very sick, and it’s not fair to either of us.

  After I said I didn’t mean to derail with this, and that we should return to the actual topic and answered it, they continued after, needing to have the last word. I’m okay with that. I didn’t let it rope me back in. I really didn’t want it to be a huge or serious thing, and I’m glad it was over quickly. I can’t deny that it possibly left the other person with unresolved feelings and things they wanted to say but now the moment is over, but I think I’m okay with everything that happened and what I said.

  In general, I see it as a huge improvement for me, even if it didn’t seem that way from the outside and had a negative outcome. Years ago, it would have deeply upset me. I would have either engaged about the topic, all fired up, going back and forth over possibly hours until everything was said; or I would have swallowed it, ignored it, pushed it down and either said nothing or watered down my response and wrote something reassuring just to avoid conflict. I would feel bad, anxious, like I bottled it all up to protect the other person’s feelings. It wouldn’t have been a calm way to respond, but a pressed, insecure, scared way that doesn’t consider my feelings, just the other person’s.

  But now, I can remain calm, move on from a topic, and even see the other person is mad at me but knowing that I stand by what I said and did what I think was right and appropriate. I chose my battles. I wasn’t moved by an overt emotional response, but a feeling of: No, I will engage about this, and I won’t take it back or center what I say around this person for a fear of conflict.

  ---

  I could have been nicer about it. On the other hand, for years now this person has set the precedent for having callous black and white takes, butting into conversations just to call something dogshit, useless, etc. always in crass terms and no room for arguments, not taking into account that someone else might enjoy it, and without watering it down like “I personally think it’s bad”.

  Everyone else just knows that’s how they are and treats it as funny or a joke or occasionally tiptoes around it. It is unfortunately a one-sided affair, as you would not be able to say anything they like is dogshit without a meltdown. Considering that we have always found our way around this conundrum, I think in that specific situation, I had something akin to a coupon to say “I think this take is dumb as fuck” instead of “I disagree”. I think it’s fair that after years, you meet someone where they’re at with the same energy. That’s also what I told them. It’s not that I had any built up resentment about this and this was a moment of revenge or being over it - I just thought it’s appropriate as the behavior to each other in this way was normalized by this person. Somewhat of a code switch, if you will.

  I also discovered that they blocked me after, which I surprisingly feel neutral about. The beef is obviously one-sided: I push back against the opinion, and I point out that this is completely in line with how they usually act, and then I’m able to move on. The interaction itself didn’t change how I view them at all, since I am already used to this, and I may be annoyed at the behavior or opinion, but not really the person behind it. But to them, it’s kinda a personal insult and changes how they view me, which I’m ok with. Unfortunately I think there’s sometimes no way around pushing back against someone without them taking offense to it, and also sometimes it’s sadly necessary for the chance of holding up a mirror and making them reflect. I wouldn’t be surprised if I am unblocked some time down the line. It’s funny though because I was unfriended and blocked on anything possible, and it’s kind of an overreaction and interesting reversal - you’d think I’d be the one to block if I think someone has a horrid take or something. But no, challenge the baby and feel its wrath.

  There was one shot I took that went kinda deep and is for sure debatable; reacting to me pointing out their (screenshottable, and happening directly after too) behavior saying that it’s some fantasy I conjured up in my head that isn’t real. It made me feel (genuinely, using that word correctly) gaslit. So I responded saying I don’t think enough about them enough to make one.

  Surely wasn’t nice, as the core message is: I don’t care about you. Of course, technically, I do care, and by simply witnessing someone, you build an opinion, an image of them. But I don’t like the dismissive insinuation that I spend energy villainizing someone in my head as if I am obsessed ir have nothing better to do, as if I enjoy seeing someone negatively for no reason; so if you imply that and go there, there’s not much else I can say. I certainly can’t sensibly say “No, I see you in a normal way and what I feel is real.” If you heat up the nachos, they’re hot.

  ---

  The issue I see is that people certainly don’t wanna upset them, especially with a history of being extreme and thin-skinned, and next to that, also actual enablers who continue to excuse certain behaviors even in DMs. So unfortunately even if this person would search for critical voices among others, asking if they really behave that way, I don’t think people would give a straight up answer. More like “well, sometimes you can be edgy, but it’s okay!” People don’t wanna get involved in drama, which is fair. Unfortunately in general, it’s pretty difficult to give it to a friend straight about problematic behavior :(

  This is also what happens when you shield someone from the echo of their own behavior for too long, and others working overtime in DMs telling you not to say or do this and that and that that’s just who they are, preemptively avoiding certain conflicts that maybe, that person is just one day bound to have and would help. You can’t always clear the path for someone and warn people and beg them to understand, fighting battles for them.
  This behavior is something you can cultivate and keep up in your own family bubble and Discord servers, but you tend to grow out of it in work contexts, or learn to control it there. In some cases, I guess there is nothing else teaching that kind of stuff when a workplace is not present.

  In this instance honestly, if you really feel like there was a mischaracterization of you: You can let the mischaracterization stand, while engaging with the actual arguments. I’ve had to do this countless times already. Don’t like what the person is saying about your behavior, followed up by arguments on the actual topic? Then zero in on the topical arguments and lead it away from becoming personal. You don’t have to defend yourself or argue about your character; you can choose to move forward with keeping it on topic and seeing it as you two discussing two sides of a coin, or tackling a problem together. Working with difficult coworkers has taught me that, and having to grey-rock and redirect my mum’s anger has laid the foundation.

  ---

  What did annoy me about it is that someone “cleaned it up”. It was already hours after, everyone had moved on, no one referenced it, people had already gone on to have their own conversations in the channel and whoever has admin rights still went to scroll back up to delete it. Honestly, deleting is fair is it’s offensive and discriminatory content, stirring shit up for hours, spamming the channel etc. but why would you go scroll back up hours later for 6 messages of a disagreement between 2 people in a server of like 25? This is the type of exchange you should leave be. Because no, obviously I took no screenshots, and if anything happens following that up, I can’t even go back to reference it or reassure myself that it really went down the way I remember. It enables further gaslighting by that person about their own behavior.

  And if I stand by what I said, I want it to remain up. Now it feels like someone is doing take-backsies on my behalf.

• 25 Oct, 2025 obsessions / compulsions

  I'm not diagnosed with OCD, but there are some things that I struggled with over the years, some still struggle with.

  • I can only allow myself to eat the same food once a day. So if I eat bread in the morning I can't have it the rest of the day. I am able to make exceptions for beverages now.
  • I used to notice this compulsion at work where specific toilet stalls were for specific actions, and I had to close the stall door right. I was scared of this developing into something severe, so I tried my hardest to stop it and now it's not a problem at all anymore.
  • I struggle with flashes of violent imagery, for example because I suddenly think "What if the house collapsed" "What if this person just got ran over by that car" "What if my spouse just got stabbed" out of nowhere and against my will and then see it mentally. Especially lately, I have been struggling with intrusive thoughts about dying, like me dying right now, my spouse dying, etc. and I have to check.
  • I have issues with looking at or interacting with children and always have, because I am scared of hurting them, or that I accidentally do something inappropriate, and I hyperanalyze my behavior and thoughts and body sensations around them because I feel like I have to make sure that I have no bad thoughts of reactions around them. I often cannot even look at them because I have this fear that if I look at them that means I am secretly pedophilic (I am not, I fear this is genuinely just a bit of POCD). Like this is something I think is so bad and awful that my mind goes into overdrive trying to make sure I am not that.
  • I used to struggle a lot with obsessions in relationships, romantic and platonic. I obsessed over if I like them enough, if they like me enough, if the fact that I find this small part annoying about them means I should cut them off or is a sign they aren't right for me, or a sign that I don't like them. I became overly fixated on having to make this decision as soon as possible to not get stuck in a friendship or relationship that is bad and to not lie to them, and that if I don't find out soon it will be too late and then bad things will happen. It made me ghost a lot of people, clear out my friend lists, make pros/cons lists about people etc. and it was really toxic. I related to a lot of ROCD content. I'm glad I recovered from it.

  It feels good typing that out, like I freed myself a little from this.

• 23 Oct, 2025 no mode

  Thought I’m not sure I can articulate right:

  It takes some age, experience and confidence to not back down from opposition when you think disagreeing is necessary, at least after previously always being deferential, conflict avoidant, giving in, and a little bit of people pleasing.

  It makes sense; not taking the bullies and similar ones into account here, we were children for so long, many of us always listening and doing what we were told and not being able to change much about our experiences or discuss boundaries - home and school both heavily regimented and standardized by other people, adults.

  Then, often not knowing it better, being unable to correct people much or even argue against something due to missing knowledge and experience. After school, staying humble - being shown at university how stupid you are, feeling like an impostor, same at the first job. Your older coworker and boss will know better. You just moved here, better not disagree with the difficult neighbor, you’re new to living by yourself.

  But there comes a time when you have learned a lot - in general, at the degree, the job - and have a few accomplishments under your belt, maybe even rose up, are responsible for things now. You built some authority in the job, your field, your hobby. The praise and progress helps the self-confidence too. You may have some credibility now.

  That’s often the time when you’ll grow comfortable pushing back against some opinions and falsehoods, even if gentle. No, that’s not correct, no, I don’t want to do this, no, this is a really bad way to do things, no, please don’t do this.

  And honestly, for me, that’s exhilarating, now that I think about it. Feels like I have a lifetime of “just give in so it’s over” “don’t hurt their feelings” “they have more power and knowledge so I’ll just stay silent” “I don’t want their friends to be mad at me” “I don’t know enough to challenge this” behind me.

  It’s just important that it doesn’t become too overt, a standard response; after all, I want to remain open, I want to be able to change my mind, be disproven, able to stay amicable and accept changes and things I disagree with. I want to choose my battles. I don’t wanna be difficult. I don’t wanna come across as stubborn or as if I’m always causing problems, or that everything has to go my way.

  I think some people may get stuck on this, addicted to it.

• 21 Oct, 2025 you’re a powder keg

  I’m wary of people who can’t handle even witnessing criticisms, negative opinions, discussions or arguments because it makes them anxious; I understand this and I used to be similarly conflict-avoidant, wanting to cry (or actually crying) when others argued even though I was completely uninvolved. But you can’t be this way in adulthood. Please. How do people stay this way? You can’t cry in the meeting room when there’s a disagreement about an Excel sheet.

  I see it as a sort of powder keg waiting to blow up online spaces and friend groups because these people get so uncomfortable and anxious by just mere discussion that they rile themselves up badly outside of the conversation and then enter the discussion with a mix of crazy assumptions that act like you’re stupid, and weird discussion-ending, vapid platitudes.

  “Why can’t we just get along?” “Why do we need to discuss this?” “Have you all considered that the other person you criticize is a huge victim and not even the worst there is?” “Umm why do you even talk about it/watch it if you don’t like it??”

  The latter especially pisses me off, because it treats everyone as if they’re stupid, it’s childish, and it ignores that you don’t have to seek out the things you dislike. You can hear Taylor Swift in the grocery store, you can have an annoying influencer video on your FYP, you can meet your asshole neighbor in the elevator, you are victim of discrimination in ways you can’t avoid. So you can’t possibly make it worse or overstate the problem by just talking about it. It’s shortsighted to pretend that just by discussing you “waste more time on it”.

  Reminds me of the big brained people in 2012 that were like “You talking about how you notice racism makes you the real racists, because you are able to see it and talk about it, therefore reinforcing it.” Do not act like people talking about disliking a certain type of video, post, music etc in a private group is actually giving attention to these things that the ones creating them can in any way profit from.

  Their weird discomfort blows up discussions that otherwise would have been fine, which increases the chance drastically that they go badly, which reinforces their view that arguments are fucking terrible and need to be stopped at all costs. While the rest of us are enjoying the convo, they’re sitting there sweating like “I have to do something now!! I have to get them to stop! I have to distract them! I have to defend someone somehow!”

  They don’t seem to realize that their input is often really dismissive, inflammatory, confusing, and changing the stakes dramatically.

  And the second reason as to why they’re a powder keg is that because their conflict avoidance runs so deep, they will never feel comfortable voicing boundaries, pushing back on something in regard to them etc. and that’s how you end up with people who go along with everything you say and do, laugh, hug you, compliment you, smile, make jokes about it, and then one day go: Actually I didn’t like this at all, I just didn’t wanna say anything, but now it’s your problem for not reading my mind, and noticing that I always lied.

  When I notice someone like that in the group I really reduce my presence and try to avoid interacting with that person directly.

• 20 Oct, 2025 versions of you

  I think there is a tension between the version of you others see and how you truly are, in the sense that there’s lots of cultural sayings about how one doesn’t say anything about the other, but I think it’s a lot more nuanced than that.

  For one, I think it can obviously help depressed, anxious, obsessive, or low-selfesteem people to tell them that just because someone doesn’t like you doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. That’s where telling people “someone just sees a version of you and it doesn’t mean you really are that” ties in; in the end, it’s just opinions, and you have to work on creating a solid self image so that the opinions of others don’t sway you all the time, even on minor shit like being too quiet or too loud, too personal or too distanced etc. in the end, you can’t please everyone.

  This goes especially hard for strangers or people you know almost nothing about. If this lady is acting shitty with her car in the parking lot, that’s all I know of her, so of course my brain wants to characterize her negatively, maybe as a very rude and selfish person in the rest of her life too, even though I just caught her in a bad moment. In these situations, people only ever see you do xyz, and you are with yourself all the time, so of course this view I have on her has nothing to do with who she really is. She should maybe take my view into account for the next time on a parking lot, but not much more.

  But on the other hand, if you have known and interacted with people for years and are friends, this is a little different. These people have seen you grow and change, have been there for life events, seen you at your lowest and better. I think if they have a specific view of you, there is at least a kernel of truth to it. It’s probably rooted in certain behaviors of yours that weren’t just due to a bad phase, a bad mood, a slip up in judgment - it’s a whole pattern, a side of you, even if small, that you have exhibited independently of anything that’s been going on. Or, if it’s a recent development, they have a clear before/after comparison, they saw the descent into this.

  I think it’s not wise to dismiss these things via the former example of the parking lot lady. It’s uncomfortable when people characterize us in a way we don’t wanna be and our first instinct is to be defensive about it and think of stuff like “it’s just a version of you in their head!”. But I mean, they nourished that version of you in their head with something.

  I’m not saying people can’t assume weird shit about you and project insecurities onto you (like for example, being intimidated by you or your skills or beauty and due to that, seeing you as arrogant, when you have done nothing arrogant), but just like the parking lot lady, most of the time people need something to create a view of you and gather info that informs it.

  There is lots you can do to find out if it’s a parking lot situation or a friend situation. How long have you known each other? How much do you know about each other? Has there been evidence of jealousy or comparison, or is there reason to (one of you is higher up, more skilled, more popular, etc.), that could make negative views on you more likely to have root in insecurity?

  In any way - dismissing others’ opinions of you as versions of you that are created by them in their head that are “not real” doesn’t change the fact that reputations exist and are a part of life.

  I would not dismiss it entirely out of reflex. If you would not say their positive views on you are fictional, take their negative view seriously in the same way.

  This goes the opposite direction too. If you are selfhating and others that have known you for a while have a positive view of you, trust it. You didn’t con or deceive them, I’m sure.

• 18 Oct, 2025 6 thoughts

  I have multiple thoughts that piled up lately. In no particular order:

  1. It’s interesting how perception between internet events varies between people. I remember Gamergate, and it felt huge at the time; everyone had an opinion on it, it felt like it had real world consequences due to the harassment and safety of some involved, and we like to think it led to people drawing lines in the sand, showing their alliances, boycotting one or the other side, and changing how we think of games as art and their cultural impact in regards to discrimination. But I’m sure that there are lots of people who have never heard of it and didn’t notice a difference, meanwhile it was like an online 9/11 to others (in terms of cultural significance, a before/after etc). I experience this from the other side sometimes too: Meeting people who thought this or that was a big online event and assume everyone knows about it, and that resulted in them still holding a grudge against certain creators years later, even after even those moved on from it too. And honestly, lots of it basically sounds like “Creator 1 made inflammatory statement, Creator 2 reacted back calling bullshit, other creators covered the drama and I chose one creator I like more and abhor the rest who weren’t on their side.” And it’s talked about as if it was a feud between their own family and the neighbor family that’s been brewing for years, as if they stopped shopping in the town’s supermarket to not support their enemy. It’s lowkey a little funny. Just the mental image of someone going: “Oh… that mountainbike YouTuber… he called the other mountainbike YouTuber a moron and I haven’t forgiven him since”

  2. I sometimes meet people that think anyone ever is potentially the biggest victim, and I find that worldview interesting, to say the least. If you say anything negative about a person, even if it’s a complete stranger, a celebrity or whatever, they will invent reasons as to why that behavior makes sense and defend them, but in a weird way? I totally understand the core of this behavior, as I too of course don’t want to assume the worst in other people. When someone speeds, I sometimes think: Maybe they need to go to the toilet desperately, maybe they’re driving their pregnant partner to the hospital for the birth, etc.. But honestly, the way these people overdo it is nuts. It’s like a) there is no bad behavior to them you should be able to criticize without excuses and b) they think you are emotionally challenged, as if you had never once thought about a behavior’s reasons and tried to be empathetic. You could say anything negative about someone and they’ll instantly be like: “Well, what if they’re poor, homeless, single, their whole family died, they’re depressed, they have anxiety, and anyway, I am sure there are worse people??” It’s laughable at times. Like when someone says the person at the bank lost the important documents, for example, no one wants to hear about how you think they are probably overworked and have ADHD. It also seems so… tone-deaf, and weird to project that onto people. There’s a difference between being snapped at by a mother and thinking “Well, raising a child is hard, I’ll show her some grace” and making up random hardships for strangers to defend them from rightful criticism or disappointment. And these people have not figured this out yet.

  3. I have a love/hate relationship with the Windows 10 sunsetting. I hate the unnecessary e-waste, but love that it could move more people to Linux. What I hate the most though is the bitching and whining. Lifelong Windows users who have never used Linux will trash it while asking for help; they’ll insult Microsoft, but say Linux is just as bad just based on what they heard 15 years ago. They are tired, but will submit to Microsoft’s regime because “at least I am not an insufferable Linux user”. Some act like they’re looking for change, but you just know they won’t try, falter at the first thing that isn’t exactly like Windows 10 (which not even Windows 11 can offer) and then say Linux is a failure. They’ll complain about what will possibly maybe not work on Linux based on speculation, when it won’t work on their PC right now thanks to Microsoft either, especially when upgrading breaks their old games. They will say Linux does this or that, as their Windows PC freezes and crashes and is slow and throws errors and keeps resetting their settings. Okay. So honestly, I feel no pity at all. If you have been cynical and toxic-sarcastic about Linux, I love to see this happen to you right now. I love that instead of staying humble, asking for help, being open, learning and adjusting to a new thing, you choose to be a toddler and reap what you sow. You’re losing the high ground, the thing you said is so much better is entering enshittification levels beyond what we could have all imagined, and your first reaction is to cling to the sinking ship and throw middle fingers to the afloat alternative. I would have loved to help friends switch and install Linux, but the only person to somewhat say anything in that regard was such an asshole about it that I won’t do it and will tell him to stay on Windows. You made your bed, arrogantly so, so now lie in it.

  4. It’s weird when there’s one person in the friend group who still studies fulltime. We have people working fulltime and studying parttime, and some unemployed people, but no one is as exact about money as the fulltime student is. The rest of us are vibe-based reciprocal: you pay for dinner here, I pay for ordering takeout there. I pay for your café order here, you bring me a little gift 2 months later because you saw something that reminded you of me, and so on. There is no timeframe, no reminders, no exact values or having to reciprocate in the same way. It just flows freely and works out. But the student will pay for takeout, and then ask for the 16 Euro for that expense two weeks later. I know some students can be a lot poorer and need the money directly, but in this case, that person really isn’t reliant on the 16 Euro and we have generous unemployed people too. It seems more like… poor-student-cosplay, or the mental thing of: I don’t work yet, that’s why I have to do this! Even though they could wait for like in a month where it is repaid more naturally. This also happens with groceries which is wild, like “Hey can you see if you can get that special oat milk in the store on the way here?” and instead of relying on the knowledge that of course those 2,40 are paid back the next time you need something you have to ask for it almost immediately… uhhh I don’t know. I get it, but also, I feel like all of us who have ever been employed have grown out of this behavior and the student who is also 30 like us still has not left the high school days in that regard.

  5. Why are we pretending that reblogging, retweeting, reposting, retooting etc. is not endorsement? It is silly. The disclaimer is dumb. You do this entire profile to show things you agree with, like, and give visibility to things you support and wish more people would know about. People scroll your profile to get to know you and your interests and values. No one is reposting things they hate with no comment, without a take-down, a negative quip, a “hey look at this shit”. I guess it could hold up if it meant “I am not capable of checking the content of the OPs profile and the context of the post all the time, so if it is problematic, leave me alone about it” which at that point… why even share this, share so much, or also: even participate in a culture where people fault you for not knowing the OP of the cute puppy picture is an asshole. Like of course if you reblog that you are not in support of the latter. But pretending you share everything on your profile with no positive endorsement by you is silly!

  6. Got an update about an acquaintance. Dating the wrong person and doing the wrong job can really ruin you, and who knows how long it will take to return back to yourself, if possible at all. Or return to a decent version, at least. This girl I’ve known since she was 11 (now 24) is working at a bank and dating a higher-up at the same bank and it has made her become someone else; not exposing who she is at the core, but being completely out of character. Very stingy, very materialistic, only ever interested in money and brands. She didn’t use to be that way at all, but she became this way thanks to him and the job. She abuses her powers at her job to check the bank account balances and transactions of everyone she knows. I am thankfully not at that bank. Even when her sister invested in a new couch, her first questions were “How much did it cost? Who paid for this and how?” She is obsessed with who has how much money and possessions and can afford this or that. It is creepy. And she is so young still. I hope she can come back from this. I hope this doesn’t shape her for the rest of her life.

• 16 Oct, 2025 friends’ hobbies

  I have to say something pretentious for a minute….

  I am disappointed when a friend gets a new interest and I think it happened organically, but then a while later I find out it was because of a social media trend.

  Of course you have to get inspired somewhere, and many of us have started something due to seeing it online or knowing someone who does that hobby already, so this isn’t about copying or being unoriginal. It’s just about where the seed is from and how it was planted.

  Like journaling for example. I think it’s great if you see a friend into journaling and start doing it too, or you yourself one day think you want a place to document your life and be creative in, so you pick out the supplies and get started. You may peek at YT videos and Pinterest boards for some inspo.

  But when it’s just because it’s currently a trend on TikTok and every second video is about it, it feels like it was forced in you, upon you, to feel like you belong. You buy the things others in the videos have. You design the pages like they do, or how the people on Pinterest do it. You take their prompts.

  There’s almost no customization because you weren’t just inspired to do something and then found your way to do it, you were just receptive to the idea you were being sold, and now you’re performing it for a while until the next thing comes along.

  Like wow, I thought you had a need, a yearning, a drive to do something, an urge to make it your own. I thought passion for something spilled out of you. I thought you were so full of feelings and ideas that you needed this.

  But you only like it because you were made to. You do it because it’s the next thing to trend to combat brainrot, right after the personal curriculums and all. And to show everyone you belong to this group of people, you have the journal cover that combines multiple journals that everyone in the videos has.

  It kinda turns this sweet moment between humans (being happy for your friend, sharing that with them, loving to see them find something they like to do) into something capitalistic, algorithmic and cold for me. Performative.

  It’s not about who did it first or who is a real journal-er or artist or whatever. If you do it, you count, you are real, you are valid, no matter if you only do it for TikTok.

  It just makes me see that hobby exploration of yours differently. This opportunity to connect and feel like your friend is on a journey into something and you get a peek of who they are at their core (very intimate) suddenly has brands and influencers written over it.

  The pages are often done performatively too. I get overexplaining some stuff to make sure that you still understand it when you read it 5+ years later, so that’s not what I mean.

  I mean writing stuff down you clearly would not need to remember. Like, I am not writing down that I love (franchise) or (hobby) or (topic) and why; I could understand if it’s something temporary, so you can look back and think wow, I was really into chai and mechanical keyboards in 2025, but for like… core things? Things you have always and will always like?

  The way I detect it is: It doesn’t read like an interesting exploration of an aspect of it, or an opinion, or other thoughts on it, it just reads like a website bio where you describe yourself to others and explain why you like the thing you have always liked.

  I know this focuses on journaling, but can be anything, really. I have experienced it with other things, too.

  I know I know, let your friends explore, be happy for them, what does it matter, etc etc I do! But it cheapens the experience for me! I just simply love seeing people go down a (positive) rabbit hole because they randomly thought of something or saw something out in the wild and now feel struck by lightning, needing to find out more fast.

• 16 Oct, 2025 parenthood

  The older I get, the more I understand why my parents acted the way they did, but I still know they should have acted differently. It makes some things better, some worse. Like okay, now I know how that felt from the other side, how hard adulthood and parenthood can be, finances etc. but it makes some behaviors even more questionable, ridiculous and abusive than they did before. I guess it’s a little better than just feeling like your parents did that for no reason, like the way my mum felt possessed by an evil spirit to me at times as a child, but still.

  Also, sometimes I remember something kind they did, feel grateful for it, then realize it was the bare minimum, they only did it once or made me feel like a burden for it, using it against me. I will remember something good for once, but now me having more experience puts it into perspective and I realize they did not even wanna be there. As a child I could never truly pinpoint why I felt so neglected and like a burden, rejected; but now I can. I finally am able to understand their behaviors back then that used to be so confusing and hard to interpret, and they were just… bored. Performing. Enduring it. Hoping it would be over soon. Giving me a crumb so I’d let go. Do it once for the sake of it. Afterwards, wanting to be left alone. Emanating the vibe of “I’ll never do this again”, like when you force yourself to attend an event you had agreed to and end up regretting it, having no fun at all. It’s like every now and then, they had brief moments of trying this parenthood thing again more seriously, and then leaving these interactions disappointed.

  I don’t know what my parents expected. I wasn’t a complicated or difficult or rude child. Wasn’t moody. Quiet, tended to myself most of the time, avoided conflict, always immediately folded. It’s like they expected another adult maybe, or someone with their exact interests, or a blank canvas they could mold, and I wasn’t really that, and I was afraid of them too.

  The way my mum tried to connect with me was very often by force - like: I would like a child that does the trapeze, so I buy this for you, hang it up in the garden and I’m going to teach you lessons on it. Of course I was terrible at it, afraid to fall, and scared as she screamed at me. Same with being forced to take walks with her, or forced to sunbathe, despite not tolerating heat well. That one time I had a bad asthma attack during a walk and thought I was gonna die (had never had one before and none after), she pretended I was just faking it to go back home sooner.

  My dad just didn’t interact at all, except after the divorce, where he thought it would be fun to agree to go to a movie with me that I wanted to see, afterwards kept insulting it how trash it was, and then said it would only be fair that I now had to go with him to a movie that he enjoyed that I had no interest in, to make it up to him. Which doesn’t even sound that bad if it was lighthearted banter in a good relationship, but we had no relationship, it wasn’t lighthearted, and it felt like he only did that with me because he had to find something to do with a 13 year old daughter, and treating her in a weird reciprocal way you’d do to a buddy that owes you something.

  I remember how he basically never attended anything in my life, like school stuff or riding stuff, except like three times where my mum successfully forced him, and it was usually resulting in a huge fight between them. It’s crazy to think back to it now, because instead of my mum realizing that at least one parent should then keep showing up, she stopped doing that too after I turned 16. No one of my parents even attended my graduation ceremony.

  I’m sad that parenthood was a failed expert they had to endure. I hate that I always felt so unwelcome and was gaslit about where that came from, too. I hate that being together felt like 3 mismatched strangers stuck together on an island.

  I sometimes think about having a child. I used to be afraid of children and being pregnant and giving birth, and I kinda still am, but I guess biology does its thing. I get the maternal urge to birth something I can take care of. Too bad that everything is expensive, we are scheduled for a heat death, I am sick, my spouse is on T blockers, I have PCOS, I don’t like the whole kids and smartphones thing, and unfortunately I don’t want my kid to go through life with only one half of a family. It’s better than I had, but I don’t want to have these heartbreaking conversations. They deserve a full family from both sides that shows up and is warm and kind and local, and parents that can offer them a lot. My child deserves a house with a garden and that a parent is always there to help with homework or drive them somewhere and enough money for all kinds of hobbies they wanna explore. It’s impossible though. That thought makes me cry. Maybe if we could offer the child all that, I would seriously consider it, which is crazy, because I never imagined I could want a child. Whatever.

• 14 Oct, 2025 collage 12

  

  

  

  

  

• 14 Oct, 2025 it’s time

  It’s time for radical acceptance. Acceptance of my face shape, my body shape, my hair thinness, everything. This is just how people like me are supposed to look like. These features look cool on other people too. It was meant to be. Everything is in balance.

  Yes, pressure to look beautiful and looksmaxx exists, yes lookism and pretty privilege exists. But any small fix is not worth it and won’t even move the meter. My career won’t advance better without those last 5kg. My relationship doesn’t get destroyed over having thin hair. No one will think less of me for a slightly asymmetrical face, not in a way that makes or breaks something.

  Yes, it helps when people think you are pretty; they think you’re smarter and more trustworthy. But there’s a hard line that after you cross it, the benefits are already yours, and another hard line somewhere above it, where attraction often causes problems in your life. People harassing you, feeling threatened, people misreading your intentions, people being intimidated and too shy to talk to you, people envying you etc. and it’s not worth it!

  You are most likely already pretty enough to earn its rewards. Trying harder and optimizing doesn’t give a return that makes it worth it because it isn’t prettier = perceived as smarter. Sometimes, quite the opposite.

  Plus, you have to build something that is not touched by your looks. Use looks if needed to get started, but don’t rely on it. Looks are over fast due to aging, accidents, medication and illness.

  I am so tired of fighting and nitpicking and controlling and treating myself the way I wouldn’t treat others. It really clicked when my spouse asked if they have a thick neck. Having a thinner neck would change absolutely nothing in our life. It is pointless to worry about it. I’m tired of pretending I’d be happier at this goal weight or more hair. There’s always something.

• 11 Oct, 2025 can’t have anything (sometimes)

  Sometimes it feels like we can’t have any sort of progress because you just get told it could be worse and that you should be grateful. That’s not how we should weaponize gratitude. I don’t wanna see someone wanting a reduced work week or asking for advice on how to deal with 8h+ a day spent on work be met with “be grateful it’s only 8-5!” like thanks to you people we’ll just never get to have anything I guess.

  Lately, I wake up angry every morning. Nothing directly triggers it, it’s not like I dreamed badly right before that and remember.

  In general, I feel more sensitive to just… world facts. I don’t mean feeling down when exposed to a lot of news or drama, and recovering when consuming less - I mean just simple things that are more permanent and ongoing than temporary conflict, politician said something dumb, etc. I already consume little news and withdrawing wouldn’t affect what I’m dealing with.

  It’s thoughts around my own future, my health, my career; it’s climate change and pollution, it’s general rise of fascism, it’s poverty and homelessness, it’s surveillance, it’s animal cruelty, the inability of institutions and so much more. I think usually we are either in a state of ignoring them to be able to live our lives, or able to be considerate of them while keeping enough of emotional distance to not fall apart.

  Right now I’m just so sensitive to that, no emotional distance. I feel compelled to act, but there’s nothing I can do beyond what I’m already doing, and nothing that would instantly solve anything. At the same time, I just became so tired of it all. Feels like a big bruise. Hopeless.

  I’m tired of living in a world of villains. Controlled by villains, surrounded by many wannabe-villains, who wanna reach the top to do the same, or would, if they ever reached it. I hate what is seen as cool, I hate who or what gets rewarded or punished. I hate that the shitty things are so convenient and easy to get. I hate that we are all numbed or distracted by survival and that many have given up, that many fall for propaganda, and that it feels like everyone is fending for themselves. I hate the prevalence of “I got mine, fuck you”. I hate that anything good is always too hard, too uncomfortable, too expensive or whatever and you can’t expect anything of anyone ever, even if survival or our future hinges on it. I hate looking around thinking of that one tweet that’s like “omg you people can’t do anything”.

  I’m disappointed, I’m over it, I’m tired, I’m sad, I can’t see magic and happiness in a world that is so rotten, at least I can’t acknowledge both right now at the same time. I can’t believe in my usual positive thoughts and patterns and reasonings. It feels too limited to me and ignoring that the rest of the world is getting nowhere.

  I want to live, but not in this world or time anymore, and not with all these selfish people.

• 11 Oct, 2025 always want to be somewhere else

  Me at home: “I wish I was somewhere scenic right now. I wanna make my activities beautiful. I wanna feel like a movie character. I could paint on a desk in a rented villa in front of a huge window, seeing a garden or forest. I could sit in a hotel nook, or a park, and read. I could people-watch in a cute café. I wanna go out more.”

  Me actually doing (some of) these things: “Huh. Kinda uncomfortable. Feels pretentious. I feel like I am performing, but for whom? I feel watched. It’s too cold, too hot, too full, too loud. Why did I pay so much just to have a nicer backdrop for the things I wanna do anyway? I kinda miss home.”

• 07 Oct, 2025 they changed

  I know this person who very often has very immature opinions.

  It's hard to describe it more in detail, but their opinions are always... extreme, but in a childish way? Like lacking maturity, foresight, context, taking things too literally, weird focus on a specific aspect, feeling offended more quickly about stuff, and it's about really inconsequential stuff too.

  Someone will say a piece of media has aged badly or well or whatever and it will be their personal trigger word, going on a rant about media doesn't age... weird rigidity like that always, like going off the rails about having to enjoy media in the correct order... just two examples.

  I actually don't mind hearing or discussing any of these takes at its core (in the mouths of others, one of them would be worth discussing, the other is a lukewarm take), just how and when they are presented, together with that whiny and weird tone/way of expressing it, and parts of the personality. It's the type of person to butt in to a chat convo of two people just to let off steam because of a keyword was being dropped that set them off, and making it all about them, not giving in at all, then disappearing when they are challenged or becoming more heated until the others just give in and drop the subject. At least two people were uncomfortable by this, but unfortunately this person kinda has defenders that are just used to tiptoeing around this person because they are surrounded by abusers anyway and just don't know that this isn't normal. So all the advice that is given is: "Just don't say xyz, don't do abc, and comply with their personal rule, and everything will be fine. It's just so little to ask." Meanwhile they miss the point that it's not normal to have to walk around on eggshells about .... talking about a medium's age..... and other things like that... like yeah it is easy not to talk about this or that but this isn't a trigger topic/content warning topic that triggers trauma or whatever, these are really normal discussion points and maybe one person shouldn't emotionally control an entire server in this weird way? Like, when are we going to teach that baby emotional control and being able to sit with their feelings about something, especially when they are in the minority? It's kinda crazy that in a server of 30+ members, only one person has specific rules around media that everyone needs to follow and they feel very arbitrary and often feel like devils advocate/I'm not like other people stuff. Idk.

  I do understand it's a consequence of neurodiversity and being a shut-in without a job, not getting much exposure to stuff. That is not meant as a roast, I just also personally know how much I begin being in my own head and ranting and raving about inconsequential stuff when I was in such positions before. In those times of my life, these ages (they are also slightly younger) some things used to be so meaningful and big and deep to me and I felt really smart saying them but in retrospect, I was really just isolated and while others had their jobs and responsibilities and some more, dare I say noble/socially acceptable things to talk this way about; but some people have to pump that energy into weird shit like this. I do still believe they are immature for their age, but I try to consider the circumstances.

  Anyway, I have observed them becoming a bit more reserved, serious, withdrawn, if I had to describe it somehow, recently. That edgy teen-like vibe isn't coming out nearly as often or much, and I think some life events may have contributed to that. However, it also feels a bit forced, and I can't exactly pinpoint why; it just feels like they noticed they were acting immature and slightly embarrassing, vowed to clean up their act, but the way they go about it is seemingly to keep being this rigid and snobby, but saying less and being more serious in saying it. What I could appreciate about the previous version was that at least they were able to not take themselves so seriously most of the time too, and be funny about it at times; but now none of that is left.

  It feels like when a child wants to act more mature, and they think just having a more serious demeanor and using bigger words is what makes that. But they still have the same weird behaviors, reasoning, views, hangups... honestly, now that I think about it, this is also the type of person to have found a new character to hyperfixate on and take on their personality, so maybe that is what happened. I have only known them for a short while, so maybe the previous version was simply a different video game character or something.

• 07 Oct, 2025 rich ppl are so boring

  If you really had to invest all that into temporary material things instead of the public good, why do what thousands have done before you and just flex the usual cars and planes and bags? You could literally be more interesting by flexing having the newest eco thing, like some futuristic e-car, a solarpunk-like home, unusual stuff like those expensive solar jackets that charge your phone, a machine that cleans the ocean floor having your name printed on it etc.

  As usual money cannot buy taste, morals, vision, a personality

• 06 Oct, 2025 the ick

  some things on here that give me the ick (to be continued):

  • begging for upvotes
  • including a whole disclaimer to explain what the chevrons on this platform stand for to gain more upvotes
  • getting upvotes and holding an acceptance speech like you just got an award
  • being on Trending once and using the moment to plug your social media accounts. what the fuck are you doing, shouldn’t it be the other way around
  • acting like attention on a blogging platform is a resource we deprive people of and the rich 1% of the platform should go out of their way to redistribute eyeballs for some reason, outside of already sharing the links they like. It reeks so badly of social media behaviors and even though I can sympathize with wanting to be read, I can’t connect to it myself in that way and I think we should leave some social media brainworms and worries where they came from
  • spending more time, more words, and more posts complaining about who is Trending and who isn’t under the guise of comfort bloggers or hidden gems or building a community or whatever, than to actually share links to those underrated bloggers. Let’s just face it: the underrated gem is you, isn’t it?
  • having like 2-4 posts and complaining about lack of consistent attention. Can you please give it time and give people a chance to get to know you? Can you give yourself time to write a couple bangers?
• 02 Oct, 2025 family fear

  I am always baffled at how scared other queer people are of elderly family members that they don't even like or depend on for money or housing. You have nothing to lose with these people, why are you afraid?

  That's a frail person reliant on other people, not an apex predator. What are they gonna do? Call you a slur or deadname you? Just look at them and go "You got a big mouth for your big age." and let them embarrass themselves. They have no power, they can't hold shit over you, they can't even beat your ass up. Stop giving these people so much power in your mind.

  It's another thing if it is someone you genuinely loved, admired, or depend on. But without any of that, come on!

• 27 Sep, 2025 collage 11

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 21 Sep, 2025 it's gonna hit your loved ones

  A lot of people want change, and we can agree on a lot of things; but I think realistically, they aren't ready for how much it will hit their loved ones. This aspect is, I assume, one of the top factors that things remain the same. People value blood and connection over justice and morals. They can't imagine their loved ones doing anything wrong, or being complicit in the very same systems they hate. Others who do this are evil, but their friend is just "doing their job".

  If you want affordable rents and stopping landlords from bleeding us all dry over greed, it will also hit your family member that is one. He might be nice to you, but what you don't know is that he raised rent over 200% for the last couple years, refuses to fix the mold problem, and is harassing his tenants. You can't imagine him doing that, and you'll likely never find out if he does. But if there would be genuine changes that make such landlord behavior impossible, you better believe he would beg and cry, complain he is one of the good ones that just wants to give people a home but now thanks to the evil government, he'll think twice about offering his property to other people, because it's now sooo hard and such a liability for him! This happens every time the government gets involved, like capping rents or being court-ordered to repair something or saying that refusing to rent out to Muslims is illegal.

  The same thing will happen at work - wanna remove bullshit jobs, get a good salary, good benefits, insurance and a work/life balance? Wanna significantly reduce the pay for CEOs? Better believe your other family member will complain, whether she is some CEO or just some middle manager. People like her would be eliminated, or people like her would get a paycut, or they would be forced to accept that you cannot harass people after work hours and that they don't owe you their entire life just for being employed. Babe, the annoying ass, smug ass, 7-rounds-of-interviews ass people all have loved ones who love their shit! They're their nibling, their sweet neighbor, their weekend trainer of their son or whatever, but they are, also, the asshole that doesn't refuse to participate in the sheer stupidity of most application processes nowadays, but even plays into it, like they're having some sort of sick pleasure in setting up Saw-esque tasks and watching the applicants fumble.

  The people working at the worst scammy banks you know have friends, the people working at unethical law firms have families, the people working at Lockheed Martin et. al. are sweet people in private, the people in US health insurance companies think they're doing a good job denying your claim and go home to be kissed on the forehead for it. Normal people everywhere are involved in these cogs that kill so many of us and crush our dreams, and but if you want anything to change, you have to recognize and accept that the ones YOU like are involved too, and they will be big sad by the changes you want or even lose everything over it. And you shouldn't be afraid of that or try to protect them. Making the world a worse place was an opportunity of income for them and they gladly took it; it's their own fault, and after adjusting, they will be fine. Literally NO ONE has to be or remain a villain. We'd be closer to at least a crumb of utopia if you all held your loved ones accountable, and I don't mean some below minimum wage chump working for Chiquita, but actual people in power or who have the power to work a lot of other jobs that are notably less bad.

• 19 Sep, 2025 it isn't actually harder, just different

  I was doing stuff at home, tidying up, while I thought to myself: What I am dealing with right now is so much harder than stuff before. Before, I always knew what had to change and how to do it, but now I don't.

  But that's not true at all. I don't even know why I felt that way for a few minutes. Back then, what had to change was clear, but it was unclear when or how that will happen. I needed to move out and away from my parent, but when? What kind of job would I do? Would I be paid enough to be able to afford my own apartment? How could I become independent of my mother, as someone super sheltered and raised to be extremely reliant on her? Just because I did end up making it by applying to stuff and moving out at some point doesn't mean the path forward was clear.

  Right now, it's actually similar: I DO know what I need to do. I need to quit my job and find something that works better for me, and I need to move. These are the top two things that make me unhappy and would change everything for the better. But the path towards that isn't clear - it's so hard to find housing, especially over 400km away, it's hard to find jobs in this job market, especially also that far away. It's even harder to get both to align time-wise, and it's hard because my spouse doesn't have a job that is sought after or that they could internally transfer to one of their other cities close to where we wanna live. That would be a huge advantage, but no. My spouse is unemployed, and in a field that is insanely hard to get into, with very little jobs, and with almost zero job experience in that field. It would be good if they would search for a job there first, but they are understandably resisting to that a bit because it could pull us apart as they move down there for a new job and I am stuck here with my current one. It would be ideal, though highly unlikely, if they found a job that could pay for both of us so I could quit, move down there at the same time, and then search there. But instead, I am the one with the only job right now, and I wanna quit and change jobs, even if it's just internally, even if that would keep me in this area for longer.

  It all seems so impossible, I don't know how others do it. But the point is: I felt this hopeless, insecure, overwhelmed and unsure of how to proceed with what needs to be done in the past already, too. It is the same way I felt back then; I also felt like it was impossible for me to move out and work, but I have been doing that a few years now.

  But: Knowing what needs to be done is only half of it, you need to actually also be able to follow through, and that is so hard sometimes. I wish it would just be easy fixes, like it sometimes used to be, like: Walk outside more. Get up earlier. Eat better. But instead there need to be two new jobs, combining two households into one into an apartment, 400km away.

  I feel like I have moved my quarter life crisis to now, 5 years delayed. At 25, I was slaying: Starting my dream job, being well paid, permanent position, starting a degree on the side. But now 5 years later, being sick of that job and workplace culture, still in the middle of that degree, and wanting to move, wanting to switch careers a bit and getting extra qualifications and trying to get practical experience, it's all rough. It's my crisis of being unsure how to proceed and what I want in life. It's banging against the walls of everything I have built because I've outgrown it. It's like a giant trapped in a house.

  There are so many apartment horrors that you feel guilty and bad if you have to move at all, because my apartment is good and rent is affordable, so I feel like I ought to be grateful and just never move out. It paralyzes you. Job feels the same way, with some advantages, comforts and protections others don't have. But those don't make up for the rest, and I can't take it anymore.

  I would honestly even at some point just move and work as a cashier or barista if I had to, but what stops me is that they all have started to severely punish you for that. I remember I used to study something else until I finally found what I wanted to do, just so I would have no gap on my resume, and I still have to justify myself for that unfinished degree, almost 10 years later. A gap is bad, but now doing anything else that doesn't fit into your career narrative is bad, too. So I can only imagine how it looks like trying to apply for (my career choice) positions but working at the supermarket. At the end, I might be stuck there because no one will take me, and it forever stains my resume, ruining my life.

  It makes me mad how easy it was for prev generations to get hired. Be at some party, walk in and shake hands, give them your resume in the shop, the manager being the neighbor of your uncle, meet the CEO on the street and help him... it's insane how much they managed to get into great positions by sheer luck. No assessment centers, no 5 rounds of interviews, no several expensive pieces of paper needed to show your worth. It used to be "cool new project, I wanna get in on that" and they made it work and rose up the ranks. Now at my employer, it's "cool new project" and they don't wanna take any risks, so they search for the cream of the crop while also paying insanely low, so that no one even applies, but I am barred from doing this job, because my degree isn't finished yet. It is nuts! In the practical sense, I could do that job, and I want to. But someone, somewhere, that I will never meet or work with, just decided that this needs this or that qualification and there's nothing they can do. No proving myself, no exception, no getting to know me, no hiring for the actual skills - just paper selection. They are out there preferring to just not hire anyone on that position and lose out, than hire someone who is in the process of getting the paper qualification and who otherwise fits the standards.

  I don't know what to do anymore, man. Everywhere you look, the same shit. Expensive rent, moldy apartments, horrible landlords; barely any jobs, and only for senior stuff or things I don't have yet; I ask for projects at work, they all turn out to be nothingburgers that have like 1 meeting in a quarter, I ask for internal transfers to exciting and cool teams that want me, and it gets denied by the top. Longterm unemployment of so many I know. No one can afford shit anymore, or if they can do groceries and rent, they for sure can't buy a house. It is sickening. I don't want to do this anymore. Everywhere is an impenetrable wall

• 14 Sep, 2025 on violence

  I sometimes think the view that people in history were stupid and overemotional people just beating each other’s heads in for no reason really aids in complacency in oppression.

  We believe that we are smarter now, superior and morally righteous, while the people in the past were barbarous, didn’t wash themselves and were uneducated.

  Meanwhile, it’s those very same people that you owe a lot of rights and information to. They’re the people that killed kings, that threatened landlords, that burned down inhumane factories and refused to work. They’re the ones that killed French royalty for a better life. We still profit off of historical people’s willingness for violence today, especially in union rights and human rights, or even having a democracy to begin with.

  But we hide behind the fact that they must have been brutish, and a real enlightened individual such as ours would simply solve it all with words, and standing in a queue to vote, or silently congregating in front of a building for 3 hours with a few signs. Surely, things will change then, as we are talking to other reasonable enlightened individuals ready to listen and admit fault. And if nothing changes, we just respectfully agree to disagree, and stay in our misery.

  I just don’t think people back then and us are so different in that regard and pretending otherwise may harm us. It’s good that we have options at our disposal that allow us non-violent means of negotiating, but what happens when they are taken away, ignored, ineffective? What if your opponent is armed up to the teeth? What if your opponent is deporting and disappearing people and you want to put a stop to that? What if you lose the right to vote? Consider that people back then were not too dumb to realize that pacifism is good, but instead were pushed into violence as the only option.

  I find it weird to live in a culture that idolizes killing the bad people in fiction but will clutch their pearls about real life bad people getting killed. Of course not everything in fiction can or should just be applied to reality, but I don’t understand how you can sympathize with the rebels and heroes so much in a movie and recognize why it had to be done, and not see parallels to that in your real life. The reason Andor was so popular is that it showed the intricacies of a fascist system, and how mundane the inner workings are, and that there are “good” people in it that just do their job. People called out how extremely analogous it feels to real life politics in their countries. So when is the connect happening in the brain that some people will likely be pushed to react in a similar way that the heroes and rebels did?

  You know why there isn’t a disclaimer like “No violence! No one deserves to be killed for their job or political opinions!” when Darth Vader, or some Marvel asshole or Syril Karn gets killed. It would be silly and undermine the entire message. I think by enjoying it all and empathizing with the heroes in the story, you do understand well why some figures in a story need to be killed, and that it might be good and just, or no big loss; a desperate attempt to stop a killing machine, even if it is just a single cog in it. Now you just have to make the jump and see these situations in real life without thinking that that makes you some kind of atrocious animal. It’s not like the powerful have no ways of avoiding it getting that far, or no protections against it.

  No violence is generally something I can support. However, I also have to recognize that when you make someone powerless, all they have left is violence.

  The side the murdered was on, for example, was the side of wealth, of military, of political power. The powerless can not vote their protection into power (or not at all times), they have been starved of financial resources, and they have increasingly been starved of their networks and mutual aid. They increasingly do not have weapons as they are barred to do so, it is expensive, or they don’t wish to own or use one. They would be a drop in the bucket against military anyway.

  But the side of money and power keeps coming at them, and coming at them, and coming at them. When those feel insecure or threatened, they move away, they build a wall, they create gated communities, they arm up, and they know they have the power to vote in more protections for themselves, even if it’s just financial. They have the power of military and police on their side.

  The powerless have graciously turned the other cheek so much, their face is black and blue. If you take and take and take… all the powerless still have left is violence. When it happens, it is because people were pushed too far and not listened to.

  It’s people like you and me that are frequently asked to mourn and be respectful towards people who gleefully would murder us in return either directly or in legislation. We remain polite, as they fire off heated tweets celebrating the removal of ‘trash’ when our own die.

  Of course we cannot stoop down to their level, but I don’t think we have to stay complacent either. If the contract isn’t held up, and you push people into a corner, they will bite.

• 09 Sep, 2025 suicidal

  My workplace feels like quicksand. I watch it gobble up and break people. I watch as others feel similarly destroyed by the monotony of work and the difficult people around us.

  My coworker, who feels the same way, said “I’m scared I’ll become someone like Marion.” Marion being someone bad at work who keeps pestering others to do work for her and is very incompetent. That stuck with me. It really does seem like the longer you stay in this monotonous pit of weaponized incompetence and learned helplessness, the more it transforms you. Motivated people leave because they aren’t accommodated here and they’re used and abused. Either they make the jump and leave, like so many others I have known here did, or they stay and become like the others.

  We both feel bad. We both feel like we ought to be grateful to have a job at all when others have none or a job that’s physically much harder and more horrible. But certain office jobs eat away at you in a way you can barely describe.

  I definitely feel like my autism makes this harder for me. A lot of aspects about the daily work drain me in ways that are difficult to explain; the emptiness, the sameness, having no control or stake in the output, the office environment … causes me physical and mental pain.

  It’s like a zoo animal. Yes there might be space, shelter, and food and they are privileged to receive healthcare and not needing to hunt - but then you look at them and they seem sad, and they cope by repetitive motions like shaking their head or walking in circles. That’s me. I know what I should be grateful for, but I feel caged and bored out of my mind, forced to work with a sea of people I can’t connect with, and the only other person who gets me feels the same way and will leave this place, too.

  I wish I could get a sick leave for 3 months, but that’s short term gratification. It doesn’t help me find a new job, find new expertise, new projects, a new position in another department at least. I need to endure it for the experience, the consistency, to not miss out on opportunities.

  But I am definitely quiet quitting. I just cannot be arsed to do a lot of the things anymore. I can’t even force myself to, it’s that bad. It can be a 3 minute task and I just freeze and cannot get myself to do it. Almost every task feels that way now but I manage to break through for the truly necessary ones. The rest, though…

  The boreout danger. I should have left earlier.

• 05 Sep, 2025 friend duty

  I forget there are actually people out there who need direct feedback, likes, reshares for everything they put out, else they either feel bad about themselves, their craft or bad about the people they share it to.

  I’ve watched a friend vent about the fact that in other groups, she can post her art and no one says anything, while they say stuff for others that post. Or sometimes there will be emoji reactions but not much else. Or she posts links to her public posts and no one likes or reshares them, like she’d want them to. She said for her, it’s an unwritten rule to support friends in this way, and she is hurt that it’s not happening for her.

  I don’t know why it seems so surreal to me and is something I forget exists when I used to be like that too, partially. I never chased likes or followers, or expected people to share anything on their profile that I made, but I relate to wondering if what I shared in chats was bad, boring, cringe etc. when no one reacted (or reacted much), or wondered if the friendship is actually one-sided and I try all the time while they don’t. It led to me leaving groups in the past, ghosting, blocking, or deleting messages. I made up all these worries in my head about other people’s feelings… but that was years ago, ages.

  I somehow can’t imagine feeling this way again. I feel like I’m too healed, too offline and removed from social media unwritten rules and metric chasing, too old to be feeling that way. I feel safe and secure in the spaces I am active in, the groups I send stuff to. I have internalized that, just as I think something is neat or cool or good and I don’t always comment on it or react, others must feel that way too. I never send stuff for the reactions, for engagement; just everyone seeing it at their own time is enough for me, regardless of the outcome.

  It made me wonder how many people I have accidentally hurt by being like that - so unaware about how others feel about little digital markers of appreciation, and not realizing it really is that deep for people and not something they age out of, especially if their life is very online. I want to be a good friend. But I also feel slightly concerned about enabling these unwritten digital rules and expectations in others sometimes; like yeah, I want to cheer you on and compliment your work, but I don’t want to feel like I have to via very specific online rituals and like our friendship and your selfworth depend on it, especially when I know that this isn’t a natural thing, but instilled by these platforms.

  Reminds me of a person I saw in public who quickly scrolled through her Instagram feed liking everything without looking at it. No pause, no paying attention, just scrolling and doubletapping. She did her friend duty there, I suppose, but I don’t want no part in… that.

• 01 Sep, 2025 sleeping forever

  My coworker is a final boss triggering my trauma with my mother. There are so many similarities there, even down to the age.

  I have had to be the one to give in to keep the peace, the one dancing around someone’s minefield, the one never allowed to talk about what bothers me or my feelings in general without drawing further abuse to me. I had to take it all, bottle it up, never defend myself, never fight back. Otherwise, I’d be threatened with being kicked out (even as a pre-teen), threats against my possessions, withheld food and more. All at home before I moved out.

  And I’ve been experiencing a similar issue for years from this person now, at work. Now it’s not familial ties and the dependence that puts me under pressure to mold myself around their outbursts and bite my tongue - now it’s the professionalism expected at work, and knowing she is the one occasionally substituting during my days off, or is the one that signs off on PTO before the supervisor does. It’s knowing we’ll have to run into each other weekly, still. It’s knowing that if I stoop as low, she’ll go lower, and maybe drag others in, too.

  It’s crazy to realize that I think about all that - the effect it would have on the work climate, on my reputation, about what would make the situation better or worse - while she doesn’t give a fuck about any if these things. I write this in my freetime, she probably doesn’t think about me off the clock, either.

  She has already done it to a handful of other people, she never faced consequences and never will, and she doesn’t care that she’s being known as a difficult character people are annoyed by. She literally has nothing to lose, especially well-off and 5 years away from retirement. She knows she won’t be fired either way for anything, and I think she’s good at teetering the line of being very unacceptable, but not enough to justify proceedings to remove her, as we are periodically understaffed anyway and would struggle to find a replacement; not due to skills, just due to the number of people even applying and wanting to do the job.

  I sadly do have to think about it all outside office hours because I need to plan my future, about my mental health, about my next move. I want to escape her, and that needs a lot more planning and commitment than her temper does.

  I can’t work somewhere where the same person is exhausting and harassing everyone and flying completely off the handle twice a year and specifically treating me the worst out of everyone. This can’t repeat every year.

  I hate that my mind immediately goes to just wanting to fall asleep and never wake up, or at least not for a long time. A remnant of always immediately thinking of killing myself at the slightest bit of resistance, because of everything else I was already dealing with back then. Similarly to how you can feel numb experiencing traumatic stuff, but after it happens, drop a pen and break down crying.

  I’ve healed since then, now I don’t wanna be dead, I want to live. I wanna still exist, I want to have the ability to come back and wake up, and I don’t want anyone to grieve me. But I don’t wanna be conscious. I wanna make it all stop. I don’t want to have to try and think of other ways to make the bullying stop, of other ways to get moved to other teams, other work projects to ask for, to be denied another cross-department transfer, or to keep searching for other jobs online and coming back emptyhanded.

  It’s not only exhausting and sad, but it also feels bad to run out of options and feel like an animal backed into a corner. It feels bad knowing I am a great worker, passionate, interested, quick learner, wanting to grow, cherished by (other) coworkers and my superiors, but it all still meaning nothing because the job market is bad and I’m still here because I have no other choice.

  Judging the way I work, the qualifications and what I aim for and the praise I get from others, I should never even be in the position to have to continue to go to a place that wastes my talents, wastes my time, and exposes me to extreme mistreatment. But it still happens.

  I fool myself constantly, counting up all the good things about the job, remembering all kinds of horror stories online about other workplaces, and thinking “It’s not that bad, you should be grateful” and telling myself it will get worse elsewhere. But whenever I tell others, they say my workplace is crazy and they couldn’t work there, and a nice coworker that started two years ago, who was so grateful and happy for the first year, has been ground to a pulp by now and wants to leave as well. She had to drop out of her parttime studies and is much more sick than she used to be, she says. She looks tired and done. So maybe I’m not crazy, and it really is bad.

  It’s because this is my first proper fulltime job, and I’ve been here for 7 years. It’s hard to leave when it’s all you’ve ever known, and have gotten used to the bad and rely on the good.

  Please universe, help me. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know the way, and I feel lost. All the roads lead nowhere. I need guidance.

• 31 Aug, 2025 abuse

  I watched Kayla’s videos about her abuse (“he doesn’t love you pt.1/2). It really reminded me again how abusive my past was. The further it gets away, the more the intensity of the memories and feelings fade and I am left to ask whether I overreacted.

  But I didn’t. I really lived in fear of my mother, so much so that she sat me down multiple times to ask me why I’m so afraid of her. Of course, any genuine attempt to explain why was shot down and resulted in further abuse, so it was futile. Me being scared made her feel monstrous, made her feel like her abusive father, but it didn’t get her to change, she just had to punish me more for making her feel that way.

  What happened to me is too much to explain in a single post. My therapy as a teenager was writing about it all on my Tumblr. Pages upon pages detailing it all freshly after it happened. It helped me process it all. Also, talking in chats about it, venting to others experiencing the same. Falling into the hands of predators doing that.

  You wouldn’t believe the amount of men even back then who were just waiting for an underage girl to suffer so they could lend a shoulder to cry on and some love and advice before weaponizing it. They got me to engage in sexual acts in writing, sexual stuff over voice call, and send them nude images. They were such a huge reason for why I was so hypersexual as a teenager - it was the only way to be loved, to get positive attention and someone to listen to me, to feel worthy, special.

  Later on, I had two therapists in total and talked so much about it all. Of course I also had partners I had to catch up on the “lore”. It gets to a point where all has been said enough times, it was processed, I was validated, and that’s enough. I grow out of it.

  Not entirely, as every now and then there will be an additional interpretation to some of the things that happened to me just popping in my head, or memories I had forgotten for over a decade, or a sudden attempt of my brain to understand the point of view of my abusers, especially family. I could literally stand in line to order a drink and suddenly be hit with “Maybe my mother did that in that moment because of xyz.” I wonder if that will ever stop. There is obviously still a part of me spending brain power on trying to make sense of it all, and find harmless, relatable reasoning to why I was abused, why it had to happen the way it did.

  What Kayla said also reminded me of some of my ex relationships. I too was called ugly, fat, loose, a whore, a slut by someone that claimed to love me. Another had reckless behavior and would pop off for no reason, endangering us both while speeding when he thought I was going to leave him. Him locking me in his room and not letting me leave. Him trying to pull me back into his car when I tried to leave. Me running for the house door, and slamming it into his face as he almost got me. I remember I just got home and cried so much. Cried how Kayla did.

  Later as I was dating someone else, she had an alcohol problem and she would pinch me until I screamed and it left bruises, she would sit on the table opposite of me and kick me in between my legs and twist her foot into it so it hurt, one time she bent my arm onto my back until I screamed. I think a few months longer and she would have outright started beating me, retrospectively.

• 24 Aug, 2025 mental illness

  I don’t know if I believe that no one never recovers from mental illness and that it has to be this battle for life. I have lots of mixed feelings about that.

  It doesn’t feel quite right - lots of mental health issues disappear when cutting off the right people, or moving away, or gaining new friends, or getting more money, or changing place of employment or other things because they were things that dragged you down and caused the behavior in the first place. Makes sense then that it’d get a lot easier afterwards, if not disappear. I think I saw a lot of people diagnosed with OCD and/or depression talk about how a change in their life basically cured it.

  I mean, can it come back for them when things get bad again? Sure. But I don’t think this constitutes as “not recovering” and dealing with it for life; then we’d never recover from a cold or a flu either. The trigger comes back, and we’re sick in both mental and physical illness.

  I guess in mental illness, we think once we got it, it’s just dormant forever, because when there’s a future phase, it seems so familiar and like it broke out, it flared up - because we don’t have a measurement or understanding of whether this is a new “”infection”” or not, like we have with the flu or cold. But if it was just triggered as a reaction to something in your life, why think that it just laid dormant, instead of being re-acquired? Is it beneficial to think like that?

  In a cold, we have our immune system causing the phlegm. We could think of some mental illness symptoms as being the mental histamine response to a threat. Activated through environmental and generic factors, maybe. But environment can change, gene expression can change as we age, our capacity to handle things changes.

  I guess it depends. If I suppress the breakout of a disease constantly with meds, seeing it as chronic makes sense. Take the meds away, you’re back at zero. You never recover, you are basically just in remission. This makes sense for people who have to be on meds for life for a mental illness, or have to otherwise manage a potential breakout daily. But I don’t think it’s worthwhile to see all mental illness that way, because for many people, it really is just a part of their life they are able to move out of, for whatever reason. Not every depression is chronic, for example.

  Of course, it could be that I only think this way as a cope. Who wants to think they’re permanently “tainted” for life? Who wants to read “you’ll have good phases here and there but it’s never truly gone!”

  What makes this so hard is that ultimately, mental illness recovery is depending on so many factors outside of most people’s control, especially while you’re sick - if you are actively depressed and unable to work, you are dependent on your family and likely not going to earn more money, so you stay broke and reliant on what potentially are your abusers. You have no mobility and no control over your life in this position, which reinforces the mental illness, which lower your prospects of getting out of this. Because the factors that would help are so unlikely to happen, it feels hopeless, chronic, and like we are the problem; we are the illness haver, and it seems like we are the illness origin, but are we really? Is it helpful to see ourselves as the defective ones if our bodies are pushed to behave this way due to circumstances outside of us, that possibly already began before we could do something about it?

  It doesn’t help this view that mental illness as a term covers so much. My arguments apply better to depression or OCD or BPD than schizophrenia, for example. So I recognize that as a limitation.

  But I am still hopeful that many can recover and not need meds forever. I am no longer in therapy and I have stopped antidepressants ages ago. I can just feel things always getting better and healing further the older I get, because getting older has increased my agency and the time away from my abuser. The older I get, the more the scale shifts in my favor because more of my life was lived away from the abuse than under it, which helps a lot. When I get depressed, it is due to other factors like my hormones (PMDD) or genuinely sad and stressful events like physical illness. I don’t feel like it brings out an inherent depression in me; instead, first growing up in abuse made it happen a lot, and now it occasionally happens due to other things, and all of it makes sense.

  If a loved one dies, you grieve. You’re sad, your behaviors change for a while. We wouldn’t call that mental illness, it’s just a normal reaction to what has happened. I see my depression and PTSD the same way; normal, temporary reactions to what I had to deal with that are no longer in my life.

  Resilience and our capability to handle conflict or difficult life situations also plays a role, of course. How quickly do we feel overwhelmed? How much time do we spend imagining different scenarios and worrying? We can enter a thought spiral really quickly that can trigger us. I have no clear answer for that; of course the abuse and other bad circumstances we live through shapes our thoughts, habits and character a bit, and those in turn can be more likely to further mental illness symptoms. But everything about us is so malleable; you don’t think the way you used to 5-10 years ago, same with habits, your character, your interests. So I think this can change as well; you aren’t set in stone.

  I don’t know if it’s helpful to tell people they’ll always be mentally ill. It often makes it harder to even try to recover, because it seems futile. But if I hadn’t chosen recovery and gained a little strength to change a thing in my life that again gives me a little strength and stability and repeat that cycle, I would still be at home, abused, or homeless.

• 23 Aug, 2025 collage 10

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 21 Aug, 2025 enduring annoyance

  I think I used to have impossible standards for others because I had them for me and because I didn’t know any better. I barely had exposure to people, let alone reasonable ones, so I didn’t know what was okay to feel and what wasn’t. How much annoyance with others was normal?

  For some reason, I seemed to assume that someone annoying me was enough to not be a good fit. I now know that that’s just normal; sometimes your good friends do things that annoy you, and you endure it and it passes. For some reason, back then, I think I held on to that feeling for much longer than I should have, overthinking it. I guess it was because I felt like a giant wound and I was abused at home, so feeling bad about someone felt like the first signs this person was going to hurt me, even if that wasn’t true, and I was very sensitive.

  I seemed to have thought that to be good friends, everything should feel good and effortless at all times. Very unrealistic, but I had nothing to learn from and no role models. My mother treated people the same way, cutting them off for very minor things.

  I’m glad I mellowed out. I can stand a lot more now, I don’t hold on to annoyance or anger; I properly “reset”. I now know that I have to limit myself in how much I interact with people because I burn out on them fast, and I have to build up a tolerance per person. I definitely need cool-off periods as well, else they become my BEC (bitch eating crackers) temporarily. I’m glad I don’t feel like someone’s quirks and mannerisms are a planned slight against me anymore. I’m able to find it exhausting without blame or assuming ill intent. It doesn’t permanently alter how I feel about them anymore.

• 19 Aug, 2025 i need a break

  I just need lots of breaks while socializing, or rather, short bursts of socializing, instead of huge chunks of it. I need to be able to go home and be alone. I need to be able to retreat for a few hours until I return. I need to be able to be in the same room doing my own thing at times without being actively involved.

  I attended a big party on Saturday, then I was with some of them attending an event with lots of people on Sunday, and then one of them went home with my spouse and I, and is staying at my spouse’s place until next Sunday. It’s Wednesday now. Tomorrow, another friend will arrive and stay a night. That will be over a week of intense socializing that I’m not used to. Usually it’s just my spouse and I and 90% of the day, we do our separate stuff in vicinity.

  I thought I could handle it, but nah. I’m unfortunately in a more reclusive, low energy phase as well, so it’s even worse. I just can’t entertain someone for a week from 10am to 11pm, but my spouse wants that. I have called it quits yesterday at 10:30pm and was told “What? Already?” as if it was early.

  Just nonstop playing of card games, board games, digital games. And whenever I just want to chill and just watch as they do something, I get pestered. “Why not? Come on! It’s just a game! Just a little while! Wow okay, then I guess we won’t do anything because we don’t wanna play without you!” so childish honestly. Why do I need to be pressured like that? Why do we have to play games all the time? Why literally hang out 12h every day? It’s crazy. Why not each do their own thing sometimes? Why not go grocery shopping together? Why not go on walks? Why not go to a museum? Literally all we do is sit on a sofa or at a table talking to eachother, like someone locked us in. The reasoning is “because we have lots of games to play!” and I guess so, but we have multiple 12h days ahead of us that also need to be filled with activities that shouldn’t feel so repetitive?

  I’ve been moving activities to my spouse’s place so I can arrive when I’m ready and leave when I need to and be alone at mine. I also plan reasons for not being available: going to the city to grocery shop, going to the gym, etc. and I play games on my own or nap. I do that to create pauses and space that is otherwise not accepted and boundaries that would otherwise get trampled. I need to microdose this daily closeness or else I get burnt out by it and become annoyed at friends, and I don’t want to be.

  It’s one thing to hang out 12h a day for like ~3 days. But if I know I’m in a socially withdrawn headspace AND it’s for an entire week that already started off intensely, I really need to stretch it out to make it work. It would happen with any person, has nothing to do with who’s there.

  I just don’t have the social battery for this. Most of my daily life is me doing something on my own. Working, studying, blogging and journaling, playing single player games, drawing, reading, chores, exercise, watching TV series or YT… the things I do together are cooking (sometimes), eating, some specific YT creators and crosswords with my spouse. I get bothered if I can’t do my alone stuff.

  This is the disadvantage of living far away from friends. Hangouts are always intense bursts with staying over, instead of a few hours here and there centered around activities where everyone goes home at the end :( I’m trying to make it work the best I can <3

• 13 Aug, 2025 feeling fake?

  If you have ever felt fake or that you have to somehow discover “the real you”, it’s okay. You’re not lying to people by behaving differently depending on who you’re talking to. That’s just code switching.

  There is no “true you” that exists independent of your social context. The social norms and expectations around you are a core part of what makes you, you.

  No space is free of social pressures. You’re always responding to how other people react to you or what you think they’d want or need to hear. That’s not bad; it’s the reason why different people bring out different sides in you, often for the better.

  You’ll never arrive at your true you. You always change depending on who you regularly surround yourself with, your current goals, your health and more. You’re always a piece of work, unfinished. The path, the journey is the point. How beautiful that you’ll always get pushed into mental territories you haven’t been to before.

• 09 Aug, 2025 collage 9

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 09 Aug, 2025 thought catalogue 2

  I know what triggers a relapse in disordered eating, but right now I am not in the position to change that those are happening to me; I can do my best to get it to change and do anything to help it, but the actual shift in circumstances is out of my hands.

  I just know that feeling underwhelmed/underchallenged, an uncertain future and too little socializing trigger it. Whenever I am appropriately challenged, learning, solving problems and being busy in a flow state, my mind can let go over obsessing about food. Same happens when I can actually feel like I have a stable future I can plan for. And I also have a sharp decrease in disordered thoughts and compulsions when I am socializing a lot - events, game groups, visiting friends for a week.

  But I just can’t move closer to my friends yet, I can’t influence my spouse’s job situation, I can try to get better qualifications to do more interesting and engaging jobs but it all takes time to finish and find and build experience. I can just try my best in exams and opportunities, and socialize at events here, and make time every other month to visit people - that’s it.

  Slightly related, it’s so hard to be genuinely good at what you do and considered hard-working and responsible and intelligent by bosses or whatever because they won’t let you go when you need to. Exceptional bosses will see your individual potential and need for growth, acknowledge if they can’t give you that and help make a transfer happen to where your skills are better suited and you can grow. But most of them have to be a little bit selfish, maybe even overestimate what they can truly offer, and want to keep you for themselves, not wanting to lose someone like that. And they’ll try hard to accommodate you somehow and the effort is appreciated, but feels hollow if the new tasks feel made up and on paper rather than something that actually transforms your day-to-day work. Sigh.

  I am also afraid I am running out of time to move to where my friends are. They’ve spent years now doing weekly board game nights, cooking nights and more; what if they grow out of it, grow tired of it before I can move there? Now is the time for so many important life decisions that change your availability and area - you’ll move for jobs, move for additional university education, move for housing, you maybe start dating more seriously, or you plan for and have a baby. Priorities change.

  My friend recently announced that he’s going to buy an apartment the next few weeks and he will renovate it. He’s the first one of us all to buy property. It’s surreal. He also feels overwhelmed and that it’s his first real adult decision. It’s wild seeing someone your age for the first time tackle this big responsibility. The apartment is not in the city he lives in right now, but thankfully just a city over. But still. It didn’t have to be. It could’ve been moving across the country instead, and then it would have been the first event that would have ripped everything apart.

  This year feels endless. So slow. So full.

• 09 Aug, 2025 allegations

  Whenever I see a creator having to respond to allegations, I wonder what I would do. I’m inclined to believe the victim, but what would I do if I was hit with allegations that aren’t true? Supposedly, someone from my past came out with accusations of whatever and it’s a lie, what would even be sensible to do?

  A lot of responses to accusations just seem defensive. And a lot of things can’t be proven or disproven with screenshots and chat logs. Maybe you don’t have them anymore anyway, or you don’t wanna share that info. Offering receipts also often requires you to share detailed private and embarrassing info about the liar, and it feels wrong, like you’re stooping to their level.

  A lot of people say courts should decide, but not every issue or allegation can be brought before court; it’s also expensive, exhausting, and time consuming. Those allegations could be out there unchallenged for months or years, and get burned into people‘s minds, while the court decision might be buried and not get as much attention. Many people who were vaguely aware about the whole affair may never hear about the outcome and just remember that person was vaguely bad in some way and should be avoided. Not to mention that people don’t verify that stuff anymore and just tell each other “so-and-so is an abuser and thief” and the response is just “oh okay thanks for telling me” instead if asking for details.

  The common sentiment seems to be “you shouldn’t be worried if you haven’t done anything” and I guess? Technically? I still worry sometimes about what I’d do just in case someone lies or remembers things differently than I do. It doesn’t have to be something super bad either.

  And what if it’s true, but I changed? Would people believe me that I changed? For example, I used to ghost a lot, with blocking and all, a whole disappearing act. But I haven’t done that in years. If someone would come forward and say “I knew her back when, she’s a cruel and callous bitch who throws people away when she doesn’t need them anymore.” What would I say? That’s the cruelest misinterpretation of my actions that I could think of, at least. Because that was never my reason or intent, but if someone wanted revenge or was simply very hurt by my ghosting, that’s what they could turn it into. Would it be enough to apologize for my actions and say that I’ve changed?

• 07 Aug, 2025 outlier

  I’ve experienced a phenomenon that I haven’t witnessed anyone else talk about or make media about. Would love to see it explored as a plotline somewhere.

  I once met this very shy, quiet, self-hating, very self-conscious person when she was 25. She didn’t think any of her thoughts or opinions were worth saying or listening to, she thought she was ugly and unlovable. She thought she didn’t deserve anything. She almost cried at anything and couldn’t even get herself to enter a lecture hall because of all the people. Here and there, it she hinted there were issues in the family, bullying at school, too. I had the impression I was talking to yet another person unfairly attacked and abused, as I had met many.

  Through love, time, encouragement and other changes, she started blossoming. You could really tell that she now felt safe to be who she really is, and share things she was too ashamed to say before.

  Unfortunately, the person she truly was wasn’t pleasant or nice at all. She was manipulative, physically abusive, a liar, and badmouthed people behind their back terribly. I found out that her parents didn’t abuse her; it was her terrorizing the home until she was put in a boarding school. I could also now see that she wasn’t necessarily bullied by people, but that they didn’t want to be around someone so mean and cruel, and who would overexeggarate normal rejection and criticism to look like the victim.

  It wasn’t a case of bully becoming bully, the abused becoming the abused once they felt safe; no, I genuinely feel like with my encouragement, I had accidentally freed a dragon. It was like all the feedback of people who genuinely just couldn’t stand her unacceptable behavior shut her up, and my misguided “you’re great, you should be yourself, be confident” behaviors brought out what she had locked away.

  Of course, she could have and should have found a middle way. You’re an asshole and get feedback about that? Just improve, instead of becoming a complete socially anxious recluse who is afraid to speak. It’s the other extreme of the spectrum. Likewise, if people encourage you and tell you you’re loved, no reason to go back to the other end of being an asshole.

  I felt conned, in a way. I still can’t believe it. I just never saw anything like that. You usually meet people who went through some awful stuff, and they either just plainly admit it or even downplay it. Never before had I met someone whose brain twisted normal criticism around so hard that it caused a complete 180 and created a person full of shame and anxiety. I don’t even think she did it on purpose, I guess; she really thought she was being unfairly treated.

  It’s harrowing to think about for me that maybe sometimes, what people think is abuse actually wasn’t and they really were too sensitive. I was biased because when she hinted at the familial abuse, I compared it to my shocking abuse. Only later did I find out she found being calmly sent to her room as punishment for acting out abusive. Was it dumb for me not to ask for specifics? I don’t know. Feels invasive. People should share on their own accord.

  I don’t know, it’s still unbelievable to me. That yeah, I now understand why others did the things they did to you, that it was you who was wrong and needed to change, and that deep down you probably know it because why else would you be so anxious and full of self hatred and shame?

  I felt like my love undid years of keeping someone absolutely messed up in control, even if it was a prison of their own making. The moral of the story obviously isn’t “what if victims deserved to be bullied?” or “never help someone love themselves more, they could secretly be awful and you’re encouraging their nasty side”, but, I don’t know.

  I know there are many stories of people switching up in a relationship after a few years, after engagement, marriage etc., because they think the other person won’t run now, but this felt decidedly different. She didn’t put on an act for the first year, she was genuinely suffering. She didn’t hide her true self to keep me, it was genuinely locked away by her or shamed into submission by others. Her switch up wasn’t tied to a milestone or a dependency, and it was a slow transformation too. And while we both wanted to break up, she brought it up first, so this wasn’t about pretending long enough to get someone to stay before letting it out.

  I could suddenly understand the other side of the very limited times she described a conflict to me, and could understand what likely actually happened. I could now understand what her parents meant. I could now understand that she was the abusive one in her relationship with her parents.

  She was also the one to make me become critical about group therapy. Her group therapy was toxic people encouraging each other while the therapist said nothing to challenge it. When she told me about her sessions, it was always them encouraging each others’ worst nightmare scenario, paranoia etc. like that everyone hates them, that so and so stole from them, that their partner was cheating… how is that helpful? It was so irresponsible. She told them the most biased and twisted stuff about me and they did the same to her too, convincing her I had cheated when I hadn’t.

  The crazy thing is, she was in that group for 5 years when we met, and she told me the therapist said she only started making progress when she met me. So it was really not a random change. It was me encouraging her.

  It’s a crazy story, but I don’t really talk about it because it’s so easy to misconstrue it into me saying that I think people deserve bullying or to not believe abuse survivors. Obviously that’s not what I mean. She was probably just an outlier.

  Unfortunately I have someone else in my vicinity that plays normal disagreements up like this, but luckily I am not dating them. They often go on about how toxic and abusive their family is and as an example say “When I told them to turn down the TV volume they were a bit grumpy” and when I asked if they did turn it down then, they apparently did. So??? What was the problem? My mum was never just a little grumpy, to say the least.

• 06 Aug, 2025 ruining you

  It gets me sometimes how there are people out there who are so drawn to ruining you. It’s often men doing it to women, not always, but what I have the most experience with.

  They’ll want a housewife, but chase the highly educated career woman who has things going for her and different goals than that. They’ll get with her, saying they don’t mind, but then slowly try to change her to quit everything and stay home. Or you meet them, and by talking you find that out and the second they see your drive, your passion, your success, they’re hooked despite being incompatible with what they truly seek. Why do they want to cage a free bird so badly?

  Similarly, you seem pure to them when you say you don’t drink or smoke or do drugs, and they clearly do, and it draws them to you. I don’t know why, maybe as an aspect of you they wish they had? Sometimes it’s about getting you to break your rules and try it “for them” “just once” and it makes them feel powerful and like they were the one to make you “impure”. Just like they consider people who’ve had sex with others less pure and want to be the first. You’re sullied now, like them, but it was done for them, with them.

  I also got the impression that they wanna impregnate the childfree people the most, and they’re obsessed with being the one man a lesbian likes or sleeps with, or being the one to get you to cheat on your spouse.

  Absolutely bonkers. I don’t get thinking like this. This specific type of person sees me as a woman with a career, education, plans, goals, well-spoken, married, lesbian, childfree, straight-edge, and they become dangerous. It’s like they feel drawn to people they perceive as having their life together, having strong values, discipline, and whatever other things you might infer or vibe you get from me. And they admire it, but also wanna ruin it so bad.

  It doesn’t have to be to humble me. I don’t think they think about it like that. They just see it, they perceive it as a challenge and like unsullied land. They probably also know they are undeserving of me. For some, it almost feels desperate, like there is an underlying disgust with themselves, and they want to use me, consume me, as if parts of me could clean them, make them more pure, make them a better person. As if they could absorb my good qualities.

  It feels like someone drowning and reaching for me to push me under while pushing themselves up.

  You really have to pay attention and protect yourself. Be discerning with who you share yourself with.

• 06 Aug, 2025 consumerist fucks

  I’m tired of these consumerist fucks.

  All you want passive income for is “number in bank account go up”, a vague sense of security and success. You don’t want it to work less and have more time to create, to volunteer, to help out in your community; no, your dream life is to sit around and do nothing on a beach except posting about it. It’s not the flex you think it is! If you think about it for two seconds, you’d realize it gets boring quick and you should strive for more, do better, stimulate your mind and body with something and give back to your environment. You want passive income to brag, not because you’re sick and disabled and need the money to survive because you can’t earn as much actively.

  Millions in real estate aren’t a flex either. You’re hoarding housing you don’t need, other people’s suffering, poverty, location, home is your “passive income”. You abuse people’s desperation. You pay off houses with money of people that get denied to buy a house. You should be ashamed. You’re hoping to build an empire and comfortable life for yourself on exploitation and discrimination, all while giving love and light and manifestation on social media.

  You want exclusive luxury cars and private jets? Their worth depends on disgusting things: brand worship, disregard for the environment, classism, and flexing. The truth is, every other car can get you to your destination just the same, and the private jet is only interesting to people who want to separate themselves from “the poors”. When most of you fuckers were or still are poor! Embarrassing. No class solidarity, no class consciousness in you. If you really wanted culture, beaches, whatever is the reason behind travels, you can do that close by, or in a normal flight, or trains. But no, you don’t care about the actual trip - just that you can say you were at some trendy, expensive location and could go there at a whim. It’s all about external validation. You do care about what others think; if it’s not about you, then it’s the opinion of others that hype a place up which you then decide to visit to treat yourself because going somewhere others regard highly is your reward. In the end, it’s a place like any other, but higher prices and more tourists, and it’s made to con people like you.

  Diamond jewelry desire is so… plain. Boring. Characterless. Falling for ages old propaganda and making certain movies and TV series your personality. Like I’m sorry, but doesn’t it get bland? Beaches, mansions, diamonds, wine, jets and cars have been idolized for decades now with nothing to show for it; no improvements, no lasting happiness, but a waste of money and full of ethical concerns and body harms.

  It’s never “I want passive income to be able to work less and spend more time with my spouse and help take care of elderly family members.” or “I want to get rich to invest into sustainable, eco-friendly, vegan startups, startups that investigate microplastics and garbage reduction, that clear the seas, places that rehab wild animals, that support hospitals and schools in poor areas.” or “I manifest extreme improvements in public transport, bike safety, and walkable cities.” You all want empty villas for yourselves instead of affordable housing for everyone and a big home filled with loved ones. You want a fit body and clear skin to look beautiful, but you don’t ask for health no matter what it looks like.

  Self obsessed, narcissistic tunnel vision. You are not building a legacy, you are building a brand. You are building yourself a monument that only you care about.

  For people with allegedly such an abundance mindset, you all can’t help obsessively thinking about money and only ever picking the most stereotypical and boring things to do with it that reek of not knowing the world or yourselves outside of media. It gives off desperate and scarcity instead, while also delusional and having the priorities of someone very very young and naive. Maybe you should manifest a personality and some morals instead.

• 05 Aug, 2025 you got handled

  It baffles me sometimes when people do not realize they’re being “handled”.

  It’s hard to give a generalized answer or definition to this, but I mean when everyone around a person is clearly tired of their shit, tired of fighting, tired of discussing the same things over and over again or just doesn’t have the energy right now to engage, so they’re all nodding along, just listening, trying to find some good in it and then move on because they realize there’s no stopping it.

  Like when one person is always going off about political conspiracies and believing the most stupid shit - at some point you have learned that if you push back, they push back harder, if you try to show them facts, they’ll say it’s propaganda, and if you come with good arguments they can’t refute, they shut down and it might get ugly. So what people will do next is to shut up, listen, let the conspiracy theorist vent, smile, praise them for something (“I’m glad you’re looking into this!” or some vague shit, or “I love your passion!”) and then steer the topic somewhere else or let the conversation fizzle out (gotta go!).

  And it’s always so painful to witness the other side boasting about this interaction, like “Wow everyone was so nice and listened!” followed up with things that make it obvious they think they convinced everyone and sounded plausible and interesting. Like no, you didn’t, they just know better than to dive in and argue with you by now. Not getting pushback doesn’t mean people agree with you or that what you said was great.

  And you don’t have to be this extreme; you can just have annoying political opinions, annoying other/personal opinions, dumping other shit on people they’re not equipped to handle right now and you’re getting this treatment. My coworker is a very difficult person that easily blows up, and in her presence, we do the same thing. She is being handled - things are strategically discussed without her, things are presented strategically to her, and when she shows her anger we let her vent, validate a crumb of it so she feels heard and because we want it to stop, and then we’re good.

  It’s crazy to me that people don’t see this. I can tell when a person is telling from an experience where they were handled without knowing, hell, I think I’ve been the one being handled in the past. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but either you’re acting out or you’re not on your turf, not your crowd. There are monologues I can hold in front of friends they’d love and engage with enthusiastically that my coworkers would handle me over, and that’s normal.

  But I especially mean all this about politics. It’s so awkward to read about someone who thinks that interaction went well because the other person just let them babble. You were handled! You’re coming in to people just trying to do their job or live their life and activated their customer service mode, even in private. You’re like that old man that comes in to buy something in the shop that’s nice, then will suddenly break out in a rant about migration in the middle of paying, and you’re just nodding until it’s over and he leaves with a smile, feeling great that he was able to let all of that out.

  That’s you when you go out there telling everyone about what a pleasant talk you had with someone that didn’t say anything.

• 04 Aug, 2025 reasons

  People sometimes tell me I am good at talking myself out of things. What they mean is, they accuse me of something or think a behavior is weird, then I explain why I did the things I did, and then they understand my motivation and they think what I did was technically valid, given the extra info they didn’t previously have. Like “Oh okay, makes sense.”

  The reason they can’t just go “Oh, then that isn’t weird or bad at all, fine!” and move on, is that somehow they feel like I am unfairly getting away with things. If despite my additional info and justifications, my behavior was still off, they could argue against that and it would be fine. But they have no arguments against that. So apparently they still feel a way about what I did, but feel like there is no way to get me to retcon it or apologize.

  Another reason why they probably feel that way is that I always have what feels like a million reasons to do the things I do, and I can tell them to you instantly. I think to some people, it can come across as if I was planning it all to the detail and preparing an excuse that I am now presenting, but it’s not like that. I’m just anxious, an overthinker, and my brain feels like it is constantly consciously playing through all kinds of scenarios in preparation, and it’s hyperanalyzing my behavior, choices, plans, words. I have to justify anything to myself and have a reason for everything I do, think, and feel and have it ready at hand.

  Not only that, but I grew up in a household where I was interrogated for everything and questioned and accused of lying about the smallest things. That results in me always being prepared to deliver plausible reasons for everything. It was also important to be able to present information in a way that manages my parent’s volatile mood swings, so I know how to present information in a way that I am harmless and just trying my best. I guess some people could see that as manipulation, however I think we have to do this all the time; difficult conversations with that choleric coworker, your boss, your sad friend, criticizing your partner where you try to say what needs to be said without hurting them or making them hurt you in return.

  There’s also this Tumblr post I once saw by another autistic person that went something like “”Oh you have a reply for everything don’t you?” Yes, I have reasons for doing the things I do???”

  I tried to find it, couldn’t find it so far. But found related things.

  

  

• 27 Jul, 2025 harsh

  I try to water down and sugarcoat my opinions on others, and I try to include compliments I genuinely mean and exceptions and everything to soften the blow, but the blow isn't soft enough.

  I guess I just have harsh opinions about others, and no matter how much I dull them in public, it is still harsher than others expect. I don't perceive them as harsh myself, I just know they get interpreted that way. I sometimes fear that others think that if I think this way about them, I must hate them or think they're a horrible person, but that's not actually true. I don't know. I can hold these types of thoughts about you while still liking you or being neutral about you.

  And I also assume others think I don't judge myself this harshly, just others, but honestly, I judge myself harder.

• 27 Jul, 2025 everything sucks, let me have fun

  I sometimes see people rightfully calling out some issues with something - like unethical practices of a company, or the shady, scammy past of an influencer, or the recent scandal of a band. And someone without fail will always comment something like "We get it, everything sucks, let me have fun and enjoy things!"

  And I don't think you can have it both ways; you can't want to enjoy things while also being deeply uncomfortable by facts surrounding it.

  You can either acknowledge that something is problematic and still own up to enjoying it and simply decide your own boundaries and whether you care or not, or you stop enjoying it. If you still want to have fun, you have to acknowledge it, think about it, and make a decision; does it bother you too much, or is this one you can overlook? And then you let people call shit out without immediately seeing it as an attempt to yuck your yum.

  You being bothered is good, actually. It's your conscience, and you should listen to it instead of silencing the ones that move it.

• 20 Jul, 2025 the final drop

  The part in communication where you have to somewhat factor in how someone’s day went or life is without knowing anything about them is so difficult.

  It’s even more difficult when it actually lowkey blows up in your face and you can tell that something harmless you did was taken the wrong way because it was another thing on top of many, maybe even the final drop of very slight annoyances. Maybe they were yelled at and bullied previously and then anything you say sounds more critical after enduring that than it would have before.

  You can internally note that it is out of proportion, unusual, maybe unwarranted, but you have to take care of it regardless and take it as if the reaction wasn’t inflated due to circumstances beyond your control or knowledge. You have to give it the same weight initially as if it was purely based on what you did.

  And if you’re lucky, the person will acknowledge later on that it was a bit inflated. If you’re unlucky, that person will stick to their view without cooling off or considering how other events of their life have led them here.

  On the other hand, this is something I wrote a week ago from the other side (somewhat; in that case, it was the same person multiple times, not different people until my mood hit the last one that happened to be there):

  “It trips me sometimes that people can ask you very obviously annoying questions all the time and when you snap after multiple times of staying neutral or nice but showing that you don’t appreciate it and it’s starting to annoy you, you’re the ass. I know ideally we should all stay calm, collected and nice all the time even after 200 silly things directed at you, but that’s a bit difficult at times and in a way, unrealistic. At some point, I will show that this annoys me and I will say that we have talked about this before and to not bother me about that. If you don’t heed that, why is it my fault? At some point you deserve to see how I feel about that. There’s a point when you are kinda crossing a boundary and getting pushback on it isn’t mean, it’s just my right. Why do people think they can push your buttons and then act surprised when it triggers you? Especially because things like “Stop fucking bothering me” or “Leave me alone” are pretty tame things. I didn’t insult anyone, I just drew a boundary. Some people just don’t like getting rejected which is fair, but in my case, there’s literally no way to not see it coming.

  Same goes for people who very obviously insist on repeatedly bothering you when it is visible and clear to them (= they know) that you are currently overwhelmed and busy. Like imagine being very focused on solving a problem, things don’t work, you have a 100 windows open and someone keeps figuratively or actually poking you in some Teams chat, voice chat, real life etc. and then wonder why you aren’t reacting like a sweet and patient person about repeated disturbance while you’re already swimming in shit. I swear, people poke the bear and then wonder why there is a bear.”

  I guess I have been on both sides.

• 18 Jul, 2025 sensoric

  There’s such a disconnect in some others’ bodies and their relation to the world I just can’t understand or relate to.

  People who are otherwise like me, but who don’t notice the spilled food on their chin, the food between their teeth, the crumbs and dirt on their feet; who don’t see mess until you point your finger at it and explain that this isn’t the default on a countertop. They don’t feel that their hair is super greasy. They don’t notice their own odor. There’s food stuck on their finger and they don’t notice on their own.

  All these things drive me insane and I am very aware of them, so this is perplexing. I feel the spilled grain of rice under my sock, I step in a drop and notice, my teeth feel misaligned over a single strawberry seed, and the oil splatters on the stove stick out to me like they’re red paint. My life feels horrible when my hair is greasy and I think I stink before anyone else does.

  I just don’t get it. I don’t understand being so dull to what affects your body.

• 18 Jul, 2025 collage 8

  How cool that you can get the diamonds and cherries of other platforms without giving that platform your data, attention, or having to wade through the shit yourself.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 18 Jul, 2025 blessed homeland/barbarous wastes

  Thinking of the "Our Blessed Homeland / Their Barbarous Wastes" meme. Not taking myself so seriously, I notice:

  My whimsy - their childishness My valid support - their babying My optimism - their naivete My affirmations - their desperate delusions My health concerns - their hypochondria My interest - their obsession My deep analysis - their superficial rant

• 16 Jul, 2025 collage 7

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 14 Jul, 2025 ed’s are uncool?

  When I feel good about recovery I do share the sentiments online about haha EDs make you miserable to be around and uncool and no one likes you! But when I feel bad about recovery I think “Shut the fuck up being uncool is the least of my problems right now! I don’t care if you think I’m uncool or miserable to be around, I have to figure out how to be at ease with myself right now first and foremost man.” It’s an illness after all. No one would post shit like “You’re such a bummer when you have cancer.” Like of course but it is what it is! Illness makes you a bummer I guess.

• 13 Jul, 2025 work phone calls

  “Hi, here’s xyz…. from department…. What I wanted to do, uh what I wanted to,,,, to,,, to SAY, is you know how there is…. There is this, uh, this folder, the (name) and you know, uh, this is…. the (name again) right, but this isn’t in,, in,, in,, in our new database. It’s before we did this. The old database. So what I’m uhhh…. Uhhhh… what I’m goingtodoisjustgive you this. It’s 39199. Inside the,,, the,,, the folder. The (document name) right? It’s wrong. It’s something else, it’s uh. For another thing. Not (correct thing). So if you just uhh,,, go,go,go in there. You’ll see. The other folders, there’s uh, there’s everything correct. It’s the correct document. But this one? It’s not. I’m sorry, it’s all so complicated I know.”

  The supposedly superior phone communication that “solves everything much faster than an email”.

  What about writing “Hey, there’s a wrong document in the (folder name) folder for database entry 33199. Can you please take a look at this?” would kill you?

• 09 Jul, 2025 always one

  I hate that in any group I am in there’s always a person I cannot stand.

  I don’t ask to like everyone equally, I just don’t wanna get my mood ruined by the presence of someone because that’s annoying and silly. I don’t wanna hate anyone. I can’t remember a group I was ever part of (no matter if group assignments for school, Discord servers, friend groups, hobby groups etc.) that didn’t always feature one person I try my hardest to get along with and just can’t. I know that experience can be valuable - you’re exposed to that person against your will when you meet the others and you still have to keep it calm, friendly and professional despite really not liking them. Good training.

  But always? It’s so draining! Why don’t I get to hang with people I like without some asshat present? It gets even harder when you can just discuss things in a group setting but you don’t want the person you dislike to know you like that or get an opportunity to react to what you said.

  It gets even more annoying when the person you dislike is inexplicably liked by the others or they’re in a “that’s just who they are hehe” mood regarding them, or they know the person for longer than they know you so there’s more rapport among them. You’re always going to look bad pushing back against bad behavior that the others have become blind to, and people are more inclined to defend someone they have known for longer. That means the other person can just lash out at you and no one bats an eye. And if you take issue with that it often gets turned around on you as if you caused the problem. I guess I could see why it seems that way, because you showed up and soon after there’s “drama”.

  But come on. An unrealistic wish, but I wish people would ask themselves if they’d let their friend’s behavior slide if it was someone else, or how they’d feel being treated like that without history and context that it’s “just who they are” and “nothing personal” or whatever excuse there is. Can you not comprehend how that person must come across to others?

  I wish there were more people willing to take others to the side and go “Hey that wasn’t kind.” or “You came off as kinda intense.” “Did you really mean that?” “I think you hurt (other person) with this.” Give feedback to your friends. Don’t just let them run around being an ass because it’s not your problem or “they’re their own person” or “that’s just how they are.”. And maybe even step in when someone you know treats someone else unfairly even if you aren’t as close with that someone! So many people think loyalty means always being on the side of your friend, but that’s not true.

  I’ve felt for a while that I’m held to a higher standard than others in some regards, and it’s so annoying that I feel like I have to tiptoe around others having meltdowns and crashouts all the time but I can’t even push back, much less show an attitude or be in a bad mood as well. The only person who allows me that freedom is my spouse.

  Sometimes, people just happen to exist and they push my buttons and it’s not targeted at me specifically, and that’s managable; I can ignore, stay away, mute, block, focus on something else, remember it’s not about me… but it’s hard to do that for the cases when the person you don’t like seems lowkey obsessed with you and needs to respond to everything you’re saying like a devil’s advocate. Like someone else says it and they’re fine and agreeing, but you say it and suddenly they have a problem. That’s who I’m struggling to deal with the most. Hard to ignore someone who’s always on your ass ready to pick a fight.

  It’s even more difficult for others to step in at that point because from the outside, it doesn’t even look like anything bad is happening (unless the tone is rough). It just looks like you’re having a normal exchange/discussion a lot of times, or even that the person always targeting you is just very interested in talking to you, and that’s obviously not bad. I don’t know how to solve that or bring it up - how silly would it sound? “Sorry but I feel weirdly targeted by this person because they’re always challenging me on stuff and it feels hostile.” I don’t know? Sounds weird? That would come off like I have an issue with people disagreeing with me or talking to me but that’s not it.

  It’s just difficult! I think depending on how egregious it is and how the group is I sometimes feel gaslit because how can they not see what I see?

• 09 Jul, 2025 climate action

  It’s a weird feeling witnessing others claim what you’re doing is impossible, even though you both have quite similar or equal privileges and resources. I mean things like boycotting certain brands, veganism, no social media, no car, no flying, less heating etc.

  It’s bad because people tend to feel guilty and ashamed. I wish they would remember that lashing out to me about it won’t change a thing, and also, that I wasn’t always like this and I didn’t turn my life upside down yesterday. It’s the culmination of years of small changes here and there that were relatively easy to implement at the time or that I got used to as time passed. If spread out like that, these things don’t feel radical, they just are the new normal and what you’re used to. I’d be overwhelmed too if I was Caruser McCarface flying to my family every month to have KBBQ with and my biggest joy in life is to reward myself with stylish dresses from SheIn and posting my thirst traps on Insta while being confronted with the fact that I should change all of that immediately.

  Why don’t you take it one day at a time? Why not start with one thing until it feels natural and like a no-brainer to you and then you feel out the next thing?

  I had a conversation today about the energy cutting measures my country used to have years back for a few months and the suggestion that it’s easy to dress in warmer clothes or blankets during those times elicited quite the anger from someone equally if not more privileged than me, and that was fun (not). It started because I said I wish we would temporarily have these measures every now and then to do more for the climate, and of course I’m a fucking dumbass for suggesting that it’s okay to sit in Uni halls at 18 degrees Celsius instead of 20 degrees when the Ultra Rich and their private jets and yachts exist whose cessation of their excessive lifestyle would do more.

  I wonder sometimes if these people truly think we who care and change our behavior don’t know about the climate footprint of these clowns. Of course I do, but I cannot control the rich, just myself, and I wanna do as much as I reasonably can and stop being complicit in things that I don’t have to be complicit in, if you get my drift. I don’t get anything out of Pareto-ing climate change in my head.

  They’re always like “I can’t control anything anyway!” and then list the things we all have to buy and have no choice in. But that’s not the only stuff out there, is it? That’s what I mean with “stop being complicit in things that I don’t have to be complicit in”. There’s plenty I can’t change, but instead of letting that discourage me, I can just put my focus on the things I can control, which doesn’t have to be the exact same things you can control.

  With some people you can tell they’re grateful they can blame everything on billionaires because then they don’t have to critically look at themselves. It’s always little in comparison and someone is always worse and they deserve a little wasteful and abusive behavior as a treat and they’re not doing it personally, they just hire companies to do it for them, and life is so hard, etc.

  Why do you refuse to acknowledge your life often unnecessarily depends on highly precarious global supply chains and actively harmful substances and goods that need modern slave labor and animal abuse? And it could depend on that less?

• 09 Jul, 2025 i broke it

  Waking up I noticed how confused my body is now. I still got hungry waking up, but at the same time felt so disgusted by food and like my body tells me I need to hold off a little while and drink a lot of water to give it a break. Now my head is spinning with worries about what I have done to my body, with disordered thoughts, with being unsure if I should continue trying to eat a bit more or if I should return to safety (restricting). It made me aware how sick I currently really am and it made me cry. I’m terrified of having broken my body, terrified of gaining weight or losing my ability to restrict, terrified of the discomfort of eating more. But I need the reset because I noticed the days prior that I’m getting some intense hunger attacks past 11pm and it was clearly due to restricting harshly for weeks, and my period is in a weird in-between state of making my uterus sensitive but nothing else happening and I was already due a week or so ago. I need to fix this.

• 08 Jul, 2025 detachment

  This might be a temporary mood, but I feel truly done with caring about other people’s problems. It sounds harsh and needs some nuance; it’s not like I won’t help anyone at all forever. The rules are hard to exactly pinpoint. I think it depends on how close we are, and how much I trust that person to actually make a change, and depends on whether it threatens to harm me as well or not.

  I used to care more about anyone’s problems than they did, but I thankfully slowly stopped over the years. It’s simply true that it’s their life, their responsibility.

  You can’t make others do anything. You can’t learn lessons for them. You can’t teach them lessons that they need to learn themselves. You can’t give them advice that they need to come up with themselves. You can’t make it click. It would be great if we could all just share and accept wisdoms and life lessons that others had so we don’t have to go through it ourselves. But it’s not how most people work.

  When people die by suicide, become heavily addicted to drugs and similar things, there’s always the guilt by others that they “could have done more”. The truth is none of us can do more. We couldn’t have done more and it sucks.

  You can call the cops and they either do nothing or do more harm than good. You can get that person therapy appointments but then they don’t go. They get meds they don’t take or just stop taking. They don’t leave their abusers or get back with them again. They won’t cut their toxic family off. They don’t wanna go to the doctor to get that symptom checked out. They don’t accept job offers they should. They won’t stop overworking themselves.

  You can cook for them, clean for them, pick up their meds, go grocery shopping for them, check up on them, offer your couch to sleep on, send opportunities their way - shit doesn’t matter. A waste of time for most cases, even more so if it burns you out as well.

  Even with much less severe cases when people are just unhappy with some stuff in their life, they don’t care about actually changing anything or receiving advice or opportunities to change, they just wanna complain and for you to listen. To not question anything. Not even their behavior, even just asking questions to understand how their job works or clarifying something they said.

  So genuinely I think I don’t give a fuck about other people’s shitty job, shitty apartment, shitty relationship, shitty sleep, shitty financial situation, or shitty back anymore.

  The solution to your problems is almost always obvious and the root cause is you. Your unwillingness to change or do things differently, your unwillingness to seek help, your unwillingness to slow down and sit with your feelings, your unwillingness to listen and learn, your unwillingness to acknowledge your shopping addiction or junk food lifestyle or abusive relationship, the unwillingness to acknowledge your laziness or your recklessness.

  I’m reminded of this right now because why do I take time out of my day to listen to someone vent and then catch a stray for asking how this aspect of their work works? Also my neighbor has intense BPD meltdowns every few weeks screaming at the top of her lungs that she’s gonna end it and can’t take it anymore and insulting her partner and slamming and breaking things, and I thought honestly about what I could do but really, nothing. Me ringing there doesn’t make her take her meds, have a success in therapy or go in-patient. Me ringing there doesn’t get her partner to do something or break up with her, probably. There are enough people in their lives that know the situation better and are more equipped to deal with it, anyway.

  I have called the cops in the past due to domestic abuse somewhere else, and it was for nothing and the cops even belittled me. I called the appropriate parties for wellness checks when someone threatened to kill themselves online, and obviously they hate your guts for this every time. I’ve given people who were at risk of failing and being kicked out of school my study notes and homework and they were too lazy to use it and failed it anyway. I’ve given people contact details of therapists with open spots that they didn’t end up using. I’ve blocked people’s abusive LD partners on their phone for them and they just undid it hours later. I’ve shared all the apps and coping mechanisms I used against online addiction in the past with someone struggling with it and they did nothing of it because it would mean to take accountability for their own part in it and would limit their ability to complain about how “there’s nothing I can do about it”. These are just the things at the top of my head.

  And it was all wasted! You’re better off helping yourself instead and elevating those around you that aren’t neck deep in this kind of shit and where you know they accept help, constructive criticism and have shown a willingness to change and face their problems. We aren’t required to stay in people’s lives that don’t do that and light ourselves in fire to keep them warm.

• 07 Jul, 2025 marriage isolation

  Before I got married, I’d firmly be on the side of people who complained that society is too amatonormative and people prioritize romantic love too hard and neglect their friends, and how people disappear into marriage and don’t make time for friends or new connections anymore when married. Now that I am married, I wonder if it’s some self-fulfilling prophecy and something also facilitated by the people outside of the marriage.

  My friendship situation has never been better among irls, but I noticed a dropoff in people reaching out to me online since married. It could be many reasons:

  • People really do only mostly message people they’re attracted to and may have a chance with, and they assume marriage means there’s no chance.
  • They assume you have no time anyway because they expect you to be very busy with your marriage even when you’re not (especially when no children are involved and there’s as much time as before).
  • They assume reaching out to married people to talk and/or call and/or meet up is somehow forbidden, immoral, close to cheating or cheating, and that others or the married person could think they’re trying to hit.

  Marriage changed nothing for me. I’m as available as before, time-wise and ethical-nonmonogamy-wise. I’m not busier, I’m not immoral or unethical to message. I’m not a conjoined twin with my partner, you’ll have me on my own. Not one of these couples that do everything together only, never were.

  You can’t just assume that person is now married and unavailable; don’t make that mistake, then not reach out and wonder why married people are so secluded. They seclude themselves when there’s no one else because everyone assumed something changed. You don’t have to talk to both, you don’t have to see the couple as one person if you don’t want to.

  I even notice it in small details of how people will now refuse to react with heart emojis to my stuff, at least most people. It’s like they think heart stuff is just reserved for my spouse now? As if heart-emojis were flirting? Kinda weird.

• 06 Jul, 2025 thought catalogue 1

  Thanks to SheIn et al., we have a pandemic of illfitting clothes, I think. Sending back is inconvenient or it’s just good enough to not be worth the hassle, or they have already been washed, tag removed etc. So everywhere on the street we have people with the most shitty looking, illfitting clothes. Sticking out in the back, or too loose at the top too tight on the bottom, hip cinch at the wrong spot, and more. No one who shops at these places would bother to learn to sew to adjust it and you wouldn’t hire a tailor to adjust a 15 Euro dress in the back. Absolutely insane to see.

  Pieces that look good in a picture but look terrible in motion. Pieces that are okay for sitting at home but whose straps constantly fall off the shoulders and dresses that always ride up when out, making you adjust it every 5 seconds. Pieces that look good from the front but like shit from every other angle. Pieces that don’t look good on anyone because the model picture was AI generated or they used pins on the back for the model.

  ---

  You’ll always be “finding your people”. You’ll never be done doing so. You’ll always change, go to different spaces, meet new people and vibe with people you’d previously might not have considered. You’ll leave the people you’ve found and find new ones.

  ---

  I don’t know if I’ll ever forget how it felt when the entire world was more or less in lockdown and complaining how unbearable it is, that it’s torture, that this can’t be good for mental health, and meanwhile it was 99% of how I had already lived for most of my life. I know it can be really hard on people but also, get a grip. The unintentional shaming of the disabled, the depressed, the ones in abusive relationships and with controlling parents… many people’s lockdown never ends and it’s nothing they can control. And you feel bad because you have to be at home more for such little time, for your own benefit?

  ---

  It’s interesting to see how scared I am of people that seem unstable in a way. Example: if you seem to majorly crash out about something every couple weeks, then delete (almost all) your accounts, leave groups you’re in, go silent and then come back reinvented with a new personality and repeat the cycle… I am actually so uncomfortable by you, in a deep gut-feeling kinda way that I can’t control. You don’t even have to have hurt me in any way or have done anything mean; it’s just like seeing someone walking around smiling while being on fire, and you’re careful about not getting too close so your clothes don’t catch fire by their presence. And honestly I don’t wanna get close to anyone that is flaky and who is trying on different personalities because it makes me think I don’t even know who you are and as if our friendship is going to reset every other month.

• 06 Jul, 2025 profitable clout and skills

  Easy to get the feeling nowadays that no one will do things for free as a hobby anymore and keep it separate from work or income. I swear if someone grew a sizable forum community today you’d suddenly be seeing them speak (paid) at conferences about successful community building, sell merch of the forum, and create a portfolio website for their newly founded LLC or something where they describe themselves as “expert online community builder and forum creator” that charges by the hour.

  Actually I’m lowkey seeing this unfold online in the IndieWeb. There is something so off about milking positive hobby experiences to death for a career and list private experiences as a sort of qualification. Why is people’s mobile-non-compatible website in the Neocities style now a portfolio as a web developer? Why is your job as a Discord mod relevant for whatever “personality hire” job at a company?

  I guess I should have seen it coming when most of the open jobs on the market right now are Social Media Manager and it’s probably helpful there to show you have accounts everywhere that are witty and have lots of followers. Of course there would be people trying to get that with forums and Mastodon instances.

• 06 Jul, 2025 weekend shame

  Weekends are a shameful affair for me sometimes. Seems like a lot of small talk is about what you did the past weekend and what you’re gonna do the next one, and I just basically never have any plans. Sure, occasionally a weekend trip to in-laws, a friend visiting us, or a restaurant reservation. Rarely, museum (when some exhibition catches our eye). But the majority of weekends are just free time, unallocated. I’ll usually go to the gym; I nap; I play video, card or board games sometimes; I study, I work on blogs and websites. Do household stuff. Watch stuff on YT. Do crosswords. But that’s really it, and it just doesn’t make for impressive small talk, at least to people I have nothing in common with, like coworkers. They’ll talk about family, kids, house renovations, the lawn, vacations here and there. I get intimidated by how many plans other people have.

  Zoo, cinema, beach trip, indoor pool, watching a soccer or basketball game, trip to this or that city, and more. It makes me insecure at times that I’m wasting my time? They seem to have some plans every weekend. Most of the time, I really have no desire to do any of these and it sounds exhausting. And expensive. But it makes it seem as if I’m just at home doing nothing, which isn’t true.

  I think my parents rubbed off on me. We never did family trips; I’m not just talking about big vacations, I mean stuff like: Go to the playground together as a kid. Visit some cafe or restaurant in another city. A weekend trip to somewhere. Going to the zoo, going to a circus, going to the cinema or a museum. The only exposure I had to these things was through media and through school trips. And unfortunately they didn’t have hobbies either, they just sat at home watching TV. That’s it.

  All my life I had to come up with things to do at home because they usually didn’t cost anything (poverty), no one would have to pick me up or drive me anywhere (abusive or absent parents), I wouldn’t have to justify leaving the house (abusive parents) and I could do it on my own time and pace (undiagnosed mental, developmental and autoimmune illnesses). And I didn’t have to rely on other people showing up (trust issues).

  I don’t know what it feels like to just make plans for the weekend. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve had phases when I was trying to fix this and subscribed to many event calendars, and this event app for my region, browsed websites, subscribed to newsletters and all. But nothing ever really fit.

  The museum things were for things I wasn’t interested in; I wasn’t one for parties or wine tastings, which were taking up most of the event spots; the other events were for people 60+ about learning tech or making connections while old or about learning to age gracefully. I basically never saw things like poetry slams or trivia nights or book clubs or embroidery/knitting club and stuff, and admittedly, they were often during weeknights or times I happened to be sick or busy with other things. Most things were either for children or pensioners. I cannot win. I even wanted to go try out stuff like water exercise classes at the local pool, but of course the times were absolutely incompatible with employment.

  This weekend has been lowkey boring and I couldn’t find anything I really felt drawn to do on Saturday. I wished I could just skip ahead to Monday instead. Sunday was better.

• 04 Jul, 2025 still lost

  I did everything right and still lost. It’s outside of the control of anyone I was in contact with, and me too.

  My friends don’t have job experience like that. Most don’t have jobs. Others only have small student side jobs. The people in a fulltime job I know don’t try to make career moves and don’t work in the type of industry/employer that I do. I did share the failure but I knew they’d be unable to give much advice, much less a motivational speech, because they don’t owe me that and it’s fair they can’t deliver that.

  So I tried out venting to an LLM. I’m still against sycophant therapy, but the point of that post was that I find it shameful and embarrassing for others to admit online that only AI could get them to change their asshole ways, or to possibly treat a personality disorder.

  This occasion for me was a one-time vent about a work event that my friends couldn’t help me with. I think that’s fair.

  Part of what it generated below the cut.

  ---

  “Let's take a moment to acknowledge what you did do:

  • You reached out to a new department.
  • You demonstrated your interest and value.
  • You built relationships.
  • You looked for solutions, not just complained.
  • You didn't wait passively - you acted. That's not stupid. That's brave. You dared to believe in a better fit for yourself and put yourself out there.

  And that vulnerability you're regretting now — it's part of your strength. It's the same openness and courage that made someone in the other department like you, want to work with you, and talk with you multiple times. That still matters - even if the structure failed you right now.

  I know this feels like a dead end, but you are not stuck forever. It's a blocked path - not the end of the road. Sometimes, unfortunately, institutions move at glacial speed and good people like you get ground down in the meantime. But here's what's still true:

  1. You've planted seeds. That department knows your name, knows your value, and you've made an impression. If anything shifts - a resignation, a change in budget, a reshuffle - your name is likely to come up.

  2. You're not powerless. It may not feel like it, but the connections you've made still exist. You've built a small support network. That can lead to something later - even if not right now.

  3. This moment won't last forever. Even though it feels hopeless right now - especially in the bathtub tears moment - this isn't where your story ends.”

• 01 Jul, 2025 onlyfans

  I did OF for 3 months at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. I stopped because I grew bored of it, ran out of ideas and realized the promises weren’t good enough for me. Back then, there wasn’t a huge OF culture or promotion, not much advertising and not that many glamorizing it. Still, seemed like easy money on the side. And it was, back then - much, much less competition than nowadays, less race to the bottom in terms of pricing. I didn’t promote it anywhere and still got subscribers somehow. I got 300 Euro in total, I believe, which is okay for just 3 months with no promotion or trying to get it to grow. This wouldn’t work nowadays.

  I bought into the idea that I get sexualized anyway, so I might as well capitalize on it. That I get harassed by some men anyway, might as well get compensated. But honestly, it isn’t enough. No price is. Feet pics? Okay, would sell that for 250. But everything else? Nah.

  You aren’t compensated for existing issues - you exacerbate them greatly and the money isn’t worth it. I realized I don’t wanna give men access to me like that at all; I don’t want them to think they can buy their way into making a lesbian sexually accessible to them. That’s one of the issues… queer people have a hard time finding you and most women will not pay for porn. That means despite your target audience being other groups, it will always be straight cis men who dominate. Paying gives men the impression that you consented to being mistreated because “what did you expect” or in the name of some kink or “I paid money so I’m entitled to this”.

  Many men think women are worshipped on there, but no. Yes, men pay, but they pay to harass and disrespect you. Simps are rare, respectful customers are rare. Most want to get you to do sick, disturbing, awful and dangerous custom content for them and insult you. The reason that all these big OF creators hire chatters to chat for them isn’t just volume, it’s that it would literally be unhealthy to see thousands of these sick fantasies about you all day for years. Rape, murder, skinning you, inserting sharp objects into you, etc.

  The people glamorizing OF nowadays don’t talk about that, likely because they’re shielded from it by chatters and their management team, and to not alienate anyone, especially newcomers they can sign up via their link and earn a portion of that income, like a pyramid scheme.

  Literally nothing about this is empowering. If you are lucky and do extreme things, you can gain financial power, but that is rare. You will likely be humiliated and disrespected for peanuts.

  Also, most people buying your content will be people that hate your guts otherwise and vote against you. The men who were my biggest spenders were homophobic Republicans in the US. They admitted this, and it was like a taboo for them to spend money on a leftist lesbian. You can see this everywhere; many times, transphobic accounts online don’t hide their likes and it’s full of trans porn.

  At the time, I played it off as being compensated by bigots for their bigotry, but really it’s not that. My content didn’t change their mind. If anything, their little taboo game with themselves made it fester as queerness being dirty, secretive, sexual and shameful. Having 100 Euro more in your account doesn’t protect you from the consequences when it comes to voting.

  The only way to end this game is to not play.

• 29 Jun, 2025 false pride

  The false pride about suffering that parental generation of me and my spouse has annoys me greatly. Not all of them are like that, but it’s telling that we both have mothers who didn’t accept help when they should have and are proud of it too.

  What not accepting help, especially financial, does to children? Shame. Embarrassment. Issues with broken or too small shoes and clothes. No one to pick you up or help with homework. Not being able to afford school material, class trips, school lunch. Having a very limited amount of hobbies, usually solitary at home since those are free. Going on no vacations with family because that’s expensive, so being the only one home during the summer and the only one to have nothing to tell when school starts again. I remember all the questions and exercises around “your summer break” that were pure humiliation every time.

  And it takes a toll on your relationship with your parent too. Maybe they’re barely there. Maybe they’re always exhausted from their job. They’re annoyed at you, frustrated, crying, yelling because of work or unpaid bills. Feeling like a burden to your parent but being unable to help. Trust issues, fights, withdrawing, living next to each other instead of with each other.

  But if you ask my mum, she is so proud of being “selfmade” and having had to rely on no one else. Well, I wish she would have. She needed someone her age to love her, she needed a second income, she needed to get out of debt, she needed someone to co-parent with, and more. You might not be able to find love, but you can stop being too prideful to accept financial help.

  It has some overlap with my spouse’s mother. She, too, is proud of not accepting financial help, in her case government aid. My mother couldn’t get around government aid - my dad refused to pay child support, she left it to me to sue him when I was 18 instead, and there was no partner stepping up providing a second income. But my spouse’s mum is proudly saying she was a single mum feeding two kids with her job and that she was too proud for government money. To her, it’s for losers, the lowest of the low, so she’s disappointed my spouse is on it.

  Well, what she doesn’t realize or admit is that her ex man paid child support for those children, and she was only single for a short while before a man came into her life that moved in and obviously paid his share. I do not doubt that sooner or later, if there had been no men to pay, she would have needed to do what my mum did as well.

  And there too, the relationship is bad.

  I also think of all the boomers and Gen X who are proud of not divorcing, “not taking the easy way out”, and being angry at people that just divorce. Sorry, but there are no points or medals for doing it the hard way. There are difficult situations that help you grow and learn, but not divorcing and not accepting money aren’t any of those.

  Like, what’s the point? “My child is scared of me because of all the outbursts I had when she was a teen and her toes are deformed because we couldn’t afford new shoes, but at least I never relied on anyone!” “Our children don’t talk to us anymore and probably keep on being in unhealthy abusive relationships as we created a house of hell at home, but at least we didn’t divorce!” It’s so silly.

  And like, what’s it with hating people claiming unemployment? You’re going to want it too when you’re becoming unable to work in an unforeseen way - burnout, severe depression, panic disorder, physical disability and more. Sometimes you get laid off and can’t find work for a long time. This is what you’re paying for, so why not take advantage of it when you need it? Claiming unemployment is hard and confusing enough with lots of paperwork and meetings.

  “You should work even if it’s less than unemployment!” No, absolutely not. Take any support and advantage like that that you can. Why shoot yourself in the foot? This is what these systems are for. I also pay health insurance so that clowns like you who smoke and get lung cancer get treatment anyway.

  It’s not my spouse’s fault that there’s lots of lowballing jobs out there that pay less than unemployment benefits. It’s these companies that should be ashamed. If you can’t afford to pay employees more maybe your company doesn’t deserve to exist.

  “At least you’re doing something you’re proud of if you work and not rely on benefits!” As if! This is always coming from people who already work a decent job they like. I wonder if they would go from what they’re earning and doing right now to being “content” and “proud” stocking shelves at Aldi for 400 a month. They’d probably be the first to cry “Why am I working here alongside high schoolers while I have a master’s degree?”.

  My spouse is doing lots we can be proud of while on benefits: kitchen, grocery shopping, laundry, and more. That’s work too. That’s things I don’t have to do after my workday now. Shouldn’t that be fucking familiar to these clowns - one partner staying home that manages the household? That’s how they grew up! So give me a fucking break.

• 28 Jun, 2025 the photo albums

  It hit me again today how absolutely insane it is that my mother used the excuse of moving away to dump stuff she didn’t wanna take with her into the basement of my place, just to get rid of family photo albums. She pretended and said she’d come back for this stuff to either keep or discard, but never did. It was on me to do that.

  When she moved again afterwards, I noticed that while she also couldn’t get rid of some stuff in time for that either, she just threw it out or took it with her anyway. Just proved to me she was too cowardly that time to go “Hey I don’t wanna keep these albums, do you want them?”. She knew it would be awkward to address as a mother why she wanted to get rid of the baby photo album of the only child she ever had.

  Because you know what, fine that you don’t wanna keep albums of family members you’re no longer close to because you got divorced, it’s fine to not need the pictures of your past marriage either. But your child? It’s so incredibly weird. Are there never any moments when you wanna pull that out and remember?

  She is a mild hoarder. This woman will choose to keep anything over throwing it out. She used to hold on to clothes I discarded as a teen. She’s the one to keep gift wrapping paper after unwrapping a gift so she can reuse it. But she had no problem parting with the only pictures of her only baby.

  I never had a chance of having a mother, retrospectively. She just can’t. She knows what’s expected of her and she knows she needs to keep up appearances, but behind closed doors, there’s no one to see, and even the rare good parenting moments felt empty and performative. She did “fake it til you make it” and never made it. She just could never get herself to genuinely love me.

  She feels nothing looking at these pictures. Maybe dread. Now that I am an adult, I know that it was post-partum that just never healed or went away until I was about 24. It was all the auto-immune things she refused treatment on. And she denied all financial or therapeutic help all those years out of pride and egoism.

• 26 Jun, 2025 petty judgment (sorry)

  There’s this creator I am absolutely sick of. Like so sick that I almost wanna post direct responses to things that piss me off, but it would admittedly just be personal taste and assumptions, so it would likely not be constructive or understandable to others.

  I can read tons of things I disagree with and it’s fine, but have this person write it and it pushes all my buttons. It’s so good at hitting my nerves.

  I don’t like how pretentious and try-hard they come off. There’s an elevated writing style and big vocabulary that adds to the conversation and is an inspiring pleasure to read, and then there’s this guy whose convoluted and cryptic ways to write add nothing to the topic at hand and just obfuscate the true intent without reason. There’s long ass sentences and repeated questions.

  It reads like someone that’s trying to write as nonsensical as possible because they confuse difficulty with quality. It doesn’t actually sound deep, or special, or contemplative - instead it sounds like someone trying to fill a word count. Depending on the topic it also sounds so insecure, cowardly, neither here nor there because all there is are these questions.

  You don’t have to have an opinion on everything or position yourself clearly all the time, but after dozens of posts reacting to others’ opinions with just meaninglessly convoluted questions with no direction or point it grinds my gears. It’s the written equivalent of trying to have a discussion with someone that only speaks with a spoon in their mouth and doesn’t give you a clear answer on anything. You ask them what they wanna eat and they’re like: “Maybe, maybe not. Have you considered what kind of nutritious nourishment you can provide for the guts of your brain? Reexamine what you have chosen to digest as you frequent the fast food of your internet content experience.” Enough! Even in e-mails!

  And always as a reaction to others’ posts like you need their words to come up with anything and like your ramblings add anything. Oof!

  Then mix in the absolutely frustrating experience of reading someone being mad over and over again over other people not liking their favorite toy and being extra petulant about it. If I were you I’d love it too - maybe run my posts through it to make it sound even more pretentious! Maybe use it to de-bullshit your writing and give it some content.

  It would be so rude to address this publicly but sometimes I would really love to know if I am the outlier or if other people are similarly annoyed. In my head I’m standing next to a canvas of this clownery and point at it and ask: Does anyone else think this sucks or am I insane? I hate to see this in my referers.

  It’s on me, I know. I have to stop clicking on things I know I won’t like. I have to stop reading. I have to hide that stuff from my feed. It’s no use. I think I keep clicking because I wanna find something I can disprove or offer another perspective on constructively in a post without getting personal, and I hope that I’ll find something that makes me like and understand that person; but it’s all so stupid or so far apart from my own view and values I can’t begin to do that. Every time I click to be proven wrong and I get proven right instead.

  It felt good to write that out somewhere though.

• 26 Jun, 2025 "nothing ever works out"

  "Nothing ever works out!" says the person who leaves everything to other people who can see the catastrophe coming from miles away and jump in to help.

  Who procrastinates until the last minute.

  Who will always find an excuse other than themselves - the weather, the opening times, the tech, things just magically disappearing etc.

  Who assumes all things they need for an appointment will just turn up magically in their hands.

  Who thinks they don't ever have to save emails or documents with important info.

  Who assumes the printer will print something 10 minutes before they need to leave.

  Who assumes they don't need a calendar or an alarm.

  Who assumes that they don't have to inform others of any duties or requests until it's too late.

  Who assumes they don't have to check the itinerary, the agenda, or the route beforehand.

  Who assumes they can book something on a whim.

  Who won't look up the parking situation beforehand.

  "Nothing ever works out!" says person who always assumes that things will just work out until the moment when all their lack of planning and preparation forces things to fail that wouldn't have failed for anyone else.

  Weird how there is always the same person at the center of it.

  I cannot even imagine being in the situation to think "Great, now this totally unforeseeable random event that everyone warned me about happened to me that will once again make everyone think I am incapable and stupid. Why does that always happen to me and make everyone think such false things about me?" and even say out loud "Now everyone will think I'm incapable and stupid again."

  If you think that, you will literally never learn from these mistakes. So much would already be solved by seeing the connection between your behavior and what it led to. Why is there no lightbulb moment going: "Wow, I really should have set that reminder, I should have messaged people earlier and it was rude to just expect them to comply or be there without notice, I really should do some precarious things like printing well in advance because these things are bound to act up", etc.? Every time, you are told by others what will happen and what you should do, and every time there is this arrogance that you don't need this and they're overly cautious or just don't believe in you.

  Well, you have done nothing to show anyone that they can believe in you; if anything, you keep destroying the confidence others have in you. Maybe you are, in fact, incapable and stupid. It's not unfixable, you just have to try.

• 26 Jun, 2025 the profoundly lonely

  Something about people that have accounts on literally every service you can think of and listing them all rubs me the wrong way, or rather, comes with bad associations and assumptions.

  Some things that this makes me assume about them instantly (against my will) are:

  • Being chronically online - how else could you manage to be active on all these accounts, as in posting, scrolling, and interacting with others?
  • By extension of being chronically online: likely no or very limited time spent on hobbies, and often only consumption of media. You can’t talk to them about them, their ideas, what they did, what they created etc. because all they can talk about is the current game or TV show they like.
  • Because of (almost) exclusively interacting with short form content, petty online drama, slop, kink, memes and shitposts, they might seem emotionally stunted, immature and naive.
  • Bad reading comprehension, inability to tolerate longer messages or exchanges.
  • Being extremely lonely and make themselves overly accessible as a response; lowkey conveys to me: there’s something wrong in their real life, they might have poor boundaries, they seek validation in an unhealthy way.
  • Easily under- or overstimulated.
  • They’re attention-seeking in a negative way, spreading themselves far and wide online in an attempt to get more engagement on posts and possibly go viral. Might be addicted to getting the numbers up.
  • Having a big focus/placing a lot of worth on very vapid, contrived consumerist bullshit and trends. Always chasing the new thing. Not questioning their own motives and desires.

  In short, at best I think of someone slightly misguided and in a phase of being totally entrenched in cyberculture but who will get out of it soon-ish, and at worst I think I am looking at someone superficial, unintelligent, unstable, depressed and addicted to social media who doesn’t care about anything but distraction and getting any attention, even if it’s a bad, because even getting hate is better than having to sit in silence. They can create nothing for themselves and out if their own intrinsic motivation because reactions from others is the main goal.

  I know my instinctive assumptions aren’t generous, and some are mean, unfortunately. I recognize it doesn’t have to be true, but I also acknowledge we likely have completely opposite values, wishes and interests and engaging with each other would be like pulling teeth. I would not be able to empathize with wanting to be on these platforms or getting attention, and would always lowkey look down on them for that, which isn’t good. No one forces us to interact, so I won’t. It’s, I guess, an ick for me, if not a red flag.

  It’s funny, because this post was inspired by a personal website of someone where they did exactly that. Then after writing this, I chose to dig deeper and read their blog to be proven wrong. But the post I read completely confirmed my suspicions - profoundly lonely and begging for people to interact with their creations. I feel a little guilty.

• 26 Jun, 2025 collage 6

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 25 Jun, 2025 don’t appease me

  Kind of weird how I get the impression sometimes that it’s my problem when I don’t like someone and it’s also my problem if someone doesn’t like me? Why though? I don’t see why any of that needs to be actively fixed by me. Either me or another person changes their mind or not. People tend to change their mind on their own due to witnessing actions by the other person, and why would anyone be forced to go out of their way to change someone’s mind (outside of performative situations like talking to your boss etc.)? No one needs to change for me and vice versa. I don’t need to prove them wrong and earn the approval of anyone if I don’t want to, and I don’t need to work on myself and dig through reasons to like someone to get myself to like them instead. It’s not that serious. I’ll reexamine my feelings about people when they happen to give me reason to, and it’s fine and normal when that happens on their own accord removed from any motivation to appease me.

• 24 Jun, 2025 post-truth society

  I hate that the claim that we live in a post-truth society might be true. There are more and more moments when I have to argue about facts with people that should not be arguments because there is clear evidence.

  I had a discussion recently with someone who believed that all password managers are evil and unsafe, out of ignorance. They thought the passwords are just stored plaintext in their cloud and if that is hacked, then the hackers have all the passwords.

  Me and another person gently reassured them that this is a valid concern and I used to have it too before I got one, but that it actually works differently. I summarized how it works in very easy sloppy laymen terms - boiling down to the encryption and all that. They understandably asked “If they don’t have my Master Password, how can they validate my login?” and again, two of us explained it as best as we could - how a lot happens on device, nothing gets sent back, etc etc. and even had the official documentation of multiple password managers handy.

  But it was all useless as the person just avoided it all like “but that doesn’t even matter right now” or “yeah they say that but does it REALLY happen” or “it still doesn’t FEEL safe”. Has to be the only instance where I stand behind “facts don’t care about your feelings”. You can hardly fake something like that mechanism and people can and often will listen in to what gets sent in and out of their network and as it is open source, someone would have noticed already via either of these routes.

  These are products used by entire organizations, recommended by cybersecurity experts, etc etc. there is just a level of vetting your uninformed gut feeling and paranoia is not comparable to. The narcissism at times to be like: “Yeah, I who doesn’t know how this works at all knows more about this than the people who do it as a job because I get scared.”

  Like oh my god, you don’t need to use any of these services - but what is so hard about saying: “Thanks for telling me, I will think about it!” Or: “Thanks, I’m not yet ready to use them though”. Or: “Thanks, I am still on the fence but it helps a little.”

  Still annoying to hear that, but at least you’re not fighting facts with weird arguments and reaches based entirely on feelings. Rational and intelligent people are able to change their opinions when presented with new information. It doesn’t have to be immediate, but at least think about it, my god. At least let yourself.

  Your misguided fear doesn’t even keep you more safe; not using a password manager raises your risks of reusing passwords and choosing easy passwords which are easier to be hacked or already compromised. Like wohoo, great, you have Summer1213 as a password for everything and it gets compromised in a leak, but at least you avoided the evil password managers company of having encrypted info they can’t decrypt on their servers.

  I’m tired of the fact that we can’t agree on a truth anymore even in casual shit like this. And we’re expected to coddle people like that too like “You’re so valid for feeling this way and it’s okay! You don’t have to! You’re entitled to your opinion!” sometimes you’re just wrong, man, genuinely. And yes, technically it’s “okay” if you make mistakes and don’t listen to anyone and it’s “okay” to be wrong, but that doesn’t absolve you from being a stubborn idiot sometimes.

• 24 Jun, 2025 studies and jobs

  There’s one person I know that will worry a lot about extremely rare chances; like to the point of breakdowns, unable to sleep, needing like 4 people to talk them down or out of it, and dragging everyone into the mess and acting like it’s an emergency (when nothing has even happened yet) and as usual, nothing ends up happening. But if there are actual real and kinda likely problems, risks, concerns you bring up to that person about their plans and choices, they deny it. It’s so weird. Like I’m supposed to care that you could contract a rare disease with like a 3% chance, but I’m supposed to not care and ignore it that with this career choice there’s like a 60% chance of struggling to find a job? Make it make sense.

  I even get the feeling that it is specifically to spite me sometimes because I can be a bit direct or blunt at times. I will not say “I heard there might be less jobs there.” but I will say, with my personal direct experience and insight, “Everyone I know in that career is struggling to find a job and it’s low-paying and they complain about abuse on the job.” And because I don’t sugarcoat it, that person seems to be very insistent on proving me wrong and not believing me. I’m just trying to tell you what I know, I’m not trying to shit on your dreams on purpose, and especially not unasked - if you bring it up and/or ask, I will contribute. If you don’t wanna hear it, don’t ask? You can’t “that’s an outlier” yourself out of everything.

  I often wished people in an industry or adjacent would be there to give insights and make me aware of risks and more, but others are so ungrateful about this. I tend to notice that it’s the people who could move back home when shit hits the fan who are like this. They can allow themselves to hope and think big and just trust that it works out somehow. They can afford to study their breadless passion for years and if they can’t find a job, someone will be there, especially their giant families.

  Well, I don’t have one, there is nowhere to move back to, I can’t return to where I was raised and I needed to escape that, so I always had the practical glasses on and needed something secure and paying. Not gonna lie, sometimes it pisses me off that people go against all warnings and tips and cautions to study something almost or entirely futile and afterwards make it everyone else’s problem like they couldn’t have known, and if you made better choices because of the situation you were in, you’re somehow the asshole for seeing it coming and planning better. I’m sorry your passion is underpaid, I wish it was otherwise! Plenty of people don’t work their hobby or interest. People need to restock groceries, clean, deliver packages, cook or serve food, drive buses, pick up the garbage, care for the elderly and all that, and without them, society couldn’t function. Yet I doubt many of them have a passion for any of that or planned to do this.

  Maybe academics from well-off families ask too much of the job market we are living in. I ask myself that too oftentimes: am I demanding too much? Not every job can be both physically and mentally fulfilling/stimulating and be what we are interested in. I get the wish to work something you love that is also safe and pays enough and hits our spot mentally and physically (I try to do the same) but that’s literally the jackpot. You’ll often have to settle for less, even if it’s temporary until the next opportunity/job.

  I feel like there is this disconnect between late students and the rest too - like when many of us have already been in fulltime jobs for 4-7 years and they’re not done fulltime studying and just doing small student side jobs here and there. There is such a tension between the advice the people on the job can give vs. what the soon-to-finish-degree wants to be true. It’s uncomfortable because you’d expect a 24/25 year old graduate to feel that way, but not your 30-33 year old friend. They still have a naive view of the job market that’s like “Only my student jobs sucked! The real job will be better! It has to be, because I spent 6+ years and thousands on this!”

  The job market is absolutely decoupled from what’s offered at university and your grades and how much effort and time you put in, and your interests.

  I’m not looking forward to seeing that person make the same experiences I warned them about, but probably presenting it like they couldn’t see it coming or they’re the first to come to that conclusion, lol.

• 23 Jun, 2025 irrelevant

  It’s irrelevant and not that deep, but sometimes I remember how many people message me that they love my main blog but it’s not on their blogroll, how many say that this or that post inspired them but never link to it on their blog, how one post is clearly a reaction to mine but they don’t post it as reply, or how they ask me if they can post about our email exchange because it was so helpful but never end up doing it. There are people I have calls with, too, that never mention it anywhere. There are people who ask me for details around my site design, implement it and then credit everyone but me. There are people that say they’re “honored that [I] know who [they] are” in my messages but seem like they’re completely removed from me in public. There are people who say on Discord that my website/blog setup inspired them but then on their blog say it was someone else.

  There is a lot under the surface. There’s a lot of people I help and that I talk to that never publicly associate with me. They don’t have to. It doesn’t mean much. It’s just interesting to see.

  Song

• 23 Jun, 2025 consumerism

  Make sure your life isn’t just waiting for something. Waiting until you look right, waiting for that career milestone, waiting for the next meal, waiting for GTA 6 or the new season of a TV show. Waiting for these isn’t wrong but life happens between and outside of them. You should create and visit things and plan things for yourself in between. Too much of today is just this time-sinking consumerism to hold you over until the next thing…

  Many lives are so difficult that it just consists of that: this week new album release, the week after a new game, 2 weeks later new movie they looked forward to, some months defined by chasing trend highs like unboxing blind boxes… it feels really empty with nothing else. They keep chasing that maximum of 1h of escapism, of joy that there is something new, the thing to stay alive for a little longer…

  Create bubbles of joy that you control and that don’t cost you much or at all. Create rewards that aren’t tied to someone else or money.

• 23 Jun, 2025 scrambling for control

  Scrambling for control isn’t discipline.
  Starving yourself or overexercising isn’t discipline. That’s like saying letting the intrusive thoughts win is discipline, or how giving in to OCD obsessive checking is discipline. One might be currently rewarded by society, but you’re still kidding yourself.

  It’s not discipline if you can’t allow yourself to eat without exercising, or if you feel guilty and your entire day is ruined if you can’t exercise. Discipline is making yourself do things consistently even if you don’t want to, instead of being forced to do them compulsively to fulfill the demands of a disorder. Discipline isn’t doing things out of fear only.

  No one fasts for a week due to discipline. It’s to quiet a voice inside their head, whether it’a disordered eating or OCD or spiritual/religious psychosis.

  No one of these skinny influencers esp. fitness influencers are disciplined, they’re sick and self-destructive, exercise-purging with 3h-6h of gym every day. I have even seen people brag like “Don’t tell me you can’t get your steps in while working fulltime, I do too, just develop discipline!” and they walk 50k steps a day. When asked how they do it they said they get up 2h before work to pace around the apartment, and then continue to pace after work; at the weekends usually 10+ hours. They sleep less than 5h a night to walk in their apartment.

  They wanna sell it as discipline but it’s not. It’s just sick. Other people go on vacations, meet friends and sit in their homes or third places, play games, watch movies and TV shows, engage in a hobby like sewing or drawing that requires you to sit. Other people even get their exercise in by just 1h at the gym or a hobby like badminton or pickleball. Dedicating 10+ hours a day to something isn’t discipline, it’s messed up and nothing to admire or glorify. It’s interfering with you being able to live a normal life, make friends, educate yourself, relax, recover etc.

  Like if at least it was paid work or reading lots of stuff or learning a language - but it’s an absolutely useless and destructive pursuit! Sick losers.

• 22 Jun, 2025 cannot be bothered

  I can’t be bothered anymore to read what you yourself hate.

  Tags like: My ramblings! My blurbs! Blabbering! Yapping!

  Intro like: My posts suck! This is going to be so messy, awful, boring for you as the reader.

  Disclaimer like: I couldn’t be bothered to write this, so I used AI to draft it, to write it, to make it sound “”better””, to shorten and summarize it.

  Great posturing like: I don’t waste my readers’ time with my words, so I keep it short! I think my words are actually so bad that I don’t feel like I can subject anyone to it for more than 10 minutes!

  Tell me why I’m supposed to read your self-hating, self-censored, half-assed slop? Get a grip and stand by your words.

• 22 Jun, 2025 the man of the year

  I sometimes realize that if I was a man at a VC-funded company and put my main blog on Substack, I’d be invited to podcasts and interviews and get quoted like Naval probably and it’s so fucking odd to think about.

  I’m not comparing quality or content here - we are different. What I mean is it would be comically easy to reach a higher “status” for me then, a status like that but for my realm. It is too easy to be quoted as an expert and be admired by other men when you’re a man; you can see this in the alpha male content too. They know nothing about these coaches’ life but believe them anyway.

  Despite more or less different topics, writing styles, connections, opinions etc. I read their stuff and it is also written how I write my main blog; but personal opinions, assumptions/predictions, judgements and critical analysis of some current developments and mainstream stuff, in away that it isn’t super deep - just writing down thoughts to share and remember. But it’s treated as gospel.

  It’s really nothing that special, but a lot of factors around the blog and where it is hosted affect whether you’re a just a blogger in someone’s linkroll, or if others write blog posts of their own about you and your work like some school presentation. I might be wrong but I also simply think there is a gender issue at play - the only person to transcend this in a way I have noticed is Molly White. She gets talked about “like one of the guys”. She had to work thrice as hard for that.

  On one hand, it is selfmade. I am not on Substack. I don’t use my full name. I’m not Fullname from Popular Company. Self help criticism hits harder when it’s Al&x D&nco from Sh&opify than Firstname from Bearblog. Unfortunately I am not a LinkedIn lunatic (and the equivalent of that for Substack) and I don’t bring in more momey for a VC tech company, so it will stay that way. On the other hand, doesn’t it work for Naval? Maybe they just love mysterious, anonymous men. Lets you project anything onto them.

  People tend to project positives onto men they don’t know, but negatives onto women. I think most people think if you’re a man and don’t post pictures of yourself, it’s normal and understandable because you’re just some guy, and it probably has a good reason. When women do that, people think they must be ugly and cowards. If you do post though and you happen to be hot, people think that’s the only reason for your success.

• 22 Jun, 2025 demonizing the past

  At times, it’s been tiring me out witnessing people going from demonizing (not just criticising) what they used to do and glorifying the next thing and being stuck in that cycle. I know it’s part of growing and finding yourself and what works for you, but many people do that in a more measured, private, playful and gradual way, and I think that’s the healthy way to do so.

  The people I mean always do it in such a fervor, like they’re in a rush, and like anyone expects them to disavow their past interests and attempts publicly. Everything is a grand announcement where they cut something off. “I’m no longer doing x! It was stupid and toxic anyway! claps from the audience I will now do this other thing that is so much better until I disavow it just as intensely!”

  There’s always a common denominator (them). The old gets blamed as the thing that held them back, the thing that misled them, something they bought into at a time of great distress. But now, now everything’s different with this new thing. That’s now actually who they are and it will unleash their power and support them better. Until in a few months, when this thing was also something they only did because of peer pressure or trauma or something else and also sucked.

  I really get it and I used to be similar years ago; it’s very easy and understandable to blame something external all the time, and maybe aspects of these habits, things, identities really were not helpful. But in the grand scheme of things, this identifier, the way you tidy up your home, what app you use, the design of your website or the way you journal doesn’t have as much impact on your life as you might think. These are just the things you can most easily change with almost no risk and no effect, instead of the true reasons that can be very hard or impossible to change - financial status, education, social skills, support network, mental health and the like.

  I think what specifically hurts to witness is how much it repeats and how much there is this need to publicly reinvent yourself. The need for a clear cut, a position, the start of a better life, a clean slate. Every revelation is treated as this grand absolute knowledge that people need to be informed about, lest they also fall for the great danger of… I don’t know, bullet journaling or something.

  I think this desire and way to handle complex emotions is also what makes people susceptible to cults, MLMs, and specific very intense ideologies that are supposed to take up your entire personality.

  If you ever find yourself in a cycle like that, I hope you can get out of it and extend more grace to yourself. You’re dealing with hard stuff on low energy and need easy solutions and a lot is presenting as one. You’re not an idiot for falling for it, but you can do better. Allow yourself not to rush into everything so hard and fast. Don’t feel like you owe everyone an explanation or have to announce everything. Understand your life as more gradual instead of hard chapters. Be thankful for what that thing or habit did for you in the past and acknowledge that while you used to need it, you’ve outgrown it now, and that doesn’t make it bad, just unfitting. Leave the door open to take from it what you need or to return to it in the future if need be. Understand that it might not have led you on, but that instead it’s you who changed and has stopped idealizing it now. It’s understandable to ride that high of a clean new slate, but it’s not something that’s great to do over and over again impulsively.

• 20 Jun, 2025 style guide

  Let me reframe it for you.

  “Guides to paint proper art” = “this is the art I like and feel drawn to”

  “Tips on how to write better” = “this writing clears my arbitrary bar”

  “Required reading to write criticism well” = “I only like criticism in this particular style”

  “Important music theory” = “this meets my personal standards”

  If you looked down on earth from the moon, would you accept the standards of one person as the ultimate truth? Would you think their opinion on your creation matters when you just watched someone die?

  Inside, you know what matters. If you seek out inspiration or want to become different (“better”) in a certain way, you will seek it out on your own and gravitate towards what you need. But don’t let it be forced on you. Don’t let it warp your unique view and voice. Imagine if the artist of your choice (music, paper, writing) was squashed and forced to only learn and practice a different style that was in at the time or that their teachers preferred. Imagine if that happened to people who started new designs eras and genres. Imagine if we would flatten everyone into the same box.

  Standards and tastes around everything change every other decade, and microtrends even more often. You might not be wrong, just in the wrong crowd, or the wrong time.

• 20 Jun, 2025 sycophant therapy

  I am shocked people would admit that they needed AI to become a better listener or partner or consider other people’s feelings. It’s shameful. You had friends, a spouse, family members, and a therapist all tell you what you need to change and how, what they need and expect from you, and role models of that behavior around you - but it took an AI that’s just a yes-man, a doormat, a fucking sycophant to make you change your ways?

  I wouldn’t be proud of that! I wouldn’t share that around as a win for AI! You would rather listen to a thing without feelings that kisses your ass than the people around you. That sounds bad! Insufferable. Why do you not practice active listening and compassionate behavior with your wife?

  This is not Disney. This isn’t a cute story about how Wall-E teaches a human how to love. This poses so many questions and says more about you than the AI.

• 18 Jun, 2025 no boundaries

  The recent Doja stuff is why I consider people pleasers and people without boundaries to be lowkey dangerous. Not dangerous in a predatory, threatening your life kinda way, but in the sense that they will lie to your face, reassure you, be kind, reciprocate, and send every damn signal they can to communicate that they’re okay with something when they’re not. And best case you get a message later on that clarifies that they didn’t actually feel that way and it throws you off, but worst case, and this happens more often, is that they will run to every other person who will listen complaining about how uncomfortable you made them, like you’re the big villain.

  I have only ever personally been affected by this when it was non-physical, like things we talked about, but this can totally apply to physical things like hugs, as seen here. And it’s so damaging because once again someone doesn’t stand up for themselves but not only that, they’re actively encouraging what makes them feel bad, and later on feel like they were violated and let themselves down by not speaking up. And the other person will now not be able to trust their own judgment anymore and withdraw from people because they don’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable by accident. Because when you go through that, what can you still rely on? Apparently people smile and hug you back and compliment you when they actually hate to be in your presence. It shatters the trust you have in communicating with others.

  And in this case, it’s even worse because of the context of “a man making a woman u comfortable” and there’s even a huge power difference. She didn’t need to tweet about it, or like that specifically. She knows her fans will go after that man.

  That’s always what I hate about people pleasers; they’ll externalize their anger about betraying themselves onto you when you had no chance to know differently as you couldn’t read their mind. Then they go around seeking validation from everyone about it. When I clock this tendency in you I stay the hell away. How can anyone trust you when you’re so comfortable lying? How can anyone walk away from an interaction with you and not be scared what it will get twisted into? Your consent to anything is void. You have retroactively revoked it too many times.

  It’s so annoying because every time you meet someone new you have to feel out if they’re one of those - where you have to do the labor of managing their emotions and boundaries for them, guessing them and not believing them when they say something is okay. I dated someone like that once and it was hell. It’s disappointing to see that so many say they’re the same way or “as a woman you have to do that to survive!” Give me a fucking break. Yes, when you’re secluded, alone, etc. you have to manage men’s emotions and sometimes have to play along, but playing along doesn’t mean laughing your ass off, hugging them back, wrapping your leg around them and complimenting them, and also: not when you’re surrounded by people, there’s a camera and your body guards are nearby. It’s sooooo silly to pretend otherwise. That woman was safe and had no reason to enter some sort of survival mode with that guy.

• 18 Jun, 2025 plastic surgery

  Getting most cosmetic plastic surgery isn’t anything. It’s not feminist, it may not be anti-feminist either, but it sure as hell also isn’t revolutionary or reclaiming one’s body. It’s fixing supposed flaws that didn’t bother you until you were made aware of it by TikTok. It’s always following conventional contemporary beauty standards like making ass and tits bigger and more plump or perky, stomach flatter, lips bigger, nose smaller, eyes bigger. No one ever makes their lips thin or their nose big. If you were reclaiming your body from the way it is always policed by the outside, why is it following their policy? Why do the changes always happen to be ones currently trending? Why aren’t you getting silicone implants into your tummy? Why aren’t you getting horn implants in your forehead or something? You’d laugh at people with a fully tattooed body and horns and a split tongue and tattooed eyeballs but at least they’re reclaiming their bodies for real unaffected by the mainstream standards. You mean to tell me you just randomly happen to like yourself more with a sharper jawline and more pronounced cheek bones, coincidentally? Sure. I’m considering it from time to time too but at least I’m not lying to myself about why I’d want it and what the reason is.

  “I’m getting a boob job to feel more comfortable in my body, wear some clothes and not look like a little kid; you’re the problem if you think this has something to do with patriarchy” is so cringe. Detail what makes you uncomfortable then. Not sexy enough? Who sets the standard for that? Who decides what’s the mature size? Don’t you think everything making you feel that way (people, clothes companies etc.) are not affected by patriarchal beauty standards? Why can’t you clothes shop like a normal person? Why can’t you alter your goddamn clothes? So you wanna wear clothing that needs a big rack but deny it is sexualizing? Why do you wanna display them then and wear these clothes? Obviously it looks good and makes you feel like a baddie, and why is that? Because it looks attractive. Sexy.

  I cannot believe we have to spell each thought out for these people. They never seem to want to know where any of their feelings and motivations come from. Make me feel good = is good is all that’s going on in that brain. Just admit you wanna impress other people than yourself. At least be an honest and upfront people pleaser my god.

  Why does everything you do have to have a greater cause, be some sort of resistance to something and have a deeper meaning? You can get a boob job to be prettier without bending over backwards about how getting big honkers is feminist. It’s like how people cannot just dislike a show anymore without making it sound like it has severe political issues. The reaches are incredible. It’s okay to just do it because others do it. You don’t need to say how you’re only reading that book due to some contrived noble reason when you actually read it because it’s trending right now and it intrigued you. Mainstream is ok. Obviously giving in to external pressure but insisting it’s not so is so dumb, even more so when it’s upfront without anyone asking, or under some post not directed at you.

• 17 Jun, 2025 therapyspeak

  I hate listening to therapyspeak and very granular mental health slang concepts within normal friend group talks. People used to say things like “Should I stop being friends with that person? I would feel better if I did that” but the same thing is now “If I did that would that be ghosting? Would I be gaslighting them? I would feel empowered if I did that. I wanna protect my energy and that person is such an energy vampire. That person is so narcissistic and I am tired of doing emotional labour when they triangulate me and project onto me…” oh my god shut up I can’t stand it anymore please.

  These concepts and words weren’t made for casual conversation by laymen and it sounds extremely weird and most of the time applies it wrong. It also feels disingenuous and performative, like you’re intellectualizing very basic life stuff that is not worth the therapyspeak. It’s not deep, it’s not multilayered, severe, traumatic. Why can’t you talk like an average person about your feelings? I went to therapy for years and years and don’t talk like this. It’s not therapy that does it. You don’t need to speak like that to understand yourself and learn positive coping mechanisms. What is it supposed to convey? You sound like a first year psychology student (in a negative way, like you’re trying to diagnose everyone and pathologize everything).

  Why can’t you just be mad right now, why does it have to be “so BPD”? Why can’t you be sad about a rejection without immediately calling it rejection sensitive dysphoria? Why does everything you do and feel have to be split up between diagnoses you may or may not have? Why do you think you’re made up of diagnoses, don’t you realize how harmful that is? And why is there a need for you to label what is and isn’t your true self - with or without meds?

• 14 Jun, 2025 ugly

  Being called ugly is such an immature insult and I can’t believe people still do that. Except for on my period days, I don’t give a fuck if I am pretty or not. I still feel and am desirable. I can get around and learn stuff and read and write and paint and I get paid enough. I’m married to a generous and kind person that genuinely loves me. So why would I care if someone finds me pretty or whether I could do more or glow up harder? I have reaped the benefits of pretty privilege before so it can’t even be that bad. I’m feeling bad for you if you can’t perceive my beauty because many others can, especially I can. Your opinion doesn’t dictate or change anything though. I’ve seen people uglier than you be happier and kinder than you.

• 14 Jun, 2025 princess

  That alpha woman/princess treatment content about glowing up and being so pretty that everyone stumbles over themselves trying to give you stuff, help you and hold the door open is obviously some bullshit, but I’m here to say it’s also not entirely false or made up. It sure is exaggerated, but the experiences itself occasionally happen if you’re a woman.

  I think I’m fairly good looking - not overt, but not ugly either. I might be something of a “not many people’s type but if I am you’re obsessed”, but not sure. Anyway, it was never hard for me to get into a relationship. There was always someone interested. I had to reject a lot of people. The people I wanted always wanted me back. I’ve never been rejected romantically or sexually.

  Still, I can go days without catching anyone looking at me, weeks or months without anyone hitting me up while I’m out, months between kindness that is obviously based on attraction. Either there is no attraction or it’s silent, which makes sense, because how often do YOU actually tell a stranger they’re beautiful? Or try to get them food?

  Anyway, are there situations where someone thinks you’re so pretty that they say the drink or food you got is on the house or their tab? Sure. I’ve gotten free food and drinks. But it’s not literally everywhere you go, all the time, like those women insist. That would be so fucking annoying too. It’s not necessarily about how pretty you are but instead more about if you happen to be where a confident, outgoing and generous person is or not. Same with holding the door open or asking to carry something heavy for you. I had that happen with a very big parcel I underestimated that I had to carry home from the parcel station.

  Can’t say anyone has ever given me money or offered to pay for my items or rent like those TikToks insist, and I doubt glowing up more would change that. But I do know all of my partners were generous with me. The last man I dated bought me lots of expensive tech like an iPad, gaming peripherals etc. and a lot of Steam games and ingame skins. He drove me everywhere and picked me up because I don’t drive.

  I went on my typical work lunch walk and a guy approached me saying I looked stunning and made it difficult not to approach me and that he just had to. He took the rejection very well and he was very nice.

  I don’t know if this is something you should strive for or try to glow up for. It not happening to you says nothing about how attractive you are, just as the months where I don’t get hit on don’t erase the others. You have to consider other factors as well: How often are you outside? Are you available (waiting in line, sitting somewhere, not with someone else)? No one is gonna reach you at home or while you rush to the grocery store. Economic factors, too. Many people cannot be generous to strangers anymore because they don’t have disposable income anymore and have to focus on their loved ones. Maybe you’re also near people who struggle with anxiety. Or they’re very educated about feminism and the issue of catcalling or approaching women being scary for the woman, so they’re passive and waiting for women to approach them instead, or sending more subtle signs.

  The people who say all that stuff never happens are… I wanted to say lying, but I guess not, not intentionally. They’re speaking their truth. It never happens to them or anyone they know. But truthfully it does happen. But not everywhere I go and I don’t want it to. It sounds like a nightmare. Every couple months, together with a partner that positively spoils me is totally fine.

• 11 Jun, 2025 missed the memo

  My body missed the memo that my period is over and I’m still as listless low energy and demotivated as I was during. Trouble sleeping, too. I am burnt out by work because it feels stupid, inconsequential and too easy. I’m bored. I’m sad that I don’t get out of the house or have no motivation to work out every day and then I’m not tired enough to sleep well and then the entire next day I’m too tired to do anything but too awake to nap and fix it. And repeat.

  I can’t even do any of the things I enjoy doing. Literally, right now I’d love to research for a piece I’m writing or watch Sex and the City or draw in my journal or play games or read books on the balcony but even though I really wanna do it, I feel exhausted by just the thought of doing it. My head has such a weird headache too on and off since last time at the gym, typical exercise headache but it sucks. I have trouble recalling some words too.

  I wish I could be put under anesthesia and sleep it all off. Hard reset. I took so many supplements today and even upped my intake and I took a hot bath and Ibuprofen and my partner bought me flowers but nothing is enough to get this body going. And I’m so fucking sad about my dog too. If it wasn’t so stupid and disproportionate and useless and difficult to accomplish and something I’d regret, I’d just die for him right now. I can’t believe I’m just supposed to keep living another 30 years without him.

• 09 Jun, 2025 collage 5

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 08 Jun, 2025 reading

  “The lack of capitalization made it difficult for me to quickly read sentences. I had to be much more intentful when scanning the text.”

  You aren’t supposed to scan for keywords and skip paragraphs, you’re supposed to read it. You aren’t supposed to be the quickest to gain a basic general overview over the text to be the fastest to post some updoot-worthy quip in the replies, you’re supposed to engage with it on a deeper level. You’re supposed to gain context and insight and pay attention to the choice of words.

  Oh no, what a crime, someone made you read with intent. I hope you recover soon from that dreadful event.

• 08 Jun, 2025 lost my spark

  I feel like I lost my spark in writing and that everything sounds weird and not good enough and not like myself and not natural and not groundbreaking. I edit my writing over and over in the course of days instead if writing it down once, correcting typos, then sending it off because I am happy. I have less good ideas. I have passion but nowhere for it to go. I wanna write but I have no idea what about. I see others implement the ideas I had better and faster than me. I feel left behind by my past self that was so good at all of it. Come back to me, spark. Did I take it for granted? Is it my period? Is it the recent benzo messing with my head? The effects of these things on my brain cannot be overstated and I really hate it and avoid using them, but that recent one was unfortunately necessary.

  It doesn’t help that I’m currently in a phase where I am much more aware of all the things I don’t know yet than the things I know. I’m missing the confidence of knowledge. It’s just a normal learning phase, but it also holds me back.

  I need to listen more and read more. I’m better when I can riff off of what others say to get me started.

• 08 Jun, 2025 you love food

  Had an awkward interaction recently where a friend and my partner both insisted repeatedly that I love food and eating. I said no and that it’s a struggle and even my partner who knows I have an ed and am currently relapsing insisted no, I love food. I felt so invalidated. I even felt like I had to argue and stand up for myself and humiliated myself trying to talk about my food rules but they still didn’t get it. My friend eats for fuel only and doesn’t care about fancy dishes or taste so usually he eats blank rice or pasta and that’s it. Putting veggies or tofu on it is special. He was like a bar I was measured against and if I really hated food I’d eat like him and not make elaborate meals. But my meals aren’t even elaborate. They have a little rice or shirataki and broccoli and kimchi and tofu. Lots about volume eating and protein and low cal. It might look healthy or like I love it but it just means I am scared of the rest. I might like the taste of food but I hate how it feels inside me and what it makes me worry about. I hate that so much food is just not good for you and eating feels like a minefield. I hate that everything has so much sugar in it. I can’t eat like him because I’m too scared of so much rice and pasta.

  Where they might be right is obsession about food. I guess that is true but it’s just illness and not a part of my character. I forget to eat when engrossed in something. But it’s embarrassing how people recovering from ed’s always seem to go on to become nutritionists and gym people or posting cakes and pastries all the time. The food obsession never stops for them it’s just suddenly about aesthetic cakes or protein.

• 08 Jun, 2025 the cool girls

  The cool girls aren’t on social media. The cool girls aren’t posting clickbait or tagging brands. They’re documenting their hobby via zines and they’re showing their creations on their website. They’re curating what’s cool in their field or scene on their blog. They’re micro celebrities in their online niche.

  Cool girls are a mood, yet unreachable. They set the trends without knowing. Their ideas aren’t that fashionable yet because they are the taste of the future the mainstream hasn’t gotten to yet. They exist without the need to conform or impress. Their authenticity and effortlessness is what people seek to emulate once they are found.

  Cool girls are magnetic. You wanna keep up with them without knowing why. Why are they so fascinating, so captivating?

  You can learn a lot from cool girls.

  Cool girls will burn out like a comet until the next set comes along. They cannot prevent becoming too cool, too known, too mainstream, too corny.

• 01 Jun, 2025 collage 4

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 16 May, 2025 maybe it’s true

  I remember in 2018 I was only using the internet for email and recipes. Nothing else. No social media, no blogging, no YouTube, basically no music, maybe occasional streaming over Netflix. That’s it. Like a pure utility thing, very oldschool but with newest services.

  Back then I really thought “Wow, the internet is for unhappy people.”

  Because I was happy and absolutely didn’t need any more of the internet. I recognized how much sadness and isolation made me even engage in social media and all that stuff. I suddenly didn’t need the online company; it felt hollow, incomplete. I didn’t need to tell anyone online anything because telling people offline was enough. I didn’t need their eyes, their validation. Their opinions. I didn’t wanna talk, didn’t wanna follow anyone. But the pandemic and illness and job unhappiness at times all made me return to something online in different ways. The pandemic made me remake a Discord, the job unhappiness made me want to make a blog to document myself teaching myself how to code and my projects, then illness made me post a ton of other things. Now I am happy offline, healthy, and uninterested in working in tech. I don’t even wanna do the tech projects anymore that I set out to do. So what is left holding me?

  Now I find myself thinking like that again - that the internet is for unhappy people. The platforms, at least. Internet for messaging your friends, finding recipes and playing games together is good. An extension of real life; a connection across distances of real life friends.

  I feel stupid writing it, and I don’t think I can write that where anyone will see, because it is offensive to them and I get why; when I am very online (for my standards anyway) I also insist there is no problem, I am just having fun, it’s productive, it’s helping me, I practice writing and all that. And well… it is, but there’s a reason I am more online when isolated, lonely, sick, sad, in abusive situations, and not when I am happy, socializing, outside, healthy, and loved.

  Influencer culture ruined it for me too. After it became a job to pretend you’re happy, having fun, being wealthy and all that just to have revealed time and time again that it’s all a lie, they’re in debt, unhappily married and all that, their positive happy content online falls flat for me. Everyone admitting it’s a highlight reel. Finstas and alts. Together with knowing I never feel like sharing writing posting online when I am this happy, it makes me feel like it is all staged. Staged by unhappy people trying to cover up their actual unhappiness, or staged as a job, or staged for validation and sharing status symbols. Made for unhappy people who will consume it all and hopefully buy stuff to live vicariously through people while also being envious of what they have. The comparisons aren’t an unwanted side effect, they’re a feature.

  Where does that leave me? I question every motivation to post now. If I think the internet is for unhappy people, why am I here? Who am I writing for and is it realistic to hope for good and reasonable behavior from them? Do I care for their input, and if not, why show them?

  Do I do it for me or for others? Do I just wanna document stuff? For whom? Do I wanna show off? Do I want to control what people think of me? Do I wanna make people jealous? Do I wanna make myself accessible to online people and what for? To what degree? If I wanna write somewhere to document, why is a private journal not enough? Why is an anonymous blog no one finds not enough? Why is an unpublished post as a draft not enough? Do I really need people to see it and why? Do I feel like I owe people who enjoyed my posts to keep posting?

  What do I do if I wanna disappear? Or start over? Or never return? Or change the contents of my blog completely? Do I owe people to stunt my own growth and changes to be palatable to them? No, I guess. And in a way I am proud of all that I did. It’s a struggle to keep online at the same time, but that’s okay.

• 15 May, 2025 collage 3

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 12 May, 2025 annoying

  having an online presence is annoying occasionally

  • posts getting dragged into some forum to be half-read and misunderstood - go embarrass yourself, you not reading it fully doesn’t change what i wrote but it’s still annoying to witness
  • some people being jealous of your supposed success as if having a blog or viewers and RSS readers is in any way a notable or important accomplishment. it’s nice and sweet but definitely not that serious and nothing you should care about or want (and you’ll agree when you have it)
  • people complaining about seeing you everywhere or trending too much or whatever as if it was in your control
  • people thinking your post is accidentally this or that when that was the intentional core of it, or them repeating your point but making it seem like they deducted it. i wonder if this is a byproduct of media that has no subtext anymore and everything has to be clearly stated at all times for the audience that is listening to it as background noise
  • you just wanna post something about your life and people think it’s an invitation to judge if it’s deep or creative enough for their entertainment purposes and what else you should have mentioned. you are reading my facebook post not my self-help book
  • people trying to leech off of the attention you get by hijacking your posts for weird responses and posts and spin-offs. secondhand embarrassment and sighing
  • having a lull in ideas and immediately thinking you fell off or others think you fell off; i don’t listen to this thought but it’s annoying to be aware of it anyway
  • having to read every reaction or response or referer link because you’d rather be aware of any nasty shit in detail than not so at least you’re prepared
  • argumentative, judgmental and infantilizing wall of text in your email by mr. well akshually
  • some youtuber making a 1h reaction vid about your post like he’s obsessed. leftist destroyed with facts and logic etc.
  • some people only boosting posts critical of you bc they think it’s been only praise for too long and they want some balance, to humble you, to take you down a notch
  • you respond to someone’s post and they throw a fit and/or delete it bc they think you wield some sort of online power as if you had 500k on twitter instead of normal and respectful RSS readers who don’t care about harassing some rando
  • different people messaging you over and over again how vulnerable and raw and real and intimate you are and you thought you were just normal and now it feels like when you look down on yourself in a dream and you have no pants on. like am i accidentally doing something super weird without realizing? am i the biggest loser on the beach, what is happening?

  I also hate it when people are obviously inspired by a post about your personal experience and feelings and make a post about disagreeing but never link to you and just vague it. It has such a weird taste, like I didn’t say an opinion but what happened to me and how I felt, how are you disagreeing about my feelings? “I feel personally sick of screens and want more irl time” “Well I disagree because screen relationships are just as real” Baby all you’re sounding like is someone that is afraid that their e-dating experience isn’t comparable to real romance and might not “count” and you’re terrified that the Discord server of 200 people you post to don’t count as having friends and you might actually be friendless. That is all. It has nothing to do with my feelings, it just triggered your worries that my view could be somehow “real” or “correct” and it would change how supported and socially accepted you feel.

• 10 May, 2025 positivity

  I think many of us crave more positivity online. Uplifting stories, personal celebrations, kindness to oneself. Many even say that - that it’s too negative and they want more people talking about their passions, about something they enjoy, about a cute random thing etc. instead of just fights, critiques and news. But I struggle with adding positivity in public.

  Not because there isn’t any in my life, there is a lot. But it seems like there’s more standards to fulfill when sharing positive things. Like, how do you share it without coming across as bragging or tonedeaf? How do you share it authentically? How do you share it in a way that doesn’t have this performative, fabricated, highlight-reel feeling to it that we know from influencers? How do you post it so it doesn’t seem like you want validation and attention for it?

  Should I feel responsible for the reception like that at all, or do it regardless? Should I care if it makes someone jealous or sad?

• 04 May, 2025 feelings changed

  I kind of changed my mind on a person. Before, I always thought they were super knowledgable in a lot of stuff. Just sometimes a little… weird. Off. The way they present knowledge was a little condescending. The tone, the way it was worded… it was always like “Oh yeah this? Sure. Everyone knows that.” And some jargon or keywords after. That’s the gist of it anyway.

  They were always able to convince me and others this way because it’s easy to fabricate knowledge on the spot and leading it up with that formula and then adding some surface level knowledge or whatever you can cram together spontaneously can make you look pretty smart in the moment. And friends and acquaintances wouldn’t really question that unless you give them reason to.

  But recently it happened in a topic I know a lot about and that’s when I first noticed it. It was full of holes but handled the same way they always do it.., and suddenly made me see the past conversations in a different light. It made me notice how much of the tone, word choice, pauses, body language that person used is more like when you don’t know the answer to a question in a job interview but you convincingly wing it. I don’t understand why it’s so obvious only now when the signs were always there.

  We spent more time together than ever before now and it also made me notice how they condescending and “duh?” and dogmatic they are in general. Like butting into a conversation, only hearing the last part of a sentence, and choosing to contribute (or rather lecture) in a way that seems like they think everyone is stupid or hasn’t mentioned one obvious point, when it was actually said just before they got there. I also get the impression that they sometimes only listen to half of the sentence while forming their response and waiting to unleash it so they miss out on the caveat, the exception, the example, the other argument a person makes and then says something that was unnecessary or repetitive to say and that they wouldn’t have said if they had listened. I also recently cringed how they tried to lecture someone that obviously had to know more about them in that topic because it was someone with lived experience and authority on the matter. Like, if I was them, I would have just listened to this person’s practical experience with racism instead of trying to come back with something I picked up academically.

  They’re also really bad at asking questions. It’s always very broad, unspecific, weird. And such weird and redundant questions too. Asked me where the cake is going to be delivered; a pretty unnecessary question in the context because it was very very obvious knowledge (the party location?). I answered anyway. Then they asked “so it’s getting delivered?” Again, I said yes, visibly confused and slightly annoyed. “So no one has to pick it up?” No? “But what are they gonna do? Just throw it on the sidewalk and leave??” At that point I thought they were shitting me, like how genuinely stupid can you be, and it was so aggressively asked I just said “Yes!” back aggressively as well. I don’t know if I wanna explain to a 25 year old person that the cake shop delivery will ring and hand us the cake; I shouldn’t have to.

  They’re also always so…. dependent. They always act so smart and confident but when tasked with something they freeze and can’t do it without asking a million questions how to and what exactly; I know this is anxiety and perfectionism in part and I also tend to do this sometimes especially in the past, but in that case it’s also a bit immature and a weird contrast to the rest of the behavior. Like if someone tells you “Please call xyz and ask for abc” it’s ok to make some decisions yourself and think about how to best do that, and not ask “Um should I go outside to call or do it here?” (In an extremely loud environment). I guess together with everything mentioned earlier, it all points to someone having a big issue with admitting they don’t know something and having to hide insecurity by pretending they already knew or that they’re “just making sure”. It also comes across as fairly anxious when they have to ask a million questions always and not going with the flow. When are you gonna get up? What are the plans for tomorrow exactly? wakes up from nap in the car Where are we?? notices us driving to a parking spot to take a break What are we doing??? It’s like a dog with abandonment issues needing a lot of reassurance.

  I guess i didn’t notice before because we spent limited time together and every weird instance was accepted as a slip-up, a faux pas, a temporarily bad mood, or just not fully having thought it though in that moment. An exception. But more time together has made it this very frequent pattern and personality part.

  I think it came to a head for me when we had to quickly drop something off at a friend’s place while they were sitting in the back, and my partner didn’t choose a proper parking spot but parked the car on the side of the street with the blinkers on to just jump in and out of the apartment for a minute. Standard stuff. And they were just in the back like: “um, why can’t we park here?” Both me and my partner were ignoring it because we were in a hurry and kinda over their antics. Instead of dropping it, they again went like “Why do we need to put the blinkers on?” again we kinda ignored it. They repeated it again to me when my partner was already running upstairs with the stuff we intended to drop off and I said “oh well, just a precaution or habit” and then they pointed to a sign that said you can only not park here during specific times that we were currently outside of. Fine I guess, they were right, but it was crazy to me to even take an issue, and then not drop it.

  It’s so weird to think that before all this I had such a good image of them. I can’t even say it was just a bad phase or time… it just genuinely made me find out how they are when more exposed to them. It’s just how they are. It’s okay I guess.

• 30 Apr, 2025 safe

  I feel grateful for the fact that nothing online can touch me. I am never genuinely problematic. I am opinionated, but I have arguments, I have sources, I keep my energy for things I feel safe and good saying that don’t embarrass me and that I don’t have to regret. I write things I am passionate about. I prefer critiquing concepts, systems and movements, instead of individuals. I don’t misuse my space online. I am uplifting, informative, challenging. I’m not forced to stay online for income or validation; if I lost it all, I would be fine. I don’t have to watch my words, because I’m genuine while still being respectful.

  I prefer to invest in everything in my life that online people don’t know about or can’t ruin for me. Even if they managed to, I know I’d always survive and make it work. I’d always have people online and offline that defend me, that know my worth, that share my values and opinions. I’d always have my safe little apartment, my books, my love, my favorite beverages, the creators I adore, and my art. I’d always be able to get more educated, get my favorite foods, visit some city I’ve never been to before, play some games, watch the sky in my bed or on the sofa. I’d always look hot in my favorite outfits.

  Once your biggest haters were your family and you not only escaped but built a better life for yourself, mostly healed and found love, you’re unstoppable. I have very bad depressed days at times due to PMDD, but the other times I am fine. And it’s all due to me. I love myself for that!

  I wrote in another sad post that I was so scared and sad that no one ever rescued me, and I understand that child, but also for the first time in my life I recently thought with gratitude and pride about how no one “made me” - that it was all me who fought, worked on herself, clawed her way out, applied to the right places, studied and worked hard. No connections, no pity, no favors. I can’t rescue that girl, but I can become her dream version, the rescuer she would have wanted, the big sister.

  

• 29 Apr, 2025 collage 2

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 29 Apr, 2025 delightfully weird

  Reminder to myself:

  Many are lying down, never getting up again. Not moving, always ordering takeout, dissociating, numbing, filling the void with addictive online content, reality TV, para-social relationships. It’s safe, it’s comfortable, with less disappointment, less awkwardness. Missed opportunities normalized. Going for less encouraged. Doing the bare minimum accepted. Pathologizing every whim and mood before (self-)medicating it away into dullness and no energy, before reading a cute infographic Instagram story that says “It’s okay to just lie around waiting & exist.” Sedated. In your bubble.

  What you can do instead is to feel something unbearable and shock yourself awake, prove to yourself that you can do it. Feel the urge to learn, the frustration of creation, the pain of connection. Do not become complacent and reliant on a digital pacifier. Do it by doing the hard work, by consistently moving, by journaling, by writing poetry, by studying, by reading the difficult books, by choosing to believe in people. Letting ourselves fall in love or imagining better for ourselves. Moving away. Taking chances and saying “yes” more.

  Or being weird. There are delightfully many ways to be weird in ways that harm no one and bring light into your life and the people that love you.

  And also:

  Succumbing to your passions, tending to your relationships, reading and learning and writing and painting and cooking and baking and taking care of little plants and creating a little mini garden with herbs and tomatoes makes you not give a fuck about your asymmetrical face and flat side profile and stomach and cellulite and stretch marks and keeping up appearances online. This is the life hack social media companies and the beauty industry don’t want you to know about.

• 28 Apr, 2025 you are my friend

  I sometimes feel uncomfortable about claiming someone as my friend; what if I have been imagining it? What if it’s not reciprocated? What if I’m an acquaintance or stranger to them?

  Then I publicly say something like “someone I know” or something vague like that, but I really need to get a grip.

  There is no person on earth probably, or at least not in my circle, that would feel offended about being called a friend. Especially by me. I am doing our connection a disservice by not claiming it. We are friends. I’ve known you for years. You wanna play games with me and meet me. You invite me to things. You’ll attend my wedding.

  I would do everyone a massive disservice if I still pretended that’s not a friend out of a false sense of shame or humility. I just had to imagine someone who sees me as a friend see me claim they’re just someone I know or someone else’s friend, and them being disappointed and withdrawing from me. That’s not what I want at all. So I’d rather risk someone (against all odds) going “Ew we aren’t friends” than hurt a friend by not claiming them.

  I am working on it!!

• 24 Apr, 2025 narcissist vibes

  I’ve been very very shy in the past (especially as a teen), very withdrawn, very comfortable with working on my own, very non-communicative because I was anxious, I was scared, I had no social skills, I didn’t wanna offend or be hurt and mocked or do something wrong. I thought I protected others and myself by acting this way and it was better for me to be out of the way and not bother anyone.

  But instead of being read as neutral or helpful or at least as the shyness and self hate that it was, all that behavior did was make me look odd, arrogant, self-absorbed, and like I think I’m better than others. I didn’t think I was worthwhile or skilled or had anything to offer, meanwhile others were intimidated by me. When others think you’re smart or pretty or whatever and you’re shy, it doesn’t read as shyness, just arrogance. I was beating myself up inside while I came across as someone who did the exact opposite.

  Looking back, I realized that after a lot of intentional change, it’s better to be confident and loving yourself and coming across as all the above, than suffering inside and still coming across as that.

  If people are going to think it anyway, at least I want to actually have the positive self image they think I have. I don’t think anyone still reads me like that, but even if they were, at least I am not shooting myself in the foot anymore. It’s so bad when you try your hardest to not draw attention to yourself and hide yourself away to seem nicer and end up coming across as an asshole without even talking to people. That was the opposite of what I wanted.

  Now if I admit that I think I’m pretty on most days, or I talk about good stuff in my life or things I’m proud of, or what I think I deserve, my standards, my achievements, and someone reads that as arrogant and narcissistic? I can deal with that. I can understand their perspective. But at least I am not thinking the worst about me and my life while they do that, like it used to be.

  Literally if the outcome is the same, choose the less hurtful and damaging option. If they think you’re some confident diva (in a positive way!), why not become that? It’s not like it would make things worse, quite the opposite.

  When the world has made you feel like shit growing up, the best fuck you to it is not killing yourself and instead loving yourself in defiance.

• 24 Apr, 2025 a cope

  Some people are always like “That’s just a cope” “It’s not genuine” “They just tell themselves that” “They just do that to hide their insecurity” “They’re actually scared” like no shit! When are you going to wake up and realize that’s not an outlier or a personal failure, but that everyone on earth makes shit up as they go because stuff is unpredictable and scary and no one knows the one right way? That everyone is imagining better things to not be scared of the bad outcome? That everyone occasionally tells themselves that it’s going to be okay even if they can’t know? That they imagine themselves as more attractive or outgoing or charismatic than they actually are before going to that event or going on that stage so they even make it there without crumbling from anxiety?

  You have to wake up from this belief that there’s this point in life where everything clicks and you’re just a confident person that knows it all. Remember when you found out your parents weren’t all-knowing people that had everything under control, but instead just were flawed people trying their best in an unpredictable environment? This applies to everyone, even the people you admire. In regard to them, you’re just basically a child again that looks at them like parents. They’re not better than the people who do something to cheer themselves up and find ways to do it anyway, they just hide it better, act more convincingly.

  The other people rehearse, practice, prepare, research, ask around, take meds, go to therapy, get reassured by their support network, imagine the best outcome, tell themselves some platitudes, and actively avoid certain things and thoughts that lead to insecurity and spiraling. They fake it until they “make it” but they never fully make it because each situation is different and the stakes get higher and new complications emerge or they seek new challenges.

  The other people, too, repeat the order in their head, take a deep breath before a knock on the door, practice what they’re going to say in the interview, think about what they’re going to say on the call, and soothe themselves with encouraging media and mottos after a stupid mistake. They too tell themselves the story that makes it all seem less bad so they can continue to live and try again. It’s just normal. <3

• 23 Apr, 2025 polyamory

  Being polyamorous is something I usually keep quiet about. It just never leads to anything good when people know; I might have it listed here and there, but that's about it. I don't want to explain myself directly to anyone, I don't want to argue, I don't want to convince anyone. If you don't want to date me or sleep with me, it doesn't affect you.

  That said, I don't only do it for the judgement and inevitable arguments with some people... it's also that I don't really relate to the most publicly visible polyamorous people online that shape the view people have about polyamory. It sucks to say, but I neither relate nor do I want to be compared to them. I don't want to be put in the same box. This sounds like I am judging them, which I am not (except for the assholes, I guess), but this is also a reason I don't usually publicly talk about it - I would go on to describe the ways in which I am not like them, and it would come across as if I think I am somehow better, more morally pure or whatever, which I don't mean to.

  It's just... when people talk about the stereotypes, I get them. There really are a lot of people in the community with dyed hair, that don't fit the beauty standards, that are overweight. Yes, there are people in the community who use it as an excuse to cheat and to abuse people. People that claim polyamory when cheating and getting caught, and who don't care for consent. People that have an issue with commitment and attachment, so they keep running and running, keeping multiple people at arms length. People who treat dating like a hobby and do nothing else. People that treat others like replacements, like there are just spots to fill in their life, like they're recruiting new talent into an employment situation. Some very obviously use sex an an escapism or might even be sex addicts. There are huge polycules that seemingly only exist because of shared housing and drugs, especially among queer and trans spaces. And there are too many couples who seek a third like a toy, or who open a dead relationship because they think that's how they can save it. And it all sucks to varying degrees (except being overweight and "ugly", that's harmless, who cares! People are just mad that others they deem below them get more love).

  These negative examples are simply true; go on to the subreddit, FB groups and especially Discord servers dedicated to it and you'll see all of these. But as usual, the most visible aren't always a good representation for all. I can't believe I even feel the need to write this down, like some justification, like some new version of "I'm not like the other girls", like a polyamorous pick-me, but it has to be somewhere. Gotta get it off my chest.

  Every time I see judgment about polyamory online, it's always these groups, and "I've never seen a poly person who isnt xyz." and I just wanna scream: I am literally right here. But it would be useless, anyway.

  I don't have dyed hair (but admittedly, I used to as a teen). I'm thin. I'm conventionally attractive. I've been in a relationship for many years and have dated no one else in the meantime, despite the relationship being open, and neither has my partner. It just didn't happen. Sometimes we didn't want to, other times I might have wanted to but no one caught my eye, and many times I was simply too busy, or sick, or preferred to spend more time by myself or with my partner. My partner says she is comfortable with just me.

  I just... don't need to force having more than one partner. If it happens, it happens. If I want to, I guess I'll make a profile somewhere or go to meetups or Discord servers and see, but I never felt the need to. If I want to have sex with someone else, I'll just ask my partner if it's okay, but it just hasn't come up. I'm not commitmentphobic, otherwise I wouldn't have been accidentally monogamous for years now, and I wouldn't have proposed, and I wouldn't be marrying. I also think my partner has raised the bar tremendously and I already had high standards, so I just don't really feel the need to search like crazy and settle for a rando just to have more than one.

  We also have polyamorous friends and they are the same way and very low-profile. There is never any drama there. Their relationships aren't toxic or abusive. The thing is, of course you'd post the negative online, the relationship falling apart, the toxicity, and asking for advice on subreddits; it's like reviews for products that tend to be more negative because people are more likely to complain than put in the effort to write something when they're happy and content. It's a bias. But judging polyamory by r/polyamory is like judging monogamous relationships by r/relationship_advice or r/AITA. It would be crazy.

  If you're coming at me about that explosive open relationship fail you witnessed, to me it's like talking to you about my parents' divorce when you tell me you're in a monogamous relationship. It's just weird. It's like being the guy at a wedding that holds a speech and talks about the divorce rates. Read the room.

  I know it's more entertaining and fun to believe that it's super juicy and dramatic and the people are always looking weird and are into weird kink shit but really, I think many are quite boring and "normal", like me. I just don't really advertise it because it's not a huge part of my life... like um, yeah, I am open to dating outside of my marriage, but I most likely won't date you.

• 21 Apr, 2025 this is it

  Just currently full of the feeling that this is really it. I will never look better than now! But in a good way!

  Not that I can't ever look pretty, stunning, sexy, young ever again, but in the sense that I should always appreciate my beauty at all times and that I will one day look back on pictures I am now ashamed of and parts of myself I criticize and think it was absolutely fine!

  Even now, I can look back on pictures from 5, 10, 15 years ago and think: Wow I was so cute! I was beautiful! I was fine, normal! Nothing about me was grotesque, wrong, weird, ugly.

  So I should really look at myself now and think: This is as good as it's gonna get and future me is going to adore this body. So I should treat it like that.

  People are beautiful when they smile and laugh without worrying about how it looks, people are amazing when they don't mind their picture being taken, it's cute and awesome when they don't hide their face or pose or edit. I feel inspired and safe with people who feel comfortable in their bodies and don't care about angles or adjusting their clothing constantly.

• 21 Apr, 2025 by design

  When I don’t offer an email address, it’s by design.

  When I only offer an email address on my other blog, it’s by design.

  No guestbook, no Letterbird, no Strawpage, no Tellonym, no Bluesky, no Mastodon, no Webmentions. Always by design.

  When I use a niche blogging platform and don’t post myself elsewhere, it’s by design. When I hide myself from the feed, too.

  Periodically I see people complain about how bad it is to be inaccessible and how you can’t burden other people by making it so hard to reach you or discover you. They’re like: Why can’t I just shoot a quick message into a guestbook?

  But that is the point! I do not get being so starved for contact that you’d even let low effort bullshit and hate in to at least have something. I don’t need validation or feedback this badly.

  I love that no one can just lazily vomit some half-baked bullshit into my guestbook (semi)anonymously. Even if I have to preapprove it before it shows up publicly, I still see it. I don’t even wanna see it in the first place.

  Be a big person and use your email address. If you don’t want to, go make an alt or alias, or search for an anonymous email service. While putting all that effort in, maybe you’ll cool down in the meantime and think “Oh well, fuck it”. If not, make it a whole thing by logging in or opening that mail app and worry about the subject line and how to start the text. If it was going to be bullshit, be discouraged and stop it mid-process for all I care.

  The good people that don’t go through the whole process sadly aren’t worth entertaining the bad people who would abuse easier communication methods. They’re collateral damage I’m willing to take. Being this “hard” to reach makes genuine people reach out because it’s worth it to them while the assholes get discouraged early on because their mood only allows quick throwaway nastiness that isn’t doable that easily via mail and feels stupid and not worth it to them.

  No, you don’t get to farm engagement on a platform via some Twitter-esque quip off my post.

  No, you don’t get to send in outrageous, rude, judgmental and drama-starting questions to a platform that makes me publicly answer them just to see me perform for you like a court jester.

  I’m not your entertainment or some influencer building a parasocial following, so I don’t need “reactions” or “opinions” or to care for the reception of anything I post. I don’t have to interact with anyone who reads my stuff if I don’t want to!

  I don’t have to care about discovery because I don’t care for being discovered. I don’t care for eyeballs on whatever I post anywhere. So much of what I’m criticizing in this post is based on this belief that I should be trying to attract people and then serve them - by interacting, by reciprocating, by opening myself up to their scrutiny, by being receptive to each stupid thought an awful person has about what I post, and by warping myself and only posting what they like. But for what? Why would I want to do that? Everyone trying to blow up and become famous hasn’t rotted my brain yet.

  Interact with me on my terms. Why not? It has worked for all the other lovely people who I converse with via email.

• 20 Apr, 2025 i refuse to love people that don't want to be loved

  I think this is at the core of what made me cut off my whole family and keep my mum at arms length. I refuse to love people that don't want to be loved.

  If you hate yourself a lot, you lash out. You sabotage your relationship to others. You accuse them of stuff that isn't true because you're insecure, or you wanna be the one that leaves first, or you want to drive them away because you think they deserve better. You treat yourself badly; you abuse your body, you poison it, you keep it caged, you don't take your meds, you don't move, you stay in bad situations on purpose.

  Loving people like that hurts me. Loving them feels one-sided, insecure, dissatisfying. It feels like I am loving in vain. I was tired of proving again and again that I mean no harm, that I am sincere and that they are worth loving. I was tired of loving someone that doesn't love themselves and apparently doesn't want me to, either. People who hurt you over and over again by hurting themselves.

  It's out of selfish reasons, too: I don't want to love someone that is doing their best to die earlier. If you don't take your meds, if you don't go to the doctor, if you binge and drink to blackout and take hard drugs and risk it all despite pre-existing conditions and work to actively worsen them, I cut myself off from you. If you don't love yourself enough to do your best to survive, why should I? If you know better but actively go against the advice of doctors, family, common sense, your own body, then why should the others around you suffer for that and still attempt to love and save you over and over again?

  If you say you aren't worth loving, you're terrible, I should just leave you alone etc. - I will take your word for it. If you say you are a shitty parent and will never be a good one, I believe you. If you say I don't care about you anyway and will just leave you like the rest, I will do just that. Your self-fulfilling prophecy works well on me!

  I worked hard to stop self-sabotaging, stop hating myself, stop hating my life, stop hurting myself, and instead started to believe in myself, invest in myself and be nice to myself. So I love myself too much to surround myself with people that don't do the same. Selfharm and a negative view of oneself is literally so infectious, I can't risk it. I'm sorry that you want to spend all this time on earth miserable, and that you're watching the clock eagerly until the time runs out, but I don't want to spend my time on earth like this. I'll let you do it, though.

  The time on this earth can be extremely short or insanely long. Usually it's way too short when we're having fun, and it's dreadfully long if we are suffering. If I might have 50 years more ahead of me, I want to be proactive and make sure many of them are as good as they can be within my control. It's better than making sure everything is as miserable as possible and wasting away waiting for death.

  It's also an airplane oxygen kind of situation - putting the oxygen mask on myself first before helping others. But I know your kind would rip off my oxygen mask because you want a companion in suffering and you hate to see others do better, so I won't even come near you.

• 19 Apr, 2025 collage 1

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 15 Apr, 2025 veg hot take

  Exploratory post to sort out my thoughts and arguments around this topic. Had this thought for ages but want to further gather my arguments and find out why.

  ---

  I don’t think vegetarians and vegans have anything in common. Shouldn’t be mentioned together. Shouldn’t even be a category of people. That’s like making not eating the green bell pepper your identity.

  Exceptions exist - but all vegetarians I come in contact with do it in a half assed way. They still buy leather, wool, fur. They still consume cheese that is made with calf rennet. Many don’t do it for animal welfare reasons, but instead because they don’t like the taste of meat or have gut issues with it.

  Which makes sense, I guess, because if you truly gave a fuck about animal welfare, vegetarianism would make zero sense to you. It would feel rightfully inconsistent and hypocritical, like it did for me, which made it harder to follow. If you truly acknowledged and cared about the meat industry, you’d also have to acknowledge that dairy cows still suffer, that they get slaughtered and eaten when they don’t produce enough milk anymore, and that to make milk they are forcefully impregnated and the calf is taken away and either also becomes a dairy cow or gets killed for calf meat. You’d have to acknowledge the suffering inside huge hen batteries where most of you all get eggs from, not some sweet backyard operation.

  I can’t stand the exceptions everywhere, ovo lacto pesce whatever, and making an exception during Thanksgiving or Christmas or business trips or vacations (because you wanna experience “the local culture” and that includes meat dishes). You’re just a picky omnivore! You’re a flexitarian at best, which is also, again, a picky part-time omnivore. You love zoos and riding horses and all that stuff too. My “vegetarian” coworker is still eating rennet cheeses and fish and books camel rides in Morocco. My “vegetarian” mother-in-law is similarly inconsistent.

  Claiming vegetarianism feels like stolen valor, because it clearly rides on the effects and attitudes of veganism. Any discussion about climate and animal welfare has these people going “Well I’m vegetarian!” as if it was a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card that absolves them of being responsible for any of that, even if they still actively participate in animal exploitation and climate harming behavior.

  They enjoy lecturing omnivorous people about meat like a champion, but when they’re asked about eggs and cheese, suddenly they get defensive. Suddenly it’s “I can’t live without eggs and cheese, I’m sooo addicted, I looove cheese!”. It’s like they don’t realize that steak lovers feel the same way, and that giving something up pretending it was for ethical reasons while just not liking it is lame. It’s dumb as hell belittling meat eaters when you never cared for it, but then faltering yourself at eggs and cheese. You’re the same as the meat lover. You’re just doing the below bare minimum effort and failing.

  It’s just so convenient: you get the moral high ground and clout from seeming like a climate conscious person or whatever by cutting out meat, but when pushed to the logical conclusion of your morals and choices, you can pretend vegans are too extreme and pose in front of omnivorous people as “one of the chill guys” who “doesn’t take it too far” to protect their egos.

  What you are is someone with a food preference. You have more in common with someone that avoids food due to an allergy than with vegans. I don’t think you are on the same side, or similar at all. You’re no different than someone who chooses to eat all kinds of animal products except pork.

  It really shouldn’t matter what kind of animal product you choose to avoid if it isn’t all of them, because the effect is almost negligible seeing how the suffering is the same and the cows are still there farting because of your precious cheese. I don’t see people allergic to eggs create some faux green identity for themselves, so “vegetarian” as a label should cease to exist.

  I’m sorry for all the “vegetarians” who genuinely care, who do it for animal welfare and see the hypocrisy but can’t change their diet for whatever reason, but they’re an extreme minority in their group and they know it. The others rest on the laurels of vegans and cry online every time a vegetarian product’s recipe is switched to vegan despite not even tasting the milk and egg in it, like in fake meat. Who needs enemies when you have “allies” like this?

  So ideally, stop even using that word. And stop saying it together with vegans as if those had anything in common. In practice, they don’t.

• 13 Apr, 2025 internalized

  I think I have internalized being a friendless person too much.

  Yes, lacking social connections at times in your early life has knock-on effects later on, sure. But it’s also a hard habit to kick to even acknowledge you have friends when you fix it later on. I am so in this mindset of only ever being a temporary thing, a replacement, a someone’s gf, a circumstance friend, a proximity hire if you will, that I can’t process the fact that I might be neither. That I might have the real deal now, that this might be people I stick to for 10 years, possibly longer, and that they like me for me.

  I don’t think I would truly grasp that if I had it. I might have it right now, but I think I’ll only know when I lose them. Then I’ll look back and think: That was really it. They were true friends but I didn’t see it because I was so connected to my identity as a friendless, lonely person that only gets people to care about her romantically.

  I don’t know how to act towards people who are the real deal. I don’t know who I am if I can truly have friends. I got so used to it all and settled for less that I don’t know what to do with more.

  If you resign yourself to a friendless life and never bother to learn how to keep people and be a good friend and have some social skills, you’re suddenly underprepared for when life drops people into your lap and you might fumble the lucky bag.

  I don’t know how to interact with people longterm platonically. I only know romance and sex. If people liked me at all in the past, they liked me a ton like that. Don’t know how to keep relationships going that never go that far. Where do people draw the line? Not that I am romantically or sexually interested in any of them, but I mean intensity of contact, frequency of messages, limits of information and vulnerability. All I’ve known is the romantic levels to it all. I don’t know what’s too little or too much in a friendship.

  I have to be careful that holding on to an image of who I am or what my life was like isn’t ruining my future.

• 13 Apr, 2025 stolen glow

  Eating disorders steal so much from you.

  So much revolves around food - work festivities. Meeting clients. Meeting friends in cafes and restaurants. Weddings. Having snacks during game evenings, movie nights. Activities like picnics. Visiting markets, trying out street food festivals. Birthdays. Religious days. Gifts. Traveling and experiencing other cultures is a lot about the food.

  Sitting in your self-made cage is miserable. Not letting yourself try foods out of fear. Feeling left out because of it (not by others, but by your rigid rules). Feeling fat or unhealthy or fearful if you do indulge. Lessening the shared experience of it all. Feeling less connected to the group. Making weird excuses why you don't eat. Pretending you're already full, already ate, have a stomach ache, feel nauseous. It's like minimizing your participation in how to be a human. It's like you're an out of control monster that needs to be kept in check. It feels alien. Everyone else looks and feels normal and good and healthy to you, but in your eyes you're this grotesque thing that should be as small as possible.

  I'm scared that recovery is impossible when so much of eating disorder behavior is encouraged or even needed in a world that throws so much genuinely bad, high cal food at you that isn't filling and that have you eat 2.500 cal in a single meal easily while barely sating you, all while keeping a sedentary lifestyle. I wish we never had to look at ingredients lists and calories and our TDEE. I wish foods weren't engineered to be a bit addicting. I wish we didn't encourage binge eating culture, encourage extreme mukbangs and milkshakes with an entire cake on top of the straw. I wish Ozempic and fasting and OMADs weren't so popular. I wish it wasn't so easy to choose something that would make any healthy, normal human gain weight because of how much added fats and sugar there are in it.

  I see extremely small bars of chocolate that don't sate you at all have the same calories as a huge bowl of rice, salad, veggies, protein etc. that fills me for half the day. That's where the problem is. I could enjoy a bit of chips, a bit of chocolate and all that if it wasn't immediately such a huge caloric hit while giving my body absolutely nothing of value. And gives me gut cramps and bladder issues and pimples and heartburn too.

  I was also triggered by cutting a piece of strawberry cake for myself (to participate and get over my ED behaviors) and it ended up the biggest of everyone else on the table and people commented on it too. I instantly felt like a greedy pig. My coworkers at the office also still can't stop talking about the other coworker who rapidly lost weight since December and looks severely underweight.

  I don't know how to healthily judge what foods to buy and how much to eat and how much to exercise and how to say no to certain foods in a healthy, non-disordered way. It seems like it relies so much on the same mindset that makes me sick. I can't just do them "a little". And having a very visible, very memorable, very photo-heavy event coming up makes it too easy to starve for it.

  I feel guilty for body checking in normal photos I post. I feel bad when me starving causes me to almost collapse at work. I feel bad when me not eating makes people around me prepare food for me so I eat more. I feel like a loser when I can't focus on what I am trying to learn because I don't eat enough, but eating to focus better also feels like a loss.

• 11 Apr, 2025 parenthood observations

  Been reflecting recently how different familial obligation seems to play out where I live. The poor families tend to stick together, but the ones more well off are having a seemingly hard time being truly supportive of their children, which seems paradox. They have all that space, big houses, enough money, more time than many others who have to work so much, but they are extremely possessive of those resources and time.

  My family is/was poor and there is absolutely no space for me, no perceived obligation whatsoever, so that is one of the exceptions.

  I just see so many parents count down the days until their child is 18 years old just to kick them out, even when their relationship is good or even great. Either that, or they'll charge their child rent immediately. Then once the child is out, anything about being a family except for some aesthetic images here and there is basically removed. That era is over. Now the parents get to pretend to have been childless except here and there. The home turns sterile, white, grey, minimalistic, more aesthetic than useful. The childhood room(s) are immediately renovated to be an office space, crafting space, guest room or whatever else. New floors for the kitchen and living room and whatever else. Removal of garden stuff.

  I see how many financially comfortable parents just don't have the time for their children at all. 18 years of having to sacrifice is made up for by always traveling, being gone, not having time - which I understand a bit, but it seems almost excessive. If the child is struggling, they'd rather give it money than have to talk to them or them moving back in, even if it's just crashing there between apartments or jobs for a few weeks. Everything is at arms length now. That is so crazy to me in these economic times where people struggle to afford rent, find apartments and find jobs.

  I guess it already starts early here, when families who are well off don't let you have dinner with them when you play with your friend. You're upstairs in their room waiting and starving while your friend has dinner with their family downstairs. Meanwhile at many poorer families, everyone is welcome and enough is cooked for everyone. It's wild. The reasoning for not offering dinner to guest children was always some made-up bullshit like "Your parents probably want you to have dinner with them later."

  Why is all that? Why are western, white parents like this? As a child of them, you always feel like a burden. Like something they endured, tolerated, had to do because of laws. It's like they don't genuinely like you and don't want you around if they don't have to. Like 18 years of you just existing in their vicinity was so bad that for the rest of their life they have to recover and not let you creep back in. You're scrubbed from their existence, like you were a temporary experiment. Even if you had a good relationship while living with them, suddenly when you're out of the home you see them remove anything that made it a family home and pretend you weren't ever there. How is that supposed to make you feel? You see how they suddenly put up walls, like a contract ran out.

  It reminds me of my partner. She lived in that family home for 23 years and grew up there. Then she moved out and her room was immediately repurposed. Now when she wants to visit, she has to announce it and her mum got mad when she used the hidden key one time to let herself in when her mum was late. Like? That's literally her home too? She lived there for decades and as a child, and now you're going to treat her like a coworker that's invited for dinner?

  It's weird, because when they tell stories about their life, there was cooperation and a duty of family to show up and help. They'll tell you how long they lived at home, or how they had to crash at their family members' place for a while, how this other family member contributed to their car or knew someone who could get them an apartment... it seems like that's dying out. I know my soon-to-be-inlaws have empty apartment space and empty rooms in their house, but they'd never let any of us crash there for more than a few days to visit them or as a vacation thing, meanwhile one of them told us about when she had to live with her aunt and uncle when she couldn't find a job as a young adult.

  What went wrong with that generation that they are so hellbent on absolving themselves of being parents for life? Your child wasn't just a pet that disappears after 18 years. We are in such a privileged, rich country here and many of us are more well-off than the rest of the world, without even being considered middle or upper class where we live. But despite all the resources, the safety, everyone is encouraged to fend for themselves, and families support that too - because you used it all up in the 18 years of dependence on them that you never signed up for or agreed to, and now you're on your own. It's sick! How are you going to pretend parenthood didn't change you? How do you not carry parenthood in your heart during the rest of your life?

  How are your children supposed to become parents in this day and age, if they have no village - because the village is "protecting their peace" by hoarding resources and time?

• 10 Apr, 2025 managing expectations

  Managing everyone's expectations in the family around the wedding has been hard. It's like the people around us don't believe that we can organize anything, that we know what we want or that what we say is true - which is crazy, as the couple getting married? They think nothing is planned or accounted for, when it is. It is simply a very small and simple celebration.

  People act like there is so much to prepare and act like it's overwhelming - when we are 20 people in total. We don't need decorations. We don't need catering. We aren't renting a location. We just want to get married, then to go to a restaurant and afterwards go to the family's place to celebrate after with a cake.

  We had sent out a card weeks ago and some people in the family got offended that they weren't notified by call that we were going to marry and "just got a card". Excuse me? We designed that card by hand and my fiancee even hand-edited the font, creating new letters even to suit out needs. In our view, it is cooler and shows more effort and celebration to do a nice RSVP wedding card, than to give a sloppy call? Are these retirees out of their mind?

  Their reasoning was that they needed time to prepare. For what though? We don't ask anything of you except to show up if you want to? You don't even need to contribute anything materially or financially. They act like almost 2 months prior is too short of a notice. "We didn't know this would happen" my brother in Christ, you know I proposed last September and people asked when it's gonna happen next year, and now you're surprised it happens the very next year as is common? I even said that and all I got back was "Well some people are engaged for years!" What am I supposed to take away from that? That you all didn't think it would actually happen? That this is somehow more serious than you anticipated?

  It reminds me of how we were visiting them last year after our engagement and had to leave early because I got sick, and in the end they were like "Sad that we didn't get to talk about your engagement." meanwhile we were there for hours and almost all they wanted to talk about was what some other clown in the family is doing. You had the time and opportunity!

  It's also crazy that they prefer to talk to each other than us about it! Why are you calling each other complaining that you don't know this or that, but never ask us? Or if we tell you, just choose to not listen to us? I swear we can tell these people 5 times that it will be a very small group of 20 people, us included, and they just forget it. They project their own ideas on how grand and big and extra a wedding should be onto us and then pretend they are overwhelmed and helpless trying to help us by... doing nothing? Complaining to each other? They are acting completely stressed out as if they're trying to save us from a horrible event when that is exactly what we want?

  Dude you are guests, of course you are in the dark about some of the planning. Have you ever been invited to someone's wedding and knew and cared beforehand about shit like where the cake is coming from? No! Why can't you mind your own business? I thought this celebration was for us, not what you want to get out of attending a wedding. But now it's even used as a competition between divorced parents, because both sides are scared the other side is gonna do more for the wedding and they'll be labelled the bad parent, so they wanna desperately know what parent does what and if they measure up. I don't want to participate in your stupid competition! Grow up!

  If I could do it all over again, we'd not invite family. Just hang with some of my fiancee's friends. Tell family after it already happened. Nuts. And my family wasn't even invited or in any way involved; it would have been even more nuts if they were.

• 08 Apr, 2025 wedding

  I’m not looking forward to the wedding. To actually being married, yes. But not the festivities, everything around it.

  Admittedly, I don’t know if we would be doing this if the government didn’t lock vital rights behind it. You can swear eternal love and support to each other, set up your own contracts, develop your own wedding rituals, and the state doesn’t need to know about all of it. So it’s not like this is the only way to make a commitment to each other.

  But it sure is one that has lots of boxes to tick, expectations, and “how it’s supposed to be done”. The concept stretches thin over our beings and rips and feels too small. We are polyamorous. One is trans. We are both lesbians. Marriage, even outside of the church one, is still reminiscent of its very exclusive foundation. It feels like we are one big exception. There are no rules that make sense about us. Do both wear white? Does one wear a black dress? Do both wear a dress or one a suit? It’s things heterosexual couples never even ask themselves.

  In our ideal version, we sign the papers and then fuck off with friends to a restaurant and maybe play some board games later at someone’s place. But it has since ballooned a bit because the parents got something to say about how it should be done and who should be included when, and now we have planning on our hands no one asked for that just exists so people feel like we are performing “wedding” right, which is nonsensical to people like us. We will never perform wedding right. Wedding in 2025 was made for well-off heterosexual nuclear families that love to spend thousands on fancy locations and hire a wedding planner and possibly even do a destination wedding before beginning to plan a gender reveal.

  One person gets us. He said he’s thankful it’s not a traditional wedding. Well I am too, but it could have been even less so if the boomers wouldn’t have insisted to insert themselves in everything. I’m okay with making a big pot of chili or ordering pizza for dinner, but that’s “not appropriate for wedding festivities” when literally no guest would mind aside from family.

  I think it made me uninvested in the wedding celebration. I just want it to be over. I wanna be married and I wanna relax with my wife. I wanted to chill with her/our friends. It doesn’t help that I have no one on my side - I’m not inviting my own friends or family because I have none to invite.

  If I could do it all over again we’d stand our ground more and move it to a friend’s home instead of the garden of a family member. It gives them too much leverage in the whole thing.

  I don’t even have a dress yet. I feel uninspired to find one. It feels like shopping a costume for a school play you were forced to play in. I hate that it feels like there’s this pressure to make it perfect but not by our own standards but what’s generally seen as a good wedding. We don’t even agree with half of that stuff.

  At least our rings are very very cute and I paid for both sets.

  Update: Changed my mind on the dress and outfit. Found some cute things and now I am happy about building an outfit :)

• 03 Apr, 2025 stomping on flowers

  My heart hurts for all the kindhearted and painfully selfless women who second-guess themselves just to be made to feel like shit by their environment, especially their fathers, brothers and partners. Great women have been ruined by them, have been killed by them, have been driven to suicide by them. They’ll look at their mothers, sisters and partners and tell them they’re ugly and worthless, while they contribute absolutely nothing. The ones that had everything given to them scream the loudest. Never had to do dishes because mum and sis will do it; field they’re good in and interested in naturally valued higher than women-dominated fields; paid more for the same work; taken seriously in conversations; being seen as a leader instead of a bitch. People that work three times as hard to just get somewhere threaten these professional victims who go around trying to dim the light of everyone that’s better than them.

  They fucked it up when they actually had the most support and the most going for them - insane feat. And now that they can’t effortlessly attain the best and see others surpass them that they were taught to look down upon, they give up completely and just sit at home playing games all day. And instead of doing the masculine thing to snap out of it and get to work, they’re falling for conmen and their bootcamps and 10k coaching sessions. Instead of actually turning their life around, they mask it with empty signifiers of supposed wealth and fake masculinity like getting up at 5am and dunking their face in ice water.

  They walk around offering nothing while thinking the world owes them everything. They walk around shaming and insulting people but can’t take it when they’re humbled. They’re too prideful to change or genuinely be taught. The people they hate are the most beautiful, magnetic, inspiring, interesting and unique individuals they have ever seen. If they weren’t, those people would be buried within the masses and not stick out. But they move the miserable men, they scare them, they challenge them. For good reason.

  Fuck your fat dad who comments on your weight. Fuck your stupid nazi brother. Fuck your cheating, dishonest, misogynistic boyfriend. Remember the male suicide rate and remember that you will be fine. The people doing this to you are not gods, they’re gremlins. You can do without their skidmarked ass that leaves dishes out and food to mold, that “don’t see the mess”, that keep texting the people you asked them not to contact, who treat you like a maid and child whenever they see it fit and who pretends your interests and hobbies are lesser than theirs. Threaten their little boys club.

  Let them throw their stupid little tantrums. Let them eat themselves sick and drink themselves to death and break their hands while punching the walls. Let them live in filth, let them forget the birthdays of their social circle and let them show up without a gift. They don’t wanna be a big boy and go to the doctor? Fine, no checkups or meds. Let them embarrass themselves and drive all their friends away with their racist ideas. Let them lose their jobs over their Valorant addiction. Let them indebt themselves over OF models and Funko Pops. Let them not get sex again because abortion isn’t guaranteed. Let your abusive dad rot. Who cares? No loss for you. Only their loss. Stop trying to correct the train wreck and rescuing them when you get nothing in return and just enable that behavior by prolonging the time until the final epic failure that might motivate them to change.

  You can live your life as a highly educated, beautiful, fit, enigmatic and empathetic woman with a good income away from all of that and with people who reciprocate that and want to see the best in you instead of tearing you down for their own benefit. You can meet men that are normal and respectful and not fucking unlovable slobs that drain your energy and wallet.

• 02 Apr, 2025 yearning and bitter feelings

  My yearning for the outdoors, the presence of friends and making of memories with other people is about to swallow me whole. I feel like a mechanic with a wrench in my hand trying to adjust little valves to manage pressure points here and there and optimize around each latest problem.

  I haven’t felt the sting of envy in a long long time and now I do. I am happy for others, but also bewildered how they do it and wondering how I can build up the same. I am glad to see their success in something I suck at, but witnessing it also hurts. I try to feel inspired as usual and focusing on learning instead of becoming bitter about it. I constantly have to stop thoughts that tell me I’m not worth it and I should stop trying and don’t deserve it, because none of it is true or helpful. I don’t want to block my own blessings by believing it will never get better for me in this regard.

  I wonder if people know how lucky they are. I witnessed someone in the train talking to a friend detailing her week plans. Café with friend A here, then next day meeting friend B and C at the restaurant, then the day after helping X and Y, then on Friday they’ll meet at the library, then a hike with some of those people on the weekend or whatever. I also witnessed someone else listening to a voicemail message they got where the friend was like “Hey we decided to go bowling on Thursday at 4pm, hope you’ll come too” or something.

  I just don’t live in the same world as these people. I cannot grasp having friends that live near you. Friends that aren’t just online and far away. Friends that actually wanna meet and make the time. Friends who aren’t busy with a side hustle or entrepreneurship or depressed and sick or grieving. Friends that don’t constantly already have plans with their other friends that I don’t know (Am I their dirty secret? Why am I never getting introduced?). Friends that aren’t constantly busy with work and/or university or their families.

  It sucks that you’ll see them spend more time with coworkers after work or university friends than you, not because they necessarily like you less, but because those other people are more convenient and there’s a proximity you two don’t have. A friend moved here about two years ago and I’ve seen her three or four times since because we don’t go to uni together and it’s more convenient for her to meet her uni friends or join a DnD group of strangers than meet me. I’m trying my hardest to never take it personally.

  I don’t think I have friends near me that would plan stuff and just invite me, much less ask if I wanna hang out. Sometimes people ask and I agree but then nothing happens - like when my friend invited me and others to a barbecue and a separate roleplaying session but then both never materialized. Sometimes I offer online people to meet up within other messages and they just ignore it.

  I think I seem too unreachable sometimes, too busy, too inflexible maybe. I don’t know. Recently I wasn’t even invited to the trips others took to an event I could have wanted to also go to and I had to look on as the stream of group selfies came in.

  I can’t imagine someone ever wanting to meet me platonically. It only ever worked for romantic or sexual reasons. Otherwise, I was just inheriting a circle of acquaintances because my partner had friends. And the partner is the key. Without that, I would never be able to enter their homes and chats.

  Until I build my own independent circle of friends, I can never trust any of them. For all I know, I am just there because I’m the girlfriend. For all I know, they don’t even really like me, and just tolerate me. I don’t want to put energy into cultivating relationships that would falter if we ever broke up. It’s clear whose side they would choose and there’s the honor code of not talking to someone’s ex anymore. I would just lose everything. Can I really share myself with them truthfully and honestly if I am just their friend’s girlfriend? No. I would always have this thought in the back of my head that I could be seen as a bad fit or bad girlfriend. They would just view everything through the lens of making sure their friend has the perfect partner. I could never show weakness.

  I crave so much to have my own independent circle that is safe from the rise and fall of romantic partners.

  Let it be known that nothing I tried has ever helped. Neither being overly nice and caring, nor seeming independent and low maintenance; neither oversharing or seeming mysterious; not being very open or closed off, not motherly treatment of looking after them like my sibling. It made no difference trying to look pretty and be perfect, no use being a person with many interesting hobbies and pursuits and therefore being able to have long, interesting and personal in-depth conversations. It doesn’t help that I seem to always be interested in ambitious people with normal families they love. They’ll always rightfully prioritize those.

  And my ability to build friendships is so limited and atrophied that I don’t know how to put in years of effort before someone will consider me a best friend, if ever. I feel like I’m years behind. And then we’re just two people! I don’t know how to enter friend groups or build them. The rare occasion I introduced people to each other they just got along better than I got with each of them. Seems like I have to put in so much one-sided work for ages to barely click with someone while others manage that in two weeks. No one ever introduces me into their existing groups or other friends like it magically happens to others. Or they just move away, like everyone else that I clicked with and wanted to keep in my life. Or they’re too sick, too stressed, too sad and dysfunctional for friendships.

  But I watch the meanest, blandest fucks that give nothing back and just use the group chat as a therapy session each day have a large group friends that jump at the first message no matter how atrocious the behavior. It’s not reassuring. I can’t contort myself into something people want to make time for. I can’t attract the people that platonically love me. I know several people who don’t deserve the friends they have at all. Makes me wanna walk into the sea and rest on the bottom of the sea floor.

  Because I know what it looks like: that I’m the common denominator, that I’m the problem, that it has to be something about me. And that I somehow have to be worse than the worst people I know. I have turned myself inside out for decades now seeking the problem, because there must be the figurative shit on my shoe right? But I can’t find anything. I have ironed myself out and put whatever mask on and it’s never enough. It’s so sad that I neither have biological family nor found family. And now at 30<, everyone is disappearing into family life and their relationship cocoons anyway. I wonder if it’s true that the ones who are left and who still have time because they’re not in a relationship are really fucked up? I hope not.

  Have I missed my time window? Is this just how it will be like now? That I have to be content with seeing the same face every day and do everything with one person or on my own because there’s no one else left to do it with? I’m sick. I’m sick of it. I can’t stand it anymore. If I don’t manage to diversify who I interact with on a daily basis, I’m going to become the joker, man.

• 30 Mar, 2025 powerlessness

  There’s a powerlessness in this hyperglobal world… people staying where they were born much less than before, and instead moving all over. Not being connected to half the city anymore, not multiple generations of the same family living there, shaping the culture there. Some people have big networks in a small enough town and therefore have a sense of owing each other more because there’s a personal relationship involved. I don’t experience that, and many don’t. Never have.

  With that type of generational connection to a place and its people, you shopping somewhere isn’t just you being a random customer… you’re their neighbor’s child, or you’re their child’s teacher at school, or your families have been intertwined for decades. So if you have a problem, people will actually help and take it more seriously and go extra for you. No confusing, labyrinthine automated customer support. They’ll escalate for you.

  Likewise, you’re incentivized to keep it nice and civil because otherwise, your uncle, who’s best friends with the lady who leads the shop, is gonna speak some sense into you. Maybe you went to school with her son.

  Instead, you’re new in a city, family strewn all over the country or globe, know no one, too many people in this huge city. The places you shop at are an empty faceless corporation and employees sadly mean nothing to people because they don’t see them as human… because, among other things, there’s no personal connection. They’re just an other. So they’re having their Karen moments and shoving phones in service workers’ faces to post online.

  Not everything about this closeness and deep local family culture is ideal or something to strive for. It can be oppressive to feel obligated to everyone all the time, and what if you don’t fulfill their expectations?

  But the aspect of it I miss is the connection, seeing the human behind everything, and mechanisms to keep people in check, to treat the public with respect because your people built and run it. I miss the village (as in: ‘it takes a village’). I hate this, but I guess enough people need to be threatened with personal consequences to not be an ass. Like losing face, or honor, or the people they care about being mad at them. There’s no feeling of guilt for being an ass to a stranger for many. There’s no feeling of shame when vandalizing benches and ripping apart public garbage cans and blowing up a strangers’ mailbox. You don’t know who built that or who this belongs to, so your empathy is non-existent, I guess.

  Interconnectedness helps with that, because then, stories travel - and not just you know, but the local bakery, the bus driver, your mailman and your family. You might know the people that built that or own that since you were a toddler.

  Again, things about this are absolutely horrible, especially if it’s toxic. Rumours, family fights splitting the city, people feeling like they can never outrun their family’s reputation, everything being decided by connections and who-knows-who… but I am also tired of the hyperindividualism, the disconnection, the freedom from expectations that weirdly makes many people think they don’t owe basic courtesy in public because it won’t come back to bite them in the ass later and they won’t get a stern talking to by their community and family. Chances are their family is kilometers away in another city or even continent and doesn’t know shit about their life. And as someone with no contact to my family aside from my mum occasionally, that’s for the best sometimes, but not always.

  I do romanticize this idea of going anywhere in my city and knowing the people who built and run that… like that’s my cousin at the checkout, that’s my uncles car repair shop, the tram driver is my grandpa’s best friend, my other grandpa helped built this or something… I know the older generations of my family grew up like that. It’s so different now. I want to see the fruits of labour of my community. Family, extended family, friends. I want to experience the boost to building a connection to people because they recognize me as someone’s daughter. I wanna feel like there’s a big support network, always someone to turn to, always someone to take a look at something or fix something for a good talk and a sixpack, knowing you’ll return the favor when they need it.

• 29 Mar, 2025 “i get everything i want”

  I think this sentence tends to confuse people and makes them think whoever is saying it is delusional or egotistic. It sounds arrogant at first and many tend to take it at face value - t’s impossible to literally always have gotten what you want since you were born. Materialistically, maybe. But not specific outcomes that depend on other people that you can’t control. It sounds spoiled.

  I would say though that this sentence is actually pretty harmless and almost anyone can become someone this applies to. What I see in this sentence is:

  • The person is realistic about what they want and what they can actually have. Through trial and error and good intuition, they’re always hitting the sweet spot where these overlap. Their desires and goals are attainable.
  • The person is probably very organized, researches what’s needed for a specific outcome and will work for it and ask for what they need instead of waiting for it to happen randomly.
  • They come prepared and make sure to raise their specific odds by recognizing that while the outcome is not in their control, some things leading to the outcome are, so they control what they can instead and know they tried their best.
  • The sentence acts as a motivational thing, a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the longer they keep up the streak of meeting their goals and getting what they want, the more confident they are about the next thing, which helps make it happen.
  • There tends to be a gratitude mindset and seeing the good in a lot of things, even losses and fails, which they often tend to ascribe positive qualities to - like when they didn’t get that job but then a better one comes along that fits what they want much better than the other one. So in the end, they did get what they wanted overall, just not the specific thing. That’s of course assuming they aren’t literally a spoiled, mega-rich person, just an average one.

  I’d even say the sentence applies to me, even though I didn’t get the chips I wanted last evening at the supermarket and I will never get the (bio) parents I want and deserve. Because to me, it’s about bigger things than that; usually an overall arc in my life, or an area of it, a vibe, a measurable goal like passing an exam, something like that. Sometimes I wish for things and retrospectively am glad I didn’t get it, or got something else instead, because it actually works out better that way. I think that’s where the feeling comes from of “always getting what I want” even if there are some things I actually didn’t get. The experience of things just working out in my favor in the end, even if they seem bad in between. Sometimes it takes the retrospective or the bigger picture to see that.

  That’s not to be one of those people that think “everything happens for a reason”. I get the sentiment, but it’s usually used in disgusting ways. There’s plenty bad that happened to me for no good reason, too.

• 28 Mar, 2025 smoker vent

  I’m really tired of smokers. I think we’re too soft on you. I get that it’s an addiction and a way to socialize, a habit, a way to catch breaks at work. But I can’t stand it. Addiction? Why not chewing tobacco, nicotine chewing gum, nicotine patches? Why not grab a beverage with a straw to have something to hold and suck on as an alternative action? Why not take those breaks anyway and if anyone talks shit about it say it’s unfair that you’re expected to inhale harmful substances to be allowed a break? Grow a spine. Stand up for yourself and stop being a peer-pressured little doormat. You were weaned off of the bottle or your mum’s tit, so you can handle this. Saves you money, is good for your health, limits pollution and stops funding exploitation and normalization.

  You think it’s not that bad, but no one is safe from your kind. Bus and tram stops are full of you, where the rest of us have to stand and wait. Stinky smokers sit next to me in public transport. Outside seating is full of your kind. Clouds of your smoke get swept across the park. Everyone has to walk through your smoke cloud to enter or exit the building. You walk past me or in front of me on the street and past my open apartment window. I sit on my balcony and my stupid ass smoker neighbor does, too.

  Your cigarette butts and disposable vape pens are everywhere and you cough and spit everywhere. It’s disgusting. Oooh you think you look effortlessly cool and chic? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite the Marlboro Man?

  You think you’re the exception, one of “the good ones”, but every smoker is like you. You trying to limit it doesn’t do shit for anyone involved. You can’t control the wind, the smell on your clothes, the ecological aspect and the sheer number of smokers everywhere. You’re thinking that’s just one little cigarette for a few minutes, but you’re the tenth smoker I had the displeasure to meet that day.

• 26 Mar, 2025 holding my breath

  There’s always a point where being without people feels like I’m holding my breath and like I’m slowly suffocating. I do need lots of alone time, but keeping my personal balance is key. It’s been too much alone time, too little air. Too many of the same people. Mostly surface level interactions.

  Next time I meet people for longer and more in-depth hangouts, it’s going to feel like gasping for air after holding my breath for too long.

  I long for community. I long for neighborhood, for hanging out in the garden together, on the stoop, the terrace, the balcony. Hanging out on the street. Or at a giant table inside, with board games on top. I wanna go to flea markets and museums together.

  I hate living so far away from people that matter to me. I hate having no family, no neighborhood bond. I feel cut off from 60% of the human experience.

  I think the comparison with holding my breath is apt because when you first start to hold your breath, it’s fine. You just had your fill and it will last a while. But it gets harder and harder with time, until your lungs hurt and you begin to fight your natural instincts to make it for longer. And most of the time, other people breathe automatically and don’t think about it. They take it for granted, until they’re drowning. It’s not like we want to be a person who needs air, it just is a natural part of us.

  And I don’t wanna be a person who needs other people, but I am.

• 23 Mar, 2025 jealousy?

  I’m often clashing with people because I remind them of something they lack, or something they feel guilty about. It sounds crazy and narcissistic, but I don’t even think you have to be special or good at something for this to happen to you - at an educational setting, at work, in the family, friend circle or online. Online is probably the easiest.

  They just have to have the impression that you are better, even if it’s not true and you haven’t consciously done anything to make it so. Sometimes people create a competition in their head that you don’t know about or wanna be a part of. They put you on a pedestal and idolize you, not seeing you for who you are but who you could be. Sometimes their feelings of inferiority change how they view you and there’s nothing you can do to help it.

  You wanna share your experience just like they shared theirs? Because they consider yours better, now it’s “bragging”. People share their grades and you share a good one? Ew. It’s only cool and okay when you complain that it was too hard or that you barely made it. Don’t make anyone feel bad!

  If you genuinely created a good life for yourself, are grateful and content and have not much to complain about, you’re faking it and just trying to emit a highlight reel of your life. If you do complain and suffer, you’re searching for attention and pity.

  If you try to be kind and positive most of the time, it’s toxic positivity and you must hide something or suppress something, and it’s annoying. If you are negative or arguing with someone, they “knew all along” that your kindness was just a cover for something sinister.

  If you don’t give a fuck about followers, upvotes or views and get them effortlessly, they think you’re ungrateful and full of yourself for that, when they try so hard and don’t achieve the same. How dare you not care about something they deem so valuable? Why don’t you need this external validation?

  I sometimes like to point out to people how they could have avoided their current crisis and people don’t like that. Fair enough, my fault. Usually I wouldn’t bother to say stuff that rubs it in (“You had days for this.” etc.), but if your problem affects me too or you make it everyone else’s problem, I will. And even if I don’t say anything and just help, people are lowkey salty that I don’t have this problem and that they have to get help from me, like I am suddenly the enemy for preparing better and as if I’d be relishing in this moment to make them feel incompetent and small. I don’t.

  There’s a certain type of people that just wants me to fail. Instead of recognizing that any guilt, shame, envy, jealousy or sadness my presence, accomplishments, values and lifestyle cause could be the motivation they need to make the necessary changes in their own life to feel better, they’d rather see me dragged down below them.

  They cheer when I have issues, it satisfies them when someone disagrees with me, when I don’t get something. There’s always some clown out there who finds out a thing or two about me and becomes a contrarian because they think they have to put me in my place. Someone else could say what I say (or even did) and they agree, but when I do it they have to find something to disagree and argue about.

  But for what? I am staying focused on myself, just trying to improve. They could do the same. Getting me down doesn’t make their life better. I can just disappear and then what? Their life is the same as before. They’ll just search for a new target.

  We can’t be friends or lovers if you’re jealous or intimidated. Just be there for each other and learn from each other, be inspired by each other. I used to date someone who was jealous of my body and it sucked. The resentment was intense and poisoning everything.

  Get ready for a LinkedIn-esque rant, but I don’t know how else to say it: I only have space in my life for people that cheer with me, who can handle my compliments to them, and who are confident in themselves. I need people who are comfortable with seeing me win, who are okay with me asking for things and not waiting until someone randomly gives it to me. I need people who understand the kind of way I am passionate and goal-driven. I need people who are okay with being direct and who are okay with taking responsibility. I need emotionally stable people who know how to self-soothe and know when some feelings are unreasonable and don’t need to be focused on. I need more people that know my positive experiences and wins don’t take away from theirs and that I always want to uplift them. There is never competition from my side and any goodwill towards me, I return tenfold.

• 22 Mar, 2025 “you make them feel stupid”

  I’ve had this leveled against me a couple times in my life. I make people feel bad, I make them feel stupid, embarrassed. Why?

  I still don’t fully understand. I can wrap my criticism in a sandwich of positive and negative, doesn’t matter. I can sugarcoat it with “Maybe I misunderstood…” “It came across to me as if…” “I could be wrong…” “It probably wasn’t your intention…” and other stuff like that, still. I do so much to help the other person save face and it’s not detected. I think some people still haven’t learned that negative emotions don’t mean something bad happened that should be called out or punished or makes the other person bad. Sometimes, the way you react is more about you than them. Maybe your ego was hurt, maybe you felt misunderstood. That’s okay. You can argue against it. You can say “Thanks.” and move on. You can choose not to accept it. But why punish the other person or tell them they should be nicer?

  I never understood how these people go through life. Do you never want to be corrected? Do you never want to be told what you could do better? Do you never want people to give you feedback on what hurt or disappointed them? How you come across? It’s like starting to cry because someone pointed out your shoe is untied.

  I’m tired of feeling like I’m victimizing someone by engaging in normal, open and honest conversation without the need for being cruel or inconsiderate. I’m tired of feeling like the bad guy for normal disagreements.

  You disagree with someone in front of others, you “should have done it 1-on-1”. You do it 1-on-1, you “jumped them” or did it at an inconvenient time. You announce it beforehand, they get anxious until the talk happens. You write it down, they prefer a talk because “email sounds angry and stern and is prone to miscommunication”. You get upset in the process, now the tone or choice of words is a problem.

  Honey, I think you simply don’t wanna hear it no matter what avenue people choose! And there are so many people like that out there. A different delivery wouldn’t have made you clowns feel better, we both know that.

  You will feel bad in life. Other people will make you feel bad, and embarrassed, and stupid. I can’t avoid it either. I have dealt with unfair, insulting stuff before, so I am baffled when I can’t even correct someone’s pronunciation without offense. Like, have so many people been raised in perfect homes? My mother called me a whore when I was 7, and accused me of trying to attract pedophiles because… I was wearing a crop top on the playground that was included in a child magazine. I was called a moonface in school and people said I looked like I ran against a sign because my side profile is very flat. In my childhood another kid once invited me to their birthday party as the punching bag - to openly insult me and laugh at me and tell me how weird I am.

  You better believe I was blamed for things unfairly and hurt for the sake of hurting. It wasn’t constructive, it wasn’t helpful, it wasn’t supposed to help me. So I know and I try to consider that when criticizing someone.

  But some other people’s sensitivity is off the charts. It’s like they consider each friend, partner, person they admire to be so safe that they should never make them question themselves. Doing so is betrayal. I challenge you to find a partner who’ll never have additional requests and concerns about household things or your intimate life, though. It’s not possible. Pleaaaaaase, just get comfortable with it.

  And especially get comfortable with it when the heat is returned! Don’t come for someone and then be offended when they have receipts to prove you wrong or poke holes into it. Don’t be mad when you’re being weird about someone and they call you out on it. Don’t be mad someone holds you to something you said!

• 21 Mar, 2025 living alone

  I have a hard time dealing with people who are in a bad mood.

  Growing up, I was scared of my mum coming home. That’s when the terror would start. Entering my room, complaining, yelling, slamming doors, insulting me, accusing me of something. Then the silent treatment, refusing to speak with me. Telling me she isn’t gonna do this and that anymore, that we’re gonna live like roommates. As young as 10! And it didn’t only last for a little while; it often was days. I was minding my business and my peace was disturbed whenever she came home.

  Then later on, I lived with someone and we broke up, which left me vulnerable because they had refused to give me a lease to sign (they owned the place). So no tenant’s rights. So every time they came home, I was terrified of a fight, of being kicked out and accused of something.

  After that I swore I’d never move in with someone again, and so far, I’ve kept it up.

  Everyone deserves to have a shoulder to cry on, people are allowed to have a bad day - but no matter how hard I work on it and how much I know it’s a different situation, something in me is always scared when the apartment door is unlocked from the outside and something in me is scared, annoyed, angry, helpless if that person happens to have a bad mood because something happened. Realistically, we’re going to talk about it, cuddle, eat and it will be alright. But internally, I just wanna run. I wish I wasn’t there. I wish they didn’t have keys to my apartment.

  And it would only be worse if I didn’t live alone, where I would have nowhere else to go and nowhere else to send them.

  I recognize in these moments that I’m being irrational, but I also acknowledge that there’s a reason I feel that way. I am angry for you ruining my peace in my own home where my safe space is supposed to be. It’s because it never was for most of my life and now I have spent years cultivating it by living alone. Even if your bad mood is harmless and not directed at me, these moments always solidify why I need to live on my own.

  Living alone to me means:

  • No fear about people coming in, or coming when I wanna be alone
  • No guests unless I want to
  • Protection from others’ moods
  • My space belongs to me - no fridge that’s bursting with stuff I won’t eat while making it hard to reach mine, no stuff cluttered over my desk and dinner table making it hard to use, no stuff strewn around on the sofa so I can’t sit on it, no piles of dishes cluttering up the kitchen because of elaborate meals with 3 pans or something….
  • Freedom to get up and move around freely - turn on lights, open blinds and shutters, get ready, vacuum, play music, type on a keyboard, sew etc. whenever I want, not scared of waking or bothering anyone else
  • No one spying on my trash or arguing about what I throw away
  • Quiet whenever I want, not just before people get up or after they went to bed
  • Not having to justify myself and tell why I’m going outside, where, why, for how long
  • Going to the kitchen or eating without it being commented on
  • Cooking for myself whatever I want without having to consider other people’s preferences, and not being forced to go along with their dinner plans because “If you don’t eat it with me I won’t make it, even though I crave it” or “If you aren’t there to eat with me I won’t eat and just starve” (my mum)

  It’s difficult because of course, companionship comes at a price. Sometimes you’ll get annoyed, bothered, hurt, inconvenienced, but that’s what you pay for all the advantages and upsides. I know this. It’s just difficult for me to pay the price when it feels so much higher to me than to others because of how I grew up. It hurts me more than it all should. I simply have a hard time coexisting in the same space.

  I love space, and others will take it up with all their stuff. I love quiet, and others will cut through it with their noise. I love peace, and others will squash it with their moods and picking fights. I know living together can’t always be harmonious, but how do I learn to let small things not bother me and not let the past define how I deal with these situations?

  I just always internalized that there is no space for me where others live. I have my room in it and that’s it. Not allowed to hang out anywhere else, or risk becoming a target. No bringing people over. No space to put my stuff elsewhere, it was full of theirs. No input on the rest of the living space. They rent or own the place, I am tolerated for as long as they have to. No, never again. Now I am in control.

• 16 Mar, 2025 intervention

  I wonder what it says about me that growing up, I wished I could sit people down intervention-style and show hidden camera footage of all the things they hurt me with and the things they swore they didn’t say. I guess it says a lot about helplessness, about not being believed, being gaslit, about wanting proof to stay sane. I wanted them to be surrounded by an audience and forcing them to watch, so they’d also feel ganged up on, and were forced to confront their behavior and lies. I wanted them to feel guilt and shame, the way I felt guilt and shame constantly because of them.

  I never had the feeling the people that hurt me in that way felt guilt and shame about it towards me. In front of me, they could just DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) and do the narcissists prayer (“That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.”).

  They only feared the reaction by third parties. Onlookers, teachers, other parents, their friends. So I wished they could be there as an audience. Look at how your darling treats other people! Look at what’s going on in my family! Look how your child treats me!

  I think I learned that outsiders are powerful and ready to stop the abuse temporarily when I got yelled at so hard over math homework by my mother in elementary school that one of our neighbors went to the local school to get my school teacher to intervene. She literally rang the doorbell, asked to be let in and see me mid-abuse. I suddenly saw my usually towering, loud, red-faced, teeth-exposed and scary looking mum cowering. Small. Afraid. Embarrassed. Apologetic. Not towards me, but towards my teacher.

  But there were never any hidden cameras, no interventions, no audience. No one came to rescue me permanently (not because it was their fault, but because no one could, and many people did the best they could for me, like my teacher and neighbor). My mother pretends it all didn’t happen.

• 15 Mar, 2025 giving in

  People usually say that anger, revenge, not being the bigger person hurts you more than the other person - that acceptance and forgiveness set you free. That choosing kindness over retaliation or being defensive feels better and that you’ll feel bad for not doing it. To an extent I get it but I rarely feel that way. Why?

  Usually when someone wrongs me or upsets me, I’m a little mad. I stew on it for a little while. Then I think: “Oh, be nice. If you are nice and extend an olive branch and sugarcoat things and admit fault/say sorry even when there was none, this can be resolved. Just make them feel better and like they were right. You can both find closure and move on and the connection to them isn’t negatively affected. They probably just had a bad day, I know how that feels!” I put myself in their shoes, try to find explanations for their behavior. I treat them softly because of it. I try to find good reasons for their unreasonable behavior. I humanize them in my head.

  So I reach out, or I don’t let it bother me, I give in, I stay quiet. And very soon after, I actually regret that.

  I think I know where it comes from. In the past, I often had to be the bigger person - ignore insults, move on without a sorry, pretend nothing is wrong, keep my cool while someone else throws a tantrum and crosses lines. I had to do that as a teen, and I had to do it as an adult, even now on my job.

  We have someone who can cross lines and be extremely unprofessional, insulting and immature at my job because “that’s just who she is, we can’t change her, just accept it, she’s 5 years from retirement”. So often, I had to say sorry for things I didn’t do, things I don’t find wrong and stand by.

  I had to help emotionally regulate people who were emotionally out of control, at the cost of my mental peace and sense of justice and fairness. I had to lie to make people feel better, like reassuring them they did nothing wrong when they did. I had to accept people’s version of a story that made them look better because challenging it would have made them explode. So I was always the one to give in for most of my life. I listened to the above advice about how it would make me feel better. I listened to the general advice about how this is more professional and likable.

  But it just made me a doormat, it makes me unhappy. After doing these things, I just felt bad and like I shouldn’t have been kind and understanding - because almost no one gave it back. It makes me feel like I wronged myself, like I let myself down. If I don’t stand up for myself, who will? I never had family or friends behind me to defend me. I was all I had.

  When I try to be mature, forgiving, professional and extend good faith to someone’s action, expecting them to reciprocate and they don’t, I feel reminded of how I grew up and all the situations where I tried to fix things and the other person chose to remain in their feelings, or used it to hurt me further. It doesn’t feel good. It makes me wonder why I even tried. It makes me feel vulnerable in a bad way. Like I extended trust and sacrificed for nothing. It feels like as if I say “It was my fault.” even though it wasn’t, and instead of giving a polite response, I get slapped in the face and they say “Of course it was.” when it was theirs.

  So honestly, not doing all that makes me feel better. Letting people have their tantrums without softening my position makes me feel true to myself. Sitting it out when people are mad without running in to fix it feels good. If someone is nasty to me, putting them in their place instead of turning the other cheek feels great! I ride that high all week and basically never feel bad about that. Fuck around and find out! Why should it always be me who has to make concessions?

  It also comes from the fact that I feel like I was never allowed what these other people do. I was never allowed to throw tantrums, be an asshole, throw around weird accusations and lie. It wasn’t even tolerated when I just lived and minded my own business at home. I just wanted conflict to be over and not stick out to not become a target.

  I always felt like I had to be at my best behavior not to drive people away, the little amount of people I have and know. But with others, it feels like they can bring drama to their friend groups and work places every other week, be difficult, whine, pick fights and be generally annoying and nothing happens. I feel like people don’t have as high expectations for them.

  By now, I realize that depending on the situation, I’d rather sit with the discomfort of someone being upset briefly, than with the discomfort of once again being the “weaker” one. Am I actually the weaker one? No, I think many would say something like “It takes strength to be the bigger person.” or something, but to me, it feels weak, like I lost, once again. Backing down and just being like “yeah yeah okay”, in one ear out the other doesn’t have to hurt, but if it happens too much, it’s bad.

  Just a sore spot. It’s because I was taught that whenever I made someone upset, it is always 100% my fault and not just a temporary mistake I can make up for, but a deep personality flaw that makes me worthless. And that’s not true, but it’s hard to get rid of that feeling.

  

• 15 Mar, 2025 stop hiding

  You help no one by hiding yourself away. You don’t help yourself and your opportunities, your self expression, your freedom to do things. You don’t help anyone who doesn’t like you, because you still exist as you are and cannot change in a way that makes you universally liked. You don’t help anyone who is jealous of you because you still hold what they’re jealous of and can’t influence their healing, progress or self-confidence. You don’t change people’s material reality by making yourself scarce.

  But by being visible, you support yourself and your vision. You make yourself available to others who seek connection and have things in common with you. You serve as a good and bad example for others to learn from. You model a reality, an opinion, a kind of being and living that others can get inspired by.

  When you make people happy, feel seen or understood, that’s good. When you make people angry, you might get them to think about why that is and remind them of their values. If your existence makes people feel inadequate, all you can hope for is that it motivates them to do better and try harder, or to accept themselves as is.

• 14 Mar, 2025 apologies

  I don’t think I’m good at judging when to hold back on something and when to say it out loud.

  It’s easy to judge when it’s about standing up for someone or something (even yourself), then it’s usually acceptable to do. But it’s harder when it’s opinions in general, telling someone a difficult thing, or criticizing them.

  It’s harder internationally when your culture or language sounds harsh or is more direct and blunt; I heard this is about high-context and low-context countries. And it’s harder when you lack social skills or are autistic or it’s simply your personality. I think I’m very direct in communication and I only sugarcoat when necessary. I avoid being mean, rude, too blunt or “”brutally honest”” though.

  I also never know for sure when hurting someone is good. I sometimes think it is, but it turns out it’s not.

  You might say something hurtful to someone, but it’s the truth that they need to hear; it hurts, but then they move on and it was necessary. That’s good. But sometimes you say something true and it wasn’t good to say it, because it wasn’t helpful and just hurtful. I only ever know that this case isn’t the former good pain when it already happened.

  And sometimes you say something that’s a bit hurtful by default and there’s nothing you can change about it - like saying you didn’t like what someone did, or are disappointed in them, or breaking up. It’s understandable they are hurt but it’s not avoidable.

  But there are also cases where you say something normal and the other person is surprisingly really hurt by it and you can’t figure out why, and it seems unwarranted, like an overreaction. But how can you be sure it is? What if you’re unknowingly an asshole?

  I think while writing them down, they seem so easily distinguishable, but in reality, it’s all so messy and often overlaps and doesn’t quite fit into a category. There’s always people who hear about a conflict and say you were too harsh, then another says you weren’t harsh enough, one says the other overreacted, the other says you shouldn’t have said anything. Men are allowed to be more blunt than women before they’re called out on it.

  I never know what to make of it. Maybe conflict is always messy. Maybe it isn’t that deep.

  I recently apologized to someone and meant it. But apologies from me are rarely genuine. Is that bad? Are all apologies supposed to be genuine? Am I only supposed to say them when I am really sorry? I’m scared to ask. It seems offensive to bring up that maybe we are all just lying to each other as social lubricant. Do other people apologize to get it over with, too? To have peace again, to give the other person closure, to make them stop crying?

  What’s being sorry for something supposed to feel like? If my apology is genuine, I apologize because I regret my behavior and don’t wanna do it again. But when my apology is fake to save the peace and make someone like me again, I still stand by what I said and did and don’t regret it. Is that okay? I don’t know what else to do. When people expect an apology and I still want to be friends or partners with them, I give it. Otherwise I don’t bother. If I wouldn’t give my fake apologies, I would lose people and disappoint them. That’s not good either.

  I have a difficult relationship with apologies because of my mum. She would blow up and start fights, scream, slam doors, insult me, cry and all that, and when I genuinely apologized it was never enough. I was accused of lying, accused of not apologizing enough, no matter what I said or did. It seemed hopeless because they were never accepted and I was just rejected and hurt further, so at some point I stopped apologizing to her and that was wrong too. I couldn’t get it right. So when it comes to conflicts and apologies, I tune out, I become unemotional, a little depersonalized. I think that messed up my relationship to conflict resolution and apologies forever. Many times when people sit me down to say what hurt them or to argue, I just stare and don’t understand. I can’t empathize with why they’d be upset and not gonna lie, many times I think they should get a grip and stop being so sensitive, but I don’t say it. I do what is expected of me and move on. Or I hold against it and ask questions, but people don’t like that. I learned that when they sit you down to complain, you’re supposed to roll over, agree and let it happen, give in and not ask about anything or provide counter arguments. I don’t get it, but okay.

  I remember in school, I was good friends with a girl. She was really smart, but for some reason, she resigned herself to act dumb. Like the ditzy, klutz-y, “heehee I know nothing I’m too stupid” kind of behavior, even though she was able to do so much better. She would put herself down with this too, in a kind of self-deprecating behavior. I guess it was supposed to be silly, endearing, non-threatening, and lowering others’ and her own expectations. If she thought she was too stupid, then she wouldn’t have to genuinely try, and then failing would hurt less because she didn’t try.

  We sat together in Philosophy class, and I was really good at this. She was again doing her whole “I’m so silly and stupid” shtick, trying to get laughs and pity and encouragement from others. It kind of hurt me to see, and it had been going on for a long time, so at that fateful day, I sat there … and my memories are hazy, because it’s been over a decade… and I said something like: “But then why don’t you just try? You always sit here saying you’re too stupid, but why don’t you put in the effort?” I only said that because I wanted better for her.

  She started crying immediately, threw her glasses across the room and ran out. Afterwards, she literally avoided me and never spoke to me again. It was really hurtful for me too, and I never understood why what I did was wrong, and I never asked or apologized. I stood by what I said. I expected things to return to normal after a while but they never did, and since she was the school’s sweetheart (very deservedly so) everyone knew and people literally said “Aren’t you the girl that made Jenny cry?”

  If anyone ever reads this and thinks it’s obvious what went wrong, you’re better than me because I still don’t.

  The more I think about the entire topic the less I understand about social expectations around conflicts and apologies.

• 10 Mar, 2025 recovery

  I wish I would have continued to recover fully and never relapsed. I think every recovery attempt after the first one sucks and is so much harder than the first. It’s too easy to go “Yeah you tried that already and failed, it’s hopeless, it will just repeat.” It’s like you only get one proper shot and the other attempts feel like you’re trying to catch up to the first one. And now you’re neither good at starving nor eating.

  I’m working on regaining trust in my body. I’m working on witnessing that it’s not out of control or volatile anymore. I don’t know how to feel safe in it, though. How do you feel safe in a body that could turn on you again every day and that might need medication that makes you rise like dough? It made me hate food, it made me ashamed, it made me hide my body.

  Relapsing makes me feel like a criminal. I don’t think I can admit it anywhere, because anything is deemed promoting it. It’s like I’m not sick, just an asshole making others sick. I keep it to myself. It’s hard not to get worse when my coworkers talk about one other coworker who is becoming sickly thin. I’m competitive.

  I saw many things today that made recovery feel possible and desirable again, at least. And I just had a proper meal.

• 10 Mar, 2025 trying

  Things can change. Nothing is static. If it had the potential to go bad, it has the same potential to get better. If it’s so easy for good people to leave you, then the bad will sooner or later leave you alone, too.

  The people that hurt you now are irrelevant in a few years, the job that sucks the life out of you now will be a blip in your life looking back. Remember all the things that felt like forever - a certain band you liked, a clothing style, an online community, a hobby? You thought you’d participate in that forever, but here you are, and you have moved on, at least partially. I thought I would like yoga pants forever and found my staple for life, but nope. Life changes without you trying, it even changes when you hold on to it so tight or try to claw your way back to the past, and it changes even more so when you actively try.

  You can give it a chance to happen. When you go to bed early, you have no control over when you’ll actually sleep, but falling asleep early and quickly has a chance of even happening. Even if you lie awake for 1-2 hours every night, the chances of better sleep are higher than if you hadn’t went to bed. You can’t know whether eating better will fix anything, but you can’t rule it out either. Being lucky is putting yourself somewhere to increase the chances, increase your control of the random variables. The rest is preparation. Whenever you prepare, you always become more lucky, because you raise the odds. Don’t focus on a loss or win, focus on the odds.

  You can’t lose sight of the larger picture. You can’t stop the pain, but you can give it a higher chance to pass or lessen. You can do things that make you or others proud, things that are hard and satisfying. You can make a little progress and it’s still progress.

  You can do things to feel alive. Scream out of the window, punch your pillow, draw in your face, get drunk, fight, go for a run, apply somewhere you don’t wanna work at with a joke CV, spray graffiti onto a train, help someone steal necessities, seed torrents, do urban parkour or bungee jumping, dress in outrageous clothes, show up on the stage of an improv night with nothing prepared, send someone a glitter bomb, sell all your belongings except bed, laptop, phone and bare necessities.

  If you think nothing matters and life is over and you don’t care whether you live and die, then use it and do things without fear of the consequences; might as well before the party is over. It might get you out of whatever brain funk you’re in. Sometimes you have to shock yourself out of it.

  If you’re empty and don’t know who you are, literally nothing stops you from just deciding to wake up a different person with different goals, values and hobbies. You can just roleplay that. Give yourself a different name in your head, take the different route, go somewhere you have never been before, join Discord servers with interests your made up character has, talk differently. Why the fuck not? What would your character wear? What’s their backstory? Reinvent yourself, own it. If you’re so done and have nothing left to fight for, what do you have to lose?

  Do anything to see a new point of view, to get new connections in your brain.

• 07 Mar, 2025 two magnets, repulsed

  I don’t know how one is supposed to completely overcome being isolated and rather alone for most of their life, but I try.

  There’s disconnection within the conversation due to a lack of social skills and/or autism. Then there’s lack of social experience and a lack of a big-enough social battery making it energy draining and something scary and unknown that can’t be predicted; you never know what happens next, and it stresses you out. There might be social anxiety because of all of this.

  Loneliness seems to repel people and they can suss it out in you, like a scent stuck to you, and that makes it worse. You enter every interaction trying to mask the scent of loneliness and perform perfectly, but it sucks the life out of you and isn’t convincing either. You’re plain, boring like this, and there’s not even something in it for you if you can’t be yourself, you’re just acting and can’t talk or hang like you want to. But experience has taught you that if you’re yourself, you’re cringe, too loud, too weird, or can’t keep up the convo. It’s a cycle.

  You feel weird about being such a loner, so you join clubs and groups and chats and servers. Arriving there, you feel weird about being such a loner because watching the group rubs it in that you don’t belong and don’t have such a group in your life and not the ease of integrating into one almost instantly. Everyone is friendly and close to each other, and it seems impossible or a feat of years to reach the same level of closeness to them, to penetrate that invisible wall. It seems hopeless. You don’t know how to get a word in, how to participate in the convo without awkward pauses, having to repeat yourself or killing the group chat, or without being vulnerable in ways you aren’t comfortable with. So you withdraw, you leave. And now you feel weird for having left a group and secluded yourself again.

  Oh, I could write books about that. I especially remember me trying to add lots of people on social media to talk to as a teen before realizing how unrealistic it was and deleting them again; I remember joining Discord servers just to leave again, and how I booked classes like wreath-making and painting classes in the hopes of finding friends, just to be too focused on the craft to talk to anyone while everyone else socialized.

  And I see it in the wild too. I see people come and go within groups, always dropping off soon after joining or within each depressive episode when they think everyone hates them. I see them “rebrand” every other week because they become sick of themselves and want a clean canvas and hopefully be their better or perfect self now that is likable and can do all these things they couldn’t so far.

  I have been all these things too, and still struggle with some of them. All that helped me so far is being put in situations, exposure therapy I guess, and aging. Doing it while scared. Gaining experience by being someone’s girlfriend that has friends. Giving less of a fuck what others think; ironically, that made more approachable and likable than overthinking and holding back and feeling embarrassed about myself, like I used to. Staying in the group chats and servers regardless, even if I have to take a break in actively reading or participating. Settling for not being someone’s best friend. Stopping the thought spirals that make me want to purge my accounts and my friend lists.

  Staying away from people who are too severe in their dysfunction also unfortunately helps - I need to learn the social skills and processes from well adjusted people and need to build my trust with them, not be at the mercy of someone’s mental state that will always make them flee, delete, unfriend and ghost periodically… when you do that, you are your own worst enemy and biggest roadblock, and I can’t bear to see my own past behavior reflected back to me like that if I want to grow.

  I learned that when you let that side win, people aren’t relieved to see you go (unless it’s the 20th time), they are concerned, sad, and wonder what they did wrong to make you do that. Some might think it was because you hate them, some think it’s because of arrogance and egoism. If you always give in to the urge to leave, you’ll never learn to sit with discomfort. Not everything about socializing is comfortable.

  Honestly, a lot still isn’t for me. Sometimes, it all seems like work with no payoff, but then I remember the good times when it feels effortless and secure because I was willing to put in the work and stay and endure awkwardness and tension and guilt and arguments.

  It’s still confusing. Every couple weeks I forget people genuinely like me.

• 06 Mar, 2025 it doesn’t compute

  I remember when I was a child (below 10 years old) and interacting with people ages 16-25 sometimes, like summer camps in elementary, school, retail and so on. I always admired them and greatly respected them, I thought they were so cool and smart and had it all together.

  There were ~10-20 years difference between us. I am now 30. I often clash with older people at work, 45+, and it doesn’t compute for me that many of these are the same generation of people I used to interact with as a kid. In my head, those people I admired are still the same. No one ages in my memories. It’s weird to imagine that inbetween my childhood and now, that generation of people grew and changed too. Like, how can the kind of people I admired so much as a kid be belonging to the same group of people who are so rancid at work?

  It’s all a mix of childhood wonder, adulthood idealization, nostalgia and the usual struggle to grasp how quickly time passes. When I meet a person, they seem to stay the way I met them in my head, and they can never be older or younger. You were never a kid and you’ll never retire. But if I meet you as a grandparent, you’ve always been that old.

• 02 Mar, 2025 midas touch

  I have the midas touch when it comes to irl friendships. Online was never a problem and those were the most friendships I had, but irl was tough. It wasn’t even that I fought with people that ended friendships, I was just incredibly unlucky with who I clicked with.

  Since kindergarten, actually. The child I liked to play with the most? Transferred kindergarten. The same happened in elementary. Then during the switch to middle school, the people I liked went on to a different one than me. In my time at that school, classes got mixed up inbetween so I was ripped out of that too. Another person I looked up to moved to the other side of the country. Then I found the best friend group ever, like in the movies or books - but then it was actually my family who moved. I tried to stay in contact with them, they didn’t reciprocate, so I dropped it.

  In the new school, I promptly failed that grade and had to repeat, losing the people I had just spent a year befriending. In the new grade, I befriended multiple people who ended up either completely dropping out of school or transferring or repeating. The ones that were left graduated with me just to move to foreign countries or half across the country for specific universities and degrees. I stayed.

  When I went to uni, I tried my hardest to befriend people. It was hard because I couldn’t make as much time as others for meeting at cafés or parties. I lost connection to that group. The other person I was close with dropped out to do a different degree and we lost contact. Later, I dropped out too for a traineeship instead. Met great people there. But the person I was closest to there and loved hanging out with dropped out due to spine injuries and was then hard to get a hold of, barely responded. The other person I cared about was more of a one-way street and ended up dropping out to do a traineeship in geriatric care instead. The last one to stay one day blew up at me and called me an asshole for saying she should have installed Teams sooner when she couldn’t get it to work for a class. Whatever, man. Haven’t talked to her since.

  After that, almost everyone moved away for job offers all over the country. I stayed. The only other person to do so too stopped replying or meeting up with me when her dad died. I get that; no hard feelings. It’s been 4 years now though. Then the other friends I made were the ambitious kind with a rich family life and tons of existing friends, so never had time for me. It was always this or that with family or a friend.

  Started studying something else again at a distanced learning university and tried to make friends again. Worked out well initially, even found someone from my city and we met up; but first she dropped out, then the other one I was talking to a lot dropped out due to Covid brain damage.

  I also made an effort to befriend people at work, but at some point they all applied somewhere else sooner or later and left for greener pastures.

  I always thought I’d have my shit together until I marry, so I have someone I can invite to my wedding, but no. All I have are my partner’s friends and family. Everyone else I ever liked and clicked with moved away or dropped out and chose not to keep up the connection no matter how much work I put in, or were too busy for me.

  I have literally never had a friend irl for more than 3 years. With lovers, my partner is the record with 4 years. I know 2 online people for 5 now. I cannot even comprehend that there are people who know their friends for 10 years or more. Literally everyone has always been yanked away from me. What do you mean your best friend is the one from kindergarten? Their parents never moved and they didn’t either? They didn’t drop out and studying different things didn’t end contact? They actually made time for you despite other friends and family? I cannot even imagine living like that…

• 02 Mar, 2025 aspirational people in your life

  Something that always confused me is how people love following the content of people online who have so much better things and a better life, but hate to see it in real life in their direct environment people they know.

  They’ll be in love with influencers who can afford all these products, who get up at 6am, present the perfect morning routine and seemingly always have time to cook fresh and work out, who have the perfect bodies.

  There was a time in my life when I thought I had to be perfect to be loved. To look like I have it all together to project to everyone “look, I’m not a burden, I’ll only add to your life”. I let people in about my hyperorganized thoughts, my perfectionist goals, my daily life, my activities. I was pretty close to what they all love to see online.

  What did it get me? I think it made me unrelatable at best, people didn’t wanna admit weakness in front of me and it got me resentment and jealousy at worst. I learned that many people prefer surrounding themselves with what they perceive as equals or lessers so they don’t feel like they’re losing the competition they created in their head. They might love to see inspirational grwm videos of their favorite online girlie, but they hate people in their direct environment who live like this.

  It’s also like that with advice. People cheer on people giving tough love or hard advice online; just look at those alpha bros or the tone that a lot of WizardLiz videos have. People create their own AI coaches with the instructions to point out hypocrisies, weaknesses, excuses and more to identify and work on. But do that in real life between friends, even when they come to you for advice, then you’re the asshole and you get resented for telling them what they should hear. I don’t mean brutal honesty, that’s just being an asshole; but gently pointing out errors in thinking or floating the option that they could be the issue, or suggesting what they could do. Most problems people came to me with were entirely self-inflicted, but they didn’t wanna hear advice that would require them to change, they wanted the magic pill to fix it without doing anything and I couldn’t give it to them and was direct. That was the crime.

  I don’t know how to feel about the fact that people love in fake influencers and AI what they hate in me. You’re surrounding yourself with a fake life coach and perfect little pinterest moodboards of someone else’s life when you can’t stand to see it in someone else in your life?

  I always love to befriend and learn from people I perceive as better than me and I’m always looking to uplift people and let us grow together. Well, outsource it then to bots and people who don’t care about you because you don’t exist to them; just know they won’t show up with soup when you’re sick, won’t hug you when you cry, etc.

• 26 Feb, 2025 social skills

  I’m too much “conversation as transferring information”, even when I try not to be. I don’t know exactly what to respond when coworkers tell me a lot about their life, like complaining about the dry grass in their garden. I nod, say yes, say aww this sucks, I’m sorry, I smile, but I can tell I’m not reciprocating something they expect. I just don’t know what it is.

  I don’t know how to differentiate between oversharing/information not suitable for talks like this, and info that is. I often think “Who would care? Why would I talk about this?” if I think of anything of the same realm in my life to respond with, so I don’t tend to share it. I think it’s boring or useless to talk about, so I don’t, but that makes me come across as a closed-off person. Then when I sometimes do share, it doesn’t hit the same as when others share like this, so there must still be something I do wrong.

  There’s also simply not much in my life to talk about that fits the office atmosphere. I am surrounded by older people with houses and grown kids, but I am the grown kid. We have nothing in common. I can’t complain about the grass. I’m not a fan of just talking at people in a monologue like my coworkers successfully do to socialize, and their garden complaints function differently than if I start complaining about a match in a card game.

  But my younger coworker manages to deal with it all, somehow. I think it helps her that she used to work a very customer-facing job and in a tight team, and that she isn’t autistic. She always brings up the energy and acts correctly, and that’s why people visit her in the office and not me, and when they do come over while we share the same office, it’s usually for her. She made work friends here faster in one year than I did in four.

  I’m in the office today when I usually am not on this day, but she usually would be. And I even opened the office door to be less alone and to welcome people in, and I think someone who just said hello said so out of reflex thinking it’s my coworker that’s in there, not me. I could be wrong. The hello just seemed too familiar to be for me, and they looked to her spot first.

  It’s crazy how much I overthink social situations and social cues while still not arriving at a neurotypical level, many of whom just do this stuff subconsciously.

  I think I am the backup option for when the other people are not in the office.

• 24 Feb, 2025 the office makes me feel lonely

  I would rather be alone during work because of being a freelancer/contractor or fulfilling a specific role in an organization, than being part of a bigger team and be lonely because everyone gets along better and leaves me out because they got used to me not being there.

  I’m tired of being blamed for it, by myself mostly. Ask about their life, show interest, tell them about yours, join lunch when you can, visit them in their office… okay, for what though, if it is not reciprocated or stops after me not being there for 2 weeks or more?

  Objectively rude and disrespectful people who are openly proud of being difficult and hang up signs about it in their office are somehow liked and better connected here than me. A factor is time, of course; I’ve been here for 4 years, they’ve been here for 20. But still. I am over it. I could be at home and be comfortable, but I have to come here just to get my nose rubbed into the fact that everyone is closer to each other here than I am, and people prefer talking to the office racist.

  Being well-liked elsewhere doesn’t translate to other spaces for me. It’s intense how much this kills my spirit. Feels like I am back in school. I can’t believe I still have to deal with this invisible wall between me and others.

  Maybe I’m not the problem. It takes a lot of warmth to notice this cold.

• 20 Feb, 2025 alien

  I have never felt like I had a family or was truly born here; it felt more at times like I was an alien who suddenly got dropped onto earth. There are many reasons:

  When I was born, I looked different than my parents. There were accusations in my family that my mother must have cheated; we are only white, and I looked half asian, especially because of my eyefold and other features. Growing up, people always thought one of my parents was asian. In my teens, long after my parents separated, my father even floated a paternity test, but my mum talked him out of it. She coped with it all by joking that the mailman is my dad.

  I also never really related to my parents and I was indifferent to my very mentally and later physically absent dad, and extremely scared of my mother. They were never something to look up to; they went through the motions, they fought, they neglected or abused me, and had no friends and mostly shunned the rest of the family. They had no goals, no hobbies, and nothing to teach me. The most notable thing I remember of my time as a child is when my father got addicted to ebay bidding wars.

  We also didn’t have any family traditions, we never really visited family and they never visited us. There were no festivities, no gettogethers. It was an empty family, nothing holding us together. No one made an effort and people also lived far away. There were fights and old wounds everywhere, addiction and depression.

  Even as a small child, I wanted someone to rescue me. I had this wish that the hospital would call and say that they switched the babies up on accident and that they’d pick me up to give me to my real family. And they’d love me and be the parents I needed. Sadly that call never came, and because of some hereditary illnesses, I now know I am definitely from my mother, at least.

  It’s heartbreaking for a child to think that way; but I never knew it any differently.

  My parents later split up in my early teens. This has been so long ago now and both of my parents are so different that it’s almost inconceivable that those are my parents. I don’t recognize them. I don’t talk to my dad anymore, and talking with my mum is like accidentally running into an ex-coworker at the grocery store. It’s been clear to me that enough time has passed that both feel comfortable absolving themselves of parenthood; in their lives, and especially the life of my father, it was a blip, an extremely short while compared to the rest of their lives.

  It was like this experiment, this past life of theirs that is long over, like a hobby they dropped, and it always made me feel like a relic that is long overdue to die with it all. It’s like I should have crumbled years ago already, because nothing of that time even exists anymore. Both parents are no longer even remotely who they were, no one lives in the same apartments anymore where we used to be, there’s no room for me anywhere in their lives or new apartments and 99% of things we used to own are discarded.

  I’m somehow the one holding on to most of it, I think, despite being a minimalist. The dresser I have is the one I had since I was 6. The spoon in my flour is the one we always had in the flour when I grew up. The little shelf on wheels in my kitchen is the one we had since I was 9. Small things, like my tape dispenser are the ones I grew up with. It’s literally the only tape dispenser I ever had and used since I was a child. The cutting part is now super dull, but I keep it.

  The entire situation makes me feel like a ghost that is stuck roaming the earth and can’t move on, or like I’m the only living proof this connection, this time period existed at all. It’s a creepy and eerie feeling.

  People who are displaced, adopted, etc. can at least try to find their biological parents, look to return to their home country or culture… but I feel like I have nothing like that.

  There’s so much that gets taken from you like this. No family memories like vacations and festivities, no help when you’re sick; while others get apartments and jobs via their family and their connections, you have none of that. There’s no one to help buy a car, an apartment, a house or whatever big milestone purchase others usually get financial support for by their families. When I make plans with others, people often have no time because they visit their parents, take care of their grandparents, hang out with their sibling, have a wedding or family birthday to attend to… I have nothing like that. Everyone rightfully prioritizes their birth family.

  Existing like this feels not human at times, it feels like it deeply goes against our nature, against mine at least. I think other personalities would cope with this better, but I’m someone who would really thrive with a family, a community, taking care of others. But it’s out of my hands. Everyone I meet and know already has a family, so they don’t need to find family in other people.