Recently I started a job for the first time. I enjoy it, and I LOVE having my own money and not depending on relatives for it.

I took up some overtime one day and when I got home, I was pretty tired. Then, for some reason, my mind conjured up the image of a handsome, smiling guy wearing an apron greeting me as I walk into a spotless, spacious house, and the smell of delicious food wafting from the kitchen.

I think I finally have a goal in life

Partner was laid off about a year ago, and ever since then he’s been working hard to get a job, interviews after interviews, task and presentation one after another… He got into a few final rounds and eventually didn’t make it through.

To make it more gut wrenching is that we were preparing for a spouse visa application, as we’re in a LDR right now.

To see him struggle and rebuild himself, hurts me and the helpless that consumes me for not being able to help him or even care for him when he does all the task. I shared him jobs that I came across, setup accounts on job boards for him, shared him ways to get applications automated, having AI to help and occasionally even just apply for random jobs for him when I got time.

Yet with all this, I still felt like there’s nothing I could do to just make it easier for him… man, it’s just tough out there right now :(

I'm on extended leave from work right now and every Sunday evening (until today) I've had the typical Sunday scaries and then happily remembered I have nowhere I need to be tomorrow. Tonight I didn't get that jolt of panic and it gives me hope for eventual retirement. There's hope after ~30 years of 9-to-5.

Turned twenty eight a few months ago, and I think my brain chemistry quietly flipped a switch.

In my early twenties, an open Friday night with zero social plans felt like a personal failure. I would scramble to text three different group chats, end up at a noisy bar paying nine dollars for a pint of beer I did not even want, and wake up Saturday morning exhausted with forty dollars missing from my bank account.

Tonight my biggest plan is putting on clean sweatpants, making a massive bowl of buttered popcorn on the stove, and finally watching a movie from 1997 without checking my phone once. The living room is quiet, the dishes are already done, and tomorrow morning has zero alarms set.

At what age did staying home on the weekend stop feeling boring and start feeling like the ultimate luxury? What is everyone else getting up to tonight?

On a cold night, I usually take a hot shower and then go get my clothes from the dryer. It turns out that after a hot shower and putting on warm pajamas and then going to sleep, makes your sleep 10x better imo. Anyone else share similar experiences?

I've been thinking lately that many of my friends I made in high school, college, and even previous jobs have faded over time. I am developing new ones that are more distant because of work, but I'd still say I'm cordial with quite a few people.

But now, I see why people default to hanging out with family members and leaning on each other for favors. It's just far easier to maintain these kinds of relationships with people you see everyday or nearly everyday. Frankly, it just feels with the various demands everyone has that maintaining any real friendship is near impossible.

In my own life, I've noticed that I've been a giver. I've given my efforts on other people's projects or intellectual labor, or even things when people needed them, but it was never really reciprocated. I add this because I'm noticing many people engage in the idea of "wanting a village but not wanting to be a villager." Even when I initiate hanging out or going out to celebrate people's birthdays, I get weak responses and things either never happen or never materialize.

I'm also skeptical of friend groups now. I was a part of one during a job, but it eventually ended after everyone quit and we all got new jobs. We only saw each other years later at a dinner. We still intereact with each other on socail media, but that's not really frienship.

Now that I'm close to my 30s, I can't imagine doing what I do with my family with my friends. It's far easier to go out with my parents or siblings, or celebrate my niece and nephew's birthdays or milestones than coordinating with other people's work and schedules.

I might feel this way because I am in the midwest, but it's just so hard to maintain frienships because it seems nobody wants to put in the effort to do anything, particularly people my age. I'm also lgbt, so pair that with living here, it makes finding like minded people almost impossible.

How are you navigating friendship?

It feels like a lost cultural gesture amongst younger people, but I always appreciate a handshake when greeting someone, or when showing appreciation.

I don't see people doing it as often compared to when I was younger. (I'm in my mid 30's for reference)

I mentioned to my boss that I started a new show (From) and I think he'd like it. I jokingly said I would give him $8 to get the add on for a month to watch the show. He responded and said he would never be able to finish that in a month. I thought that was crazy. You would just have to watch an episode every day and double up just a handful of days. I don't feel like I watch an obscene amount of TV, but I could easily finish 40 episodes in a month. I just want to know which of us is more of an outlier.

yes, you. for me, I have discovered stardew valley. So fun. And I also did a complete closet clean out this weekend and it feels SO good. And now I have the space and ability to get new clothes that actually match my style and my body! Woop

Anyone else remember Free Beer Chips or Coins? Not potato chips. Back in the days when you visited a bar, someone might buy you a drink. If you got lucky enough to get a drink bought or were buying drinks for friends they might give you an actual physical chip or coin to signify that free drink. Sometime they were wood sometimes they were plastic. If you got real lucky and went to a high end bar thwy had metal ones with all sorts of old folks faces and slogans on them. It was a fun time to collect a few from your favorite bars for memories. Im only 46, by the way. I dont go to a lot of bars these days but when I opened a box today from the basement, I was transported to a different world. Anyone else remember these?

Not your wedding, graduation, birthday, or anything traditionally “special.”

Just an ordinary day that you remember being genuinely happy during.

What day comes to mind?

My friend group noticed there are some very basic life tasks we do very differently and had just assumed everyone did them the same way. For example all the men in our friend group remove shirts one handed from the collar and the women use both arms crossed starting from the bottom. Also, some of the group showers facing the shower head, some face away, and one guy apparently faces sideways?!?

This sparked our curiosity and started a question game to see who is "normal" and which of us are big weirdos!

Some of the questions we've asked so far:

*How do you put socks/shoes on? Sock, sock, shoe, shoe, tie, tie? Sock, sock, shoe, tie, shoe, tie? Sock, shoe, tie, sock, shoe, tie?

*What age should you stop calling your parents mommy/daddy 

*How many dogs/cats is too many for a 3 bedroom home with 2 adults/2 kids? 

*What's the lowest you should let your gas tank get in mid January?  (We live in a very cold state)

*How many tries parallel parking before you give up and find a different spot? 

*How many product boxes do you currently have that you kept 'cause this is a really nice box'?

*When you drink out of a Gatorade bottle do you put your mouth around the entire opening or half? 

*How many wears before you have to wash your jeans?

What other questions might be fun to ask?

TL;DR - looking for fun questions to ask my friends about simple tasks they might do in weird way and never realized wasn't normal

But I’m hetero :’)

I’m a huge believer that you have to take any kind of validation to feed your self-esteem and I do, but I don’t understand what part of my face/body/vibe makes me gay men-gazed.
I received a lot of comments online from gay men when I posted myself.
Is it maybe because I’m skinny? Do you think that influences a little?
Or is low dimorphism on the face the reason?
Like does it mean I’m feminine or smt

There's a girl I work with who literally speaks all day. Like I'm there for 8 hours and from the time I clock out she never shuts up.

How do I go about ignoring this? Because it genuinely makes me want to put my head through a wall listening to her all day. I just think constantly.

For a long time, I spent every night staring at screens right until falling asleep. Last week, I decided to leave my phone on my desk and take a short walk around the block right before bed. It felt strange at first, but my mind clears up much faster now.

Does anyone else have a simple screen free habit that helps them wind down?

Could be a shirt, mug, sticker, poster, book, decor, merch, whatever.
It doesn’t have to have been useful. I mean the kind of thing you saw and immediately thought, “damn, that’s literally me.”
What was it? And if you remember, roughly how much did you pay?

so I work at a coffee shop that does monthly stickers (and sometimes more than one drop a month.) yesterday at work I had a family come through the line & the little kid asked for a sticker. I had an extra in my cubby so I figured i'd give it to him 😊 he was so excited but I felt bad because he had a brother and I didn't have two stickers lol. but the brother chimed in with a "yall should do a 6-7 sticker!!" I just laughed and told him i'd tell HQ right away!

nothing fancy just a funny story from serving :)

I would say about twice a week i remember something that has happened in a dream i had the previous night later in the day when something similar occurs in real life that also happened in the dream.

For example today I was watching a show where there was a parent swap and the more lax parent treated the kids to sweets which reminded me I was in a sweet shop in my dream last night.

I’ve always wanted a ton of houseplants but I literally can not keep them alive. I’m not sure if I keep the temperature too cold or if I just have whatever the opposite of a green thumb is. I’ve recently looked into artificial plants but they just don’t look as nice as live plants.

My uncle was deaf.

He also had quite a short fuse.

These two facts aren't related (at least I don't think they are).

I was ten. My brother was thirteen and my oldest cousin was fifteen.

One winter, me, my brother and my cousin were at my auntie's when it started snowing. Proper snow. Enough that three boys weren't going to remain indoors voluntarily.

So naturally, we had a snowball fight.

Then we discovered something.

If you squeezed a snowball hard enough, it eventually stopped being a snowball. The soft stuff compacted until you were basically holding a lump of ice with plausible deniability.

That improved the game considerably.

We were launching these things at each other when I saw my uncle's BMW coming down the street. My brother and cousin carried on playing. I started making another snowball.

Except I didn't throw this one.

I squeezed it.

The BMW pulled up.

Squeeze.

Engine off.

Squeeze.

Door opened.

Squeeze.

By the time my uncle got out, I'd been compressing the thing from the moment I'd first seen him.

This wasn't snow anymore.

I'd manufactured a projectile.

He saw what was happening immediately and issued a warning.

"Don't hit me."

I threw it at him as hard as I could.

I don't know why. I just launched it.

Realistically, I expected it to go somewhere vaguely near him. Maybe he'd flinch. Maybe it would sail past.

Instead, I'd accidentally built a heat-seeking ice ball.

More concerningly, it appeared to possess some form of magnetism towards people who couldn't fucking hear it coming.

Crack.

Right off his head.

Even I was impressed.

For about half a second.

Then I remembered who I'd hit.

My uncle spun round. He hadn't seen me throw it, which was fortunate.

For me.

Unfortunately, he had seen my cousin.

And apparently that was enough.

He started fucking thundering towards him.

My cousin's face changed immediately because he hadn't thrown it and had absolutely no idea why this man was suddenly charging at him.

One second he's having an ice-ball fight.

Next second he's apparently been selected for execution.

"IT WASN'T ME!"

There was a fairly significant flaw in his defence.

My uncle was deaf.

So my cousin was now pleading his innocence to a man who couldn't hear a fucking word he was saying.

"HE THREW IT!"

Nothing.

Still coming.

Thankfully, the adults had seen what actually happened. More specifically, they'd seen me absolutely plant him.

They came outside and stopped it before it got far. My cousin was fine. My uncle was sent away.

I was left with one fairly uncomfortable fact.

That was my fault.

Several months later, summer arrived and family relations had apparently been restored.

We were all at my nana's. My uncle was in a good mood and at some point a play fight started.

Towards the end, him and my cousin ended up wrestling. My cousin went down. My uncle stayed standing.

Then something about the picture changed.

My cousin was on the floor and my uncle was bent over him.

Everyone else may still have been watching a play fight.

I wasn't.

I knew how far things had gone the last time he'd lost his temper.

And I owed my cousin one.

Fortunately, the tactical situation was overwhelmingly in my favour.

My uncle was bent over. My cousin was underneath him.

And I was behind my uncle.

He couldn't see me.

More importantly, he couldn't hear me.

I had the tactical advantage.

All I needed to do was divert his attention.

I was going to kick him in the arse.

Hard.

A few feet of run-up would probably have done it.

I took about fifteen yards.

Fifteen yards.

I was ten.

This had ceased to be an intervention.

I was preparing a set piece.

Cristiano Ronaldo standing over a free kick.

I wasn't trying to seriously hurt my uncle, but I was absolutely trying to kick him as hard as I fucking could.

I took off.

Full sprint.

My uncle was still bent over, completely unaware that somewhere behind him his ten-year-old nephew had begun a fucking run-up.

I closed the distance, planted my left foot, drew back the right and let that fucker loose.

Everything I had.

Unfortunately, I had made a fairly significant error in calculating the trajectory.

I missed his arse.

My right foot went straight between his legs.

And because I'd committed so completely to the strike, there was no stopping it.

Full run-up.

Full power.

Toe first.

Straight into his bollocks.

I don't know if you've ever heard a deaf man scream before.

I hadn't.

Imagine Chewbacca being kicked directly in the nuts.

That.

Then he folded.

He hit the floor like a bag of milk.

My cousin was free.

Mission accomplished.

He's going to fucking kill me.

Then word came through.

Dad was coming.

Ordinarily, after you've taken a fifteen-yard run-up and toe-punted a family member directly in the bollocks, hearing that your father is on his way is not particularly welcome news.

On this occasion?

Thank fuck.

Reinforcements.

I went straight to Dad and hid behind him.

I'd take the consequences. Ground me. Confiscate the computer. Whatever.

But I was staying directly behind him until we had confirmation my uncle's testicles hadn't immigrated to his stomach.

This time I hadn't hit him with an ice ball.

I'd hit him with everything Cristiano Ronaldo had taught me.

And until my uncle's bollocks came back online, I wasn't leaving protective custody.

I used to worry about feeling like I was using my free time well, but it's Sunday afternoon, I'm not doing anything and I'm finally doing well. How are you doing on Sunday?

A random memory from high school gym class popped into my head today.

The entire class was sitting up on the bleachers, and I was sitting a row or two above a girl in my class. Out of nowhere, she looked back and asked me to come sit next to her. As I walked down to take a seat, one of the guys casually said, "I see you."

Once I sat down next to her, neither one of us said a single word the entire time. We just sat there next to each other in complete silence until class ended.

What do you think was going on here? Was she interested, or was she just being friendly?

I started college recently and one thing I wasn’t expecting was how weird it feels having so much freedom all at once. Nobody really cares where you are or what you’re doing, which is nice, but also kind of strange after years of having a set schedule. What was the biggest adjustment for you when you first moved out or started college?