we had been talking on/off on an obscure sapphic shitposting app for months. we both admired each others gumption. she lives in the next city over but had finally found an excuse to be in my area. perfect. we schedule evening drinks at a local dive bar.

the first thing i noticed when i got there is that she didn’t look like her pictures. nobody really does, which is fine, but it was clear her pictures were representative of her best days and this was not one of them. i was also vaguely insulted by her outfit. i love making a lasting impression, and given the occasion i had arrived wearing leather heels, a pock marked skirt, vintage corset, a fur shawl, and full face, plus my favorite perfume. she was in leggings and washed out thigh-length dress.

okay, fine. i was being vain and superficial. but these are ideas we had bonded on so i assumed the actualization would be mutual. whatever. i sat down and tried to run through the usual gambit of first date smalltalk. as the conversation went on she began reminding me of the outwardly opinionated nerdy boys i would hang out with in high school. she seemed reluctant to divulge anything truly personal about herself - outright refusing to talk about her favorite movies despite bragging about being a film nerd. suddenly, only about 30 minutes into the date, she asks if i want to go back to my place.

at this point the creeping dread that had been building up inside me was overwhelming. “i’m not sure. i’d rather stay here for a while and talk more,” i say. she gets very quiet, then grabs her purse and excuses herself to the bathroom. she must have been gone for 10-15 minutes and the whole time i’m finishing my second drink wondering if i’ve been dashed out on. when she comes back she’s flustered and her breath smells of butyric acid. our waiter stops by the table and she closes out her tab while mumbling something about drinking too much and staying the night at a friends house, then leaves.

the next morning i see a post from her on the app lambasting scores of people who only want to fuck her but have no respect for her time or personhood. i know it’s about me, somehow. i react to it with a frowning emoji and she deletes the post. we haven’t spoken since.

i can’t help but wonder how many people she’s bedded with this approach, and what kind of vibes i was giving off to indicate i would be one of them. i must get to the root of this and pry it from myself.

It's so incredibly infantile being an adult who's afraid of conflict or disapproval. I'd feel better about it if it was motivated by some sense of altruism, but I'm honestly just too obsessed with how others perceive me and base my self-worth around it.

Whenever I'm around people I feel like an obsequious little snake because they always think I'm really nice, when really I just have a massive aversion to conflict, so I harbor all my judgment and resentment of others internally. I think most people who interact with me are talking to a completely made-up person more or less.

I actually admire people who are just outwardly assholes, because at least they have the conviction to be honest about their thoughts even if people dislike them for it. Even a good person is okay with pissing someone off if it means standing by their beliefs. I think being a people pleaser just turns you into an NPC who's incapable of holding any challenging beliefs about the world

I knew about Democracy Now! for a while but never really listened to it. I like her style much more than Hasan, Sam Seder, and a lot of the YouTube slop I watch haha. There's a clear left learning slant to it but it still comes across as grounded and serious journalism instead of edutainment.

Are there any particular videos or interviews that I should check out?

I would say I’m a solid 7 and every guy I get with in my personal life is attractive, but I just got on hinge because apparently I’ve run out of places to meet guys but I get maybe 2 likes a day??? Am I that much of a personality hire??? And I’m a woman so everyone says oh hinge is where it’s at but evidently not??

I never considered how ending my last relationship and doing the whole “be single, work on myself, develop better standards” thing would make dating feel impossible. It’s not like anybody I’ve tried to date has really done anything wrong they just haven’t done enough for me to actually wanna be in a relationship again. Feels like I need to enjoy my independence less if I’m ever gonna get close to somebody on that level.

I'm back in the dating game once again and I went on a 3rd date last night that was... ok. Not good, not bad...ok. To start off, she was over an hour late, the one thing I'm really anal about is punctuality, especially when we have reservations. I was already out, dressed, and done up, and I didn't want to waste a good fit, haircut, a skin mask, and the last of my favorite fragrance. I also had already venmoed her for her uber out, had some flowers, and I talked this date up real big to my friends so I'd be real embarassed to tell them it didn't happen, so I just waited it out.

When she finally did arrive, she was under dressed. Now idrc how a woman dresses, not my place to say, but this place had a dress code which I sent her when I made the reservations. Thankfully I had spent the last hour buttering up the hostess as I couldn't even get to the table and she let us in anyways.

Then the actual "date" went pretty good. Great conversations, a lot in common, she's super funny, all the things you'd hope out of a good date. She didn't really ask questions and I had to set up all the conversations, which is another thing I'm fine with but I do notice.

So then after the date she asks if I wanna come over, I take her back home and her home is a mess. Like she hadn't cleaned it in weeks. I'm not a neat freak but I always ensure a spotless house pre date just in case we go back to my place. Her roommates were over and we went back to her room and she suggested we watch Gone Girl. I had never seen the movie and she talked over it the entire time to explain everything to me. That is also not a movie I felt like there was ever a good time to make a move during. Then after the movie she fell asleep and I left.

So I'm left trying to question if this was a bad date or not. Nothing like THAT bad happened but it just didn't leave a good taste in my mouth. Idk if I would call it bad, just a little off. I don't want to not want to see her again but it was also a pretty poor showing on her part. idk man dating is so fuck complicated nowadays.

i am in the situation that all relationships I've been in were very strongly and clearly initiated by the other party. this is not a humble brag, I want to change this, since, as much as I wished it worked, you cannot make people want to date you by thinking about it really hard, and also there are so many beautiful people in the world and i want to at least date some of them

How do you ask people on dates? What even is a date?? How do you differentiate a friendly hangout from one??? I am autistic if you could not tell by now. I think i am fairly hot (so I've been told) and play in a band and read a buncha books but i promise its not an act i just like doing it, so maybe I should continue the approach of being weird enough until a beautiful woman comes along and goes like "how quaint i need to have a look at this" or however that tweet went

also, and this is kind of the part that i struggle the most with: how do you get past the feae that any romantic advance by you will be certainly seen as extremely creepy and you will be publicly shamed about it? sorry this is dramatic, but it really is how i feel a lotof the time sadly

yeah idk sorry if this is a weird post i just want to feel less like a passenger in my own life (which i have been working on! but this is continuing to be a topic of mystery to me)

I’ve been seeing this eccentric professional lab coat lanyard girl. I chalked up her charmingly immature and eccentric behavior to the spectrum. She always wants monchichis and calico critters. She makes little crafts out of pictures of us. It’s really cute, but like a lot of her traits, doesn’t match the age and demeanor of who she purports to be. Not once did I suspect what I think I found out today.

Every morning I get a good morning text around 7 then she vanishes until the afternoon. Never get calls or pictures of her in transit or before around 3. Her lunch breaks (when we meet) are at 4pm. Before I started meeting her, she would complain about her lunch and I suspected maybe she was a college student living at home.

Now I get it. It’s not a job, but an afterschool internship. She hides her lanyard bc it probably gives that away. Her caretakers drive her around and watch her location, which is why she never brings her phone to our meetups, and why we have only ever met in my car in her lunch break. So many things about her make sense now.

Here’s what happened.

She pocket dialed me and at the end of a 3 min recording about something that smelled bad in the lab and how her nose doesn’t work, she asks her friend “are you ready for the quiz tomorrow? Well you took AP Bio, right? So you should be fine”.

My first thought was that she is pranking me (seeding the “accidental” pocket dial to fuck with me). I knew we were age gapping, which I was already iffy about, but, well, hopefully she’s at least an adult. Could still be a college student and budding girl boss living at home with strict rules, right? I’m going with that for tonight.

I can’t sleep

Edit: fuck I’m so dumb. She doesn’t even know how to kiss. I’m still hoping she’s 25, got bored, and this is part of an elaborate scheme to make me go away.

Or maybe I’ve always been like this. My grandma just passed away about a year to the day my dad did. I spent most of her funeral and calling hours outside smoking cigarettes with my dad’s childhood best friend. He lamented about his loneliness, depression, how hard the loss of his best friend and parents in rapid succession have been, and how scared he is to die. He’s been divorced a couple times but is only in his 50s. His other frequent complaint is about how much he regrets not having children.

He was the only person at the services I really commiserated with, as terrible as it sounds. We drove to the cemetery together so we could smoke more. It was kind of just an excuse to talk to him more because it was weirdly comforting. I strangely enjoyed being the black sheep, puffing away while distant family members remarked they didn’t know I even smoked.

Some part of my brain started contemplating a Ghost World scenario in which I hooked up with this lonely father figure archetype. I’ve never wanted kids, but I figured he must need to date a much younger woman to fulfill his hopes of having one. Probably connected to all this is the fact that I’ve been drinking way too much and making other reckless choices. And yes, I am in therapy.

Met up with a school friend yesterday for a walk. We used to be super close and go climbing/ gym together multiple times a week, but see each other less often now since I’ve been busy with uni

He used to actually be really popular back in secondary school. Had no problem getting girls, was in all the sports teams, etc. But after school he kind of just did nothing with his life. It’s been three years since we graduated and he kind of just stays home all day doing nothing. He never went to uni, never got a part time job, never did any sort of training. He kind of just coasts through life. He’s stopped going to the gym now too and is very obviously depressed.

I don’t know, I feel really bad, I want to help him but I feel lost. At the rate he’s going he’s gonna slowly get more and more isolated as his friends move forward in life and it becomes less acceptable to be a NEET

It’s strange seeing someone you used to spend so much time with become so withdrawn. I don’t want to sound judgemental because I genuinely care about him, but it’s sad watching someone slowly disengage from life and not knowing what you can actually do about it.

having a friend over tonight and recovering from a horrible depressive episode yesterday (aided and abetted by the latest Phoebe Bridgers record and the Cameron Winter live album). please suggest films to watch while shitfaced that will make us laugh

i look 100x better in real cameras. huge confidence booster.