I dunno if I even wanted to go into that subject.
I’m somewhere between women (at least in England) having incredibly stuck-up attitudes and dating apps being enshittified to the point where they’re more like scams.
I legit get no matches apart from Coffee Meets Bagel and OkCupid.
99% of the profiles curated to me for matching on CMB are East or South East Asian women, and this isn’t me not wanting to date Asian women. IDGAF about ethnicity when it comes to partners. I mean I’d rather not be used as the means to a spousal visa by someone who isn’t even in the same continent. I met a previous ex on there, and she just wanted to use me for help learning English.
OkCupid is even worse. I get a lot of matches but it’s all GPS spoofing SE-Asian and African women. Some are legit, many try to lull me into a crypto scam or ask me to Venmo them money for a passport application.
Part of the reason I got into my current hobby (singing, karaoke) was to meet people outside of apps. Apart from someone making out with me once, it’s only otherwise led to gay men hitting on me.
I live in an area completely overtaken by data center construction. The environmental devastation all around me is deeply saddening. Add to that the main purpose is to put people out of work and to make it so people don’t have to think for themselves and it really feels like doomsday or something out of a Stanislaw Lem novel.
Would vandalism help your mental health?
Do you have the ability to relocate? Not everyone can, but it’s worth considering if you have the option.
It would not be easy. This is family land going back over 200 years. There are also aging parents to care for who will never leave. We are still thinking about it though.
I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine the helplessness of watching that happen around you.
Thank you. It is a nightmare.
I guess the people close to me know that losing my cat in January was a way bigger deal for me than I’ve talked about.
Just writing this, thinking about how I miss him, I can feel the emotion building up. 🥴
It’s been a few weeks for me. His ashes just came back yesterday and it’s been hard.
🫂 take this hug from an internet stranger. Also take a look at the other comment I posted, I don’t know if it’ll help you cause its so soon, but I hope it can.
If you haven’t gotten one already, brace for late condolences cards from places like your vet or animal hospital.
Those were hard on us when we got them weeks later.
Photo albums with the “1 year ago…” reminder/notifications and showing photos of the deceased. Hit like a punch straight to the gut.
Damn. I wish you and I were sat together somewhere quiet sharing photos and stories right now.
I lost my sweet void a few years ago, and it still hurts when I think about her, but the pain is much more manageable that it was.
Hang in there friend, it won’t always be this hard.
Thank you.
I may even have more cats in the future, but it’ll never be the same. He meant so much to me, a once in a lifetime connection.
Even when it gets easier I wouldn’t want it to ever feel totally okay that he’s not here. 🥰
You’re welcome, and it sounds like you’re in the right headspace. Each kitty is their own special point in your life, and no kitty can replace another.
If it helps you any, in the last year I got a new void after mine died about 4 years ago this summer. I love my new little void, but I still cry over my former void. The hurt is still there, but bearable… most of the time anyways.
Take care
I feel you
Im sorry. I know how you feel, but I want you to know it gets better. You still miss them but you think of all the happy times, the times when they fetched a toy or meowed in a funny way. You think of how they had a forever home and a good life with you, no matter how long or short.
Drat I think some onion ninjas snuck in while I was writing…
🥰
Thank you.
Its a tough time but not disabling, it’s confusing but mostly I feel the love and the sadness together.
Yeah it’s the combination that really gets you. I’m glad I could help. :3
Maybe you have the space to foster, I funnelled the grief from losing my gorgeous cat, towards caring for sick kittens so they could be adopted.
I love this idea. It makes so much sense.
I suspect and fear the inevitable “foster fail” when I inevitably fall in love again.
Yeah, I had foster fails, I’m looking at their fluffy butts right now. It doesn’t hurt as much to give them back to be adopted, when that feeling is compared to the pain of the grief you feel. And it does feel very nice to funnel that grief into something very positive.
🥰
I’m so sorry. Losing a cat sucks. :(
I don’t think there’s any possibility of a good future. I’m an engineer and have worked in some high fields on some crazy stuff. I’ve watched millions of dollars just disappear in an instant, many times over. All completely unnecessary. This was hardware a decade ago. Now there’s 10x that going into software. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, across the globe, could have been eliminated a long time ago.
Homelessness, hunger, poverty, across the globe, could have been eliminated a long time ago.
My (top-level) comment touches on this. Our species has the capabilities to do immense good, yet we have thoroughly squandered it to satisfy the greed of a few.
My cousin’s been missing for a few years. Does not want to be found. Had mild paranoia as a kid, turned to an artistic career, used cannabis excessively to manage symptoms and workload, and it just excarbated her paranoia. Went off the deep-end, did not attend her dad’s funeral. Reached out to her several times, no contact. We grew up as twins almost.
All the fucking animals are dying and we just keep making everything worse to make a handful of people obscenely wealthy.
Yeah but nothing else matters except the Epstein class getting richer. Because having billions upon billions is not enough for some reason.
It was never about the money, it was just a convenient way to ensure the lower classes got only the absolute minimum of what they needed to be useful, even if it cost them some comfort.
You’re pretty smart for the world’s dumbest man
I may have jumped the gun when I made the username, as I’m actually genuinely disabled.
Me too! Disabled high five!
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When my wife and I were first married, my dad would ask us when we were going to have kids every time he visited.
At first we would tell him we didn’t know. Then after hearing the question a few dozen times, we started saying we decided not to have any kids.
For context, I’m the youngest in my family and he already had three granddaughters from my older brother and sister. My wife is the youngest in her family and her parents had no grandchildren (her oldest brother was killed by a drunk driver, and the other brother was a dickhead and his first wife was too smart to have kids with him). I know it was absolutely torturing her parents to hear us say we weren’t having kids.
We did have kids (three), but we did it on our schedule.
You might decide to have kids someday. You might not.
In your situation, I’d make up a story to explain why there were no kids that would embarrass them into never asking again. Or…if you can pull it off…just start crying and run off.
“I think one of us might be sterile or something. I keep peeing in her butt like they told me at school and she’s still not pregnant.”
I try not to. It’s so easy to allow myself to reflect on the fucking horrors of the world, but I know it doesn’t do any good.
I think one of the general things that gets me down is the absence of genuine truth in the media and in government. In some parts of the world bribery, corruption and greed are commonplace, but we were brought up in the West to believe that as a society we’re somehow more noble and honest. That there’s accountability and due process and controls in place that stop cronyism, and that the law is there to protect us from harm and injustice.
Of course, you just have to scratch the surface to see that it’s all a lie - it’s always been about money, greed and self-interest at the top, and so it remains.
So you got married when you were 20 and he was 40? Is that normal?
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My area has so many endemic and/or threatened invertebrates, and who knows how many have gone extinct. But no one cares. The land is clear cut and treated like shit while streams are dumping grounds. I wonder how much longer until it is all sterile.
A college I teach for part time posted a full time gig in the department.
I fit every requirement perfectly and then some. I’ve been given a perfect rating on every evaluation I’ve ever had here from both admin and students. My classes tend to fill first because I’m known to be a better teacher than most.
My application was ignored. The job went to someone with an MA in our field (I have a PhD) who has been managing the student success center for the college. She took a pay cut for the role because she wants to go back to teaching.
Cynical take: They passed on you because they don’t have to pay an MA as much as a PhD. Always about the money…
It’s more that the committee seems to have decided to hire their less qualified friend, but I’d bet money factors in too.
One is the reason, and one is the rationalization.
I feel that one in my soul, as a fellow part time academic with good teaching evals. Our hiring system sucks and people less qualified get in for no good reason, typically.
My cope is knowing I still would be devaluing my time with that role and that my free time not having to do a full course load (+ attend faculty meetings, advise students, etc) is still valuable, to my family and to myself. I’m still bitter about the jobs I don’t get, but my partner got promoted in large part because I could support them so I guess that’s the way things panned out.
I have an awesome job at a telescope. I love it. It’s an industrial jobs and I get to work in a range of things from moving giant machinery with overheads cranes to repairing fiber on light collecting instruments. Last year a telescope operator quit and they created a temporary assignment because it would be too expensive for me to fill in at my hourly rate (though it’s already in my job duties), effectively to move me to salary. Management and university HR determined a salary and implemented it effective immediately without any good faith offer. By the time I realized how bad the salary was and complained about it, I lost 214 hours of overtime and $7500 dollars. I continued working the telescope operator position as hourly for the next few months until they assigned someone else (who doesn’t have the job duties). Their explanation? “We though you agreed” and “you worked an exempt job”. Terrible explanations for how this was legal. I’ve been borderline tolerating it but this week I left the telescope balling with tears in my eyes and crying because I can’t tolerate it anymore and likely won’t return to work because they have destroyed all my trust in management and the university. Such a small amount of money for them but a huge amount for me.
Depending on your location and labor laws, you need to go after them for stolen/lost wages. “We thought you agreed” is no excuse for wage theft and if thats not in writing and you have the time sheets for it, you may have a case if you have records.
If its in MA (just a guess because its a higher-ed job), their wage theft laws have teeth to the point I would have a new job lined up while you work with your lawyer.
Talk to a lawyer, do NOT let this go. They owe you money, and it’s likely you will collect more than you were owed.
It’s a college, they’re smart, they knew they were screwing you. Don’t let them get away with it.
I don’t sincerely believe that life can ever be good again.
Completely understandable, considering everything going on, right now. My only argument against that thought, when it crosses my mind, is that’s genuinely how they want you to feel. The bombardment in media of devastating stuff, is planned manipulation, designed to get you to give up hope you can ever resist, and if they make you miserable, they know you’re more compliant. I won’t give them what they want. I will find hope, I will find new ways to enjoy the space I have, regardless of how small they make it. It’s a hard slog, right now.
For me, it’s a mix of all that (global society and the planet) but also some really difficult health conditions that can only stay the same or get worse.
I do fine day to day, for the most part, because I focus on doing what I can and finding joy where I can. But it doesn’t ultimately make things better for me.
My parents did way more damage than any propaganda machine in breaking me. It’s always your own family determining your own fate.
But as soon as I try to change anything, there comes the emotional blackmail.
Oh, I’m right there with you, my friend. Emotional immaturity can and does absolutely make personal growth relfection or change, almost impossible. And a hugely toxic and damaging childhood, for any kids involved.
I’m old now, and I’m going to therapy to try and fix some of the deep deep damage, still there. It’s had a hand in messing up everything in my life, it’s frustrating! The most frustrating thing is, it’s built into the foundations, so you don’t see it till it pops up in terrible ways. It’s like playing whack a mole with a soul infecting virus. I’m focusing really hard on breaking generational traumas being passed down, because they’re like that because their needs weren’t met, also. My biggest fear is becoming them.
It can be but the Epstein class would have to go
I have two adult children who I haven’t spoken to for almost eight years and, last I heard, want nothing to do with me.
The situation is complex, and I’m not completely innocent. From their perspective I’m a dogshit person and they’re better off without me in their lives. There are aspects of the situation they don’t know about, specifically the domestic abuse that I suffered at the hands of their mother, which she was very careful not to do in their presence. So all they know is how they saw me behaving, which was often pretty terrible, and whatever she’s told them, which I know isn’t the whole truth. It’s maddening how completely unfair the situation is but I’m hard pressed to think of a way to better it.
I check in on their social media every now and then. They seem happy. I don’t attempt to message them. I just go about my day with this quiet sadness in the background.
Damn I’m sorry
I had a falling out with all my friends in June 2024. Since then I have only seen my wife and family, and the loneliness is pretty hard at times.
I also recently had an MRI and learned that the tumour in my chest is now necrotic and growing, which I am not particularly excited about. In my imagination, I’m either going to die or lose the use of my left hand.
Wow, I am so terribly sorry to hear that. Thank you for being brave enough to share this here. Please remember that there’s always support around on Lemmy if you look for it or want to talk about any of that, I can’t imagine how difficult and scary it must be to go through, especially after a falling out like that too. I hope that things will get better for you.
It probably doesn’t mean much coming from an internet stranger, but I hope that you’re able to overcome that tumour. <3
My parents are getting older and I just want to be a part of their life. I always pictured happy family get togethers when I was young. Ever since I got married my parents keep thinking everything my wife or her parents do is some weird political game and have up until this week tried to cut us out of their lives. This week he literally told me he doesn’t want to be a part of my life anymore.
I’m sad that I’m not even hartbroken anymore. I’m not done trying with them, I hope I never am, but I am taking a break from feeling anything about it.
That sounds extremely difficult, sorry you’re dealing with that. I’d imagine at that age more parents would realize that their time on earth is getting shorter and to spend as much precious time with their own children as possible. It’s unfortunate they don’t sound very supportive of your marriage. I hope you are able to at least enjoy the company of your wife’s parents when you have the opportunity. Stay with the circle that supports you and values your presence.
After years of writing many dozens of job applications, and many grueling interviews, some of them in other countries, at long last I’ve scored my dream job, in my dream city.
Several months into this, my partner at the time fell seriously ill, and I had to go job-hunting and eventually uproot again, just to take care of her. All dreams of moving in together, into one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and live there until death do us part were gone.
Not to mention that I went from having the greatest boss you could ever imagine to the worst I’ve ever had, by far.
And it was all for nothing, as a year later, after she had recovered, the relationship fell apart anyway.
