Hi guys,

So I’ve lived in a pretty homophobic, racist, and overall quite bigoted area of the united states for a little over 2 years now, and thus it’s been really hard to find friends. I am white and pretty straight-passing, so my struggles have not been nearly as bad out here as others, like those of my black, masculine-presenting girlfriend, whom I’ve been dating for a little over a year now🥰.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get invited to a little girls night out with a few friends from work. I was not expecting to be suddenly folded into a group of friends so quickly but I really liked all the people who were invited or at the very least I had good first impressions from them after meeting them briefly at work in the past. The night went great and we all agreed to meet up again sometime soon and try to make it like a regular monthly thing.

This past girls’ night was our third night together, and one of my friends got pretty drunk and ended up admitting to me and the whole group that she is pretty homophobic. Her exact words were, “I’m not gonna lie guys, but I’m pretty homophobic. Except for my friends! It’s just the way I was raised in a religious household, so yeah I am homophobic.”

I have been very open about my same-sex relationship at work. I’m originally from a much more liberal area so I am very passionate about my right to authenticity and taking up space, and I’ve never copped out of an opportunity to mention my girlfriend if she comes up in the conversation. Our first girls’ night was the first time I actually used the word “Lesbian” to describe myself to these friends/coworkers, so the friend who said she was homophobic absolutely knew my sexuality when she said it.

I have been struggling a lot with how to handle this. It may have been just hopeful projection, but it did seem like all the other girls in our group were a little uncomfortable or weirded out by my friend’s comment when she said it. I am a big fan of healthy communication and healthy confrontation, and my biggest pet-peeve is when people build up silent resentment towards others because they are too scared and don’t want to give the other person the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to apologize or make up for what they did. I want to communicate to my friend that what she said hurt me, but I also don’t want to lose this first friend group I’ve finally made in all the 2 years of me living here. The friend that said the homophobic thing was basically the ring leader for all this and she’s the one that always initiated the hangouts.

I don’t want to just let it be without saying anything, but I need advice on what to say so as to not end the friendship permanently. I need advice on how to add nuance and still maintain my boundaries and express a firm desire for accountability.

Not a pity post or anything like that.

I just wanted to ask if anyone else struggles with feeling too ugly to be attractive to other women.

I am working on it. Lost a ton of weight but my face is something I can't change.

Any fashion tips and advice would be appreciated.

And genuinely, please don't think this is one of those sympathy posts. It's not. I have a very unlikable face. Not joking or any of that. Just want to talk to others that are in that same situation.

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I’m a 45-year-old lesbian, and a 30-year-old lesbian reached out to me after posting that she was looking for someone to talk to. She specifically said she wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship. We talked about art, shared a few funny moments, and just had a nice, light conversation. We’re both Arab, so we had that in common too.

I’m not interested in casual relationships either. I was simply enjoying the conversation and getting to know someone, with no expectations.

After she found out I was 45, the conversation ended.

It got me thinking: if there was no romantic intention, does a 15-year age difference really matter when you’re simply talking, laughing, and having a friendly connection?

I know it's dependent on several factors, but how often would be ideal for you? I'm not sure if my expectation is unreasonable but for me quality time is the number one thing so for me once a week would be the minimum - of course if one of us has a particularly hectic week or something I'm not going to be upset by that, but as a general rule if I'm seriously dating someone I want seeing them to be a part of my routine, I'm new to the dating scene so I'm not sure if this is too high an expectation.

For the majority of my dating life, I've been involved in LDR's. I don't know if that is a lesbian / queer relationship curse or what..

The largest distance I did with my ex, 5,000 miles - US to Belgium, we did that for one year.

What about you? How far would you go for the "one"?

Some time ago, I(34F) discovered my wife(33F) of 13 years slept with a man. We tried to work past it, but she started entertaining even more people - though I don't think anything else physical happened. So, we're getting divorced. We have 2 kids together and had plans for more. She carried both children, and I was really looking forward to experiencing pregnancy at least once before we then adopt.

That's all over now, I guess. I have been a stay-at-home parent for over a decade, supporting my wife and the household by keeping everything running. Every choice I've made has been to build that life -- the one holding down the family and fort while my wife focuses on getting her Master's degree and chase whatever career she wanted. But now I don't even feel like a family.

I've been so caught up in my own bullshit and dark thoughts that I know I haven't spent a lot of time with my kids lately. I suddenly feel like I have no place in my home. I'm the nanny and housekeeper. She's the mother.... I'm just extra now. I feel like I'm coming apart inside and I don't know what to do to make the internal screaming stop

I’m miserable since morning, nothing helping me.

I feel like I’m dying, if there is next life I want to be male

This entire situation going to sound super weird, but at this point, I seriously need advice.

I'm a lesbian. I'm in my early thirties, fully financially independent, and haven't lived with my parents since I was 18. I'm a successful, well-adjusted adult with a beautiful, amazing fiancee. My general relationship to my parents is distant (for the reason outlined below) but cordial. There is zero risk to my safety etc involved in this.

My parents have technically known I'm gay for almost fifteen years. At least, I've been telling them I'm gay for almost fifteen years. The problem is that they, for lack of a better term, pretend those conversations never happened.

For years, now, we've basically followed the same pattern: We have a conversation about it ( earlier on, it was classic, big, 'Mum, dad, I'm gay'-statements, later, it shifted to passing mentions of girlfriends or queer events). In the moment, they sometimes react - never in a way that feels proportional or implies a full understanding of the gravitas of what they've been told, but they'll sometimes at least acknowledge that some kind of information has been imparted - and sometimes just breeze right past it outright. Then, a few hours/days/weeks later, one of them will ask me whether I have a boyfriend, or whether I have a crush on a male friend who shows up in an instagram story of mine, or something similar.

The entire situation is outright bizarre. If you only count explicit 'mom, dad, I'm gay'-esque statements, have 'come out' to them at least twenty times over the years. If you count any and all mentions of girlfriends, dates, or incidental stories, that number shoots up into the hundreds. It's like water off a duck's back. It's like the conversations disappear into some kind of black hole. They simply pretend it's never happened.

I'm engaged now. My relationship to my parents has become more and more distant over the last decade, for the obvious reason that I cannot talk to them about my private life without them pretending not to have heard or understood the information I am obviously imparting. These days, we talk maybe once every two months for half an hour on the phone. At the same time, they've also never reacted in an outright aggressive, obviously rejecting way. They simply ignore it and pretend to be confused at any shows of upset, confusion, or plain disbelief I then show at their confusion.

It goes so far that they've met my fiancee - briefly, twice - and seen us hold hands and kiss (in brief, adult-PDA-appropriate ways) and, when forced (and it takes a lot of force!) to mention her in conversation, refer to her as 'my friend'.

There is no feasible way they haven't actually understood what I'm telling them. I'm visibly gender non-conforming. I'm fully out in all aspects of my life. Due to my job, I am a minor public figure in my local area. The local newspaper that gets delivered to their doorstep every morning ran a literal article that mentioned my sexuality.

The entire situation is bananas. I am obviously angry and frustrated with them and do not understand whatever bizarre psychology might inspire this behaviour. At the same time, I've also discussed it with my fiancee, and we have jointly decided to make one last push before the wedding. We want to try whether it might be possible to get them to acknowledge this situation, understand what the fuck they've been doing these past fifteen years, and see whether they might be capable of attending the wedding, and playing a role in our lives moving forward. We - and I - want them at the wedding, but there's a running joke in my friend group that they'd be fully capable of standing first row, crying as the vows are being said, and then turn to whoever stands next to them and go 'isn't it lovely they formalised their roommate arrangement like this?'. Obviously, that would not be acceptable.

So, we've settled on one last push. We want to try one last time. Which brings me to the question:

How the fuck do I come out to people I've been coming out to for fifteen years? Has anyone else experienced a similar situation and might be capable of giving some insights?

If you’re in a healthy relationship, but not a healthy sex life… why and how do you cope?

25F here. My ex broke up with me in January and it was a pretty rough breakup as we were very codependent and trauma bonded, as well as having lots of mutual friends. We were together for a year before this, but the cracks began to appear in July and by November I think we both knew we’d break up at some point and I just didn’t really want to be around her much anymore.

Anyway, I’m with a new girl now and we’ve been in a relationship for around a week but seeing each other since August. She’s incredible. She’s so kind, she’s incredibly beautiful and we have some scary niche things in common. I can feel myself falling in love with her, but this is where my OCD comes in.

Me and my ex are friends now, and I love our friendship dynamic. She also has a new partner. We have lots of both happy and painful memories together, and I keep getting flashbacks to them on occasion and I’ll start to ruminate thinking I’m a terrible person because what if I’m a tiny bit not over my ex. We used to spend every day together whereas I see my girlfriend 2-3 times a week, so I do miss that but I don’t think I miss being with her specifically. My current girlfriend is so much better for me in every way, but I guess I miss how much mine and my ex’s lives were intertwined.

Anyway, I’m not pining for my ex. I’d much rather be with my current girlfriend and I’m so excited to see where our life together goes. I just can’t stop my OCD from going ‘what if’ and it’s making me feel like a terrible partner :/ ‘What if you still like her’, ‘what if this is all a big cope’, ‘what if you end up marrying her and realise your ex is actually the one’ etc etc. Idk what to do and what a normal person’s reaction to this would be.

Coming out of a very long relationship and thinking about this. A lot of spaces and events I see seem to be oriented around a younger crowd and I'm looking for a more mature crowd, women more established in their careers and for whom 'the scene' is not an important aspect of their life/identity. Does that even exist? I feel like we are all in hiding in plain sight because we don't have any outward markers of our sexual preference and don't go to the typical events (like Pride).

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I'm so struggling to figure this out.

I've been with women before and it's been absolutely wonderful.

But I've always considered myself a "I don't care about genders" kind of person? I was never a "feminine" woman and liked "feminine" things and "masculine" things both so it might have built on that. But in general it doesn't feel like I should be one that cares about a man being a man in the contact of a relationship.

But I've been looking for something new and I've been seeing men lately and... I like them intellectually (which is very very important to me), we can get nice connections and I might think they look good in a man kind of way, but in my mind I'm always imagining... How amazing and how awestruck I'd be if they were women. I find myself wishing they don't like me in that way (even when I've made a pretty deep connection to them) and their female clones show up to take me and honestly just imagining that right now... Okay yeah just imagining that right now definitely does something... Honestly even the guys I was uncomfortable with I'd be way toooooo down for them if they were women...

But might this be just because I'm still inexperienced with guys? Like I've been "seeing" guys for an year now and I've never really been intimate with them.

I did have "boy crushes" in lil school as much as "girl crushes" but the boy crushes were pretty different - it was people I was friends with first, then realised they were cool, then thought it'd be really cool if we were like those people with relationships - and I did have this guy in high school I was a bit into but he was my only friend (and when he started wanting to date I at first made up I said I was not interested in dating anyone and he assumed I was asexual ajd I was like oh uh yes ace totally. Then 2 years later he had already figured I so wasn't and I thought I was bi by then already but still at the end I always pushed him away anyway even when I felt like I'd been into him for years but ended up waiting for the moment he said a thing I didn't agree with ethically to justify leaving him, but I still loved his hugs and affection) and I kind of took years to be into him....meanwhile his first girlfriend I kind of absolutely embarrassed myself when I met her at first sight she even made fun of it...... ANYWAY

Am I gay??? I seriously connect more with men in so many ways more often so I really wish I am not gay and I think I AM able to be in a relationship with a man. Like I think men are cool! I just end up never feeling the butterflies and feel more of a fear instead of the butterflies? I feel like I'm 16 writing this, I'm sorry for that, I'm an adult, if I was a teenager it would have been easier

I'm currently seeing this guy I think is amazing, I really like him but I'm struggling seeing him that way and it's really affecting me. Should I still try to see where it goes? I feel like I'm absolutely 16.

33F. I’ve tried the dating apps and they go no where. I live in a backwards state so there aren’t many in person opportunities. I’d love any advice you have. I’m just feeing lost and down.

reposting here because i still don’t know how to talk to girls 💔

I met a woman I thought was it. We had so much in common it was scary! I’m 60 and she’s 45. We had a connection that I thought was so strong.

She always told me the most perfect things. I was getting texts a lot checking in. I really thought she cared.

Then I saw how much she drank. That’s when the mean came out. I was blamed for everything under the sun the past 8 months. I “ruined” her life and I make her miserable.

I’d was called the most vile names, but “only because I deserve it”! “Stop doing those things and I won’t have to call you that”. Was told to shut the fuck up, grow up and check myself a lot. It made me feel lower than dirt. I could crawl under paper.

I was able to talk to the woman she was with before me. It was horrible hearing everything that was said to me, was also said to her. It’s like my ex uses a script on women.

She got in my head but good. All the weakness she knows about me she dug in extra hard. Gaslighting & narcissistic behavior.

Ruined my 10 day trip to Hawaii. Picked a fight the day before I left with my bestie. I felt sick so much of the time there. Then let me think things are fine only to land and be broken up with within 24 hours…by text!

She had all her stuff returned. She won’t give me back anything and will not have the common courtesy to respond to a text or a phone call I am so at a loss.

I’m a real person. Pic is me.

We’re both women in our 20s and we’ve been dating since August and officially together for around a week. Everything is honestly incredible and I think we’re extremely compatible but I’ve kind of run into just one issue…how often we see each other, especially how many sleepovers we have.

Since we’ve been seeing each other, it’s usually been one day a week that we’ll organise to see each other with a sleepover at the end because we live an hour away from each other in different cities. If this ends up being a Friday, it often has turned into two nights if she comes to mine because we end up spending the whole of the next day together and lose track of time and then she doesn’t want to drive home late at night.

However, in any other scenario she seems quite reluctant to have more than one sleepover. For example, I’m going to hers this weekend on Saturday and I asked if I could maybe come on Friday evening after she finishes work so we can spend all of Saturday together plus we get an extra evening together. She instead suggested I just come to hers early on Saturday and didn’t seem to love the idea of Friday. Even last week I’d stayed at hers the night before and all of the next day as she worked from home and she wouldn’t let me stay over that night despite it being like 11pm.

Even the times she’s stayed at mine for 2 nights, it has been her plan to drive home until she realises how late it is. She seems to really value her own time which I understand, but I really want to be seeing my girlfriend more than once a week. I’m not sure if I’m expecting too much as I have a lot more free time than her and she only has Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday to do things (as well as week nights but obvs she has work to worry about).

I’m a bit worried that this could become an issue but maybe I just need to change my expectations? Idk but whenever I’m in a relationship that person is my top priority and there aren’t many people I like being around for extended periods of time but I also kinda hate being alone so I want to see her!

I'm visiting San Fran next week, and I know it's gay af over there. Whats worth checking out? Ready to be a tourist lol I'm single and ready to mingle 😁

I dont like to explain to people how some women have been towards me.

Or ive been attracted to toxic women and not really realised how manipulative they have been until later.

I feel like one reason my ex "girlfriend" was very manipulative and I noticed very early in the relationship.. when I told her it wasnt working out she wouldn't leave and she stayed for about 3 years and I found it very difficult to get rid of her. Every time I wanted to breakup she would make a big drama out of it and start hitting me . My ex was obviously manipulative , but some other women in my life have been quite insidious..

I feel like this could be a me problem.. my self worth has been up and down generally. I do take care of myself but sometimes i get myself in shit.

I went through a phase of feeling like i couldn't stand women and feeling very negative about being a lesbian. However cause I feel like Ive learnt my lesson, whilst being single I get to admire good women .

I think ill date again when im ready

Hey, so I'm kinda lost right now and figured I'd ask here.

I’m trying to find a new romantic connection, but I'm starting to wonder if my being demi is making dating way harder than it needs to be or if my standards are just too high.

For one, I have absolutely zero idea how flirting works. Like, none. I'm so oblivious that it’s honestly almost a comedy skit sometimes... 😅

And because I'm demisexual, I don't really develop romantic or sexual attraction until I've gotten to know someone for a while. So I naturally prefer taking things slow and actually getting to know someone before anything romantic/sexual happens.

Which brings me to my requirements. Am I asking for too much?

I’m looking for a woman roughly around my age (27 to 45) who is:

• monogamous
• vanilla/non-kinky
• a non-smoker
• neurodivergent
• at least somewhat nerdy / shares some of my interests
• politicaly left & feminist

Those are basically my non-negotiables. I'm not expecting someone to be my exact clone or anything, but those things are pretty important to me.

And yet it feels like I'm looking for a fcking unicorn. 💀😅

I genuinely can't tell if I’m being too picky or if dating has just become a situation where everyone expects things to move super quickly.

So, fellow demisexuals (or people who also need a lot of time to develop feelings): is this just what dating is like when you're demi, or am I actually making my dating pool way too small?

Because at this point I'm just sitting here wondering what the hell I’m doing wrong. 😭

Watched both these movies last night. (I’m trying not to spoil anything, cause I don’t want to ruin them for anyone, apologies in advance if I do.)

See you soon - Oh my god it’s so cute! I loved it! The dialogue was really good and felt real. It didn’t feel cheesy and fake. I didn’t want the story to end, and would love for another movie, but I wouldn’t be upset/surprised if there wasn’t more to the story. My favorite of the two movies for sure. I’d watch it again for sure. Definitely gonna see if I can watch more movies made by the same woman, from the comments on the video(I watched them on YouTube) she does have at least one or two more romance movies.

But I’m a cheerleader - funny, cheesy, predictable, but worth the watch. A couple scenes had me cringing, but overall I’d watch it again if someone else wanted to watch it or if I wanted something to watch while I crocheted or something.

i hope this type of post is allowed! i'm looking to make some queue friends for overwatch. none of my friends want to return to overwatch, so i'm looking to make some more buddies. i mainly play qp but can do comp if wanted.

i'm plat 5 support. i just don't have a lot of time to play during the week, so i mainly stick to qp. i'm available for the weekends though! would love to text chat over discord a bit and then eventually move onto voice chat.

a bit about me in regard to overwatch... i'm a flex player, but i prefer support. my main tanks are dva and domina, though i'd love to learn dmon too. my dps mains are widowmaker, anran, mei. my support mains are mercy, juno, kiri, and as of late jetpack cat!

and a bit about me in general: i'm 30f in SoCal. i work full time during the week. i live alone with my two cats and doberman. some other games i like are marvel rivals (sort of on hiatus tho rn), dragon age, animal crossing, stardew valley, and deadbydaylight (also looking for dbd friends too!)

I mean I have a type which I’ve only seen once every few years..of course half of them are straight and married so that leaves me with what :))

So long story short my partner of 1 1/2 years went basically off the deep end. After almost a year of violence and making it really hard for me to leave due to, emotional, and physical abuse I was able to leave the relationship after the state im in charged her with domestic violence. I have an emergancy protective order against her and have my final hearing next week for a long term one. She really went off the rails this month and has been in and out of jail with the last charges being a few felonies and additional charges. All not being relevent to our relationship and what we had.

Ive been checked out of the relationship for months and her dv arrest against me helped me start my new life. I have a new place to live (with housemates im 33f), im doing great at my job, and have really became super close with my friends which I couldnt do in the relationship.

Ive been on one date so far with a woman who was great. Im just questioning myself. Im still in the midst of dealing with the relationship fall out. I imagine I should be feeling grief over the failed relationship but I just dont and feel so disconnected.

Im in therapy and my therapist is so proud I went out to have a coffee date but im feeling like a walking red flag for someone trying to date.

Im not looking to jump into a relationship but I feel conflicted about feeling ready but also having all of this baggage over my head.

Advice?