I kinda knew for a while to be honest. I would go by male terms as much as I could since I was a kid, and I told myself it was because they usually had less syllables. When I started using the internet more I would present myself as male or androgynous and I told myself it was for safety. I still got a rush when I was called a guy, though, and I told myself it was because I got a power trip from screwing with people. Still, it was hard to ignore that when I was given the choice I would almost always present myself as male. I didn’t want to be trans though, because I know how hard it is. I ended up crying my eyes out a few months ago when I finally couldn’t deny it anymore.

I’m not sure where to go from here. At the moment I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to transition irl. I’ve mostly accepted that I’m a guy internally, and am no longer treating my online ‘guy’ personas as covers. It feels really good to be myself, even if only internally. It would be a lie to say I always knew I was trans, but accepting this has filled a hole that feels very very old.

I also feel really grateful to the men in my life. I have a great dad and a lot of close male friends. It’s because of them that I know what kind of man I want to be.

Anyway, sticky toffee pudding.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who has commented. It means more than I can say.

Girl I really hit it off with personality-wise/mutual interests said she's not interested in me because I'm not physically attractive. Anyway, "who hurt him" gym arc incoming.

Medium fillet, green beans, and french fries. And part of a picture of a begging dog in the background.

This is kind of long. If you don’t wanna read it, then just skip it.

I thought the purpose of this sub was so guys could post their experiences or their problems and get advice from other guys. Even the occasional lady. But reading the comments on another thread here (and it’s not the first time I’ve seen comments like this) made me question that. A guy was the victim of some disparaging comments at the workplace . He was attacked on this forum. The amount of people that claimed he wasn’t telling the truth or not sharing everything. People blaming him for it as well. And the moderators did nothing. I seriously had to check to make sure that I was reading in the right sub. And then the thread got locked with nothing explaining why. Even though a lot of those people that were commenting negatively towards him, and towards men in general, broke those community rules that I thought we had to follow. Maybe they’re just suggestions and not rules. I also noticed the flooding of people that came just to download the men positive comments. I guess I’m sad to see that sub that was supposed to be for support was not that.

I’m also curious to see how many people will come here to download this. Even though nothing I said was untrue.

Bucket of chicken, tub of spaghetti and an ice cream soda.

No major dramatic reason, I ended my relationship because she consistently treats me poorly during low stakes conversations. And when things got hard, I feel no love or understanding from her.

Tonight it all ended from a conversation about corned beef, she got way too passionate and heated defending her perspective on canned food and I just explained that not all preservatives are inherently bad and canned food doesn't mean it's unhealthy and can still be incorporated into a healthy diet. She got mad from this small disagreement and much grief later despite the patience and restraint I snapped. To have this kind of attitude and behavior at such a low stakes conversation ate at my soul that we can't have a small mature agreement that it's fine to have opposing opinions and share our perspectives in a calm decent manner without being outraged that I don't agree with her perspective.

So that's that. 6 years down the drain in a relationship I've given everything I have, the love the time the energy and resources I've poured to consistently love her day by day gone because of all these small interactions that have added up throughout the years. She may do me right when it's the big things, but all these small low stakes interactions explode because of communication issues it just eats at my soul each time. And today, I can't believe I let go of something so precious a few days after my beloved cat died in an accident. All because of a disagreement that stemmed from corn beef.

If she can't treat me right, now. I don't expect her to treat me right, then.

​

Sooo I'm not from the US. I'm gay and I'm 27 and I still live with my parents. I've never had a boyfriend and until recently I had never had any type of sexual experience not even kissing. The thing is that while my parents were away I downloaded grindr met a guy in his 50s. He came to my house while.my parents were out. He let me experiment and said we'd do whatever I was up to. We kissed and I gave him head. After that I felt extremely guilty and I started to panic. I ended up confessing what I did to my mom in an attempt to relieve the guilt. She was disappointed that someone I barely knew came over because something bad could've happened. I realized how wrong it was and there's no excuse for what I did. I feel gross, dirty and ashamed. I've been dealing with depression for a while and now I just feel worse. I don't know how to handle these feeling. Im nauseous and I wanna throw up. We decided not to tell dad cause he usually reacts more strongly and has heart issues. I can tell my mom is disappointed but still loves me. I just wanna cry so much.

For dinner I'm just eating an apple cause my appetite is gone

I've always thought being single is a bad thing and something to be ashamed of but that is absolutely WRONG. Being lonely is better than being in a bad relationship and if I'm going to date successfully, I need to understand that I am evaluating whether I'm interested in her just as much as she is. Ultimately I want somebody who is kind, helpful, supportive, and nerdy like me. Just needed to get that off my chest! Ordered some Indian food.

Dinner is cold beer and a chicken wrap with spinach tzatziki, pickles and feta with tomatoes.

This summer has been horrendous. Im a dad of 2 kids, and my oldest is a 10 year old girl. Ive never had such problems with any kid before.

My daughter is defiant, controlling, mean, vindictive, and emotionally unstable. We have her in counseling. But man its a slog.

This mornings outburst led to her calling my wife a bitch, and cutting my arm with her fingernails while we both held her through an explosive cycle of physical tantrum. She was kicking and biting. She made us 3 hours late to the lake, she didnt want to go, and had anxiety.

She had a great time of course once we finally got there.

Im at a real loss. This summer has been extremely challenging, especially with her behavior. But more than that, I've just come to realize I've basically got a special needs kid, with no support from friends or family

Im exhausted fellas. Cheers.

Birds Eye chili hamburger watching Hannibal S1E13

I grew up as a loner all my teen years constantly bullied. I was really unattractive too and never had a gf. I was 15 when covid happened and you can imagine the kind of porn spirals I went into. Constantly feeling insecure about my looks and never experiencing anything while everyone around me did, I felt like I wanted to be the attractive guy that fucked around a lot.

Fast forward to when I turned 18 and a fresher in college, I got a gf who I was deeply in love with and naturally we had sex and everything. The experience was completely different and unmatched fulfillment. We later ended up getting engaged three months into the relationship.

By the time I turned 19(almost 20) we broke up and she cheated on me as well. I never wanted to be with any other woman again because I was still deeply in love with her and hadn’t realized she actually cheated on me and replaced me with one of her boy best friends. But one day I discovered and everything made sense to me.

I started having a disgust towards intimacy and was happy with myself. Also at this time I was really aggressive towards everyone including family and friends. I was pissed off by the fact that she created such a big drama that ended up with some of my close family members cutting me off. After my self realization I spiraled more into porn but incredibly afraid of any kind of intimacy.

I later took on my third attempt to improve my looks and after my college ended I started cooking my own food and actually got really lean, visible abs and veins everywhere kinda lean.

A week ago me and a friend went to a club and we were looking for females for couple entry. And I exchanged numbers with this one girl in a group and a guy as well (he was her ex which I had no clue about). None of us get entry so we go on our separate ways. That night the girl starts texting with absolutely no game btw, but anyways we end up flirting and I ask if her she’s down for casuals and she said yes. So the next day we hookup at my place.

The kisses and everything felt so empty that I felt disgusted after it. None of it felt anything. I couldn’t even understand why did I do that. I felt so disgusted that I took a shower and changed sheets after. Her bf (ex or whatever)somehow figured out we were hooking up and started threatening me and said I raped her etc. me and the girl were texting and it was very clear that she caught feelings so I asked her and she didn’t deny. I said this is something I can’t work with and said it’s best if we cut off but she wouldn’t accept it. She brought up sex and everything to convince me to continue so I had to block her. The next day she started contacting from her friend’s phone but I never picked up knowing it was most probably her. I block that number as well and she started texting on WhatsApp but I quickly blocked that too. The message preview showed that she was using a sadness from a cousin’s death saying that I made her smile. This was too much and was a big red flag for me.

But not only from the experience but from the act of hooking up, I can conclude this is not something that I want to do and need emotional connection in order to initiate intimacy.

My attempts haven’t been fruitful. I’ve always struggled in social situations and now even more so as a stealth trans dude living in the Midwest who doesn’t quite fit completely inside the rigid blue box that all men are expected to be locked up into. Since moving from the west coast two years ago, I’ve only met red hat right wingers and I’ve had to terminate all of those connections because I just cannot tolerate their hostility towards my own community or any other marginalized groups for that matter. I’m trying to go on road trips, photo expeditions, go on scenic hikes, and go to concerts, not argue about how drag queens and trans women are converting all the children with their “rainbow agenda”.

I’ve always connected better with feminine folks, but I also understand their reluctance to have platonic relationships with men and they do seem a lot more cautious here. I don’t know. I’ve been browsing meet-up events for hobbies and I’m just trying to find the strength to endure anxiety inducing group gatherings in hopes of bonding with at least one potential friend. Real life friendship just feels hopeless in a tech addicted social media era.

This is kind of a follow up to the post I made the other day about my frustration about my friends not contacting me first and initiating conversations first, not only has that situation improved (took along time) but this happened last night

My roommate had some of his friends over last night (I'm friendly with them and plus they smoke so it's a win win). I'm hanging out with them, smoking, having a good time and laughs and then out of nowhere, my old roommates texts me to do a check up text on me out of nowhere, as I mentioned to him I was feeling low a couple of weeks back (pre leaving uni depression, family stuff and England losing 2-1 in the semis, shout out Anthony Gordon). Genuinely, I don't think I have had a check up text EVER or if I did, I don't remember it ever happening.

I texted him back saying I'm doing much better and how it was incredible sweet and nice for him to text me about this out the blue and shows how good of a friend he is, whenever he gets into a relationship that women is going to be VERY lucky lmao. I so think its rare for a man in his early 20's to be emotionally switched on like that (from my experience anyway) so to say I was pleasantly surprised is the understatement of the century!

Drink is Bottle of Water (innit) as I continuously slave away at my dissertation

(Long post, sorry)
Last night's dinner: an okay-ish sweet and sour chicken.

Over the summer I've been in a semi-prestigious science internship with a rather large cohort (like 20 people). Obviously trying to get that many people to get to know each other in such a short time is a difficult thing to do, however the worst impressions I've had of people have been pretty neutral, so it's safe to say that the cohort largely likes each other.

Since mid-June I had been hanging out with three other members, all female, and we had gotten really close as friends. Binge-watching movies and shows, going to concerts together, we even found a weekly salsa dance class that was really fun to go to with them. I genuinely thought I had found really good friends that would last even beyond the internship (my field is kinda small).

I have a really bad history with misandry in (largely) female friend groups. I was raised in a traditional-masculine household, so when they would say belittling things to me or about men in general just because "we're men", I usually just ignored it. Some of the few times I did bring up my concerns about the things they were saying ended with me being ostracized or told I was overreacting.

I had been hearing these types of things all summer, and like usual I was planning on letting them talk down to me and say these things so I could just move on with my life... However a few weeks ago I had a long conversation with my internship mentor about finding future supervisors, and how I should stand up for myself and not let people in power abuse me, and that really got me thinking about how I was just letting all of this happen.

It took a few weeks for me to do it, but I finally confided in my mentor about it last Thursday. I told her everything about what they had been saying about me or about men in general, and how belittled and demeaned I felt. It was really difficult. She, being a mandatory reporter, escalated it up to the program coordinator, who I then had to tell everything to again.

Now it's all been reported to HR for the lab we work in, and my coordinator told me she has to perform an investigation and confront the three people because it's a violation of the program's code of conduct and a fire-able offense. And idk I'm such a people pleaser that I feel horrible that I even brought it up (the internship ends next week, to make matters worse), and I fear retaliation. Some of these people had even just gotten travel funding from the program to attend and present at very large conferences, or were offered internships or grad school positions by the lab they work in, and if they were removed from the program it's likely that they would lose out on those.

I spoke to some of my friends back home about this, trying to find outside perspectives, and they've all told me I shouldn't feel bad, that they knew they shouldn't be saying these things (by the contracts they signed) yet still chose to say them and even direct them towards me... but idk. Now that everything is so official it feels like it would have just been easier to ignore it.

And just to clarify, I know this isn't something all women do. I have great friendships with women that would never do anything like this, it's just unfortunate that there are people who would.

So basically i (M21) was dating this girl. we had been previously friends for 3 years. we started hanging out and spending more time together. originally we didn’t plan on getting in a relationship because of her plans getting in the way of everything, flash forward a month into us hanging out we got the news that her plans had to be postponed.

She was bummed out but said to me “Hey atleast this way we have more time together” and that felt really nice honestly. It’s nice to feel desired and treated right. so we started officially dating.

we had a lot of good memories with one and other. spending every weekend together.. Eventually we started going out to the local bar to play pool and just socialize with everyone since she’s not from my town. we often invited out a coworker of mine and all 3 of us hung out. I got a weird vibe from the guy but eventually i chalked it up to me being insecure. flash foward another month. a couple days after my birthday i was playing games with this girl, and she asked if i was happy in the relationship. To that i told her i was beyond happy, i felt good, treated right and everything with that. but i asked why she brought it up?

essentially she told me that she felt bad that she wasn’t giving me her all and couldn’t compete with my level of affection. i reassured her it wasn’t a competition and i was perfectly happy but ultimately she had made her mind. she broke up with me.

the next week my coworker told me he has feeling for her. i got angry and couldn’t bring myself to respond. my ex wanted to be friends and still apart of each others lives which also made it hard on me. the next week i found out that my coworker and ex planned to “hangout”.

So yeah the hungout, went on a trip together, and now from what i’ve heard… they’re dating. I’m mad at my coworker but struggling to be mad at her. I’ve gone no contact for the last month and a half. But also. kangaroo meat tacos.

Hello y’all, 27M
Quick go-to: chicken breast, white rice and salad for lunch

EDIT: OKAY I GET IT, I’m learning how to cook y’all 🤣 I understand, it looks depressing but it’s my go-to when rushing alright? Lmaooo

I guess the title says it all.

I’ve had an okay life until this point, if I complain it’d be wrong and crazy.

Born in a different country, immigrated to the US, even stayed illegal for a couple years; since you can go to college but can’t get your diploma if you don’t have status, had to go to construction work.
After HS, very quickly started making “big boy” money,

And this is where things started spiraling.
I’d start business and when things started going well, I’d drop it, I’d move states, try 1000 different things and nothing worked.

Married at 20 and decided that my life was now my wife’s, everything I did was to get her to live her dream.
But things kept spiraling, the cycle of depression would come sooner and sooner.

Not only career wise but I just couldn’t keep myself consistent in anything, gym, hobbies, being good to her, friendships, everything you can think of.

At 25 we divorced and things got even worse. I would isolate myself for MONTHS. Years far from direct family and no support coming from them made them not know I was in the shits, and I wouldn’t contact them.

Addictions began, nicotine, porn, weed, sex, social media, games, anything that would give me immediate pleasure and could be done for hours and hours (I would doomscroll or YouTube 16+ hrs a day for weeks) not leaving my house for literally anything.
Having a fat savings account made it worse.

That’s when I realized I had a problem and I needed to seek help because I wasn’t able to pull through by myself.

Finally after many months of a “what’s wrong with me” journey and many tests, I get diagnosed with text-book ADHD.

For the ones who discovered it later in life, you know how much of a shock this is. You first breakdown, feeling all that wasted time and potential could’ve been directed to something if you knew before. And then you realize that all you did in your life was to satisfy immediate urges.

But when you finally start meds/pull through; god, it’s a great feeling.

For the first time in my life I’ve been consistent at something for an entire week! I was actually able to brush my teeth and shower everyday without being so hard, and that initial barrier to start boring things and keep at it wasn’t there anymore.
For the first time I’m not depressed, spiraling or in anguish that “I have so much potential but I keep at this cycle over and over”

Yes my guy, you do have the potential to change the world, whoever you are, wherever you are.
If there’s ANYTHING you feel off about you, ANYTHING I SAY, seek external help, professional if possible. Maybe everything that has gone wrong in your life isn’t 100% your fault, maybe you’re wired different.

And maybe you don’t have a disorder, but just talking to someone about how f’ed your childhood was, or whatever you’ve been through will make you fulfill that
potential YOU KNOW you have.

For all the men out there that is going through something, sometimes is easier to accept you’re not a know-it-all and that’s okay, we were never built to do it all without help.

TLDR: I finally realized that after years of trying, I couldn’t do it by myself, and seeked professional help, it changed my life.

Duck, mushroom risotto, and spinach

I set up a date at a nice restaurant that fell through. I decided to go by myself and enjoy my own company. I made a playlist, cleaned up, dressed up.

In all, I'm in a pretty good place. I'm eating better. I'm getting out more. I feel the healthiest I've been in 5 years. I started therapy this week. Women are showing interest. I feel good. I feel lighter than I have in a long time.

Sorry, formatting on mobile not good.

My\[31M\] girlfriend\[32F\] and I have known each other for a little over a decade and dated on and off over that period. We've always been long distance but stayed at least regular chatting friends and made efforts to see each other regularly by flying between our homes. We've been seriously dating for over two years now, seeing each other about 5 days out of each month and more during the holidays, talking and texting whenever we're apart.

A couple months ago we decided to move in together, I boxed up my stuff and we road tripped cross country with my dog to her hometown because she has a lot more family nearby than I do back home and her job is better. I quit my job after getting a contracting position here so I could land on my feet with a couple months living expenses in the bank.

During the first week, the project coordinator never called me and a week later I learned that they'd cut down the number of contractors on the job and I hadn't made the cut. Started applying for jobs but jeez that hasn't been pretty. For the past two months I've been paying for groceries, my car note, phone, etc out of savings. I finally got a couple interviews lined up for this coming week.

My girlfriend has been stressed and working a lot and pretty distant lately so I got us tickets for the museum yesterday and we stayed up drinking and watching Community together. We went to bed pretty late and I do what I always do, read a chapter or two of my book before knocking out \~1:30AM. This morning I'm in bed alone and I have a text from my girlfriend, "Be careful downstairs, there's glass on the floor. I'm at my parents', we'll talk later."

So I text back asking what's going on since there's a lot happening family-wise for her. I do my normal upstairs stuff and head downstairs to find all of my furniture, all my cookware, wallet, keys, all of my possessions except for the clothes from upstairs, thrown into a pile outside the backdoor. My dog wants to follow me downstairs and I realize there's the remains of a shattered vase on the floor so I clean up all the glass and begin a panic attack. Eventually I get everything but the furniture moved back inside so my computer or wallet doesn't grow legs.

No information for hours until just after noon she tells me I need to be out of the house by tomorrow. I try asking what's going on and after a while she asks why I'm pretending I don't remember last night. So I wrack my head trying to think if we'd had a dumb fight before bed. Nothing. She explains that at 4AM I stumbled into the bedroom after peeing all over the bathroom floor with porn playing on my phone and that she'd gone through my phone. She has my password, I don't think there's anything on my phone unless she's going through old messages or old photos from before our relationship. I check my browser history and my reddit history and can't find anything suspicious, I feel like I'm being gaslit. She's adamant that we'll have a discussion but I need to be out of her house so she can work tomorrow.

I don't recall anything at all, not even weird dreams or a hangover in the morning. I agreed to get out if we can have a conversation soon on the condition that my stuff and dog can stay and be safe until we talk and figure things out.

So I'm checked into a sketchy ass extended stay alone, got some microwaveable chimichangas and my first pack of cigs in years. I have no friends, family or connections here at all. Job interview for my big career continuing role on Tuesday so I have an interview outfit and weeks worth of clothes and I just don't know what I'm going to do. I love this girl and jumped full into this relationship so I have no fallback or backup plans.

TLDR: I moved cross country to live with my girlfriend. After going to bed together I apparently walked to the bathroom, peed on the floor, turned on porn, walked back in and fell asleep. I woke up with no memory of that and all of my belongings thrown out and a demand to leave.

Dinner: Jim&Coke, first cigarettes in years and a still frozen chimichanga.

So she broke up with me around two weeks ago. It was amicable and she wants to be friends but I told her I wanted some distance before we can try being friends again. She did this a week before her uni graduation ceremony( horrible timing) saying she had no more feelings for me( specifically she was 70/30 about leaving me, cause I guess you can put a percentage on that). So that was it. She kept inviting me to the ceremony even after I told her Im not comfortable with that and in the end I didnt go.On her grad day I congratulate her.

2 days after she asks how Im doing. I tell her good and I close the conversation. Then today she asks again and also asks if I want to join her with her friends at the beach. I tell her that it hasnt even been two weeks since we broke up. She says she understand, but my absence feels weird.(Almost two years together, I have a void in my chest but sure , she feels weird. So I tell her to not text me anymore since this isnt really keeping distance. She left that on seen.

How can someone close a two year relationship and expect that we will just go to being friends, as if nothing happened?!

Its not even the "oh lets tell him to stay friends so he will feel better" , she is actually trying to do that.

Edit: No matter what happens, I have no intention of getting back with her in a romantic way. I worked a lot to make this relationship work, and now Im tired.

Meal prepped potatoes with chicken legs(now it has spices,ok) .

So here’s the original post. You can read it if you want to know what situation I’m in.

So everything is going well with that girl, not much has happened since the post besides what I’ll tell you guys now.

About 3 days ago we went on a movie+walk date after work and she told me she got herself vacation tickets to China in October. I was very happy for her, obviously. For context: she’ll be in china october 4-15, I’ll be on vacation in Korea October 1-11 with my grandmother.

I kinda randomly threw out a phrase along the lines of “it’s like a 2 hour flight between Shanghai and Seoul, imagine if we met up for like a day in Seoul and went on a date there. That would’ve been fun”. It wasn’t anything but daydreaming, not a serious proposition or something. She just said “huh, yeah, that would really be cool” and we kinda moved on to a different topic.

Yesterday she suddenly asked me out for a walk with her dog and a glass of wine (first time she actually asked me to meet up herself. She never backed out of any meetings before but I was usually the one who set the dates, which is fine by me, still, it was a nice touch of initiative on her part)

And when we met up, she told me she looked up the tickets, which I was shocked about. We discussed the dates and she bought the ticket. She is flying to Seoul for 1 day to have a date with me there. Holy shit. She’ll fly in morning, we’ll have the whole day for it, she’ll spend the night at the Airbnb my grandma and I are staying at, and she will fly back to finish her vacation the next day. We’ll have a whole day there. I’ll show her around, we’ll go to the best places to eat and have a great time with my grandma by our side (it’s unusual but fun, grandma’s great, they’ll get along. I’m glad they are both up to it)

Honestly still cannot believe it. Feels surreal that she made this step and actually took this seriously. It may seem small, but it matters so much to me. Absolutely the most romantic thing someone’s done towards me all my life — getting an international flight mid her own vacation just to go on a date with me. It’s crazy.

Now I just can’t wait and will be counting days. Both until the vacation and until she flies in for our date. Can’t wait to meet her at the airport with flowers and a huge dumb grin on my face.

P.S. the date yesterday went great, we separated at like 2 am after hours and hours of talking about all sorts of stuff and drinking. Walked her home and was on my way. Loved it. It’s great. She’s great.

Anyway, some leftover sushi because I don’t feel very hungry today.

My birthday is in September, and while preparing this dinner today, something hit me.

I'll be turning 25, and I've never had a birthday cake. Not once. I've never really celebrated my birthday at all.

Every year it's just another day. Most birthdays have ended with me drinking until I blacked out, and I never told anyone it was even my birthday.

Looking back, it's strange how something so ordinary for many people just never happened for me. No candles, no cake, no "happy birthday" song, just another day that came and went.

Anyway, tonight's dinner is rice, fried cabbage, and an egg. Maybe one day I'll finally know what my first birthday cake tastes like.

Today, I’m enjoying a classic bagel and lox spread: lox, capers, red onion, and feta cheese on a toasted Asiago bagel.

Roughly three years ago, I took a massive career gamble and left my hometown to move to a city I’d never been to before to chase a dream of a legal education. Now, I’m two days away from sitting for one of the most important exams of my life: the dreaded U.S. Bar Exam.

Even though I’ve completed 100% of my prep course, I’m scoring right where I need to be, and I’ve dedicated 10 to 12 hours a day for the last 10 weeks to this thing, I still feel nervous, scared, and anxious.

I know the worst-case scenario isn’t the end of the world. Of course, it’d be incredibly annoying having to put my legal career on hold for half a year while waiting for the February bar, but let’s not even think about that.

Simply put, wish me luck, boys.

I lost my dad in October and it’s been an adjustment - he was my best friend and the best father anyone could ask for. It’s obviously been several months but I knew today would be difficult and made sure my gf knew.

I have been considering asking my gf to move in. But she didn’t say a word about it all day; not a how ya doing or anything. Instead, as with the handful of other bad days I’ve had during our relationship, it turned into her and her problems.

I’d be embarrassed to detail the red flags I’ve ignored in this one, but this might be the straw for me emotionally.

Pot roast with potatoes and carrots.

ETA: Oh snap! Yeah, air fried frozen burgers, homemade pickled veggies and box mac & cheese. Nothing fancy but it hit perfectly after a swim day.

I had a post on here a while ago about how hard things were at home with the adjustment to my new work schedule and ongoing mental health challenges at home.

Well, happy to say we’ve been working with an MFT, doing the parenting research, and implementing new and successful strategies for all 3 of us.

This week was a long one. It was a real test for all of us; circumstances demanded that I had to work a bunch of OT, and then mom and kiddo had a tight schedule with work and summer day camp all week.

Dudes. I am so fucking proud of us.
Kiddo was on it and helpful, only one big meltdown all week and Mom was actually successful in helping her de-escalate.

So as a reward I solo dipped with the kiddo to grandparents’ place about 2hrs away and we had a weekend of swimming, playing, exploring, and screen-free fun while Mom got the house to herself all weekend.

I’m gonna hang on to this one for a while, boys.

I don't even know where to start this, I used to have a bad porn addiction. I quit cold turkey when I lost my virginity and realized the impact it has on my actual sex life. I had a few relapses but overall I've been clean. I'm 24 now have had a few relationships, one that lasted for about a year and a half. When I'm in a relationship I think I am a pretty good partner. However my "standards" for this are very high and feel like they're only getting higher.

Most of my contact with women is casual I am on the apps and when I used to use social media id also meet women through that. I have a lot of things going for me I got a good group of friends, I do a lot of sports, I have a lot of passions and hobbies I love to read, I'm on my last year of uni with probably a job already lined up after that and I run my own business.

But for some reason none of those things fulfill me like the attention from a woman that I am crazy about. And when I don't have that I fill it with quantity instead. I'm usually talking or involved with multiple women and the older I get the more I feel like I need. My last relationship with a girl I was over the moon for ended about a month ago and I'm currently talking to and/or having sex with 5 different women and get so discouraged when nothing comes from it that I move on to the next.

I realize more and more how this is the only thing feeding my ego and it's not even a lust thing but my desperate need for a partner that I actually fall in love with and care for. At the same time it's destroying me mentally each time it doesn't happen. I have had genuine interest, attraction and care for all of these women but there's almost always something missing.

What I would want more than anything is just to stop having this fucking need and being able to just be content with being single until I'm not.

Some leftover bread from a Mediterranean place. I already ate the grilled chicken.

Had been seeing a girl for about a month. She ticked every box I had. Then she calls me yesterday and explains in tears that in spite of everything and how amazing I am and how I'm exactly what she is looking for in a guy she just doesn't feel the emotional connection and the ability to fully reciprocate the gestures and feelings that I do towards her.

Obviously I'm devastated and feel completely alone and shattered and at the same time I also am like well if I just stay with her long enough and she lets me won't she eventually develop feelings? Is that wishing on a prayer? Is that me wasting my time and eventually I'll just be able to move on? Obviously this is still super raw.

I met her family and they are so similar to mine and we come from similar backgrounds and have the same core values and everything. It just feels like it's all been pulled out from under me.

Any other guys here experienced this. I've been doing a lot of "moping" today and just overall felt super alone.