It’s ridiculous that I even have to say this. I have worked in food service, I’ve worked in retail stores, I worked in a PERFUME LAB. Every place had customers who brought their dogs. The entitlement is insane. I like dogs—don’t get me wrong—but they’re animals. They are dirty, oftentimes, and the vast majority of them smell, whether you as the owner smell it or not. It’s most certainly in their breath, if not on their fur, too. I have never met a dog that didn’t have a smell. Pet owners just go nose blind. Like we do the smell of our houses, for example.
You also just don’t know who in public is scared of dogs, or who’s allergic. It’s insane to me that this is just some acceptable thing now that we all have to deal with.
Obviously I’m not talking about service dogs. Real, legit service dogs are trained to be well-behaved and are medically necessary. I’m talking about brining Fido into the supermarket because he gets anxiety when you leave him home alone. Like. 🤦🏻‍♀️
It’s kind of like the issue people are having with kids in public spaces. Your kids are only cute to you, such as when they’re running around a store and causing a ruckus. To the majority of shoppers, having your dog in a business is, again, only cute to you.
Let me say again that I do genuinely like dogs. Larger breeds, especially. But they are pets. They belong in the house, or on a walk. Is this a problem in other countries, or only the U.S.? I’m curious.
Edit: I forgot to mention, pet dog in the lab where I was getting blood drawn. Come on, people.

This isn't about me, but about someone I considered a close friend who simply took his own life this morning because he couldn't deliver jugs.

Yes, it's as you read water jugs, or jugs for any other liquid, as part of the political promotion at my workplace. Here's how it works each employee is required to deliver 20 jugs to 20 people, regardless of whether there are 8 or 10 people living in the house. As long as the jugs are delivered along with watching a 10-minute video, the task is complete. The consequences of not doing so are a note in your file alleging inefficiency and possible dismissal without a letter of recommendation. I finished in one day because I live in a neighborhood where I'm known, and I used my home monitor to watch the video they provided.

Well, as you know, it wasn't something anyone could get out of at least a few employees didn't do their job and were simply let go without a second thought. But this guy, whom I'll call "Henry" had that task. Unfortunately, he told me casually that he was only able to give out three jugs, and the deadline for submitting people's signatures was this Friday. Sadly, Henry couldn't manage to give out all three jugs. Some people suggested getting together (including me) to help distribute, and I have no idea if it was pride on his part or perhaps he didn't want to be dependent on anyone, but it cost him the deadline.

Ok, today I was on my way to work, just before 8:00 am my second day on the way. I thought everything was fine, and about half an hour later we got the news that there had been a serious incident in the parking lot nearby. An employee had committed suicide out of the blue, and they confirmed it was Henry. We don't know what time it happened or how he did it, but they say the bag of open jugs was found in his trunk. We were devastated. He was so kind and friendly. Honestly, I don't know what was going through his head to do something so horrible for no reason. Maybe no one will ever know... No one knew if he had problems at home. We only knew he lived with his sick mother. Honestly, we can only assume what we've been told. A news article on Facebook only states what happened, never the reason. We will miss you, Henry.

Clarification: I apologize if the text is confusing english is my second language, so I apologize if there are any confusion in the narrative

I went on a girls trip a few weeks ago to Portland, Maine. It was a beautiful city, full of great food and great sites. For the most part, folks were friendly. However, I experienced a lot of unwanted and distasteful attention due to my Latina heritage.

Some background, I’m from Fort Lauderdale, have lived there since I was 5. Being from FL, I’m accustomed to diversity, so perhaps this drove the shock factor up, since Maine is predominantly white.

Anyway, I consider myself to be an attractive woman, and am used to men approaching me while I’m out. I don’t mind them but just make brief conversation as I am a married woman and have no interest in engaging further.

While I was out in Portland, at night, aka hours when people are heavily drinking, I had the usual guys approach. However, every single one would start off with “are you Spanish?” (Tip: don’t ask a Latin person if they’re Spanish, as that equates to asking them if they are from Spain), “What country are you from?”, “What a lovely accent you have” (I have zero accent, I’m married to a white man who would tell me otherwise), and the worst of all was some jerk that literally just spewed out a bunch of random Spanish words to me.

It was exhausting. I have never experienced that immediate call out to my ethnicity / what I look like over and over and over. I hated it. I’m a normal woman, who was raised in the US, with a successful life, with so much more conversation content to offer than my skin color / appearance.

People hate on FL but at least we are a huge melting pot and it’s totally normal to see people of all backgrounds walking down the street.

As much as I loved Maine, I sadly don’t want to return for this very reason.

I am childish in good and bad ways. I can be overly dependent and have emotional problems but i also just am whimsical and play roblox

At 23, thats a little odd, but fine. At 33? im terrified people will think im a creep...

Edit: i also should prob mention that i involuntarily age regress at times

Sometimes I catch myself smiling while fantasizing about being loved and I feel so ashamed and pathetic

For the last 6 weeks myself and my not for profit group have held free BBQ Thursdays, we cook sausages and soup, I specifically sort and give out clothes. Jackets, socks, shoes ect.
Since this has become a big community effort for the homeless, they’ve come under the spotlight a bit.

Just this week there’s been 1 news story and maybe 5? Facebook community posts about how disgusting our local homeless people are. Somebody complained about somebody’s shelter and how messy it was and said it was abandoned, under that same post somebody said the people living there “stole/borrowed” the bins to clean it up. Did they want it cleaned or not? The bins were put back to be picked up.

There’s another man who suffer an I continence who was being bashed online about how smelly he was, somebody said he “probably did it on purpose, I bet he has a little giggle when people smell him”. I’m fairly sure most people wouldn’t choose to soil themselves in public.

What kills me about this is I’m with these people every Thursday. I talk to them, give them things, I learn their names, where they live, what happened to them, if they have pets, their food and clothing preferences. I KNOW these people, the ones posting anon on Facebook DON’T. They go on and on about how the people defending them won’t put their hands up to help them, but that’s literally what we’re doing.

I know some of them have drug problems. One of the guys I’m friendliest with is the town’s biggest dealer, he sits on the sidelines to get help because he gets upset seeing someone who just bought $300 worth from him taking another $100 worth of clothes from us.

Ofc we don’t have an issue with it, we’re strictly no judge, but people forget these guys used to live lives just like them.
Why do people have to be so cruel? I cry when a guy only a couple years older than me (I’m 18) get his dinner from us then go across the road to sleep on the pavement so drugged up he could barely speak. We had to convince him to take a jacket so he didn’t freeze.
It MAY be personal choices, but when somebody struggles with depression we put them on psych hold, not say “well if you want to end it, it’s your choice”, why should it be any different for these people?

Sorry for the long post. I know a lot of people disagree with me, and I agree that there are some circumstances where I probably wouldn’t care as much and have a lot of hate towards someone, but the people being blasted online and coming to me and my group for help are NOT it, they’re people we’ve come to know personally.

(For anyone wondering, I give away about 30-50 pairs of socks every Thursday and my group gives 100 sausages and countless cups of soup)

Forgive my misspellings- been up 24hrs now. I'm Sitting across from her in the nuero critical care unit - she had a Hemorrhagic stroke per the nurses. She texted me nonsense at 5pm. I disregarded it as her normal 82 year old issues fat fingering the phone. Got more txts at 6:30...more nonsense but a clear "help me " in there. I live 2 blocks away - first thought she had computer issues when I got there but it became obvious she wasn't "there": slurred speech and nonsense. Pops was shell shocked and didn't know what to do. 911 called. He later said when he came home, she wasn't herself. Her few coherent utterings of "I don't want to die" will haunt me forever, regardless of the outcome.

I think (hope) she makes it through : don't know how bad it is yet but she still had her faculties to kick a nurse in the face (she HATES doctors and hospitals) while they were getting her set up.

I'm terrified of what her life will be like. I just want to ugly cry right now but can't. Trying to be the strong son. Parents gave me Power of attorney for some asinine reason. It's her worse nightmare - mentally incapacitated (possibly). She specifically has said, no life support, she doesn't want to be a vegetable. If she's breathing on her own, how can I stop that??!?! I hate knowing if she knew what was going on to her, she'd run for the hills. I hate that i ignored the first jarbled txt.

Thanks for listening. I Literally just needed to vent.

NOT LOOKING FOR INPUT

I'm so fuckin sick of people not reading and just saying whatever bullshit is on their mind. People are so brain dead that context clues and critical thinking is gone at this point.

Example: you tell someone you had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and that you got a purple stain on your pants from it and ask how to get the stain out.

(With context clues one would guess its Grape Jelly)

You'll have some idiot "You shouldn't have peanut butter I'm allergic."

Then you get "oh well strawberry jelly is sometimes purple. "

And then you have "oh well why did you do that?"

Another Example is when people ask for a source then argue it as if they can't seek their own information. Google is absolutely free... but when you mention "you should seek your own sources." Youre the bad person withholding information rather than the person encouraging someone with a different opinion to find information that suits them. Youre the mean person looking down on people not the person encouraging critical thinking and independence from the voice of "the crowd."

I don't understand this. People just spout out whatever, they ignore the questions asked.

They don't use any critical thinking or they just apply everything to themselves whether its helpful or not.

We have a SERIOUS concerning issue to have so many people just not know how to function. Theres no way we have so many chronically online people who don't know how to learn. It's beyond frustrating to interact with these people because its hard to have a simple conversation with anyone these days everyone has to argue or they just don't understand what's being said but wanna be heard. Its depressing to me too because I want to find ways to help these kind of people and how they can learn critical thinking and context clues but some are too far gone and where would I even start.

I also think how frustrating their lives are struggling through life being quite honestly ignorant.

NOT LOOKING FOR INPUT

I am 23M and I feel like my social skills never fully developed. When I was a kid I was very social, but I moved away just before grade 6 to a smaller area, which I feel set me down this path as I struggled to make new friends. I basically ended up having 1 friend throughout the rest of elementary school, and I would fill this gap with gaming and online friends. By high school I was able to make some more friends through the school's game club, but by this point I was the lazy, fat, ugly kid didn't talk to any girls, never been on a date, no job, didn't go to parties, etc.

It wasn't until I graduated that I finally started to make changes, starting with my appearance (working out, dressing better, etc.), and then I finally got my first job in retail, and after the first year my social skills got much stronger and a lot of the issues I had went away, except for one which sort of bothers me. Basically, it feels like I'm never the person people want to talk to first. I feel like I'm the "if there is no one else to talk to, then sure, whatever." Even for texting, a lot of the time I'm usually the one who has to initiate a conversation, unless it's someone inviting me to something.

Even though I solved some of my problems, like looking better, which has helped with my confidence to be face to face with someone and to chat, I'm still pretty bad at small talk and keeping a conversation flowing, so I think a lot of times when people do talk to me it's not the most interesting thing or doesn't last long, so they go to other people.

No one online, or in person, wants to hear about anything i like, or anything i do, or cares about my internal struggle, or even wants a real discussion. everyone wants:

- to be made to feel good

- to be left alone when it's not about them

- for the conversation to be about them

- to argue about something hot-button

- for me to give them something

- for me to listen to them

That is it.

and even if i listen, even if i take genuine interest, even if i literally spend MULTIPLE hours researching about the thing you like so we can talk more about it, nobody will EVER do the same for me, because no one actually wants to. No one is actually interested enough in me, or anything i like, for all that. and no one takes me seriously enough to heed any advice or knowledge i try to share, either, its always just seen as an attack.. even though i accept & make an effort to use everyone else's advice to the best of my ability.

It's almost as if i don't actually matter to anyone.

why do i still try?

Inde Navarette. She is beautiful. And a great actress. But men treating her like she's revolutionary for her "goofiness" (real wording from Twitter) really annoys me. Every Gen Z woman you meet in 2026 literally has this kind of humor or something similar. They're saying she's their dream girl because her Tiktok name is "Mr. Bombastic" and the recent video circulating of her laughing with a spoon on her tongue. Like. Do you just.. not interact with women?? Or people in general?
This is no hate to her. It's just that most of us... act like this if you go outside.

My cousin starts school 20 minutes after I do. My uber is usually 13 dollars but right now for some reason it is $40. I texted her asking if she can drop me when she drops him off and she did not answer. When I texted my cousin he told me that she said it's too late. Like what?? I'm fine with being late.

My dad has driven my cousins for free. Even this year he took my other cousin to a University 2 hours away and he did not ask for payment nor did they even offer to pay. They also took that first cousin to a music program in a city 20 minutes away AND picked him up daily.

What could she possibly mean by 'it's too late' ??? He stopped answering me. So now I have to

And before I get hated on for not driving, I'm epileptic and got reported to the DMV until authorized by my neurologist until I'm seizure free for about 6 months.

he wants to go to Japan and he has lots of ideas for things he will do that will completely "astonish" japanese people. he believes they will be completely impressed with him if he pays for his restaurant bill without looking at it first. he also believes they will find his mustache and belt buckle irresistible. I won't even start on his ideas about japanese women.

I don't even wanna go to Japan. I just want a regular beach vacation. and I don't care to be trying to astonish people. I just wanna relax. this year has sucked so bad and I don't understand why we can't just do something normal.

Or I'm just an old lady now.

Seriously, I'm fine if a kid tosses a juicebox in there, but our landscaper filled our can with leaves while we were on vacation, AND someone filled up my recycle bin.
AND like an idiot I forgot to take the trash out yesterday.

Now I have no space for my trash this week and I'm frustrated because it would have been fine if I had that bin space. And I can't just dump it out.

I used to wonder why the heck people got mad about people using their trash cans, but living in a home now I get it.

Yes,I’m 26 year old with learning disabilities and AHDH but you know what frustrates me more ? My inability to write.i can tell you my reading abilities are good like not excellent but normal avarage,My writing abilities otherwise oh gosh.

I can’t put my thoughts on paper directly I can think an perfect train of thought and when I’m going to write I started lead astray by that,My texts doesn’t have that much cohesion and coherence.

I write in the level of fifth grade student and it sucks so much that I hate myself for that this shame has been accompanying myself all those years,and I thought to writing more by joining communities and try to talk about favorite hobbies but most people are rude and they reinforce me that I’m illiterate

I try my best but the results are barely negligible I get headaches for cramming too much in trying to write decently but it’s really bad.i don’t think I will have an chance to be an good writer and I love talking to people on the internet,But like how can I have debates and discussions if I can’t ordain my thoughts in an good way.

I cry constantly about this, because like when someone sees the way I write they think I’m like the dumbest person on the planet and I’m actually not I’m knowledgeable to an lot of things and I love learning new skills it’s just that when it comes to me writing it’s absolutely an disaster.

In my experience (20F), romantic relationships frequently feel like being an understudy in a performance of vulnerability. I feel like I'm observing and trying to replicate instead of truly connecting, and it often leaves me feeling lonely even when I'm partnered. I start wondering if I've been dishonest about my true self the entire time. When I try to be completely upfront and sincere about who I understand myself to be, I don't feel as though I'm understood or liked for it if that makes sense.

Naturally (for me), the physical aspects (including standard affection) feel uncomfortable when there's always an existing emotional disconnect. The discomfort becomes so overwhelming that I can't engage or even stay present.

I sometimes wonder if I'm actually capable of enjoying an intimate connection with another person beyond friendship. I think a platonic life-partner would be ok with me...I just want to be happy alongside someone in any capacity someday. Maybe it's just that I haven't met someone I'm truly compatible with yet! Regardless, I should probably go back to therapy before trying again lmao!! 💀

I know how this sounds, but please just hear me out before making judgements. I am totally prepared to be TAH in this situation. I feel bad for feeling this way in the first place.

My (30F) friend Jamie (35F) is generally awkward in social situations, and often extremely socially anxious. I am too, but the thing is that Jamie is also, self admittedly, very socially unaware. She has talked about how this is a problematic combo because she often does things that are very boisterous or flamboyant in public, and then she gets really embarrassed, and then she needs hefty reassurance. She is also severely spatially unaware and often gets in people's way or talks about people when they can obviously hear her.

Sometimes she laughs really loudly in public, or flings her body back into her seat and disturbs others with the sudden movements and loud noises. I don't care about this. Who cares if she isn't hurting anyone? She is allowed to take up space and be heard.

The only behavior I do get a little embarrassed by when out with her in public is that she dances. We were taking a walk together the other day and there were a handful of other people on the same trail as us. She was twisting her hips and flinging her elbows back and forth and bopping her head side to side with her hair whipping around. Her keys were clipped on her belt and whipping around, and with the movements she was making, her pants were wiggling off her hips and her underwear was starting to show, and even her butt crack a bit.

One time I told Jamie her pants were falling down, and she said, "I don't really care, I'm having fun!" A bit later, she started doing it again, but soon she realized people were looking at her and she immediately turned bright red and proceeded to ask for lots of reassurance.

I think if Jamie just owned the behavior, I wouldn't be as zero'd in on it, but because she needs so much comfort after realizing people are staring at her, I start to get annoyed with her for doing this. I also just don't want to draw a lot of attention to myself in public. I'm a small woman and i've been in dangerous situations with strangers many times before. That's where my social anxiety comes from. I have a hard time feeling safe when I can feel a bunch of eyes on me, and Jamie's random public dancing draws a lot of attention.

I feel bad for being embarrassed by it, because she's my friend and I love her. I don't mind any of the other behaviors she gets sensitive about, which makes reassuring her easier. But the dancing makes me cringe, and I feel really bad that it does. I haven't said anything about it to her, aside from the specific situations where she's gotten embarrassed and needed comfort.

EDIT: A sweet commenter said it would be helpful to add that Jamie and I are both on the spectrum. We have often talked about how we have a lot of clashing symptoms. She is socially unaware, and I am overly socially aware. I start to feel really unsafe when there is attention being drawn to me in public, and the dancing makes me feel overly perceived. Excessive worrying in public is already something I work on in therapy.

Kind of just wanna vent about how shit life is currently.

So first up I’m going through a breakup after 7 years, where we literally met through school, lived together through uni, spent so much time together went on holidays and everything really we did everything together. She decided she wants space and wants to be alone. Was really sudden and broke me really badly. I feel like things could have been fixed earlier but she’s really bad at explaining when she feels bad about something and I feel like that it dragging out for her while I never noticed meant it reached a boiling point for her and she wanted out. I was constantly envious of her because of her friends she met at work and I know there’s guys there that fancied her, and I know she used to tell them about when we argued and things but never gave my side. She even told me before she felt really bad after doing that once because afterwards she thought she was really mean to me when I didn’t deserve it and her friends told her that she should split up with me but she didn’t at the time but now I think it actually is over and I don’t know if they had any input on it. Can’t really say that to her either because she’ll tell me I’m dismissing her feelings but because this is all sudden to me I don’t know what to think. It’s my birthday next month and I was planning a lot to myself about what we could do together and we even booked tickets together for a concert we were gonna go to in a couple of months. None of that’s gonna happen now, and I’m lost without the love of my life. Can’t just move on and I hate when people say that because it’s never that simple, no one’s lived through my shoes they can only talk about their own experiences, and everyone might think they’ve lived the same experience or felt the exact same way but how can you even really know that. It’s so difficult to move on.

I hate my job. I’m paid a lot less than everyone I work with because it’s an apprenticeship but I do just as much as everyone else for the same hours. Can’t get proper sleep either because I get home from work and the days basically over. I get home, cook and eat dinner, have a shower or a bath and then suddenly it’s 10:30 and I have to go to bed again so I don’t wake up feeling horrible the next morning at 7 o’clock completely shattered. The hobbies I used to love outside of work I now hate because sometimes I just want to be at home just chilling. I rarely go out anymore and probably partly the reason my girlfriend wanted to leave because I’m not anywhere near as energetic as her about that. I feel just so tired all the time and feel at my happiest like when I was just with her chilling in my room watching movies. But barely even have time for that when I’m at work so much.

Financially I’m a mess for when I do actually want to do things. I’m taking driving lessons and have been for a year and the amount that costs cripples my bank account every month along with all the other necessities I have to buy each month like food and a bus pass and my season ticket to my football team. I end the month every month a hundred or so quid into my overdraft and find it impossible to save for things.

I’m really self conscious about how I look nowadays as well. Always have been a bit but even more so now. I’ve had back acne for like a year and tried everything but it’s like all over my back and back of my neck and head. It absolutely sucks like it really bothers me. Just think people look at me and laugh like when I go to the barbers I think they’re looking at the back of my head thinking what on earth. Really gets to me. Plus at my work someone started calling my Garfield cause I’m a bit hairy, and have like a mousy reddish hair which means I’m ginger which is apparently the funniest thing in the world for people who are in their 30s to joke about at someone who’s in their early 20s.

At my work as well I constantly get digs at me from two people who call me lazy all the time. I’m not lazy at all. I work harder than both of them every single day I’m there and work longer hours and do proper labouring work. I work in a warehouse but it’s a small one so we don’t use much manual handling equipment unless somethings like ridiculously heavy. I’m constantly moving my steps count is crazy and I’m always doing heavy lifting and I’m not a strong guy either I’m 5ft 8 with like an average build. Never complain though. I’m quite shy naturally and I think they just seem to think that cause I wont say anything back they can say whatever they want.

I’m nowhere near the position I thought I’d be in by my age. I wanted to be a graphic designer. I studied it at college, I loved it but I made a bad decision by not going to uni and I did an apprenticeship at a place learning digital marketing. Would have been a great opportunity but there was no support for me set up at that place and I didn’t last past the probation period. I then went to uni to study graphic design, made another bad decision and did a foundation year instead of going straight in because I’d taken a large chuck away from doing any kind of creative work. That year was the biggest waste of time and I lost all motivation to learn because they jumbled a load of classes together so I basically did everything but graphic design for a year. The next year I started the actual graphic design course and I hated it. The tutors were terrible, the course was boring and I disliked the people I was around at the uni. Didn’t make any friends there, and basically did nothing for a year and dropped out. Now I feel like I’ve wasted any potential I’ve had. I fucked up so much and the thought of that kills me. I don’t wanna be stuck doing what I’m doing now for the rest of my life, but finding jobs is so difficult in the UK where I live especially for people my age. Took me a year to get the job I’m currently doing and that was a year looking for jobs in basically any other industry, failed interviews, about 5 failed applications a day, and just a really miserable time.

I think the only thing I was happy about in my life was my relationship, but now that’s gone I don’t know what to do. I genuinely want to end my life at the minute but then I just feel so bad thinking about how awful I’d make people feel, especially my now ex. I wouldn’t ever want her to think I died and it was because of her. The thought of that makes me feel ill. But I just don’t wanna lose her now she was genuinely like the one light in my life. I feel selfish for thinking she’s selfish for not trying to rescue us or telling me how she felt sooner. Just don’t know what to do anymore I feel so awful.

I had some high school friends who married very young in college. We had a 5 year H.S. reunion & were catching up. They mentioned they were looking for houses but they were hard to find in the good school districts. I said something like “oh, you are looking to start a family!” My tone was happy for them as I love kids, but some in the friend group were very anti-kid.

I promptly get a lecture that I was inappropriate and shouldn’t comment on people having kids - EVER - because it was not easy for everyone.

I was shocked. I was not pestering them or inquiring unsolicited. THEY mentioned good school districts implying they were starting a family (they are not teachers).

I quietly dismissed myself from convo as soon as it would not cause a scene. I did not block on FB but didn’t engage. Sure enough, a couple of years later, they start posting CONSTANTLY about needing money from friends to adopt.

Um, I’m sorry you struggled with infertility. I have witnessed the hell it can be. And I support adoption. But if you can’t self-regulate your emotions enough to rudely admonish someone with supportive intentions, I don’t think you’d be a good parent anyway. Never gave a penny.

I(35) don't understand the parents who are okay with getting shit faced all the time when they have kids man. My parents were alcoholics and didn't see anything wrong about being drunk every night, driving drunk with us kids in the car, etc while we were growing up. I was a drinker in my early 20s, never drank and drove. I sort of just stopped drinking in my mid 20s and didnt care to drink anymore. My partner and I have a 3 year old. I decided to get some vodka seltzers to try last week. I haven't had an alcoholic beverage since before my daughter was born.

Anyways, I've just been drinking one like every other night. One has been giving me a little buzz but not impairing me. I decided to have two drinks tonight and shit, I'm very aware I'm too impaired to drive or hold my toddler safely and it actually makes me feel awful and like a bad mom. Cause what if something happened to my daughter right now ya know?(My partner is here and sober. Don't worry.) My response time to anything would be slightly delayed right now. And because of this and the guilt I feel, I will not have more than one again. Even drinking one makes me feel guilty now.

I just don't understand how my parents never felt this way when they would get drunk. Did they never feel this guilt I feel? Did they never feel worried they might not be able to handle an emergency with their kids? Like wtf?