Ok I need to tell someone this but didn’t know who so I might just use Reddit for this. my mom is from Jalisco and my abuela never learned english, and my whole life I understood her fine but always answered in english like an idiot. every call was her talking, me going "si abuela si" and then handing the phone back to my mom lol.

Like 3 months ago I got tired of it and actually started trying. tutor once a week, a lot of listening, and reading on this app Unedo in the mornings bc it's short stuff about mexico and not "el niño come manzana"

Anyway two weeks ago I read something about Juan Gabriel and remembered she used to blast his records every sunday when I was little. so today she calls and instead of passing the phone I just asked her about him. in spanish. my heart was pounding.

She went quiet for a sec and then she just started TALKING. seeing him live in Guadalajara in the 80s, my abuelo, songs I had no idea she loved. I didn't get every word but I kept up and asked stuff and made her laugh once with my horrible accent. 20 minutes. no english at all !

right before she hung up she said "ahora si eres mi nieta completa" and I'm not crying you're crying.

Anyway, if you're a heritage speaker who thinks it's too late or too embarrassing to start, it's not. they've been waiting for us to try! Would love to hear if anyone here had a similar experience :))

Natural selection tbh. But how could I let this happen..
I am currently in China staring at my suitcase. Don't know where to go next with less than 400 USD in my bank account.

I mean how could i let this happen. I am hard-working.
I am familiar with every design tool out there. seo web design ran ads optimised funnels.. All web-related stuff. I was too loyal to wanting to build my own thing and I was good at it.. till I had that business stripped away from me because I trusted the wrong people. I am writing this with tears in my eyes not knowing where to sleep tonight. I spent my last money bidding on Upwork jobs.

I don't know where my next dollar gonna come from and as I started applying for online jobs it was too late. I am angry with myself. And have literally no place to turn to. No family. Nothing. I don't mind being hungry I just don't wanna go to jail. For overstaying in a foreign country. And even if I make it home.. I don't know anyone there. I am so territied and angry with myself

She has no idea i was ready ro leave it all and she just randomly wanted a hug.. she dont know she saved my life rn and ill never tell her..

What it says on the tin.

He looks like Henry Cavill and 90s Brendan Fraser's distant cousin and I straight up fucking drool when I kiss him sometimes. Idk if that's more or less embarrassing than the time the five white claws and two brain cells in my body joined forces to inquire if I'd made him in a computer "Weird Science style" (our third date)

I'm sure you're thinking: "she's probably a teenager they're a new couple it'll level out" WRONG. He's 41 and we've lived together for a year which only made things worse. Daily life is a warzone on my sanity. Showering together is an occupational hazard in that I actively have to avoid getting a concussion from collapsing because he looks like he was carved out of marble in the renaissance or some shit. Every single time he takes his clothes off my jaw is dropping like the nasdaq. Straight to the floor on some wylie coyote business. And he regularly works out at home so I have to watch him lift weights sweaty and shirtless as if it's just fucking normal to have the cast of Pumping Iron in my house. Then I have to attempt to sleep next to him when he's the source material for those crazy hentai body pillows; hard and soft in all the right places it's actually insane, every night I'm ironically like that stupid neuron activation monkey meme.

Seeing his yearbook was truly illuminating. Apparently the path to the pinnacle of human aesthetic beauty involves a Weird Al phase and being president of the DDR club in high school. If the church saw what puberty did to this man he'd be burned as a witch in the 15th century.

Yeah yeah my steak too juicy my lobster too buttery. Y'all think you want a hot boyfriend but this shit is not for the weak. You'd think being this hot he'd at least have the decency to be dumb. WRONG. He's the softest, kindest and most intelligent person I've ever met zero hyperbole. Like valedictorian $$$$$ grant winner type intelligent. He's also fucking hilarious. When we first met I just assumed he was married or gay because nothing else made logical sense.

I am in the plot of a romance novel and I have to switch to manual breathing by breakfast daily. My vibrator should unionize from the work he puts us through, my search history has me asking if it's possible for love to be your fetish because every time I think about him I get a boner. I'm literally in my 30s.

While I was in class doing my work casually and I started to get a boner. I wanted to cover it up by putting it in my wasteband but, I put it their and it wasn’t behind my shirt. The kid sitting next to me saw it and instantly said “YO!!!” I looked down with pure embarrassment and instantly turned completely red. I told him not to tell anybody and he pretended like he didn’t’t see anything. What do I do?

basically what the title says. she asked me to come over to her dorm to “study”. I didn’t expect anything to happen because there were times where we actually studied together after class but this time was just different. we were always a little flirty but it was subtle, nothing crazy, so this was a little unexpected.

okay so the real confession is, I’m currently in a talking stage and I don’t know if i should tell her that this happened or not.

I was out at an after hours club dancing with my husband when a girl approached him and told him that she wanted to f*** him so bad and I’m literally standing right in front of him. Her friend tells her to leave us both alone and that we are married and she seems upset but still persistent. She follows us around the club every time we move we see her from the corner of our eye trying to dance provocatively while staring at my husband. We both felt extremely uncomfortable and decided to leave.

Anyone who thinks doing this is disgusting and I honestly wish we would have told her something at that moment, but I’m not a very confrontational person. It was giving I think I look better than you so I should have him. I’m not an ugly girl, not that if I were that would make it okay but I’m not. We are also happy together and he wouldn’t leave me for a one night stand, when we literally have an insanely amazing sex life. Ugh I wish I would have told her something, but hopefully her friend did. It seemed like she was trying to keep her away from my husband the whole time too. Don’t ever be that person. You might get punched if you try something like this.

I’m a teenager from the US who is also autistic and one of my biggest hyper fixations has always been geopolitics. Idk why it fascinates me so much but it does. Anyway, obviously I know that Canadians kinda hate Americans now and I understand why. But it still makes me sad. I hate it. I just want our countries to be friends again but I don’t have any hope at all for it. I’m having a hard time accepting that I’m gonna have to live in a world where Canadians will never see us as friends again. Sometimes I cry about it. It was an important thing to me as dumb and pathetic as it sounds. No matter how much I try to enjoy my life, this whole tension between the US and Canada won’t get out of my head. I just need someone to give me some perspective or at least help me not feel so miserable about this.

Around a month ago, a friend of mine was severely injured in a car accident. He was t-boned directly from the passenger side, the other car going at least 60MPH.

He suffered internal injuries, as well as severe brain injury resulting in emergency craniotomy as well as several others since then.

I’m at a point in my grief where I just want SOMEONE to bring him up. Someone to share his memory with and understand how I feel.

I knew him through my cousin, who is now his ex girlfriend. She cares, but doesn’t want to know anything about the accident. It feels like I’m the only one still caring about this.

We weren’t super close before the accident, we grew out of contact when he and my cousin broke up, but he got me through a really tough time last year.

It seems like nobody but me and his family even care. I’ve told all my friends about this accident, and while they comforted me in the moment not one has taken the time to ask about how I feel, or even god forbid how he feels. I know this is selfish. The world doesn’t revolve around me. But it hurts having friends that don’t even care to notice the state of grief I’m in.

I work 2 jobs now, and not any of my coworkers have noticed this either. I’ve come to work looking like a shell of myself, crying in the backroom, and they all just turn a blind eye. The only one that cares is my mom.

He’s at a point in recovery where he’s been stable, but the closest to communication he’s gotten to is opening his eyes and making expressions. I feel like I’ve lost all hope.

I just want somebody to care, somebody to understand. I can’t help but grieve him like he’s dead. I know he’s not, but it’s hard to see him like this and even have a sliver of hope that he’ll ever be the same again. He had such a future ahead of him. He was only 19.

I don’t really care what anyone says—words do hurt, and they can traumatize you.

A few years ago, when I was 19, I asked out a guy I knew from college. I said, “Hey, do you want to go on a date with me to this record shop sometime?” He told me, “I’d never date someone who looks like you.”

I respect his preferences and understand that he has the right to have his own type, but I didn’t think he needed to be that mean to me. He could’ve just said, “I’m not interested,” and I would’ve moved on with my life.

But the way he looked at me with disgust while saying, “I’d never date someone who looks like you,” really hurt me. I didn’t deserve to be treated as less than human that day. I'm glad he showed me who he was. I don't want to date someone like that, but now I struggle with cognitive distortions and think that all guys are like him.

After that experience, I tried to move on. When I was 20, I asked out another guy, but I got a similarly rude response. He also looked at me with disgust and said, “No. I’m busy with college.”

I’m still trying to move on from that traumatic experience when I was 19, but I can’t seem to get past it. Sometimes I cry about it because his tone and the way he said, “I’d never date someone who looks like you,” were just so vile. I haven’t asked anyone out in four years. I’ve never been on a date or had a boyfriend, and I’m only 24.

I just wanted to get this off my chest somewhere.

Yes you, the guy that furtively kicked me twice in the nuts during a Sonic Youth concert in Lisbon in 1993. Why?

Im 16 and im tired of acting homphobic when boys are genuinely cute asl I wanna cuddle one to sleep so bad

my dad is getting older, and lately i've been spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to protect him from scammers, 3-4 days ago I got him cloaked numbers and also deleted his info from broker sites and whatever you can think of the man gets calls about everything. fake insurance offers, loans he never applied for, people pretending to be from his bank, you name it. i've explained to him probably a hundred times that he shouldn't answer unknown numbers, especially when someone starts asking personal questions.

he keeps answering and for the longest time, it drove me absolutely insane, i'd hear him talking to some random person on the phone, realize it was another scammer, and immediately tell him to hang up. sometimes i'd get frustrated and ask him how many times we needed to have the same conversation.

he'd usually just laugh it off and say he knew what he was doing but something happened recently that made me look at the whole situation differently, i was sitting in the other room when his phone rang. he answered, and i could hear him having what sounded like a completely normal conversation. asking the person how their day was going, telling them a little about his own, even laughing at something they said.

eventually i realized it was another one of those sales calls.

when he hung up, i asked him why he'd spent so long talking to someone who was obviously trying to sell him something he just shrugged and said, "well, at least somebody called."

i don't think i've ever felt so awful over such a simple sentence, i started thinking about how different his life is now. he doesn't go out nearly as much as he used to. a lot of his old friends aren't around anymore. most days are pretty quiet, and even though i try to spend time with him, i have my own responsibilities and can't always be there.

and now i'm wondering how many of those calls he answers simply because he wants someone to talk to. i've been so focused on keeping him safe that i never really considered how lonely he might be. the worst part is that i know these scammers don't care about him. to them he's just another number on a list, another older person they might be able to manipulate emotionally.

but to him, sometimes it's just another human voice on the other end of the phone and that absolutely destroys me.

i'm still going to do everything i can to protect him. i don't want someone taking advantage of his kindness or his need for conversation.

but i've also realized that blocking numbers and warning him about scams isn't going to fix the bigger problem.

he needs people. real conversations. someone asking how his day went without trying to get something out of him.

i feel guilty thinking about all the times i got annoyed with him for answering those calls. i thought he wasn't listening to me, but maybe i wasn't really listening to him either.

i love my dad more than anything, and the thought of him being so lonely that a stranger trying to scam him can make his day a little better is something i can't get out of my head i guess i'm writing this because i don't know who else to tell.

please check on your parents, especially as they get older. sometimes the things that frustrate us about them are just their way of dealing with something they don't know how to talk about.

22M.

I’m sure everyone relates to parents badgering you about dating and asking “when are we getting grandkids” and so forth. I’m sure the grandkids bit is playful but it still fucks with me heavy because I don’t ever see myself getting the luxury of having a romantic relationship and a family, all because I hate my genitals.

I’m way outside the norm. Don’t think I need to say more than that. As a result I’ve got no confidence with dating women, and no sexual or romantic experience. Every now and then women show interest, but I ofc reject them. I don’t want to waste their time, and I don’t want to risk me getting attached and hurt.

I’m sure you’re wondering “why tf do your parents know?” Well last year when I rejected this girl I really liked (she was like an Amazonian goddess who had all the same interests as me and just clicked really well with) I was completely overwhelmed with suicidal intentions and even planned it and wrote out my suicide note. Instead I burst out in tears and told them everything, hence why I’m still here.

They brought up again the other day, or my dad did anyway, and offered therapy and doctor stuff but it’s so fucking embarrassing. I did get a diagnosis for body dysmorphia but when you’re actually outside the normal range, but not a micropenis, what can a doctor or therapy even do? I see no point.

Yeah bit of a stupid rant but women asking me out and parents asking about dating and kids is just a brutal reminder of what I haven’t got and won’t ever get.

I do need to stop being a fat fuck though but it just seems so pointless. Anyways that was just a little rant thanks for listening.

I hate the "lone wolf", "sigma/alpha male" narratives from social media, mainly because they romanticize isolation. I'm hypocritical in that sense because I did also romanticize isolation and thought I was cool for it.

I would think, wow, I'm disciplined, self-reliant, strong, and i don't rely or care about people, I don't need anyone! I would think, wow, look at those people having fun, but little do they know that I'm out here putting in the work, focusing on myself and not worrying myself about such petty, unproductive things that these soft, spoiled people do!

These people are soft, comfortable, and live in their own little bubble, while I'm out here in the cold by myself doing the real work.. Is what i would think. In a way, I'd see myself as better than people just because of what I did. But look at me. Inside, I've been bitterly lonely for years and have never been closely intimate to anyone nor had any romantic prospects and have been yearning for a deep connection for a long time, crying over it, fussing over it, and feeling like shit over it, and actually feeling inferior to people who did have it.

Social media does similar things. I've seen posts about people romanticizing that kind of solitude, like putting a video of someone having the time of their life with a caption like "how life feels when you're single, have no drama," and blah blah blah, "focusing on yourself", "keep building a foundation for that person". Disappear for six months and work on yourself. Discipline. Self-improvement. Focus. Apparently having no friends is a flex. Being alone is peaceful and empowering. Isolation is turned into an aesthetic.

I'm not absolving myself from this either, because again, I am a hypocrite who's done and have done this recently, where i'd see myself as the solitary main character just going against a cruel world. Walking alone on a beautiful sunset, or doing pull ups in the dead of night in a winter, or walking alone with a full moon hanging over me.

And honestly, the way I am now, looking at the romanticization of solitude and isolation, in works, social media, or by others, I realized that I fucking hate it.

It's fucking stupid because it goes against human nature, and the inherent desire for connection that ALL OF US have. It's dangerous and destructive, and this modern world easily perpetuates it.

As for myself? Sure, I can blame circumstance, but I'm also a huge part in my own suffering. After all, I'm responsible for me and my life.

But finally, as someone who's been wrestling with isolation, lack of affection, intimacy, and deep connection, I can tell you that I've grown to hate the romanticization of solitude and isolation and I'm against the lone wolf archetype that's sold so widely in social media.

I've been that "lone wolf", and I can stand and tell everyone that it's garbage and a nice way to make yourself miserable, regardless of how well-developed all other aspects of your life are.

I've been closer to the likes of a little puppy who wandered too far away rather than a stoic grown wolf.

My family is in shambles. My cousin had SWAT bust his door down and take all of his things, and arrest him in his front yard. hes currently in jail for “obscene communication, obscene posession of material, & public order crimes.” I’ve been told by family that it was CSAM. His story is that he accidentally clicked a link & immediately tried to report it. I’m calling bullshit for obvious reasons but the rest of my family seems to believe him. Can anyone even tell me what those charges mean? This whole thing makes me wanna vom

On Monday night I got a call saying my ex had been involved in an accident, and they needed his family’s phone number. I had not spoken to my ex in a few months, but we were together for 2 years. Shortly after I got a call back, saying he had died.

I immediately booked a flight to California, where I went to his apartment, cleared his belongings, met with family and friends, and said our goodbyes and had a funeral service.

I am absolutely devastated at this loss. He was only 25. I am 23. He was my first true love. However, when I flew to California and accessed his phone, I discovered a lot of darkness about him. He was cheating on me, doing hard drugs, etc etc. It sounds like this crash was on purpose.

Does anyone have any advice for grieving someone you used to love, but also having complicated feelings knowing they did me wrong while they were alive?

I got married about 4 weeks ago now. It was a beautiful day filled with a boat load of emotions. About a week ago, a girlfriend of mine who was at the wedding, mentioned that she didn’t know about European traditions. I asked her what she meant, and she said “I didn’t know it was common practice for the groom and his mother to kiss on the lips”. I was really confused by that, and she then told me that when my husband and his mom were walking down the aisle together, they had kissed on the lips at the end of the pew. I was extremely uncomfortable with this and asked my husband about it.

My husband told me he was extremely taken aback by his mother. He had told me that it was normal walking down the aisle with his mom, and when he was expecting a kiss on the cheek, she kissed him on the mouth. My husband was honestly quite angry at his mom for this because it was unexpected and he was embarrassed by it. He didn’t tell me (or bring it up at all), because he didn’t want it to overshine our day. My husband said it was merely just a peck and he was confused and just went on with the day. I had no idea until a week ago.

I want to state that my MIL is one of the kindest people ever, but when it comes to any situation where there is pressure or anxiety, she overthinks and her brain typically just turns off.

I know it was a millisecond out of a beautiful day, but I am not sure why it’s giving me the ick so much. It’s not like his mother is overbearing or heavily involved in our relationship, but it genuinely just made me uncomfortable knowing that. I’m pretending to just brush it off (because the thought of it makes my husband uncomfortable) but I can’t shake the thought of it. Yuck.

Hi Reddit,

I don’t post much, so I’m sorry if this isn’t formatted correctly. I really just need to vent and hopefully hear from people who have experienced something similar.
When I was 13, my mom suddenly left my dad and me. I’m an only child, and growing up, the three of us were always extremely close. I never saw it coming.

One morning, I woke up to my mom screaming and my dad sobbing. I went downstairs, completely confused, and my mom told me she was “going away” for a while. I had no idea where she was going, when she would be back, or why she was leaving.

My dad completely fell apart. He’s normally a very quiet, reserved person, and seeing him like that was horrible. He cried constantly, barely spoke to anyone, and struggled to function, although he did the best he could to take care of me.

I remember sneaking onto his computer at night because I was desperate to understand what was happening. I found countless emails he had sent my mom, including poems, videos, and messages begging her to come home. There was also a man who frequently came to our house, whom I later learned was a therapist helping my dad through everything.

A couple of months after she left, I was with my mom when she ran into a store and left her phone in the car. I looked through it and discovered messages about another man who had “stolen her heart.” I also found messages between them that sounded similar to the things my dad had been writing to her. That’s when I realized there was someone else.

My mom eventually came home about a year later, and our family went back to some version of normal. But I’ve struggled with what happened ever since.

I’m 23 now, and recently, I accidentally uncovered even more information. I was looking through my mom’s email for a confirmation code when I came across a folder with my dad’s name on it. Curiosity got the best of me, and I started reading emails from the time she was gone.

For the past 10 years, I had believed she was staying with my grandparents during that time. Turns out, she wasn’t. She had been living with another man and was apparently planning to move away with him.

I also found an email from my grandmother confronting my mom about how she could abandon her own daughter. My grandmother was so upset that she told my mom they wouldn’t be on speaking terms for a while.
Finding all of this out as an adult has brought back so many feelings I thought I had moved past.

I tried talking to my mom about what happened a couple of years ago, but she tends to make herself the victim. Her response was essentially that everything is fine now, so there’s no reason to talk about the past.
But that’s the problem. Everything might be fine now, but that doesn’t erase what happened to me when I was 13.

I love my mom, and we have a relationship today, but I still carry so much hurt and confusion. I think about that little girl who woke up one morning and watched her entire family fall apart without understanding why.
Sometimes I feel ridiculous for still being so affected by something that happened 10 years ago, especially when I know other people have experienced much worse. But for some reason, I just can’t seem to let it go.

Has anyone else experienced a parent leaving and then returning? How did you learn to move forward, especially if that parent refuses to acknowledge
how much they hurt you?

I don’t necessarily want to hold onto resentment forever. I just don’t know how to make peace with something I’ve never really gotten closure on.

my arguments with my mom are mostly stupid but i hate that when i try to defend myself she would always kick my hip or hit my head because she's upset at me. when i told her i hated getting hitted by her, she hits me harder and replied that she hits me for a reason. she's the reason why i flinch everytime someone raises their hand on me. she would throw a cup or her slipper at my face and screamed at me as if i dont have any feelings at all.