u/Acceptable_Section_5

Both my partner and I are late bloomers (late 30s) and this is the first queer relationship for both of us. We've been together for several years now and it's been great!

However, I have trouble integrating with her friends and it's always been kind of an issue for us. The friends are straight women that I don't jive with; they aren't necessarily mean, we just have different interests and personality types. My partner is rather social and likes to invite me to a lot of events with these women, and about 98% of the time these women don't bring their partners. I think it feels more "acceptable" to invite me along because we are all women. My partner also expresses a lot that she wants her friends to know me. These women don't do many things with their partners and some of them are single so it's very typical that I'm the only partner present.

I know some couples always do things together, regardless of gender identity, but I guess I'm having trouble navigating this as a queer woman. I think I'm getting in my head and comparing it too much to heterosexual relationships I've seen where men and women each have their own friend groups separated by gender. I personally don't invite my partner to my friend hang outs because I have more one on one relationships with my friends. I like this level of intimacy and I feel like it would change things if I invited my partner.

Has anyone ever dealt with this? I've been working on drawing boundaries and not hanging out with her friends as much but I know this is hard for her because she feels like her friends will never "know me."

I'm in California (LA County) and applied for both CalFresh and MediCal through the California benefits online portal after I lost my job. I had my interview a week after I applied. During that interview, my caseworker told me they needed a few more paystubs from me, which I uploaded to the site two days later. My case is still set to "pending" and it's now be 30 days since I applied and three weeks since my interview.

Does anyone know if this is just normal or should I try to get through to my caseworker? I requested another interview through the online portal but haven't heard anything back. I'm more nervous about my Medical since I don't want to go too long without insurance. Any advice or experience with this is greatly appreciated!

I get that formatting your resume to be clean and easily readable is important but the thing I don't understand about ATS is how we're being told to re-do our resumes for every job listing so the keywords allow us to "pass" the system. I've heard recruiters say that resumes now just all look the same. So then, what is the point of doing this? To find the person who is best at bypassing ATS rather than who is most qualified for the job? And what is going to stop someone who is unqualified (but good at matching keywords) from just wasting everyone's time once they get to the interview? I genuinely don't understand how it is helpful for anyone involved.