Or is it something they don't really mind.
I was serious on the idea of waiting in my entire 20s, then I was working on myself a lot a couple of years and now i'm early 30s and feel its a red flag going forward.
I got a viral vector Covid vaccine maybe 5 years ago now and the topic comes up a lot in Torah circles on Shabbat and I hear a lot of terms like nano-bots, altered DNA, gene therapy, then its they wouldn't let their daughter marry someone who had a vaccine, did I regret it etc.
Idk about all of that, but at the end of the day a good number of people think it was the Mark of the Beast and I feel really dirty after the conversations.
I'm unsure if I made some big sin by getting one or where to go from here.
Just curious if anyone observed the same thing as me as I have no one to ask.
Please don't judge but I am drawn to ladies who fit the average USA 25-40 demographics, + BMI wise as well. I prefer imperfections, challenges and see it as super relatable.
19/20 profiles the apps places in my feed are are bubbly thin extroverts with killer photos and that never has been my thing. Its not insecurity, i'm average bmi, ok shape, high earner, 6' myself, early 30s.
Is this an algorithm thing? Where are the women that fit the average demographics for ladies 25-40?
I'm 34M and I just feel so bad showing up to church these days. 6 out of 7 days of the week I am good... i make really really good money, no longer overweight, and do martial arts and feel good, but during church gathering I have a pit in my stomach that won't go away.
People keep reminding me that i'm single, asking if I have a wife and I have to try to smile.
How do any of you cope?
I studied Silat for a number of months only and while it was fun I was skeptical of effectiveness of a lot of the drills. I am curious on what others think of this art?
In BJJ even a child can quickly perform a takedown on me if I stand still and let it happen. Then thats only the beginning.
In Silat if a student was shorter or weighed less than me they would really struggle to pull a move off even if I stood still and let them step, push, pull and do whatever to manipulate my balance while I held in place.... then the drill would end after the move was performed.
What sparked this post is my recent departure from a small church because I felt the "brotherhood" and friendships wasn't extended to the "little guy". There were side events but only the important people close to leadership were invited. I tried to blame myself and "be the change" but that didn't work.
I have a buddy who was asking me if they did charity or mission events and I answered no ...they just do the teaching and thats it. I felt embarrassed because I watched this guy keeping a silent watchful eye of a homeless man to figure out his situation, get him food, and even witness to him because thats genuinely how he is.
Obviously I don't have a good touch on whats reasonable, so I am curious on what everyone expects out of church. Do you expect events, mission, or even fellowship opportunities outside of church hours as just an average joe?
Or is it mainly to be fed the word and to go back to life as usual?
What triggered the break was due to the unbearable pain of feeling socially isolated despite trying for nearly a year to be a member of the community. I mostly blamed myself because i've been in counseling for years improving. I will be the first to admit I have lots of healing and improvment to do....Church was supposed to be "the place" to heal further but guess I needed to continue heal elsewhere......ended up being gone nearly 4 months.
I started hiking, doubled down on martial arts and BJJ because I know the pressure progression will help with my complex issues. By the end of 3 months I was down 22 lbs to boot.
I then went back to church thinking things could be different as I was feeling a lot less anxiety and more confident/calm now. The result was only one person asked where I had been or what I was up to, but she really seemed to want to know if I had "quit church". I tried to initiate conversations with familiar faces but people clearly had other people they wanted to catch up with. The 2nd week of being back was no fun so I left shortly after icebreakers failed.
I attended a different church last week and experienced more love right at the door than I ever had at my old church. All of the ice breakers and conversation strategies that had failed before suddenly worked and had people shaking my hand happy to talk to me....plus they weren't trying to make excuses to just exit the conversation.
I do think the self improvment helped, but I think anxiety had me really struggling to tell what parts of my perception were real so I couldn't see the easy solution was just to keep rolling the dice until I found home.