u/Cougarette99

I’m 44 and I’ve become very socially invisible. Like when I am seated at weddings or family gatherings, I feel almost no one makes an attempt to speak with me, definitely not at length. And when I try to speak I am often ignored.

My friendships have dwindled, and I am not sure if this is the result of age or having small children. Like people see me often focused on my small children (6 and 4) and think I don’t want to have a long conversation or something?

Anyway, I feel pretty isolated. Even when I go out to socialize, it’s hard for me to actually find anyone to talk to. People are cordial but no one really inquires me. No one knows me anymore except for superficially. Wondering if anyone had similar issues and how they resolved it. Also wondering if it’s my age or having small kids. I’m not often out and about socially totally alone, but my social situation tends to be better when I am alone (rather than with my husband). People talk to me more when I am alone.

I don't remember the character names or the book author. The author had great prose. I believe she was a best selling author at the time.

The book was written in a fictionalized historical setting, maybe sort of like the 19th century. the FMC was british, the MMC was from a fictional Atlantis type Island. He was a prince from this island and had come to britain. The FMC was trying to meet him because she suspected her brother somehow became lost on the island as she had not heard from him after a voyage.

The FMC is of noble heritage but she's kind of a country bumpkin or something and knows little of the ways of high society. She stows away on the MMC's ship as he returns to his island kingdom.

The FMC is psychic and uses her psychic powers to draw a tower from her visions which I think eventually allows them to find her brother lost on the MMC's island kingdom. Then they return to britain and MMC asks the FMC to marry him.

Thank you!!!

We discovered our rising first grade 6 year old son had lice over the weekend and treated it with the lice shampoo. After coming it out with the metal comb, we realized that his lice infestation was somewhat significant, so we shaved his head down to a few millimeters of hair.

I know we have to tell his summer camp that he had lice but he is a bit self conscious about it. He used to have longish hair and he had mentioned that his friends at camp like to touch his hair often because those boys have quite short hair. So my concern is that they will want to touch his head, maybe several times, because now it is suddenly shaved down.

Should I tell the camp counselors to look out for kids touching his head in addition to a formal lice notification. I think my son would feel sad if his friends were reminded that he personally had lice which is the reason for his new haircut.

I personally can’t think of a single traditionally feminine hobby that I would invest my time and energy into except for cooking, and even then, my meal prep time does not exceed 40 min.

Things I don’t like- baking, homesteading, keeping farm animals, growing plants and herbs, knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, sewing, early childcare, doing anything for or with a religious community.

Ok but I do like spending my time in the manner of my choosing. Like reading, pursuing a humanities PhD, spending time with the children of mine who are at least elementary school aged.

Like do you have to be spending your time in the traditionally feminine ways to be a tradwife? You can’t just do whatever you want? I like modest fashion. I have children. I have a husband. I feel like the difference between me and a proper tradwife is that tradwives like baking and homesteading instead of the hobbies I am into.

Also, I do like lots of feminine hobbies but they aren’t like typical tradwife hobbies. I’m into Disney princess karaoke, and I can play the piano a bit too so I like to write songs and sing. I used to be into make up, but by now I know what I am doing with my face so I dont look for new and different products. I like romance novels and sketching flowers.

I am a very introverted person with few friends. One of the only people I have been close with over the last decade died about a year ago. Her life and death was such a disturbing story to me that I find difficulty forming any narrative around it.

She had an incredibly bad deck dealt to her. Her parents were abusive drug addicts who engaged in sadistic abuse towards her when she was a young child. She was taken from their custody and placed with a grandmother who despised her and was barely better. The grandmother had custody of my friend and her two half siblings, and she scapegoated and isolated my friend while favoring her half siblings. At 16, my friend was homeless living from shelter to shelter.

Somehow my friend had an impenetrably good heart and moral compass. I have never before or since seen a person from such circumstances emerge from such an upbringing with such incredible good sense. She was born in the 80s to a black father and puerto rican mother living in section 8 in Brooklyn. It was the crack era. But she never touched a drug herself, never got involved with the wrong crowd and made every possible effort to live a better lifestyle than her parents.

She wasn't academically gifted. Despite not having any lucrative talents, she worked so honestly and dilligently. She joined a church and tried to make friends with people who had their lives together. One elderly couple at the church rented out a bedroom in their house to her for very little money. One successful businessperson at the church mentored her so she knew how to graduate HS and get an associates degree in early childhood education at community college. She became an excellent pre school teacher. Another church member introduced her to a very nice man, an accountant, and they got married. She had never had any other boyfriend. Somehow she never got mixed up with the wrong kind of man.

She got married and had a child and when that child was 1, my friend suddenly died in a freak accident. Something no one could have predicted or avoided. It was a sudden and severe blow to the head, but she did not die instantly. She spent her last 5 minutes in extreme pain, vomiting and trying to get up while collapsing again and again until she went unconscious and flatlined before the paramedics could get to her.

Now her child will not remember her. She worked hard and was an inspirational person to many. She used every meager opportunity she was given to the fullest extent. I gave her 1000 dollars once and she used it to self publish a book about her story and ideas to help others like her. She never had any extra money at the time I gave her that. She didn't use it to do anything frivolous or shallow. She used it to work on a project as challenging as publishing a book.

It is for me the story of someone who made no mistakes and still met a terrible end. I spoke to her husband and he said at least he gave her everything he could give that she had hoped for. He bought a house for them, he was an involved father and supportive husband. And I can say, if I gave anyone 1000 dollars just coz, I gave it to the right person. A person who had little time left and had everything stacked against her.

But the whole thing is so sad and disturbing and unjust. It leaves me so bewildered by the world.

I lead a small team (6 people), and all but one are high performers. The one that is not a high performer also isn't really interested in the core capabilities of my group. Unfortunately, her interests lie in areas that are not likely to grow and highly likely to be impacted by AI. For example, she likes content writing, and I do not see more jobs in that area at this firm.

She's been at this firm for 20 years, which is longer than anyone else in my team including myself. She keeps pushing for a promotion, but my boss is not inclined to put her forward for a promotion, and my boss has to do it as I cannot do it myself. Even if I could, I simply do not think she has earned a promotion as there are more junior level people on my team that perform at a higher level than she does. And I could name at least a dozen people outside my team at her level which appear to me more qualified for that promotion.

Over the past couple of years, I have tried to give feedback to her regarding why she is not up for a promotion and give her some pointers of how she could improve, but frankly she is not even close to being promoted and I do not trust that I could give her more responsibility on projects that we absolutely have to deliver on, so I keep giving those to the more junior folks on my team who are more reliable. I have indicated that if she performs really well on certain projects, my boss might be inclined to put her up for a promotion at least next year, but she never seems to do more than the basic requirements for these projects. I wouldn't say she does the bare minimum, but she does only a bit better than that in my view.

At this point, I am trying to encourage her to find a role outside my team. And we have had this discussion, but I feel I am at the point where I can hold on her role for maybe 2 years. There is at least one other very low performer in my boss's group (under her other director) and several people who are at risk for leaving the firm, so I don't think anyone is going to ask me to make cuts very soon, but the next time I am asked, I am expected to offer her job for cutting.

I am not sure how to more directly encourage this employee to find another role and be more proactive about finding it.