u/Crafty-Lifeguard4591

I'm dating an arab egyptian woman. I am a westerner. We've been dating 3 months. I haven't felt this strong a connection to someone in ages. But discovered something today about our cultures and I think we might be incompatible.

She expects to to mostly pay for everything, now and in the future. We are both university educated. This came up because we were thinking of doing a small trip and she was shocked that I expected her to pay her own flight. We had a big conversation about finances and basically she told me that she expects me to pay almost everything in the future such as 100% mortage, car payment, and even pay for her trips back to the middle east to visit her parents (which she said would "only" cost $10 000).

I make decent money but basically if I were to do this I would be broke all the time.

She said this is what is expected in her culture. I don't think we are going to continue if she doesn't change her mind (which she probably won't) but what I want to know is if this is really a true thing or I'm getting manipulated.

This is NOT a long distance relationship. She is a resident in my country and lives 10 minutes from me.

I havent figured this out. Sometimes I'm neutral with a nation and my ship doesnt seem to pirate the vessel. if the neutral vessel is bound for one of my ports it won't be pirated, but if not it wilL?

In the heat of the moment, your silos are collapsing to advances, you've been nuked. In the confusion, you nuke the shit out of someone with vaguely the same colour. don't lie. How many times have you done this?

basically near the end of half life 2 it seemed pretty clear to me that the tense conversations breen was having with the advisors was talking about him becoming one.

then later there is a cameo of an advisor. Which I believe to be Breen. I believe the citadel actually makes advisors or has that capacity. Thoughts? It's been years since I've played and I can't give it another go anymore due to some vision issues.

I started lexapro 5mg a few months ago. I'm doing wayy better than I was but also put a lot of other work in. But there's some issues I'm having and not sure if I'll be able to continue lexapro indefinitely. I'll talk to my dr but wanted some other's experience.

-I'm waking up insanely early. Like I wake up at 5:30am and its impossible to go back to quality sleep after. I've dealth with this by going to bed at 10:30pm or even earlier. If I don't sleep well like I can only fall asleep at 1am, I will wake up at 5:30am. I can't sleep in.

-If I don't take lexapro with a substantial meal, I get the shits. I think it causes some kind of upset. (see next point)

-I'm not really sure if lexapro is causing this but I get a surge of anxiety about 2 hrs after taking it. Today I was late taking lexapro by 2hrs and the surge came 2hrs later than usual. Possibly my digestive tract freaking out. it's really hard to tell if that's lexapro or my underlying anxiety though.

Anyone else deal with this? Does switching to taking lexapro at night fix the sleep issues? I feel like its way easier to forget taking meds at night than the morning personally which is why i didnt try a switch yet.

4 years ago I either had a TBI or long covid. Doctors don't know. But now my symptoms present as CFS type. I'm 32m.

I wore tinted glasses for 4 years, now I mostly don't need them. I was on a handful of supplements, now I mostly don't need them or I get weird symptoms if I'm on that many supplements. I could barely walk. Now I can walk twice a day most of the time and be on my feet a lot. I can e-bike, but I can't bike without PEM.

I have issues with overstimulation and PEMing from fluorescent lights particularly. I did neurofeedback and that helped overstimulation a lot but did nothing for PEM. I've done tonnes of physio therapy to improve things like balance. I can be on my feet out and about for 8 hours, which is new, but PEM seems like a 50 50 chance of happening.

Last few months I just couldn't do it anymore and despite being much better than before, had a nervous burnout which I'm mostly recovered from but still having bad days like today.

I've actually been waking up at 7am each day, going to bed around 10, without needing naps most days. which is huge. But I still can't do any decent amount of cardio or intensity exercise without PEM. I haven't dared do a serious workout but anything more than 3 minutes of rowing seems to trigger PEM and lifting any weights above head triggers PEM. Now I have so many more concious, alert hours but I can't do anything with them. Just sort of.. sit around and wait for bedtime or soemthing. Because I can't really play video games or be around people all day. I think.. maybe it's time to start dating again but then I beat myself up, who would want a boyfriend who can't do anything without crashing.

I'm considering Low dose naltrexone but otherwise I'm just lost. I only have the energy for like 2 social things a week. which before felt like a luxury but for some reason now it seems intolerable. Because my life seems kinda close to what it was before but still so far in reality.

The title is a little simplified but allow me to explain.

A Canadian mining company, Sherrit International, operates a joint venture with the Cuban state, where it extracts huge amounts of cobalt and nickel. It is then exported to Canada for refining and sold around the world.

USA recently announced a sanction on this practice. https://sherritt.com/sherritt-provides-further-update-on-activities-in-cuba/

So... how does USA even do this? Why can't Sherritt say screw off and just continue to do what it does, because it all happens outside the USA?

Please no cutesie answers like "Because the USA is a superpower" I get that. I want to know exactly what it does to force people to stop doing what it doesn't like.

Interestingly, it appears that there is some pushback https://www.reuters.com/business/sherritt-halts-plan-dissolve-cuba-nickel-mining-venture-amid-us-sanctions-2026-05-19/

edit: here it is. The US government intimidated a Canadian company somehow into being sold to a friend of the Trump administration.

https://translatingcuba.com/a-former-trump-adviser-negotiates-the-purchase-of-sherritt-and-will-request-permission-to-operate-its-mines-in-cuba/

But all of this is hardly getting reported on. This whole situation is strange

I have a rees harpsicle harp and the mount takes like 3 mins to fiddle with it and get it stored properly. Furthermore it could still easily be knocked over. The rees mount isn't perfect either for various other reasons.

I pick up my harp and play it several times a day and fiddling with the mount every time just won't happen. Problem is I'm just leaving it on the couch or floor and I know I'm playing with fire. I fell asleep after playing it once and almost stepped on it.

What should I do?

Anyone remember an old mod called Rome total realism? The world map was huge and the middle east was way more fleshed out. One of the biggest changes was the auxiliary unit system. As your empire got bigger it got pretty difficult and costly to use your own "faction" units and instead would end up relying a lot on lower to mid tier units

I played the realism mod for the remastered edition but I remember it not really playing very much like the original rome I mod... but I could be wrong. Any thoughts? Is there a remastered mod like this?

edit: i might try it again. Possibly when I played it on remastered it was an earlier version.

I had a head injury a few years ago and driving after partial recovery was iffy. In order to do it completely safely to avoid overwhelm I pretty much limited my driving time to 30 minutes tops in low traffic hours.

I was fully coordinated and safe and stuff but it always felt kinda overwhelming like I couldn't properly filter out unnecessary info and it was exhausting

I also pretty much stopped driving.

Well yesterday I just felt kind of ready? I hadn't been for a drive since months before NFB but now on session 12. And went for a drive. I felt 90% normal. I felt like I could drive to another city if I wanted. I was driving on a 4 lane highway during traffic and was calm and everything felt easy like it used to. I used to drive medium sized trucks for a living btw. And I just felt completely fine... Driving seems.. fun now. Like it used to.

Now I suddenly feel way less nervous about travelling or driving to other cities. I'll take it slow and build up anyway just in case. But maybe I'll be renting a van one day in Iceland :)

Now I'm still just driving alone without music and distractions inside the car. But just regained a big sense of freedom.