u/Dapper_Pen_4491

I was waiting for the 8:10pm 91 bus last night (7/4) in Lawrenceville when this dude came up to me and asked to use my phone to call his mom. Said no because I could literally see the bus down the street. He almost immediately got in my face to scream at me and call me a colorful variety of homophobic/transphobic slurs and a series of other derogatory terms commonly used against women. If the bus wasn’t literally right there I’m 99% sure I wouldve gotten stabbed or something. Fortunately it didn’t get physical beyond getting pushed around.

He followed me onto the bus, and then was promptly kicked off for continuing to yell at me (and the driver) from the back while I was sitting in the front. The driver (an absolutely wonderful woman) and an older gentleman made sure I was okay, and I feel bad for not getting their names.

This guy looked between 28 and 35, but was definitely under (and consistently under) the influence of at least once substance so he might be younger. 5’4-5’5, thinning hair, built like a stick, and has what appeared to be a pretty fresh dagger tattoo on the left(?) side of his face. Kept yelling about how we were “in his town” or whatever so I assume someone else is bound to run into him sooner rather than later.

Edit: since I forgot: he’s white, possibly grey midlength hair but I couldn’t tell if it looks like that all the time or if it was particularly gross that day

My previous post is now ~5 months old and almost a year from the actual inciting incident

Short recap: Caught feelings for my strictly friend with benefits after nearly five years of knowing him. Only saw each other about twice a year at most due to traveling for work/school. I have a shit ton of health issues that he's always been very kind about. He passed through the city over the summer, I felt something shift, and didn't know what to do about it because I'm incredibly dense. Actually, we're both incredibly dense, but we are (sort of) together!

I did go to the concert as planned, and left for my workshop trip overseas the day after. We had a great time the few days I was there, with him dragging me outside for "enrichment" when I should've been locked inside to work on my thesis. We did become pretty close over that time. However, I did not actually say something as I had planned; the fear of him not wanting to speak to me afterwards ended up being stronger than I had expected. I would've been totally fine and understanding of a rejection, but for some reason the idea of being shunned socially really stressed me out.

Four days after I left I, on impulse, offered him the last ticket I had to my graduation the following month. He agreed, and we ended up spending graduation weekend together as well. He unfortunately (but somewhat gleefully) had to deal with the typical pre-graduation affairs and some of my family. That, also, led to absolutely no movement to the situation at hand.

On this past Sunday, I got completely smashed at a World Cup viewing party hosted by a few good friends of mine. We had short video game tournaments in between matches, which is when one of my best friends got a little tired of my moping and withheld my tourney round until I sent him a text. Obviously he feels the same and I feel really fucking stupid thinking otherwise. We still live in different cities, and we've been working out the logistics of what we both want and how to proceed with the distance. Unfortunately the distance is about to get much larger; I've accepted placement at a university in the UK to continue my studies for the 26/27 academic year. We only need to go one more year before we can close the gap, but I can tell he's worried about it not working out. I told him that we'll see each other as often as we can while remaining financially responsible, and that will give us the time to figure out what we're going to do next. We're also both a little caught up in what's considered a "typical relationship," but neither of us are typical people, and I'm sure we'll find our own way.

Thank's to everyone who shoved the reality of human connection in my face last time, I did genuinely need that to get this far. I've always struggled with not second-guessing other people's behavior or intentions, and I needed the extra push to let myself be a little more vulnerable and take his words at face value. I'll apologize to him for that at a later date, but right now we need to take one step at a time.

I'm attending UofB in September as an international student. I'm genuinely worried about adequately maintaining my relationship with my partner back home while I'm studying. Obviously there's no perfect way to go about it, but does anybody have any recommendations on making sure we at least don't completely crash and burn while I'm overseas? I was going to have him visit no more than once during the summer for a few days, but I'm also worried about annoying my possible roommates with him being there.

I have always felt terribly lonely my entire life, but I struggle to actually describe how and why it affects me because I don't actually struggle to connect with people at all, I just struggle to maintain the relationship. On a one-off interaction, I can be incredibly charismatic; anything beyond that kind of goes to shit. I'm consistently perceived as a "low maintenance" person, which means I'm (often accidentally) forgotten about pretty consistently. I'll have multiple people come to me with their other friendship problems and then immediately leave me on read for two weeks when I ask to hang out.

I kinda feel bad using autism as a cop-out but at this point I have no idea what else it could be. I consistently have this problem where I will successfully make a "friend," except they think we're way closer than I do, or the other way around. I'm terrible at understanding relationship development.

I recently had a nice, heartfelt conversation with one of the only people I talk to and for some reason that's what triggered me after all this time. I realized that I wouldn't have considered us friends if she didn't bring it up first. Like I definitely thought we were closer than acquaintances, but unsure if we were actually close enough to be friends. The loneliness suddenly felt 100x heavier, to the point where I've been looking at inpatient care just in case I can't handle it myself anymore. My only socialization consists of people who come into work and a singular person I occasionally see when she visits me at said workplace. Even the friend I had the heartfelt conversation with now lives 8+ hours away.

I'm actively going out places; taking classes to meet people, mixers, shows, whatever. It seems impossible for me to make a long-term connection that isn't context-locked.

Going through paperwork as an incoming international student and at some point my birth year in the system got changed from 20XX to 20XY. I know this happened recently because they already verified that my passport matched my application when I accepted the offer like 2 months ago and had to confirm another bit of information. I tried reaching out and was told that they can't change anything due to data protection issues (understandable) but also I need this to be corrected in order to adequately pay my tuition/accommodation and take out my student loans.

So like... exactly how concerned should I be about getting my CAS and visa lol