u/Few_Elephant_648

About four years ago now I had a dental implant placed that resulted in a nerve injury in my lower jaw. The implant was removed and the chronic pain persisted. A year later I had nerve decompression surgery which did not help, and maybe even made it slightly worse.

I’ve since been spinning in circles without any real treatment success. Daily gabapentin reduces the pain a little bit but causes so much drowsiness it interferes with my job. Cymbalta gave me horrible headaches. Lyrica made me feel on edge with no pain relief. The only thing that helped a little bit without terrible side effects was Wellbutrin strangely enough.

This has really impacted my quality of life. I’m seeing a facial pain specialist who tells me I can try another medication called Amitriptyline and to also research an experimental treatment called Pulsed Radiofrequency that is not wildly available but is showing some success for facial pain (and is also super expensive).

Has anyone in a similar situation had success treating their pain?

A few that come to mind for me:

Caterpillar - Weird and sad story about how some people believe changing their eye color will make their life problems go away.

Colonia Dignidad - Very disturbing and real account about how the Germans’ atrocities did not stop after WWII and continued in South America.

Dark Tourist - Follows a journalist who explores very untouched and/or strange destinations around the world.

Investigation Alien - A somewhat serious, unintentionally campy look into some of the longest running alien conspiracy theories. I was throughly entertained and also fell down quite the alien rabbit hole afterwards.

I’ve watched many MJ interviews, including those from Living with Michael Jackson several times as well as as the rebuttal documentary.

On a surface level, it’s obvious he had boundary issues and behaved in strange and inappropriate ways. What I still struggle to comprehend was whether there was conscious, malicious intent behind it or if he genuinely had such a warped view of the world in general that he didn’t see his behavior as wrong.

Watching his interviews with Martin Bashir, he comes off as somebody who is out of touch with reality, emotionally isolated and naive. For example, when pressed with questions about serious abuse allegations, he answers in a very light tone and talks about taking the kids for hot air balloon rides. Was this calculated or does he truly not understand the controversy?

Something else that has always stood out to me is how from a very young age he was being given songs to sing about mature subjects like love. His song “Too Young” feels ironic.

A cousin of mine came out as transgender like 5 years ago. I’ve been very supportive of them and have made every effort to respect their new pronouns and name. Yet our relationship has really deteriorated over the past few years based on various differences in views and lifestyle choices.

For context, I am a gay guy who works in tech. I’m more on the masc side and my gay friends have similar careers. My cousin and I are very close in age.

- One of my financial goals is to invest in real estate. My cousin says private property ownership is wrong, believes landlords are inherently evil, and thinks the government should provide free public housing.

- I went to a big gay pride parade in my city and they chastised me for going to a corporate-sponsored event because that’s not “real pride”. They view working in corporate America in general as evil and do not want to work in an environment where there are any straight men.

- They’ve made repeated comments about me not proactively protesting for different social causes and blame it on me being a “privileged white gay tech bro”.

- Every time I’ve mentioned going to a pride event in my industry they make a negative comment, and say how it’s elitist and mock me for it.

- They’ve made negative comments about two of my best friends being straight females and how I am just an accessory gay best friend to them.

- They’ve made rude comments about my appearance / style and lack of “evolution” as a gay man.

I could go on… But the point is everything I do, especially within the context of the LGBT community, seems to be wrong. It’s really ruined our relationship and I don’t understand where the hostility comes from. Has anyone else dealt with this before?

One of my closest friends is getting married in a couple months and I absolutely want to be there to support him. I know if the tables were turned and I were to get married one day, they would do the same. But I can’t help but feel drained by this whole thing and the wedding hasn’t even happened yet.

It first started with the bachelor trip, which involved a three hour flight to a tropical destination, rather expensive hotel, eating out every night and several group activities. A good $2.5k for that.

The wedding venue is about 2 hours from where we live and he is now recommending that close friends and family spend 2 nights at the venue’s swanky hotel. I will need to take off from work. He is marrying into an affluent Chinese family and there will be some additional events for this smaller group to attend to honor cultural traditions. I need to buy a new tuxedo for the main event as I don’t own one that is the correct color. I now just found out that he would also recommend I buy a traditional Chinese outfit for the other events and can recommend stores to me. I also need to figure out transportation as I live in a city and don’t have a car.

Factoring in the generous gift I will give… my friend getting married is coming with a nice $3.5-4k price tag. The trip was fun and I’m sure everything will be beautiful but I don’t know if I can swing this for every friend.

I’ve been trying to date more seriously and go out with guys who are in a similar mindset of finding a relationship (30M).

These have been my recent dating experiences:

- Went on a date with a guy that was just okay but in the spirit of giving things a chance, I follow up with him after and he doesn’t respond. Ok, whatever.

- Go on another date with a guy who says he’s looking for a long-term relationship. It seems to go really well and we connect on many levels. We text for a few days after and he eventually tells me he wants to be honest he recently came out and is more looking for a FWB scenario. We never meet again.

- Another date with a guy who is really cool, albeit also recently came out and seems a little nervous. Regardless, I enjoy the date and he texts me after saying it was really nice meeting me and we keep texting. A few days later he tells me he’s been thinking more about our date (the one single date we had) and decided he doesn’t feel a romantic connection.

- Go out with this guy who’s super cute and we end up going home together. He just recently moved to the city and it becomes clear he’s actually just looking for “experience”. We never meet again despite a nice night together.

- Another seemingly great date with a cute guy. We make plans afterwards for a second date, which he then has to cancel. I try to re-schedule and he randomly stops responding.

- A couple experiences where I wasn’t feeling it and politely told them if they followed up.

- Lastly, went on a long extended date with someone that included lunch, walking around the park etc. he texts me first after the date saying he had a really fun time. 3 days of texting later and he randomly stops answering for no clear reason.

Please be honest. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal

I was in the market for a relatively inexpensive dresser (<$600) and first found one on Wayfair I liked. What a nightmare.

First, the dresser arrives after the estimated delivery day. Ok, whatever. It’s a big 6 drawer dresser and it comes in one giant box that is already breaking apart at the corners with pieces about to fall out. I lug the extremely heavy and giant thing up to my apartment and open the box. The pieces are all dirty and dusty. The bags of screws broke open and they are scattered in the box. I take the pieces out to check if anything is missing. Several pieces are damaged, with one having a giant gash in it. It’s effectively garbage. I tried to assemble one drawer just for kicks to see if I could hide the imperfections and the screw holes don’t even seem to lineup correctly and the material quality is terrible. I contact Wayfair and they allow me to send it back. Now I have to package this mess back up in an already ripped box and lug it back downstairs. It’s literally breaking apart as I drag it. I do my best with a ton of tape and have it picked up.

I end up seeing a dresser in the IKEA showroom I really like. I decide to buy it. It comes in 3 manageable boxes all in perfect condition. I get home and take all the pieces out. Everything is in perfect condition with screws nicely organized and numbered in bags. I put it together and it looks like a nice high end piece and feels solid and sturdy. You wouldn’t think it’s from IKEA.

TLDR - For the low cost furniture segment, IKEA has this all figured out. Don’t bother with Wayfair.

I recall a time when I was younger where most doctors took the time to get to know their patients and their medical history to try and genuinely help them. There was a sense of comfort seeing a provider that you had a long-standing relationship with and could trust for your healthcare concerns.

Nowadays, I feel like all we have is basically drive-thru healthcare. Everything feels like a quick transaction. The new generation of doctors seem totally disinterested in doing anything above the bare minimum (and in some cases struggle to even do that). They barely even look up from their computer or iPad that has their pre-defined list of questions to ask. Literally anyone can sit there and read questions and record responses. Their office administrations are also totally disorganized and incompetent. I have a hard time remembering an instance in recent memory where I saw doctor and they actually helped diagnose and solve an issue I was having. I’m constantly having to do research myself rather than relying on the expert I’m paying.

I have a chronic medical condition and quite literally the only reason for me to see the doctor is because they need to write a prescription for the medicine I need. They offer me no expertise that I cannot just find online myself. My most recent telehealth appointment I started off by saying “hello how are you?” and they ignored me and just asked “has there been any change in your symptoms?”. Enough said.

I recall a time when I was younger where most doctors took the time to get to know their patients and their medical history to try and genuinely help them. There was a sense of comfort seeing a provider that you had a long-standing relationship with and could trust for your healthcare concerns.

Nowadays, I feel like all we have is basically drive-thru healthcare. Everything feels like a quick transaction. The new generation of doctors seem totally disinterested in doing anything above the bare minimum (and in some cases struggle to even do that). They barely even look up from their computer or iPad that has their pre-defined list of questions to ask. Literally anyone can sit there and read questions and record responses. Their office administrations are also totally disorganized and incompetent. I have a hard time remembering an instance in recent memory where I saw doctor and they actually helped diagnose and solve an issue I was having. I’m constantly having to do research myself rather than relying on the expert I’m paying.

I have a chronic medical condition and quite literally the only reason for me to see the doctor is because they need to write a prescription for the medicine I need. They offer me no expertise that I cannot just find online myself. My most recent telehealth appointment I started off by saying “hello how are you?” and they ignored me and just asked “has there been any change in your symptoms?”. Enough said.

My friends and I had to go to the airport and we knew we would need a couple Ubers. My one friend ordered an UberX but then saw a minivan was actually coming so a few extra people could fit with her and when we got in the driver scolded us for not ordering an XL. We apologized for the misunderstanding and said he could cancel the ride if he wants and he declined to cancel but also continued scolding us. It was very uncomfortable and I’m not sure if we were fully in the wrong or not but we didn’t intentionally try to trick the driver or anything. Are there any rules around not allowing extra people even if the vehicle fits them?

Documentaries that you couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t stop researching more about and just had to re-watch again.

These are a few that really got to me…

- Amy Bradley Is Missing: I watch a lot of true crime but this one really drove me crazy. It seems so easy to believe in a super simple explanation, but it also seems plausible that something really sinister and disturbing could’ve happened to her. The documentary didn’t even cover all of the alleged sightings and there are so many discrepancies over the basic facts around the case that it’s hard to know what to believe.

- Trust Me The False Prophet: I’ve known about the FLDS for some time now but what a fascinating story of how this woman was able to infiltrate this group of people and liberate them. There’s a lot more content out there about other people’s stories growing up in this religion too.

- Tell Them You Love Me: Such a bizzare story, there’s really no words. The main subject was so convincing and confident in her version of events that I almost started to believe her… And it wasn’t until the end that I started to see how messed up and disturbing it all really was. I had to do some more research on facilitated communication to better understand the circumstances.

I’m genuinely curious because sometimes I feel like I don’t understand the community here. I (30M) have learned that a stable relationship is what is best for me. I want to have somebody to make dinner with, to have a plus one for events, someone to bring home for the holidays and just do life with… I really don’t find the random hookups interesting or exciting at this point. But what I’ve experienced dating here is that so many guys seem to have a hard time letting go of that lifestyle. Even those that initially say they are looking for a relationship, don’t seem emotionally prepared for one. It’s like they’re trained to always be on the hunt for new and exciting guys and don’t know how to turn that off. I’ve had many dating experiences over the last year or so where I met somebody with strong chemistry and it barely went anywhere. People just look for reasons to ditch you and move onto the next one. Every time I go back on the dating apps, I swear I’m just swiping through all the same faces for years now. It seems few people are partnering up and everyone is just swiping away for who knows what.

I love a good documentary but every once in a while I watch one that makes me feel icky… like they either shouldn’t have been made or go too far in what they include. Two examples that come to mind:

The Perfect Neighbor - I understand that using the body cam footage brought a unique and incomparable perspective to the story but some clips should have remained private IMO… like when the kids found out about what happened to their mother. This extremely personal and raw moment didn’t need to end up in a Netflix documentary.

American Murder: The Family Next Door - What a horrific thing to have happened to this mother and her two daughters. The way her personal texts and letters were put on display felt wrong given she was not able to approve of that.

Has anyone else felt this way after watching something?

I was born in the US but have lived in both the US and Europe. I love to travel and something that always surprises me when reading and watching travel content is this stereotype of American tourists being among the worst to deal with.

Obviously you can’t generalize an entire demographic of people but in my experience (from doing tours and stuff) Americans are more easy going and civil than a lot of others. For example, with being patient and forming a line for things. I was once chatting with a taxi driver on a Greek island who told me they love the Americans because they are usually friendly and generous with the tipping, while other Europeans and Asians can be demanding and stingy.

At one point I was in a program at a university in Spain that had a wide mix of nationalities. For whatever reason, the German students in the class were incredibly rude to the professors to the point I recall one of the Spanish professors almost being in tears. I still never understood why they acted like this but others in the class never behaved that way.

I’m curious if people have had genuinely bad experiences with American tourists that warrant the stereotypes.

30M. Recently had an experience at the gym that left me wondering.

I see this very (very) attractive, 20-something guy at my gym pretty often. He appears straight and I’ve never thought much about him. The other day I happened to be sitting in the sauna next to him. He started making small talk with me about our gym and the recent renovations. He still gave straight vibes and again I didn’t think much of it but it was unusual because most younger guys at my gym are very to themselves. A little while later, after showering I was standing at the mirror drying off. He comes out of the shower, and starts drying off next to me. Then, he takes off his towel and starts doing some light flexing in the mirror, like right in front of me. We make eye contact for a brief moment. He soon leaves and that was it.

I know there’s a high chance this was all meaningless and just a friendly/confident guy using the gym but a part of me started to wonder after - was something else going on? Did I just miss an opportunity to ask his name or something? FWIW I would consider myself conventionally attractive but also more introverted and wouldn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable / mistake their intentions.

I recently returned from a trip to CDMX - it was my first time visiting. I’m 29M, white and speak basic Spanish. I used Spanish almost exclusively when conversing at cafes, shops etc.

I found CDMX to be a beautiful city. However, I had several awkward experiences that I perceived as hostility towards me being a white American but I’m not totally sure.

For example, a cashier in a convenience store looking down the whole time while helping me and not responding to any greetings and pleasantries. Another example, I was browsing a vendor’s stall. The girl did not engage with me but immediately when a group of Mexican tourists approached, she engaged with them. I politely tried to purchase something and she kept her back turned against me and ignored me. It felt odd so I walked away without buying anything.

To be clear, I wouldn’t blame anyone for being upset with the current US administration and all the ridiculous rhetoric coming from our leaders. I’m just wondering if my perception is correct or not.

It seems to be on trend nowadays to talk about how horrendous the quality of life has become in the US and how all the other countries of the world are doing X much better (fill in the blank).

To be clear, I hate Trump and the current political climate. Yes there are issues with this country, like any other country. But the reality is the standard of living here is still dramatically higher than most of the world. Salaries are among the highest in the world in many fields.

I think a lot of Americans have become disillusioned. Many of us are raised in an ultra competitive environment where we always want more and more but don’t appreciate what we already have. I see a country where people plaster social media with all their world travels and vacations, go out to dinner all the time, spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on concert tickets, over the top weddings and bachelorette parties etc. etc.

I know this lifestyle isn’t reflective of the whole country and there are people that are struggling but it also seems like a pretty big part of it is doing just fine.

I’ve been suffering with a trigeminal nerve pain for years now as a result of an oral surgery procedure gone wrong. For the first time I had a pain specialist mention to me that I should do research into PRF and that he’s seen some success from this.

From what I understand, this is a less invasive, lower risk procedure than the standard nerve ablation. With that said, I’m extremely hesitant to have any procedure that could potentially make my pain worse and the information about this procedure online is pretty sparse… I would really appreciate if anybody whose had it could share their experience