u/FlappyPappyPooh

Ignoring calls and messages gets more common everyday. It has happened at some point with everyone. People I love, people I don't, people I know and strangers I just met, in the last ten years midconversation they will just never reply and in the future never explain why. Why does it still hurt? I should be familiar enough with it by now to not care. If anything I am just getting angrier with each new ghost. Is the only way to defeat this to start ghosting people first?

I grew up upper-middle-class and always wanted a trailer trash girlfriend. When I was younger I was fascinated by the girls who lived in trailer parks. I grew up upper-middle-class, but some of my best childhood memories were hanging out with kids from the local trailer courts.

My first kiss was at 11, behind a trailer with a girl named Tay-Tay. I remember feeling like the luckiest kid alive. By 14 or 15, we'd spend summer evenings playing basketball at the trailer park while girls watched from the sidelines. Everyone knew everyone. We'd meet at the playground, ride bikes down by the river, and stay out until it got dark. A few of us had flip phones, but mostly we just found each other.

There was something about the freedom of it all. The parents seemed more relaxed, the kids were always outside, and every night felt like an adventure. The funny thing is I started writing this as some pathetic Reddit confession about my dating preferences, but halfway through I realized I was just remembering how beautiful those summers were.

I miss when life felt that big and summer nights felt endless.

I hate when someone flakes out on a plan we made right before it is time to do said plan. It is even worse when they have some horrible excuse. They act all apologetic saying they forgot some very important thing they had to do that happens to be at the same time as the plan we made a week ago. It happens pretty much every other time I make plans with people. Just say you don't want to do it anymore because the lies are often obvious!

I always was skeptical about mental health professionals but after everyone in my life kept saying a doctor would fix all my problems I signed up. My psychiatrist didn't even tell me himself that he was retiring after seeing him almost two years. His secretary called and told me for him. I remember she sounded nervous and strangely uncomfortable, but I didn't think much of it at the time.

The part that bothers me isn't that he may have decided he didn't want to see me anymore. He had every right to end the professional relationship. What bothers me is that I was told he was retiring, only to later see his office still open, with people sitting in his waiting room.

His office is right in the center of town. It wasn't exactly unlikely that I would eventually see this for myself. Maybe there's an explanation I'm missing, but I genuinely can't think of a good reason I needed to be told he was retiring instead of simply being told he would no longer be my psychiatrist.

I was already skeptical of the mental health field, and this experience reinforced some of that skepticism. You're expected to be extraordinarily honest and vulnerable with these professionals, so discovering that you may not have received the same basic honesty in return is a strange feeling.

I'm sure there are good medical and mental health professionals out there. But I've become much more careful about assuming that someone's profession automatically makes them trustworthy. I tried to laugh it off but a big reason I was there was ironically trust issues. He definitely didn't help at all and I just feel bad I hurt him so badly that he cannot face me. Our last session he said I felt like a character in the show Dr.Katz which I have never heard of. It is a great show and if I had seen it when he said that I would have caught the insult. I'm thinking about signing up again with a different name but I know that is not the right thing to do. I wonder how often this happens to people.

My friend has always been great at classical guitar but never promotes his stuff. I guess many musicians just do it for the love of the game.

A few years ago, some people I'd grown up with had gone pretty far down the wrong path. I wasn't involved, but I still knew some of them.

One afternoon, a complete stranger appeared outside my house.

"Hey. I'm Matt."

I'd never seen Matt before.

He looked like a clean-cut cop who had been given 20 minutes to dress like someone who really liked drugs.

Within minutes, he was asking if I could get him something or introduce him to somebody who could.

I'd always been fascinated by undercover cops, and something about this guy immediately felt off. No real backstory, weirdly pushy, and seemingly interested in exactly one thing.

Still, I said, "I'll see what I can do. Let's talk inside."

He followed me in.

"Can you call your guy?"

"Probably. You hungry?"

"No."

"We could get dinner."

"No, man. I'm good."

At this point I wasn't even messing with him. I was genuinely pretty lonely then, and I thought maybe we could at least hang out.

I showed him some of my drawings.

"Cool. So about—"

"Oh! I play piano too."

I sat down.

About 20 seconds into the song:

"Okay, man, I should probably—"

"WAIT. This is the good part."

I played louder.

He cut me off again.

Eventually I actually told him I'd been having a rough time and was lonely. I teared up a little.

He nodded.

"So… do you think you can call somebody?"

That's when I became pretty convinced something was up.

So I decided to see how far I could push it.

"Sure. But do you think maybe we could be friends?"

"Yeah, man. If you can make this happen."

Friendship with a minimum purchase requirement.

I started asking about his life. Where was he from? What did he do? What music did he like?

Every answer was incredibly vague.

Eventually he'd had enough.

He gave me his number.

"Just call me when you get ahold of somebody."

"Wait, you're leaving? We haven't even had dinner."

He walked to his car.

I stood in the doorway singing:

🎵 MATT IS MY NEW FRIEND! 🎵

He did not join in.

I never called him.

Months later, I was at the courthouse dealing with a traffic ticket.

I looked across the room.

There was Matt.

In uniform.

We made eye contact.

He clearly recognized me.

"MATT! You still owe me dinner!"

He gave me a look and kept walking.

And that's how I learned that apparently my instincts were correct.

I also learned that Matt had lied about wanting to be friends.

I'm starting to think I need to vent about not being allowed to vent. Every time I write a post, it gets removed for breaking some rule I didn't know existed. Too personal? Removed. Too broad? Removed. Needs more context? Removed. Needs less context? Removed. At this point I feel like I need to submit a peer-reviewed paper just to complain for five minutes. So here's my vent: I can't vent because my vents keep getting removed. Hopefully this one survives. 😂

A few years ago I noticed my boss had been quietly taking a little money out of every paycheck because he decided I hadn't "earned" it. He never talked to me about it or gave me any warning. He just kept doing it until I finally caught it.

I confronted him, and a few days later he fired me. At the time, I seriously wondered if I should just let it go. I didn't want to make a bigger issue out of it.

Instead, I took him to small claims court. The judge ruled in my favor and ordered him to pay me back.

The part that still bothers me is that I somehow felt guilty for taking him to court. I wish I didn't. I wasn't asking for anything extra—I just wanted the wages he'd already taken from me.

Looking back, I know standing up for myself was the right thing to do. I just hate that even after winning, I was the one who felt bad.

I've been wondering if this is normal in field service or if I should bring it up with my employer.

I'm the only field service tech covering a large territory, so I'm effectively on call 24/7/365. Some weeks are quiet, other weeks I'm taking calls in the middle of the night or early in the morning. I only get paid once I actually start working the call. There isn't any on-call stipend or standby pay, even though I'm expected to always be available.

The part I struggle with isn't the work itself. I actually like the job. It's the expectation that I always be reachable. If I get sick, have a doctor's appointment, want to go somewhere without cell service, or simply miss a call because I'm asleep, it feels like there's a lot of pressure because there's no local backup.

Is this pretty standard in field service, or would it be reasonable to ask for some kind of on-call compensation or a different coverage arrangement? I'm genuinely curious what others have experienced.

My lifelong best friend and I were born on the same day in the same hospital. In college, he ghosted me after getting close to my girlfriend, and it sent me into years of expecting the worst from people.

That bitterness didn't protect me. It just made me someone I didn't like. When I finally started choosing kindness and optimism again, my life slowly changed. Better job, better opportunities, and healthier relationships. People still disappoint me sometimes, but I'd rather be kind and get hurt once in a while than let bitterness define me.

As cliché as it sounds, kindness wins.