[28M] I have to travel to either St Charles Main Street area, or St Louis to meet people or join events posted online. There's barely anything happening here apart from random trivia nights, property dealers throwing get togethers or Mastercard folks meeting other Mastercard folks.
I was talking to a couple colleagues in the office yesterday who are from Hyderabad and they kept talking about how they used to love going to shag house when they were in college, spending time chilling and eating biryani but now they claim that the standards have fallen.
I thought I misheard what they said and when I asked them the name of the place all I could hear was "Shag house" "Shag house". What is this place? I'm sure I misheard it because nobody talks in a workplace like that.
I had an insanely good relationship, thought I would end up marrying her and we were in a live-in for 6+ months. Life was good but then she started checking my phone and found that I used hinge/bumble 6 months before I even met her and found intimate texts with a match.
I had never hidden my past from her, I was vocal and also mentioned physical intimacy, and sexual conversations with a few girls on hinge who left me ghosted after talking/meeting so I moved on.
After reading the messages, she started calling each girl I spoke with on bumble/hinge as my ex and claimed that I had 7 exes whenever we had a fight.
She then saw my texts with some female friends who helped me make a better hinge profile and she asked me to block them because they might motivate me to go for casual relationships and not stay loyal to my ex which is basically schizotalk.
I stopped talking to my college friends and stopped taking therapy because she thought I would bitch about her to them and made me basically have 0 social connections.
I was still okay with all this because at least when we were alone, she loved me, and never made me feel ignored. She made me her world and I thought maybe that's how people love so I went along hoping she would change and let me have friends and a social circle that didn't make her insecure.
I moved to another state for work and went to a temple with a colleague who was a woman 8 years older than me. I used to call her didi and even made a statement that I'm in a committed relationship. My ex knew all of this yet she asked me to stop going out with her. This was the only time I went apart from work with a woman that's not my ex since I started dating her. Things blew out of proportion when she ranted to me about this didi when she was in my car and we were leaving for work and I made the mistake of asking gemini to read the message. Didi was traumatized af and she asked me to drop her on the side of the road.
To say the least, I ended it with my ex that day and I haven't tried dating because I still have feelings for my ex but I know it was extremely toxic for both of us.
I spoke to my friends recently and all of them have stated that dating is horrible for men as dating apps don't reward anything.
It's a genuine epidemic and most of my friends have told me that they miss their exes even though a lot of them dealt with emotionally unavailable or emotionally insecure women that other women wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole if they were dating such men.
How on Earth are you, my fellow men, dealing with such horrible dating standards?
I bought one in 2025 August and one in 2024 December. The 2024 one is the older gen and it worked flawlessly until one day, the right earbud's volume became really low and the left one was playing music normally.
I tried 91% isopropyl alcohol with q tips to clean it and it did cause a better quality in volume but the right one was still too low to hear anything from.
Decided to buy the 2nd gen in Aug 2025. By December, something similar happened but the volume was way worse, both earbuds had such low volume that it felt like my neighbor's cat was whispering in my ears. I regularly clean my ears and wipe the earbuds with a dry cloth every 2-3 weeks but this tipped me off really bad.
I tried using both earbuds with different devices and they didn't work. These issues aren't covered in warranty apparently so they just offered me a discount on new earbuds.
Spending $300+ on earbuds for them to have volume issues in just 6 months is beyond pathetic tbh.
I bought one in 2025 August and one in 2024 December. The 2024 one is the older gen and it worked flawlessly until one day, the right earbud's volume became really low and the left one was playing music normally.
I tried 91% isopropyl alcohol with q tips to clean it and it did cause a better quality in volume but the right one was still too low to hear anything from.
Decided to buy the 2nd gen in Aug 2025. By December, something similar happened but the volume was way worse, both earbuds had such low volume that it felt like my neighbor's cat was whispering in my ears. I regularly clean my ears and wipe the earbuds with a dry cloth every 2-3 weeks but this tipped me off really bad.
I tried using both earbuds with different devices and they didn't work. These issues aren't covered in warranty apparently so they just offered me a discount on new earbuds.
Spending $300+ on earbuds for them to have volume issues in just 6 months is beyond pathetic tbh.
I stayed on a 1000 cal deficit per day and made sure I went to the gym 6 days a week. I had one cheat day. My usual diet had the following items:
Psyllium Husk/Isabgol: it's almost pure fiber. I used to take it with 500ml of water and it would expand in my stomach filling it up reducing my hunger and cravings. Highly recommended to people with gut issues as well. 10 cals per serving. I took 2 servings
Shirataki noodles: Made from Konjac yam: they're extremely fibrous and one serving is just 5 calories (about a bowl). They're flavorless but I boiled them with some vegetable bouillon and masalas and made a ramen out of it with eggs/tofu, mushrooms, mung bean sprouts, garlic, ginger, cabbage/spinach, seaweed and onions. Tasted exactly like a full ramen bowl from a restaurant with 1/6th the calories.
Fat free yogurt: 170g is 90 cals with 18g of protein. Little expensive but keeps you full if eaten with any meal cutting down your carbs and cravings in half.
Diet coke/0 sugar drinks: 0 calories. Yeah aspartame but it's not harmful guys, look it up. If you have a sensitive gut, then be careful but otherwise, it's much healthier than any drink with sugar.
egg whites: 100g of egg whites are of 52 cals and you can make 4-5 medium sized omelettes with 100g of these or scramble them and eat them with a slice of toast or by themselves. You can buy pure egg white liquid off of Amazon. Also gives you 12g of protein so you stay full for long.
0 sugar jello: 5 calories. Jello or sweet jelly as we grew up calling it is barely 5 calories for a cup and it's genuinely delicious. I've replaced it with kissan jam on bread slices or I mix it with 0% fat yoghurt for a jammy, creamy dessert with low cals and high protein.
Cauliflower rice: 25 calories per 100 grams. It is an 4-5g carb rice/100g (almost zero) that tastes almost identical to regular rice. 100g of rice has 130 calories. You can eat half a kilo of cauliflower rice and slide in one sugar free jello to match the calories of 100g of cooked rice. Insane cutting food. 10/10. Hard to find in India, can import it or make it at home using regular cauliflower. Low in carbs and full of fiber, antioxidants, and nutrients so you can binge on this with whatever curry you love.
No maida bread: 60 calories per piece. Health Factory is a company that started 0 maida bread in India (your whole wheat bread from the supermarket is usually just 30% whole wheat) and it's just 60 calories compared to 120-180 calories of regular bread/bun. Almost as much as a single roti. It's insanely delicious and saves around 100-150 calories on sandwiches.
Allulose: also called rare sugar: a sugar that is not absorbed by your body and passes cleanly. It is 10% of the calories of your regular sugar. It's found in raisins and other fruits and is expensive due to its extraction process. Some companies mix it with monk fruit which maintains the same calories and taste but becomes a little processed but I prefer this over pure allulose. It can be used to make sweets and desserts that require caramelization like gulab jamun, cakes, etc. Very similar to sugar.
Black coffee: I don't like the taste but it helped me crave less carby/starchy/sugary foods. One cup of black coffee in the morning and afternoon and I only felt hungry after 3 pm. It's insanely underrated for weight loss. Also improves metabolism by a bit.
But you know what the problem is? My body dysmorphia got worse. I started hating the way I looked as I started focusing on the smaller things on my body that went unnoticed when I was inhaling cheesecakes instead of working out and counting calories.
I realized I'll never be satisfied and maybe that's a good thing.(?)