I had a friend, or so I thought. We were very close and told our deepest darkest secrets to each other then he got a controlling girlfriend who drove a wedge between us. She cut him off from his friends and family so she could have him all to herself and convinced him everyone was jealous of them and wanted to break them up. I tried to hang onto our friendship but he kept pulling away and isolating himself from everyone and telling us we’re not real friends and he can’t trust anyone but her. Then he’d come around and apologize after a few weeks. I would forgive him then the accusations would start again.

I knew that was her getting in his head and I tried to hold on but I couldn’t take the false accusations from him anymore and pretty much told him to fuck off. This time four years of silence went by and he randomly reached out like nothing happened. I told him to fuck off again and why. Now I’m afraid maybe he was reaching out for help? What if he came to his senses after all this time about being in a controlling marriage and needed a friend?

On the other hand I don’t want to give him yet another chance only to have it blow up in my face again and we go right back to him saying I’m trying to sleep with his wife and I’m not a good friend. I feel stuck here.

EDIT: I know men typically don’t reach out for help when they’re in controlling/abusive relationships, so I’m scared maybe he needed help and I turned my back on him.

I see it a lot and it’s even a running joke. The Black person who is all about the Black community and reads all the books by and about W.E.B DuBois and Malcolm X and Maya Angelou and Frederick Douglass and Toni Morrison and can’t stand Clarence Thomas and is into conscious hip-hop and preserving HBCUs all of that…ends up marrying a White person. Sometimes they mostly date White people. I have seen conscious Black men and women do this.

You can be with whomever you want, but it seems that they’d be the last people to want to have romantic relationships with a White person.

I’ve seen this question asked before, and people give obvious answers. But I’m wondering about the ones people don’t catch until they look back and reflect after they’ve left.

For example, I learned to pay attention to the employees’ appearances. If they don’t take pride in how they look, they won’t take pride in what they do. And they don’t care about what they do because their supervisors don’t encourage and uplift them. And the supervisors don’t encourage and uplift them because they don’t care. The supervisors see you as a just another body.

I mean really. What causes otherwise rational people to believe something that is just not true? Or is astronomically unlikely?

For instance, I have a friend who graduated college with a 2.3 GPA who wholeheartedly believes she has a shot at Oxford for grad school. I didn’t tell her that she has less of a chance than Satan celebrating Christmas, but I did say things like “Well make sure you have some backup choices” and “It would be a good idea to review the acceptance rates of schools,”but she keeps saying “No, I know I’ll get in. It’s the only school I’ll apply to.”

By the way, she failed two classes and had to retake them, so she graduated in six years at a four-year school.

I’m curious to know what causes people to be so delusional? How do they rationalize something that is plainly incorrect? Not her specifically or people with a mental health diagnosis. Just in general.

I hear all the time that homophobia is rampant in the Black community and that White people are more tolerant. Even many gay Black people swear by this.

Then why are White people, especially conservatives, consistently pushing anti-LBGTQIA legislation so much? Aren’t countless White people openly complaining about Pride Month and trans people and running around asking “What is a woman?”

Seems like, once again, when they do something, it’s overlooked. When we do it, then it’s magnified. I just want to know why is something put on Black people so much when White folks clearly do it too, very openly at that, and people ignore it.

I’m talking like 1970s to 2000s.

I see TV shows and movies from that time period where people are dressed up a little more whenever they’re outside the house. I definitely see this with teachers. They seemed to dress in business or business casual attire. Now, not so much.

I look at shows like The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Frasier, Cheers, Designing Women, Married…With Children, Friends, Full House, A Different World and others. From my estimation, there was a shift to more causal attire in public beginning in the mid-1990s and it solidified by the 2010s.

If people did dress up a little more in public, why do you think things shifted?

I’m beginning to realize a lot of people are just virtue signaling when it comes to mental health. They love to run around saying they stand with people who have this disorder and that disorder needs more awareness. Then when someone they know reveals they have a disorder, suddenly those people disappear. It made me jaded and I stopped forming friendships and believing that people care when they say they do. I literally have four friends. They all know and the other “friends” ghosted or got “super busy”soon after I told them I have Bipolar 2 disorder and just faded away.

When did you realize a lot of people didn’t actually care and how did you handle it? I know being jaded isn’t the best thing to do but it’s the only way I know how to cope.

Apparently nobody believes I had never heard the song Seven Nation Army or the band that plays it. Already forgot the band’s name. Someone mentioned it on here and I got downvoted because nobody believes I had never heard this song or about it 😂 same thing with Mr. Bright Side.

But I have a friend who had never heard of Janet Jackson until last year. I mentioned her (forgot why) and he goes “Who is she?” I thought he was joking but he was completely unaware of her existence. I showed him pictures and videos and he truly had no idea who she was.

Anyway, I can’t be the only one who didn’t keep up with something huge in pop culture. So what’s your story? What’s something that totally missed you when “everyone else” knows about it and nobody believes you?

PS: I had no idea about “Baby Shark” until like four years after it died out. Nobody believes me about that either lmaooo

I’m not talking about sexual harassment or men saying “A woman can’t be a leader.” I’m talking about the things women know about that men don’t get, or are guilty of and don’t even notice it and deny it when a woman points it out.

For instance, I’m a Black male and there are things non-Black people do to us all the time and don’t get because it’s not overt racism. Dismissing our ideas until someone else says it, then that person gets all the credit. Talking to us like we’re preschoolers. Not greeting us when we walk into upscale stores.

Little things like that. I’m curious because all demographics face some sort of discrimination, but people who discriminate think it has to be overt and explicit for it to count as unfair treatment.

I am talking about the people who take it so seriously: Arguing in the comments, reporting comments if someone disagrees with them, trying to get people banned from subreddits, trolling, rage baiting, purposely spreading false information, and all that.

What goes on in their lives that makes them want to spend hours and hours and hours doing that instead of something productive? Is there some sort of psychological reason?

My dad is Japanese and my mom is African American. Their families didn’t disapprove, but I know many families don’t like interracial dating but they won’t say it publicly. Only amongst themselves and to the person doing it. I wonder what kinds of things they say?

If you dated/married a Black person, I really want to hear from you because people have literally been disowned by their families for doing that.

I go back and forth with this.

If an adult is living with their parents for any reason, can that adult expect privacy? I don’t mean the parents barging in on them when in the bathroom or just opening the bedroom door and walking in. I mean would it be okay for the parents to go through their child’s things?

For example. I know a man who is waiting for an apartment to become available. It should be ready in about six weeks. In the meantime, he is staying his with mom for free. He recently returned from a trip and left his suitcase in his room. He didn’t unpack it. While he was at work, his mother opened the suitcase, took his clothes out, and hung them up.

When he got home and saw what she had done, he was offended. We talked about it and he says he feels torn. She’s doing him a big favor by letting him stay rent free, but he feels violated that she went through his suitcase without asking. If she were staying with him and had an unopened suitcase, he wouldn’t go through it.

So what do you all think? Is what she did an invasion of privacy although he is in her home? Has he given up expectations of reasonable privacy? I’m just as conflicted as he is.