u/Nearby-Elk97

A man contacted me over a dating app last year and we met face to face briefly. He was interested in me but I wasn't interested in anything and indicated as much. It was just a friendly encounter and we chatted for a bit, nothing more. Shortly after he messaged me to say he wouldn't mind keeping in touch online by chatting, or something along those lines. I said I wasn't interested in that and didn't think it was appropriate since I wasn't interested in him. He continued saying hi to me and trying to strike up conversations over the app which I ignored for the most part. That persisted for a bit at which point I got tired of it and removed my profile photo and description and stopped using the app altogether for almost a year.

Fast forward to today I wanted to try again to meet someone so I updated my profile with new photos and text. I thought enough time had passed and he moved on. But I was wrong, I guess he must have seen the changes in my profile and he started up again. I replied once when he asked how I was doing since I'm a nice guy and thought it was harmless. But now he keeps messaging me again like before. Asking me how my weekend was, how I'm doing, how the search goes, just saying hi, etc.

I haven't replied anymore to these messages and don't intend to reply to any in the future. I'm just not sure how else to approach this, short of deleting my profile altogether which I kind of don't want to do.

I find it hard to be rude to people, which probably might be the reason I fell into this trap to begin with. It's just not in my nature, so is there a non rude way to solve this if my silence doesn't work?

I also worry about running into him in day to day activities like grocery shopping as he is from the same area as me. I haven't yet, which is good, but there is always a small chance unfortunately.

Either this guy hasn't had any luck meeting anyone, or is obsessed with me or something.

EDIT: sorry if this post sounds weird to you guys, this isn't a humble brag, or me seeking attention. I honestly don't have too much experience with online interactions like this. As explained in one of my comments I did not block because I view it as reserved for those extreme scenarios like rude, spam, insults etc. which this doesn't really fall into.

Since covid I haven't socialized much, mostly stay at home and interact with family. In fact I haven't socialized much my whole life and would consider myself very reserved, not outgoing, and exude qualities of loneliness and of someone who is not generally happy (maybe from my facial expression).

I'm in my 40's so when I recently looked for events I could attend a lot are geared toward 20s and 30s crowd, so that's one problem. However I found some that are language exchange social events at a bar in my city. I've been to one a long time ago when I was younger but me being so awkward and introvert I felt weird attending. I did try interacting and talking to people but it was hard, jumping into group conversations that were already taking place.

When I go to these events, I don't know what to do with myself, or how to even approach people for conversation. I mean I do try, I don't just stand against the wall by myself and look bored. I make an effort either to talk to the event organizer, or maybe walk around and listen in on some group conversations.

But the big issue I have is approaching people, and introducing myself. Especially in a way that feels friendly and approachable. And I feel like without someones guidance or telling me what I'm doing wrong, I'll just keep making the same mistakes over and over and not improving myself.

Is it worth continuing to try attending such events? Is being present and observing others interact just as useful? Will I learn by just being there?

I've done all the research I need, I've talked to my doctor as well and they are ok with me getting the vaccine. I've had only one sexual encounter in my life about 8 years ago so chances are I was exposed to some of the strains. It is possible my body no longer has any HPV after this number of years. But it's not certain. Even so, the doctor still thinks it's worthwhile to take the vaccine as it can help with strains I may not have been exposed to.

I'm really behind in life regarding relationships and sex, mostly for a combination of factors. Especially because of health anxiety and fear of catching STDs.

I was told it is really low risk for HPV to affect men, but it still can cause some cancers in them. I'm afraid of the cancers especially of the mouth and throat ever since I heard the actor Michael Douglas talk about his experience in 2013. I also know other people who were affected in this way.

The other STDs are more serious, the ones they test for regularly, but it's still kind of scary to have a silent, seemingly benign infection living inside you that can cause you cancer in the future.

The thing is that I've contemplated getting the vaccine for many years now, but did nothing about it because I wasn't sexually active. But now that I want to become active I regret not doing it sooner.

6 months isn't that long to wait compared to the years I've let pass me by. But it still kind of sucks.

When I first got my iPhone 17 Pro I noticed the range for the WiFi on 5Ghz band was a bit worse than my other devices. It was just the signal strength was a bit poor when it is farther away from the router. Compared to my other phone and laptop, which got better signal strength.

After trying the 27 beta (1 through 4) that issue went away and the signal strength got better, and it was comparable to my other devices. But I don't know if it really is something Apple tweaked with the WiFi and if this improvement will stick around.

Anyone else experience this?

I bought these two phones to compare and have been using them both but I can't decide which one to keep because I found they both have issues. I got the S26+ 512Gb because strangely it was on sale for cheaper than getting the s26 256Gb. I got the iPhone 17 Pro 256Gb instead of Pro Max because of cost and also weight, size. S26 Ultra was just too expensive and big, I didn't need the extra features like S-Pen or privacy display etc. I don't care about the operating systems at all and never tied myself to either ecosystem, both OS are good.

Display - S26+ wins

- S26+ is a real joy to watch media on because it is bigger of course.
- display colors and color tone almost identical
- S26+ has higher ppi and slightly sharper than iPhone
- You can change color temperature and color balance (RGB sliders) of S26+ display in settings (can't do that on iPhone)
- less curved corners so when viewing media, playing games looks better in landscape
- small hole punch compared to giant dynamic island that blocks content
- can set it brighter manually (iPhone has to wait until in bright outdoors to achieve max brightness)
- S26+ doesn't feel hollow when typing on screen like the iPhone does

Camera Hardware - Tie, both have issues

- Main cameras are pretty much the same
- iPhone has the better ultrawide and telephoto
- S26+ has better anti reflection coatings on the lens and lens covers
-iPhone has worse coatings and horrible internal reflection and lens flaring issue, mostly evident during night shots with bright sources of light. I can't believe Apple hasn't done anything to address this all these years. Complete failure for a 'Pro' level phone.

Camera Apps - S26+ wins hands down

- way better camera apps provided, (expert raw, pro video etc) much more pro setting provided and all the manual controls you find on an expensive mirrorless camera
- on iPhone you have to scour the app store for expensive third party apps to find similar manual functionality which I never bothered trying out because I think a Pro iPhone should come out of the box with those features.
- Samsung just has way more features that iPhone doesn't even have with apps, like ND filter, manual controls in video, horizontal lock, tap to focus separate from exposure (like, wow Apple why can't I just separate focus from exposure when tapping screen to focus???).
- S26+ can record log video directly to internal storage, iPhone forces you to attach an external SSD even if you have the more storage variants, so dumb.

Build/Design - iPhone wins

- S26+ not as comfortable feeling to hold in hand due to square edges
- no magsafe built in
- no extra buttons like action button or camera control button
- volume buttons a bit high up to reach

- placement of cameras is better on S26+ though, doesn't interfere with fingers when holding in landscape, whereas on iPhone you have to hold it with a weird grip to avoid touching the cameras/plateau.

Speakers - iPhone wins

- speakers on iPhone are just so much more rich sounding, due to more bass.

Biometrics - iPhone kind of wins

- I kind of like the convenience of face id, it is pretty fast and accurate
- on the Samsung I had trouble with fingerprint id at the beginning until I retrained it a bunch of times. But it's still occasionally misses on the first try. Overall I prefer iPhone face id by a small margin though.

WiFi - S26+ wins

- I never had any issues and speeds were excellent, I was getting over 900Mbps wireless download/upload speeds near my WiFi 6 router
- iPhone was a bit finicky, sometimes it would be slow sometimes fast, I could never pinpoint the issue. Sometimes I would have to reset my router for it to get fast speeds, but I never had to do that with the Samsung.
- WiFi range on the iPhone seemed a bit worse for some reason. (this is when using the 5Ghz band on iOS 26.5.2, when I tried the iOS 27 beta, range was a lot better and on par with the Samsung)

Cost - S26+ was cheaper

Overall, I don't know, they both are good phones, neither is perfect. iPhone definitely is overhyped and definitely has it's own flaws, but I like it too. If the iPhone had better anti reflection coatings on the cameras and better camera app I would keep that. But Samsung brings a lot to the table that is missing on iPhone that makes it just as good of a choice.

I might wait for S27 lineup

Issue is, new iPhone 17 Pro, connecting to 5Ghz band (WiFi 6 ax router) speedtest can never break past around 475Mbps download/upload. My base ISP speed to the house is 3Gbps so I know the iPhone should do better than this on 5Ghz WiFi 6.

I tried both iOS 26 and iOS 27 Beta 4 and same result both times. I am testing one foot away from router, no walls between and no cases on either phone. I test a Samsung Galaxy S26+ and it gets speeds over 800Mbps each time with no issues I even saw it go up to 900Mbps up and down last night. But the iPhone won't budge. I'm not sure what the issue is here, if it's combination of phone + router, or setting on my router or phone.

I already reset phone several times and set up from scratch, and reset network settings, turned off bluetooth, airdrop, cellular isn't connected and off (no sim) etc.

I've only set the phone up to connect to the SSID for the 5Ghz band (on both phones) - (the 2.4 GHz band is on a separate SSID and I never set up the connection for it on either device so it definitely isn't connecting to 2.4GHz)

I tried both the mobile app and the website for speedtest, same result each time.

Samsung S26+ on left, iPhone 17 Pro on right

I have a new iPhone 17 Pro, I'm on iOS 27 Beta 3. Standing right next to my WiFi 6 router, connecting on the 5GHz band I am maxing out at about 475 Mbps down/Up.

Whereas I also have a brand new Samsung S26 Plus that I'm trying out to compare and I have it connected to the exact same 5Ghz band, but it's getting over 900Mbps down and up.

I'm not sure what's going on. I don't remember the speeds I was getting on iOS 26.

Does anyone have similar experience? I'm hoping this is just a software bug and not something wrong with the phone. It is still new so within return / exchange period.

I might try resetting and downgrading back to iOS 26 just to be sure. But if Beta 4 is out, I might try that first.

Is there a way to get back to auto focus after having tapped the screen to focus on a subject? I found that after moving away from subject to record something else, the focus 'box' is still there and everything is blurry. But it does go away on its own eventually , it just takes so long.