u/Soggy-Put-249

I want to take a gap year and work in an English-speaking country.

This isn't some new plan I made, it's something I've wanted to do since I was 12. When everyone was saying how they want to be at some prestigious Romanian college, I was talking about how I want to leave this country as fast as possible.

I have about one year to prepare, and I take it as my last lifeline before going head first.

What I want to know:

• Any way I can prepare in this year
• Any temporary immigration programs I can enroll in
• Any path I can follow
• Countries that can give me a safe future
• Job opportunities for someone who has no CV
• Maybe an academic way to get in as well

Anyone who helps me here a bit, I will personally bless for generations. Comment or text me in private if there's any resource you can provide, and if anybody believes in my ambition even in the slightest, please help me with my dream and don't let me step into a nightmare.

My parents are empty. They never took me to a restaurant, never took me on trips, never gave me advice on dating or bullying. When I ask questions, they just say "How should I know?" or tell me something that is straight-up propaganda, meant to either sabotage me on purpose or born from absolute ignorance on their part.

I've been on one trip with them recently, which was organized by an agency following the same rules as a school trip. Everything was already arranged and polished for the safest and easiest to digest experience, contrary to the absolute best one.

They got lost, were afraid to explore, couldn't calculate prices, and they really didn't understand how something like this was supposed to go.

As we went up on the boat, which we traveled 400km in a bus for...a dude that was 21 years old took the wheel and span us around a couple times. He flirted with the older women quite a lot, got paid by them to do some performative striptease as a joke, and he was just telling us how he worked in other countries like France and Italy, switching jobs from ambitious to more ambitious every time. Being a maid, then a waiter, then a photographer, then a journalist, ending with him coming back to drive boats for a free room and free food from the restaurant who actually owned the ships.

The bad part was he didn't go to college and didn't plan to either. He made that clear as the old ladies debated if this lad should or shouldn't do it at this point.

We went back out on the bus, and since for a long time I considered following a similar path to the guy in question, I asked my parents what they thought of his story.

"You can see he has no school," they said.

"What?"

"What kind of person acts like that with strangers? And he said he wants to become an international guide? He really is disconnected from this world. Nobody would hire him."

It was a silent road back. But I feel pity for myself really, and I'm ashamed when friends ask me to go to places or do certain things because I'm a bit intimidated. I would accept despite that, yet the times I did, everyone could notice I was being weird. They'd call me out for it, not getting what my deal is, slowly cutting me out of their invite list. So I have to be cautious with the people I do stuff with, or just do it alone first to prepare myself.

Every skill I have is self-taught from YouTube or kids my age, which would make what I have third-hand. So getting by every day is a close call, yet I manage. I'm 17 now though, and I need to make some choices. That's what I can't trust myself with yet.

I am genuinely wondering if I would be a diagnosed sociopath if I tried to get it to be official, but that's not a title I want, and empathy is very much a thing for me still, even though I can reason out some pretty evil stuff.

I was an atheist back when everyone else was spiritual. Now I want to be spiritual, and everyone else has gone atheist.

I ended up switching sides when I got okay with only knowing the result can be real, and stopped caring whether the journey itself is real or not.

I don't know what counts and what doesn't. I pulled a random tarot card from a pack once and tried to find its meaning, not knowing if that even counts.

I'm a naturally lucid dreamer and thought that would get me closer to spirituality, but every time I dive in, I wake up struggling to separate the two worlds.

I tried praying yesterday but had to stop midway, realizing how horrible what I was asking for actually was...just cheap plans to get ahead by screwing others over.

I think that at my base, I'm an atheist. Whatever software I try to run can't override the preexisting hardware. And if anyone answers. Well, tell me if you relate.

There is nothing wrong with my family, and they want to support me financially until I finish my studies, yet I have no idea what I want to do next as a career.

They would kill me if I took a gap year, which is what I'm planning to do. And honestly, I'm so scared. I had this idea of going homeless for a year just to experience life in a different light...do gigs around town if I can, be a modern nomad in this dystopian society we live in. Ever since I heard about Diogenes and his way of life (that being living like a dog, only for tomorrow, without the burden of the material world), I've been so intrigued and found it comforting to think about that style of life. It was far enough to keep me dreaming, yet close enough to keep me feeling it was real.

This girl classmate was speaking to me today. She is one of those girls who dresses so well, always energetic, always has her words, confident and smart. She wants to go into medicine and told me her whole plan. I believed her. I knew she could pull through effortlessly if she wanted to. Someone like her could do anything they want and don't want...and she knows it.

I thought to myself that I wouldn't be this modern philosopher above normal people if I went through with the idea, even though that's always what I imagined. That girl would literally become so out of reach, and we'd live worlds apart.

And I just started crying now because what do I do, man? How can I ever be at her level? I literally want to throw myself on the street so others can't, because I know they will. I have no fucking value in my current life, and I don't know how to get it. I want to rise from this, and at least maybe going homeless gives me a starting point of 1, instead of whatever I have now, a starting point I can't even see.

When I'm at the metro station and I feel the vibration of it coming and the wind blowing, I feel this urge to just jump. And if I let go of my body for one second, it would act on its own.

I can barely manage school, friends, family. But the ability it takes for me to stay in control and act in the right way isn't a power...it's a surrender of it. And I think these two opposites fight in me.

I used to fight my bullies just 3 years ago. Like, beat them the way you'd see it in movies. This got me in a lot of shit, even though I was the victim. But at one point, yes, I did go overboard with someone...which I guess made me decide that I wasn t doing the right thing.

Later that year, I got terribly beaten by a guy who hated my friend. But since my friend was 2 meters tall and bulky, and I was just scrawny, he decided to deal his frustration on me. He punched me in the face 10 times without me hitting him once back.

I thought that I could win the right way diplomatically, but the school sent me a letter of exmatriculation because one teacher knew about my reputation from not very long ago, and he himself was the one who warned me that if I laid one more finger on anybody else, this would happen.

I fought back with camera footage and got the letter dismissed. But classmates started hating me for dragging the whole situation since the year was ending, in the sense that I wanted the other guy to get expelled. And the teacher and the guy's mom came to me, not saying, 'Sorry he did this, please forgive him,' but just, 'Forgive him. In two weeks, you won't see him anyway.

My older brother used to scream and throw shit around and destroy rooms for the smallest inconvenience on a daily basis. I would be 10 years old and find my mom crying while he was destroying the house.

My parents would beat me at my smallest outburst in fear that I'd end up like him. (That's why I stopped beating my bullies.) Right now, I can't scream. I can't punch stuff. I can't swear, even if I wanted to.

I'm writing this because I was in my room today, and this girl was just texting me how shitty I am for whatever reasons...even though I only tried to be myself with her. I felt like vomiting. It wasn't just because of my mind. It was also because the room had all the windows closed, and I only noticed then.

I slowly walked out and laid flat on a bench for half an hour until I got up, bought a water, then went on with my day, restarting my mind.

But the memory of everything before that is still very much here. And if I think too hard about it, I can feel it all again, just as I felt a lot of stuff I'd long forgotten from writing this.

I have a friend who is the most philosophical anti-philosophical guy ever. His whole thing is putting down your overthinking and just seeking pleasure or happiness.

I talked with him about this, and I thought he was making a statement when he said he'd sleep with anyone. At first, I believed it was one of those end-of-the-world scenarios, where you would sleep with anyone because you don't give a fuck anymore, and not because you're just horny. (That is what I thought he felt deep inside)

I was so wrong. "Nah dude, I'm just horny, is that wrong?"

Maybe? For sure disappointing. That's what I tell him. And then he goes on and on saying he really only cares about status...and the extra status that comes along with sleeping around.

I tell him that s cheap, but that activates him in the most passive agressive way ever.

"Well, you can say whatever, man, but when I tell people I'm the water polo champion and they respect me for that, it makes me feel amazing, and I want more of that, more status."

For context, he is the third-choice goalkeeper at his polo club and makes no money yet. When he tells people he is a water polo champion, they all jump around. 'Really? How much money do you make? Do you play with other countries too? Do you travel a bunch?

Then he straight up lies and says, 'Of course, obviously, totally, yes.'

I tell him he doesn't have status at all, I say sports isn't even a status, and that he is afraid that without mentioning his questionable hobby, people won't respect him.

Throwing a ball harder every day isn't seeking status, but that's the pin I pulled

He gives the most douchebag answer: "I have 50 people every day hyping me up and looking up to me. If that's not status, I don't know what is. And if the one who throws the ball the hardest is the leader, then me working towards that is working towards fucking status."

What do I tell him, or should I just leave him alone? He isn't doing anything wrong, depending on how you look at it.

Since most games are now sold only digitally, so you can't truly own them, especially with the whole PlayStation 5 situation. My form of protest and resilience will be to pirate everything. Even if I can't get my hands on newer games right away, I'll do it for everything I do get my hands on and then do what I said in the title. I think that could be, for many people, a form of art, accomplishment, security, and protest that will make a difference for yourself...and maybe, if enough people join the movement, something bigger.

(I'll be making the discs for PC, since that's much easier. I'm also not tied to a console ecosystem where the hardware and software are controlled by a single corporation. A PC is a much more open platform, and if I want a console-like experience, I can always recreate it with a custom desktop setup.)

It kinda takes a big boy to realise writing on the internet and arguing on Reddit isn't activism. If I believe in a certain idea, leaving an open door on the internet for people to read about it, see the progress...pretty much like what I'm doing now, is the absolute maximum I should do.

I saw the tens of thousands of views I got on Reddit, I saw the comments flooding, and I was so sure that someone out of all those nobodies had to be a somebody who would for some reason give me a hand, in the most movie-esque type of way: "I've noticed you, kid, and I want you to join me."

In theory this was waiting to happen, I thought...if I just send signals through this billions-of-light-years-wide space, an alien has to answer back sooner or later.

This failed, and the only ones who got my signal were modern neo nazis “Ach, pleaze! Shut up, you shtoopid vanker! Noboddy, und I mean noboddy, cares about your leetle, teeny-veeny peniss und your fancy-shmancy cyber-peniss! I hef been using a shtrap-on since long before you even invented zis ridiculous solushon to ze problem! Vat iss wrong vis you, ja?”

So after convincing myslef I was in the right, I still was, but being in the right and doing the right thing are different.

They aren't real people, and whatever I was doing wasn't real either. That's where depression starts: fishing in a lake with water that you can't see through, but knowing that there are millions of fish there, while having them nibble at your hook every 5 minutes, yet none of them biting.

While instead you could go out to a lake with see-through water where you can see every fish, some maybe not being your type, some maybe not being friendly, some being scary, yet at least you know they are there, and while they don't nibble or bite, you can put your effort into working around the hook and throwing it again and again until you do it. (This is real life guys, touch grass.)

• Genre/s: Personal essays, philosophical rants, memoir-style writing.
• Goals/expectations/commitment: I need someone to tell me when my writing goes from funny to insulting. I'm not looking for a master at his craft to help me tone my skill. Another lost writer hobbyist like me will do. That's because I need a friend, someone I can text at any hour and he can do the same. So if you're Shakespeare, thanks but no. If you're a guy who loves Shakespeare, please do leave a comment.
• Writing/experience level: 18M, casual writer, just started a blog, yet I think I am smoking the market.
• Meeting place: Reddit, Insta, Discord, or WhatsApp (we can decide together).
• Max size: N/A (looking for one partner).

I'm a morally gray person. Sometimes I am a full on victim and I have people sympathize with me a lot and give me advice, yet other times I mess up horribly...and I keep that part hidden, because I know if people knew that, their opinion of me wouldn't be neutral, but disproportionately balanced to negative.

It's human nature, is it not, to hate is so much easier than to sympathize. One takes effort to come up with, while the other takes pressure off your shoulders.

I shared a story on r/TrueOffMyChest and it was dark, immoral, illegal events happened even, and I was to blame more or less. I never planned for them to become the way they did, yet I had a wrong mindset back just a few days ago, and many of the 'wrong' stuff I've done backfired on me immensely. I didn't ask for advice in my post sure, but I thought it was something individuals could engage with at least.

I got comments calling me weird, fucked up, one guy told me to kill myself.

Now my question isn't even about me now, but I'm curious and just want to make a conversation about this. If a serial killer seeks help, where does he go? I'm not a serial killer I promise, but the thought of this question kind of hits my head on and on. He can't go to therapy, he can't talk to people about it...obviously, he is probably not willing to go to the police. So his only solution is to continue what he is doing since nobody is giving him a way out and he is probably too far gone.

I am 16 years old and I'm reading so much, experiencing so much, learning so much. As one of my greatest achievements in life so far, I've made a blog for myself that took me months to build. It's unlike any other.

Yet I'm lost in this community. I don't understand how to promote it or how to make money eventually.

Please, if anyone wants to do one good thing today and get some literal good karma on Reddit, someone who genuinely has a successful blog currently and does it for a job, just teach me. Take me under your wing.

I have 0 people in my life who can help me figure this stuff out, so I just need one person to drag me to the finish line. I already made it so far on my own but I can't complete the race by myself.

Obviously, depending on the type of person you are, when you launch the first version of a blog, you'll either keep that design for months or even years only adding or changing essentials, mostly focusing on writing. Or you'll do the exact opposite: play with the design and features so much that you give up writing entirely for a while.

I was the second type. That's why, if you visit colinarchive.com right now, it looks more like a design portfolio. But alongside the blog, my biggest feature is a chat room, my love and pride.

For now, I've been using it with my friends instead of WhatsApp. But as I'm finally trying to promote the site, I would love it if the first people to write there were people like you, that are genuinely interested in the art. I'd love to work alongside other bloggers if possible.

I put so much love into this place, and I swear I'll return the same love to you. Just one message there would make my day.

Since I never touch schoolwork and I'm a failing student in English and all related subjects, people have a hard time imagining me as a writer hobbyist. But I wouldn't blame them...they don't bother to ask, and I don't bother to clarify. In a way I crave their attention but I find it worthless as well, I don't respect them as people, though somehow I still wish they respected me. (I'm talking about my classmates)

The friends I have, I care for them endlessly. I think they care for me the same way. They know me, they're proud of me, and that's more than I could ask for. Even if I have doubts about that too.

A lot of bad things happened to me, caused by me, but not deserved. Like calling someone stupid once and then getting haunted by that person for months.

In this time I began writing my ideas, in my own voice that is unconventional and diary-like, yet everything I wrote for myself was something I wanted to share with everyone who would care enough.

Spent a month or two learning how to design and launch a blog, did it (can't link to my site here but I'll write it in the comments), but I felt so alone in achieving that. No one could care as much as I did, which made me sadder than ever.

I want to have a community, make anyone who wants to write there able to, credited and all. We could have so many nice things if we just cared enough for them. So anyone who wants to help me, I promise to help them back any way I can. Maybe we can start a team, or a friendship.