u/Weird_Asparagus9695

My supervisor always emphasizes doing good science and writing good documentation, instead of minding which journal we submit to, and I wholeheartedly agree with him,

But I am still a bit disappointed that he decides to send the paper to Bioinformatics instead of at least Nature Communication because he said the wait time for Nature Communication is long.

While Bioinformatics is the top journal for the field, it is not as competitive as a Nature publication. Would this impact my chances of finding a good postdoc or even industry job that require a PhD with publication?

An ENFJ friend of mine recently had a pretty rough experience with a language exchange app.

She arranged to meet someone for coffee. She arrived first and waited outside the café. The guy messaged that he was on his way and even told her what he was wearing, so everything seemed normal.

Then... nothing.

He never showed up. He never replied to her follow-up messages, never gave any explanation, and completely disappeared.

I'm curious how something like this might affect someone psychologically, especially someone who generally likes meeting new people.

If you were in her position:

• Would you become much more cautious about meeting people from language exchange apps?
• Would you delete the app altogether, or just be more selective?
• Would you still be willing to meet people you've only known digitally, or would this make you avoid in-person meetups for a while?

I'm interested in hearing from people who've experienced something similar, or who have friends who have.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ybMSZx3nkMM5yXN2PsZfmecTNEUUGdE/view?usp=drive_link

(1) Please make my stride bigger with the shadows proportionately modified as well.

(2) Due to modifying my eyes because of squinting under the sun, my sclera (white part) looks minimal compared to my black iris. Please shrink my black iris and increase my sclera (white part).

Thank you.

Background:
I am looking for some outside perspective on a long-distance dynamic with a girl (F20s) I have been friends with. We are currently long-distance across the Pacific Ocean ocean with a 16-hour time difference. She is an ENFJ personality type (with suspected Dismissive Avoidant attachment style) and works a high-stress medical career.

The Backstory & Timeline:
When I was in the her city, we spent months studying at cafes together, sharing afternoon teas, and traveling to other nearby countries. She stayed overnight at my apartment multiple times without any physical intimacy occurring, and she let me blow-dry her hair in my room.

For my birthday, she hand-knitted me a Winnie the Pooh pouch, wrote a handwritten letter, made a shoebox filled with snacks and stickers for us to collect, and invited me over to her house for a full, home-cooked meal.

Based on this track record, I made an in-person confession of my romantic feelings to her in mid-May. For the first two days after the confession, we text-messages completely normally. Immediately after that, she stated she had severe headaches that lasted for two weeks, during which she went to two doctor's appointments and stayed distanced. During this window, she stated that she would tell me her thoughts regarding my confession in person, but she never raised the topic again until I text-messages her about it a few weeks later. Eventually, she told me she was not ready for a relationship and wanted to just stay friends. Two hours after this texting happened, we met up in Seoul and traveled together as planned.

The Current Situation:
Since transitioning to long-distance, she has explicitly told me that she doesn’t have a boyfriend and is not looking for any romantic encounters with anyone else. However, her communication patterns vary:

• The High-Investment Windows: When I pull back my communication, her engagement increases. For example, this week she sent a late-night triple-text right before going to bed with photos of her outfits, explicitly asking me, "Which one looks cuter on me?" She also regularly views my social media stories. I also suspect that she stalks another IG account of mine that I never told her about, with her fake account. I saw on her phone that she searched up this other account of mine.
• The App Activity: This week on her days off, she logged into a language exchange app, messaged male users, and was open to setting up casual, face-to-face local meetups with them. When a user on that app asked her about it, she maintained she was strictly looking for language practice/friends and had no romantic intent.

Because I am thousands of miles away, I am concerned that I am being treated as a long-distance emotional comfort zone, while her weekends remain open for meeting new people locally because she feels secure that I am not leaving. I am currently running a 72-hour text blackout (leaving her last message unread) while posting anonymous snapshots of my weekend travels on Instagram stories to see how she responds.

How should I handle this situation to protect my own boundaries? Is this behavior standard for a hyper-social ENFJ friend, or am I being kept as a background anchor while she socializes locally?

TL;DR: Long-distance with a female friend who previously made me hand-knitted gifts, handwritten letters, and let me blow-dry her hair. After my in-person confession in mid-May, we text-messages normally for two days before she used a two-week headache window to distance herself, promising to tell me her thoughts in person but never raising it again until I asked weeks later. She then said she just wanted to be friends. Now, she triple-texts me photos of her clothes late at night asking which is cuter, but she is simultaneously open to meeting new guys on language apps for local "casual hangouts" on her days off, claiming it is strictly for language practice. I am currently leaving her on unread on LINE while posting travel stories on IG. Advice?