u/Worried_Flan4049

Might be long sorry.

I recently went back to my home country for a 1 week vacation and almost all my extremely pimi family is there, and several things made me angry, sad, etc.

1. my mom lives being "good friends" with a decent man long distance that clearly is into her, and wont commit to try to be w the man because "shes waiting on Jehovah's new system".

2. All the fake "omg tell your son we love him", like really? Then why have non of you bothered to even text me in 10 years?! The worse one was my oldest jw "friend" dared to message my mother asking "how was i" and well if he hadn't blocked me from me telling him ONE sentence (naively) that I no longer believed, he could text me himself.

3. my aunt took a brother to the meeting in her car, these are grown elderly people, and my family was lecturing her how it was wrong of her to be alone in the car with a male. This one is just sad but kinda funny cuz like wtf 😂, how did we all believe in this crap 😭.

4. it made me sad, that one or my cousins has gone pomi living the "double life" but I cant tell him anything cuz he still believes 😞.

5. I got into a fight w my mother because she and my aunt are so damn fanatic, when they go to meetings they put their phones on airplane mode to not get any notifications to "not get distracted", theyre 73 years old (theyre twins), this has already caused trouble, one day they forgot to turn if off and no one knew where they were for hours and we were all worried. Another time I had to submit a cellphone lost claim because my mom misplaced her phone while it was still in airplane mode. Like HOW in 2026 can someone still think the information given in meetings is valuable at all, they literally have been regurgitating the same nonsense for over a century and my mom got baptized in 1976!

6. the constant almost incessant jehooba talking like we'd be doing normal things and the classic "but they cant escape jehovah" or the "jehovah loves you very much, remember that, he still cares for you" would always come out on ANY conversation. I have made it clear to my mom to not talk anything jw w me but she literally cannot help herself.

Im glad I Iive very far away from all of that, im never going on vacation over there, it was a very emotionally draining week, almost not a vacation really.

I have had this female work friend for about 2-3 years? (Im male, idk if this is relevant but just in case).

And I have once stopped talking to her because basically it was a super one sided thing, id be the only one saying hi, initiating talking, sending jokes blah blah.

After this she came to and apologized and said she was going thru a lot in her life. Ok fine. Fast forward about 7 months and we've reverted back to a similar state, hell I just came back from vacation and I didnt even get a "how was your trip?".

But what triggered me posting this is today I had been busy so I had not had a chance to say hello, and I sent her a message saying "you could say hi sometimes u know?" And the response i got has me thinking I might be the only person invested in this friendship. It was "sorry that's not the first thing on my mind when I get here"

Keep mind this was hours into our shifts.

I feel like maybe this is like a AITAH thing for wanting to just cut ties? But idk.

Is it common for leadership groups to take 4+ hour lunches (several times a year say for bdays/anniversaries)? Is this reportable? It feels wrong lol.

This might be long due to needed context, sorry.

Im 36, I was born and raised in an isolationist super conservative evangelical cult, I got out just about 3-4 years ago. Since then I have basically been learning how to be a normal person (with the help of some amazing friends I made at work that have become my family) after deconstructing from all the nonsense I was fed by the cult.

So sometime in the near future once I sort out a few things im dealing with I want to take an attempt at dating (dating in the cult is nothing like the real world, like something as simple as flirting is even considered evil so i never even learned to do that...yeah).

I am a bit shy but I have no issues making female friends for some reason im exceedingly good at that, the only 2 times Ive tried to be more than a friend I got friendzoned badly (I learned my lesson after the 2nd one to not entertain it and just leave and move on) .

And ive read online many different "tips and tricks". So I am aware that I need to work on my "game". But I find it so difficult to grasp how to tell if im talking too much or too little, if im being interesting, tell if she's even a smidge interested (im not actively "dating", but I do go out and I try to talk to at least one girl when I do so to help me get more confident at this and ive gotten actually like 2 girls to give me their ig and/or their phone number, both never answered).

So I just want to know if any of you have found something that I could maybe start doing to get better at this. I dont want to perpetually be making friends of every female I meet and that seems to be what has happened so far all my life lol.

Ps: my best friend says that she thinks (and when we met she felt the same) I give off a "safety" vibe whatever that means, but idk if that's a good thing because she told me when her bf met me he immediately went like "oh ok this guy is not a threat" and shes told me that is not a bad thing I get that, but can I still be myself? Like will I have to become a jerk or something like that to not be perceived as a friend all the time? (Sorry idk if this is maybe a different topic if it is disregard, I just thought it'd add more context).

Id say im like a semi-regular at this club (ive been going like 5-6 times per year for 3 years now), and this very nice but a bit clingy Ukranian dancer latches onto me if she sees me ( I go after work I dont have the luxury of going at a different time, and this club is super close to my house), and somedays I dont get vip I just want to kill 1 hour or 2 w a few beers and have a few dances, and she'll be constantly asking to go vip or to do "offers" for a bunch more money.

I know I probably need to "man up" but im very introverted and suffer very bad social anxiety, which ironically is the reason I go there I get to have some more intimate human connection the nudity is a plus. But yeah this dancer has done this to me twice now in my last 2 visits. I wonder if any of you have gone thru a similar situation.

This is probably a stupid question. But, like we dont know the speed light travels one way, we know how long the round trip takes right?, so how do we know we're not seeing things as they are? Do we know for sure photons behave like cars in a traffick jam? Like one goes out then the next and so on. Idk if im making any sense i apologize lol.

The pathetic review bombing worked. Lol

Now im just in fascination mode, the whinedivers should be studied. I really want to see what you will find on the hotfix on Tuesday to complain about.

BTW one of the things you all were being so loud about, the hiveguards, were not an actual issue at all, it actually is easier to kill them now lol but hey your child tantrums and speculations are what matter not how the game plays. And you got it changed.

Ive now played several missions (i join random sos's) of these and its become easier and easier to face them on max difficulty (still challenging and I love that).

Key thing is your team (not necessarily you) needs a good assortment of cc and anti tank, ( as an example, there was a guy complaining yesterday on game chat that it was too difficult and his strategems were an og MG, gatling barrage, jump pack and gatling turret...now take a guess how that went vs all the titans and chargers, this is the type of player we refer to as "skill issue"...lol)

No you dont need "meta weapons" any cc will do you just need to adapt to the pace of the new bugs w said cc (also I see many people not understanding that their speed is a new mechanic when they pass thru the spores they gain speed its not a bug [hehe pun]).

My personal loadout that has given me the most results has been:

Armor: Medium Extra padding

Primary: Pummeler (sub in any cc Primary you prefer, if you're one of the "bUt mY CoYoTE", compensate on cc on your other parts of the loadout...)

Secondary: Grenade pistol - I am a permanent ultimatum user usually, but it doesnt one shot the new titans so for me its lost some value w this variant, you use whatever u like though.

Strategems:

Gas Mines - This is the only one I feel every team should have at least one diver carrying it, to throw at breaches, it makes breaches SO much easier to deal with.

500kg - just a great titan and group killer, and super useful for bug holes, just super versatile. Watch for trees lol

Gas guardog - just amazing, I think most of the guardogs might work just fine too, this is just my personal preference.

Epoch - its not everyone's cup of tea, but if u fancy the epoch its great, quasar is another good backpack less option. This and the guard dog are very interchangeable with other stuff up to you.

Grenade: Thermite, if you need more cc gas nades are always amazing or anything u prefer.

One tip, run away if its too overwhelming, even with all the right tools the combination of breaches and patrols can be super overwhelming, just run far do another objective and circle back.

Also, just an FYI hiveguards are a non issue i even ran a full set of missions w a group that had ONLY turrets no red strategems and we ran all 3 missions super smoothly, stop overreacting lol.

If you're saying "wElL I DonT WanT tO bRinG so mUcH cc I wAnnA hAvE fUn", that's a you issue. You can have fun using stuff you dont normally use, youd be surprised. I had never used the epoch as much lol. Be open to try new things is all im saying.