u/combing_town_west

Hi everyone,

Here’s my current situation: I’m a 30 year old bloke, I work out, do a lot of walking and running, eat healthy, and generally do pretty much everything right when it comes to looking after myself.

I was in a relationship for 5 years with my ex girlfriend. She was on the pill so we never used condoms. We’d just start kissing and I could get straight to it, even if I was only semi. I didn’t need to be at 100 percent stiffness just to roll a condom on. I basically got acclimatised to that, haha, it’s what I grew used to.

Recently, I met a new girl. She can’t take the pill. Since it’s a new person and I hadn’t had sex in a while, plus not having used a condom in over 5 years, things went a bit pear shaped. We went to have sex, but unfortunately while I was trying to put the condom on, I went soft. Eventually, she told me to just put it in without one, so I did, and we had sex for about 20 or 25 minutes non stop with absolutely no issues. Next time around, I thought I’d be fine. I started opening the condom packet and immediately started losing my erection. Perfect, I thought. But again, without the condom, sex was completely fine.

After that, I told her we shouldn’t do it without a condom anymore for my sake, that we need to be responsible and not take risks. I ended up getting so inside my own head about the whole thing that I went to see a urologist/andrologist. He checked me over and there's absolutely nothing wrong with my testicles or anything else. He sent me for a load of hormone blood tests, checking my testosterone, TSH, estrogen, you name it. I had the blood drawn a couple of days ago but haven't got the results back yet, and I'm spending the weekend with her again.

The urologist prescribed me 5mg of Tadalafil, telling me to take it either daily or right before sex if I want to, just to help me break out of this psychological anxiety vicious circle. Because right now, the second we start kissing, my brain instantly goes, "it's not going to work because of the condom."

So, I don't really know what to do. What do you lot think? Everything is probably fine with me physically, even though the lab results aren't back yet, but I feel like this is purely psychological now and I'm stuck. Should I just take the Tadalafil and try to get used to the condoms? I honestly don't know.

Hey everyone,

I’m dealing with something kind of specific and I’m not sure how to fix it.

In my current relationship (about 1 month in), I have zero issues getting or maintaining an erection without a condom. Everything feels completely normal, I can last as long as needed, and there’s no anxiety at all.

But the moment I put a condom on, I get this sudden wave of anxiety like:
“Okay… this is where I’m going to lose it.”

And then that thought alone seems to trigger exactly what I’m worried about, I start losing my erection, which then makes me more anxious, and it becomes a loop.

What’s interesting is that in my previous 5-year relationship, I didn’t use condoms because my ex was on birth control, so I never really had to deal with this specific situation before.

I’ve tried tadalafil 5mg before and it basically made everything effortless, even with condoms, but I don’t really want to rely on it long-term if I can fix the underlying issue.

Or should I use it for like 1-2 times and use the condom as much as possible so I can somehow "train" myself for it? I'm not sure....

So I guess I’m wondering:

• Has anyone dealt with this specific “condom trigger” anxiety?
• What actually helped you get past it?
• Is it just repetition / exposure until it stops being a mental thing?
• Or is there something else I should be doing?

How common is this by the way?

I don't know how to get out of this loop...

Any advice or personal experience would really help.

Thanks

Hey everyone,

I’m dealing with something kind of specific and I’m not sure how to fix it.

In my current relationship (about 1 month in), I have zero issues getting or maintaining an erection without a condom. Everything feels completely normal, I can last as long as needed, and there’s no anxiety at all.

But the moment I put a condom on, I get this sudden wave of anxiety like:
“Okay… this is where I’m going to lose it.”

And then that thought alone seems to trigger exactly what I’m worried about, I start losing my erection, which then makes me more anxious, and it becomes a loop.

What’s interesting is that in my previous 5-year relationship, I didn’t use condoms because my ex was on birth control, so I never really had to deal with this specific situation before.

I’ve tried tadalafil 5mg before and it basically made everything effortless, even with condoms, but I don’t really want to rely on it long-term if I can fix the underlying issue.

Or should I use it for like 1-2 times and use the condom as much as possible so I can somehow "train" myself for it? I'm not sure....

So I guess I’m wondering:

• Has anyone dealt with this specific “condom trigger” anxiety?
• What actually helped you get past it?
• Is it just repetition / exposure until it stops being a mental thing?
• Or is there something else I should be doing?

How common is this by the way?

Any advice or personal experience would really help.

Thanks

The situation is that I am a very healthy, active athlete and will be 30 at the end of the year. I have never had issues with sex; only when I was a virgin did I feel anxious and want to 'perform,' so at that time a urologist prescribed me a drug called Spedra. With that, I had a normal erection, and I had intercourse without any issues with my very first girlfriend.

More than 10 years have passed, and I never had similar problems. A 6-year relationship recently ended, during which we never used condoms. The sex was world-class.

I met a new girl and we have been together, but before that, we had some wine + a condom + stress, so I wasn't hard enough, and I just let the whole thing go.

However, I started obsessing over it... I thought something was wrong with me. I went to a private urologist, who examined me, testicles, penis, frenulum, ultrasound, etc. and said I am perfectly healthy, and gave me a referral for hormonal lab tests.

I haven't been able to go there yet, but it’s planned for next week.

In addition, he prescribed 5mg Tadalafil, 28 tablets, for 1 month, to take 1 daily. Well... I haven't even opened it or started taking it. He said I am too much of a perfectionist and afraid that I won't be able to perform well; I have performance anxiety, and this would help me get past it. He said I wouldn't even have to take it daily; it might be enough to take it just once a few hours before sex.

Well... I am here now, I’m meeting the girl on the weekend, and I don't know what to do. If we don't drink, I won't stress about it as much, and we will have more time together, so maybe I will have a good erection anyway. However, I already bought the Tadalafil and, honestly... I am curious about what it can do; I would gladly try it.

But what would I say to the girl? How would I justify to myself that I had to resort to this at such a young age? Wouldn't I be 'less of a man' because of this? I don't know... it’s weird... I’m debating it.

What do you suggest?

The situation is that I am a very healthy, active athlete and will be 30 at the end of the year. I have never had issues with sex; only when I was a virgin did I feel anxious and want to 'perform,' so at that time a urologist prescribed me a drug called Spedra. With that, I had a normal erection, and I had intercourse without any issues with my very first girlfriend.

More than 10 years have passed, and I never had similar problems. A 6-year relationship recently ended, during which we never used condoms. The sex was world-class.

I met a new girl and we have been together, but before that, we had some wine + a condom + stress, so I wasn't hard enough, and I just let the whole thing go.

However, I started obsessing over it... I thought something was wrong with me. I went to a private urologist, who examined me, testicles, penis, frenulum, ultrasound, etc. and said I am perfectly healthy, and gave me a referral for hormonal lab tests.

I haven't been able to go there yet, but it’s planned for next week.

In addition, he prescribed 5mg Tadalafil, 28 tablets, for 1 month, to take 1 daily. Well... I haven't even opened it or started taking it. He said I am too much of a perfectionist and afraid that I won't be able to perform well; I have performance anxiety, and this would help me get past it. He said I wouldn't even have to take it daily; it might be enough to take it just once a few hours before sex.

Well... I am here now, I’m meeting the girl on the weekend, and I don't know what to do. If we don't drink, I won't stress about it as much, and we will have more time together, so maybe I will have a good erection anyway. However, I already bought the Tadalafil and, honestly... I am curious about what it can do; I would gladly try it.

But what would I say to the girl? How would I justify to myself that I had to resort to this at such a young age? Wouldn't I be 'less of a man' because of this? I don't know... it’s weird... I’m debating it.

What do you suggest?

Here’s my situation: I’m 29 turning 30 soon, male. I’m generally a pretty stressed, perfectionist, overthinking kind of person, which I know I’ll have to deal with at some point. My life is otherwise in a good place, I’ve achieved everything I wanted. I earn very-well, live alone, have a car, have solid savings, don’t really have to worry about money, good job, career, all that.

I was in a relationship with a woman for 6 years, we had sex without condoms because she was on the pill. I never had any issues with erections or anything like that. Before her I also had relationships, and I never had problems like this.

But now, 9 months after the breakup, I met a new girl. With her I’d need to use a condom, and after about 2–3 glasses of wine, because I was worried that I might lose my erection because of the condom, I actually did lose it before sex, so we didn’t end up having sex. To be fair, she didn’t really help the situation either.

I went to a private urologist, got checked out, including a testicular and penile ultrasound, and he said I’m completely healthy and that I’m just overthinking it. He sent me for lab tests, which I haven’t done yet. He also prescribed 5 mg tadalafil, 28 pills, to take for a month, saying it should help me get through this whole thing. Or just use it for the first time then stop using it.

Maybe I'm overthinking everything lmao.

Honestly, I don’t know. What do you think? I exercise, I’m healthy, the doctor says I’m fine, so why should I take it? If I take it, won’t I feel like I can’t “wash off” the fact that I used a performance enhancer? Or is this not really a performance enhancer? I read that even Olympic athletes take it, Huberman mentioned it too… I don’t know what to do. I’m scared to take it because I feel like it’ll stick with me mentally. Please help.

It’s pouring rain so hard that I ducked into a burger joint. There were two girls working there.

I walked up to the counter and started chatting with the cuter one, who took my order. I told her I only came in to escape the rain, and she told me to go ahead and sit down, and that it’s totally fine if I don't even buy anything. We talked for about 4–5 minutes, holding eye contact, and she was smiling and laughing a lot. Then I sat down, she brought out my food, and goes: "Be careful, it’s pretty hot, don't burn your mouth", I was like, thanks!

Then her coworker went outside for a smoke, and this girl sat down on a chair about 15 feet to my left. I could see her out of the corner of my eye... just waiting for her to say something.

Finally, she spoke up: "This rain is so unpredictable." I said, yeah... I can’t even get home. Then we started chatting, she asked what I do for a living, told me she’s taking her final university exams soon, stuff like that. We talked for about 10 minutes until some customers walked in and interrupted us.

So... do you think it was just a normal chit-chat, or does she fancy me?

I have a friend at Anthropic, and over there it's full AI-first agentic coding (if I remember correctly), and they barely write any code manually. AI is used for absolutely everything.

They said it’s a completely different way of developing and is often harder than writing everything manually from scratch because you have to understand the output code, understand the patterns, the bad practices, optimize the code, etc...

I don't know, is this the future? Is this what awaits everyone?

Hi everyone,

I’ve received a job offer from a small company where they’d hire me as an engineer in more of a core role, with a lot of architectural decisions and a pretty complex scope of work. From a career perspective, it’s basically the best opportunity I could ask for. The salary they’re offering is more than double what I’m making now.

So overall, it’s an amazing career move and an extremely good salary. Good enough that I could comfortably rent my own place, maintain a car, and not really have to worry about money. I’d be earning more than any of my former university classmates, which feels kind of wild.

The position is fully remote for now, and the company doesn’t even have an office yet since it only launched earlier this year. It’s a fintech startup, but backed by very serious investors.

That said, they mentioned that once the project takes off and the company starts scaling, and once they have an office, they’d like people to come in about 1–3 times a week. However, they also said that if I accept, my contract would specify that office attendance is determined individually, based on an agreement between me and my manager. So there wouldn’t be a fixed number of days per week, it could be once a week, twice a month, twice a week, or whatever we agree on.

The company is based in New York. There’s no office yet, but that’s where it would be, and I live about 2–3 hours away by public transport. So that’s really the only thing that bothers me.

What should I do? Should I take the risk, accept the offer, work fully remote for who knows how long, maybe 3, 6, or even 12 months, and then deal with the commuting question later? Should I trust that I’ll be able to negotiate a custom arrangement, like going in once a week or maybe twice every two weeks? I’m not keen on moving, but I would if I absolutely had to.

I'm currently worrying about a problem that doesn't exist yet.

As for my current job, like I said, it pays much less, and salaries have been delayed for more than 6 months now. For example, I got my February salary on March 30, so I really want to switch.

Hi everyone,

I’ve received a job offer from a small company where they’d hire me as an engineer in more of a core role, with a lot of architectural decisions and a pretty complex scope of work. From a career perspective, it’s basically the best opportunity I could ask for. The salary they’re offering is more than double what I’m making now.

So overall, it’s an amazing career move and an extremely good salary. Good enough that I could comfortably rent my own place, maintain a car, and not really have to worry about money. I’d be earning more than any of my former university classmates, which feels kind of wild.

The position is fully remote for now, and the company doesn’t even have an office yet since it only launched earlier this year. It’s a fintech startup, but backed by very serious investors.

That said, they mentioned that once the project takes off and the company starts scaling, and once they have an office, they’d like people to come in about 1–3 times a week. However, they also said that if I accept, my contract would specify that office attendance is determined individually, based on an agreement between me and my manager. So there wouldn’t be a fixed number of days per week, it could be once a week, twice a month, twice a week, or whatever we agree on.

The company is based in New York. There’s no office yet, but that’s where it would be, and I live about 2–3 hours away by public transport. So that’s really the only thing that bothers me.

What should I do? Should I take the risk, accept the offer, work fully remote for who knows how long, maybe 3, 6, or even 12 months, and then deal with the commuting question later? Should I trust that I’ll be able to negotiate a custom arrangement, like going in once a week or maybe twice every two weeks? I’m not keen on moving, but I would if I absolutely had to.

I'm currently worrying about a problem that doesn't exist yet.

As for my current job, like I said, it pays much less, and salaries have been delayed for more than 6 months now. For example, I got my February salary on March 30, so I really want to switch.

I’m starting a new job next week, but I haven’t received any emails yet about the first steps or anything like that, is this normal? It’s a fully remote job, there’s no office, but I’m starting in a week.

Am I being impatient, or is this not okay?

How was it for you, how long before your start date did you receive information?

I’m starting a new job next week, but I haven’t received any emails yet about the first steps or anything like that, is this normal? It’s a fully remote job, there’s no office, but I’m starting in a week.

Am I being impatient, or is this not okay?

How was it for you, how long before your start date did you receive information?

Hi everyone,

I’ve received a job offer from a small company where they’d hire me as an engineer in more of a core role, with a lot of architectural decisions and a pretty complex scope of work. From a career perspective, it’s basically the best opportunity I could ask for. The salary they’re offering is more than double what I’m making now.

So overall, it’s an amazing career move and an extremely good salary. Good enough that I could comfortably rent my own place, maintain a car, and not really have to worry about money. I’d be earning more than any of my former university classmates, which feels kind of wild.

The position is fully remote for now, and the company doesn’t even have an office yet since it only launched earlier this year. It’s a fintech startup, but backed by very serious investors.

That said, they mentioned that once the project takes off and the company starts scaling, and once they have an office, they’d like people to come in about 1–3 times a week. However, they also said that if I accept, my contract would specify that office attendance is determined individually, based on an agreement between me and my manager. So there wouldn’t be a fixed number of days per week, it could be once a week, twice a month, twice a week, or whatever we agree on.

The company is based in New York. There’s no office yet, but that’s where it would be, and I live about 2–3 hours away by public transport. So that’s really the only thing that bothers me.

What should I do? Should I take the risk, accept the offer, work fully remote for who knows how long, maybe 3, 6, or even 12 months, and then deal with the commuting question later? Should I trust that I’ll be able to negotiate a custom arrangement, like going in once a week or maybe twice every two weeks? I’m not keen on moving, but I would if I absolutely had to.

I'm currently worrying about a problem that doesn't exist yet.

As for my current job, like I said, it pays much less, and salaries have been delayed for more than 6 months now. For example, I got my February salary on March 30, so I really want to switch.

TL;DR:
Got a job offer with over 2× my current salary and great career potential at a new fintech startup. It’s fully remote for now, but later they may expect occasional office visits in New York (2–3 hours away), though this would be individually negotiated. I don’t want to move, but might if necessary. My current job pays less and salaries are often delayed, so I’m strongly considering switching.

Hi everyone,

I’ve received a job offer from a small company where they’d hire me as an engineer in more of a core role, with a lot of architectural decisions and a pretty complex scope of work. From a career perspective, it’s basically the best opportunity I could ask for. The salary they’re offering is more than double what I’m making now.

So overall, it’s an amazing career move and an extremely good salary. Good enough that I could comfortably rent my own place, maintain a car, and not really have to worry about money. I’d be earning more than any of my former university classmates, which feels kind of wild.

The position is fully remote for now, and the company doesn’t even have an office yet since it only launched earlier this year. It’s a fintech startup, but backed by very serious investors.

That said, they mentioned that once the project takes off and the company starts scaling, and once they have an office, they’d like people to come in about 1–3 times a week. However, they also said that if I accept, my contract would specify that office attendance is determined individually, based on an agreement between me and my manager. So there wouldn’t be a fixed number of days per week, it could be once a week, twice a month, twice a week, or whatever we agree on.

The company is based in New York. There’s no office yet, but that’s where it would be, and I live about 2–3 hours away by public transport. So that’s really the only thing that bothers me.

What should I do? Should I take the risk, accept the offer, work fully remote for who knows how long, maybe 3, 6, or even 12 months, and then deal with the commuting question later? Should I trust that I’ll be able to negotiate a custom arrangement, like going in once a week or maybe twice every two weeks? I’m not keen on moving, but I would if I absolutely had to.

I'm currently worrying about a problem that doesn't exist yet.

As for my current job, like I said, it pays much less, and salaries have been delayed for more than 6 months now. For example, I got my February salary on March 30, so I really want to switch.

TL;DR:
Got a job offer with over 2× my current salary and great career potential at a new fintech startup. It’s fully remote for now, but later they may expect occasional office visits in New York (2–3 hours away), though this would be individually negotiated. I don’t want to move, but might if necessary. My current job pays less and salaries are often delayed, so I’m strongly considering switching.