u/fernfernferny

Hi all, I’ll be moving in a few weeks from Boston. I’m really excited but also nervous. I’m just scared of the freeze. So I’m looking to live in a neighborhood where I can hit the ground running in terms of a social life. I was thinking Capitol Hill since I’m gay man (26). What’s the social scene like here? I like to hit up bars and chat with people - that’s usually how I make friends. Conversely, are there other neighborhoods I should consider? Thanks!

I don’t know why I thought it would be later on in August. Phase I just closed on July 2nd. Will my time ticket for phase II be good enough to register for AOS and ML? I’ve complete 5 classes already.

I have 3 YOE, 4 months working as a full-stack engineer at robotics company (React, Vue, Node, C++, Python are my main skills). I was laid off in April due to “bad company financials”. Since then, I’ve had a 2 month sabbatical to travel and took applying seriously this month. I have sent close to 200 applications, mostly remote and hybrid roles in my area, which have led to nothing. I pass the initial recruiter screening and the first technical manager screening, but after that, crickets. Even recruiters that reach out directly to me in my LinkedIn ghost me.

I was in the rounds for a position at Google but I was dropped suddenly for “other candidates”.

So now I’m thinking: what the hell am I supposed to do? I was thinking of learning AI adjacent skills, the “buzzwords” in a sense so I can pass ATS. Think FastAPI, LangChain, RAG, etc. If this is where they’re hiring, I might as well learn those things with personal projects. I’m also learning ML in depth in graduate school with PyTorch, grinding LeetCode and System Design.

If that doesn’t work out, I will be completely lost. Am I taking the right steps? I have a big financial cushion so I probably don’t have to worry about paying rent for 2 years.

There’s plenty of self-help videos out there that help you figure out whether or not someone is a narcissist. For example, YouTubers like Jimmy on Relationships, DoctorRamani, Matthew Hussey, etc. I found these videos fine and all if you’re trying not to miss the forest for the trees. A lot of flowery language here too if you’re looking for that.

However, I’d like to ask you all what you consider “tangible”, concrete signs that someone is a narcissist or narc tendencies. For example, I heavily suspect my ex to be one. Some signs:

Abundant charisma, charm, and wit
A subtle sense of grandiosity
A talented conversationalist, not for others but to laud himself
Loud, obnoxious forced laughs
Preoccupation with fashion, clothes, furniture, jewelry, “things” in general
A heavy disdain and lack of patience for animals
A disdain for autistic people
Bullying in their childhood for their weight that led to adulthood fatphobia
Heavy drinker
Smoker
Disregard for dental hygiene
Smugness, know-it-allness, smart aleck

These are the sort of signs I’m talking about. I might have proved myself correct when one day, before breaking up, I brought these things up about him. He immediately went on the defensive and claimed I was “attacking his character”. I’ve never seen him so enraged and aggressive with me. He ended things with: “I hate weak people, you’re a weak person and a coward!”

Can anybody back me up here or provide their own perspective?

…if you have to commute to MA to work? My boyfriend’s job is in Manchester, NH and we’re looking to rent a place together, midway. Besides the utter lack of inventory, Nashua is like a dead zone for quality rentals.

For example, if I have to commute to Waltham during rush hour from Nashua, Google Maps predictive routes says anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hr and 30 min! That’s about ~33 MPH on average for just ~30 miles distance. Forget taking any sort of job near downtown Boston. That would drive me insane.

Is anybody taking this route? How do you manage?

Does a treatment exist to slim nostril skin and make it look skinner from the front? I’ve heard of people taking accutane which had a side of effect of reducing their oil gland sizes. Are there other ways, besides makeup?

I’m a mid level SWE and I live on the outskirts of Boston, about 1-2 hours depending on traffic. I work as a full stack SWE in robotics and embedded for a mid-sized company and I’ve survived three rounds of layoffs already over a span of 3 years. I’m feeling a lot of contempt for this company, and how the C-suite is handling things, and I might want to move somewhere more secure. Every quarterly company fiscal town hall, they claim the company is doing “better than ever”, and yet they’re doing all these layoffs.

I don’t particularly like the tech scene here. It’s mostly just biotech and robotics. I’m feeling lately just how shaky this industry is. I’ve been applying to remote roles, but I’ve had no luck. I want better pay, benefits, access to nature, and not having to fear for my life if I get laid off.

The COL in Boston is just insane. I think 1 bedroom rental apartments in Boston are about, if not more expensive now than in SF. And I’ve heard the pure software scene in Boston is lackluster. So I’ve actually been looking to move to the West Coast, but only with a job offer. Just checking on Zillow shows much more variety in prices and inventory for places to live.

Has anyone done a similar move? I’m just trying to see that I’m not crazy.

I’ve been buying the 100g tin cans of ceremonial matcha powder from Jade Leaf for years now. I’m thinking of switching. Ippodo seems to be the best recommendation online, but their 100g bags are like $120 compared to $60 of JL. Is the quality of Ippodo better? What other brand should I consider?

I’m 26 M, going through the absolute lowest of my life. I was laid off from my dream job in April and dumped by my partner this month. I am completely, gutted, devastated, I don’t feel like I have anything to live for anymore. I have very few family members which are distant and don’t feel like I can relate to well enough. I lost all the friendships I developed through my partner. Now, I’m in a house all by myself, starving for connection and not being able to get it. Reaching out to what few friends I have here fall short and are brief, unsatisfactory. I live a state where everyone is basically married, settled down, with their families, insular, and difficult to break into.

We dated for a year before he ended things after two intense months of push and pull, with arguments that never seemed to go anywhere. We were supposed to move in together in a month, but the relationship had become too unstable. We were textbook “opposites attract”—we genuinely tried to make it work, but in the end, we were misaligned.

We dated for a year before he ended things after two intense months of push and pull, with arguments that never seemed to go anywhere. We were supposed to move in together in a month, but the relationship had become too unstable. We were textbook “opposites attract”—we genuinely tried to make it work, but in the end, we were misaligned.

I (26 M) am facing one of the hardest decisions of my life. My boyfriend (30 M) wants me to move in with him this August. If I don’t, he said the relationship will be over. We’ve been dating for a year.

I’ve called his bluff once before on this, where I refused and he packed all my stuff from his place. Then he called back later apologizing, crying, and we made amends.

The problem is, I’ve lost my job in April (tech) after working three years there. I live in a state not known for tech jobs, so the only solution is remote or commuting a baddddd commute (1-2 hours) in the next state over. I absolutely HATE commuting. I have had terrible experiences in heavy traffic before and I don’t want to deal with that stress. Whereas his career as a lawyer is here, and he’s hinting that he’s not open to moving, that his network is here, he needs to plant roots here, and wants to buy a house here. He has entertained me with the idea of moving to a tech hub for me (Seattle), but I don’t know if I can take his word for it. I might end up regretting waiting for something that might not happen at all.

So, I relented and I said I would move in with him, but I’m getting cold feet. I feel like I’m making a big enough of a compromise here. I’m risking my early career jumpstart by not moving where the jobs are, and things have already been shaky between us (he kept breaking his promises about not smoking cigarettes, I’ve been telling him for a year now that it’s a dealbreaker for me, but I’ve overlooked it). He’s also a heavy drinker and overall I think he’s very lax about his health, including dental hygiene. He says he absolutely needs to move in with me because he needs to see me “regularly” and not just on the weekends. Which is fair, I agree, but my job situation is freaking me out. We have a good enough situation where we’re committed and seeing each other regularly but he’s exasperated by living 15 minutes away from each other.

We don’t plan on having kids (obviously both male, no IVF either). I love dogs, and he heavily dislikes any sort of animal. I asked if we might be able to get a puppy in the future and it’s like pulling teeth out of the man. He said I and I only would have to take care of it. But that sucks because I’d like someone to help me care for it, even just minimally. Says he has no patience with any kind of animal.

I’m very career focused. Actually, I want it all: the house, the relationship, and the career. But I feel like I’m staring off the edge of a cliff right now. There is so much good to say about him as well but I’m really hung up on this.

Year after year the metro area has been named a booming housing market. Why? There’s no high paying jobs or a well known industry in the area. Commuting from there to Boston is a huge pain in the ass. So what gives?

I am going through a stressful time with my partner. I try to be very understanding of him but I think my needs are being shunned to an extent. I try to look at the good more than the bad about him. He’s affectionate, loving, intelligent, stable, and funny. But I just can’t help but feel funny about it all.

We’ve been dating for a year and he’s given me an ultimatum to either move in with him, or breakup. It just doesn’t fit my timeline really well given I that I was laid off from my current job and I have nagging thoughts about him. I’m jumping to conclusions like: he might be controlling, impatient, impulsive, narcissistic, even based off all the data I’ve “collected” about him.

I’m just trying to avoid a big mistake. Has anyone else had their gut feelings be confirmed? I am agonizing over this decision.

We only have the Boston express and the MBTA, and these go straight down into the core of Boston. Why is that? We know that there’s so many more jobs NORTH of Boston, particularly along the I-95 corridor. Waltham, Burlington, Reading, etc. So why isn’t there a bus yet that goes along this path? We have no choice but to slog through terrible traffic.

Hi! I know the rental inventory in NH is terrible but I’ll try my luck here. My boyfriend and I are looking for a house or a townhouse to rent in Nashua/Merrimack or Salem. Preferably a 3 bedroom. We’re looking for an August move-in date. If anybody has any leads, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you.

To the person that designed the parking lot at Market and Main in Bedford - you know, the plaza with REI and Whole Foods - WHY?! It is an absolute clusterfuck! I feel like a high schooler could have come up with a better design!

People often say East Coasters are kind but not nice, while West Coasters are nice but not kind. But after living in the Boston area for a while, I’m honestly kind of sick of the rude and aggressive attitude here, especially when it comes to traffic and driving on these already tight roads. I understand the argument that people here might be the first to help you if your car breaks down, but I find it hard to care about that hypothetical when the day to day experience can feel so stressful.

Beyond the driving, there seems to be this underlying, permeating stress that comes with living in such a dense city. Sometimes it feels like everyone is in a rush, on edge, or trying to prove something. There is also a degree of elitism that I find exhausting.

On the other hand, I’ve found West Coasters, Seattleites in particular, to be more aloof and laid back, but also more polite. People seemed highly aware of and respectful of others’ personal space. The traffic was still bad, but it felt much more tolerable because drivers were not nearly as aggressive.

Does anyone else feel this way or had a similar experience?

Please help, I suspect that I might be dating an alcoholic and/or a narcissist.

I have been dating my boyfriend for about a year now. We live about 20 minutes away from each other. Ever since we started dating, he’s been expressing his desire to see me more often.

For context, every weekend that we’ve been able to spend together, we spend it together. We alternate staying over at each other’s places every weekend, usually Friday - Monday or Friday - Tuesday. We meet some weekdays as well. He’s a very intelligent, charismatic, funny, and loving guy. One could describe us as different but very complementing.

The problem is, I feel smothered. I value my alone time. And he constantly complains that the time we spend together is not enough for him. I’ve told him multiple times, that this is just a byproduct of us dating our first few years, and living apart is just a fact of life for the interim. Almost everybody starts off this way. I’ve expressed to him multiple times that if he can’t appreciate the AMOUNT of time together, could you please appreciate the CONSISTENCY in which we see each other EVERY week? And yet he can’t see that - he wants to see me during the week and more.

To give you an example: one time, when it was my turn to spend time at his house, I told him I’d be there Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. When I got there that morning, he was grumpy, and I immediately knew something was up. He said: “what’s so hard about showing up yesterday afternoon?” I got frustrated with him and said it could be a suite of factors: I’m working overtime, I’m tired, I have to shower, I have to pack my things, etc. etc. Use your imagination! Does he expect me to stuff everything in a plastic bag and head over?

I have a 9-5 job and I am doing part time grad school at the same time. So that leaves very little free time on my part. He just couldn’t wrap his head around this, even now, when I was laid off and my job search has turned into its own full-time job. If I try to work on school on the weekends, he doesn’t get mad, but I just know he gets agitated.

We also just had our anniversary dinner. We’re on the topic of what we’re gonna do in terms of seeing family for the holidays. I have always gotten “weird” vibes from his family, just not the healthiest dynamic. He constantly says that he “wants me” to “like his family”, but I can’t bring myself to. We broach on the subject of how it came to be that his sister found her husband (who is quiet and shy like I am). He casually says that he, like his family, just “love bomb” the partner until they become a part of the family. I’m not sure how to interpret this: does he do it because he’s naturally expressive, or does he have ill intentions?! Do I have to worry now that he’s a narcissist?!

And he confessed that he might be an alcoholic. His dad is an alcoholic and in AA, so that might have a genetic component. He told me this when he was sad about his grandma who’s struggling with a terminal illness. He was afraid to admit this to me, and he told me he’s afraid I’d view him as a red flag now. I’ve known that he was a moderate to heavy drinker since we started dating. I’m talking about 2-3 gin martinis at every outing, finding bottles and bottles of alcohol in his trash bins. He’s also said stuff like: “I have problems processing a range of human emotions sober” and, “alcohol helped me realize my connection with you was real”. WTF?

So now, even though I was on board to move in with him since last year, I’m having doubts about my move in now. And he’s given me an ultimatum: we move in together or we break up. He says he cannot have me as just a “weekend boyfriend”. I’m starting to think this is a troubling all-or-nothing pattern of his. And honestly, it makes me uncomfortable. I am well aware of his impulsive nature.

TL;DR: My boyfriend of one year wants more time together than I can realistically give, despite us already spending most weekends together. He recently admitted he may be an alcoholic, said his family “love bombs” partners, and has now given me an ultimatum: move in together or break up. I was planning to move in, but these behaviors are making me question the relationship.

I have been dating my boyfriend for about a year now. We live about 20 minutes away from each other. Ever since we started dating, he’s been expressing his desire to see me more often.

For context, every weekend that we’ve been able to spend together, we spend it together. We alternate staying over at each other’s places every weekend, usually Friday - Monday or Friday - Tuesday. We meet some weekdays as well. He’s a very intelligent, charismatic, funny, and loving guy. One could describe us as different but very complementing.

The problem is, I feel smothered. I value my alone time. And he constantly complains that the time we spend together is not enough for him. I’ve told him multiple times, that this is just a byproduct of us dating our first few years, and living apart is just a fact of life for the interim. Almost everybody starts off this way. I’ve expressed to him multiple times that if he can’t appreciate the AMOUNT of time together, could you please appreciate the CONSISTENCY in which we see each other EVERY week? And yet he can’t see that - he wants to see me during the week and more.

I have a 9-5 job and I am doing part time grad school at the same time. So that leaves very little free time on my part. He just couldn’t wrap his head around this, even now, when I was laid off and my job search has turned into its own full-time job. If I try to work on school on the weekends, he doesn’t get mad, but I just KNOW he gets very visibly bothered and agitated.

So now, even though I was on board to move in with him since last year, I’m having doubts about my move in now. And he’s given me an ultimatum: we move in together or we break up. He says he cannot have me as just a “weekend boyfriend”. I’m starting to think this is a troubling all-or-nothing pattern of his. And honestly, it makes me uncomfortable. I am well aware of his impulsive nature.

To give you an example: one time, when it was my turn to spend time at his house, I told him I’d be there Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. When I got there that morning, he was grumpy, and I immediately knew something was up. He said: “what’s so hard about showing up yesterday afternoon?” I got frustrated with him and said it could be a suite of factors: I’m working overtime, I’m tired, I have to shower, I have to pack my things, etc. etc. Use your imagination! Does he expect me to stuff everything in a plastic bag and head over?

Recently he confessed that he might be an alcoholic??? He was afraid to admit this to me, and he told me he’s afraid I’d view him as a red flag now. I’ve known that he was a moderate to heavy drinker since we started dating. But then he’s also said stuff like: “I have problems processing a range of human emotions sober” and, “alcohol helped me realize my connection with you was real”. WTF?

TL;DR: Boyfriend says we move in together or break up because seeing each other every weekend isn’t enough for him. I value my independence, work full-time, and am in grad school. Lately I’m questioning moving in because he seems increasingly dependent on me for emotional fulfillment and recently admitted he may have a drinking problem. Are these red flags or am I being unfair?