u/likeshinythings

Hi everyone! I really like playing life sim games, but I wanted something to play that was more focused on actually raising a kid, getting married, etc. I like The Sims, I've played all 4 iterations and 2 and 3 are my favorites, but I don't want to necessarily play an entire life if that makes sense, I want something focused on the family relationships and raising a kid.

I hate farming sims, I tried playing Stardew Valley and instead thinking of it as cozy I only got stressed out (I felt anxious because I felt like I had to do everything and fix everything in my farm immediately...). I'd love to hear some recommendations, preferably either for Windows or mobile since I don't have any gaming consoles.

Thank you in advance :)

Hi everyone. I want some advice because I've been going through something these past months that has been driving me insane.

Earlier this year I (21F) ended my first relationship, and during this time, I ended up learning more about attachment theory and realized I had a fearful avoidant attachment style. I began noticing attachment style patterns all around me with all the people I saw, which at this point wasn't something too worrysome as when I was in high school I was obsessed with mbti/enneagrams and I would be seeing personality type patterns in all the people I interacted with too.

I began recognizing some of my own behaviours and struggles in other people, and that was very interesting. I also began a journey to heal some of my unhealthy patterns that had messed up my relationship.

A few months ago I got into true crime documentaries, I watched a few of them on Netflix. I'm also obsessed with the reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And suddenly I kept on seeing some people with similar behaviours and patterns as me on these pieces of media... As the killers or the scammers or in Taylor Frankie Paul who is notoriously an awful person who has been arrested for domestic violence.

Here's the thing, my actions aren't as awful as them. I'm not a violent person, the last time I even came close to be phisically violent with someone was 6 years ago when I threw a pillow to my sister's face during an argument. I even hate direct confrontation and don't argue with people, except for maybe my family (even with my ex girlfriend, we never argued, our conflicts were always conversations).

But I do sometimes lie because I hate causing discomfort, I do like attention and validation... Obviously it's not to the extreme extent as these people I'm talking about, but I also don't think these people started as killers... They were once normal people with unhealthy behaviours and that led to awful actions...

So I keep worrying I'll become like this in the future, and I've been microanalyzing all my actions all the time. It's driving me insane, every single action I have I analyze and worry I might be becoming awful. Yesterday I got mad at my mom and lashed out at her, and I apologized and didn't do it again, but I keep on thinking about that and wondering if this is the start of me becoming a worse person who will kill people when I'm angry or when I'm mad...

I don't angry too easily, again usually it only comes out with my family, and it's not that frequent, but I keep on worrying it's just a matter of time... As I said, I'm recounting all of my actions and moods and reactions, I'm thinking and rethinking... Honestly I've been feeling so so exhausted! How do I stop? What is going on? I can't unlearn what I learnt about these patterns, they'll keep on showing up around me and my reaction is always to compare it to me and try to place the blame onto myself... I stopped watching true crime content because I realized that was driving me insane, but I'm still scared.

Obviously I'm working on my patterns so I won't become a violent person or anything like that, but what if it's not enough?

Hi everyone. Around 4 months ago, my (21F) first "relationship" ended.

I put "relationship" in quotes because though we were together for around 7 months, we only became official for a short amount of time, and we didn't get to do a lot of romantic stuff during that time.

One of the reasons was because I spent 3 months away during summer, so we were long distance, but during the other 4 months, we had a lot of issues because my ex (23F) was very avoidant and because I was extremely inexperienced.

I grew up in a non-accepting family, in a very religious and conservative environment, and I struggled a lot to accept I was a lesbian. I never had any experience before because even when there were opportunities, I was still overprotected by my family and ashamed of wanting to have any romantic needs. Last year, I moved out for college and I made a promise to myself I would try to be more open about my sexuality and maybe try to have my first romantic experiences.

I came out to my university friends and one of my friends, my now ex, confessed she had feelings for me. I accepted it because after so many years, I finally felt somewhat ready and safe (as we were friends first) to try. As I said, she was very avoidant and had her own issues that made our relationship difficult. But I also ended up complicating things in a way I didn't expect.

I did think I would maybe feel nervous to do a lot of things for the first time, but turns out I was so afraid that everything made me freeze. Affection made me freeze, I couldn't talk about my feelings, physical stuff made me freeze especially. In the entirety of our relationship we only kissed twice and sometimes even hugging her made me flinch.

It wasn't like I didn't want these things, I'm a very affectionate person when it comes to friendships and I craved contact and connection, but when it came down to it, I would get so scared I would always end up having adverse reactions. The worst part is that I just kept on thinking I would be able to push through and do what I wanted, but it was almost like all my rationality left my body and I was just scared.

I tried explaining that to my ex, but by the time I realized what was happening, that was too late and she broke up with me because she felt like I didn't care about her. I swear I tried my best, I explained to her how difficult these things were for me, how being with her made me scared but I was trying my best to push through because I really liked her, but she just told me I was meant to do things scared anyway, and when I couldn't do it she got upset.

Anyway, it's been months, I've gotten over my ex and now I know a bit more about myself and my needs and I would love to be romantic with someone again. I really want to have a connection like that again, to experience romantic love. But I'm not sure if I'm ready.

How does one feel ready? How can I get ready for romantic physical affection for example without getting it? What if I freeze again and make other people feel rejected accidentally? What if I'm unable to let go of all this fear?

I know rationally there's nothing wrong with me being a lesbian, I'm the most open I've ever been about it now, but I've realized how at the critical moment, I always get scared. I don't even know how to explain that to people because in my country, physical affection starts reeeeally early on, and it is casual and simple for other people. I don't understand truly why it's so hard for me, I know people with similar backgrounds who aren't so stiff like I am.

If I'm not ready, how does one become ready? What does that mean? Is it bad that my first relationship was so messy?

I just have so many questions. I'm sorry if I sound too immature, I'm experiencing all of this for the first time so there's a lot I still don't understand.

(cw: i'll mention sa and other common problematic dark romance elements)

I'm not a dark romance reader, but yesterday I was watching Rachel Oates' video about Nick Fuentes and in the middle of it she goes in this rant about a youtuber she used to watch who appearently talked shit about her because she makes videos criticizing dark romance books.

Now, I only watch Rachel's videos about fundies or political figures or poetry because I don't agree with her general takes on books. As I mentioned, I'm not a dark romance reader, but it's because I don't like romance in general and don't like to read smut, not because I find it morally wrong to like these things. But I've always thought she was such a surface level feminist.

Now, this post isn't necessarily about Rachel Oates herself though I dislike her general takes on books. But it's about how many surface-level feminists who are in booktube seem to think that shaming other women for liking dark romance novels equals feminism. I see so many issues with this kinds of critiques, and here's why:

1. Obviously the things being done in these books are not good and morally correct. I think everyone reading them (considering it's hopefully only adults with critical thinking skills, and if not, that's not the fault of the writers) knows that. Critiques about them, instead of being about the writing, or the character development or whatever, are usually so focused on pointing out what is morally wrong about these stories. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS MORALLY WRONG ABOUT THEM (most of the times that's the kink!!). This ADDS NOTHING to the conversation
2. Dark romance books are meant to offer a way to explore dark fantasies in a safe space. I do think it's a valid thing to explore why women tend to have such violent and dark fantasies in the first place, but it is unfair to consider them as "abuse enablers" or something like that. This is something I wish more people realized, but essentially ALL ROMANCE NOVELS INCLUDING FLUFFY, CLEAN, NOT DARK ONES are mysoginistic because our society is patriarchal and mysoginistic and the way we understand love and relationships and sex is patriarchal and mysoginistic. Fluffy stories about a romance between a princess and a bodyguard are as patriarchal and mysoginistic as a dark romance novel, yet no one is pointing that out because it is normalized and ingrained in our brains. What I'm trying to say is that all of us women adhere to the patriarchy to an extent because it brings us a sense of safety since we are brainwashed from birth to adhere to it. That's why romance books are appealing. We shouldn't shame women for adhering to the patriarchy because we all do to an extent and that only turns into sex-negative, slut-shamey conservative talking points (see the way seemingly progressive people criticize Sabrina Carpenter, for example).
3. The reasons why people have dark fantasies in the first place is most of the time not related at all to actually wanting these things in real life. Rape is a common romanticized thing in dark romance novels, or just non-consent in general, because women are shamed for expressing their sexual wants, so in these stories the FMC gets to experience pleasure without having to ask for it. It's not that hard to see it. Or teacher x student relationships or similar power dynamics are common because the fantasy of forbidden romance is appealing. Again it's not that hard to understand that these fantasies are not surface level.
4. Dark romance books are not hurting anyone! I'm against the porn industry because of the extreme abuse that perpetuates it, of course, and how mysoginistic sex work in general is. But in these books... Well, these characters aren't real! There are no real people being hurt in this situation!

Even as non dark romance reader, I got so annoyed at her points in that video! Maybe I'm being the friend that's too woke. But I don't think shaming women for their uncommon sexual fantasies is feminist (and honestly as a literature major in my country [just so you know english isn't my first language], I find the literature criticism done by people who make videos about dark romances just so... It's a nothing burger. Saying something is morally wrong is not criticism. Please talk about something else, the writing, the work done to the words! It's much more interesting).

This is how I generally feel about other booktubers whose content is just recounting the plot of a dark romance novel and pointing out how problematic they are. This is so surface level, it's not literary critique! Maybe we should talk about how bad the prose in these books usually is lol, the shallow characterization, the fact that elites benefit from keeping us ignorant so they sell these books to us so we don't develop our critical thinking... There's truly so much to talk about, and yet the criticism is always so surface level!

Hi everyone. So I (21F) a couple of months ago made a Reddit post asking for romantic relationship advices, as I was going through a rough time after my first breakup. In it, I discussed a bit about my experience as a lesbian from a non-accepting family and how that affected my relationship. Someone, that I'll call "Sophie" (23F) sent me a dm talking about how she related to my post, and we began talking.

My post was quite long, and she responded it point by point, so I responded to her response point by point. As time went by, our answers to each other began getting longer and longer until I was taking around 2 hours a day to respond to a single block of text.

The thing is, Sophie is a nice person and we do have a lot in common when it comes to sexuality issues, but I wasn't interested in getting so close to her, I responded to her points because we bonded over my post. We also don't have any hobbies in common, we don't have similar tastes in anything, we don't have similar personalities. I feel a bit awkward talking to her in general.

When our conversations got too long she asked if I could give her my number because typing on reddit while at work was complicated for her, and I said yes. The problem is that that made us go from every week texting a huge block of text to each other to these huge blocks of texts and then some general chit chat sprinkled in between, initiated mostly by Sophie.

I think for her it's easier to take the time to respond because she works an office job and has tons of idle time, but I'm a college student and work part-time as a teacher and I'm around people and interacting with people all the time, so I feel exhausted when I do have the time and don't have nearly as much free time to text as she does.

I was also going through some very personal issues this past month, which always makes me not want to talk and be by myself, and honestly the last thing I want after coming home from class or work is having this huge amount of text to respond, talking to her feels more like a chore to me.

I know to a certain extent we have to keep contact with our friends even when we don't feel like it because that's how friendships are maintained, and I do make an effort to show up to my friends in general, but I don't have this need to respond to huge blocks of texts from my other friends. I see some of them in class, or at work, and the ones who are web friends or from my hometown, I talk to a few times a week, and sometimes they're long conversations and sometimes they're not and it's fine by me.

Sophie keeps on telling me she had web friends in the past who've stopped giving attention to her and she gave up on them because she felt like they didn't care about her, so though I explained to her for example while I was going through some rough times that it wasn't about her, I just didn't want to talk, I do worry that she thinks I don't care about her. Though in a way I don't totally care about her.

I mean, she is a nice person, nothing wrong with her, we have some stuff to talk about, but even our senses of humour are so different I feel awkward and stiff talking to her and we rarely understand each other's jokes! I feel a bit exhausted from it.

So I want to know, what should I do? I've never ended a friendship so I have no idea what am I supposed to do, maybe I'm even doing something wrong and being mean and I don't realize it, so I want some outside perspective. AITA?

Hi everyone. So I (21F) a couple of months ago made a Reddit post asking for romantic relationship advices, as I was going through a rough time after my first breakup. In it, I discussed a bit about my experience as a lesbian from a non-accepting family and how that affected my relationship. Someone, that I'll call "Sophie" (23F) sent me a dm talking about how she related to my post, and we began talking.

My post was quite long, and she responded it point by point, so I responded to her response point by point. As time went by, our answers to each other began getting longer and longer until I was taking around 2 hours a day to respond to a single block of text.

The thing is, Sophie is a nice person and we do have a lot in common when it comes to sexuality issues, but I wasn't interested in getting so close to her, I responded to her points because we bonded over my post. We also don't have any hobbies in common, we don't have similar tastes in anything, we don't have similar personalities. I feel a bit awkward talking to her in general.

When our conversations got too long she asked if I could give her my number because typing on reddit while at work was complicated for her, and I said yes. The problem is that that made us go from every week texting a huge block of text to each other to these huge blocks of texts and then some general chit chat sprinkled in between, initiated mostly by Sophie.

I think for her it's easier to take the time to respond because she works an office job and has tons of idle time, but I'm a college student and work part-time as a teacher and I'm around people and interacting with people all the time, so I feel exhausted when I do have the time and don't have nearly as much free time to text as she does.

I was also going through some very personal issues this past month, which always makes me not want to talk and be by myself, and honestly the last thing I want after coming home from class or work is having this huge amount of text to respond, talking to her feels more like a chore to me.

I know to a certain extent we have to keep contact with our friends even when we don't feel like it because that's how friendships are mantained, and I do make an effort to show up to my friends in general, but I don't have this need to respond to huge blocks of texts from my other friends. I see some of them in class, or at work, and the ones who are web friends or from my hometown, I talk to a few times a week, and sometimes they're long conversations and sometimes they're not and it's fine by me.

Sophie keeps on telling me she had web friends in the past who've stopped giving attention to her and she gave up on them because she felt like they didn't care about her, so though I explained to her for example while I was going through some rough times that it wasn't about her, I just didn't want to talk, I do worry that she thinks I don't care about her. Though in a way I don't totally care about her.

I mean, she is a nice person, nothing wrong with her, we have some stuff to talk about, but even our senses of humour are so different I feel awkward and stiff talking to her and we rarely understand each other's jokes! I feel a bit exhausted from it.

So I want to know, what should I do? I've never ended a friendship so I have no idea what am I supposed to do, maybe I'm even doing something wrong and being mean and I don't realize it, so I want some outside perspective.

Hi everyone. I'm 21F and I've been dealing with a complicated social situation at university for a few months now. I need outside perspective on whether I'm the asshole for not reaching out to some people I was getting close to.

Okay, the backstory: I was part of a friend group with two girls I'll call Maya and Gabby (22F), plus my best friend Natalie (20F) who lived with them. I briefly dated Maya last year and it ended badly. She ghosted me for weeks instead of properly ending things. I eventually had to reach out to get closure and she never even replied, though we stayed "friends."

Our friendship was not the healthiest, I felt very trapped by them as I wasn't allowed to interact with people they didn't like, I was afraid of speaking my mind because we had arguments constantly... But I want to be honest about my own issues. I'm conflict avoidant and I people please. Instead of addressing problems directly, I tend to vent privately to people I trust. I've been working on this in therapy. I know I made mistakes in this entire situation, just so you know.

The friend group had a pattern of cutting people off. Four people were pushed out before me. I watched this happen and learned quickly that if I said no too often or had any boundaries, I would be next.

To make a ridiculously long story short, Maya had been ignoring me for a couple of weeks due to a conflict she had with Natalie, and I got mad and vented about it in a group chat with Natalie and our friend Louis (19M), who was my only friend outside the friend group and the freshmen I'll talk about soon. Eventually I reached out to Maya, told her the way she treated me was upsetting, she apologized, I found out why she was avoiding me and apologized too, and things seemed resolved.

The next day, Maya borrowed my tablet and snooped on my WhatsApp until she found the private group chat where I had vented about her. I had called the way she was acting "out of touch" and "passive aggressive." Maya and Gabby called a group meeting and called me and Natalie "fake, two-faced, and without character", ignoring that we were talking about a behaviour Maya had had that had hurt us. Then Natalie decided to move out of the apartment she shared with them because she hadn't been comfortable living with them for a while.

Since then, Maya has been retaliating. She's been refusing to work with me and Natalie on university projects, spreading rumors, being passive aggressive at every opportunity, and turning people against me.

So here's where I might be the asshole. There's this group of younger students we had been getting close to. Let's call them the freshmen. I really enjoyed their company and we had made plans to hang out multiple times.

A few months ago, I talked to two of them (Alana and Steve) about my situation. I told them about my relationship with Maya and how I was feeling sad about it. I didn't tell them the whole story about our fight. I didn't mention the latest fight, the silent treatment, the invasion of privacy, or the friendship issues. I wasn't trying to hide anything, I just didn't want to drag them into drama and there wasn't enough time to explain everything. I was just feeling sad because of my old relationship with Maya.

I also talked to Mary, one of the freshmen who was dating Natalie at the time. Mary was in the middle of everything because Natalie would talk to her about the situation. I didn't seek her out, she was just there when Natalie and I were processing things. I never asked her to choose sides or to do anything with the information.

Then Mary and Natalie broke up. Mary heard Maya and Gabby's side of the story and accused Natalie of lying about some stuff (that Natalie wasn't lying about, but for some reason Mary decided to trust Maya and Gabby who now hate Natalie and not Natalie herself... Whatever). They eventually made up, but now Mary has told Natalie that the freshmen are "hating" her.

I'm worried the freshmen are hating me too. Here's what happened:

1. I saw one of them at a party and didn't say hi. But she didn't say hi to me either, and though I know other freshmen were there too, I didn't see them there, so I wasn't trying to avoid them.
2. The next day, I saw them standing outside our uni building with Maya and Gabby before class. Usually I'd go over and say hi, but I didn't because I was anxious about being near Maya and Gabby since Maya has been awful to me. After that day, they stopped responding to my texts. We had made plans to hang out the next day and they ignored me and went out without me.

I never had any intention of avoiding the freshmen. I was just trying to protect myself in situations that felt unsafe. But I worry they interpreted it as me being cold or rejecting them, or that they heard Maya and Gabby's side and didn't come ask me about what happened.

Yesterday was my birthday. Out of all the freshmen, only one wished me happy birthday, and she's the only one who wasn't friends with Maya and Gabby or friends with the ones who are friends with them. The others didn't say anything (we were somewhat close).

I want to be clear: I never tried to turn the freshmen against Maya and Gabby. I never asked them to choose sides. I never involved them in the drama. I just shared parts of my experience when some of them asked, but I never told them about how truly toxic my friendship with Maya and Gabby was, or how I was called awful things by them in our fight when I never called them anything more than "passive aggressive" and "out of touch." I didn't even tell them about the fight. Literally the only thing I talked about was how sad I was because of my relationship with Maya, but I blamed myself for it too because though the way she ended things hurt me, I was also at fault for our relationship failing.

I also know that Maya and Gabby have been spreading things about me. I don't know exactly what they've said, but I know the pattern. They did it to other people who were cut off from our group before me, these smear campaigns, and I truly regret not telling them I thought that was wrong, since I was afraid of getting cut off.

Part of me wants to reach out to the freshmen. To ask if I've done something wrong. To explain why I didn't say hi. To apologize if I made them feel ignored.

But another part of me is exhausted. I've been through so much. I've spent months feeling anxious, ashamed, and scared. I was already conflict avoidant, but now any situation like this makes me even more anxious. Honestly, I feel traumatized by all of this. (It's hard to explain because it sounds so stupid, but the way Maya has been treating me in person is truly so awful... I've had panic attacks being around her...).

I also don't know if I did anything wrong. I didn't avoid them on purpose, and I still tried talking to them and they were the ones who avoided me. I was just trying to protect myself. And they never reached out to me either. They never asked why I seemed distant. They just stopped talking to me.

We're on winter break until the first week of August, so technically this is something I should only start worrying about in 3 weeks. But I still feel so anxious.

So, AITA for not reaching out to them? Should I just let it go?

If I do reach out, what do I even say? "Hey, I noticed you didn't respond to my texts and didn't wish me happy birthday. Did I do something wrong?"

Am I being avoidant by not reaching out? Or am I just protecting myself from more rejection?

Am I being a bad person for not reaching out?

tl;dr: I had a toxic fallout with my old friend group. Some freshmen I was getting close to stopped responding to me after I didn't say hi to them in a few situations where they were with my ex-friends. Only one wished me happy birthday. AITAH for not reaching out to them to explain myself?

Hi, everyone! I (21F) am currently getting a Portuguese language/literature teaching degree. My university has a program that gives college preparatory classes for low-income people, and the teachers in this program are teaching majors, so all college kids.

I've been teaching essay writing in this program since my second semester (I'm currently going into my fourth, so it's been a year) and it's giving me a lot of experience. The thing is, since these are college preparatory classes intended to teach the students so they can take the tests required in my country to get into university, most of my students are in my age range; some of them are older than me, even!

Last year and this year I've been good at acting friendly. I know we're around the same age, we like similar things, and sometimes when I want to give a slide presentation, they see the games on my laptop and want to talk about video games or books they're reading with me. To a certain extent, I think this is all fine.

But I think I overstepped some boundaries in my last class. The content I had planned was over way too quickly, and we had some free time, so I began chatting with my students. They began talking about their love life, and then about sexual orientations. They were having a discussion about whether you can tell if someone is gay or not, so they were asking each other, "What sexuality do you think I am?", these sorts of things.

One of my students asked me that, and I said, "I don't think it's appropriate for me as a teacher to speculate on that," and they were understanding. But then we began chatting, and I told them I am a lesbian, which surprised them (I was trying to make a point about how you can't tell someone's sexuality). But then we began talking about being gay in general, and my students began talking about their love lives and people they were dating.

The whole conversation lasted around 10 minutes. They asked a few questions about my love life, and I just told them I had recently made the poor choice of dating someone from my friend group and that it hadn't ended well (which is true, and what they don't know is that I was dating another essay writing teacher from the program and she left the program after we broke up lol). But now I realize I probably shouldn't have engaged in this conversation at all; I should've left.

I got caught up in the moment because they are around my age (mostly 18-21). I have a few younger students (around 15–17) too, but they weren't involved in this conversation. And they were talking about something personal, but it's something my friends and I talk about, so in the moment I just went on and talked with them too.

I now really regret having talked to them like this. I feel like it was inappropriate for me to act like a close friend who is just gossiping. I know I won't do this again, but I wonder if you might have some advice on other tips for me to still be a friendly and warm presence in my students' lives while also not overstepping any boundaries. I might not be much older than them, but I am their teacher... So I shouldn't be doing this.

Thank you in advance!

I (21F) am not sure exactly what caused the shame I began feeling about my own body when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I was going through puberty, developing breasts and getting body hair in new places so I think feeling some shame about it is natural and normal.

But what I felt was beyond that. I was so disgusted. It's not like I was disgusted by female bodies, I have 2 older sisters and I used to even shower with them so I was used to seeing female parts. I don't remember having any issues looking at myself naked when I was a kid. I'm also a lesbian and I find women's bodies attractive, I don't know what about my own ellicits so much shame.

The last time I looked at myself naked was when I was around 11 years old. I remember looking at my breasts, how they were developing, right after a shower. And after that, I've never looked at myself in a mirror naked again. I avoid them. After showers I dry myself and get dressed as far from a mirror as possible. I don't dress in front of a mirror. I close my eyes while I put on my bra and underwear.

I think initially I wasn't used to all the changes my body was going through, and now it has been so long that the idea of actually seeing what I look like is terrifying. I have no idea what I look like. What if during this time I developed breast cancer and when I look at myself naked I'll see some sign of it but now it's too late?

I've been putting off going to a gynecologist for the first time too... I know I should've gone a long time ago, but again, I have no idea how I would even manage to survive something like that...

I was dating someone until a couple of months ago and I kept on putting off losing my virginity because I can't even be naked in front of myself, how could I do it in front of someone else? Our relationship ended and one of the reasons was because of how much shame I felt in my own body, including of normal physical affection...

No one in my life knows about this. I want to go back to seeing myself but I can't. It feels so scary. I don't think I'm trans, I don't think this is gender dysphoria, I like being a girl. I don't understand what might be wrong with me but I can't bring myself to get the courage to just look, let alone touch.

This is the first time I'm saying anything about this, the first time I get these thoughts out of my own head. I have no idea how I would even began explaining to any person any of this, I know it's non-sensical and I worry no one would understand why it's so hard for me. But it is.

For clarity, I do look at myself in the mirror while clothed and I do know what my face and my arms/legs/feet etc look like, I don't look at myself naked in the mirror! hope this clears up some misunderstandings

I (21F) am not sure exactly what caused the shame I began feeling about my own body when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I was going through puberty, developing breasts and getting body hair in new places so I think feeling some shame about it is natural and normal.

But what I felt was beyond that. I was so disgusted. It's not like I was disgusted by female bodies, I have 2 older sisters and I used to even shower with them so I was used to seeing female parts. I don't remember having any issues looking at myself naked when I was a kid. I'm also a lesbian and I find women's bodies attractive, I don't know what about my own ellicits so much shame.

The last time I looked at myself naked was when I was around 11 years old. I remember looking at my breasts, how they were developing, right after a shower. And after that, I've never looked at myself in a mirror naked again. I avoid them. After showers I dry myself and get dressed as far from a mirror as possible. I don't dress in front of a mirror. I close my eyes while I put on my bra and underwear.

I think initially I wasn't used to all the changes my body was going through, and now it has been so long that the idea of actually seeing what I look like is terrifying. I have no idea what I look like. What if during this time I developed breast cancer and when I look at myself naked I'll see some sign of it but now it's too late?

I've been putting off going to a gynecologist for the first time too... I know I should've gone a long time ago, but again, I have no idea how I would even manage to survive something like that...

I was dating someone until a couple of months ago and I kept on putting off losing my virginity because I can't even be naked in front of myself, how could I do it in front of someone else? Our relationship ended and one of the reasons was because of how much shame I felt in my own body, including of normal physical affection...

No one in my life knows about this. I want to go back to seeing myself but I can't. It feels so scary. I don't think I'm trans, I don't think this is gender dysphoria, I like being a girl. I don't understand what might be wrong with me but I can't bring myself to get the courage to just look, let alone touch.

This is the first time I'm saying anything about this, the first time I get these thoughts out of my own head. I have no idea how I would even began explaining to any person any of this, I know it's non-sensical and I worry no one would understand why it's so hard for me. But it is.

edit: for clarity, I do look at myself in the mirror while clothed and I do know what my face and my arms/legs/feet etc look like, I don't look at myself naked in the mirror! hope this clears up some misunderstandings

Hi everyone. I won't recap the entire thing but to summarize what has been going on, around 5 weeks ago me (21F) and my best friend "Natalie" (20F) had a huge fight with our friend group and left it. Natalie and I had been having issues with some of the members of our friend group for a while and when we had this fight, as much as I was anxious and upset with the fact I still had to interact with the girls we had a fight with as they were being passive agressive to me in class, I was relieved to not be around them anymore.

The only issue is that we lost some mutual casual friends due to gossip about the situation, and Natalie's girlfriend even broke up with her because she was friends with our former friends and her own friends were siding with our former friends, so she felt like she had no choice as she didn't want to lose her friends.

This happened a couple of weeks ago and these mutual casual friends we've lost have been avoiding me and treating me coldly. Honestly I was really really sad about it for the past two days, but today I woke up feeling nothing. But the thing that is making me worried is that, instead of feeling angry at my old friends whom I had a fight with or with these mutual casual friends who've dropped me, I'm actually mad at Natalie!

I know this anger is misplaced. Our fight with our friend group happened because of some of Natalie's actions, but though I hadn't liked fighting, I sided with Natalie because I thought she was mostly right and because she was the one I was the closest to. We both were suffering in our friend group and were having issues and letting go of them was good to us in the long run.

So tell me, why am I feeling angry at Natalie? I mean, I know why, it's because I'm actually sad that these other friends have dropped me because of a conflict that happened mostly because of Natalie. But here's the thing: I know intelectually that Natalie's friendship meant more to me than those people (we've been friends for only around 3 months while I've been friends with Natalie for almost two years, she's my closest friend), and that they weren't my real friends if they truly dropped me just because of gossip of a situation that didn't involve them. I know all of this intelectually and yet I still feel angry at Natalie and this sense of detachment, I think I'm deactivating on her for the first time.

What can I do to reactivate and make this go away? I know these aren't my thoughts when I'm in a secure place, I just want this feeling to go away so I can go back to normal. I'd love some advice

Hi everyone. I'm 21F and I'm here to ask for some perspective because I'm really questioning if I deserve everything that has been happening to me lol.

I was part of a university friend group with two girls I'll call "Clara" (22F) and "Laura" (22F), plus my best friend "Sofia" (20F) who lives with them. I also briefly dated Clara last year, which ended badly, since she asked for a break and then ghosted me for weeks instead of properly ending things. I eventually had to reach out to get closure and she ignored me lol but we were trying to act normal as friends.

First of all, I want to be completely upfront about my own issues because I do think I played a part in this situation. I'm conflict avoidant, I people please, and instead of addressing problems directly I tend to vent privately to people I trust. I'm in therapy working on all of this. These are real things I did wrong and I'm not trying to pretend I was perfect.

The friend group had a lot of problems I didn't fully see until later. Laura complained about everyone constantly. They made fun of an autistic guy for wearing headphones at a party. They got upset when Sofia and I spent time alone together. Laura once told me I was "so annoyingly defensive" I would have defended Hitler. It hurt a lot because I was just trying to not give in into just talking shit about people for no reason. After that I mostly went quiet and agreed with things I didn't believe because I was scared of being targeted.

Four people had already been pushed out of the group before me. I watched this happen and I learned fast that if I said no too often or had too many fights with them I would be next. So I stayed quiet and went along with things.

A few weeks ago Clara started ignoring me for ten days because she was mad at Sofia about something. She wouldn't look at me, wouldn't answer texts, left without saying goodbye to me while saying goodbye to everyone else, asked me to give up a ticket to an event I was excited for.

During this time I vented about what was happening in a private group chat with Sofia and a friend called "Mateo." Mateo said negative things about Clara and Laura (specifically, she said they were out of touch and that Clara was passive agressive) and I agreed with him. I know this was wrong. I should have addressed things directly instead of processing it sideways. That's on me.

I eventually reached out to Clara, we talked, she apologized, things seemed resolved. The next day she borrowed my tablet and went through my WhatsApp without permission, finding the private chat. Laura called a group meeting where she and Clara told Sofia and I we were "fake, two-faced, and without character", because we had talked about our issues with Mateo. I sat there and apologized sincerely. I didn't bring up the ten days of silent treatment or the exclusion because I didn't want it to look like I was deflecting. I just owned my part, but now I realize I should have brought it up because I only said those things about them because I was mad because of they way they had been treating me. Anyway.

Then Sofia decided to move out of the apartment she shares with Clara and Laura. This was entirely her decision. I had no involvement. She gave them notice and paid next month's bills so they have time to figure things out. Both Clara and Laura have part time jobs at the university now. I didn't know about Clara's grandmother being terminally ill or her father's situation, which was something Clara brought up later, I only found out when she sent a long group chat message revealing it while also making my venting sound worse than it was and painting me as the villain. (She said in that text I said horrible things about her, I repeat, I only agreed to her being called passive agressive and out of touch, and you'll see from her behaviour that she is passive agressive so... she also made up I said bad things about other people in the group that I never even mentioned...).

Since then Clara has been retaliating in ways that have genuinely made my life difficult. She sent me a direct message saying she can't work with me on our research team anymore and that I'm false and a liar. She also told me I "proved" myself to be ill-natured because I'm still friends with Sofia. She's returning my books. In class and in group settings she's been making passive-aggressive comments about me being fake and a liar, sometimes in front of other people. She ignores me while being warm with everyone else around us. I'm terrified of going to class because I never know if she's going to start something or make another comment. I had a panic attack just being in the same room as her. She's made my academic life harder by kicking me off the research team. Honestly I feel like I'm being punished in ways that go beyond the actual things I did wrong.

I know I made mistakes, that I vented instead of confronting. I went along with things I should have pushed back on. I apologized to keep the peace and then later realized I didn't want to be friends with them anymore. I didn't stop talking to Mateo even though they told me not to, which I'm sure they noticed. I also didn't defend the people who were cut off from the group, which I regret.

But I also feel like the retaliation I'm receiving is extreme compared to what I actually did. I didn't give myself the silent treatment for ten days. I didn't invade anyone's privacy. I didn't make Sofia move out. I just didn't cut off my best friend because other people were angry with her. And I vented about being treated badly, which is something everyone does. But now Clara seems to be making her life mission to make my life hell, she is constantly being passive agressive or throwing shade at me in front of other people, she's sabotaging some of my uni projects... It's been exhausting!

I've started distancing myself from Clara and Laura because being around them makes me feel sick with anxiety. Some of the freshmen I was getting close to still want to hang out with me, which gives me hope. But I'm scared they'll eventually hear the gossip and turn on me too.

AITAH for distancing myself? I know I wasn't a perfect friend. But am I really such an awful person that I deserve to be retaliated against like this? I genuinely can't tell if I'm seeing things clearly.

TL;DR: I was in a toxic friend group. After a conflict where I vented in a private chat (which I admit was wrong), my ex friend invaded my privacy and the whole group turned on me. My best friend decided to move out of their apartment on her own. Since then my ex friend has been retaliating by kicking me off our research team, making passive aggressive comments in public, ignoring me, and generally making my life hell. I've distanced myself but I keep wondering if I deserve this treatment because I know I made mistakes too.

I know things between us didn't end well, and I know I did a lot to hurt you... But you hurt me too, you hurt me a lot, and I still chose to let it go and let you live your own life with your own friends and do your own thing. I don't understand why you can't do the same for me. Why you have to turn all mutual friends against me, why you keep on calling me a liar in front of other people. Do you tell them about your habit of giving me the silent treatment? Do you tell them about your possessiveness, your jealousy and controlling behaviours? Or do you only tell them where I went wrong?

I only said yes to being with you because we were friends first and I trusted you so deeply. You knew how scared I was of my own feelings, of my own self, how much internalized shame I had been fighting to be with you. I know that wasn't always easy, but I was always trying. You couldn't even bother to break up with me even after I begged for us to talk, and in the minute I do something you don't like, you decide to break up with me in front of our friends!!! And tell me that I didn't care about you... OF COURSE I CARED ABOUT YOU. How many times had I told you how hard it all was for me? You didn't grow up getting shamed for who you are, for your feelings and who you love. You have no idea how every step I took towards you was one step against all that I was taught to believe about myself. It's easy for you to tell me to stand up to my parents, to come out to them, to show who I am, when your own father was loving and supporting.

We all know my father isn't like this. You know my father. I had nightmares about you breaking up with me because of it all. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you, but I wish you had understood I wasn't being like that by choice. I was so so scared. Why do only your fears matter? My fears do not matter? I wasn't like you, I had never been with anyone before... Of course everything was harder. Being honest, I also felt like you didn't care about me, but I never told you that because I countered those thoughts with "well, she is trying, she is doing her best....". But you could never give me the benefit of the doubt. All of the things I did that hurt you you were convinced were on purpose, but of course they weren't. All that I wanted was to make you feel special and loved, and I wanted to feel loved and special too.

I think I only came close to feeling like that the first time we slept together, not in the euphemistic way, the actual sleeping. When we were cuddling and your curly hair got into my mouth and you were talking about anime and showing me your Instagram reels feed. You always smelled so nice, I loved holding you and in that second I thought our true love story was about to begin...

You know what comes next, all your hot and cold behaviours, your mixed signals and inconsistency. I was trying so hard to be there for you. I didn't know how to, I was trying.

I guess this is what I wish you knew. That I was trying. You think I wasn't, but I was, and I wish you had noticed it.

I also wish you could stop being so passive agressive with me. It hurts.

Sometimes I still miss when things were good between us. :(

I (20F) don’t really know where to start because this has been going on for months and I feel so drained.

I'm in univeristy majoring in Education. Today we had a group assignment at a school, my group consisted of my old friend group with whom I had a falling out last month (the groups were decided long before our fight).

My ex-friend “Maya” (22F) spent the whole session making comments about how “some people in this room are very good liars” and “there are people here who lie a lot.” On the surface it looked like we were just discussing the text we had to teach (the topic was lying, we even played Two Truths and a Lie with the students). But her tone, the way she kept repeating it, and the looks she gave me and my best friend “Natalie” (20F) made it very obvious she wasn’t just talking about the lesson.

This is all part of a much bigger mess that started last year, and I need to get it out.

I became part of a university friend group of nine girls. By the end of the semester there were only five left. The other four were pushed out after conflicts with Maya and her closest friend “Gabby” (22F). I watched this happen again and again, and I learned very fast that if I said no too many times or wasn’t available enough, I’d be next. I'm a people pleaser and I admit that, but things got worse for me because of a few specific reasons.

First of all, Maya and Gabby were very negative people. Gabby complained about everyone. Maya always assumed people were against her. They got upset if Natalie and I spent time alone together. They mocked an autistic guy for wearing headphones at a party. Once Gabby told me I was so annoyingly defensive of everyone that I would’ve defended Hitler. I started just agreeing with whatever they said because I was scared of being targeted.

Earlier this year Maya got mad at Natalie over something unrelated (Natalie started dating someone and Maya was weirdly possessive about it), and somehow I got dragged in. Maya ignored me for ten days, wouldn’t answer texts, wouldn’t look at me, made a point of saying goodbye to everyone except me. During that time I vented about it in a private group chat with Natalie and another friend “Louis.” I said Maya and Gabby were being passive-aggressive and out of touch. That was literally it.

I eventually went to talk to Maya directly. She apologized, we made up (or so I thought). The next day she borrowed my tablet, went through my WhatsApp, and found that private chat. She and Gabby then called a meeting where they told me and Natalie we were fake, two-faced, and liars, and she also told us looking at us was like looking at the people who bullied her in the past. I apologized sincerely in the moment because I was scared and I just wanted peace. They also told us we weren’t allowed to talk to Louis anymore.

A few days later in therapy I realized I didn’t actually want to be friends with them anymore, not because of one fight, but because the whole dynamic had been controlling and toxic for a long time, and though maybe I should've talked to them directly before (and this is an issue I'll have to work on from now on), I genuinely felt discouraged by the way they acted.

Natalie decided to move out of the apartment she shared with Maya and Gabby (she gave notice, paid the next month, Gabby and Maya recently got jobs at our university so they definitely can afford rent). After that, Maya sent a long message to a group chat twisting everything. She made my venting sound like a vicious attack, accused me of saying horrible things about other people in the group (I didn’t, I only talked about Maya who was avoiding me for no reason), revealed that her grandmother was dying (which I genuinely didn’t know and feel awful about), and basically painted me as a heartless villain. She also called me a liar, fake, and ill-natured directly.

Since then, Gabby and another girl “Victoria” just ignore me professionally; they don't talk to me and certainly talk shit about me when I'm not near, but when it comes to the academic stuff, we are able to talk and work together, all which I can handle. But Maya has been passive-aggressive constantly with little comments, looks, things said under her breath. Today’s “liar” jabs were just the latest.

I can’t avoid her because we have overlapping classes and the same research team. I feel like I’m going crazy. I know I wasn’t perfect, I’m a people-pleaser, I went along with things I shouldn’t have, I vented instead of confronting her directly. I also kept on talking to one of the people who was cut off from our group though I pretended I didn't because I feared they would cut me off too. But I don’t think I’m this evil manipulator she’s making me out to be. At the same time, her voice is in my head and I keep questioning if maybe I really am fake.

How do you deal with someone who uses jokes and “teaching moments” to keep hurting you, in a setting where you can’t just walk away? Has anyone else dealt with a toxic ex-friend who weaponized group settings like this? I just want to finish my semester without losing my mind. (I'm in the southern hemisphere so winter break starts in a couple of weeks but it will only last 2 weeks...)

tl;dr: Former friend keeps making veiled comments about me being a liar in shared academic spaces, after a months-long toxic fallout where she twisted a private vent into a huge betrayal. I feel trapped and gaslit and need advice.

I (20F) don’t really know where to start because this has been going on for months and I feel so drained.

I'm in univeristy majoring in Education. Today we had a group assignment at a school, my group consisted of my old friend group with whom I had a falling out last month (the groups were decided long before our fight).

My ex-friend “Maya” (22F) spent the whole session making comments about how “some people in this room are very good liars” and “there are people here who lie a lot.” On the surface it looked like we were just discussing the text we had to teach (the topic was lying, we even played Two Truths and a Lie with the students). But her tone, the way she kept repeating it, and the looks she gave me and my best friend “Natalie” (20F) made it very obvious she wasn’t just talking about the lesson.

This is all part of a much bigger mess that started last year, and I need to get it out.

I became part of a university friend group of nine girls. By the end of the semester there were only five left. The other four were pushed out after conflicts with Maya and her closest friend “Gabby” (22F). I watched this happen again and again, and I learned very fast that if I said no too many times or wasn’t available enough, I’d be next. I'm a people pleaser and I admit that, but things got worse for me because of a few specific reasons.

First of all, Maya and Gabby were very negative people. Gabby complained about everyone. Maya always assumed people were against her. They got upset if Natalie and I spent time alone together. They mocked an autistic guy for wearing headphones at a party. Once Gabby told me I was so annoyingly defensive of everyone that I would’ve defended Hitler. I started just agreeing with whatever they said because I was scared of being targeted.

Earlier this year Maya got mad at Natalie over something unrelated (Natalie started dating someone and Maya was weirdly possessive about it), and somehow I got dragged in. Maya ignored me for ten days, wouldn’t answer texts, wouldn’t look at me, made a point of saying goodbye to everyone except me. During that time I vented about it in a private group chat with Natalie and another friend “Louis.” I said Maya and Gabby were being passive-aggressive and out of touch. That was literally it.

I eventually went to talk to Maya directly. She apologized, we made up (or so I thought). The next day she borrowed my tablet, went through my WhatsApp, and found that private chat. She and Gabby then called a meeting where they told me and Natalie we were fake, two-faced, and liars, and she also told us looking at us was like looking at the people who bullied her in the past. I apologized sincerely in the moment because I was scared and I just wanted peace. They also told us we weren’t allowed to talk to Louis anymore.

A few days later in therapy I realized I didn’t actually want to be friends with them anymore, not because of one fight, but because the whole dynamic had been controlling and toxic for a long time, and though maybe I should've talked to them directly before (and this is an issue I'll have to work on from now on), I genuinely felt discouraged by the way they acted.

Natalie decided to move out of the apartment she shared with Maya and Gabby (she gave notice, paid the next month, Gabby and Maya recently got jobs at our university so they definitely can afford rent). After that, Maya sent a long message to a group chat twisting everything. She made my venting sound like a vicious attack, accused me of saying horrible things about other people in the group (I didn’t, I only talked about Maya who was avoiding me for no reason), revealed that her grandmother was dying (which I genuinely didn’t know and feel awful about), and basically painted me as a heartless villain. She also called me a liar, fake, and ill-natured directly.

Since then, Gabby and another girl “Victoria” just ignore me professionally; they don't talk to me and certainly talk shit about me when I'm not near, but when it comes to the academic stuff, we are able to talk and work together, all which I can handle. But Maya has been passive-aggressive constantly with little comments, looks, things said under her breath. Today’s “liar” jabs were just the latest.

I can’t avoid her because we have overlapping classes and the same research team. I feel like I’m going crazy. I know I wasn’t perfect, I’m a people-pleaser, I went along with things I shouldn’t have, I vented instead of confronting her directly. I also kept on talking to one of the people who was cut off from our group though I pretended I didn't because I feared they would cut me off too. But I don’t think I’m this evil manipulator she’s making me out to be. At the same time, her voice is in my head and I keep questioning if maybe I really am fake.

How do you deal with someone who uses jokes and “teaching moments” to keep hurting you, in a setting where you can’t just walk away? Has anyone else dealt with a toxic ex-friend who weaponized group settings like this? I just want to finish my semester without losing my mind. (I'm in the southern hemisphere so winter break starts in a couple of weeks but it will only last 2 weeks...)

tl;dr: Former friend keeps making veiled comments about me being a liar in shared academic spaces, after a months-long toxic fallout where she twisted a private vent into a huge betrayal. I feel trapped and gaslit and need advice.

Hi everyone! I could really use some advice because I recently had a massive falling out with my friend group, and I'm struggling with the fact that I still have to see these people almost every day.

This is probably going to be long because there's a lot of context, and honestly I feel like every time I try to explain it briefly people miss why it's affecting me so much.

For context, I'm 20F and I started university last year. Early on, I became part of a friend group with eight other girls. At first there were nine of us, but by the end of the semester there were only five left.

One girl transferred colleges, but the other three were basically pushed out after conflicts with two people in the group. I'll call them Maya (22F) and Gabby (22F).

One of the girls who got cut off, who I'll call Sabrina, was in her late twenties and married. She was in a very different stage of life than the rest of us. She didn't want to go clubbing all the time or spend every weekend doing group activities, and Maya and Gabby ended up treating that as a personal offense. Eventually she was completely excluded from the group, and everyone else kind of went along with it.

The thing is, I watched that happen more than once.

Over the course of a year, I watched three different people get pushed out (the other two were because of conflicts with Maya). Because of that, I learned pretty quickly that if you said no too often, didn't make yourself available enough, or got on Maya and Gabby's bad side, you could be next.

Maya and Gabby were both very negative people, but in different ways.

Gabby complained about absolutely everyone. Classmates, professors, other friends, people she barely knew, books we had to read for class. We're literature majors, so we'd spend hours discussing books, and somehow every conversation would eventually turn into complaining about someone or something.

Maya was different. She always seemed convinced that people were against her. She took a lot of things personally and seemed to assume bad intentions where I honestly didn't see any. It felt like she was constantly looking for evidence that she'd been wronged somehow.

I tend to be the kind of person who tries to understand where other people are coming from, even when I disagree with them. One day Gabby told me I was "so annoyingly defensive of everyone" that I "would have defended Hitler if I'd had the chance."

I know that sounds ridiculous, but it genuinely hurt me. It felt like she was telling me that trying to see the good in people was a flaw. She also had been complaining about me for a few weeks. After that, I started speaking up less. Most of the time I just agreed with whatever they were saying because I didn't want another comment like that, and that made me feel awful because I felt like I was agreeing with them being horrible about other people.

There were a lot of moments where I felt uncomfortable with how they talked about people.

For example, at a university party they met the boyfriend of a classmate they don't like. He spent most of the night wearing headphones, and they made fun of him constantly. Later I found out from someone else that he's autistic and wears headphones because loud environments are overwhelming for him.

Even before I knew that, I remember thinking, "Why does this matter? Why are we making fun of a stranger who is literally just standing there minding his own business?"

That kind of thing happened a lot.

Something else that took me a long time to notice was how weird they got about my friendship with my best friend Natalie (20F), who was also part of our friend group.

Natalie and I are very close, but Maya and Gabby seemed to get upset whenever we spent time together without them (which didn't even happen that frequently because Natalie lived with them and they always knew where she was/who she was with, and I knew they would get upset if I spent time too much free time with her). Looking back, it felt like any friendship within the group was fine as long as it included them too. At the time I didn't really question it, but now it seems strange.

Earlier this year there was a huge university party that they really wanted me to attend. The problem was that I have social anxiety, I was dealing with some health issues, and I was supposed to get important exam results the next day. I knew I wasn't going to enjoy myself.

Maya tried to compromise. She suggested I come early, leave early, and stay away from the bigger crowds. I appreciated that she was trying to find a solution, but I still didn't want to go. I thanked her and said no.

Months later, she brought that up during an argument as proof of how much she cared about me and how little I cared about her. Maybe this sounds unreasonable, but to me that never felt like care. It felt like pressure, I didn't want to go to the party. It's not like I was the kind of person to say no to every plan either. I attended smaller parties, I went to their house to hang out weekly, and we not only study together every single day but are also part of the same projects and research teams, so we literally saw each other every single day. Was I doing little to cultivate this friendship? I don't think so, I think they just had crazy expectations.

Another thing that happened was that Natalie started dating someone, and Maya became convinced the relationship was toxic. From what I could see, though, the real issue wasn't concern. The real issue was that Natalie was spending time with somebody else. Maya seemed genuinely upset by the fact that Natalie had a life outside of their apartment and outside of the friend group. (I won't get too much into this, but she tried to sabotage Natalie's relationship in so many ways...).

There's another piece of context that's relevant here, and honestly it's embarrassing to admit, that is I briefly dated Maya last year.

It wasn't a long relationship, and it ended badly. She asked for a break and then basically disappeared on me for weeks. Eventually we became friendly again and I convinced myself everything was okay between us.

The reason I bring this up is because I think it affected my judgment more than I realized at the time.

I had feelings for her for much longer than I should have, and I think a huge part of me was always looking for her approval. Because of that, I tolerated things that I normally wouldn't have tolerated from anyone else.

I really wish I hadn't been in love with her. Looking back, I think it made me ignore a lot of red flags.

I also want to be honest about my own part in all of this because I definitely wasn't perfect. I'm extremely conflict-avoidant and a huge people-pleaser. It's something I've been working on in therapy for a while Even though people were getting cut off from the group, I secretly stayed in touch with two of them.

The thing is, I felt like I had to hide it. At the time, I was convinced that if Maya and Gabby found out I was still friends with people they'd pushed out, I'd be next. Looking back, I feel awful about it.

I publicly went along with cutting people off while privately still talking to them. I basically acted like I agreed with what was happening because I thought that would keep things okay between Maya and me. I'm not proud of that at all.

I also think one reason I stayed for so long is because Maya and Gabby weren't evil all the time, they had good qualities too, like any person. They could be funny. They could be supportive. Sometimes the group genuinely felt like a family.

That made everything confusing because I kept thinking, "Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe every friendship has problems." I worried I was being the kind of person who didn't insist on my friends and who gave up too easily.

I remember talking to my therapist about it months ago. She told me that Maya and Gabby sounded controlling and suggested I try getting closer to other people in my class and building friendships outside the group.

Even that scared me. At the time, getting closer to other people felt almost disloyal somehow. And I even tried to, but they would make faces or seem upset when I tried spending time with other people, or wanted to do school work by myself...

Something else I only realized later is that I felt a lot less overwhelmed when there were nine people in the group. As the group got smaller, things started feeling more intense.

When there were lots of people around, Maya and Gabby's attention was spread out. Once the group shrank, there were fewer people acting as buffers. It felt like their attention became focused on the people who remained. I started feeling watched all the time.

Anyway, a few weeks ago everything finally blew up. Maya got angry with Natalie because of Natalie's relationship, and somehow I ended up caught in the crossfire.

For about ten days Maya completely ignored me, so she wouldn't answer my texts, she wouldn't look at me when I said hi. She'd leave without saying goodbye to me while making a point of saying goodbye to everyone else. At one point she also asked me to give up a ticket to an event I'd been looking forward to for weeks.

During that same period, Natalie and I missed a lecture for a completely legitimate reason. Maya and Gabby then announced in the group chat how nice it was that they'd already formed a project group without us.

None of these things seem huge on their own, but when they were all happening at the same time, the message felt pretty obvious. I felt like I was being pushed out.

During that time I vented to my mom, a couple of friends from home, and a small private group chat with Natalie and another friend I'll call Louis. Honestly, the conversation wasn't even that dramatic. Louis said Maya and Gabby were being passive-aggressive and out of touch, and I agreed. That was basically it. There wasn't some elaborate plan against them or a bunch of vicious insults. We were just talking about a situation that had hurt us and trying to make sense of it. (I do understand it was wrong to do it with someone who had nothing to do with the situation, this person being Louis, who is not part of our friend group, but he was literally my only friend outside of them whom they "allowed me" to talk to...)

Eventually I got tired of the tension and realized I was being immature too, so I decided to talk to Maya directly. To my surprise, the conversation actually went well. She apologized for how she'd been treating me, we talked things through, and I left feeling relieved. I genuinely thought we'd worked things out.

I convinced Natalie to talk to Maya too, she was going to do it the next day at night. I felt like we were finally about to go back to normal. That wasn't what happened...

The next day, Maya borrowed my tablet because she didn't have her phone. Later I realized she'd opened WhatsApp and read the entire private group chat with Natalie and Louis. She went through my messages without asking, right after we'd supposedly reconciled. That's how she found out about everything we'd said.

Not long after that, Gabby called a group meeting. Natalie and I sat down with them, and they basically told us we'd been fake, dishonest, and two-faced. I apologized, and I want to be clear about something: I genuinely meant that apology in the moment. I wasn't secretly planning to leave the friendship and I wasn't trying to manipulate anyone. I really did think I wanted to fix things. I told them I wanted to move forward and do better.

What I didn't do was bring up the silent treatment, the exclusion, the pressure, the snooping, or any of the other things that had been bothering me. I was terrified that if I mentioned any of that, it would look like I was refusing to take responsibility for my own actions. So I stayed quiet and focused entirely on my mistakes. Also Maya decided that in front of our friends was the best moment to break up with me after I begged her for us to have a conversation and she still avoided ending things with me officially.

At one point they also told Natalie and me that we shouldn't talk to Louis anymore. Not that they were uncomfortable with him or wanted some distance from him themselves. They outright wanted us to stop being friends with him. This was something that even when I was there, feeling guilty, I knew I didn't want to do. I didn't want to stop being friends with him, because he was my only friend outside the friend group. I already felt isolated and engulfed, I felt like I was about to lose everything.

A few days later I talked about everything with my therapist, and for the first time I laid out the entire story from beginning to end: the repeated exiling of people, the fear of saying no, the constant criticism, the Hitler comment, the jealousy, the silent treatment, the snooping through my messages, all of it.

And during that conversation I realized something that I think I'd been trying not to admit to myself. I didn't actually want to be friends with Maya and Gabby anymore.

It wasn't because of one specific argument. I'd been unhappy for a long time. The friendship had become something I stayed in out of fear: fear of losing Natalie, fear of being the next person pushed out, fear of ending up completely alone at university.

Once I realized that, my apology at the group meeting started looking different to me. I don't think it was fake, but I do think it came more from my people-pleasing instincts than from a genuine desire to rebuild the friendship.

I knew I needed to be honest eventually. The problem was that Natalie was already planning to move out of the apartment she shared with Maya and Gabby, and I knew everything would explode once that happened. So I waited a few days, literally two or three, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. My plan wasn't to start a huge fight. Honestly, I wanted the opposite. I wanted to slowly distance myself and let things cool down naturally.

Then Natalie told them she was moving out.

She gave them a full month's notice and paid the next month's bills. She didn't leave them stranded. Gabby had recently gotten a part-time job at the university, and Maya had one lined up for the following semester, so Natalie genuinely believed they would be okay financially. As far as I know, she wasn't trying to punish them.

After that, everything completely exploded.

Maya sent a long message in a group chat revealing that her grandmother is terminally ill and that her father is dealing with serious issues. I hadn't known any of this. Nobody had ever told me. I found out in the middle of a message where I was basically being painted as a villain.

I genuinely feel awful for her. I can't imagine dealing with that kind of pain. At the same time, it was incredibly confusing to learn all of that in a public call-out message rather than in a private conversation. Part of me couldn't shake the feeling that the timing was intentional.

Maya also presented my private venting as something much worse than it actually was. All the context disappeared. The silent treatment disappeared. The exclusion disappeared. The months of tension disappeared. What remained was a version of events where I had simply decided to betray her for no reason. (She also made up that I said negative things about other people in the friend group, which I obviously didn't, and that I said "horrible" things about... I do understand being hurt for being called passive agressive and out of touch behind your back, truly, I know I made a mistake there, but I didn't do anything as bad as she is making it seem...).

A few days ago she sent me a direct message saying she couldn't work with me anymore on our research team. She told me to continue ignoring her existence. She said I'd proven myself to be false and a liar, and that the fact I'm still friends with Natalie shows that I don't actually care about people and that I'm ill-natured.

Ever since then I've been questioning absolutely everything.

Was this friendship actually toxic and controlling, or am I just conflict-avoidant and making everything sound worse than it really was? Maybe if I'd been honest earlier things would've turned out differently. Maybe if I'd told them I felt controlled, they would've listened. Maybe if I'd admitted from the beginning that I still cared about Thailla and the others who got cut off, they would've accepted it.

Maybe I was the bad friend.

I did go along with cutting people off. I did vent instead of confronting them directly. I did apologize and say I wanted to fix things, only to realize a few days later that I didn't actually want to stay in the friendship. From their perspective, I can see why that might look dishonest.

That's part of why this is messing with my head so much. I keep hearing Maya's voice in my head calling me fake, a liar, and ill-natured, and part of me keeps wondering if she's right.

I also keep thinking about the fact that I was in love with her. I think that made everything worse. I ignored my own values because I wanted her approval. I went along with things I knew were wrong. I kept making excuses for behavior that bothered me. By the time I finally saw the situation clearly, a lot of damage had already been done.

Right now Gabby and another girl from the group, Victoria (19F), mostly ignore me. They don't talk to me, they don't acknowledge me, and they act like I don't exist. I'm okay with that. We have a few group assignments to finish together and they answer me in professional manners and avoid me in the other manners, which is exactly what I hoped for.

What I can't handle is Maya.

She's passive-aggressive whenever we're in the same space. Little comments, looks, things said under her breath, things that are obviously directed at me without being direct enough for me to respond to. She's made it very clear that she thinks I'm a terrible person, and being around that energy all the time is exhausting. Also when we are just the two of us in the same space, she has argued with me in person for something I didn't do (long story).

We still share academic spaces. We still have overlapping classes. We're still connected through research. I can't fully avoid her.

Every time I walk into a room where she might be, my heart starts racing. I immediately start scanning the room to see if she's there. I rehearse conversations in my head and think about what I'd say if she confronted me.

The worst part is that I feel like I can't even defend myself. If I bring up the silent treatment, the snooping, the repeated cutoffs, the controlling behavior, or anything else that hurt me, I feel like it'll just sound like excuses or like I'm trying to avoid responsibility.

So I mostly stay quiet.

And honestly, I'm exhausted. I don't know how to stop being anxious about this. I don't know how to stop caring what Maya thinks of me. I don't know how to move on when I still have to see these people all the time. I'm okay with Gabby and Victoria avoiding me, but Maya has been making my life so complicated and difficult. I just want us to ignore each other and move on with our lives, but being around her makes me incredibly anxious.

So I guess my questions are:

1. How do I deal with the daily anxiety of seeing Maya, especially when she's passive-aggressive and I keep worrying she'll confront me?
2. Does this sound like a genuinely toxic and controlling friendship, or does it sound like I'm an avoidant people-pleaser who handled things badly and is now blaming everyone else?
3. How do I stop letting Maya's opinion of me define how I see myself?
4. For anyone who's left a toxic friend group but still had to see those people regularly, how did you move on?

Hi everyone! I could really use some advice because I recently had a massive falling out with my friend group, and I'm struggling with the fact that I still have to see these people almost every day.

This is probably going to be long because there's a lot of context, and honestly I feel like every time I try to explain it briefly people miss why it's affecting me so much.

For context, I'm 20F and I started university last year. Early on, I became part of a friend group with eight other girls. At first there were nine of us, but by the end of the semester there were only five left.

One girl transferred colleges, but the other three were basically pushed out after conflicts with two people in the group. I'll call them Maya (22F) and Gabby (22F).

One of the girls who got cut off, who I'll call Sabrina, was in her late twenties and married. She was in a very different stage of life than the rest of us. She didn't want to go clubbing all the time or spend every weekend doing group activities, and Maya and Gabby ended up treating that as a personal offense. Eventually she was completely excluded from the group, and everyone else kind of went along with it.

The thing is, I watched that happen more than once.

Over the course of a year, I watched three different people get pushed out (the other two were because of conflicts with Maya). Because of that, I learned pretty quickly that if you said no too often, didn't make yourself available enough, or got on Maya and Gabby's bad side, you could be next.

Maya and Gabby were both very negative people, but in different ways.

Gabby complained about absolutely everyone. Classmates, professors, other friends, people she barely knew, books we had to read for class. We're literature majors, so we'd spend hours discussing books, and somehow every conversation would eventually turn into complaining about someone or something.

Maya was different. She always seemed convinced that people were against her. She took a lot of things personally and seemed to assume bad intentions where I honestly didn't see any. It felt like she was constantly looking for evidence that she'd been wronged somehow.

I tend to be the kind of person who tries to understand where other people are coming from, even when I disagree with them. One day Gabby told me I was "so annoyingly defensive of everyone" that I "would have defended Hitler if I'd had the chance."

I know that sounds ridiculous, but it genuinely hurt me. It felt like she was telling me that trying to see the good in people was a flaw. She also had been complaining about me for a few weeks. After that, I started speaking up less. Most of the time I just agreed with whatever they were saying because I didn't want another comment like that, and that made me feel awful because I felt like I was agreeing with them being horrible about other people.

There were a lot of moments where I felt uncomfortable with how they talked about people.

For example, at a university party they met the boyfriend of a classmate they don't like. He spent most of the night wearing headphones, and they made fun of him constantly. Later I found out from someone else that he's autistic and wears headphones because loud environments are overwhelming for him.

Even before I knew that, I remember thinking, "Why does this matter? Why are we making fun of a stranger who is literally just standing there minding his own business?"

That kind of thing happened a lot.

Something else that took me a long time to notice was how weird they got about my friendship with my best friend Natalie (20F), who was also part of our friend group.

Natalie and I are very close, but Maya and Gabby seemed to get upset whenever we spent time together without them (which didn't even happen that frequently because Natalie lived with them and they always knew where she was/who she was with, and I knew they would get upset if I spent time too much free time with her). Looking back, it felt like any friendship within the group was fine as long as it included them too. At the time I didn't really question it, but now it seems strange.

Earlier this year there was a huge university party that they really wanted me to attend. The problem was that I have social anxiety, I was dealing with some health issues, and I was supposed to get important exam results the next day. I knew I wasn't going to enjoy myself.

Maya tried to compromise. She suggested I come early, leave early, and stay away from the bigger crowds. I appreciated that she was trying to find a solution, but I still didn't want to go. I thanked her and said no.

Months later, she brought that up during an argument as proof of how much she cared about me and how little I cared about her. Maybe this sounds unreasonable, but to me that never felt like care. It felt like pressure, I didn't want to go to the party. It's not like I was the kind of person to say no to every plan either. I attended smaller parties, I went to their house to hang out weekly, and we not only study together every single day but are also part of the same projects and research teams, so we literally saw each other every single day. Was I doing little to cultivate this friendship? I don't think so, I think they just had crazy expectations.

Another thing that happened was that Natalie started dating someone, and Maya became convinced the relationship was toxic. From what I could see, though, the real issue wasn't concern. The real issue was that Natalie was spending time with somebody else. Maya seemed genuinely upset by the fact that Natalie had a life outside of their apartment and outside of the friend group. (I won't get too much into this, but she tried to sabotage Natalie's relationship in so many ways...).

There's another piece of context that's relevant here, and honestly it's embarrassing to admit, that is I briefly dated Maya last year.

It wasn't a long relationship, and it ended badly. She asked for a break and then basically disappeared on me for weeks. Eventually we became friendly again and I convinced myself everything was okay between us.

The reason I bring this up is because I think it affected my judgment more than I realized at the time.

I had feelings for her for much longer than I should have, and I think a huge part of me was always looking for her approval. Because of that, I tolerated things that I normally wouldn't have tolerated from anyone else.

I really wish I hadn't been in love with her. Looking back, I think it made me ignore a lot of red flags.

I also want to be honest about my own part in all of this because I definitely wasn't perfect. I'm extremely conflict-avoidant and a huge people-pleaser. It's something I've been working on in therapy for a while Even though people were getting cut off from the group, I secretly stayed in touch with two of them.

The thing is, I felt like I had to hide it. At the time, I was convinced that if Maya and Gabby found out I was still friends with people they'd pushed out, I'd be next. Looking back, I feel awful about it.

I publicly went along with cutting people off while privately still talking to them. I basically acted like I agreed with what was happening because I thought that would keep things okay between Maya and me. I'm not proud of that at all.

I also think one reason I stayed for so long is because Maya and Gabby weren't evil all the time, they had good qualities too, like any person. They could be funny. They could be supportive. Sometimes the group genuinely felt like a family.

That made everything confusing because I kept thinking, "Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe every friendship has problems." I worried I was being the kind of person who didn't insist on my friends and who gave up too easily.

I remember talking to my therapist about it months ago. She told me that Maya and Gabby sounded controlling and suggested I try getting closer to other people in my class and building friendships outside the group.

Even that scared me. At the time, getting closer to other people felt almost disloyal somehow. And I even tried to, but they would make faces or seem upset when I tried spending time with other people, or wanted to do school work by myself...

Something else I only realized later is that I felt a lot less overwhelmed when there were nine people in the group. As the group got smaller, things started feeling more intense.

When there were lots of people around, Maya and Gabby's attention was spread out. Once the group shrank, there were fewer people acting as buffers. It felt like their attention became focused on the people who remained. I started feeling watched all the time.

Anyway, a few weeks ago everything finally blew up. Maya got angry with Natalie because of Natalie's relationship, and somehow I ended up caught in the crossfire.

For about ten days Maya completely ignored me, so she wouldn't answer my texts, she wouldn't look at me when I said hi. She'd leave without saying goodbye to me while making a point of saying goodbye to everyone else. At one point she also asked me to give up a ticket to an event I'd been looking forward to for weeks.

During that same period, Natalie and I missed a lecture for a completely legitimate reason. Maya and Gabby then announced in the group chat how nice it was that they'd already formed a project group without us.

None of these things seem huge on their own, but when they were all happening at the same time, the message felt pretty obvious. I felt like I was being pushed out.

During that time I vented to my mom, a couple of friends from home, and a small private group chat with Natalie and another friend I'll call Louis. Honestly, the conversation wasn't even that dramatic. Louis said Maya and Gabby were being passive-aggressive and out of touch, and I agreed. That was basically it. There wasn't some elaborate plan against them or a bunch of vicious insults. We were just talking about a situation that had hurt us and trying to make sense of it. (I do understand it was wrong to do it with someone who had nothing to do with the situation, this person being Louis, who is not part of our friend group, but he was literally my only friend outside of them whom they "allowed me" to talk to...)

Eventually I got tired of the tension and realized I was being immature too, so I decided to talk to Maya directly. To my surprise, the conversation actually went well. She apologized for how she'd been treating me, we talked things through, and I left feeling relieved. I genuinely thought we'd worked things out.

I convinced Natalie to talk to Maya too, she was going to do it the next day at night. I felt like we were finally about to go back to normal. That wasn't what happened...

The next day, Maya borrowed my tablet because she didn't have her phone. Later I realized she'd opened WhatsApp and read the entire private group chat with Natalie and Louis. She went through my messages without asking, right after we'd supposedly reconciled. That's how she found out about everything we'd said.

Not long after that, Gabby called a group meeting. Natalie and I sat down with them, and they basically told us we'd been fake, dishonest, and two-faced. I apologized, and I want to be clear about something: I genuinely meant that apology in the moment. I wasn't secretly planning to leave the friendship and I wasn't trying to manipulate anyone. I really did think I wanted to fix things. I told them I wanted to move forward and do better.

What I didn't do was bring up the silent treatment, the exclusion, the pressure, the snooping, or any of the other things that had been bothering me. I was terrified that if I mentioned any of that, it would look like I was refusing to take responsibility for my own actions. So I stayed quiet and focused entirely on my mistakes. Also Maya decided that in front of our friends was the best moment to break up with me after I begged her for us to have a conversation and she still avoided ending things with me officially.

At one point they also told Natalie and me that we shouldn't talk to Louis anymore. Not that they were uncomfortable with him or wanted some distance from him themselves. They outright wanted us to stop being friends with him. This was something that even when I was there, feeling guilty, I knew I didn't want to do. I didn't want to stop being friends with him, because he was my only friend outside the friend group. I already felt isolated and engulfed, I felt like I was about to lose everything.

A few days later I talked about everything with my therapist, and for the first time I laid out the entire story from beginning to end: the repeated exiling of people, the fear of saying no, the constant criticism, the Hitler comment, the jealousy, the silent treatment, the snooping through my messages, all of it.

And during that conversation I realized something that I think I'd been trying not to admit to myself. I didn't actually want to be friends with Maya and Gabby anymore.

It wasn't because of one specific argument. I'd been unhappy for a long time. The friendship had become something I stayed in out of fear: fear of losing Natalie, fear of being the next person pushed out, fear of ending up completely alone at university.

Once I realized that, my apology at the group meeting started looking different to me. I don't think it was fake, but I do think it came more from my people-pleasing instincts than from a genuine desire to rebuild the friendship.

I knew I needed to be honest eventually. The problem was that Natalie was already planning to move out of the apartment she shared with Maya and Gabby, and I knew everything would explode once that happened. So I waited a few days, literally two or three, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. My plan wasn't to start a huge fight. Honestly, I wanted the opposite. I wanted to slowly distance myself and let things cool down naturally.

Then Natalie told them she was moving out.

She gave them a full month's notice and paid the next month's bills. She didn't leave them stranded. Gabby had recently gotten a part-time job at the university, and Maya had one lined up for the following semester, so Natalie genuinely believed they would be okay financially. As far as I know, she wasn't trying to punish them.

After that, everything completely exploded.

Maya sent a long message in a group chat revealing that her grandmother is terminally ill and that her father is dealing with serious issues. I hadn't known any of this. Nobody had ever told me. I found out in the middle of a message where I was basically being painted as a villain.

I genuinely feel awful for her. I can't imagine dealing with that kind of pain. At the same time, it was incredibly confusing to learn all of that in a public call-out message rather than in a private conversation. Part of me couldn't shake the feeling that the timing was intentional.

Maya also presented my private venting as something much worse than it actually was. All the context disappeared. The silent treatment disappeared. The exclusion disappeared. The months of tension disappeared. What remained was a version of events where I had simply decided to betray her for no reason. (She also made up that I said negative things about other people in the friend group, which I obviously didn't, and that I said "horrible" things about... I do understand being hurt for being called passive agressive and out of touch behind your back, truly, I know I made a mistake there, but I didn't do anything as bad as she is making it seem...).

A few days ago she sent me a direct message saying she couldn't work with me anymore on our research team. She told me to continue ignoring her existence. She said I'd proven myself to be false and a liar, and that the fact I'm still friends with Natalie shows that I don't actually care about people and that I'm ill-natured.

Ever since then I've been questioning absolutely everything.

Was this friendship actually toxic and controlling, or am I just conflict-avoidant and making everything sound worse than it really was? Maybe if I'd been honest earlier things would've turned out differently. Maybe if I'd told them I felt controlled, they would've listened. Maybe if I'd admitted from the beginning that I still cared about Thailla and the others who got cut off, they would've accepted it.

Maybe I was the bad friend.

I did go along with cutting people off. I did vent instead of confronting them directly. I did apologize and say I wanted to fix things, only to realize a few days later that I didn't actually want to stay in the friendship. From their perspective, I can see why that might look dishonest.

That's part of why this is messing with my head so much. I keep hearing Maya's voice in my head calling me fake, a liar, and ill-natured, and part of me keeps wondering if she's right.

I also keep thinking about the fact that I was in love with her. I think that made everything worse. I ignored my own values because I wanted her approval. I went along with things I knew were wrong. I kept making excuses for behavior that bothered me. By the time I finally saw the situation clearly, a lot of damage had already been done.

Right now Gabby and another girl from the group, Victoria (19F), mostly ignore me. They don't talk to me, they don't acknowledge me, and they act like I don't exist. I'm okay with that. We have a few group assignments to finish together and they answer me in professional manners and avoid me in the other manners, which is exactly what I hoped for.

What I can't handle is Maya.

She's passive-aggressive whenever we're in the same space. Little comments, looks, things said under her breath, things that are obviously directed at me without being direct enough for me to respond to. She's made it very clear that she thinks I'm a terrible person, and being around that energy all the time is exhausting. Also when we are just the two of us in the same space, she has argued with me in person for something I didn't do (long story).

We still share academic spaces. We still have overlapping classes. We're still connected through research. I can't fully avoid her.

Every time I walk into a room where she might be, my heart starts racing. I immediately start scanning the room to see if she's there. I rehearse conversations in my head and think about what I'd say if she confronted me.

The worst part is that I feel like I can't even defend myself. If I bring up the silent treatment, the snooping, the repeated cutoffs, the controlling behavior, or anything else that hurt me, I feel like it'll just sound like excuses or like I'm trying to avoid responsibility.

So I mostly stay quiet.

And honestly, I'm exhausted. I don't know how to stop being anxious about this. I don't know how to stop caring what Maya thinks of me. I don't know how to move on when I still have to see these people all the time. I'm okay with Gabby and Victoria avoiding me, but Maya has been making my life so complicated and difficult. I just want us to ignore each other and move on with our lives, but being around her makes me incredibly anxious.

So I guess my questions are:

1. How do I deal with the daily anxiety of seeing Maya, especially when she's passive-aggressive and I keep worrying she'll confront me?
2. Does this sound like a genuinely toxic and controlling friendship, or does it sound like I'm an avoidant people-pleaser who handled things badly and is now blaming everyone else?
3. How do I stop letting Maya's opinion of me define how I see myself?
4. For anyone who's left a toxic friend group but still had to see those people regularly, how did you move on?

Hi everyone! I know the answer/advice for something like this is pretty obvious (there's no shame in being inexperienced, etc etc), but I truly sometimes feel so hopeless when it comes to my romantic life.

I (21F) was raised in a very religious, conservative and overprotective family and as a result, I didn't have any romantic experiences until I moved out for college last year. I began dating a friend who confessed feelings for me in September and things between us were very hard and difficult; it was partially her fault, as she was very avoidant and awful at communicating, but it was my fault too.

My fault because I was so embarassed to be 20 years old and have no experience that I didn't tell her she was my first everything. However, because I'm such a perfeccionist and still deal with some internalized homophobia and religious guilt, I did have some difficult reactions to affection, especially physical touch. Kissing made me flinch, I was so scared of PDA, even hugging her made me so anxious in public. At some point I realized I was making her feel rejected and explained my background to her and how scared I truly was but I just needed some time and experience to be okay, but by then the damage was done and she broke up with me because she felt like I didn't care about her.

You might think being 20 and having no experience is normal, but I am from a country where physical intimacy starts very early on, most people have their first kisses by the time they are like 13 and kissing is always french kissing. I went to Catholic school and most of my classmates who were gay too still had their first kisses in Middle School, I felt so out of place. For context, my ex girlfriend even attempted to initiate sex between us on our first date after I had just had my first kiss with her!

So things here move incredibly fast. I tried moving things with my ex at my own pace, to get me to calm down and convince my body that it was okay, that I wasn't wrong to be romantic with my girlfriend, that we could touch and kiss. But still, my ex kept on telling me she didn't even know if she liked me as a friend or more anymore, and I realize that it was because she was expecting more of me from the physical touch aspect. She also really wanted me to be more open about our relationship, but I wasn't used to talking anything about my romantic life, so I used to get very embarassed of talking about it to other people who weren't my close friends.

I understand why she felt rejected, and I don't blame her for breaking up with me though I was genuinely trying, I was showing my feelings the ways I could and trying to move past my barriers to give her what she wanted; so I gave her flowers, love letters, I tried to be sweet, I texted her everyday... I was truly trying...

Anyway, we've been broken up for 3 months and now that I've tasted a bit of what being in love feels like, I really want it again. I don't have any more feelings for my ex and now I'm at a better place with myself, I can even admit when I find someone attractive! Which was something I couldn't do before. I'm getting better.

I know a lot of the mistakes I've made in this relationship, I now am better at communicating and even identifying my own feelings (I was such a repressed person I had a hard time doing that). But I truly worry about how my inexperience will mess things up in a potential future relationship.

Well, I didn't kiss my ex girlfriend very much because I was so skittish with physical touch as I've said, so I worry I'm bad at kissing, which is something considered important for relationships here. I don't really know how to flirt. With my ex, we were friends first, so we knew each other and things came easily. I have no idea how to act romantic with someone I know very little about.

I also don't know where to find people. Well, I know dating apps, but I'm scared of them. I wish I could date someone I know first again, maybe it would make things easier.

I have a friend who wanted to set me up with a friend of his, but I don't know if this would make sense. I don't know if I'm making excuses too. I'm a bit embarassed still to admit I want to be in love again.

Anyway, as I said, I know the clear answer to my situation is that there's nothing embarassing about being inexperienced. My first relationship was so bad we were truly together for only a couple of weeks in total of our time together. I'm scared of again not being able to show my true feelings and that the person I'm with will realize how lost and scared I am and lose interest.

People think getting flustered easily is something sweet and cute but honestly it sucks so much... I wish I could get over this. I know a relationship won't solve my internalized homophobia, but I'm certain at least some good romantic experiences will help me and I haven't had any of that yet.

I know I'll have to tell the person I'm dating that I'm inexperienced and need to go slow with physical touch, but I think the reason why I'm scared of doing that is that I'm afraid I'll get treated in a condescending way. I look a bit younger than I am, I'm very bubbly and I'm sort of a "goody-two-shoes" so people usually treat me like I'm dumb or uncapable. I'm inexperienced and I want to be treated with care and patience, but I don't want to be seen like a baby or a kid like people sometimes do.

I also have no idea about how I would talk about other sides of me that a person I date should absolutely know about, like other issues I have with intimacy that are personal and I won't talk too much about here lol. I think these aren't first dates-conversation-material, but I've never trusted anyone to talk about this so far in my life, so I'm scared I'll never get the courage to do so with the person I'm with.

I didn't tell my ex I was so unexperienced because 1. I didn't imagine she would want to have sex with me on our first date lol and 2. I figured once the moment came I would be able to just act and forget all my fears and anxieties, but obviously that didn't happen.

So I'd love to hear some advice or comfort. I know I'm young, I'd love to find someone inexperienced like me so we could figure stuff out together, but in my country this seems extremely unlikely. I feel very isolated and hopeless