r/BoyDinnerDiaries

soooo thanks to all of y’all, I had the courage to reach out and try to rekindle things!! were gonna get a drink next week! im encouraged, no matter what I know we’ll have a fun time and then if it’s right things will blossom from there. I haven’t really had a strong crush on anyone in a while, so the prospect of that maybe starting to form here is definitely fun and exciting!

also….. being very vulnerable here sharing my beans over toast… it was utterly fabulous.. accompanied by all too much fried chicken and some of the best collared greens I’ve had the pleasure of being acquainted with.

I’ll keep the saga going.. i hope to have good news to share next week.. thanks again all <3

I have been catching my gf in multiple lies. Not only have I, but her friend group has as well. Me and my gf have a common best friend. I actually introduced her to one of my childhood friends (girl) and they became best friends. Me and this friend have been able to cross reference multiple lies to confirm they are lies. I have also caught my gf in a lie on a video chat and her face turned bright red.

Some lies are white lies, but some are elaborate. The lies that basically got her kicked out of her friend group involved her lying about her friends spouses, cheating allegations, intimate life, etc. The lies with me included lying about going to therapy and the amount of times, lying about being pregnant once (another time she actually was), going to pilates, fasting for religious reasons, and the ethnicity of her brother's gf (hella random).

The friend situation was so intense that one of the friends was forced to pull out of the wedding venue that was on my gf's family property. She planned for months to have her wedding there.

My is very kind. As long as I don't confront her about these lies or ask her why she can't be honest with me. When/if I do, she resorts to a victim complex or will cry and says I'm attacking her or not on her side. We have a history of on and off. This is our final chance and we are both trying hard but I feel like my trust is being broken. She comes from a family with a lot of money and has no reason to lie or fabricate anything.

Air fryer steak and sauteed veggies (bell peppers, onions, kale). Steak seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion powder.

Chicken Vodka Parm I made the other night.

It’s been 8 months since she (32F) and I (32M) split and the further removed from it I am the more bizarre it seems.

It’s 2014, we date for four months in college. It doesn’t work out. No big deal. Only throwing this bit in for added context. I graduate college in 2016 and move to New York, I live my life, I date other people.

2022 rolls around and I have a remote job, decide I want to live closer to my family. It’s a town about an hour and a half away from where I grew up. Happens to be where she is. We are friends. She brings me into the fold of her friends and they become a normal part of my social circle.

New Year’s Eve she invites me to this party and I roll around the idea “you know what? We didn’t really get the chance to give this an honest shot back in the day. What if we tried this for real?” And we agree to give it a shot. We have a grand old time in January, and I think we’ve got an opportunity to make up for lost time. She agrees, but with the caveat of “we really need to take some time to re-learn who we are because it’s been almost 10 years at this point and we are different people” and it’s fair as fuck.

One thing we both had in common, or at least I thought we had in common, was a desire for personal space. I love my space and was obviously prepared to respect hers. She has her time with her girls, I have my solitude, I can do a casual thing for a little bit.

So we do a casual thing for a few months and it doesn’t super pan out. I don’t really see other just because I have other things on the mind, but we had this very strange and nebulous thing for like 8 months before September rolls around and she says “hey I could use less space” and to my mind I think “oh hell yeah we’re doing this for real!” And she comes over and we talk it over, and boom, I have a girlfriend now. Awesome. Just a reminder, it’s about fall of 2023 now.

Almost immediately afterwards she loses her job and retreats inward. I am new to the boyfriend thing but she repels any attempt at me offering any semblance of consolidation, won’t let me help her pay bills, nothing. I eventually settle for just leaving snacks on her doorstep. We don’t talk for like two weeks. I go out to a bar with my friends and I see her there with her friends, and I act like I’m not crushed because my texts have been ignored.

Finally, I get her to let me cook dinner for her. She comes to my house and I make this pasta dish that I really love, and dirty martinis. I’m trying really hard to be romantic and I’m trying shape this brand new relationship into something that actually resembles a relationship. I take her into the living room and we start slow dancing. She has this big beautiful green doe eyes that would melt anybody that stared at them too long. She shoots them up at me and flashes this huge wide smile and says

“You know I’m never going to love you right?”

And I’m…perplexed by this. Who on earth says that to their new relationship. She maintains that I’m just simply never going to stack up to the level of importance that she has for the friends in her life, and while I can understand a new boyfriend will never take the place of her lifelong friends, I have trouble understanding why it’s me vs them. She explains “I just love my friends so much I just have nothing left!”

By the way, she claims to be demisexual, and sex was coming eventually. I was respectful of that, even after well over a year went by, sexless.

A rational man would have called it off then and there but you must understand reader I am a chronically lonely person, I’ll admit to some of it being self imposed but it’s a whole other Reddit thread. The fact is I grew up with parents who love each other very much and I do not get in relationships with people I am not obsessed with. I work around everything I can to just make this work. I make peace with the fact that if this progresses to marriage I will probably never have sex again, but I’d be fine with it because I had somebody in my life that cared about me and loved me because I knew if I loved her enough she would have no choice but to love me back.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You kept this going for another few weeks until it all blew up in your face.

Oh no. No. No reader, I wish I respected myself that much, and am working on becoming the kind of person who does.

No, over the next two years 98% of conversation was initiated by me. All dates are planned (and paid for) by me. All trips are planned and paid for by me. She made me dinner one time.

We would go weeks at a time without talking to each other, insisting she only had enough energy for her friends. I don’t have a problem with her friends mind you, her friends love me a lot. In fact, her sister has put more effort into our relationship than my supposed girlfriend ever did. Her friends were the only ones who would stand up for me whenever she interrupted me (which was frequent).

There’s a few drunken phone calls where this boils over. I’m calling her at midnight wondering why I have to remind her I exist. She promises to work on it. Nothing changes. This probably happens three or four times.

Last June I lose my job. In August I move to my parents house. Two days later she calls me and ends it all over a five minute phone call. She cites a time early in the relationship when I told her if we split and it didn’t work out, that I would be cool about it.

“You remember how you said you’d be cool about it?”

And I did say that, but what was implied was “hey if this isn’t working in the first 3 months, let’s call it off so we don’t spend years of our lives miserable.” Not two years after being locked into this thing.

I asked her to be the one to reach out after one or two months if she still wanted to be friends (also she had my books) she immediately fired back “I can absolutely do that”. This was last August.

April comes around, I just explain very plainly without any real emotion “you’re not going to follow through on this. I’m sure you have your reasons, but I need my books back.” And she responded “I’m so sorry about that! Time just got away from me!” Like she forgot to take out the fucking trash.

I am worried I am losing my mind, because almost everybody I know seems confused why I am not “Cool” about this, and I have to tell you I just don’t see how nobody else seems to see how deranged it is to treat another human being this way. I’m just so confused as to what was at play here, psychologically. If any of you could shed some light on this given prior experience I would appreciate it.

Dinner is make your own chicken burrito.

Before you say it, I am on all the apps. I’m actively putting myself out there. And I have gone on 4 dates in the past month and a half.

On Friday I went out with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. He wanted to go dancing, so we did. Turns out he’s a terrible drunk, and I had to drag his ass back home and miss out on some action.

So on Saturday I felt like I still really wanted to do something. So I found someone on Grindr and brought him over. It’s Wednesday, and my legs are still aching. This guy was absolutely amazing. The best I have ever had in my entire life. A surreal experience.

And now I’m depressed because man, I just want to settle down already. It’s not that I regret hooking up, because I don’t. But laying in bed together after having a good time kind of brought something up, and I can’t stop thinking about how bad I want to find my forever guy.

It feels like an uphill batttle all the time. If I’m interested, they’re not. If they are, I’m not. If I try to hit someone in the wild, they’re either straight or have someone.

I’m 32 and scared that it’s just not meant to be for me.

UPDATE: In case anyone is curious. We were meant to meet again yesterday, but he said he was swamped with work, and postponed it to tomorrow.

Duders, I’m a bit overwhelmed but in a good way. I was hung up on a woman for a while, but over the weekend I realized feelings I had for her simply weren’t shared. It was a bummer. So I downloaded a dating app.

I had a long drive home, and likes kept popping up. Some probably spam, some not interested in, but where I live feels even more isolating because women near me are either scarce or not interested in me.

I’m currently in a conversation with a marine biologist. WTH is happening? Even if this goes nowhere, this is making me feel like people do notice me - even if it’s on some shitty app. Even if it’s all artificial. I know this, hate this, but still feel better about myself because of it. Am I just lonely, or seeking attention too hard? I feel like an immature idiot and also somewhat cautiously confident.

I’m a mess, aren’t I?

Meal: tortellini with meatballs

Dinner: Schnitzel and mushroom gravy, served with pan-fried spätzle

Bonus Picture: Détour mortel, a book by K. A. Merikan.

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I can't believe it. I mean, I can, because I've cumulatively spent many hundreds of hours learning and practicing over the years. But I actually got lost in a French-language novel for the first time ever last night. By which I mean, I got so engrossed in it that I didn't realize I'd accidentally stayed up until one o'clock in the morning 😅

That's a huge milestone for me, because it means that I'm finally at a point where I can read French literature with enough ease that (depending on the reading level) it's almost effortless. I'm not agonizing over the grammar or the vocabulary anymore. I'm so thrilled.

(The book was Détour mortel. It is a dark romance about a man who is abducted by a crazy ax murderer and then toxically falls in love with him.)

ALSO!

I ran into an old acquaintance earlier today! Can't believe it. She's an old coworker of my mom's. I hadn't seen her since, like, middle school. I grabbed her Facebook details and I'm hoping to see her for lunch this weekend so we can catch up!

I posted 2 weeks ago about dumping and blocking my BPD girlfriend with addiction issues. weed. all day every day.

I unblocked her, let her back in with some boundaries.

she asked for help with a tech issue. okay no problem. I saw her at the gym. do you need help with that? no it's fine. I can wait till later. I don't need to help right now. I don't want to deal with it. well, okay

calls me in the morning bent out of shape, why can't you just help me? why can't you just tell me what you did? why can't you tell me the one that you use?

meanwhile, I'm trying to check in for my badass new tattoo. and she's pissing me off. having to explain to her that he didn't clearly articulate what she wanted. she just asked for help in a really generic way without providing me any information. but of course it's my fault for not helping right?

Tell her if she wants some help she can come by my place. the next day, she said she's going to the gym and then going to come over. 7:00 p.m.

by 10:30 she's still not there, I am livid. I am so frustrated. this is the exact same thing she did during her relationship, avoiding me, isolating. she finally calls and makes excuses, I was at the gym for 2 and 1/2 hours, my phone died. I went to the grocery store. at this point I'm so fucking sick of it. I don't give a fuck. I know resort to calling her names but I call her what she is, selfish and ungrateful.

making me wait hours, again, just like last time. just like a million times before when we were together. because fuck me right? he'll always be there. he'll wait for me like a fucking simp.

I'm frustrated with her. I'm frustrated with myself. I need to just cut her off.

Air fried calamari, mushrooms with cheese and pepper, wings, Caesar salad, watermelon, garlic chicken wings and pane di casa.

It’s time I stopped chasing a relationship that will clearly never come. It took me getting sober, becoming chronically ill, and a lot of time alone to realize that sometimes your parents just don’t know how to be parents. Some parents will never take accountability for their actions towards you, some will gaslight you into thinking you weren’t a “good child” instead of taking ownership of their lack of parenting. Some will come with a half-assed apology while truly seeking pity. Some will simply deny the past because the truth is too hard for them to swallow.
I finally had the realization that I can ask for a better relationship over and over, continue to show forgiveness, and still won’t be met half way. That is the second hardest realization to have in all of this. The first is realizing when it’s time for me to stop chasing and walk away. And I feel like today is that day.
In just a couple hours I’m going to a therapy consultation for the first time and I’m really hoping an outside perspective will help me learn how to move on and not live my life feeling like I’ll never meet some unrealistic expectations of two people who don’t even know me as an adult- and honestly never cared to.
Money doesn’t determine your worth.
Asking for basic respect from the people who created you is not too much to ask for.
Being told you’re not enough by a parent is a projection of their own failures.
It’s time to move on.

60/40 lamb/beef patty, tzatziki, sautéed red cabbage, feta, balsamic marinated tomato, cilantro, chiltepin peppercorn sauce on a challah bun

So she seeks for serious stuff only but I found her bdsm profile yesterday. It also includes nudes that I didnt open because I dont want to spill the fun? Anyway I now know she is a switch and likes anal fisting etc. and has many friends there (whose are very ugly and sometimes 30 years older).

Should I tell her I saw her profile or not? It could make the whole thing backfire. But I need to know. Would not have anything against kinky sex if it is monogamous.

I am also concerned of STIs becauause oral can transmit too. But she is a cutie

When you're young, a birthday is exciting. You get new toys, get some cake, and maybe some ice cream, and you're surrounded by people who you *know* love you. However, we all have that core memory, you know the one. One year, you invite everyone in class to your birthday party, and nobody shows up. Maybe one or two kids show up, but you never really get to talk to them much afterwards, or if you're lucky, that turns into a budding friendship that lasts a very long time. Or maybe it didn't happen to you. Maybe you were one of the people who got an invite, someone that the mid thought was their absolute best friend, and you crumpled that into a ball on the way out of class for recess and saw him crying behind you as you did it. Maybe you felt guilty? Or maybe you felt absolutely nothing, and started playing with the toys you brought while other people played tag. Anyways, when it's 20+ years later, it doesn't matter. It's all muddy anyways, you're not sure what's a real memory and what's a fake memory anymore.

But after that day, did it not begin to feel different? Less and less people showed up every year, less and less family members. You realize that you don't even know these people and that your mom just invited distant cousins that you never see any other time of year, and as the years went by, less and less guests brought gifts, but instead brought more and more drama. Almost every time this group got together, someone was leaving early, and you were covering your ears. It began to feel less and less like *your day*, a celebration of what was to come, and more and more like a day you began to dread. Sometimes your mother would promise you a gift, and then you'd never get it. Sometimes she'd start a fight when you reminded her of what day it was, and then would eventually give you a gift after screaming at you for three whole hours. You began to realize that nobody actually loved you, and that a birthday was simply a chore for everyone wherein they were going through motions that they felt they were *supposed* to do, and not the motions that they*wanted* to do. There was no more cheer, there was only sadness and misery.

By the time you turn 18, there's only three people. Maybe you did get a good gift from one of them, but nobody else showed up, no more friends wanted to be around you because they claimed to have outgrown you. The most special thing is a call from your uncle in the Navy who killed himself the next year, which somehow sounds the most special despite him living on the other side of the country and your mother alienating you from that side of the family. It doesn't feel like a celebration of what you've become.

In your 20s, people come and go. The most special day has a friend come over late at night and drop by with a cake. The two of you hang out at your place for the first time since you finally moved out of your mom's house. You play video games, sing, and just vibe for the next few hours. You invite another friend you think they'd vibe with, but that friend only arrives two hours after the other friend leaves. You want to split the cake with him on Tuesday, since Monday is Memorial Day, but while you're at work, you get a call saying that someone broke into your house while the other friend was doing laundry there. The other friend managed to avoid them, even having no idea there was someone else in there. Your friend who got you the cake mocks you and insults you for being upset that someone broke into your house. Eventually he harasses you so hard over this that you have no other option but to quit your job. You realize that he never really cared about you, did he? Just another person going through the motions of pretending to care because they don't want to be alone. Happy Birthday, you get to move back in with your mom and lose your closest friend!

Now birthdays are just a gloomy day. You wake up alone in an empty apartment with pain all over your body, unsure if it's age or if you need a new mattress. You go outside through an empty hallway for a morning smoke, and the sky is gloomy. Maybe it'll rain, maybe it won't. Your lungs burn as the tar settles in them. That wasn't much of a thing last time you were smoking, but you were also younger and didn't smoke as much. You try reaching out to people, but nobody who likes you lives in the same city as you. All your friends who cared moved on and found a better city to live in as you stay in this rotting and decaying carcass they call a town. You go inside, lungs burning, and you chug two full cups of water. You realize that you haven't eaten in awhile, but you don't really care, your stomach feels full anyways from all that water. You plop down on the couch and just try to fall asleep again, but despite feeling exhausted, no sleep comes. You just sit there doing absolutely nothing until your phone goes off from your sister who's halfway across the state saying "Happy Birthday" with a picture of a gravestone saying "your twenties". You decide to scroll YouTube for a bit, but nothing good is in your recommend. You sit there for an hour scrolling forgettable garbage slop, and then you realize you're hungry for slop. So you grab some spinach, onions, black olives, and mushrooms, blend them together, for fry them in a pan with eggs and yams, and eat it while watching more slop. It tastes good.

Today, on this day of turning thirty, a birthday feels like a reminder that I'm one step closer to being six feet under, a reminder that those little grey hairs are going to one day cover my entire head, or that I'll see them fade away and I'll go bald. That the wrinkles under my eyes and on my cheeks and forehead will get bigger, the skin will get paler, and my eyesight will get worse and worse until I can't see anything. That one day, probably closer to today than the day I was born with the luck I've seen and the battles my body fights against the cigarettes I breathe and the garbage I put into my body, I will stop struggling to simply exist, and I will die. Slowly from there, everyone I've ever met will eventually forget about me, and nobody will ever mention my name ever again. I will fade away into the ether without anyone having known my name, and without achieving anything that would have affected the world in any way possible.

I call this meal *Shrek* by the way.

Firstly, this smash burger joint needs kudos for the pickles! Fucking fantastic!

Was with this woman for eight years (we broke up 10 years ago). Sold the house “we” owned etc etc.. What still bugs me to this day is that every so often I get my calculator out and check this shit.

So we bought a house in late 2014 and lived in it together for just under 12 months (we broke up and she lived there until the house was sold in early 2016). We went half-half in the deposit, and the mutual arrangement was that I pay the mortgage, internet and utilities with my income and she pays for council rates and home/contents insurance with hers, as well as groceries and all the other sort of expenses one encounters; she was also meant to supplement me for a bit of play money if you will - beers, smokes, weed (we both smoked a lot of weed), video games etc.. We were taking home roughly the same amount (I was a touch higher due to my shift work). I was paying just over twice the minimum mortgage repayments and still had maybe $500 a week left over, which I was meant to save and to pay off my car loan ($160 pw). I wanted to smash the mortgage payments early so I could have a bit of leeway when the time came for me to settle off the crap shifts and make way for starting a family. We were gonna start trying for a kid in early 2016.

She never gave me any money. I know that sounds like a whinge, and I wasn’t about to ask her for money, so I’d use my $500 leftover to do my thing. When she got angry that I had fuck all in my account, it say I spent all my money because she wasn’t giving me any of her income to get by, like we’d organised, and I wasn’t going to be a beggar.

Anyway, we broke up, sold the house for $115K over what we paid, and the talk began about splitting the profit. I said that I’d paid ALL of the mortgage payments and was happy to return her deposit contribution, insurance, rates, groceries etc etc. and we were looking at a 65-35% split. Well that’s when you see who people truly are. She threatened to go after my superannuation, threatened to get a domestic violence order on me (I NEVER hit her) and said her mother can afford a better lawyer than I could. I ended up splitting the profit 50-50 coz I was heartbroken and honestly wasn’t planning on living much longer.

It’s been ten years….and I WISH I called her bluff on getting that fkn lawyer….

I’ve been with my girlfriend for over a year. She’s always been subconscious about singing; it’s always been hard for her. Today, while she worked on her assignments, she listened to music and just was singing non-stop. I won’t lie, I teared up and cried a bit. I love singing songs and do it around her often and with family. I have tried to ask her to sing along with me or just sing at times in general, but she always struggled to do it. I didn’t really want to force her to do something she wasn’t comfortable with, so you can imagine my surprise to finally hear her doing it. Really brought some tears 😭
(Just some simple tacos btw)

I’d been there for a few hours already, catching up with some friends, then a group of girls surrounded the table we were at looking for cigarettes. we obliged, they sat, and the conversation flowed from there. one of them in particular was super cute. appearance-wise she was definitely my type, and there was something about her eyes. I noticed her glancing at me immediately and introduced myself. we chatted for a bit and the flirting intensified. maybe they were sweet nothings but she was laying it on pretty heavy… I hadn’t gotten that sort of attention in such a direct way in a little while. I told her I was a little bit scared of her, the tension was there, but I acted aloof, which only seemed to heighten things. we were outside and it was getting a little cold, so I let her borrow my hoodie. it still smelled like her the next day. by the end of the night we were sitting super close and it felt like she was hanging on my every word. I ended up giving her a ride home, we hugged and said our goodbyes. I texted her a bit the next day and asked if she might want to hang out sometime that week. she said she was super busy with work, but we kept chatting a little bit over the next few days. I don’t know if I should reach out again. I talked to my friends about her the next day, the ones who were there that night, they agreed we had chemistry, but were cautious about whether I should really pursue it. ugh.. I still find myself thinking of her though… it would be nice to hold her again

Chicken and broccoli with broccoli cheddar soup, my wife and I have been together now 12 years we have a 10 year old and soon to be 8 year old and I’m about 3 weeks post op from a tumor removal and my wife is Adamant we have another baby.

To note we did have our two kids out of wed lock. Since then we have moved three time for my work. She has been a stay at home mom as that was her dream of raising her kids. And I had no complaint with that as I make what I think is very stable income. My wife and I have our own hobbies as do our kids. I like to race cars and have on and off for 20 years. My wife like to craft and thrift which has gotten out of hand and she has a full two garage full of junk.

On top of this it’s been a passive aggressive 6 month talk about bringing another child into this world. I have worries as our youngest has a genetic hormone disorder and though we love our son to death we would hate to have the same hormone disorder passed to another kid.

This is a main part of why I don’t want anymore kids but she doesn’t think that’s enough reason. Her mindset is that another kids is a few extra carrots in the stew pot and we are good. We are not…. We have no baby anything so that would be a complete reset after the whole baby phase.

I also just started another car project a few months back and I feel like this is her way of saying you got a car so I get a kid??? In my head those two items don’t equate.

I’m scared she is going to try and pull an ultimatium on me of the kid or she’s out. If so I’m at the hard fork in the road on what to do.

Just wanted to do a check in with the fellas. Tell me your victories and your losses. How are you growing and bettering yourself? What's been eating at you that you can't get over?

I hope an open forum thread is acceptable here, just wanna try and make sure anyone that has something to get out gets an opportunity

NY strip, baked potato and Navigator Zin for dinner along with some Indy

Mapo tofu

Met this girl online, texted for a few days and asked her out. Planned 5 days in advance to go to the park then grab sushi & dessert close by in a popular area of town

Day of - it's beautiful out, finally feels like summer, maybe a little too hot, and all of a sudden a huge thunderstorm rolls in right when we're supposed to meet. I didn't check my weather app that morning and it wasn't on the forecast 5 days before so I had no clue.

I got to the park early and was waiting on the bench for her when the storm rolled in. I text her to suggest we pivot to going straight to the sushi restaurant in that popular area of town and I'll meet her there at 6. Great! As I'm walking over, it starts pouring, so I decide to run to my car and drive over instead. The rain causes INSANE traffic where I'm heading. I somehow go from being early to being late

No rain when I get to the restaurant at 615, she's inside and I try to introduce myself and, right at that moment, the server comes over to inform us we have to leave at 640 due to a private event. Date asks what we should do, I say let's go to the other sushi place around the corner (2min walk- decent spot, 7/10), I don't want us to feel rushed to eat. It wasn't raining out when I arrived so I hope it finally stopped. As we walk over to the other spot, starts pouring. I didn't bring an umbrella, shit I don't think I even own one.

Get to the restaurant, I think we're both a bit frazzled, she goes to the bathroom to dry off a bit. She comes back, I try to finally get into some convo but the server comes over asking what we want. I haven't had a second to look over the menu- I say we need a min and we finally get to talking. Conversation was great, lots in common, lots of laughing and eye contact. We eat, we talk, we start wrapping up around 745. She starts to check the clock and says it's getting a bit late.

She ends up declining to get ice cream after because it was getting a bit late, she has a med school exam coming up, and needed to be up at 5 the next morning. Completely understandable! We left and walked together a bit since we parked close to each other, just chatting some more. Got to our cars and she kinda just gave a quick goodbye and hopped in her car. Texted her saying something like..I had a great time and would love to see her again soon and hope she got home safe and that she gets some good sleep. She responded saying sorry for leaving so quick and that she had a great time and appreciates the effort but feels like she can't balance starting something new with school and everything else she has going on. She mentioned during our convo that she worries that she will have to sacrifice other parts of her life due to her choice of profession.

Feeling pretty bummed about this one. Can't help but feel like I totally mishandled the situation with the rain & restaurants, and that everything was working against me to make it hard to make it an enjoyable time. I feel like I wasn't my best self and was a bit awkward with everything. I can't help but feel like she just didn't really enjoy the time and I made her uncomfortable and made her want to leave early. Or maybe she just felt like she couldn't focus because of school and really feels like she can't prioritize dating...

Maybe it was a sign that I shouldn't date right now - I also have a lot of work to do on myself. She seemed like a really wonderful person and I was excited. Didn't expect to fumble so hard. So it goes.

Some lessons learned:
- check the weather
- own an umbrella
- plan better dates
- be respectful of people's time
- make an effort to make a warm intro despite everything else going on
- relax

We only dated for 2 months but got really close during that time. I was learning to adjust to being in a relationship again after years of being single while working through childhood trauma in therapy. She's super cool, very sweet, and was very understanding of my situation because of her own rough childhood. Tbh there were a few red flags and lifestyle compatibility concerns but I though we could work through them. But when she told me the full truth about her dad... it just hit too close to home for me. When she asked if I would join her family at memorial day I had to level with her. I absolutely respect that she wants to have a relationship her father, but I could never be near that man. My future wife deserves a husband who can be a part of the family.

I believe I made the right decision but 4 hours post breakup this sucks man. The summer was going to be a lot of fun with her but it's better to respect everyone's time since I'm 31 and she's 27. She wants to have another conversation in a few days which I agreed to. But I hope she frames it as a relationship post mortem and not a "how do we make this work" convo.

Dinner is: Coconut chicken with jasmine rice, an entire bok choi a potato I cut with a crinkle cut cutter and airfried that got messed up cause I didn't set a timer to flip it.

It's me initiating. All I ever wanted from the time I was a pre-teen boy was to love and be loved. I'm autistic and didn't even know basic social skills so I had to learn everything manually, and refine by trying it out in the world.

I faced countless rejections and while I know it's nothing compared to what women face, my story is a big deal to me. I came across her in a class when we'd both failed college, and then I spent the next 19 years holding her emotionally, doing everything I could for her in every way possible. She rewarded that by forcing me into marriage and disregarding every attempt at a plan for life I ever had.

She never took on the work it takes, emotional as she faces the outside world, or taking responsibility for her actions while talking to me, and as I struggled she just demanded more and more. Anytime I asked about the things she'd promised to do, I just got stonewalling and emotional violence.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore and when she still lashes out I feel like a moron for continuing to allow it or thinking she'll ever change. She will be facing the real world, this time alone. I will have peace, finally in myself. The decision I should've made at 12.

Now my therapist tells me it's because I only ever looked at what I should be doing and never checked if the other person is actually taking care of me that I've ended up here. That it could never have gone any other way and that she's sorry for it.

Spaghetti Os with hotdogs, garlic, and parmesan. Street corn and a cherry soda.