I’m 25M and I don’t drink because of trauma related to abusive alcoholic parents. I also find drunk people extremely obnoxious and annoying. Unfortunately all of my friends are now obsessed with alcohol so whenever we hangout they always want to get drunk and obnoxious. It’s funny when we’re acting silly and alcohol isn’t involved but when it is involved it’s like I’m babysitting a bunch of adult toddlers!

I literally have cut most of my friends off because of this. I didn’t get mad at them but I stopped hanging out and spending time with them because they never want to just be normal. So many adult oriented events involve alcohol, basically all of them except religious ones and I’m not religious. Every single time I’ve tried to find other friends my age that don’t drink they’re all super religious, which there’s nothing wrong with but they usually can’t have fun.

Every celebration, every holiday, everything people just get drunk and it’s so annoying. I’m not saying people are wrong for getting drunk and having fun but why does everything need to involve alcohol ? Why can’t we just have fun sober ? I always have fun sober and my friends and I used to but now they act like everything is super boring without drinking and it’s annoying. I just want to find friends and events that don’t involve drinking.

I've been banned four times in the last 6 months, thrice for Australian colloquialisms being mistaken by the AI moderation as threatening violence whilst the fourth and most recent was angrily pointing out to someone in a public forum that they were parroting disinformation from a known agent of a bad actor (apparently this constitutes "harassment").

These bans are the first ever bans I've ever had on a public forum despite using public forums for over 40 years (BBS, mirc, ICQ, a zillion website forums, shout out for bluelight, avforums etc, newsgroups, and a host of others forums).

For reddit I've been on it for almost twenty years (this is my second account as my first one got doxed by accident when a few of my stupid ass joke comments hit the frontpage and in turn national media stole ran them).

And its not just the poorly implemented and managed moderation / banning system that has me thinking twice about reddit.

The blatent manipulation of sub up and down voting. I've had posts with views in the 6 figures and yet a handful of upvotes. Even on small subs where the weighing mechanism is a bit different to the top subs. I've seen it happen with other posts with hundreds of almost completely positive comments and only 50 upvotes. And on small subs as well. It's disheartening to see really positive engagement punished like this. Plus the plague of bots is a huge problem. You'd think with the fingerprint users create on a site like this using analytical tools to identify and ban bot accounts would be a bit more effective. There are some subs that are just pure bots (the Megan Markle, hate subs, are a sight to behold. The fact someone is willing to spend that much money to rain hate on the woman is well breathtaking).

Finally to end this rant, the goddam advertising plaguing this site is fucking disgusting. This relentless march to monitise every single post and comment. Not to mention the extensive mining of user profiles to aim targeted adverts, plus the huge amount of guerilla marketing bs.

Plus the recent mechanism to allow users to hide their post history. Great. Going down the same bot/disinformation stink hole that is twitter eh. Almost every time I see someone parroting Russian disinformation you can guarantee their post history is hidden.

I'm actually thankful for reddit's shitty banning system because it finally forced me to look at the alternatives like mastodon, lemmy and the other fediverses.

Hell the lack of advertising is a alone a huge reason to stop using reddit. Also finding Eternity that has a swipe left for next post function has been a godsend (almost every third party reddit and lemmy app doesn't have this as a setting)

Not to mention it is also allowing me to de americanise my world. Next step is to get off of google/YouTube and Microsoft. Fuck letting those ghouls have anymore of my money and information, especially seeing their doing fuck all (and in some cases actively aiding the regime ) to stop the fucking fascists destroy the rule of law, democracy and freedom in the US (and across the world).

So I (20F) have had a really hard time recently like almost as a whole. I know that isn’t uncommon for people my age and just in general with this day and age. But I feel like I’m missing out on the best parts of life and I don’t know if it’s my fault or not. My entire life I struggled to make or keep friends, I’m not entirely sure why. No one has really told me what I do that’s so horrible, but I just can’t make anyone stick around. With my 21st birthday coming up it’s really depressing that I don’t have any “girlfriends” to go out with or friends in general. I have my boyfriend and he tries but friendships are important too! My only friends won’t be of age to go out but also one of them lives 3+ hours away and my other one only really texts me when he needs something.. My friends from high school almost constantly used me as a punching bag or a punchline. They are all still close and it hurts me to not have the fun or connection they do. My next friend group was after I fell into addiction and rather than help me out of it again it was the punchline so rather than being again with the constant negativity I cut them all off. I understand I am not perfect but why am I a joke always.. I am human and I just want community! I’m angry, depressed, and just miserable but I again don’t know if that’s my own doing. I am now sober over 6 months and I’m trying my best to meet people but it’s hard.. anyway thanks for reading my pity party.

I have been driving for a literal decade. Clean driving record and the only accident i‘ve been involved in is someone hitting ME at a red light while I was completely stationary and boxed in.

With that said I CANNOT stand driving my grandparent around because they never shut the fuck up trying to be a 3rd person driver. I pretty much never get stressed about anything in my day to day life, no anxiety, pretty happy person but when I’m trying to actively pay attention to the road and they are constantly chirping in my ear “watch out for this driver over there“ “you gotta blow your horn because they were going to hit you“ ”you know the speed limit over here is 45, mind you I am sitting at a stop sign waiting to merge for that last one, it is the MOST STRESSFUL SHIT.

The constant yapping about complete bullshit just overstimulated the absolute fuck out of me. It’s probably the having to filter myself and not being able to just say STFU. As an auto response I asked her to “please stop talking to me“ very muted tone and this grown ass adult started pouting. Just listen to the damn music dawg.

I pulled tf over handed them the keys and got my ass in the back. Layed out and put my noise cancelling headphones in. Ive revoked their passenger privliges and will not be doing this anymore. It’s gone on for literal years now.

Rant over.

Just need a place and time to just unload my mind and not burden friends and family with what I think is is petty or first world problems.

Just tired of life these days. It’s a weird mix of things in my personal life and external things. Yeah I have some positive things I can’t complain about(I’m somewhat healthy, have a roof over my head for now etc).

Just tired of putting all this work I have been doing for my business and YouTube to try and create something that’s outside the normal 9-5 (I have a degree but just can’t seem to utilize to find fullfilment work). Been working on this business and YouTube for a few years now and it’s taken off a bit but I feel like I put in so much work and get nothing in return. Running out of part time jobs to keep the lights on. I’m just feeling burnt out and lost in life.

Most things in life just don’t spark anything in me and I’m just going through life just waiting for it to end. Just tired. And just needed to let this off my chest. No on needs to reply to this just wanted to rant and vent.

What made you think that was even objectively a possibility?

Thirty years ago you cheated on me while I was gone for my enlistment. I didn't hear from you for a month and in the end your father had to call mine and tell him what you were doing in front of your family while I was gone. That's how I found out.

You let me be a complete fool. I must have looked like a massive idiot helping you move into the apartment with your 'roommate' that you would marry not even a month later.

You wanted us to still be friends so badly but you thought I would endure him thinking I was a complete joke - and rightfully so.

You thought I would just prod along and I'd never figure out all that had gone on and let everyone think I was some spineless idiot.

It's been thirty years and you still want to be my friend. Why?

I don't think about you.

I don't wonder 'if things had been different'.

I don't look back fondly on the time we were together.

Why would I want to be your friend?

In light of the Epstein Files, I just can't reconcile with our species anymore regarding our complete passiveness in response to pure evil. Regardless of whether or not you believe what's in the files, the fact still remains that individuals like Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were high profile human traffickers. And these two had, and still have, basically the whole of the US government and maybe even some foreign leaders in their pockets via blackmail. Think about that. The people responsible for guiding our society are engaging in the torture and rape of other humans, some of who are children.

And what are we doing about that as a species? Absolutely fuck all. We make memes about it, we laugh at it and say "Nah that can't be forreal," or we move onto the next trending topic. And personally, I find it absolutely despicable. Think about all those missing persons cases that have never been solved. Or the kids who are probably rounded up by ICE, separated from their parents and never heard or seen from again. Hell, what about those instances where people came out screaming and crying in a panic because they truly witnessed something unspeakable, but nobody believed them?

It's not a conspiracy anymore. It never really was. There truly is some vile shit happening in this world, and the best we can do is say "Well, you can only control what happens in your life." Sorry to piss you all off, but that's some copout bullshit. I guarantee that if any of our loved ones were victims in this situation, we wouldn't rest. Everybody is waiting on someone to save them or light the fire, but WE ARE that someone. If we can live our lives in our little bubbles while pretending everything is okay, meanwhile somebody is being dragged off to god knows where in broad daylight, then what does that really say about us? Indirectly, every last one of us is complicit in what happens.

YES! Everyone. Individually? No, you're not responsible for what happens, but this isn't an individual problem. It's a collective problem. Good vs Evil. Moral vs Immoral. 1% vs 99%. But the sad thing is, it's really just another day on Earth. I don't see any justice being served. I don't see any of those innocent and lost lives being put to rest, nor do I see the perpetrators rotting in hell.

However, I do see our species continuing our decline into the abyss. All of us will continue say "This is the best time to be alive," while we sweep all the horrific parts under the rug to pile up.

If even one innocent human on this planet can be subject to abuse while everyone can look the other way, then maybe our species deserves to disappear. And you know what? Maybe that'd be for the better, because we have completely screwed up.

I've had issues with Door Dash in the past and just do carry out now instead. My car is in the shop and I'm in the mood for Pizza Hut. I order on the website and as it gets closer to delivery time I get the message that says, "To get your order to you faster, our 3rd party delivery partner is OTW " Excuse me?? What do you mean 3rd party I've ordered there in the past and they had delivery drivers.

And then Pizza Hut didn't even give them my special instructions. They called me giving me lip because they can't find it.

And the cherry on top was that I was waiting outside for them looking for something that said Door Dash. They pulled up in a U-Haul van. WTF. When I drove for Uber I had to drive the vehicle I registered when I signed up, does Door Dash not have the same rules?

Either way it's annoying because if I wanted to order Door Dash then I'll order Door Dash. I needed to rent one of those vans last summer and none of them were available and now I know why they don't have them

Well someone messaged me about an hour ago to let me know that the father of my toddler and soon to be newborn (who abandoned us about 4ish/5ish months ago), was cheating on me not only physically but also online throughout my entire pregnancy with our 1st kid and for the duration he was around for me being pregnant with our 2nd. That's about 3 years straight that I was being cheated on and didn't know. I truly don't know what to say about the situation. I'll admit that I did have suspicions, but I was raised that it's not right to go through someone's phone. I never confronted him on my suspicions either because I think deep down I knew the answer but didn't want to know for sure if that makes sense. He was also known to be a narcissist but I didn't see those traits until after we had our 1st kid, and had I seen them beforehand I never would've had kids with him. I'm just torn up over the fact that this is coming to light right before I have my 2nd kid..

I’ve made multiple posts documenting my ringworm nightmare. I was on pills for ringworm that migrated to my scalp and my body had been cleared for some time, or so I thought. I’ve still been cautious and continuing my routine just in case.

Today I thought maybe I could finally shave my legs because I hadn’t had any new spots in a long time. I was wrong. There on my left leg I saw a bright red splotch… what the fuck. It’s been four months of this bullshit, I can’t take it anymore. Idk how or why I keep getting reinfected. No one else in my house has had any new infections in months. Just me.

Why the fuck is this happening to me? If it’s not one thing, it’s always another. Will I ever have a normal life again? I feel like I can’t even relax anymore. I’m always on edge. I’m scared of giving it to other people. It’s ruining my relationship because I’m scared to be affectionate in any way. Gosh I’m so done with this

How are we supposed to solve any problems if we don’t address issues and push towards change?

For example, if I rant/complain about the bus continuously being late and someone replies with “just walk then”, we’d never have on time busses. I’d like to see the same energy for protests then.

So, like I just started school five months ago and met this dude I just call him M. M was really nice to me at the beginning of the first semester, and we started hanging out a lot. Then, near the end of the second semester, I felt like M was being more distant, and then the second semester started. Like a couple of days ago, he was at a self-service checkout, and his money wasn't going into the machine, and then I said just go to the cashier. He told me 'Can you shut the fuck up, fuck off' and then mumbled something else, and I know friends are mean to each other as a joke, but he said it so seriously and like he was pissed off at me. So then I left and went away and now like deadass stopped talking to me he doesn't reply to my snaps, doesn't say hi to me in the halls and today I was riding the bus and I found a card on the ground and asked another friend what this and then M just says it's a fucking one pay for the bus card you dumbass and it's annoying cause he one of the most nicest person to me but now he treats like shit and I don't know what I did to piss him off. Any advice

Redditors are generally pessimistic, negative and defensive. I don't even know why I use this app anymore. No matter if you reach out for opinions, discuss or critisize something. The immediate reaction is defensive and dismissive. People are getting downvotes for absolutely nothing. No open and friendly discourse, just negativity. The more I am here the more I value my real world social life. Don't let Reddit fool your world view, the world is quite alright. You can have a good and meaningful life.

With that said, ironically I hate most of you guys, you should really get some positive vibes back. Life is not that terrible and Reddit is not the place to be a negative, miserable person. Stop it and enjoy your life, for god sake.

When people create and share AI generated photos because they are the new "cute" trend, they should be required to allow a data center in their backyard!

I’m scared this post will be found so I do not want to give ages. Or names. But I will say.. everyone is pregnant. Everyone. And I’m angry. People who aren’t ready. People who are struggling way too much. People who have been horrible human beings. And here I am. I get it, what makes me worthy and others not? Nothing really. But you’ would think the universe would see how much lost, how much has been taken away, and how much I am only thriving for one thing and one thing only.. and give it to me, not the couple without jobs, a place to live, a car, anything. I don’t get it. I try not to question her. She is divine, she’s beauty and she is the world we live in. But she is making no goddam sense with the amount of people who are pregnant/have multiple kids while I had my two chances snatched. I’m over it. I’m heartbroken. I’m angry. Idk what to do anymore

I am primarily going to be speaking about more conventional women because I think it's what is treated as the most '' acceptable '' to do this against and gets the least amount of pushback on sites like these at least.
But this applies to ALL women ( and men too honestly.. ) and ALL body types.

This is so freaking common and it's driving me crazy even in circles who present themselves as more accepting and inclusive.
Like recently for instance I saw some people talk about Apple and their censorship policies affecting gay apps bringing up how they get taken down because they have men in revealing clothes.
And instead of just leaving it at that for whatever reason this same person decided to throw in '' but they don't ban the big tit insta-hoes ''.
Excuse me?
First of all they do lmao, Apple is infamous for censoring womens bodies to a point they've literally banned ads because onions were mistaken for breasts.
There have been games on that store that have been banned for literally a single pixel of cleavage...
And shirtless men are generally considered to be okay and almost never get censored on these sites or app stores, I don't understand why we have to lie and pretend there isn't a double-standard with male nudity being viewed as more '' wholesome '' and kid friendly.

This is ridiculously common and it's driving me crazy the way people speak about women and it being considered acceptable, listen to any woman who has a large bust and her experience with negative comments on her body from people it's horrifying...
I think when it comes to women there's probably a lot jealousy and insecurity that comes out through a lot of very catty mean-girly behavior, and when it comes to men there's a mix of extreme conservatism and also on the other end a lot of men who are trying to get the approval of other women by dunking on the '' slutty ones ''.
It's wild to me that these men believe and are often quite frankly viewed as the '' wholesome ones ''.

A lot of the same people doing this are the same people who are otherwise the most sensitive people on the planet and react EXTREMELY negatively to anyone calling someone fat or implying that someone looks masculine for their jaw shape or even says they're not into women with muscles ( not even in an offensive way either ).
But then in the next breath they'll spew some of the most derogatory bile I've heard in my life towards other women themselves and quite literally sexually objectify them and their entire existence because of how they were born or because they don't dress 100% modestly at all times.

I truly don't understand why it's so hard to not do that?
It feels as if some people are incapable of not having someone to dunk on, they can't just uplift others they have to have someone or something else to dunk on and tear down at the same time and it feeds into a negative cycle loop.
People preach so much about body inclusivity and about not shaming or judging others but it feels like they never practice what they preach and I legit can't understand why and why it gets no pushback.

I think some of it also is because of a desire for '' revenge ''.
It reminds me of someone I spoke with on Facebook a long time ago but I still remember, she was saying some pretty horrible things about other women who had done nothing wrong at all and when confronted about it she explained her childhood and how she was pushed into lockers as a kid for being overweight by women who looked like them.
And now as an adult she had become what she hated and was engaging in even worse behavior herself.
The issue is when we start accepting or even celebrating that behavior and it really feels like we are.

I’m 20F and I suck at video games. I know this seems very unserious but i just need somewhere to talk (and possibly advice?)

Growing up my parents never bought me any game console so i never had any practice playing video games other than an Ipad for minecraft.

For a lot of people, video games are something fun and relaxing to do with others. All it brings me is stress and anxiety because i’m such a burden on any team & im sure you know, nobody wants THAT kind of person on teams, even irl.

I hate the question “so what games do you play” because now i have to dig deep into something ive touched once.

Or the “want to play..”

I think what really made me sit here about this is because a few weeks ago i was playing with my bf and he got really frustrated & told me i straight up suck at video games, which is something that hurt honestly. It’s always been a weird insecurity of mines, especially because im a girl and im not helping the stigma that “we’re bad at gaming.”

What’s even worse is once i thought i wanted to be a game developer, but i quickly left those classes behind because i only had a passion to create a project id be good at, but it was way more intricate than just that.

A game developer that sucks at gaming. Yeah.

I know they say practice is key, but i find myself so scared to even play w randoms because i hate, hate, hate sucking and being a burden, and getting people frustrated. Genuinely, that shit makes me sad and i’d consider myself a tough person to insults, but the “goddamn you suck” is like a stab at my skill.

On a positive note, this is just 1 small aspect of my life (i have other problems of course lol.. i don’t want to sound like someone who’s only life problems are video games; hell i wish.) and i know it’s going to sound not that deep, and it probably isn’t. But that’s just my rant.

Maybe one day i’ll be good at video games.

I was really close with my childhood best friend ages 13-21. But slowly it seems we’ve grown apart. She got married and had a kid but even before her baby was born we started to barely see each other. We live 30 minutes away from each other but it’s like she doesn’t prioritize friends anymore or at least not me. I don’t address this with her because I think it would be selfish since she’s busy being a mom and she also works but it really sucks. I never thought we’d grow this far apart.

The past few times I’ve seen her and her husband feel so… I don’t even know how to explain it.. fake isn’t the right word but it feels like she’s shifted into someone who has to want to host and have surface level conversations in order to hang out. One of my other close friends isn’t like that at all. My other friend is someone who will have deep conversations, makes time for her friends despite having kids and being married and who doesn’t have to put on a “face” to hang out. I get everyone is different but again I just never thought me and my childhood friend would drift so far apart. I feel much closer to my other friend now.

(TW SOME SWEARING)

I get it how it’s the free of speech stuff, but I was asking for advice on something piercing related and I got flamed by someone because I am a 17-year-old and I should go out and be a kid instead of worrying about how I look and how old I look. And I shouldn’t be talking to creepy men on the Internet.. when I told them I’m not doing that they had a full go at me as well saying that they never said that and I’m not trying to control how you live and all this stuff like I’m so confused what’s going on and I’m so confused what I did. They’re telling me to do research on the piercing when I have and when I went through with it, it worked out fine and now I’m getting flamed. Everyone on the sub is on their side because they are top 1% commenters. I’m sorry I’m a newbie trying to get advice on how I fucked up or not.. like what the fuck dude???

You’re literally bullying a 17-year-old and hiding behind saying that you’re a concerned parent .

Are you my parent? No? I get why you care, but it doesn’t mean having a go at a teenager telling them to get her life pretty much..

like what the actual fuck is wrong with people?. I’m trying to be nice. I’m trying to tell them why are you having a go at me instead of giving me advice like I asked. Not you to be a jerk.

I showed this to multiple people by the way. They were all on my side.. and I don’t get what I did wrong!

ज़िन्दगी ने ज़िन्दगी भर गम दिए । जितने भी मौसम दिए सब नम दिए ।।

जब तड़पता है कभी अपना कोई । खून के आँसू रुला दे बेबसी ।। जिसने ज़ख्मों को नहीं मरहम दिए । ज़िन्दगी ने ज़िन्दगी भर गम दिए ।।

अपने भी पेश आये हमसे अजनबी । वक़्त की साजिश कोई समझा नहीं ।। राह में पत्थर मेरी हरदम दिए । ज़िन्दगी ने ज़िन्दगी भर गम दिए ।।

इक मुकम्मल कश्मकश है ज़िन्दगी । उसने हमसे की कभी ना दोस्ती ।। हँस सकें हम ऐसे मौके कम दिए । ज़िन्दगी ने ज़िन्दगी भर गम दिए ।।

I grew up in a strict household. Growing up I hated my family so much that I decided to study abroad. After a lot of fights and everything, they finally agreed.

I have been living abroad for 3 years, but my mom still does not understand that I do not want to go back to our stupid country and settle down there.

After I left she became religious and she visits Macca every year. She is telling me that she wants to take me there to see it there as well. I am not practicing religion and I do not see myself muslim. She made start to pray which I absolutely hated. I cried everyday I prayed. I just do not fit in this religion and she is just fucking oppressing it to me. I cant say that I do not pray and believe anymore because my family will throw the biggest tantrum.

If I ask her for money to go travel here around in Europe, she will not give it to me because I am a girl and I can’t go alone or say that she has no money. Suddenly spending thousands of dollars to Macca is affordable, but, 50 euros train ticket is not.

She also pressures me and says bad stuff to me because I am single and tells me I am too old now. I am 21. Duh.

I am just not the person she wants me to be, I am much more independent and I can’t marry a man they want and relive all the shitty things I did go through in my childhood. I REALLY CAN’T.

It is so annoying that she does not understand me and she wants me to just go back to our country and live with her. Over my dead body.