I always post here at my very weakest of moments.

There is so much in this world. There is so much for me to do and learn. There is so much kindness, such as this site itself and all of the moderators.

The good news is that this ultimately does not matter. Romantic and sexual relationships, friendships even, are only a small portion of a person's life. There is so much else. The bad thing is that I'm kind of an addict. I don't mean that literally. It just seems like most people are kind of depende...

We hooked up again yesterday. It was kind of nice (I mean aside from just the sheer euphoria of seeing him again) in that I think we both have more closure now. I now more strongly believe that we can't be platonic friends. I wish heartily that we could be. Aside from the instability of the decision...

Heather,
I'd appreciate that. Thank you for everything.

(Yes, I changed my username.)

Typical stories

To his credit, he told me that none of it was my fault, he had more power in the relationship than I did and was older and more experienced, and for all of these reasons plus more is be the one accountable. He just said that we couldn't be friends anymore. Which I guess is kind of true, we were tryi...

I also feel weird about how many details (personal, potentially identifying) I included in this. I don't think there's any real-life risk of that, how much I did disclose is just oddly specific and kind of uncomfortable. The things I do under stress. Ah well.

Well, we had been, for the moment, continuing to work on the concert we were preparing for. As we had been before, for the most part. Things blew up. We had sex once. I'm okay.

Sam, Thank you for your kind and comprehensively researched response. I realized that I hadn't thanked you, and I want to not only for your support, but for all the work you do to give good advice to every young person on this board. I haven't seen A for a few weeks now. This has actually been his d...

TL;DR summary for my own sake: My partner broke up with me, on account of wanting to date someone in the same stage in life, having different pursuits in a romantic relationship than me, and having a somewhat different cultural perspective. I'm more upset than I would like to be. We're still collabo...

Hi everybody. I'm just venting here. I kind of need an outlet—someone to mirror my experience—and I don't want to bug my roommate, my mom, my best friend, the other people I talk to about this stuff any more than I already have. Thank you for your service and compassion on this website. It's helped ...

HI FAUST
YOU NEED SOME SPACE
I'm going to take you off the message board/this stimulus for a while... We're okay. It's okay to feel, it's okay also not to freak out. We're good.

It's so easy for me to get depressed.


I don't need to be.

And most of all, I want what's best for S.
Sometimes, I wonder how I could possibly benefit him.
Okay, thinking of his mom, I know she'd say otherwise. in fact, she's told me otherwise before. They respect me.
I hate feeling like a burden.
I kind of hate a lot of things in my life right now.

I guess I'm frustrated that it's so damn complicated and that he's so damn complicated. That's the thing with N. N is interpersonally skilled enough to be staff here, even though he's only 16. Things just work with him. Meanwhile, everything seems so risky and so vulnerable with S. Although I don't ...

Hiya Sam, thank you again for your mentorship. Things are going well. I'm doing better in school, and looking forward to moving to my new campus in a few weeks. Life goes on, and I almost feel guilty when I do think about S now, because it clutters up my now-clear mind. On the other hand, my mom rec...

It does. Thanks, Sam.

I think it's misattribution. I experience a depressed mood, and I go, "Oh, this started around the time of issues with S," and so therefore it must be caused by issues with S. Nope, just habits, habits that were started for a lot of reasons *in addition* to issues with S. Cognitively easy.

Actually, it's ironic that I titled this "feelings are complicated", because I have no emotions.

Okay, here is the condensed version of what I was trying to say: For a long time, I was obsessed with S and what had happened. How do you tell if recurring thoughts are just an obsession that you need to neurologically overwrite vs. a sign that you have issues you need to work through/emotions you n...

Hi Sam, Thanks again. I'm finding what you said to be really true. In the very beginning of this—December 2015, I thought that I needed self-discipline to make me get over S, that it was only by discipline that I would be happy and content again. I said yes to N in part because I knew he was good fo...

Hey, thank you so much Sam. It's bizarre. It would take at least two hands for me to count the number of times I've been told I'm overemotional, so the notion that I might be repressing or ignoring my emotions seems well, like an excuse. At the same time, "ignore/tough it out/see what works out...

This has been more helpful than I can articulate. Another thing that confirms this for me: As I was cleaning my computer, I encountered some of my old writing, from when I was 13 or so. At that age, I had a huge crush on a girl whom S knows well; she's two years older than us. It was an extremely on...

Yes, I'm starting to think that there's a lot I'm deliberately ignoring.

S is still a very important friend to me, and I will cherish those years I had with him and his brothers forever.

Thank you, Karyn! This is something I just wrote in my diary. I'm going to paste it here, because it serves as an exposition for my question: When we think of difficult things, we think of tasks that require us to put off a reward or maintain some sort of discomfort. When we think of easy things, we...