How unattractive the world has been making me feel. Haven’t matched with anyone legit on a dating app for nearly a year. And I feel like whenever I open up about it (especially on Reddit) I get so much hostility and vitriol.

After years of writing many dozens of job applications, and many grueling interviews, some of them in other countries, at long last I’ve scored my dream job, in my dream city.
Several months into this, my partner at the time fell seriously ill, and I had to go job-hunting and eventually uproot again, just to take care of her. All dreams of moving in together, into one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and live there until death do us part were gone.
Not to mention that I went from having the greatest boss you could ever imagine to the worst I’ve ever had, by far.
And it was all for nothing, as a year later, after she had recovered, the relationship fell apart anyway.

It’s more personal rather than the many problems of the world, but my dad didn’t pass on the inheritance my grandparents promised me, around $100k. This was about five years ago. Housing has gone up so much during that time that it’s no longer enough to at least get me into a mortgage. FWIW, My grandparents bought his property and paid for the house to be built on it.

Balding

That I have to grieve a living mother. That I will never know how it feels like to have the warm embrace of a caring mom no matter how much I yearn for it. It has been sad but so liberating at the same time.

I don’t sincerely believe that life can ever be good again.

I don’t think there’s any possibility of a good future. I’m an engineer and have worked in some high fields on some crazy stuff. I’ve watched millions of dollars just disappear in an instant, many times over. All completely unnecessary. This was hardware a decade ago. Now there’s 10x that going into software. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, across the globe, could have been eliminated a long time ago.

I had a falling out with all my friends in June 2024. Since then I have only seen my wife and family, and the loneliness is pretty hard at times.

I also recently had an MRI and learned that the tumour in my chest is now necrotic and growing, which I am not particularly excited about. In my imagination, I’m either going to die or lose the use of my left hand.

My mother-in-law is not long for this world. I’ve known this woman since I was 14. She took care of me when my own mother kicked me out for dating a Mexican girl (my now-wife). She opened her home to me. She made dinner for me more times than I can count (and taught me to cook). She bought my clothes through most of High School. She taught me to drive. She taught me how to use a bank account. She was there for me when my father died, and then she was there for me again when my mom died. She showed me what a good parent is like. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever known. I’ve never heard her say anything bad about anyone. This woman doesn’t have a hateful bone in her body. She has no evil in her heart. I’ve spent the past 37 years holding her up as a role model for my own life.

When my wife and I had an unplanned baby at age 19, she stepped up and helped any time we needed it. She never made us feel guilty. She never guilt tripped us. She gave us nothing but love, and help. If my own mom knew I had a half Mexican baby, she’d be furious. But my MiL never judged me for being white.

She even moved to a different state (NJ–>PA) with us when we decided to relocate to my realize my dream of buying a restaurant. She lives in a MiL suite above my garage, rent free. She still insists on cooking for the family sometimes. I’m at work right now, and she’s smoking some goat for our tacos tonight. I won’t get home for about 5.5hrs, and I bet she’s going to have my tacos ready when I walk in the door.

But age is age, we all get old, and eventually we die. That time is coming for her soon. She’ll be lucky to see another full year. I’m going to miss her terribly. I can (and do) dump ridiculous amounts of money into her care, and it’s worth it. But it isn’t going to be much longer until the doctors tell me there’s nothing they can do. I am dreading that day.

I can’t unload this on my wife, it wouldn’t be fair. She can see the writing on the wall. And she is going to be hurting much more than I am when push comes to shove. I’m going to be the “strong” one, and support her. But Jesus fucking Christ, I am going to miss my MiL so much.

My life. Everyone else’s life. It just sucks

All the fucking animals are dying and we just keep making everything worse to make a handful of people obscenely wealthy.

I have an awesome job at a telescope. I love it. It’s an industrial jobs and I get to work in a range of things from moving giant machinery with overheads cranes to repairing fiber on light collecting instruments. Last year a telescope operator quit and they created a temporary assignment because it would be too expensive for me to fill in at my hourly rate (though it’s already in my job duties), effectively to move me to salary. Management and university HR determined a salary and implemented it effective immediately without any good faith offer. By the time I realized how bad the salary was and complained about it, I lost 214 hours of overtime and $7500 dollars. I continued working the telescope operator position as hourly for the next few months until they assigned someone else (who doesn’t have the job duties). Their explanation? “We though you agreed” and “you worked an exempt job”. Terrible explanations for how this was legal. I’ve been borderline tolerating it but this week I left the telescope balling with tears in my eyes and crying because I can’t tolerate it anymore and likely won’t return to work because they have destroyed all my trust in management and the university. Such a small amount of money for them but a huge amount for me.

I have two adult children who I haven’t spoken to for almost eight years and, last I heard, want nothing to do with me.

The situation is complex, and I’m not completely innocent. From their perspective I’m a dogshit person and they’re better off without me in their lives. There are aspects of the situation they don’t know about, specifically the domestic abuse that I suffered at the hands of their mother, which she was very careful not to do in their presence. So all they know is how they saw me behaving, which was often pretty terrible, and whatever she’s told them, which I know isn’t the whole truth. It’s maddening how completely unfair the situation is but I’m hard pressed to think of a way to better it.

I check in on their social media every now and then. They seem happy. I don’t attempt to message them. I just go about my day with this quiet sadness in the background.

I live in an area completely overtaken by data center construction. The environmental devastation all around me is deeply saddening. Add to that the main purpose is to put people out of work and to make it so people don’t have to think for themselves and it really feels like doomsday or something out of a Stanislaw Lem novel.

A college I teach for part time posted a full time gig in the department.

I fit every requirement perfectly and then some. I’ve been given a perfect rating on every evaluation I’ve ever had here from both admin and students. My classes tend to fill first because I’m known to be a better teacher than most.

My application was ignored. The job went to someone with an MA in our field (I have a PhD) who has been managing the student success center for the college. She took a pay cut for the role because she wants to go back to teaching.