#fomo from not going to a friends holiday party tonight

[forever-food-and-fandoms]

I feel like I forget how tired I get this time of year. Mid November Im like it’s fine I’m cozy I like slowing down. Now its like oh it’s the holidays, but umm too tired for that.

[blush-and-books]

aw where’s the love for halloween?! my friends are going clubbing so I guess I’m tagging along, tbh I don’t love going out/drinking like they do but I get fomo and don’t want my friends to think I’m not cool like that. don’t know if I’m alone in feeling that way or if you can relate? I know partying and getting drunk is just such a big part of the social scene nowadays but maybe it’s just not for me haha

okay wait because let's break this down. im gonna get into it with you because this ask has lit a fire in me.

i am a huge fomo sufferer. like, parasitically. this mainly has to do with personal insecurities i have regarding friendships in my life, but i would be devastated if i thought id miss something or i would just think about how much fun people were having without me and think im just an unnecessary human to exist in their lives.

some people i used to hang out with would drink a lot. they were all 2+ years older than me, and either at home or at bars, if we were together the wine or vodka or whatever would be out. consequently, i drank way more when i spent time with them, and i don't even think it was unhealthy retrospectively but i still look back on it and realize that my relationship with drinking and the things i accepted were maybe not healthy to have long term.

now that i don't have these people in my life, i have realized how much i dislike going out. i moved to a new city by myself recently, and i know that hypothetically the way to make friends or meet new people is by performing the mythical activity of going out, but it's something that unsettles me. i dont want to listen to loud music in a humid room and pay $20 for one drink that will barely get me drunk enough to enjoy anything anyways.

ANYWAY, long personal info dump aside, i completely get it. but i want to say that even though fomo is hard to get over and will claw its way into your deepest insecurities, doing anything to prove that you can keep up can be harmful!! i have, many times, inserted myself into VERY anxiety inducing situations because im trying to prove im stronger than my psyche or whatever, like i can do it, but i promise that's a bad way to go lol!!! sometimes anxiety can lie, but it is protective nonetheless.

the obligation to go out and party and drink socially nowadays is so common but it should not be necessary. i am not going to tell you to find new friends or not go out, bc i don't know enough about your situation but i do want you to know im on your side and that i hope you stay safe tonight. i don't like to go out so i don't. i am trying to find people who like to do things i like to do. you always need to do what is best for yourself, just be careful about giving too much of yourself to become like your friends.

sending you so much love and i hope the night still ends up being fun!! go be donna paulsen for the night!!!

ps. my beef with Halloween is kind of tied to all of this, just the fact that it demands going out and spending money to put a costume together and has this expectation of partying or whatever. It's just a holiday I never get enjoyment from. The highlight of it all is giving little kids candy, tbh!! I love seeing kids excited about Halloween!!

pps. i am only slightly bummed I don't have a costume bc I recently bleached my hair and I feel like I'm wasting my potential

[dudence-blog]

Dear Dudence for 30 November 2017

It’s the penultimate day of the week.  Friday Eve.  Time to start warming up for the weekend.  With a glass of wine in hand and a series of questions needing answers it’s on to the fun!

My 5-year-old daughter is the joy of my life. She is smart, funny, kind, and adorable—but she is a terrible singer! I mean, dogs will howl when she sings. But for some reason, she thinks she is a great singer and insists on doing it often and at the top of her lungs, which annoys me to no end.

Dear Breaking a 5-year old’ heart, this is my face as I read your letter:  :-I  I’m hoping you’re rereading this yourself and realizing you’re the villain in a children’s movie.  All that being said, of course your five year old is a terrible singer.  She’s 5.  They’re terrible at everything.  Have you ever seen them run?  Ride a bike?  Cook?  Throw a football?  Drive a car?  They’re awful at all of them.  You know why?  Because they’re five.  Do not, I repeat DO NOT stop your child from singing just because you think she’s a terrible singer.  Teach her time and place for quiet time, and if she’s just too precocious maybe look into a children’s choir (your local church almost certainly has one).

My significant other and I have been together for a couple of years. When we met, I knew that he was in the poly scene, but he said that was not a necessity for him. I was curious about opening up the relationship but wanted us to build our relationship first. At this point, I feel like we have a strong foundation and am curious about opening things up. I have not had great experiences with nonexclusive relationships before and know that I have a strong jealous streak. However, I am also turned on by the idea of my partner being with someone else, although I wouldn’t want us to have full-blown relationships with other people.

Dear Happily considering an open relationship, I’m going to guess that “strong jealous streak” and “open relationship” are not quite mixing nitro and glycerin, but it’s a close enough approximation.  That being said if it’s something you’re interested in, bring it up with your partner.  Talk, talk some more, then talk some more, and if you’re both still down for it go and start banging other people to your heart’s, or wherever else’s, content.  But, let’s go ahead and back up a bit.  You mention that you’re turned on by the fantasy of your partner being with someone else.  One, not every fantasy is meant to be experienced, nor will they live up to the hype.  Two, “I get wet/hard in my nethers thinking about him with someone else” doesn’t necessarily need to be satisfied by both of you needing to seek out half-blown relationships with other people.  Maybe just a threesome with a professional satisfies that particular itch?  Remember, shop local this holiday season.

My stepmom has always had an odd habit of trying to co-opt my parents’ shared history to minimize my mother’s role. For example, someone will tell a story that happened in the ’80s, when my brother and I were toddlers, and my stepmom will remark on how she remembers or was present at that event, even though this was years before my parents broke up.

Dear Mom who, not to be that guy but how sure are you that something which happened before your parents broke up means it’s impossible your stepmom wasn’t around then?  Nevermind.  Not to defend an evil stepmother here, but “I don’t want my husband’s ex at family functions involving me, his current wife,” is not the most unreasonable request in the world.  It would be great if we lived in a world where, even after divorce, all parties behaved respectfully towards each other.  Also, if you were a toddler in the 80s you’re a grown-ass (wo)man now.  You might just need to accept that your dad and his wife are just not going to be able to play nice with your mom, and stop trying to make it happen.  You might not be being petty, but you’re certainly refusing to acknowledge the actual state of the relationship between your parents and their current spouses.

After my brother’s divorce, he doesn’t speak to his daughters (ages 16, 19, and 23). I have maintained a great relationship with my nieces. I feel that that their relationship with their father has nothing to do with me. I am supportive of all mature behavior, by anyone.

Dear Auntie in the Middle, I’d say keep on keeping on by being someone on their father’s side of the family the can reach out to.  If you want to take some extra effort to keep the grandparents and grandchildren connected then arrange a time when the girls will call that the grandparents knoew to expect the call.  “Hey mom, Daughter 2 would really just like to speak with you.  She’s going to call you Sunday afternoon, please make sure your phone is on.”  Also, there is no rule which says people can’t write.  “Hey dad, you and Daughter 1 keep missing each other’s calls, could you shoot her an email? She’d really like to hear from y’all.”

My boyfriend’s family is all very abusive to each other, and in turn, it’s all he knows. He is a very sweet and loving person, but if even mildly agitated, he’ll call me names and scream at me that I’m crazy. Today he told me that he was breaking up with me and to get the fuck off his property or he would call the police, after pushing me out and slamming my arm in the door. Turns out, it was his mom’s birthday and I wasn’t invited, and he forgot when he invited me over and said we were going out tonight. He then texted me, acting very sweetly again, saying he just wanted me to leave and didn’t know how to make me leave, that he’s sorry, all that.

Dear Boyfriend’s Abusive Family, you know my expression from the mom who hates her child’s singing voice?  Yeah, I’m giving you that face hoping you’ll hear what you’re saying.  Your boyfriend is a monster and he’s going to seriously injure you.  I get it, he’s from a terrible family and he’s acting the only way he knows how.  He’s also going to put you in the hospital one day.  The reason he’s a wonderful, caring person when he’s not a rage demon is because if he was such a creature all the time he wouldn’t get you to want to stay with him.  Leave.  Leave now.  

I have been in a relationship with the same person my entire adult life (10 years). We’re all but engaged, and he wants very much to buy a house and settle down into a blissful future. It’s a beautiful dream, but I feel discontent, and there’s a big part of me that desperately wants to run away, drop 70 pounds, and sleep with other people. I want to sleep around and date and do all the things I missed out on, but I can’t bear to lose him.

Dear FOMO or something more serious, you could discover you’re half Amish and want to give rumsphringe a go.  Much like Newdie I cannot predict the future.  Unlike Newdie though I can give you one of two options how it’s going to go.  1, you’re going to break up with your long term boyfriend who satisfies you in all those dull, mundane ways which long-term partners satisfy each other and you’re going to find out that banging bunches of people you don’t know well and who don’t care that much about you isn’t all you thought it would be, that travel is actually kind of dull; sure it has its moments, but at the end of it you spent a lot of money to go someplace that wasn’t all it looked to be in the movies, and kind of smelled like pee (Hello Paris!), and at the end of it all you’re going to find your ex used the opportunity as well and enjoyed it.  2, you’re going to find that, now freed from your anchor of a boyfriend you shed that weight and it turns out you love banging hot guys and gals in hidden nooks and blind corners in all the places to which you travel.  I know which outcome I’m going to bet on.

I have a co-worker who is very polite, fun to be around, and treats me with respect. The problem? My intuition is telling me that her kindness is fake and that I should be careful to trust her. I just have this feeling that I can’t trust her and that she will use our friendship against me. I have no evidence to back this mindset up, but it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m around her. How do I get past this?

Dear Deviance in my head, you don’t get past it.  It’s work, not play group.  You don’t trust them.  Be professional, but they’re not your friend and you don’t need them to be to do your fucking job.

I am a middle-aged woman. The past year has been stressful: My husband retired due to disability. I gave up a part-time job to travel with him, but we ended up staying home. Our 20-year-old daughter had a mental health crisis, left college, and moved back home. We are in very good financial shape. We get along OK, although I find myself mediating arguments between the two of them.

Dear Rehab, several aspects of your life were unexpectedly turned on their head, and not for the better.  Honestly, I felt like refreshing my drink just reading it.  Being aware that you’re upping your alcohol intake and that you’re likely doing it in response to some stresses in your life is a good start.  Instead of running off to find a program to control your suspected alcoholism, maybe you should first just try not drinking as much.  Have your beer with dinner, and then stop.  If that doesn’t work you might want to look into getting some help, but I’m having a hard time thinking you’re an alcoholic when you haven’t actually shown you’re not in control of your relationship with alcohol.

One of my good friends from high school recently came out to me as gay. We were part of a tight friend group—all cis men who graduated from high school about 10 years ago. He and I have remained friends, and since he came out to me, he has mentioned having boyfriends and dating men since at least early college, meaning he was in the closet (or at least not out to me) for a while now.

Dear Did I keep my friend in the closet, I have an acquaintance who files letters like your under the header “Dear World, how can I show the world how woke I am?”.  You are being selfish, overthinking this, and are definitely trying to insert yourself into your friend’s relationship with his own sexualtiy.  Also, it’s likely you and your other friends talking about masturbation and discussing porn with him made him gay because that is totally how that works.  You should tell him that.

I love my boyfriend, “Stan,” and I see a future together. My only problem is how enmeshed his life is with his ex, “Sara.” Sara is gay and came out after she divorced Stan. They have a son together. Sara and her partner have three kids together. Stan got remarried but lost his wife to cancer. His stepdaughter is still in her final year of high school so she lives with him. Stan and his family go over to Sara’s all the time for dinner. Stan is the Little League coach for one of their kids and takes the other two camping and hiking. His son is in college, but Stan refers to Sara’s kids as his all the time! His stepdaughter calls them her “aunts” and “cousins.”

Dear Separate Lives, your boyfriend didn’t lose his wife to cancer, she died from it.  Back to the letter.  It’s good you feel like an ogre for resenting the positive and fulfilling relationship your boyfriend has with his son, his son’s half-siblings, and the daughter of his dead wife, because “ogrish” is one of the words I thought of while when I saw how this letter was going to go.  The way you start this conversation would be to discuss how you view your future together.  Maybe, just maybe, Stan doesn’t see the same future you do.  The dude does have bad luck with wives afterall.  Maybe he is looking forward to downsizing and letting the kids live their own lives when they’re older.  You won’t know unless you ask.  There’s nothing in your discussion with Stan that is guaranteed to start a fight.  I mean, unless you go into it demanding he boot out his stepdaughter (she’s not his real daughter away) and get those disgusting lesbos away from y’all.  If you do that then, yeah, it’s going to be a fight.

[bobateatree]

I haven’t written here in a long time. This is long and sad. I’ve definitely been called “Eeyore” before, so read with caution. Also, triggers and such.

It’s almost midnight on a Saturday and I’ve been tired for at least four hours. I don’t want to go to sleep. I’m too young to be tired on a night like this.

After I grabbed drive-thru breakfast with Tim this morning, I went home and showered before my OB/GYN appointment. My IUD looks normal. It’s such a relief. When I got home, I watched a block of Will & Grace on TV before mowing the lawn. I broke something in our backyard but my mom fixed it with duct tape (bless). I took another shower and now I’m here on my computer, where I’ve been the past few hours.

Tim is going to a kegger with his friends tonight where they’ve requested he play Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix on the guitar (”just like old times, they said”). After giving me an outline of all the possible scenarios (who will be there, how long he’ll be staying there, if he’ll stay the night, the possible fist fight that someone will start, etc.), I’ve opted to just wait for a text that will tell me if it’s worth coming. I’m already so sleepy, so even if I get a green light, I think I’ll have passed out at that point.

The irony is so thick. I have such bad FOMO for things like these (i.e., not partying enough at this time in my life), that when an opportunity finally comes, I’m just too tired.

I’ve felt lots of lows before: the stressed from school lows, the stressed from my dad leaving lows, the stressed from finishing college and becoming an adult lows. But this is unlike anything I’ve ever really felt before. It’s so...real? Not that the other ones haven’t been real, but this one is so close and tight and it just follows me constantly. The other lows I’ve been able to successfully hide, block, and/or numb. Not this time around. Oh, no.

So a lot of things have happened within the past calendar year. It’s been almost a full seven months since things have blown up, but have I recovered in those seven months? Absolutely not. Strap in!

Let’s start with my brother (this will be all about him, by the way; if he ever finds this blog, hi!). He started dating this girl, and then he moved her in without directly asking my mother if it was okay that some person he just began to date lived in her own house without ever really leaving. As soon as I noticed what was happening, I became extremely resentful and angry. I hope you can tell where this will be going. This began toward the end of 2015.

After a few months of this girl not leaving to ever go to her parent’s home (which is a long and harrowing 15 minutes away), only going there to move more of her things into my home, I became even more angry. Every time I tried to bring this up in conversation with my brother, he would talk over me, denounce me, belittle me--things older brothers love to do to their little sisters, at least that’s what mine does. It was a losing battle for me. My mother said she didn’t care, but I knew she did.

Oh, did I mention that my brother’s girlfriend never bothered paying rent when she lived in my home for a full year? Now’s a good time to mention that.

Throughout 2016, I was out of the house as much as I could possibly be. I did a lot of cool things, the majority of them away from home. I went to beer fests, concerts, musicals, and overall spent a lot of time in the city. I even took all four of us downtown one day when it was my brother’s birthday. It was a great time. I even got kicked out of a bar celebrating my own birthday, which was amazing and something I never want to do again.

Anyway. I was a 23 year old doing 23 year old things. Not really doing any harm, right?

Well, here’s the thing. My brother smoked weed 24/7, and eventually quit his job to do just that. All him and his girlfriend did was smoke weed and watch cartoons all day while my mom and I went to our full time jobs. At this point, toward the end of 2016, neither my brother nor his girlfriend were working (for reference, my brother is in his mid-30′s while his girlfriend is in her late 30′s). As a 23 year old, this angered me even more. But when I’m angry, I sit quietly and boil.

This is where shit hit the fan. My brother became manic around the 2016 holidays and would never, ever stop talking, rarely sleep, and had all these crazy get rich quick schemes because hard work is for people who don’t want to stop smoking weed and watch cartoons all day. And on Christmas Day, I said I wanted to kill myself because he pointed out that nothing I could do would make our mom happy (she’s been struggling in every way--mentally, emotionally, financially--ever since my dad left).

He proceeded to viciously scream at me and threaten to call the cops. I ran to the bathroom crying. He was going to his girlfriend’s family’s get together that day while I was bringing Tim to my family’s. He ignored me the rest of the day. When I had left for the evening, I slammed the door in his face.

Cue beginning of 2017. The manic episode continues for my brother. I would be followed around, relentlessly bullied, screamed at, etc. His lack of filter was piercing. In his mind, by obsessively bullying me to spend time with him, he thought he was helping me. I was actively avoiding him and his girlfriend because I didn’t want to be around 30-something potheads. He took notice and became even angrier with me. I later realized he was trying to control me, and responded badly when he couldn’t do that.

Also--by this time, I loaned him a lot of money so he could buy a car. I also loaned his girlfriend money for her bills. Surprise, surprise: my brother did not end up buying a car; he told me all the money went to fixing his girlfriend’s piece of shit car (he told me a lot of things he did with money I loaned him up to this point; looking back, I know he was clever in saying the money I let him borrow always went to helping someone else, instead of drugs, where it actually went).

Did I make a mistake loaning two shameless potheads lots of cash? Absolutely. Did I do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt because I tried to see the best in people? Yes. Because of this, will I ever loan people money again? Probably not, and that sucks.

So by early 2017, I was out a thousand dollars by two people living in my home who were essentially being irresponsible teenagers masquerading as 30-somethings with a purpose in life. Things were getting so bad at home that I looked forward to going to work every day because no one would be following me around, screaming at me, and/or asking me for money with a new creative excuse every time.

My brother would also make sure to relentlessly scream at my mother for hours at a time, for no reason at all. My mom once kicked him and his girlfriend out one evening for one of these instances, and his girlfriend started crying in her car because she was so hungry. I mean, all she wanted to do was eat dinner while her boyfriend was obsessively screaming in his own mother’s face. What was the problem? (I unfortunately was not home this evening, my mom called me and told me about it after those two were finally out of the house).

When my brother finally picked up that I didn’t want to be around him at all, he once aggressively wondered why I didn’t want to do drugs with him and why I didn’t like him anymore. This was on our way to a family party. I did not want to talk about it. (Also, while being super aggressive, he asked me why I acted like he was always attacking me. Well, JEEZ, I don’t know! I said I didn’t like being forced into conversation which was his favorite fucking thing to do to everyone around him).

And then, the inevitable happened. After all the screaming, the yelling, the aggression, the drug use, the disrespect, the lack of filter--my mom had enough. She finally kicked out my brother and his girlfriend. The day they were moving out, they tormented my mother the entire day while I was at work. They made her life hell for a full eleven hours.

After my mom could access a phone, she told me what was happening in real time. I have never been more angry in my entire life. My inner pot of hot boiling water exploded. I came home and screamed in my brother’s and his girlfriend’s faces. He responded by shoving me to the ground.

Drug addicts hate when you treat them the same way they’ve been treating you.

I think it’s only fair to point out that I wasn’t an angel; I was definitely mean at times. When my brother’s girlfriend would walk into the kitchen, I would glare at her when I thought she couldn’t see me (apparently she could?). When she tried talking to me, I wouldn’t look her in the eye. When I asked her to stop touching my things when she would be sitting inside my home when I was at work (she would share pictures on Facebook of my living room, for example, with items rearranged because aesthetic? I don’t, know, it was stupid just like she is), I could tell she didn’t like that.  But I didn’t like that some stranger was living in my home, not paying rent, while I was working extra hard specifically to not be in this space she got to enjoy as a luxury. She even coaxed a 23 year old into loaning her money for her bills, as previously mentioned. She was living the dream!

There’s a lot that happened after the initial move out. It was a hot mess of them couch surfing at friend’s homes (who I brought up to speed as fast as I could; needless to say, the kindness from their friends dried up quickly) and eventually ending up in a motel (and coming back to my home, multiple times, unannounced, begging for money to stay a couple more nights there), and that’s where the begging ended. At one point they returned my mom’s stolen cell phone, which was the last “nice” thing they did.

It’s finally ended with my brother and his girlfriend blocking both me and my mom on Facebook. After this, my brother’s friends told me that he wrote a super long status about how awful me and my mom are. I wish I could’ve seen some screenshots.

Drug addicts love to rationalize in opposites.

I haven’t seen or heard from either of these people in...going on seven months. I honestly don’t know where they are or what they’re up to. I also haven’t seen my dad in four years. I hate how life has shown me that family can be so awful. Family is supposed to be the group of people in your life that’s not supposed to treat you this way.

At this point, I began to think of how my future wedding will look. Family is supposed to love you, right? But how can your family love you if...

I still need to make an appointment for a therapist because I still want to kill myself sometimes. Just when I thought I couldn’t handle more negativity, harassment, and abuse--bam! More shows up.

I just needed to get this all out, at least through this medium. Maybe if it’s all down, I’ll stop constantly thinking about these things in my mind when I should be focusing on the present. Because on the bright side, I’m no longer being lied to or screamed at by drug addicts who’ve said they love me, but didn’t actually mean it. And that’s something to be thankful for.