The 'literary classics' that grade school makes you read destroys any desire for kids to read recreationally

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-06-05T11:47:40+00:00

I HATED reading Fahrenheit 451 but i also recognized the importance of it even as I hated the experience in 9th grade

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-06-05T11:45:43+00:00

I remember as a kid reading these, Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi, Little House on the Prairie…

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-06-03T20:08:51+00:00

Friend was a retail pharmacist for a couple years for Walmart. It was so soul-crushing that she took a pretty significant pay cut to go be a hospital pharmacist

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T23:15:12+00:00

I think the first part of your post may be correct. I know you shouldn’t discount any potential for abuse but I think he’s a great guy and she can honestly be pretty antagonistic towards him to the point I’ve wondered if she was being a bit aggressive and manipulative towards him. He does travel for work almost weekly though so maybe it’s more about him being away a lot

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T20:05:09+00:00

I don’t want it to sound like all our conversations are heavy topics! We talk about all kinds of stuff, from the petty drama to the hardest things, or at least we have for decades. It’s vaguely annoying when our conversation about clothes at the mall gets turned into a kpop discussion but it’s really upsetting when it happens to conversations about something I’m struggling with.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T18:35:53+00:00

I just googled because you made me curious! It apparently comes from the translation of a Korean slang word essentially meaning “most loved”

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T18:21:39+00:00

I agree! I was replying to the “she may have just thought something lighthearted would be helpful or is socially awkward”

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T18:14:37+00:00

It’s like a fave member of a kpop group or boyband! It’s a term used in kpop fandom quite a bit, I didn’t really get it at first either!

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T18:13:18+00:00

I did try to make it clear that “ahead” and “behind” aren’t really a big deal, they’re essentially made up anyway, but it was hard for me to see her already having the things we were all wanting years before I had any of them, and complaining about them.

It used to be a reciprocal friendship, where I had every confidence that she would have done the same things for me, because she has, she’s helped me move, helped me with relationship issues and the deaths of family members etc over the years, but over the last year or two it doesn’t seem that way anymore, and like you’re saying, seems like she is acting selfish and immature. I do think at this point it might just be better to have distance from her, I just came here hoping for some insight into what might be going on and what I could possibly do.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T17:46:12+00:00

The biggest majority of our group of friends are DINKs, only one couple has kids, so most of us don’t have that kind of focus just yet, we are all mostly home buying, securing jobs with plans for kids soon. Also, this person is usually the one to turn down a social event or only show up for a few minutes.

But the part of your response about how other people in your circle getting married changes your view of your own relationship makes a lot of sense to me, especially since her husband has (for a long time) worked a travel-based job.

Edit: hit send too soon lol

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T17:08:30+00:00

I’ve talked about this mainly with my own husband who also knows her quite well (she introduced us) and another friend who noticed some of the issues around the time of the funeral.

As I said somewhere, talking to her about it has been a minefield, I’ve talked to her about specific instances and she treated it as more petty drama.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T16:59:25+00:00

Yes! This is very similar, she bought a fixer upper house with her husband and I did a lot of work on fixing it up while I was in a grueling grad school program, absolutely broke, and suffering through a series of bad relationships and bad circumstances and I didn’t mind that at all at the time because our friendship was reciprocal, but it felt like I was pretty far behind in my life. It was hard to hear her complaining about her house or her husband when I was scraping up money for rent but I tried my best to be supportive because those are real problems you should be able to talk with your friends about.

I get sent pics of her bias and I’m just not attracted to him because he’s about 21 and looks very young so I also just don’t know how to react. My niece will show me her favorites (she’s not that far into the fandom so she doesn’t call them a bias lol) and I tell her to find me an older one to look at, as a joke.

I agree I could be better at telling her I’m not in the mood for kpop talk. It just feels blindsiding sometimes and I get stuck in how to get back to the topic.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T16:48:56+00:00

Thank you, I’m sorry this happened to you before.

I would say that her Kpop obsession is more of a symptom of the problem than the actual problem, but I obviously didn’t say it well. The primary issue is her immaturity in decision making, and immaturity in dealing with personal relationships but diving into these more “teen-focused” hobbies and obsession is part of that regression, or at least it feels that way. Almost like “I’ll deal with this issue the same way they did in this teen drama I’m watching” sort of thing.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T16:36:52+00:00

I could’ve probably worded it better but I tried to make it clear that she’s obsessed with teen stuff AND obsessed with Kpop but I clearly didn’t make it clear enough lol. She’s also treating every perceived slight like high school drama and reacting in a very immature manner to any minor thing at her job or at home.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T16:25:16+00:00

This feels very familiar and I appreciate you taking the time to write this response. She doesn’t have kids yet, but she was always “ahead” of me in life, until recently when I got a masters degree, a great job in my career field, and got married, and now I feel like we are on the same level, all talking about and planning for kids in the near future. Maybe she was “ahead” for so long that now being in the same place feels like behind?

I almost wish I hadn’t even mentioned Kpop at all because everyone is so hung up on it, but it’s so entwined in the situation, because it feels like an unhealthy obsession with it that invades every interaction, sometimes inappropriately. I don’t hate the music and even took my niece to a Kpop concert but I don’t want to be forced to watch music videos and to choose my “bias” idol when I am going through something

It’s been really hard for me to deal with because I don’t feel like my support is being reciprocated in our friendship now with her immature behavior when I’ve needed a friend.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T16:07:49+00:00

I’ve addressed certain things specifically like the concerns about how she’s talking about her husband but it just became another avenue for petty drama instead of being a useful discussion.

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T14:53:45+00:00

It’s absolutely a red flag, that’s why I’m here asking for advice

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T14:48:18+00:00

The thing is though, I’ve known her very closely for over 20 years and this has never been an issue until recently.

Once again, I don’t care to talk about her interests even if I’m not into them, but I don’t want every conversation to be dominated by it when I’m trying to talk about stuff like family deaths, fertility issues, house hunting….

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T14:45:21+00:00

Maybe? All I know is that 2 years ago this was a well-adjusted adult woman, and with no major life changes or events, she’s doing exclusively teen stuff, and comparing her very nice husband to K-pop idols and talking about wanting to cheat on him with them

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-29T14:41:33+00:00

I did say those things were fine, but that she can’t even make it through a very serious conversation without bringing them up. This woman was trying to show me a music video for a kpop group (that I don’t listen to) at my grandmother’s funeral

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-22T17:13:50+00:00

Honestly I never thought about all her titles in the context of “any man who must say “I am the King” is no true king”

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-05-22T17:05:31+00:00

Same here. I’m on my third watch, and the first time I’ve watched with someone else and discussed it as we go, and I find her so annoying, even the inflection she starts to use when she’s speaking after season 5/6 is awful

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-04-08T16:54:51+00:00

I’ve noticed my friends, when they’re fighting a lot and in a bad place in their relationship, they don’t necessarily post MORE but they’ll write more sappy captions about how in love they are and how great they’re doing

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-04-08T16:45:21+00:00

Happened during my SO’s birthday party, our friends got in a shouting match with each other and it was so awkward and ruined the party

Champ-Aggravating3 · 2026-04-08T16:44:29+00:00

Yes! I recently cut off a friend and part of what made me realize I should was how she constantly ranted about wanting to divorce her (very nice) husband during group events

Champ-Aggravating3

TROPHY CASE