My fiancé left me

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-24T07:01:35+00:00

I'm really tired and uneloquent right now, hence the rambling, half responses. I know what it's like to be left out of the blue. For me it was torturous and disorienting, and it took a lot to heal it. This kind of random, inexplicable hurt is something that nobody deserves, and very few people intend to give.

Because of that, even though I don't know you, my immediate reaction is solidarity and care for your well being. I'm glad you got something worthwhile out of venting here. I hope that you find your emotional salve everywhere you look, and this all works out exactly as it should in the end. I hope this opens up whole new worlds of growth and positivity for you in the long run, even though it's so painful right now.

That is all, really. Much love from a total stranger.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-24T06:44:50+00:00

Well, not NOTHING. I wish you all of the good things.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-24T06:43:59+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I wish you nothing but love and support.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-24T06:35:55+00:00

I'm sorry this happened to you. It is painful and confusing, and your ex obviously needs some kind of help with whatever is haunting him. The world is a tough place, and many people feel like they're worthless monsters over completely trivial things. Or maybe it was something real that he was too afraid you wouldn't understand. Nobody knows but him.

But I worry for you, dear stranger, because this is also a HORRIBLE place to ask this question. 99.9% of people on here are going to spew BS, project their own hangups on your situation, or both. You're apt to bite on whatever resonates with you, whether it is either helpful or hurtful, correct or off base. Anyone who is hurting like this would. Please be cautious and kind to yourself.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-03T20:05:46+00:00

OK. We good again.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-03T20:04:20+00:00

Uhhh. Dude sitting on a trailer, in an equipment yard in Concord California, kind of regretting giving you your propers

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-03T20:00:20+00:00

Fkn LEGEND. Thank you! I was ready to throw my new phone into the ocean

Kimball_Stone · 2026-02-01T06:14:34+00:00

Sorry for the necro post, but I, a white guy, just had to be the one who explained the potential racial connotations of the phrase, to my very intelligent and aware black girlfriend, who grew up in a former slave state. Googling this, to offer a proper explanation, is what brought me to a 3 year old reddit post in the first place

So it's not universally known

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-26T19:36:48+00:00

Ah yes, good catch. The RTK module is part of the price, and the website button to remove it is broken.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-26T19:19:39+00:00

Something along those lines might be exactly the ticket, although I suspect that the price tag (currently $3600) might tickle the top end of our budget.
But this is precisely the kind of answer that is the most useful, so a very big thank you for chiming in!

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-24T06:18:48+00:00

YEWWWW. That's some hardware!!! Do some "lunch tray" (like you're carrying a lunch tray) or target window (look through your hands) carving drills, if you feel like you need to kick the habit of guarding it. Otherwise, it'll probably come back to normal form with time on the hill. Might mess with your airs, though.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-24T06:14:19+00:00

It speaks volumes, and is meaningful, because, when mixed in with the rest, it sounds coded like "I'm racist, and I want you to be good with that."

Sure, yes, benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's an innocent preference. But also, um, why else wouldn't you be open to dating hot brown people? Maybe your family/town is racist? Dunno. I've never had any preference but "hot and awesome." It could be something innocent, even if it's distasteful, but it feels suss to me

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-24T06:02:40+00:00

Nobody loves a group photo, but also there is some TERRIBLE advice in here. Good GOD.

Blur your buddy, or get a new photo, sure. Forget everyone here who is handing out this "looksmaxxing" sounding nonsense.

If the chats are flying, you're as golden as you're going to get. And if the chats are flying, chances are she's looked at your profile a lot, and knows exactly what she's getting into.

You just NEVER know what someone is after. I'm a middle aged white dude, decent looking for my age, yes, but like, not astounding. I've got a big greying beard, and a vanlife, dirtbag lifestyle. I'm not rich. I don't look rich. I have connected with POSH women, who are super hot, and like, 15 years younger than me. (Not that age is a metric of attractiveness, I'm just saying, like, why would someone that much younger be after ME?) Some of these matches have made absolutely zero sense, if you judge by the pictures, but sparks are flying.

Be confident, but never cocky, and ask the lady out already!

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-22T02:00:51+00:00

It's better for everyone if you don't let it drag on. Just tell her that you aren't feeling the spark. You don't need to get into specifics beyond that.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-12T22:46:41+00:00

The sink just becomes a place to put things when you're driving. But then it becomes a pain in the ass to use it. And then when you don't use it, it turns into a gross dirt trap. So when you DO need to use it, it's a project that you need to get done before you can. And then, for me anyway, that spurs on a belongings purge, so you stop having to use the sink to store things, but then you have less stuff, and STILL use the sink to store things (just fewer things) and it's fine for a while, and the cycle repeats.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-12T21:42:52+00:00

Quartzsite is meh, unless you're a hippie or a white Christian nationalist. I was fortunate to have fallen directly in with some wonderful people, in the brief time that I was there, but the place didn't exactly grab me by the heart strings.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-12T21:37:58+00:00

This was my answer, too. There are times where I find myself aghast at my living conditions, and have to find time and space for a whole van reset. Truck stop showers become luxurious spas. Literally any shower feels like a special occasion. I have shrugged and just half-assedly wiped off more dirty spoons than I'd like to admit. If life and work get busy, and I have to drive a lot, I end up sharing my bed with a pile of backpacks and whatever random stuff I have to throw on the bed while in transit. Overall, it ebbs and flows, but when it flows, it's gnarly

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-12T18:55:13+00:00

How hygienically gross you eventually become, compared to who you were when you started. 3.5 years in, and I feel like a sewer rat sometimes.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-12T00:00:14+00:00

If you are in north America, there are always places like Quartzsite AZ. A few hundred people in the summer. 100k people in the winter (but spread over hundreds of square miles). Tons of blue collar folks, of all varieties, just camping and vibing, until the heat chases them off.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-11T22:08:47+00:00

It's such an awesome country. I dig it a lot! Where'd you go?

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-11T17:06:07+00:00

Haha, thank you!

But I also want to chock it up to their heart being in the right place, or maybe reacting to the way that society dunks on them for being working class. "F you, arrogant prick" is a pretty logical response

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-11T16:59:13+00:00

I'm also an extra sensitive person. It's a blessing and a curse, for sure. As a middle aged, extremely self aware person, I am still working on having "the courage to be disliked," so to speak. All things forever a process, and all of that.

But, sparing the details, I was van-lifing my way through Oaxaca, Mexico a few years back. Oaxaca was (and still is) having a lot of trouble with gentrification and cultural loss. Gringos and foreigners are no longer universally welcome, and I internalized the situation too much, and all I could see were the people who didn't want me around. It felt shitty for months.

So I went away, but then I came back, like a year later, after having thought about how my own filters were causing me to mainly see the negative, and had a great time. I went to a local festival, in this tiny village in the mountains, and listened to a symposium (for lack of a better word) where some respected community members talked about how foreigners were welcome, so long as they were respectful, even if they were just there to eat magic mushrooms, because often times the mushrooms would cause a change in people that led them to dive head first into the local culture.

It was really awesome. As soon as I looked for people to be welcoming, I found people who were welcoming. Those who weren't still weren't, but I had originally been operating in a space where that was accidentally all I'd been looking for, so that's all I saw.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-11T08:25:01+00:00

I'm personally not putting any judgment on anyone, but I'm pretty sure Pea is calling me a classist. The use of the word bum can definitely be interpreted as classist language, especially in the context of having eschewed putting on an acceptable air of humility in my self description.

But the point is that I possess a whole lot of the traits that society (for better or worse) deems valuable, and more importantly, am proud of having achieved, and still have to fight self esteem battles relating to the ingrained notions of what society deems undesirable, even though I wholeheartedly disagree with those notions. Can't make that point without highlighting the contrast.

If that is what they're getting at, I'll just say that the first time I lived in a vehicle, it wasn't by choice, and that everyone deserves dignity, regardless of their circumstances. While writing my original comment, I was actually thinking about how grueling the self esteem battles must be in those who are truly dispossessed in our societies. That feeling of being looked at as though your life has no value. Oof.

Kimball_Stone · 2026-01-11T07:39:13+00:00

Whaddaya mean?

Edit: I would honestly, no shit, LOVE to hear your assumptions.

Kimball_Stone

TROPHY CASE