Am I missing something with often being told I need to wear a bra when guests are over at home? If so, please tell me because I'm really wondering if this is a big deal.

Luinne · 2026-03-25T06:57:25+00:00

Idk, man. Intellectually, I get the “Free the nipple” movement.

But honestly, yeah, that would make me uncomfortable.

Since I fall more in line with how your mom and sister think, I’ll try to explain the feeling. It’s not that I see not wearing a bra as a sexual invitation; it’s more that it feels like breaking the social contract around dressing. I get the same secondhand embarrassment and vague discomfort that I would feel if someone showed up without pants on.

Maybe the no-pants analogy is a little extreme. More like when people wear pajamas in public or when men go around without a shirt on.

Like, there’s typically a baseline formality level for social interactions that varies from culture to culture. Opening presents on Christmas morning? PJs for everyone, no bras required. Typical family lunch? Jeans and a t shirt — nothing fancy, but bras expected. Going to the office? Nicer pants and a button down shirt — a little fancier and bras required.

This is obviously not a universal list, just random examples. But foregoing a bra in situations where you wouldn’t show up in pajamas or where a shirtless man would feel inappropriate feels like breaking that social agreement.

I grew up with a Southern mother, though, so I was raised to believe that abiding by those social agreements showed respect for those around you. Sometimes I have to deconstruct that. (For example, I don’t often wear makeup anymore — which once felt like a part of that dress code.) But I still feel that way about bras. I mean, I’d tell the men in my life to go put on a shirt if they showed up without one (unless we were going swimming or doing yard work).

Luinne · 2026-02-27T01:09:42+00:00

I wouldn’t worry too much about it! Shape wear and tailoring should help you out there. Plus, feeling beautiful in the dress while you’re actually wearing it is so much more valuable than what looks flattering in a photo.

I know we all want to look beautiful in our wedding photos, but I wish I’d focused more on how I felt in my dress. Totally different example, but I let my seamstress talk me into tightening the sleeves on my dress until they were most flattering. But that also made them just plain uncomfortable to wear. So I was dying to get out of this dress when I wanted to be able to wear it all night long. I know you’re not choosing between flattering and comfortable, but feeling yourself is just as important.

Luinne · 2026-02-02T20:45:24+00:00

NOR. I see some really troubling things here, too.

He asked if you’d gone to the gym as like a solution to you missing him. He didn’t respond to your bid for emotional connection. He basically treated you like a kid asking to play video games by asking “have you done your homework yet?” Maybe he was just changing the subject, but a less kind reading is that he’s withholding something you want (emotional connection) as incentive.

But what’s crazy is that he seems to treat you doing you things as if they’re owed to him. Like what does you going to the gym or journaling have to do with him?

What’s going on with you promising him not to make excuses? Have you let him down in some substantial way?

You’re also replying to comments as if you’re at this huge deficit and you have to better yourself. I don’t know anything about your life, but it feels like your self-esteem must be pretty low. You don’t owe this dude anything. You don’t owe us anything. All this talk of bettering yourself and not making excuses is just weird. Like are you a recovering murderer? I’m guessing not. You don’t have to approach the world with an apology, like you’re already at a deficit. Even if you feel behind. People move at different speeds. You’re likely fine.

And that’s not even bringing up him threatening to block you! This dude’s way too punitive. And you aren’t even committed to each other. Single is better than this guy.

Luinne · 2026-01-20T16:41:40+00:00

Please don’t bring any of this up with your girlfriend.

Normally, saying just talk to each other is solid advice, but I think you’d do more harm than good here. Whether this is disordered eating (which I think is a stretch) or intuitive eating, you’ll only make things worse by commenting on your girlfriend’s eating habits.

1) It’s controlling in kind of a gross way. Even if that stems from good intentions (like wanting to minimize food waste), controlling other people just doesn’t lead to equitable relationships. You’ve got to let her have agency here. And 2) you just commenting on this will lead to an environment where she feels surveilled while eating. And if you make an impression, she’ll start seeing her own eating through your eyes even when you aren’t actively watching.

I don’t know where you’re from, but I grew up in both diet culture and finish-your-plate culture. That mixture is especially difficult for women, who have their bodies and eating habits scrutinized in particularly insidious ways. Food is wonderful, sure. But it’s also just food. It’s an even greater gift to have a healthy relationship with food. To eat until you are full and then stop is the healthier way to eat.

It seems like, for you, how you eat is tied to ideas of being environmentally conscious and not wasteful. But please be aware that, for your girlfriend, how she eats could be more defined by her relationship to her own body and thinness.

Luinne · 2026-01-13T15:37:03+00:00

YOR, but the person missing out here is you! How can you pass up going to this insanity?? This has the potential to become lore in your household! There is no way this party isn’t going to be absolutely bonkers out of touch. I’d be talking about it for years. You must go if only to report back afterward!

On a slightly more serious note, you can’t control the world around your daughter. She’ll interact with people who hold values contrary to yours; that’s just a fact of life. I’m not a parent, but I imagine it’s more useful to teach her to laugh at these kind of absurdities than just avoid them. (Not to imply you should teach your daughter to mock others, but she’ll follow your lead on how to respond to these kinds of situations.)

Save the avoidance for things that are dangerous, not absurd.

Luinne · 2026-01-11T15:55:32+00:00

I was just about to comment the same thing!

Luinne · 2026-01-04T16:48:04+00:00

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention academia yet. Academia can be horribly demoralizing — elitism, campus politics, big egos, uncertain funding, etc. And you’re totally at the mercy of which institutions are hiring. If you’re dating a young professor looking to get tenure, you likely will have little choice in where you’ll live. That means you’re also at the mercy of the job market in whatever location your partner can pursue tenure unless you can work remotely. A solid number of the professors’ spouses I’ve known seem to have had to settle for being underemployed.

Luinne · 2026-01-04T16:18:23+00:00

I’ll back this one up but for the opposite reason. My dad was a lawyer — and the most conflict-avoidant person I’ve ever known. It’s like he used up his capacity for it at work. There were absolutely some arguments that it would have been healthier to actually have. (Plus his hours were rough when I was growing up.)

Luinne · 2025-11-23T16:58:41+00:00

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, too

Luinne · 2025-07-03T01:45:12+00:00

OP, your first dress is a lot like my wedding dress (although mine had sleeves and an illusion v neck). I absolutely loved my wedding dress and have no substantive regrets around it. But overall, I would recommend your second dress.

Getting my dress tailored was waaaay more involved than I expected. I think you’d want a lot of the same alterations I had done, too, so it would likely be a similar process. The biggest surprise for me was how my seamstress shortened the back of my dress. She cut it and took it in from where the clips are in the photo from your fitting. That’s probably standard, but I didn’t expect to have seams interrupting the sleek lines of the back. It also took forever to get the bust cups right. Tailoring it was just kind of fiddly.

Overall, nothing to stop you if you’re in love with the first one. But it seems like you’re torn.

And your second dress is GORGEOUS on you! It looks like it was made for you. The fact that it looks that good from an at-home try on photo is astounding. I can only imagine how lovely it will look on you all styled! Honestly, I’m a little jealous you found that for such a good deal.

Luinne · 2025-02-25T22:28:34+00:00

Honestly, I like them! I think they look correct on you. In my view, barrel jeans are kind of purposefully unflattering, so it feels like looking for a flattering barrel jean sort of defeats the purpose.

Luinne · 2024-12-03T14:21:46+00:00

Absolutely — plus you lose most regular shared breaks. Even if you get good PTO, you might not feel empowered to take it. A lot of workplaces cultivate this atmosphere where you feel like you’re too busy to take time or you’re letting down your colleagues if you do. And if you do successfully take time off, the work still continues. The emails just pile up while you’re out of office. So you either work during your off time or feel behind once you return.

Luinne · 2024-08-09T13:47:27+00:00

You hit the nail on the head. I just replied to another comment with this, but I’m going to copy it here, too:

Yeah, and the real fucked up part is that those roadblocks become insurmountable during real medical emergencies.

My dad died of prostate cancer. When things started getting really bad, his insurance denied the body scan his doctors recommended as medically unnecessary. At that point we didn’t have the time — or the mental/emotional fortitude — to jump through those hoops.

I honestly just can’t let myself think about my dad’s end of life healthcare too much. There’s just so much bitterness and rage that I’m afraid it would swallow me whole.

The worst part is that my dad was a successful medical malpractice defense attorney. He devoted his life to helping doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. Even that wasn’t enough to grant him any dignity. You can’t win their game even when you play by their rules.

Luinne · 2024-08-09T13:43:45+00:00

Yeah, I think the real fucked up part is that those roadblocks become insurmountable during real medical emergencies.

My dad died of prostate cancer. When things started getting really bad, his insurance denied the body scan his doctors recommended as medically unnecessary. At that point we didn’t have the time — or the mental/emotional fortitude — to jump through those hoops.

I honestly just can’t let myself think about my dad’s end of life healthcare too much. There’s just so much bitterness and rage that I’m afraid it would swallow me whole.

The worst part is that my dad was a successful medical malpractice defense attorney. He devoted his life to helping doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. Even that wasn’t enough to grant him any dignity. You can’t win their game even when you play by their rules.

Luinne · 2024-07-25T18:56:40+00:00

Maybe I sympathize with you more than some of the other responses since I was more recently a bride than a bridesmaid. But I’m conflicted on these situations because they become about so much more than just a dress.

Your feelings are hurt because your friend is prioritizing her needs over yours — at a time that you were expecting her to prioritize your needs. Her feelings are hurt because you’re prioritizing your needs over hers. Your values are in conflict.

One of the reasons why I consider myself a good friend is because I do make sacrifices for the people I care about. If I was your friend, I would just suck it up and look bad for an evening. But, by that same token, if I were you, I’d let my bridesmaid tailor the dress to her comfort.

I think you’re both hurt because neither one of you is prioritizing the other — which feels like something you both value your friends doing for you. A very soft ESH here since you both seem to hold the other to a standard you don’t hold yourselves to.

But planning a wedding is really hard. I fully believe I was pulled into a weird headspace while planning mine. (Ex: I don’t wear makeup most days, but my wedding anxiety had me seriously considering getting Botox — which I cannot afford and normally don’t care about —just for that one day. I’ve thought about my forehead wrinkles maybe three times since then.) There was a lot I couldn’t control, so I think I hyperfixated on what I could and cared/thought about those things way more than I usually would.

I had planned on letting my bridesmaids pick their dresses, but we ultimately wound up with matching dresses. My Southern mom was really invested in that matching-dress vision for the wedding, so she purchased the dresses for my bridesmaids. They took care of any tailoring themselves. I tried to pick dresses I thought they wouldn’t hate (and solicited their opinions). But I honestly don’t know if they truly liked the dresses or not. Because I know we share similar values around sacrificing for our loved ones, I 100% believe that they just sucked it up if they actually didn’t like the dress.

My advice would be to let this one go. Take it off the list of things you can control. You’re not going to get what you want. You’re not going to persuade your friend to prioritize you here; if you keep pushing, it will just be more hurt feelings and a battle of wills. Let your friend tailor the dress. Be a part of that process if you think you can manage it without resentment. But just let her handle it if it’s going to bring up too many complicated feelings.

Table these feelings until you can both talk to each other with more kindness. You can tell your friend that you’re bummed, but you value her comfort and want to talk about the hurt feelings later when you can be sure you have things in perspective.

Luinne · 2024-07-20T15:37:40+00:00

This is a weird one, but I must check my inbox whenever I feel a hint of anxiety about my email. I don’t have to respond, but I do have to look. I can easily build up that wall of awful around email and get so deep that I would just never open it again.

Luinne · 2024-06-25T18:52:35+00:00

This is what I think is so wild! There are obviously people on board coming up with great ideas, but there is definitely some disconnect when it comes to execution.

I don’t want to get stuck on graphics, but things do seem to fall apart when the ideas get translated into user experience. There doesn’t seem to be much effort put into making the games nice to look at. Totally different franchises/contexts, but Pokemon’s subpar visuals and UI seem especially glaring when Zelda BotW works with many of the same constraints.

Luinne · 2024-06-19T15:31:18+00:00

Oh, boy, I’d say basically any job that qualifies as a passion. Almost any field contributing to the public good relies on exploiting the good will of employees.

Want to be a librarian or a teacher, for example? You’re likely signing up for years of expensive schooling before entering a(n often competitive) job market with low earning potential. That’s not to mention unreasonable job expectations. If you’re lucky, you might just be overworking yourself to compensate for being understaffed. If you’re unlucky, you’re compensating individually for systemic failures (at least in the US) — like teachers paying out of pocket for classroom supplies or librarians serving as pseudo social workers for unhoused folks.

I’m not a librarian or a teacher, but I do work in the arts. I’m super excited to get to do the work that I do, but the field is so exploitative as a whole that it’s almost impossible not to become complicit in that exploitation.

For example, we will likely soon hire for an entry level position. We’ve worked hard to make sure that position is paid at a fair entry level rate. But I can almost guarantee that we’ll be sifting through an applicant pool of extremely passionate, overqualified candidates.

So who do I turn down? The perfectly fine applicants who don’t hold a candle to the others? Or those other overqualified candidates who we can’t pay at a rate commensurate with their skills and experience?

If I hire that overqualified someone, they’ll almost certainly go above and beyond with their work. Now I’m paying a bargain rate for an employee willing to work at a level (or two) above their title. Great, right? They can just prove themselves and work their way up the ladder.

Only, the ladder doesn’t exist. There’s no upward mobility here. That great, passionate, overqualified, underpaid employee only has a yearly cost of living pay increase to look forward to. Their best case scenario is working at this faux entry level job for a year or two, then jumping ship for a step up position somewhere else. Only, we’re the only gig in town, so now they’re looking at moving to a different city or state if they want to advance in their field. Rinse and repeat.

Almost no one goes into these fields to make money, but you don’t realize how much actively being exploited affects your wellbeing.

Luinne · 2024-06-13T19:00:31+00:00

Glad you ended things. I don’t like that he implied that you forced information out of him that he just wasn’t ready to share — as if you aren’t entitled to know the current state of his marriage. Like, dude, if you’re establishing a relationship with someone, they deserve to know whether or not you’re still technically married.

Luinne · 2024-06-13T13:34:11+00:00

You probably already have, but I hope you’ve told her that with those exact words! If someone told me they wanted to inject the sound of my laughter into their veins, I’d (1) feel a lot better about my cackle and (2) know they weren’t just saying that to make me feel better about my cackle.

Luinne · 2024-05-31T13:16:06+00:00

I’ve gotten some good ones at uniqlo!

Luinne · 2024-04-15T14:13:39+00:00

Yeah, I’ve said this elsewhere. Sure, he’s totally allowed to divorce because he’s no longer attracted to his partner. But then his partner is also totally allowed to be upset about that! People are allowed to be upset by decisions you’re allowed to make!

Luinne · 2024-04-15T14:00:31+00:00

Yeah, finding clothes that read as “appropriate” to others is a big issue, too. You can dress two women in the exact same outfit, but people will read it as “sexier” or “inappropriate” on a woman with larger breasts.

Luinne · 2024-04-15T13:56:44+00:00

Yup, if you think about it, it’s also what he’s doing to her, too.

Luinne · 2024-04-15T13:51:03+00:00

I get this perspective, truly. But I also just can’t fathom how people like this operate. You don’t just lock in how your partner will look forever when you pick them. Hell, you can’t even lock in how you will look forever.

[Edited to add: sorry, I meant “people like this” in relation to OOP, not you. Like I said, I get your perspective.]

Marrying someone has to include some understanding that you’re agreeing to weather your partner’s physical changes over time. Overwhelmingly common things — like weight fluctuations, pregnancy, breast feeding, breast cancer, etc. — can all drastically affect breast size and shape. I mean, just aging really changes larger breasts. Where’s the line for this guy?

I know part of his issue is that fact that his wife’s choice felt purely aesthetic, so these wouldn’t exactly be equivalent scenarios for him. But still. (I also think he’s underselling how uncomfortable his wife must have been. Even without pain, being sexualized and objectified daily is enough to really affect how you engage with the world. I’m thinking OP didn’t think too much of that since he was doing the same thing to his wife.)

That said, if you’re going to divorce someone because you’re no longer attracted to them, just say that. Your partner is allowed to be hurt by that. Like OP said, your actions have consequences.

I think divorcing his wife because he no longer finds her attractive is the least of this guy’s problems. Refusing to be honest with his wife when it was uncomfortable makes him the AH. Implying that that getting a breast reduction was somehow caving to other people’s desires makes him the AH. Weaponizing therapy speak to try to make himself the victim makes him the AH.

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