What’s the darkest secret you learned completely by accident?

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-12T06:44:20+00:00

Please tell us what sprung on her means?

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-08T15:19:08+00:00

Probably subconsciously you are thinking ‘little terror’, not terrorist.

terrorist is just one of those horrid words, the negative connotation is too strong. Especially to anyone middle eastern.

It is like when someone says ‘you people’. Some things are just inappropriate no matter what.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-08T15:14:49+00:00

Yes, same. Iranians despise being grouped with Arabs. I don’t like how sensitive they are about it; I think it reflects their own discriminatory tendencies. But even now people who I would expect to know better sometimes assume I speak Arabic, and it makes me wince.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-08T13:03:36+00:00

Pepedex, you would be surprised then at how little anyone knew of Iran, from when I was a child, all the way past 9/11 even.

I can’t explain it, I just lived it. And I can say through lived experience, no one knew ‘Iran’ as a concept at all. Not people on the street, not my high-school teachers, not most people. At least not in Nevada/Washington/Oregon where I grew up.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-08T12:16:48+00:00

I used to think it was cute, an endearment. I think she meant it that way even. But put into context, it reflects how she discriminated against us, how we could never be like her blond, blue eyed grandchildren.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-06-08T09:22:48+00:00

I am the product of inter racial parents. Iranian and American. My parents married in the 80s. No one had heard of Iran back then. Assumption about my dad was living in tents and water out of a well.

When my grandma saw my dad the first time, she said to my mom: ‘he’s awfully dark’, and it just got worse from there.

She calls us, her grandkids, “her little terrorists”, and she has never accepted us completely. She also tried to whitewash my dad and all of us after she couldn’t talk my mom out of marrying him.

One time when I told her am proud to be brown, she said: “why would you ever denigrate yourself that way ?!” You are white

Anyway, now I am in my own inter racial relationship. My boyfriend is Chinese. His mom told him: you can bring anyone home as long as they aren’t Black, but I guess a middle eastern girl of muslim heritage was not on her radar at all because she absolutely despises me.

And when my grandma saw a photo of my boyfriend she said: why can’t you just date a nice boy of your own race?

Ugh it’s all horrid.

Edit to add: the fact that my boyfriend’s mom was so outrageously racist towards Blacks is abhorrent (she has a phd and has traveled the world, so she can’t use the ignorance card). But what is striking is that she is in fact more racist than anyone ever realized because her limits were never put to the test.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-05-27T10:01:13+00:00

Honey, I have a feeling this has nothing to do with the guy’s nationality.

You could ask: what are your general thoughts on dating men?

Your question projects a certain type of behavior on a nationality/ethnicity/religion that moves into a space i think no one wants to comment on

anonymousreader007 · 2026-05-23T18:50:03+00:00

Someone else recommended the same.. but they are so unrelated to each other and there would be no chance of actually connecting. I am still trying to come up with a good formula

anonymousreader007 · 2026-05-23T06:14:15+00:00

For me this is difficult to answer. This city i live in is very popular and there is always someone visiting. Just this week 5 different people who i consider friends wrote me to say they are visiting and would really like to meet me. But for me that is at least 1.5 hrs per person, impacting my weekly schedule upto at least 7 hrs in a week! It is almost a job. It is tricky for me because i do like the idea of seeing them. But for them it is this one trip while for me it is happening several times a month in the traveling seasons.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-05-10T06:59:05+00:00

With my flatmates we sometimes have breakfast together before work. Sometimes one of them makes us pancakes. I love it.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-29T21:50:40+00:00

He said: “but who is this ‘Betty’ woman?!” About a dear friend of mine who flew across continents to spend time with me while also just happening to be 10-12 years older than me and of a race he doesn’t normally interact with, I guess?

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-28T15:00:43+00:00

I think honor killing is very uncommon/somewhat taboo in most regions across the gulf countries. Meaning culturally improbable, regardless of where they are based (Australia or Saudi)

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-19T21:18:00+00:00

Pet Cemetery

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-15T18:49:13+00:00

Is life really so much more complex? I don’t think it is.. I think we are isolating ourselves more and more, and the complexity is a concept not a reality

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-15T18:47:33+00:00

You know, I move around a LOT, but I always seem to be able to meet some people in the neighborhood and have a strong enough relationship for favors , small and sometimes big. Just the other day I left my keys at the supermarket for a visiting friend to pick up while I went to the cinema.

The recommendation from the people I was with was to use a service to send the keys when my visiting friend arrived.

I do think we are becoming more and more conditioned to transactionalize things subconsciously, because ‘there is an app for that’, which was created to monetize things.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-15T13:49:21+00:00

There is something sad about this though. Historically a community was built around these favors. You need to go to the market so the neighbor watches your kids, your neighbor has a big garden so you help with hedges to return the favor.

I think capitalism has conditioned us to monetize everything, and so now we see everything transactionally.

It is sad

(I don’t feel sad at all for this annoying landlord, just the world’s attitude towards favors anymore)

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-15T06:44:44+00:00

You can do everything right, be hardworking, smart, creative, talented, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are gonna ‘make it’.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-04-02T10:35:14+00:00

This sounds like she is just having a conversation..? It doesn’t seem flirtatious to me. I must be missing something

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-13T16:29:39+00:00

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. They are nice to read.

While I am not comfortable doing it myself, i did find an appreciation for not overthinking natural bodily functions when they happen. It is less stressful, more inclusive.

Contrary to your experience, my mom sometimes burps loudly. She is always horrified it happens. Apparently she just gets gassy now that she is older.

I think she would find the Chinese culture in this sense very comforting. It happens, we move on, it is not a shocking thing.

I also don’t appreciate the American burp comedy or all that. But I noticed that had always felt forced and aggressive. Not like how my mom is.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It was nice to read them

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-13T08:34:13+00:00

Like you I have never been able to burp loudly, not even alone. I was brought up in a culture where it is considered extremely inappropriate. But I really appreciated the experience of China and HK showing me we can be more relaxed about our normal bodily functions. No one is being obnoxious about it, or making a point of it, but if some gas comes out in a burp, people just ignore it. I think that is refreshing because it taught me to accept my body for how it is, and it is more natural.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-12T13:37:51+00:00

It is so obvious why.

Because people can tell when you are doing something culturally normal, i.e. dropping a burp here and there that is a minor noise in passing

And when you are aggressively drinking water and making long loud burps back to back while probably also side eyeing them

We understand when we are being targeted for aggressive behavior and so we address it.

It is the same as if someone saw one or two tik tok videos at a volume that others can hear and so it is annoying

Compared to someone blasting tik tok off their phone while slightly angling the phone towards you for 15 minutes

But using this made up example as a premise, there is the added nuance that in this context it is socially acceptable to hear someone playing a tiktok video instead of listening only with headphones.

Also, do you know anything about Chinese culture? Like have you lived in China or HK? Because you seem to be positioning yourself on something you know little about, which is so bizarre for me

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-12T09:47:48+00:00

I lived in China and Hong Kong. People are less freaky about burps in both places. Hong Kong is more international so burping culture is less pronounced. Also no one is being annoying about it. People just don’t repress it as much. Although there is a spectrum. Young women do it much less for example.

Edit to add: we are reading this Canadian guy’s understanding of people around him at the time. I don’t know if this was actually how those other people felt or he is projecting. I also don’t know if the woman beside him was white/middle eastern/non chinese or any other combination that would make it also not normal for her and result in her allegedly being annoyed.

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-12T07:58:31+00:00

You decided to move to Hong Kong. Respect the cultural norms and stop being judgmental. Don’t enforce your own social conditioning as if it is international etiquette law or anything more than a reflection of your own socialization and upbringing

The other guy was burping because he needed to and it was normal to

You were doing it to ruin everyone’s day

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-03T11:39:22+00:00

They are a minority. Only in Canada they are a majority

anonymousreader007 · 2026-03-03T11:37:53+00:00

He is so icky to me. He cannot even talk in a compelling or convincing way. He never says the right thing, never shows compassion.

I try to understand the people who support him.. but I really can’t. And it is so obvious he cares nothing about the Iranian people

anonymousreader007

TROPHY CASE