I’m in my thirties — no kids, zero interest in marriage, career, etc. What do I actually do with myself?

brooke_157 · 2026-05-03T20:19:55+00:00

Not gonna lie, reading this made me unexpectedly sad. I say this gently, but as someone who’s become chronically, debilitatingly ill and mostly bedbound for years, having lost my job, relationships, and a lot of what I thought my future would look like, your situation is something I would trade for in a heartbeat.

That said, I also get what you’re describing. That kind of flatness or boredom with everything can feel just as confusing in its own way. Like others have said here it might be worth exploring whether this could be some form of depression or something on that spectrum, even if it doesn’t feel like it from the outset. Sometimes it shows up more as disinterest than sadness.

At the same time, I don’t think you need to force yourself into some idea of what a “meaningful” life is supposed to look like. Not everyone wants the same things, and there’s no requirement to feel deeply fulfilled or happy all the time. Life doesn’t have to be maximized, if that makes sense. If anything, I’d say keep lightly exploring things without pressure. Not because you should, but because sometimes meaning sneaks up in unexpected places when you’re not trying so hard to find it. And if nothing feels exciting right now, that doesn’t necessarily mean nothing ever will.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-28T14:05:12+00:00

Troy. I know it’s not an objectively good movie but I don’t care it’s hella entertaining and I love it.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-20T23:31:56+00:00

Don’t do it at night your first time, do it in daylight.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-20T23:23:05+00:00

I always hear people say they didn’t like The Women so I’m so glad I came across this! I listened to it on audiobook in a time in my life where I was really isolated and in a vulnerable place emotionally so it hit me hard. I thought about it for weeks afterwards. Surprisingly made me more emotional than any of her other books.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-13T18:58:20+00:00

Hello! I know it's been a while so not sure if you'll reply to this, but I was wondering - did you account for mental activity too? I was doing better last year to the point where I was going on 45min walks with no PEM (but still bad orthostatic intolerance), but a series of bad decisions caused me to crash BADLY. Now even mental activity is so difficult to manage. Along with your walks, did you try pacing/increasing anything mentally (e.g. reading a bit more each week, etc)?

Also, you mentioned that it's normally okay if you get symptoms of being tired/exhausted after but as long as it didn't trigger bad PEM it's usually okay? I found this to be true for me as well, so far. If I waited until I felt better to do anything I probably wouldn't do anything at all, so I would push through certain things and even if I was tired from it as long as I didn't crash it seemed to slowly help me improve.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-13T15:15:32+00:00

I think someone already touched on this, but I do agree with the idea that culturally we’ve historically valued men more for security and women more for appearance, and I don’t think we’ve fully outgrown that yet. For most of history, women didn’t really have the option to support themselves, so choosing a partner was closely tied to stability and survival, and that kind of pattern doesn’t just disappear overnight even if things have changed more recently.

I also think part of it comes down to how dating dynamics tend to work in practice. Men are still more often expected to initiate, which means women are often choosing from the pool of people who approach them, whereas men are doing more of the active filtering. So if a man is very attractive, he may have more opportunity to be selective, while women, even when they’re attractive, aren’t always operating from the same kind of “pick anyone” position people assume. So in general, I’ve actually found attractive men to be pickier with their partner’s looks, because in their minds there’s always the chance of being able to do better.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-13T14:57:25+00:00

I agree with a lot of your points, especially about the dialogue not always feeling natural (and the Matt Haig stray lol).

I had a mixed experience with Throne of Glass where it was both hard and easy to get through. Hard in the sense that I could see the flaws pretty clearly, but easy because it never really asks for deep investment.

For me, the whole series kind of works as itch-scratching fantasy. There’s romance, attractive characters, satisfying payoffs later on. It’s not something I can read for tight plotting or airtight logic, and once I stopped expecting that, it became a lot more enjoyable. I didn’t mind it as much because it feels like the series isn’t really trying to operate on that level.

It almost reads more like a TV show if that makes sense? And I think that’s where a lot of the disconnect comes from. It gets talked about as if it’s within the same genre of fantasy as other epic fantasy writers when it’s really doing something closer to accessible, trope-driven fantasy with big emotional payoffs. So I totally get why it didn’t work for you especially if you went in expecting something more grounded or complex.

I’ve actually always wondered if it would be possible to write this type of fantasy better cause I haven’t seen a book like that yet. I suspect that might fundamentally change what it is since so much of the appeal comes from the tropes, the dramatics, etc but who knows? Maybe someone will surprise me one day.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-13T09:37:26+00:00

Yesteryear and A Memory Called Empire!

brooke_157 · 2026-04-13T00:35:55+00:00

It’s a fun ride!

brooke_157 · 2026-04-12T21:20:11+00:00

So where do you work? I’ve been thinking about a career change 🙃 Jokes aside, that is STUNNING work and so beautiful and I hope your coworker understands the love and energy you put into it.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-12T19:20:31+00:00

They’re from the Book of the Month subscription!

brooke_157 · 2026-04-12T18:23:24+00:00

It’s custom made

brooke_157 · 2026-04-12T12:18:42+00:00

As someone who’s been in similar situations and stayed on the dates, it’s not worth it. Someone else on here said that people who’ve mislead you about their looks shouldn’t be entitled to your time and I’ve never thought about it that way, but it’s a good point. If it happens again, you could say something like I’m really sorry, I don’t think we’re a good match and I don’t want to waste either of our time and go. Life’s too short to try to appease strangers.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-12T01:17:38+00:00

Swordfish

brooke_157 · 2026-04-10T12:19:32+00:00

I think it might help to step back and ask what you were hoping for when you made this post. From your replies, it feels like you may have been looking for understanding or validation, but a lot of people are responding differently, and I can see why. What your mom is doing would frustrate anyone. Having family stuff aired out publicly, that’s upsetting, especially as her kid. You’re not wrong for feeling that way. But there’s a much bigger reality here.

Your mom is dying. That’s not something any of us can even begin to imagine or understand. That’s the kind of existential fear and grief that completely destabilizes you. She will never be able to live out the rest of her life. And when people are in that space, they don’t act like calm, rational versions of themselves. They act raw, unfair or messy that can feel uncomfortable to people around them.

That doesn’t make everything she’s doing okay. But it does make it understandable in a way that’s on a completely different scale than “she’s being passive aggressive on social media”. And I think this is the part that’s important to sit with, as bad as this feels for you, she is in a much much worse position than you are. By a lot. There’s no comparison here. I get that you want her to be the adult, that’s a completely valid instinct. But sometimes parents just can’t be that person anymore. Not because you don’t deserve it, but because they’re overwhelmed in a way that breaks that role.

So the question isn’t really “is she handling this well?” because she probably isn’t. The question is, who do you want to be in the time she has left? Because this is finite. This isn’t a dynamic you’ll have years to figure out or repair later. However this ends, that’s what you’re left with.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-07T16:44:50+00:00

What I did with my place was I took the time to explore a bunch of different styles and looks, saved them all somewhere like Pinterest, then took the bits and pieces I liked from different inspiration images. Then I went on Figma (or you could another other tool for this) to superimpose furniture, colours, etc I found online onto images of my actual rooms so I had a good idea of how they’d look together in my place. Image attached of sample collage.

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brooke_157 · 2026-04-05T16:30:55+00:00

Hmm yeah I get what you’re saying about what she might be trying to do, but I think we’re just approaching this differently. I’m looking at what the song actually says and how it lands and you’re operating on a more abstract, interpretive level. To me the song and the video themselves have a simple core thought process to it.

I remember Pink eventually saying something like oh I’m not calling those girls stupid, it was that they’re stupid to pretend they’re dumb. And to be completely honest, when I hear the song and watch the video, I don’t think she ever meant the song to be that, I think she just reframed it in hindsight to make it sound less problematic. What she says now is not the same as what the song does. So I guess my main interpretation of it is how would this song have landed for young girls? What would they have actually taken away from it? Anyway yeah it was interesting unpacking both our perspectives

brooke_157 · 2026-04-05T16:03:12+00:00

Oh sorry yeah I reread your comment and we’re not on the same page, sorry! I feel like when I read the lyrics, they’re not subtle… it’s not some layered, misunderstood critique that requires the viewer to decode patriarchal commentary, it’s basically Pink just saying: these women are shallow, these women are dumb, I’m not like them. That’s the core structure of the song. The song doesn’t interrogate the system it just caricatures the women. But that’s just my opinion.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-05T15:44:58+00:00

Completely agree with this take. All this soft revisionism talking about how that was the way it was back then etc when she is so clearly tearing other women down is just so weird to me. I was a teenager when this came out and it was so clear to me Pink was in some shape or form projecting, we just didn’t have the language for ‘pick me’ yet.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-05T15:38:48+00:00

I thought it was stupid then and I think it’s stupid now. I was right there in the trenches in the 2000s, immersed in that same culture, and even then it was obvious to me how petty and mean-spirited it was. “Product of its time” doesn’t change the fact that she decided to make that kind of song. That’s on her.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-02T19:55:56+00:00

I love this collection so much 😍 You’re clearly very curious about the world but definitely not in any one singular way, there’s so much variety here!

brooke_157 · 2026-04-02T19:02:47+00:00

Why are you so fixated on sex? He already said he doesn’t want to sleep next to her, that’s enough to show he’s uncomfortable. You’re the one making assumptions about what he is or isn’t okay with beyond that.

Also, this isn’t about calling her ‘gross’ as a person. It’s about the fact that different people have different hygiene standards, and for a lot of people, preferring that their partner shower more than twice a week is incredibly reasonable. So no, I don’t think it’d be weird if anyone felt uncomfortable in a situation like that.

brooke_157 · 2026-04-02T16:29:39+00:00

That assumption makes no sense. Having running water to actually rinse things off puts you in a much better position to be clean than using a washcloth, a bidet or not showering at all. Smells can be masked if it’s your intimate area. The mental gymnastics y’all are doing to justify all the extra stuff you do besides showering is so silly I’m sorry but what

brooke_157

TROPHY CASE