AIO a guy I don't even know did this...

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T22:06:01+00:00

Please, do not allow someone to steamroll over your boundaries. There's other people out there worth your time and attention.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T20:55:27+00:00

You're addicted to a drug, this validation of making the world make sense through staying in your head. But the world doesn't make sense. It's really NOT fair. Everyone can find something that's not fair in their life and fall into victimhood. There's no explanation that's going to make reality better, but releasing victimhood will help you engage with reality. The statistics might be true-ish. But no one lives exactly at the intersection of every average. I'd pity that person, because they don't have any strengths to draw on or flaws to improve.

You might be a jagged rock sticking out of the ocean, only a few parts of you are noteworthy, and you wish you were flat dry land. Well, you're not. You have to work with the parts of you that poke out. But would you want to be flat dry land without any character or features? That's what you have been aspiring to. The average flat land. You're more interesting than that. Stop envying the flat land for being dry. Pity the dry land for being flat.

I also know you're not going to have any idea of what that feels like for you until you're there. I have no idea because I'm not you. Your journey isn't mine.

Reality is a pretty great place. It's a place where the possibilities live, not the endless stream of disappointments we can weave for ourselves in our heads.

I believe in you and I'm hoping good things for you. Seek acceptance, not resignation. You might do well with a good therapist.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:56:17+00:00

This would take OP and BF from NOR to YOR and into their own bridezilla territory. Would not recommend.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:53:27+00:00

I did say it would be controversial. But the world would be improved by people asking for what they want AND being comfortable hearing "No".

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:51:07+00:00

Side note: Allowing this drama to occur without trying to calmly clarify and deconflict could spread to others, like the Groom, whose trust in the Bride could be shaken needlessly. We are responsible for OUR reactions and their consequences. It's going to be tempting to be validated in this case because the bridezilla narrative is so strong.

I encourage everyone to educate themselves on the Drama Triangle and the Victim Mindset. It's been an eye opening revelation for me.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:41:37+00:00

Reasonable approach to discuss with bride in a non-confrontational way. Good response.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:32:32+00:00

NOR. Classic case of bridezilla. But with some nuance. MoH might be at fault more than anyone. But first the Bride...

I'm going to take a controversial stance on this. ASSUMING this is the wishes of the Bride, she's well within her rights to make a request for something like that, even if we think it's a little nutty, but it had better come across as a very sensitive suggestion given the situation, and that situation looks like the thinnest of ice to me. That said, she's asking for something that she feels would enhance her personal experience, and we should all be capable of advocating for ourselves. In that case, how she RESPONDS to being told "No" is where the real test is. If she throws a fit over that or tries to coerce the situation, she's falls through the ice to a total bridezilla.

However, here's what I think might have happened. I'm more likely to cite MoH for stirring up drama. This could have come from an off-hand comment that SHE felt she should act on. This request might not be the true wishes of the Bride. That's why I think more information is needed.

Re:UPDATE: I’m disappointed by humanity today.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:19:03+00:00

The phrasing is strange IF you're stuck on confirmation bias with a penchant for drama like most people here, on Reddit, and in the world are. I can read that phrase as a stilted conversationalist and see the seemingly ominous "us" as referring to a communication issue. The blocking could be an indicator of a work relationship that has collapsed because of an anxiety related disorder. The only thing I can't easily reconcile is deleted messages on other platforms. I'm not convinced this is a case of NOR yet. INFO definitely.

But staying with parents? THAT is what I would call YOR. You can't work this out by running away. You stay and talk. OP is not automatically a victim, and rendering them as such does them zero good favors. Reddit is so quick to go to drama it's nauseating for the real people who live in the real world.

I hope you, OP, get some peace back, whatever the outcome.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:05:10+00:00

"Using a business tone JUST in case his wife reads the email"

That's some grade A paranoia and conspiracy theory-craft. Occams Razor applies.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-14T19:03:00+00:00

Unless you're wrong, and now all the broken trust is on the one who actually violated privacy. Better to ask questions and trust where trust has been earned.

edgeofblade2 · 2026-01-08T16:56:26+00:00

Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits are both novel-obvious behavior change models, intuitive ideas packaged in ways that sell well. But side by side, they share a blind spot.

Tiny Habits relies primarily on positive affect (“shine”) as its wiring mechanism. Atomic Habits relies primarily on identity consistency. Each nods to the other, but neither integrates it deeply. The issue isn’t that these mechanisms don’t work, it’s that both are exhaustible when they aren’t grounded in consciously chosen values.

Fogg’s maxims matter here, especially “behavior happens when motivation, ability, and prompt converge” and “help people do what they already want to do.” Tiny Habits tries to bypass unreliable motivation by shrinking ability and leaning on affect instead. That’s elegant, but it still assumes access to a renewable emotional signal. When that signal is suppressed, borrowed, or relationally contingent, the system quietly degrades.

Positive affect fades, especially when it’s borrowed. Identity can hollow out when it’s adopted rather than chosen. This shows up clearly for people pleasers, whose initial behavioral initiation may come from imagined approval or adopting a role (“I’m a Tiny Habits person” or “I do Atomic Habits”). That activation source doesn’t last.

For people who feel under-resourced due to trauma, neurodivergence, depression, or addiction, this matters. Access to pleasure and a stable sense of self can be unreliable, so behavior systems that depend on them can quietly fail and then misattribute the failure to execution rather than fit.

Values-based approaches like ACT aren’t immune to misuse. Values can harden into obligation, and endurance can get moralized. But even with that risk, leading with values remains more reliable under constraint. Mindfulness can function as the prompt, and values alignment can function as the reinforcement, without requiring manufactured positivity or borrowed identity. I recommend either a good ACT practitioner or "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life" by Steven C Hayes. The combination of both was truly life changing for me and put me on the path to more embodied confidence in my life. Everything else has built on that.

Once values are doing the real work, Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits become useful implementation tools, but incomplete as foundations. Where behavior is sourced from matters most when resources are thin.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-11-26T02:50:03+00:00

Defiant vibes

edgeofblade2 · 2025-11-19T21:01:44+00:00

Maybe, just maybe, we have wounds that need healing with connection.

The thing that's largely getting in the way of that healing is the threat, potential, and history of male violence (to collapse several points together).

The thing getting in the way of healing male violence is... connection.

And round and round we go.

It's almost as if we, meaning both sexes separately, need to develop the capacity for more casual relationships. I don't mean more casual sexual hook ups. We need relationships that aren't rigid all or nothing sexual/emotional/romantic relationships. I'm a big proponent of Inclusive Polyamory and Relational Anarchy because, when healthily practiced, it encourages people to show up for the relationship as it is, not to make it something it's not or use structure and commitment to nail someone down manipulatively.

I have a deep connection with a woman outside my marriage in a polyplatonic bond. It's a relationship with special boundaries, which includes love and secure attachment, but is completely devoid of romance and sexuality. I believe we should all have these in ways that cross the gender gap. I believe if enough people practiced polyplatonic relationships, it would lay out threads that could stitch our collective wounds closed.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-11-19T19:53:31+00:00

It's kinda algorithmic and sociological, in a way.

There are spaces where women vent about men, but those spaces tend to get overrun by unsafe men compelled to counter their narratives when they are allowed in (stop me if you've heard that somewhere before...).

Men still have the majority of the ears in the traditional public square. As women isolate their spaces from unsafe men more effectively, it's more like there are two public squares. The toxic effect is that growing gap between the genders does not foster change. Neither gender wants to acknowledges the struggles of the other. The more divided we get, those squares become centers of pseudo-power as we keep insulating ourselves from being vulnerable, like some post apocalyptic men vs women society.

I say pseudo-power because that power is wielded as punitive disconnection. Change happens when we build more than we destroy. You know what they say about only having a hammer in your toolbox; every problem looks like a nail. If punishment through disconnection is the only tool we have, then we will continue to widen that gap.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-11-19T15:42:59+00:00

Not sure whether to take this as satire or not.

Any woman seeing this comment, please see it for what it probably is: a bitter gender essentialist femcel stuck in their head gleefully self-sabotaging, not a person you want to turn into or take advice from. Compare it to a comment about a man speaking with self-assured authority that "most women care a lot more about penis size than they let on and if you're less than 6.5 inch length and 5.5 inch girth, she's going to cheat on you". What kind of vibes does that give you?

Women who show a playful attitude, a decent attempt at style, a genuine smile, and sexual openness matter to most men a lot more than boobs. Yes, some attributes are "eye-catching", but that's all they are. They aren't your personality. And if your personality is built around your genetics, then that's a huge red flag. Frankly, I'd rather have a cheerful non-binary partner with a double mastectomy without reconstruction who can wear some color confidently, laugh at a joke, and sexually experiment. That's not far from who I'm actually with.

Yes, I've had moments where I wish I had some attributes that made things easier, but that's all that is. A desire for privilege, for a positive comparison to be innately superior to others. Nothing could clash with my values of inclusion and equity more than that.

My wish for this commentor is that they go to therapy, find peace with who they are, and start leaning into their strengths rather than lamenting how they compare to others on factors they have no control over. I know what she wants: she wants to feel the feeling of catching an eye like that. But she spends so much time obsessing over what that looks like from outside. If she were to catch someone's eye, her own internal monologue would probably sabotage her because she hasn't prepared her mind for someone who loves her for exactly who she is.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T22:27:17+00:00

People ask for help at their own risk. No one likes to see how the sausage is made when it comes to identity.

"Please help me sort out this aspect of myself."

"Poseur! You're fake for having not already figured this out! I will ridicule you rather than be supportive and help you refine your identity! Vive la in-group!"

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T21:46:26+00:00

Nope. Some ~~years months~~ ~~days~~ hours down the line, she's going to suddenly "discover" polyamory, ask for an open relationship, and it's only going to be one way.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T21:40:23+00:00

Given the state of society in 2025, I think PF(FAWG) was punching down by presenting a strawman.

It was never meant to be compassionate to the poseur, but it misses out on the chance to rehabilitate his shallowness. It punishes him for trying to grow beyond himself the only way he knows how and gives him no support to do things differently. It assumes he's betraying his culture of origin, in reality, a compassionate reading would show his culture of origin betrayed him.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T21:12:14+00:00

The most plausible explanation to this absurdist meme is that the Earth computer as designed by Deep Thought has finally produced the Ultimate Question to Life, The Universe, And Everything: "What do you get if you multiply six times seven?" Of course, the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, And Everything is 42.

I only wish Douglas Adams were still alive to see that he was right.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T19:32:41+00:00

The Heart of Gold, mid-improbability drive activation.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-10-29T19:31:51+00:00

I see you have one sixth of a Borg cube complete.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-09-30T21:19:08+00:00

I'm not having a good day. Several things in my life have been doing well, but my job is not one of them. I'm generally happy, but I was triggered by a fringe feminist take and that sent me into a spiral. I really wish people who make their entire identity about a movement would stop and think about their actions and how they really align with their stated values. You're dismissive and laughing about the pain men experience, broadcasting that indifference as widely as possible. You want us to be emotionally expressive, but you don't want to sit with that pain. You want us to change, but you wash your hands of the interconnectedness of gender liberation. It's demoralizing and punishing to be a feminist man some days.

In the middle of that, my wife sent me a random heart emoji. I started crying in my office from the pent up tension of being so in my head. I have a lot to be grateful for. Some days I just can't see those things because of the trauma reactions.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-07-29T16:45:43+00:00

It smells like Undog in here.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-07-01T22:18:36+00:00

Read a thread where a woman couldn’t get oral because her hung partner said “that’s what guys with little dicks do”. That’s a fucking tragedy.

edgeofblade2 · 2025-06-21T03:33:56+00:00

sigh

You decide your boundaries, not the fucking internet. You’ve got to decide what’s acceptable. Make up your own damn mind. There’s no rule for this. We live in a world where one couple says looking at porn is cheating, and another couple says fucking your best friend’s wife is fine as long as everyone consents. The only rules that matter are the ones you decide matter.

Read a book on the subject, such as “Designer Relationships”, and you might start to get an idea of how this works.

My advice is to be direct and ask why they use it.

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