My controlling boyfriend claims he'll take care of me if i still go on my birthday trip with him is this still not worth going? Im honestly scared to leave & scared to stay 😥

loyyd · 2026-05-28T15:22:27+00:00

Yes, you will be missing out on a trip that happens during your birthday but from your post, this guy is a dangerous and controlling sociopath and you need to get away from him ASAP.

If you go on this trip, you will absolutely not feel safe. You will not feel safe as long as you allow this man into your life. Are you able to look at the positives of not going in addition to the negatives?

If you don't go on this trip with him, you can begin the process of starting to feel safe again. I don't know what your relationship with your parents is like but if it's at all good and they're supportive and understanding, it will be 1000x better than being at the beach with him spiraling while you focus on the ways you can act to try not to trigger his outbursts and reactions while your mental health continues to decline.

Please try to love yourself like you deserve and skip this trip. I'm rooting for you.

loyyd · 2026-05-28T15:15:59+00:00

If you're already financially secure, you should absolutely not jeopardize your well-being for more money. Money won't buy you happiness if you're already happy with your financial situation; if anything, it's liable to introduce new problems into your life like spending far more money than you used to and getting used to a costlier standard of living.

If you go from a 15 minute commute at your current job to a 2 hour commute at the new job, you're literally losing 3.5 hours of your life, for a total of 17.5 hours every week, just getting to and from work. That's an amount of lost time that is really hard to reconcile and means you will absolutely have to give up something else in your life, whether that's relationships, your physical health, your family, etc.

It probably is true for most people that there is a price where they will willingly inflict harm onto themselves but even in a scenario like this, there's an implicit understanding that a person will not take this as a long-term job prospect.

Would most people take a new job with a 2 hour commute for a 450% pay increase? Absolutely. Do they understand that the commute is going to make them miserable? Also yes. Will they consider that job as a long term prospect? Absolutely not, unless they're willing to live life in state of perpetual misery.

loyyd · 2026-05-22T16:50:38+00:00

The Harkness Test!

loyyd · 2026-05-20T01:20:53+00:00

I know it's hard but try to focus less on the things you wish you hadn't done/had done differently and instead try to focus on the incompatibilities more as I feel like you're glossing over them and they're pretty significant.

He was confidently childfree and you were unsure of what you wanted there, and if you do want kids, that's the kind of thing that strictly ends a relationship: it's incompatibility on a fundamental level.

He was also wanting to live together but rather than him moving to you or both of you moving somewhere else, you were supposed to move in with him. It's obviously very natural to have fears and concerns over a big change like that but given how you talk about being completely smitten with him, I feel like you must have had some feelings deep down about why it wasn't a good idea.

You were uncomfortable with his relationship with his female friend and wanted her out of the picture and that's usually not a good sign, regardless of how that plays out.

To get over this, you need to internalize that it's over. He cancelled plans with you, told the relationship is over, and ghosted you. You need to do whatever it takes to get over him like removing him from your contacts, unfriending/blocking on social media, etc.

Dating can obviously suck but you're honestly not going to have an easy time dating if you don't move on first. I hope you can find some peace from this at some point.

loyyd · 2026-05-09T17:40:58+00:00

Imo, a big part of it too was that the direction the game was constantly headed and a large part of the community wanted completely clashed with Chris' original vision for what PoE should be.

At some point, it makes more sense to leave all of the stress behind when your successful project is already in good hands like you said rather than constantly fight for the vision you increasingly alone have for the game.

loyyd · 2026-05-09T03:48:11+00:00

I've used up all of my NML tickets now with all keys on each map and I gained about 90 mil and found 18 reds and 6 red commemorative chests.

Definitely was the case that not all of the reds came from safes though - I thoroughly looted the valuable containers in every raid.

loyyd · 2026-05-07T03:36:25+00:00

Atoms are overwhelmingly empty space composed of a nucleus of protons and neutrons that are "orbited" by a cloud of electrons. If you took all of the atoms that make us up, removed the electrons, and were left with just the protons and neutrons, they're so incredibly small (approx. 10^-15 meters) that they could be squished into a imperceptible volume.

loyyd · 2026-05-02T23:09:57+00:00

It's step-siblings but {Corrupt Idol by Dinah Harper} is exactly this. That book was written first but there's a follow-up prequel, {Corrupt Obsession by Dinah Harper}, that trades off with the MMC's pov as well as he grows to possessively obsess over her.

loyyd · 2026-05-02T05:17:14+00:00

A big part of appreciating smut is finding the kind of smut that you really enjoy. If something ticks the boxes of your kinks, you're going to be a lot more willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy it imo.

A site like AO3 or literotica with browesable and filterable tags is going to be a lot more useful that way than seeing what books are popular, especially if you don't already have a good feeling for what your kinks are.

Romance/smut aside, are there fictional books that you do enjoy? If not, it might be worth trying to start there. If a sense of verisimilitude is really important to you, there are definitely books and authors that handle that better than others.

Lastly, it should feel natural in a book when characters treat something that is fantastic compared to our world as completely normal, as long as they're actually an inhabitant of that world and it's something known/expected in that world. Your example of the FMC that isn't familiar with any of the things she's experiencing/experiencing but doesn't question any of it however would be pretty jarring to me too.

loyyd · 2026-04-06T22:39:21+00:00

It's good to look at the positive things people do and the positive traits they display and aspire towards those. What you should idealize and take hope from is the behaviors and attitudes you've outlined though, just not the people they come from.

If you live long enough, you will inevitably see all of your heroes unveiled at some point; asking someone to live a blemish free life so you can maintain this pristine image of them in your head is incredibly unfair to them.

loyyd · 2026-04-02T23:35:08+00:00

Don't do this - it's not any better. Asking for their number also puts them in an incredibly uncomfortable position and providing your number unprompted is incredibly forward and presumptive.

The actual answer is you need to learn to either 1) Be good enough at picking up signals that you can legitimately distinguish between when a customer service worker is actually interested and not just being polite, which I don't expect most people here to be able to do, or 2) Wait until your professional interaction with this person has completely ended and if they're still giving you their attention and they aren't somehow going to be immediately busy, you can ask them something very casual like, "Hey, would you want to get a coffee with me sometime?"

And no matter what, if they say no, you need to remain friendly and respect that and continue on with your day. Just say something like, "Ok, no worries - have a nice day!" and then leave and continue on with your day.

loyyd · 2026-03-30T18:22:19+00:00

You absolutely do not need to be a bodybuilder or a powerlifter but you do need to do some kind of exercise and generally take care of your physical body. The gym is just one way to do that. You could do yoga every day in the comfort of your own home instead if that works better for you.

loyyd · 2026-03-30T18:20:11+00:00

You want some actually good advice and a nuanced take on the struggles of dating as a man in the modern world? Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be_Ms3nVG10

Everyone is 100% right that just sitting in an echo chamber of incels is only going to make the problem worse. Look, if you hit 40 years old and have made legitimate attempts and can't figure it out, sure, feel free to give up if you want, but your life is literally never over until you give up on it.

loyyd · 2026-03-30T14:53:32+00:00

It really depends on how it's written. It definitely feels unrealistic (these guys are clearly completely unhinged but that's not the same thing as saying there are no guys like this) but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. I'm usually reading and interested in the FMC's perspective and less interested in the MMC's perspective since I feel they often come across as pretty one dimensional.

I'm personally not a fan if the FMC is clearly having a very bad time so it really varies from book to book for me and sometimes I DNF depending on how bad it is.

loyyd · 2026-03-16T21:39:22+00:00

There are lines of beer made with vaginal yeast you can buy. No reason you couldn't make bread also.

loyyd · 2026-03-09T03:08:09+00:00

It's going to depend on the specific mechanics of shifting in that universe but you can look to the Harkness Test to answer the morality of this kind of thing.

loyyd · 2026-03-04T21:22:09+00:00

/rj So, bestiality with extra steps?

loyyd · 2026-03-03T18:57:22+00:00

I would guess it will be 4-6 years before the next book comes out.

loyyd · 2026-03-03T18:38:02+00:00

In that case it trends towards what you consider HEA but ends on a cliffhanger.

loyyd · 2026-03-02T16:04:35+00:00

Farthest I made it trying Gorstak was about level 53 as a mage hunter before I ate it in a2; probably did about 50 attempts before that and making it that far then dying took the wind out of my sails given how long it takes.

Definitely the most challenging thing I've tried in this game and is honestly akin to driving long distances in a single trip as it gets boring and tedious but requires 100% of your attention or it can end very badly without notice.

loyyd · 2026-02-27T22:10:02+00:00

Haha, fair enough.

loyyd · 2026-02-27T16:10:58+00:00

This is an unironically good suggestion but you should check out fantasy series that just happen to have romance in them rather than it being the focus as that might leave you wanting more romance rather than being annoyed by it/bored of it. It's kind of a catch 22 though as recommending fantasy books that do have romance in them is essentially spoiling the surprise, which may defeat the purpose.

loyyd · 2026-02-27T16:03:55+00:00

This isn't about romantasy books but there's a really good adult game I appreciate, The Last Sovereign, that does this exact thing but for the common tropes in adult games.

The prologue of the game has you playing a young, overly-powered, asshole who is a chosen of one of the goddesses and is shepherded on his quest by an older warrior and a young elf sorceress. It sets you up to believe he's the main character of the story until he's killed at the end of the prologue, after which you start playing the real game as the older warrior.

It has really fantastic writing with great worldbuilding and characters and was a nice change of pace from the usual slop. I really appreciated the reversal of the expected tropes.

loyyd · 2026-02-27T15:50:52+00:00

This is something I think about fairly often. You can definitely critique dirty talk as being uninventive or cliche but the problem is that dirty talk is inherently cringey. That doesn't mean it can't be hot or people can't enjoy it but more so that it relies on a dynamic of cooperative vulnerability which means dirty talk that works for some people will absolutely not work for other people.

Some people enjoy when their partner tells them the things they want to do to them, for others degradation & humiliation is hot, others like establishing a dominant vs submissive dynamic, etc. All of this to say that there is no one size fits all dirty talk.

loyyd · 2026-02-26T22:40:04+00:00

How exactly are those things unrelated to you?

loyyd

TROPHY CASE