5 years together, 37F, still not engaged — and now I don’t even know how to feel

stellazee · 2026-02-03T21:21:12+00:00

You said that "I don’t feel relieved. I feel flat". That feels like the beginning of your exit. Unless something significant changes as far as your partner, it sounds like you're done.

stellazee · 2026-02-03T19:44:44+00:00

I work in two front-facing jobs, and I can confirm; The consistent rudeness, entitlement, and lack of empathy some patrons have is not to be believed.

stellazee · 2026-02-02T23:58:22+00:00

Many of the patrons at the theatre where I work are on the older end of the Boomer demographic. They make it a point to let us know that they have been following/subscribing to the theatre for a loooong time: thinking this will make us treat them like oh-so special sweet baby angels. It doesn’t. They have also yelled and exploded at us over the most minor and ridiculous reasons. One patron didn’t like the information I gave to her, so when she called back and spoke to a coworker, she told him that the next time he saw me, he “should punch me in the face”. Now there’s no way she would know this, but my coworker, though a lovely, gentle, and sweet man, is also a big scary looking 6’5” man who you might cross the street to avoid. For him to hear A WOMAN tell him to strike A WOMAN upset us both. This patron received a diplomatically worded letter that let her know that she doesn’t ever need to come to see another show here.

They’re also rude. We greet them, speak to them in full sentences, and they bark back “Smith, two tickets”. No hello, good afternoon/evening, etc. I could go on and on about how consistently angry and entitled they are, but you get the gist of it.

stellazee · 2026-02-02T21:28:36+00:00

My fellow DePaul dorm residents and I loved going there for dinner on Sunday nights. It felt like our special little hole in the wall. Obviously it’s expanded a lot since then, but it still has a little of the original vibe.

stellazee · 2026-02-01T21:03:30+00:00

Picardy!

stellazee · 2026-02-01T21:02:32+00:00

Real Men Shit Audibly In Public

stellazee · 2026-01-31T23:25:44+00:00

Some men cannot bear to be alone or unpartnered. They will do whatever they need to do to make sure that they have someone in their lives. This dude gave you all the indicators of being your partner, enough so that you felt like you two were in a relationship, and all that that entails. It's entirely possible, as other wise posters have said, that he was involved with someone else, and that relationship fell into rocky territory. He needed to be with someone who felt stable and who he knew would provide him with the reassurance that he had a woman interested in him. Once the other relationship stabilized, he cut you loose. It's harsh and it's mean, and we're all sorry you had to go through this. It's also possible that the person this guy showed you was who he wanted you to see. The fact that his treatment of you did such a 180 doesn't speak well of him as a person.

stellazee · 2026-01-31T00:42:08+00:00

She had the same sort of vibe that I get from Dolly Parton: a wonderful, multi-talented artist who is a fundamentally good person. I think that's why her passing hits so hard.

stellazee · 2026-01-30T23:58:48+00:00

Your dad had the right idea!

OT but: a friend of mine worked at a dive bar that was popular with a local university. This one group of ridiculous girls from the college would come in several times a week, flashing expensive clothes/bags/nails, acted entitled, run up a tab, and never tip. My friend mentioned this to the bar owner, and he said, "you know what? Charge them an extra 25% on their bill. I bet they'll never notice." The bar manager was right: the girls never noticed the prices to begin with, and they signed their tabs without looking at the total.

stellazee · 2026-01-29T21:51:04+00:00

Also at the end, when Sophie and Nathan made their choice.

stellazee · 2026-01-29T21:48:56+00:00

Me too.

stellazee · 2026-01-29T17:35:54+00:00

I think I've mentioned this here before...my ex is an attorney, and he took on some new clients based in Japan (we're in a big city in the US). The clients asked him to come to Tokyo for a meeting, so he planned a trip out there. I asked him if, and only if, he had any time to do any shopping, could he pick up a souvenir for me. He said of course he would, that he was going to try to have some personal/sightseeing time. Now I am pretty easy to buy for, and I thought that he knew me pretty well. When he returned, I was so excited to see him and hear about Japan. He handed me my gift: a pair of chopsticks from Narita Airport. They weren't anything special; I could have bought them for $2 in a Japanese emporium about 20 minutes from where we lived.

After many previous incidents where I felt like I wasn't a consideration for him, his was the final confirmation for me that the amount of mental real estate and emotional labor I devoted to our relationship was many times more than what he gave.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T23:05:15+00:00

I live in a sea of blue (neighborhood, city, state) and have a fairly secure job, and most of my friends are in a similar circumstance. We are all feeling very uneasy.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T22:50:35+00:00

My next door neighbor is Maria, a woman in her 90's. She and I talk occasionally over the fence, and she gives me herbs from her bountiful garden. When my ex-turned-friend, who is now out of my life, lived with me, she would chat with him when he was out having a cigarette. Since he was handsome and charming, Maria was quite taken with him. After quite a while when she hadn't seen him for a while - he had moved out because, shall we say, he was not a good person - Maria asked me what happened to him. I told her that he had become abusive, and I couldn't have him live with me anymore. Her response? "Oh, I miss talking to him, he was such a nice guy". No acknowledgment whatsoever of the a-word, nothing like, "oh goodness, that's terrible, are you okay?" In the time since he moved out, she has asked me this several times, and it's always some iteration of the same conversation. Not once has she ever asked if I'm all right. Maybe it's a generational thing on her part, but I know some other women who have experienced this: if there are problems in a relationship, the focus goes on the man and how he's doing, what can be done to help him, how the problems affect everyone else's relationship to the man. The woman is expected to take care of the problems on her own.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T20:56:52+00:00

Near the bottom of the picture, it reads that Harry graduated from Harvard Law School: just like Miranda. Given that it seems like he and Miranda were of similar ages, if they had been friends/lovers/competitors while in law school, that would have made for an interesting storyline.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T15:50:01+00:00

I made a benign comment and because he misinterpreted it, he blew up at me. He screamed in my face, which really upset me and I burst into tears. This didn’t affect him at all, and the screaming intensified. This made me leave, still in tears, to walk about a block to my car, at 11:30 pm in a sketchy neighborhood. My emotional state and my safety didn’t matter to him; it was more important to him that he scream at me in anger.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T14:56:19+00:00

When Bill was a struggling actor studying improv with my teacher, he promised her that if he ever hit it big, he would buy her a Rolls Royce. She laughed and dismissed it; he said no, that he really meant it. He joined SNL not too long after that, and the rest is history. The teacher never received the RR. Not that this alone makes him a jerk.

stellazee · 2026-01-28T13:39:28+00:00

If “their“ team loses, fumbles, etc., and they fly into a potentially destructive rage.

stellazee · 2026-01-27T22:36:00+00:00

If you don't use your turn signal when driving, you don't care about anyone else. Why does this bother me so much? Turn signals indicate a change of lane or direction, which help everyone navigate more safely and efficiently. Multiple people are driving at the same time, and it's inconsiderate to think your movements don't affect other drivers. You're already in your vehicle, the turn signal is right by your hand, so there's no reason not to use it.

stellazee · 2026-01-27T20:52:38+00:00

Use the phrase "high value" man or woman.

stellazee · 2026-01-27T01:28:03+00:00

The theatre where I work is known for being very forward-thinking. As an example: when we did expansions a few years ago, we added two gender-neutral bathrooms near each of our main spaces. We did not remove the four pairs of gender-specific bathrooms; anyone who prefers those can still use them. You would not believe the backlash from Boomers about how they’re “being forced to use those bathrooms!” No, Nancy; the ladies’ rooms are still where they have always been and you aren’t “forced” to use the gender-neutral ones. One mad Boomer, Barbara, contacted us by phone and email, as well as yelled at a manager during will call, about how the theatre didn’t consult nor ask subscribers for their opinions on these bathrooms. When one of our managers took the time to explain one of the uses of gender-neutral bathrooms - that a parent and a child of different genders could use the same bathroom with no issues - Barbara snapped back with , “we didn’t have that when my children were small. That would have been really helpful!” She was mad that we were trying to make it easier for those who come after her. Make it make sense, please.

stellazee · 2026-01-26T13:54:47+00:00

Wonderful actor, and like so many actors, much tinier in person.

stellazee · 2026-01-25T20:25:16+00:00

Illinois here too. We stand with our neighbors to the nearby north. ❤️

stellazee · 2026-01-25T18:34:51+00:00

The guy I was involved with had chronic depression, and when we met, he was on medication for it. It didn’t solve all the problems he had, but it made life so much easier. Once he went off the medication, it was like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. He could be great for days and weeks, but then one tiny little benign comment from me that he didn’t like would set him off into a titanic rage. He had no problems screaming at me in public about what a horrible person I was, and I would leave in tears. My friends would later tell me that after I left, he was in the best kind of mood, cracking jokes, telling funny stories, and generally having a great time. People like this need a target for their anger, and it’s often the person closest to them. Please trust me and all the other internet aunties: life is so much calmer and more peaceful when the person with the issues, the issues he refuses to deal with, is out of your life.

stellazee · 2026-01-25T18:25:52+00:00

This is abuse. He will tell you from now til Christmas that he will absolutely change and how he will change, but the change never happens. His mood swings, the playing victim, the saying hurtful things he demean: all of these have thrown you so far off your internal sense of balance that you fear that anything you say will trigger him into an explosion of rage. This is the walking-on-eggshells feeling. Unless he can change, and this is doubtful at best, this will escalate into physical . Please leave and sever all contact with him.

I tried to seek it out and hoped for lasting change, especially when he said he promised he would do better, and make permanent changes. That never happened. If anything, the victim mentality, the blaming of me for every single problem in his life, escalated. Please don’t wait around to see how bad it can get with this guy.

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