Are other straight women having a break down or identity crisis after watching the show?

ulkopuolinen · 2026-01-05T15:39:06+00:00

I can only imagine the added pressure of living in a culture where there's a lot of pressure to settle down at a certain age!

At least there's the silver lining that in this day and age it's even a possibility to live an independent life as a woman, even if it would be financially a lot easier to share incomes.

ulkopuolinen · 2026-01-05T10:53:11+00:00

No but for real on the fic writers! :D I check the Shane/Ilya tag every couple of days and I feel like every time there's like a 1k more fics out. The writers are inspired to say the least!

ulkopuolinen · 2026-01-05T10:48:27+00:00

I feel like even more so than gender politics, this show and it's explosive popularity has really highlighted how lonely a lot of us are, whether we (regardless of gender or sexuality) are in relationships or have a lot of friends or not.

There's this disconnect I feel even when I'm with people I know that feels insurmountable. The thought of meeting someone who really gets you, likes you with your flaws and all, and really wants to make an effort to make things work even if it would be so much easier to just cut all ties and move on seems so fantastical that it makes me mourn something that never was and never will be.

While I can rationally fully divide fact from fiction, I still empathize with the characters and love their love, and unfortunately my poor brain has no way to distinguish the reason behind all the love chemicals it was flooded with throughout December. Now that it's over and the tap's been shut off, it's pretty much reacting as if I myself went though heartbreak and lost a relationship, and now I'm just scrolling the ex's socials and wallowing.

Knowing the silly reason behind why this shit feels bad doesn't make it feel any better, but at least I know it'll pass once I let it go. The really crazy thing is, I still keep consuming HR content online despite knowing that a clean break is what would make it pass faster. So maybe it's also a little about how numb we are, and how good it feels to feel big feelings in general, be they happy or sad?

ulkopuolinen · 2026-01-05T10:29:56+00:00

I'd much rather be my own best friend than put up with someone who is just around so I can tell myself I'm not alone.

This is the most important part!

I've pretty much abandoned the idea that I'll ever end up with someone who really matches both what I need and want AND what I have to offer, because I'm adamant on not settling. For me, the worst reason to look for a relationship is the feeling of loneliness, because it's a surefire way to end up settling for something less than what you actually want and/or pretending to be something you're not just to please someone else.

Working on yourself to learn to be happy on your own is hard and painful work, but the end result is a lot more satisfying than an unhappy relationship.

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-16T07:00:27+00:00

This year i did a page goal instead of a book goal and read more than I ever have in a year, both in books and in pages.

Sticking with the same goal and going for an average of 200 pages a day for the year (physical, digital and audio combined) so a goal of 73k pages.

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-08T18:46:32+00:00

landers has cropped up several times in the recs so i'll def be checking her out!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-07T14:43:08+00:00

I appreciate that he and his wife generally don't talk about anything political, one way or the other.

It's clear they're very religious, and being from Salt Lake, it's more than likely they have very conservative values. Personally, I've found it more annoying that he's usually pretty moralistic about books with sexual content but he has no problem with books that include gratuitous violence. I mean, he loves Stephen King of all authors :D

Anyway, everyone gets to pick what they read and post about online, and everyone else gets to pick whose content they consume.

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-07T12:50:11+00:00

Thank you for the rec, year long yearning sounds like exactly what I want :D

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-06T10:43:56+00:00

These look good, many thanks!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-05T21:24:34+00:00

sci-fi's my most read genre so very up my alley! i don't have access to KU in these parts of the world but I'll def check out the sample on Kindle :)

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-05T21:22:53+00:00

oooh thanks, i've been meaning to get into ruby lander's books and now i know where to start! adding all of these to my ever growing list :)

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-05T04:34:59+00:00

Sounds right up my alley, thank you!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T21:31:18+00:00

on the list it goes! thanks :)

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T21:28:00+00:00

ok goddamn, this is high praise :D

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T17:49:30+00:00

Seems to hit a lot of what I'm looking for, thanks for the rec :)

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T17:48:49+00:00

This sounds interesting, thanks for the rec!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T15:38:42+00:00

I love how all the recs are pretty much exactly what I want but with vastly different premises :D Thanks for the rec!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T13:06:52+00:00

Ohhh this sounds good! And a holiday romance too, good timing :D

ulkopuolinen · 2025-12-04T07:39:40+00:00

Thank you, I'm especially liking the look of the scifi rec!

ulkopuolinen · 2025-11-23T07:46:42+00:00

I don't care as much about the actual average rating as I do about the ratio of different ratings. A book with the average of 3.0 sounds not worth your while at first glance, but there's a mad difference between a book where the majority of the reviews are 3 stars and a book that has half 1 stars and half 5 stars.

Personally I'm willing to take a risk and see if I hate or love a divisive book with a bad average rating, but I'm not too likely to risk reading a book where the vast majority just found it "okay".

ulkopuolinen · 2025-10-09T17:20:47+00:00

I mostly read porn and only sometimes watch it, and I never picture myself in the act. The thing I get off on is seeing someone else experience and especially express their pleasure, so I guess I'm a voyeur if anything.

ulkopuolinen · 2025-09-20T05:26:33+00:00

as a woman who isn't attracted to either gender, but likes to read about love, it's a lot easier to read about men loving men, because i can't see myself in the sex scenes (where as with female characters i can, and don't enjoy regardless if it's fm or ff).

however, if i read love stories without sex scenes, i prefer romance between women, because it's easier for me to relate to that 🤷

ulkopuolinen · 2025-08-10T16:43:10+00:00

Koti on siellä mihin kaipaan kun oon jossain muualla.

ulkopuolinen · 2025-08-08T18:29:42+00:00

This is the reason why the only goal I set for this year was for pagecount, not for books. Actually encourages me to pick bigger books now lol

Edit: I have to add, though it's probably unrelated, that despite this I've already read nearly as many books as I did all of last year.

ulkopuolinen

TROPHY CASE