I grew up religious, so by the time that I feel like most people here would have hit the "I'm broken" phase (i.e. middle/high school) I was just like "Oh, that's not a temptation that I have (though I know others have it)". I still considered myself straight though, because I knew "I wasn't gay, so I must be straight" (no homophobic reason related to religious upbringing, I just knew I didn't have that attraction). As I learned about other sexualities online in late high school, that's where I started putting together the pieces that I was actually ace and started calling myself as such. It's interesting looking back because I have quite a few memories that are me being very ace/aro, but not knowing it because I didn't know those where things yet.(Friends: "Who do you have a crush on?" Me: "No one..." <-- it truly was no one, despite everyone thinking I was just too shy to share 🙄) September 25, 2...

Hi 19M student in my Uni 2nd year. I met a girl by coincidence in train during technical incident (it was stopped for 10 min, have 20 min train ride to go to Uni). We get along well and started to align our boarding time and sit together and discuss during our trip. After a while we started meet over the week-end for lunch or dinner... She invited me to her birthday, which was only 6 other people. I started to think about asking her out... but two fact jumped in my head as "red flags": she mentioned, her bf dumped her last year, but she still thinks about him. one day in train, I saw her waving at someone, the person come over... and to my surprise it was one of my teammate from basketball team... and we're all kind of surprise of the connection... she admitted he was her ex, but downplay by saying it was "not serious" and that he just had fun with her and dumped her. in my head was like "WTF you mean by not serious ? ... anyway She also ...

I want advice from anyone and everyone willing to offer it, but I also want to hear a guy's perspective specifically on what they thing about this situation, so without further ado... CONTEXT: So last semester, toward the end of it, I realized that the guy that I'd been sitting next to the entire semester was actually kinda cute. One day (this happened around April) I asked him if he wanted to go grab coffee after class and he said yes and we hung out for about an hour or so that day. It was great, I got his socials, and we were no longer strangers who sat next to each other. Few weeks went by (maybe 2 or 3) and we didn't really talk outside of class or even in class tbh. Just said hi and went about our day. But finals week was right around the corner so I asked him if he wanted to study for the final together to which he said yes and we had a little study sesh that day. A little preface: we are both very quiet, introverted people, and honestly I can't tell if the st...

Wet September 25, 2022 at 12:42AM

I’ve [24F] gone on a handful of dates with this guy [27M] that I’m quite into. Things seem to be going well, but I’ve noticed over time that he’s a bit of a pessimist. I tend to attract them it seems as this isn’t new for me lol, but in regards to dating history he’s definitely the most negative. For example, any time we talk about work or his music he’s extremely hard on himself. I’m not trying to play therapist here, but sometimes I’ll try to sneak in a few positive quips here and there, but for the most part I’ll just let him rattle off and provide support physically instead (hand holding, rubbing his back, etc). I’m an optimist at heart and others’ pessimism doesn’t bring me down because I’m solid enough in my own self to be able to filter it out, so that’s not the issue, I’m more just trying to find a healthy balance since we are quite different when it comes to outlook. Does this happen to anyone else? What’s the best way to be able to find balance here? He’s genuinely a good...

I had a teacher (M44) in math before summer when I was 17, just about to turn 18. He was generally very rude towards everyone in our class, but sweet to me (most of the time), he wanted to help me in math and physics (I didn’t have him in physics). He helped me through email in the beginning, but then told me it was easier through text, so we started chatting on WhatsApp. He initiated conversations that wasn’t about school and asked me what I was doing on a Friday night. We talked a lot after school (I asked him questions about math and physics but then we started to talk about things outside of school). We sometimes took the train together and talked a lot. He told me that he remembered a thing from the fall: “I remember this day… I thought to myself that this girl is..” then he stopped and smiled so much. We went to a library outside of school to study and he bought me a coffee (the meet-up was his initiative). He also asked me if I wanted to go and grab a coffee with him after scho...