soos_mite_ah

Honestly, for the most part I simply don't want to know. I don't mind hearing about past experiences but I don't want to know of a specific number or about a specific person my partner has been with. I also think body count isn't too relevant when it comes to how good you are in bed. You could rack up a ton of bodies and still be awful in bed. I think that the topic of body count can induce shame for both genders for different reasons and is rarely a productive conversation. Plus, a lot of talk about body count exclude things like rape which can get pretty messy and can get uncomfortable for the other person if there was something they have been through. That said, to be totally honest, I'm not really into community dick. Anything more than 10 is a lot imo

The Female Gaze and Bro Movies: The Godfather Word for word I feel everything that Peter Griffin has to say. I know The Godfather is a classic but I honestly couldn't get into it. Like it's so drawn out and I have ADHD so it's over all not a good match for me. It really does insist on itself and takes forever to get into the plot. This movie has no business being 3 hours long. Long bro movies like these reminds me of the study that was conducted on whether men or women talk more. Over all the results were along the lines of this: When observing a class setting, whether you determine which sex talked more by the number of words people were using or by the duration people were speaking, by both metrics men talk more than women by a significant amount. Further studies suggest that overall which sex talks more is determined by context but even then, the notion that women talk soooo much usually circles back to the notion that the ideal woman is one who is quiet. And honestly, other than me having ADHD, I think I'm also at fault for not getting super into it because the main reason why I was watching this movie wasn't because I was interested in it rather it's because I found Al Pacino attractive. I mean.. the mans is fine but unlike the other two movies, I couldn't sit through this one. Also, he is a good actor. But my thing is that I need a face to use for the scenarios I make up in my head before falling asleep. So I can't just have my mans going around acting like a crazy person because that's just going to ruin things for me. It's also why I'm probably never going to watch Scarface. I know damn well that was one of his best performances and despite the fact that I've only seen a couple scenes here and there as they come up in my social media feeds (I follow a couple of fan accounts don't judge me lol), he embodies the worst, the most stank vibes in that movie because that's what the character calls for. I'm almost afraid is going to be same as how I feel about Timothee Chalamet. I'm pretty sure I would think he was cute if I had not watched his performance on Lady Bird. I don't know whether his acting or the casting was on point but either way, whenever I look at him, all I can see is a pretentious theater kid who will call me uncultured for not reading Hegel. Like I'm pretty sure he isn't like that in real life but in my mind he looks perpetually 17. So in conclusion, I'm probably not going to watch most of his movies since in many of them he ends up playing characters that are unhinged. This is going to be another tangent but I'm going to include it anyways. So there is a recurring joke on TikTok about how Gen Z hates the color brown. Some people attribute this to how a lot of houses in the early 2000s had faux Tuscan style home decor and we were all surrounded by brown to where now as adults we're tired of it. Like when I see these two pictures, I think of the following: every furniture ad between 2005-2012, getting yelled at over math homework, Karens who are divorcing their 2nd husband during the recession, and mid life crisis. I also think of those fake fruits that would be in the middle of the table and it reminds me of how squishy the fake grapes were. Like I was watching these tiktok laughing and then I looked at the couch that I was sitting at and realized that even though my parents didn't fully embrace this aesthetic, that there were still pieces of our home that looks like this. There were so many people I saw dragging this aesthetic to filth and how it reminded them of some of the things I listed above. Someone was like "why did all of our moms want the house to look like an Olive Garden?" Another person was like "this is Godfathercore" and that was probably one of the most cursed but accurate things that I read. I wouldn't be surprised if in 15-20 years that we would have a bunch of young adults hating the color white because they were constantly surrounded by the farmhouse aesthetic and the minimalist aesthetic growing up. But yeah tangent aside, one thing that I found satifying about the Godfather is how certain pop culture tropes made more sense. Turns out they weren't tropes rather they were just parodies. My favorite parody is probably this scene from Zootopia: Overall, even though I can't say I enjoyed the movie, I will say that I don't think the movie is bad. It's a good movie, it's just not meant for my tastes lol.

Performative Bisexuality I really like this video and I also really liked the comments under here as well: "Instead of saying oh "it was just a phase", they should say "I was experimenting" or "I was questioning my sexuality". I feel like that's less harmful." "I hate how you can’t identify with a non-hetero sexuality without associating it with sex itself. Like I feel like straight people are seen with an innocence that lgbt+ people aren’t given. “Oh you like girls” is never about how you connect with other women on an emotional level. Telling someone you’re a gay man always brings questions about your sexual life. It’s so confusing how having a non-het sexuality is always fetishized, especially to young people figuring themselves out." "I remember one time I was on a date with a girl I met on Tinder. We went for a drink and then saw a pub that looked fun so we went there to dance. We were on a date, we liked each other, so we were just dancing and flirting a bit. Just like so many people do when going out. But there where so many men standing around us, clearly trying to hit on us and enjoying what they saw. We felt so incredibly uncomfortable that we went home soon after that. We weren't even doing that much, we were just dancing, but these men all acted like we did that for them. I'm still so mad, because no, we were not doing that for anyone but ourselves, because we liked each other and had a good time before being sexualized and objectified so much that we had to leave. BISEXUAL AND LESBIAN WOMEN ARE NOT THERE FOR THE PLEASURE OF HETEROSEXUAL MALES." "I feel like performative bisexuality really contributes to biphobia within the LGBTQ+ community, which just sucks and made me feel like i was unable to come out. To this day I have been unable to tell my parents because they think that everyone is “faking it for attention” just because that’s how it is in the media. I just want to tell all bisexuals out there that you are VALID, and no matter if you later come out as gay or pansexual or whatever, your journey is valid!"

What is My Orientation? So far I'm at the following possibilities: Straight: I mean I'm pretty sure I like men. Question is, do I just like men or is there something more to the story? Demi-sexual: For those who don't know, demi-sexual is somewhere between asexual and sexual. It means that you're incapable of developing sexual attraction unless you have created an emotional bond with that person. If the emotional bond isn't there, you're basically asexual. When it comes to liking men physically, I noticed that a lot of the traits I'm attracted to usually can be traced back to someone I have had feelings for in the past. For example, I notice myself being attracted to guys who somewhat toned but skinny. Am I attracted to guys with this particular body type or am I only attracted to this body type because I developed an emotional bond with someone who has similar traits in the past? Do I actually like this, or do I only like it because it reminds me of someone. I'm going to use celebrity crushes as an example. I don't have them and I don't really find myself attracted to celebrities. But the two I do like, I'm pretty sure that I like them because they remind me of people in my regular life. If I didn't meet these people before, would I still be attracted to these two celebrities? I really don't know. Bisexual: This is one that I find hard to come to terms with, not because I think there is anything wrong with being bi, but because I don't want to be seen as a performative bisexual. I don't really find myself being attracted to women sexually. Sure I'm platonically and aesthetically attracted but sexually and romantically, it's a no for me. The only time I find women attractive sexually is in the context of a threesome. Also, there is a chance that the only reason why I'm into a threesome is because most porn is so boring to me as a woman to where the only way to make it more visually stimulating is to have more people involved. I don't really want to hook up with a woman otherwise. I don't know if this is internalized male gaze or rather than being attracted to women I sexualize them and see them as objects on some level. If it is either of those things and I'm not actually bi but I still go around telling people that I am, I'm pretty sure that would be harmful to the bisexual community and to women to a certain extent because I'm just feeding into stereotypes. I'm nervous about bringing this up and talking about it because I don't want to hurt other communities and perpetuate something harmful. I also feel like it would be an awkward conversation tbh if it's not at the right context. I don't think I know anyone who I feel comfortable enough with to bring this up.

My Sexuality Exists in a Vacuum I feel like my sexuality is something that no one really knows about including myself. It's not that I'm actively trying to repress it or hide it rather it's more along the lines of the fact that I haven't been in any contexts where it could be expressed. I'm grateful for starting this journal to have some outlet of expression but there is this thing that I find myself running into. It's basically the whole thing of "if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, did it really make a sound." I guess that's part of the reason why it's difficult to see myself in a romantic/ sexual and sometimes in a desirable light. There is only so much I can do if I don't have direct experience. A lot of the stuff that I have talked about in this journal about what I like is to an extent speculation because I haven't gone out and tried anything. It's always difficult to know what you're really like in a situation you've never experienced. I try to remind myself of two things. One, just because no one has seen a certain side of me doesn't mean it doesn't exist. To assume so is to assume that if something isn't verified by others it doesn't exist. It's not a really self assured way of going about the world because relies on the perception of others for existence. It's the equivalent of assuming that other people don't take a shit just because you haven't personally witnessed them taking one. And two, just because I haven't been in a situation where both parties had mutual feelings, doesn't mean that it can't happen in the future. To assume so is to be biased with the past and assume that something is going to continue happening just because it happened before. Truth is we don't know and patterns don't tell us everything about predictive patterns. Literally anything can happen since circumstances are changing continuously. Sure there is something to be said about inertia and patterns, but there is always the chance of something different happening as well. Basically the logic of my sexuality feeling nonexistent and me being undesirable because of how I didn't get attention growing up doesn't exactly check out. I can recognize these emotions, understand where they have come from and empathize with them while still recognizing that they are skewed.

Fetishization isn't about liking a certain feature (as in being tall). It's about reducing a group of people down often to a bundle of stereotypes and sexualizing them as a way to gain power over them (as in seeing ethnic features as inherently less attractive or for example seeing black people as inherently more aggressive and masculine). There is also a historical implication as well that matches up to the stereotypes which makes fetishization inherently dehumanizing.

As someone who has had to deal with quite a bit emotionally, I would say regarding growth, don't seek out suffering for the sake of suffering or for the sake of growth. I would say that if anything, given how easy your life is as you say, that means you have a really good foundation to do inner work. Commit to your life purpose, go out and experience life, build healthy and sustainable relationships with your friends and family. Let those experiences be your teachers.

I agree with this. I was having a conversation with a few professors and we were talking about how career advice and how to approach different professional situations can differ given your background and what you're looking for. No, you're perfectly fine. These conversations are very much necessary both for my growth or for anyone who might come across this for similar experiences. Comments are always welcome and encouraged in my journals. That does make sense since there are a lot of costs associated with going through the hiring process, the training process etc. I guess the environment I'm in mainly has it's eyes set on the high level, highly compensated roles that tend to be cutthroat since they are in the best interest of the university (because students in high positions making a lot of money means more donations and more clout for the university) and they appeal to the desires of the student body (highly competitive stage orange people who won't hesitate to back stab you if they feel necessary).

@PurpleTree Yes white women are racist if they only date white men for a sense of safety and familiarity but the same cannot be said about WOC because of things like power dynamics and history.

Or here's another way of saying it that is both compassionate and firm: This is relationship is taking a toll on me. I feel like my energy is being drained and that my emotional and intellectual needs are not being met. I find it difficult to engage in a conversation that isn't about the things that you may be going through. While those experiences are valid, this relationship feels very off balance which isn't a healthy dynamic for either of us. I have tried to set boundaries before but I found myself feeling violated and unheard especially as someone who needs space and solitude. This relationship isn't sustainable for me given that a lot of my boundaries are being compromised. This is eroding me and I can't continue like this since much of my energy is going towards me sorting my own life out. Our dynamic feels incredibly stressful. As a result, I'm not going to respond to any more calls and texts. This is not something that is up to negotiation. Do not try to contact me. Using more "I" language as opposed to "you" language can help a person get their point across while not blaming the other person and while exercising emotional self awareness. It also helps in communicating because you aren't pointing fingers and you are speaking for yourself instead of exerting judgement on others. This in turn helps soften the blow while still being honest and straight forward. Finally, it calls attention to a person's actions rather than their character which would then help them not internalize their issues but still know what's going on so they can work on them. EDIT: for some reason I thought I was reading this in the relationships section while I was typing this out. I can delete this comment if you would like if this feels like unsolicited advice. I understand if you were just writing the above post to vent rather than communicate.

I have and it's so incredibly helpful. I went in with a general issue which was to deal with the abuse I experienced as a child. Under that general issue, I had a lot of smaller, specific issues that I wanted to address ranging from building up my self esteem, focusing on school, coping with grief, healing my attachment style, setting boundaries and more. Therapy has given me a place where I can vent about my issues, whether they are things in the past or present, in a safe place without causing additional strain on my friendships. Don't get me wrong, their support is great and being emotionally open is important, but always going to them with heavy topics can weigh the relationship down. Once I started therapy, instead of constantly venting to other people, I had a designated professional listen to me once a week. Delegating my emotional intensity to a therapist opened up more room for more lighthearted conversations with my friends where we were having fun and relaxing. Going to therapy is also good because you have someone else questioning your biases for you so you don't go down the wrong path when you are contemplating something. It's a nice check to keep you accountable so you do what you need to do as far as coping skills go and so that you come up with valuable insights. I would also highly recommend journaling and studying the issues you are having problems with prior to your sessions and in between sessions so you can get the most out of therapy and not waste your time. For example, I know that I am dealing with childhood emotional neglect so I went ahead and watched a bunch of videos on it, took notes on things that resonated with me, and noted down instances in my life that caused the issue to manifest. This is something that is probably a bit much because I'm meticulous when it comes to these types of things, but my first exposure to therapy was through my college's health center. They only have a max of 8 therapy sessions per year. Before starting school, I made a word document that was 30 pages long on all of the abusive instances in my life, how it makes me feel, what issues it's causing me currently, and how I'm trying to deal with it. I unpacked each of those things in therapy and having that written down helped me stay on track and know what exactly I need to talk about. It streamlined the process significantly.

@PurpleTree There are some black women who believe that they can avoid dealing with racism by either dating within their race or dating other POC than compared to dating white men. White women don't have to worry about being degraded for their race in the same way. I don't think WOC who think this way are racist, rather I think they are naive. You can still deal with a lot of racist and sexist bs from people from your own community. You can't avoid racism by simply avoiding white people.

@MuadDib But what if you fucking up has less to do with you experimenting with different careers and more to do with issues in your personal life? Sometimes I feel like the things I have gone through, even if I have gained soft skills from them, don't really count because I shouldn't be so neurotic to where I would be struggling in the first place.

Terrible Boomer Career Advice Here are some terrible pieces of advice that my dad, a boomer who hasn't applied to a job since the 90s and has been self employed for 20+ years, gave me that I think might be contributing to my imposter syndrome. Some of it isn't even due to him being a boomer rather it's probably him saying things to the extreme because he's reflecting his personal problems: Never advocate for yourself. Bend over backwards for your employers. If you don't do these things, you won't ever rise up the ranks and you may get fired. Don't have any boundaries at this age because your only priority should be work since you aren't married with kids yet. Shut up, do as you're told, and do everything ahead of time because if you don't deliver results as quickly as possible you will be fired. Go apply to jobs door to door to show people you're a serious applicant. Never apply to jobs online. Also, follow up with people by calling them over and over. You better stay at a company for at least 5 years and if you are loyal to them they will be loyal to you. If you stay for shorter, you are a job hopper and no one is going to trust you even if this was a summer job or internship. Don't ask for anything for the first 10 years. You aren't worth anything. The work experience you have had means nothing. Your school and field of study means nothing. You have no skills or experiences you can talk about and you're nothing but a liability. You are lucky to even have employment because why would they want to hire someone like you. Don't expect anything over $15 an hour. You are barely worth minimum wage when you graduate college and if anything, minimum wage should be abolished. Don't expect any benefits either because you aren't worth it at this age. Don't get prideful and start asking for things. You aren't degrading yourself when you do a lot of work for little compensation. You are showing them that you are a cooperative team player and as a result they will compensate you accordingly years down the line. Stop expecting instant gratification. And while I know these are terrible pieces of advice, I still don't know what is considered normal professionally. Like I don't know what is a normal amount of compensation I should be expecting with my skill level and I know this is causing me to undersell myself and not actually go after things that I'm probably qualified for. I'm in a very impressionable position since I've never had a career and I don't know how most of this works. There are some very obvious things that are bs such as never apply to jobs online and keep calling people to follow up because from experience (this man made me go to people in person and ask for applications and had me embarrass myself when managers would look at me crazy and tell me to apply online). But when it comes to figuring out how much I should be paid, what kind of benefits are standard, setting boundaries and advocating for yourself in a professional setting, I'm completely lost because I don't have much of a frame of reference. And these conversations overall leave me feeling kind of worthless and like my efforts are futile. It leaves me feeling like I don't have a future and that I won't be able to have a decent quality of life or be able to support myself. It even makes me not want to apply for anything because why bother if I'm not qualified in the first place.

I mean, those aren't equal/interchangeable. White women often fetishize black men and use them as a way to rebel against their parents. You also have the whole porn industry fetishizing this dynamic as well as prior history. A lot of black women feel that there is a sense of safety that they would get from dating a man from a similar background and on top of that, a lot of black women are shamed for interracial dating. Because once they date a man who isn't black, suddenly people in her community (usually the older people) talk shit about on how "this girl thinks she's too good for black men" etc. I mostly agree with this with the exception of the whole lost causes thing. I think if you examine your biases, understand how they are formed and where they historically come from, and heal from your own internalized self hatred that you should be good. I'd be careful with this since mixed people do tend to be fetishized because of how people think they are "rare", "exotic" , or "genetically superior." This type of language also reminds me of how some people try to have mixed babies because they want pretty kids but when you ask them to explain this, they end up sounding like they are talking about their own dating preferences. It's hella weird. You can acknowledge inequality without it turning into a limiting belief. If anything, acknowledging systemic issues can help a person from internalizing their problems which would've led to limiting beliefs. Depends on what angle you're coming from. I don't know your situation but for some people this can come from a fetishization lens.

Also, another thing that I want to add is that hyper-independence is often times a trauma response that happens to people whose needs have been ignored for so long that they cope with minimizing their needs or refusing to ask for help. In a lot of these situation, these people end up making an identity out of not being needy to where they end up neglecting their emotional, social, and mental needs. I think some people can also run into this problem in spiritual circles in the way some people can get attached to detachment as a way to bypass suffering. Because it feels like it would be easier to detach from a need than to be vulnerable and ask for help outside of yourself.

I agree with this. To a certain extent, I think this mindset has a lot of parallels with the mindset of "the one who cares the least is the one with power in a relationship." Like, power, having the upper end, or "winning" should be nonissues in healthy dynamics imo. I also like your last point on how intimacy needs neediness. Being able to express your needs in a healthy way is crucial in being vulnerable and opening up to get to know someone. Overall, I think the skill that needs to be mastered is to be able to differentiate between being needy vs having needs.

Birthday Blues There is a wave of depression that hits me around my birthday every year usually starting a month before my birthday. I have a lot of baggage around my birthday and I just wanted to vent about that. My birthday never felt like my day. First of all, my mom and I have the same birthday. We never had a good relationship and I don't like having to share my birthday with someone who caused so much pain in my life. She also always makes a fuss about the day, yells at service workers, and nit picks at what I'm eating when we go out to eat for the night. I also always feel like I'm being forced to celebrate. I'm always feeling depressed during this time of the year and instead of my parents trying to empathize with me and hear me out, they try to force me to celebrate and then yell at me and call me ungrateful when I'm not faking a smile perfectly. The celebration feels much more about them in the sense that if I had a lowkey birthday that they would feel like terrible people. But when I voice what I actually want, then I'm the weird one and there is something wrong with me because no normal person would be down on their birthday. I'm also forced to be with my toxic family during this time. This year, my anti vax aunt and uncle are pissed because I didn't celebrate my 21st birthday with them. I mean, this time last year was when the pandemic was peaking and we didn't have the vaccine so like.... I was trying to make sure we were all safe... But yeah, because of this my parents are like "it's your family obligation to spend time with us on your birthday." Then there is how there is always a ton of religious stuff going on during October. Basically, from the end of September to early (sometimes mid) November, is the holiday season for Hindu people. Having your birthday around Diwali is the equivalent of having your birthday on Christmas so I get the whole *hey, this present counts for both holidays* thing. That doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is how growing up I could never celebrate my birthday around my birthday because every time I would try to invite people, they would have plans. So most of the time I would celebrate at November. One time my birthday even got pushed all the way back to December. And because of the amount of stuff happening during this time of year, most people forget about my birthday anyway. My birthday is a reminder of all of the years I wasted being depressed. I had 2 suicide attempts around my birthday. One was the day before my 16th birthday. That year basically marked me being depressed for over half my life and I didn't want to continue living if it meant my life was going to continue on like this. The second was around this time last year. I ended up in the hospital and I had to put school on pause. I was finally starting to live my best life and get out of this only to be dragged back into living with my parents because of the pandemic. It sometimes feels useless to try to get better. I don't feel all that better compared to last year. Sure I don't want to kill myself but I still feel depressed, anxious, and exhausted and I'm not sure if there are any good things in store for me. My birthday basically makes me think *great... another year has gone by with me being miserable. How much longer do I have to hold on like this?* My birthday reminds me on how I'm not living a normal life, how I'm not living up to my own standards, and how I don't have friends. I feel like most normal people expect that you have plans for your birthday. Whenever that question comes up, I just don't have an answer because in most cases, I just want to be left alone during my birthday. I don't have that many friends who I feel like I can celebrate with. I also feel like I don't have a good enough social life. I feel like most people reminiscent on all the fun memories they made with their loved ones during the past year and I just don't have many of those memories. I don't mind having a few friends and spending most of my time in solitude but I feel like when my birthday rolls around, I feel like I simply didn't do enough. It's also just like how I feel like I haven't achieved enough each year. I feel so stagnant in my life and I feel like I'm not growing up. A lot of this goes back to the whole imposter syndrome thing I wrote about in the previous post. Also, my 20s actually feel like a thing now. And that freaks me out because it feels like my 30s are going to creep up on me and that is like a scary age to me. I know this isn't the healthiest outlook but I feel like there is this pressure to basically live out your whole life in your 20s and how this is the decade where you're supposed to have an amazing career, have a house, a solid social circle, a husband, maybe think about settling down and having kids, travel, be hot, achieve a shit ton of things, and basically be a full fledged adult with their life sorted out etc. I think a lot of it has to do with the boomers because economically, doing a lot of these things were feasible whereas things are simply not the same now and people are taking their time with these milestones. There are a couple of videos that I really like on this subject: My birthday also remind me aging and as a result mortality which then leads to an existential crisis. At one point, my 20s were also a scary age. I remember having this pressure to figure out what I wanted from life and what my priorities were in my late teens and have this plan of how I'm going to be full fledged adult. I also felt like I didn't have much of a margin of error and that any mistake I made could set me back like a decade and that's a decade lost of me not living my fullest life. I think a lot of this had to do with late stage capitalism and how the older people basically started nitpicking at the ways young people lived their lives and dealt with money instead of addressing systemic issues. And to still not have my shit sorted out now freaks me tf out. Then there is the whole pandemic and how I had to take time off of school messing with my perception of time. Basically, it can be summed up by this: Like, I don't feel like I'm about to turn 22. I still feel a few months into 20. And it feels like I wasn't able to start my life and instead I acquired a new flavor of crazy after sorting out my issues from my childhood. I also feel like I really let down my 18 year old self because of how these last 4 years went. I was supposed to be senior this year and I wasn't even able to do that. And it isn't even because my priorities are messed up or that I made a ton of bad decisions. Life just kind of happened. Like I remember at that age telling myself that I'm going to prioritize having quality relationships, pay attention to school but not get consumed by it, travel, let myself growth from and experience life, and over all have this well rounded college experience. I had the right idea and what I valued hasn't changed. It wasn't a lapse of judgement rather it was a lapse of circumstance that cause these thing to not come true. And that's something I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of going through life not really living, not because I don't know how to live or because I have shit priorities, but because life just happened. I'm not saying this as someone who is afraid they aren't taking control / responsibility of life and they are just letting things happen to them. Rather I'm speaking as someone who is taking responsibility and is putting in the effort to build something sustainable but there is always a chance that something completely outside of your control can come in and take everything from you. I make well thought out decisions because I don't want to waste my time prioritizing something stupid and instead I want to maximize the amount of fulfillment I get while I'm alive. And given how things have gone so far, I can't help but feel like I'm wasting my life.

Imposter Syndrome I am empathetic, well thought out, disciplined, able to stick to projects long term, good at weighing risks, skilled at analyzing systems and cultures, and a strong writer. I’m independent, resourceful, patient, self-aware, good with people, and good at dealing with different perspectives. These are all things that would be beneficial to a work environment. But I can’t talk about these things? Why? Because I didn’t get these skills and strengths from challenges in an internship or work experience. I developed these qualities from being in an emotionally abusive household and healing from generational trauma. I developed these qualities by coming from an underserved community and being forced to adapt to a predominantly white university where most of the student body is more well prepared than I ever had the chance to be. I developed these qualities by dealing with my own physical and mental health crisis during a pandemic where I was forced to go back to a difficult home environment. Grappling with these challenges is where much of my time went towards during my time in college. How the hell am I supposed to talk about any of these experiences in a job interview without seeming like a victim and without seeming like a hysterical brown woman. I wasn’t able to be an RA, a TA, a researcher, or a leader in student organizations. I wasn’t able to study abroad nor did I secure a part time internship for more than a summer. Hell I wasn’t even able to make a solid group of friends because much of my time went towards taking care of myself and keeping my mediocre GPA together. And while these things might seem like high expectations, I often feel like it’s the bare minimum of what I must do to even secure a decent paying job that will give me things like health care and decent vacation time. And because I fell short of this because of the circumstances in my life, I’m afraid that it’s going to set me up for a lot of struggles for the early parts of my career. I have the skills and abilities. I just don’t think I can say much about them because they aren’t on paper. And this hurts me so much because my greatest accomplishments are things in my personal life rather than anything remotely professional. I feel like all this work that I put in myself, though I have gotten a lot from it from a better quality of life to a personal sense of fulfillment, this work isn’t exactly something that I can show off externally. And because of that, all of this emotional labor goes unrecognized and unappreciated. On the surface, on paper, I look like I didn’t do much with my college career. But I know that what I did was the best options for me and that it’s laying a foundation for a much better quality of life emotionally and spiritually for me and anyone who comes after me. I don’t think I have room to negotiate anything because I don’t feel qualified for most positions anyway. I don’t have years of work experience as I talked about before and I don’t have relevant experience. I have a mediocre GPA. And I don’t have the safety net of taking risks with negotiating because I can’t afford to ask for too much and come out empty handed. I have to take what I can get. And god forbid I get labeled as some young person who has unrealistic expectations because of instant gratification and get called out for “asking for too much” when I advocate for basic needs by some boomer who doesn’t get what the world is like now for young people. A lot of times I don’t even feel like I deserve to be at the college I'm attending much less in the business school because of how underprepared I was because of the lack of resources in my area. Apart from how I don’t socially fit in, academically I feel like the dumbest person in most of my class when really, I’m under prepared and I look at situations differently compared to a lot of people in my classes because my experiences and my path just isn’t like theirs. And sometimes I wonder if my professors are just telling me things to sugar coat my situation. And if that’s not it, I wish I could see whatever the hell they see in me because I sure don’t.

Coffee Shop AU I'm currently at a coffee shop trying to relax and because I haven't been writing as often as I normally do. There is something about coffee shops that brings out the hopeless romantic in me lol. I feel that the coffee shop AU trope is something that has a chokehold on me. despite the fact that I've never been super into fanfiction growing up. Basically this is a fanfiction trope where the fanfiction is set up at a coffeeshop and the characters from the original series are either a barista or a regular customer. Normally the barista/customer dynamic involves the writer's favorite romantic pairing from the original series. I swear, probably a sizeable chunk of the romantic scenarios I make up in my head before falling asleep take place in a fucking coffeeshop. In this post, I want to explore as to why that might be so. I DON'T EVEN LIKE COFFEE. First I decided to look into why this trope is popular in the first place just as a jumping off point to see what resonates with me. The reasons that I came across are the following: Millennials and Gen Z tend to romanticize urban environments and are broke so getting things at a coffee shop are seen as a small indulgence. Also, many people in these generations tend to work in service industries so there is that familiarity. Coffee shops are a mundane setting so it gives you the chance of imagining the characters of your favorite series as everyday people. It gives you a break from sci-fi/ dystopian/ fantasy novels and replaces it with modern realism. Many of the people writing these coffee shop AUs are high school or college students who firstly, may not be old enough to get alcohol at a bar or secondly, spend a lot of time doing work for school but instead of setting the story at school, coffee shops feel more relaxed and sexier. There isn't that much research a person has to do when writing a coffee shop AU so it's a very easy trope to pull off successfully. Some people blamed the show Friends for romanticizing coffee shops Then I decided to think about my own associations with coffee shops: First dates: I feel like suggesting to go to a coffee shop is my default response to first date ideas. It's casual and it makes things feel like there is less pressure (it isn't as formal as say being take out to dinner and it's cheaper too). Quality Time for Myself: I have mentioned earlier in this journal on how one of my main love languages is quality time. I find that taking myself out on a coffee shop date alone once a week keeps me sane and lets me check in with myself. Like I get dressed up once a week, take my laptop to a coffeeshop just to goof off on the internet. Basically the same shit I would've done at home, but dressed up and in public. Someone's got to be the hot mysterious person who looks like their getting their life together lmaoo. Just letting yourself be: This combines both the first and second point. I know that there are a lot of people whose ideal date would be going out and actually doing things (think going bowling or to the state fair etc.). While that is nice, for me, I'm not super romantic or super active so something mundane like just getting food or finding a nice place to hang out and just be is enough for me. Actually getting my work done: This is a relaxing environment for me so whenever I find myself wanting to procrastinate on my work, I just take myself to a coffee shop. First, it lets me get to a new environment and shift my focus. Second, I convince myself that I am actually relaxing so that the task at hand doesn't feel too awful. And third, it combines something that I don't really want to do with something I really enjoy doing so then that makes it easier to get the things I don't want to do done. It's like that Mary Poppins quote on how a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Getting my shit together: Related to the previous point but I just wanted to add on how the smell of coffee makes me think of getting my shit done despite the fact that I don't even drink coffee. Working in coffeeshops also helps me focus because my ADHD doesn't like spaces that are pin drop silent. I don't like coffee, I'm just here for the vibes lol. I just order my iced matcha latte, which is just matcha and almond milk, and call it a day. Again, someone's got to be the hot mysterious person who looks like their getting their life together. Also, I think this also coincides with my issues with competence and how one of the main things that I find attractive in guys is when they genuinely have their shit together. A place of hang out during the day and maybe meet new people: Yeah... I'm not exactly a creature of the night. Not to sound pretentious but going to bars and clubs aren't my thing. I don't like being surrounded by drunk people and I don't like loud places where you meet people but can barely have a conversation because it's so loud. Also, I feel like whenever you ask where to meet new people, people usually respond with bars and clubs, but then when you say you don't like alcohol, the answer changes to a coffee shop or a bookstore. While I have failed to secure a man in a coffee shop, I will say that I recently made a couple of friends there. So that's an accomplishment lol. Side note: I remember seeing a tumblr post a few months ago talking about how there should be late night coffee shops where you can go to pull all-nighters or go and meet people. Basically have it be like a bar but nerdier, more lowkey, and marketed to introverts. I guess there is something romantic about doing your own thing, minding your own business, and having a person walk into your life at the right timing. It feels romantic and down to earth at the same time because it isn't this huge fantastical let-me-sweep-you-off-of-your-feet grand gesture of a moment. It almost feels more realistic and more of a cozy setting. It's like opting for a fireplace rather than a firework.

@modmyth Trust me it's coming. I've just been intimidated by the topics I set up for myself and I find myself procrastinating taking my time to think things through. I also feel that there is just so much that goes into discussions around sex work, ethics, etc. that it takes some time to personally go through each perspective and see what resonates with you.

Or maybe your ego wants you to think it's an ego trick