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Hang in there, Tanu. These are stressful times but they can't last forever. Sunshine is sure to come around sooner or later, once things settle. It's great that you're seeing a psychologist and that you're aiming to take courses. This is the correct thing to do. Take it easy and endure.

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Tonight at work we have a Red Carpet Gala for "Becoming Santa", a documentary following a class of potential mall Santas through training. It's getting a pretty good response, but the most important part of the story was that we just had 4 reindeer and multiple Santas and elves milling about in our theatre's courtyard. I took a bunch of shots on my 3DS (unfortunately, they're only viewable in 3D on the DS itself as far as I can tell) and made a public facebook album. Link ahoy! Hopefully you guys can check that out. If it doesn't work, here's what I think is my favourite photo from the set:

301249_10150835081860717_772160716_20992013_1738040963_n.jpg

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Maybe she just doesn't want to break the law.

(What I'm saying is, jaiiiilbaaaaait.)

I'm actually 18, which I believe is legal everywhere. :P

On the one hand, I understand why she's upset. She confided in me certain personal things, and she believes I wasn't truthful with her. That would upset anybody. On the other hand, I never lied - she knew it was possibility that I was younger than her (I reminded her many times myself). The only reason I didn't say it flat-out straight away was because she'd told me that she would feel weird liking a younger guy (the difference is just two years, btw), and I'd hoped that by the time I told her, she'd be able to look past it.

Right now, she doesn't seem to be wanting to talk to me. I'm hoping it passes - if nothing else, I don't want to lose a good friend over something like this.

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Your good friend might, just might be an irrational lunatic.

Listen to Kingz, he speaks from personal experience. :mock:

If she's bothered by that so much, as so many others have said, she's probably not a good choice.

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18 - 20 is no difference at all.

EDIT: I double checked, turns out the difference is 2. My bad.

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Listen to Kingz, he speaks from personal experience. :mock:

If she's bothered by that so much, as so many others have said, she's probably not a good choice.

All of my friends are irrational lunatics.

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I prefer the rational lunatics myself, but I'll take irrational in a pinch.

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I feel like I'm the lead character in one of those movies:

"I keep thinking about what I could've done differently."

"If only I could go back and..."

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I feel like I'm the lead character in one of those movies:

"I keep thinking about what I could've done differently."

"If only I could go back and..."

...be born three years earlier?

Edited by Sal Limones
second language grammar panic

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Heh, yeah. I'm sure it can't have just been that though.

I donno, the more you reveal about it the more it seems like she just has this irrational phobia of younger guys. It's like she was saying HAHA OH GOD I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE NOT SOMETHING HORRIBLE, LIKE YOUNG and you were smiling awkwardly and one day finally saying "well, aaactually..."

What I'm saying is, none of this is your fault. She has a preference, and she is acting accordingly. It's a weird dumb preference, like not being attracted to people shorter than you or hairier than you or whatever, that she may or may not grow out of one day. I have a feeling that you telling her sooner would only have the different effect of her refusing to talk to you sooner. So don't beat yourself up about it, and go find a girl that doesn't have funny hangups about slight age differences.

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I prefer the rational lunatics myself, but I'll take irrational in a pinch.

Rational lunatics are the best lunatics.

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Give drunken debauches a try, Speedy. They'll cheer you right up.

Probably don't.

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Dude, you're bummed because you've told yourself that what happened is somehow your fault.

You did nothing wrong. You just acted how you are, and she reacted in a way that's consistent with her. That's just the way it is. You don't know what's going to happen in the future, and you don't know what would have happened if she hadn't stopped talking to you.

If you start saying things like, "If only this..." or "If only that..." then you're compounding the problem by telling yourself that your life would have definitely have been better if she'd stuck around... but you don't know that. And there's evidence from her behaviour to the contrary. You could have gotten to know her better and found out you really disliked her. Or a million other negative outcomes.

You seem to think that the fact that she's not talking to you is what's making you unhappy. It's not.

What's making you unhappy is that you're telling yourself that this was important and you've irreversibly messed it up. There's so much negative spin on that thought, it's barely rational. You have no idea what you've lost, so why decide it was something big? You have don't know why she's not talking to you, so why decide you're entirely to blame? You have no idea what's going to happen in the future, so why have you decided it's completely over?

Work your way through that link I sent you, and stop convincing yourself that your negative view of the situation is right. It's just a negative view. You have no idea what's going to happen.

Also, good job on opening up and talking about it here :tup:

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Frankly, Speedy, it sounds to me like she just doesn't fancy you but is too nice/indoctrinated by patriachal society to tell you that straight. She likes you as a friend but nothing more, but worries that you won't be able to accept that and things will get messy. So she's cutting the whole thing off and giving you a bullshit excuse.

My advice:

1) Accept that sometimes the perfect girl for you just won't like you in that way, just as some perfectly nice people will take a dislike to and get irritated by you for no particular reason, but it's okay and normal and not anything you're doing wrong and balanced out by the plenty of people who do find you attractive and really value your friendship. (I'm being very presumptuous here, perhaps you know all this shit already, but it took me a looong time to figure out, and my time at university would have been better for realising it earlier. Also, wish I'd realised that most everyone was as inexperienced and lacking in confidence at sex as me, and acknowledging that fact early on in any proceedings would have led to much more satisfaction and fun.)

2) Stay out of contact with her for at least a couple of months. One term at uni should do it (i am old, do they still call them 'terms'?). Then call her, and say very frankly and concisely, "hey, sorry my crush on you made things weird, I get that you don't want to be any more than friends and that's totally cool. Wanna hang out some time?" But only if you mean it. Otherwise you need to repeat steps 1 and 2a.

I normally don't post on these threads because I worry about being presumptuous, patronising, obvious or fake. But this sounded very much like the kind of stuff I'd tie myself in knots about when I was your age and I'd love to GO BACK and give myself this advice. So there you go.

She's not the one for you, its nothing to do with you, chill out, forget about it, go reinvent yourself at uni and have fun.

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Give drunken debauches a try, Speedy. They'll cheer you right up.

Also this :tup:

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I normally don't post on these threads because I worry about being presumptuous, patronising, obvious or fake.

Oh, what the hell: Tanu, I've been biting my tongue, but here's my advice for you:

It sounds to me like a symptom of your nervous disorder is to make things more complicated in your head than they really are, possibly as a way of avoiding certain things. And to be brutally frank, it sounds like your self-pitying is getting in the way of achieving things. I understand you're having panic attacks and depression, and that those are very real, tough things to deal with, but the only way you're going to deal with them is to force yourself to be positive and active and to change the situation you're in.

Either your parents are crazy arseholes, or you're over-reacting to their attempts at help, or both. Telling you not to apply for jobs because you might get a manager that makes you cry is fucking awful parenting, whatever the motivation, to the point where I wonder if you're misinterpreting or exaggerating in your head in order to give yourself distractions and inconsequential things to waste your energy on. If this is not the case, and your father really did pull that shit, it is still your responsibility to yourself to recognise that kind of behaviour as detrimental and ridiculous and not allow it to spin you out. Whatever the truth, here's my advice:

1) Get a job, unconnected to your family. I know you're finding this difficult, but it sounds like you're going about it in very weird, convoluted ways. You don't need to tell your prospective employers about you owning a company or whatever (I don't even understand that bit, sounds like overcomplicating things). Googling products isn't going to work. You want blue-collar work, all the little details don't matter. You know what employers want from bc workers? Someone who shows up on time, works hard and doesn't cause trouble. All your CV need convey is "worked as butcher for family, knows what hard work is, isn't a serial killer".

Things may work a little differently where you live, but a variant on this should work: spend all day every day going round every single factory, restaurant, fast food joint, bar, pub, temp agency or whatever, near you, speaking to someone face to face and handing in your CV. Don't be weird or over-talkative, just friendly, polite and succinct. Eventually, somewhere will need a grunt and give you a call. Keep expanding your radius until you get something. The economy may be fucked, but jobs still need doing and companies are still making money. If you can't get a job, you're either using the wrong criteria or the wrong techniques. Examine these and adjust them. If you hear yourself thinking "I can't get a job, it is impossible", then know that you are lying to and oppressing yourself.

2) Explain your very simple plan to your parents (ie getting a job unconnected from them). The worst action they can take is throw you out and make you homeless. If they actually do this, they're the worst parents ever and you'll simply have to refuse to go until it's not disastrous for you. Any negative reaction less than that is something you can simply ignore.

This step is simply to give yourself a strong position from which to conduct rational dialogue with them. If they throw any bullying or bad ideas your way, you can simply say "no, this is what I'm doing, it's not changing, and I'd appreciate your support." This is all you need say to them. Don't let them troll you into pointless arguments, this is where all your energy gets wasted and your nerves get frazzled. Whenever it starts to happen, just walk away. And remember that they're weak humans just like you. They're probably pulling all this shit because they're afraid of losing you, or they don't want you to make the mistakes they made. Or maybe they're just crazy arseholes. Whatever the case, you are an adult and the strong, young lifeblood of the family. Remember that.

3) Once that job happens, stick at it. Keep your head down and be a good little wage-monkey. Mistakes I have made in the past include being too enthusiastic, overly helpful and nakedly ambitious, and thereby pissing off my co-workers and superiors. For the first six months at least, just be a steady, reliable worker.

4) You will now have some independence and a stronger position from which to plan your life.

If you want to keep living with your parents, then you can contribute financially and set some rules about how that arrangement will work, safe in the knowledge that if they take that arsehole step of throwing you out, you can go rent a crappy place to live, and survive. Again, I hope that this is not something they'd do, and instead they will respect you for sorting shit out.

Of course, living with your parents in their house is always going to carry certain irritations with it. Until you're the main earner of the household, or they're old and decrepit enough to entirely rely on you, there's going to be power issues and the risk of infantilisation. This is what you are avoiding by setting some rules to make sure everyone gets along as much as possible, and by simply ignoring any attempts of theirs to control you.

If you want to move out, then try to leave on good terms. But if they bully or hang the threat of not speaking to you ever again or whatever over you, then just ignore it. Be the better person. They'll come round (and, again, if not they're crazy arseholes and you're better off without them).

At the very least, you'll be able to afford regular therapy, which will also help strengthen you. (If you feel it's not helping, or making you worse, get a different therapist, until you find one that works for you.)

You can also now try to plan a career. Looking for interesting jobs is a lot easier when you've got a steady wage. Want to get into, for example, game design? Read articles on how to do that. Dedicate spare time to improving yourself in that direction. Get prepared and confident and well-informed. Chase your dream. But all this starts with baby-steps 1-3.

The bottom line is, Tanu: change things, be strong. If something appears to be an impossible obstacle, take a step back and ask yourself if that's really true.

Again, sorry if this all comes across as horribly patronising or misinformed, but it is mostly based on lessons I learnt myself the hard way, over far too long a time.

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This thread should be renamed "BBX, Life Coach".

Ha ha! Excellent advice there, to be fair. Many of us have been there Speedy, I suspect all of us over 30. I used to despair at just how often I found myself in situations similar to the one that you describe. It's all a learning experience and you're going to look back on this in years to come with a variety of feelings, but hopefully (and most likely) pain won't be one of them.

But for now, I recommend taking BBX's advice. Get away to Uni and jump in with both feet. Get some separation from her (emotionally, not just physically) and have some fun. As BBX says, you're not the only one without a clue. You'll find out soon enough nobody has a bloody clue!

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Whew! All this angst! For those of you who like cars, here are 2 nice ones to look at that I'm considering at the moment:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2844420.htm

and:

http://boardroom.wscc.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=9;t=92076

The first works out at around 205bhp/tonne (current ride is ~157/tonne) and the second works out at around a massive 350bhp/tonne - but is substantially more expensive, 4 hours away and a more complex engine.

Apart from that, have a row with neighbours on the horizon about drive resurfacing costs.

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Why do they care how much it costs you to resurface your driveway?

(I am envious of your being able to consider a new car. I was planning on getting one this year but have had to give up on that because I'm poor now.)

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interesting options...

You already have a normal car? Because you live in the UK... when it either rains, or is foggy. i.e. not a great place for a car within a roof.

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