A… week long meeting? Surely there’s a more productive use of everyone’s time.

Disturbingly similar to my employer.

Nothing to worry about whatsoever. My high school cohort and I ended up all over the world - some in countries with 3 year programmes, others in countries with 4 year programmes, others who dropped out or changed fields and started over.

I promise you that it does not matter. What matters is that you achieve your own goal of getting a bachelor’s, at your pace. :)

This is so relatable that it hurts, actually.

I can read about 80% of the words in this if I’m honest, and had to fill in the rest with a best guess.

I was living pretty much entirely anger-free until 2 things happened:

• I started working at my job, where I was hired for my expertise and yet I am frequently interrupted mid-sentence, disrespected, or told to do things in ways that defy the foundations of my entire discipline (before anyone tells me to quit, I can’t, because of immigration-related reasons)
• One of my friends has fallen down the alt-right/X/Musk fanboyism pipeline and just about everything he rants is uninformed, reactionary, and rage-inducing. He spends too much of his time being angry about problems that don’t exist and spreads that anger everywhere

Saying that, I am autistic and often struggle to distinguish between anger, frustration, feeling hurt, and even sadness. I can isolate depression as a feeling fairly reliably though, because that is more numb and less passionate.

Neck tie, if it were a bit bigger.

You already know this, but I’ll reiterate it in case it helps you get over whatever guilt you might be feeling about it: you can’t. If you have already offered them a non-judgemental space to vent and have expressed that you’re there for them, then you have already done more than any friend should be expected to.

You say “it doesn’t rest in [your] hands alone”; it doesn’t rest in your hands at all! Your desire to save your friend is very admirable but it also sounds like it could be self-sabotaging to some extent.

“Rehab doesn’t work” is a blanket and not entirely true statement. There are a million different pathways to recovery; not every programme works for every person. Maybe try to explain this to them.

Beyond that, the best thing you can do for them right now is to disengage and remain distant. You don’t deserve to have their pains inflicted on you too.

P.S. I am speaking as a recovering addict. One of the things my recovery has taught me is how much of a burden being an addict is to other people. The thought of a relapse hurting my friends disturbs me. Your friend might resent you for turning them away, but when they do start recovery, they will not only understand why; they’ll appreciate it too.

Hard agree.

Reddit has been shadow banning every single account I touch; it’s incredible. I burned through 3 accounts in the past month and got fed up, just haven’t bothered since. I seem to be incapable of not getting shadow banned lol, when at least 30% of the activity on that site is bots arguing amongst themselves and reposts of content that did well. I even tried setting a “snoo” (yuck) and a bio on my last account, but it made no difference.

Yep. Also calling it the“Israel-Hamas war” is propaganda. Makes it sound like the only people dying in Palestine are Hamas soldiers, which is obviously nowhere near the truth.

Centrists are literally just anti-opinion and spineless.

Free Palestine.

Is this article a joke or dead serious?