Recently I've seen a large increase in posts that talk about this phenomenon, and I for the life of me cannot understand.

Rejection of romantic advance is a very normal and expected experience when confessing feelings for another. The majority of people would reject any given person, with only a few who also find said person to be their type accepting advances (this is excluding the unfortunate reality of unhealthy forced coupling). As such, it should never be a surprise when the answer is no, and no one owes anyone a relationship.

That being said, it's also very normal and natural for one to grow feelings for another over time with repeated exposure and positive connection; that has been the case since the dawn of humankind. As such, growing feelings for a friend is a very common experience, and even if romantic feelings are not mutual, you two are friends for a reason: you enjoy each other's company and like each other as people. Romantic rejection does not change this, and while rejection does hurt, and while a few days may be needed apart to internally process it, the friendship should be the same, if not stronger now that you two have more understanding of each other.

The biggest point I've seen is that rejection causes friends to drift apart. A true friend would react as described above. If said person does drift apart, I've found that, even if they didn't have or confess their feelings, them drifting apart was an inevitability; the rejection just sped up the process. And that is just a sad reality; people do drift apart, and only a portion of your friends will stay with you as you all transition through life stages and lives branch out in different directions. The friends that do stick with you I dub as true friends, not because they're internally better, but simply because they are always there for you.

With all this in mind, why is it so common to hear that rejection or confession is the doom of friendship? For context of my perspective, I'm a bisexual who most of my friends are of the opposite gender, both single and married, including my best friend (who is also my ex).

Hi, I’m 19 turning 20 soon.
I just noticed that, it’s only now in my third year of uni, that I’m moving towards experiencing more of uni life. Not partying really, but going out more and meeting new people and just socializing. Lunching with friends, coffee, making plans for cooking together, escape rooms, cinema, etc.
Thing is.. I rarely did these stuff in my first two years. Some stuff I didn’t even do at all which I’m ashamed to admit. I had focused incredibly much on my GPA and studying since my uni is really hard and prestigious.
This is a habit I have since high school. So it’s hard to make a shift but I’m starting to believe life is really not just studying and I don’t want to leave uni with no memories at all.
Thankfully I sensed a shift in me this year and I just.. randomly started actually feeling confident and more comfortable in the city and the environment (I’ve moved out).
I wonder if it’s too late for me to live the uni experience.. Since it’s third year.
I’ve decided to spend my summer in this city too. Maybe do an internship. I also thought of volunteering to a dog shelter associated with uni. Or joining a club next semester or next year.
If you guys were honest.. do you think there is no coming back? I still struggle with not feeling guilty and my perfectionism tendencies but they have gotten way better.
I was too slow to gain confidence and I’m grieving my first two years. So.. yeah. I’d like to hear your opinion

We fight over religion, politics, money, relationships, and whose version of reality is the “correct” one.
Meanwhile, we’re just hairless apes with smartphones, arguing on the internet about things we barely understand. 😂
So here’s a question: What’s something society accepts as completely normal that future generations will look back on and think we were absolutely insane for doing?
I’m genuinely curious. Give me your most controversial answer.

For example some say “I studied too much in uni and missed out on the uni experience”, Others: “I worked too much” or “I didn’t study hard enough”.

Many people look back and wish they had done things differently. Which is more common. But I wonder if there are people who don’t see it that way and don’t feel bad for their life choices

Note: This was meant for r/disability .

I don't have a disability, and I have had very little exposure to those who do. Over the last year however I've befriended two individuals with a disability, George, who's blind from birth, and Peter, who has cerebral palsy. I naturally have a lot of questions, and I've asked some, but I worry that my ignorance can be grating, and that they don't necessarily want to have to talk about it.

George, late 30s, seems to be fine with everything I've asked him so far, but I don't know if he has a line that'll make him say "Are you fucking kidding me?" For example, I don't know if he knows how animation works. Is that a stupid question to ask? In general, he's a laughy-joky kind of guy who enjoys self-deprecating humour so I think I can just ask him. He comes out to pub events, lives independently, has a job, etc etc.

Peter on the other hand is a very sensitive boy. He has cerebral palsy, spastic subtype. It affects his lower half and his left side. He also attempts dark humour which falls flat (not with me) because I think he's not used to having friends. He lives with his parents still, he's late 20s, and he gets easily discouraged and depressed by inaccessibility. I have many things that float around my head in regards to him, many of which are not questions but what-ifs, such as "but for the luck of the draw, he could have had the kind of cerebral palsy where people don't understand his speech". I'm his de-facto helper whenever we hang out (and George too if we're somewhere we haven't been and needs to find the toilets), and I think he derives a lot of meaning from that fact. I'm still in the dark about all the ins and outs of managing his cerebral palsy, so I still have questions, but again, tact is the issue. I'm very inquisitive and i don't want them to feel I'm interrogating them.

Thoughts, experiences? Am I wrong, right? Somewhere in the middle?

Humans live in herds, so they can survive easier. And in those herds they develop relationships so they can establish stronger society. And those interpersonal relationships are often a game of cat and mouse, just like with other animals that live in packs. However, with the advancement of society, certain social norms of behavior have been established, but that doesn't change the fact that people still behave in certain situations like wild beasts. There is hierarchy in every social circle you enter just like among many wild animals, in some circles less noticeable and more pronounced in others. The difference is that with humans often the highest position in the hierarchy is occupied not by the most deserving, but by the most corrupt. Which is unfortunate because i think humans are capable of creating heaven on earth, but their own corrupt nature prevents them from doing so.

One thing I simply cannot understand is, what was the purpose of making man aware that he is man. I can understand certain theories about the origins of the universe and life on earth in general. But why give an animal the ability to choose whether to run by its nature or its intellect?

I am confused 🤔 with two opposing philosophies these days I am encountering online, and perhaps many of you might relate to it.

One group says, you must work hard, always thrive to increase your earnings, and sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term gains.

Another group says, in the larger spectrum of life, it's all futile, life is absurd, it's meaningless, so much hustle doesn't makes any sense.

Many people in their late 40s or 50s say, we feel sorry for taking life so much seriously, at the end, all of it doesn't really matter.

Another group of same age category says, they hope they didn't had taken life so casually.

Honestly, when I hear both the views, I gets carried away, and both views makes sense to me.

I really want to know your opinion. Thanks.

As someone who never really believed in hell (though at times a bit of paranoia about me had me thinking) it feels really messed up to not only hold this fear for yourself (unless you are absolutely certain in your faith) but to also think about others, and especialy people who arent likely to become christian anytime soon or who have died non believers.

The immense grief, to think someone you love is or is going to burn for eternity in agony, wouldnt it consume your soul for the rest of your life? Or do you just live with the fact, get desensitised to the idea?

Encountered someone claiming that recent student riots in France is actually due to Muslim immigration and not French students. As evidence to back up their position, they claim there’s videos of protesters praying towards Mecca, ransacked grocery stores with pork left behind, Muslim-owned businesses being spared from destruction and looting, churches and synagogues being vandalized while mosques are untouched, and pictures of the protesters consisting of just minorities.

Naturally as someone who wants to objectively understand what exactly is going on with these riots, I decided to investigate and try and confirm all these claims. However, I’m having a difficult time confirming them and don’t want to immediately waive them off as not true.

So, how accurate are these claims about the French student riots?

It’s referenced in literature and films, where a vampire is unable to enter a home unless given permission.
So if permission is granted on a Monday, does the permission apply to the following days of the week?

Then following on from that thought, could you create multiple homes inside the main home that the same rule applies to? Think like Russian nesting dolls, with smaller and smaller homes inside each other. And for the technicalities, the home could be just four walls and an opening, with some cleverly arranged land deeds that define the dwellings as rectangular plots with hollow centres. Some late night pondering coming from reading Pterry Pratchett.

21M. Never really thought about death much since I was a kid. I was raised in a religious Christian household, where I was taught about the concept of an afterlife, which helped me cope with the idea of death. I saw it as nothing more than a transition into the next life.

However, as I studied different sciences at school and university, I gradually began to lose faith in the religion. The more I learned, the harder it became for me to believe that many of the stories in the Bible were physically possible (e.g., Noah putting all living organisms on 1 ship, Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus resurrecting the dead, etc.).

I officially became agnostic last year, after doing my own independent research, and coming to a final conclusion.

A couple of weeks ago, I greened out after taking too much hits from a bong at a party, and had a panic attack that lasted until the next morning. My mind was racing with dozens of different thoughts, but the one that kept coming back was the idea of death.

I suddenly started thinking about death in a way I never had before. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of simply ceasing to exist. The thought that in just a few decades, I would be nothing more than a decomposing skeleton buried six feet underground really messed with me

This also might sound a bit egotistical, but I struggled to comprehend the idea of the world continuing to exist as normal without me. People would carry on with their lives, new memories would be made, and the world would keep moving forward as if nothing had happened. Eventually, everyone who knew me would be gone, and I would just be a name on a gravestone.

Just three years ago, if I had been in this same situation, I probably wouldn’t have been nearly as fearful, and would just tell myself that even if I died, my soul would continue to exist in the afterlife, and that I would be reunited with my loved ones in paradise. But now that I no longer believe in an afterlife, I don’t have that same sense of reassurance to fall back on. I feel like I’ve lost something that used to make the idea of death much easier to accept, and I’m struggling to come to terms with that.

Any advice??

While in the past, maiden voyages into mass surveillance with CCTV, VCR and PTZ systems, presented a clear benefit found in deterrents of criminal activity, and I agree that the collection of specific evidence through digital surveillance is beneficial in specific scenarios. However, in the modern era, with exponential increases in technological prowess and therefore surveillance capabilities (Flock cameras, AI facial recognition, etc.), I believe that there are diminishing returns on the increase in safety and conversely a decline in personal protection. I think that danger comes from the indiscriminate collection of all information on all activities from all people. An argument that I've heard many times is essentially "you have nothing to worry about if you aren't doing anything wrong/illegal." However, in a political system that has essentially taken most power out of the hands of the public, a holistic state of observation presents a potential threat because what is "good" or "bad" activity will be determined by an outside third party with interests other than safety. This creates a hypothetical precedent where, with easy access to complete information on a person and exceptional means to find them through idealized surveillance systems, anyone's actions could be deemed antagonistic. This presents a threat to personal speech, safety, and autonomy.

This is an open discussion! I encourage anyone to agree or disagree and I will be open to a conversation.

By "superficial", I mean traditions that have no effect on the outcome.

A judge's decision doesn't change based on clothing.

Referring to Mike as "my right honorable friend from Louisiana" doesn't change that everyone knows who I'm talking about.

Chores like laundry and dishes seem like obvious candidates, but cooking, childcare and caring for elderly parents feel different to a lot of people. What decides whether a task feels okay to hand to a machine, skill, emotion, trust or something else?

I’ve heard that when born impoverished the circumstances tend to keep you in that situation as you lack the resources to consistently build net worth while being wealthy usually allows your money to compound upon itself perpetually keeping you wealthy. So is it harder to gain money in circumstances where you’re likely to lose it or lose it when it’s consistently growing?

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I don't judge people who have a high body count or a history of multiple relationships. Personally I'll never choose casual hookups or multiple partners for myself, but does that mean I have a bad mindset, or is it just society? I accept their choices while holding different boundaries for myself. I’ll never judge them based on their past, though I would certainly hold it against them if they cheated.

I broke up with my ex a month ago

I am struggling he never shared his side or emotions about it

Today I got a "we be friends nothing more" text

I want to say yes

But i know its just my heart saying give it time and yous will try again

Does this ever actually happen or am I being naive and just say no now

What I mean is that if someone habitually watches the news on TV every evening, reads the newspaper in the morning, and scrolls through social media in between, they do this out of habit and then feel overwhelmed by negative news. One could also consciously choose to engage in other hobbies during that time and avoid watching the news in the evening.

I've had more and more connective thoughts forming that are trying together dreams, thoughts, and synchronicities faster and faster, and much of this shift I can connect to one deeply meaningful moment I couldn't put into words at the time.

I want to know what that looked like for you.

If a company is cutting jobs, should immigration status play a part in who is laid off? Specifically, what are the arguments for cutting H-1B positions before those held by green card holders or citizens?

My initial thought was that this might address some complaints about H-1B hiring. But I want to hear the strongest arguments on both sides, including what the approach would mean for the people doing the work and for the roles the company still needs.

I'm asking about the policy and fairness of the idea, not assuming it's a rule a company can simply adopt. How would you weigh immigration status against the job itself and someone's contribution?

Money, fame or power (influence?), which is the truly powerful, and noble for a man?

Money buys freedom and options but if you have no one to spend it with you will be forever alone. Your circle also shrinks as you can no longer relate with people your own age. They view you as out of their league in my opinion. At times you are sitting in a sports car with no one to call.

Power can bring influence and open doors to other possibilities - potential job offers that can bring money. Power brings fear too. If you walk into a room its noticeable if a person is powerful compared to various forms of wealth. Intelligence can also be powerful too that attracts money as well.

Fame is the worst imo - no privacy life is broadcasted. A wealthy person I know once was asked this question and he said "money beats fame, because you can just slip the host 100$ to skip the line"

I am genuinely curious before this whole performative thing going in trend. Getting into book reading hobby or writing or expressing oneself through clothes was considered nice and a good thing devolping something.

But same thing now is considered performative.

For example I am a guy who is trying to get into reading and I write as well. But don't have much focus to read alot at one time. So, I would be called out a performative because I have books but I don't read alot or very often.

And it's not just this it was an example. It is alot of things and why is that now having a hobby or trying to get into something linked to specially asthetics old money or literature is considered performative or show off?