In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Peace be to you all.

Introduction:

In this post, I will be answering and refuting the individual who keeps writing posts about me and comments every second he gets trying to "refute" me and "expose" me. I am only doing this because some brothers and sisters have allowed themselves to be fooled by this dude.
I won't resort to personal attacks and baseless claims (much like he does), and I will jump straight ahead to answering his objections.

Response to the introduction:

He begins by discussing my translation of the word "ישוחח," which I interpret as "argue" or "put forth."
Firstly, in Biblical Hebrew, verb forms such as Qal and Piel (often referred to as Polel in some grammatical traditions) are distinguished by their specific diacritic markings (i.e., vowel points and consonantal diacritics). Since I believe that the Masoretes distorted the Old Testament by adding these diacritics to reach a deviant interpretation, I do not consider them at all. I read the Old Testament without any diacritics. This is something he has yet to understand, perhaps because he believes that the Old Testament was revealed with diacritic markings—I don't know.
He later argues that the ancient Christian manuscripts (such as the Codex Sinaiticus, Septuagint, etc.) must agree with my claims and not with the Masoretic renderings of the Hebrew text, a conclusion he bases on thin air. I ask: Why is that so? Can you give us one good reason for this conclusion? You can't! He says this only because he considers these Christian manuscripts as divinely revealed criteria and translations. In contrast, I (and many others) see them as ancient interpretations of the original Hebrew text, which are very erroneous. This is especially true considering that rabbis themselves claim these scholars and translators failed to understand every Hebrew idiom in the book. They took everything literally and thus deviated from the intended meaning throughout their translations. These are the translations he claims must agree with my understanding.
The Masoretes could even have been influenced by Christians and their manuscripts, leading them to render some verses erroneously, whether knowingly or unknowingly—we can't be certain. However, I believe it wasn't unknowingly, and I have very good reasons for holding this opinion.
His arguments in his objections are all flawed and fallacious.

The Original sin being denied in the OT:

Now, the word he is fixated on is "ישוחח." As he mentioned, I used a classical Hebrew dictionary to translate the word. I don't remember the exact dictionary I used, but here is a random one I will use today:

Root: שִׂיחַ (v)
1 - to put forth, mediate, muse, commune, speak, complain, ponder, sing
1 -(Qal)
1 - to complain
2 - to muse, meditate upon, study, ponder
3 - to talk, sing, speak
2 - (Polel) to meditate, consider, put forth thoughts

Source: מקור: Open Scriptures on GitHub, Creator: יוצר: Based on the work of Larry Pierce at the Online Bible
In other words, both Qal and Polel essentially mean the same thing.
This following excerpt is from my original post about this, the post he is "refuting":
Excerpt from the post in question:
_______________________
Isaiah 53:8, traditional translation:
"From imprisonment and from judgment he is taken, and his generation who shall tell? For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, a plague befell them."
The original verse (without diacritics):
מעצר וממשפט לקח ואת־דורו מי ישוחח כי נגזר מארץ חיים מפשע עמי נגע למו:
My translation:
"He was taken from arrest and trial, and as for his generation, who will argue that he was cut off from the land of the living [i.e. killed] for the sin of my people, a plague befell them."
_______________________
In this verse, God is explicitly denying the doctrine of the Original Sin, stating that those who argue, speak, put forth, or ponder that Jesus was killed for the sins of His (God's) people are cursed (or afflicted by a plague).
It is crystal clear! He is just in denial because it contradicts his Pauline doctrine. Thus, he has fixated on this specific word, insisting it is (without a shadow of a doubt) in the Polel form (because his Pauline forefathers said so), and claims that Exion has made a grave error. Incredible, indeed. What a rebuttal!
Let's see if the Polel form does anything to save him:
1. Meditate:

"He was taken from arrest and trial, and as for his generation, who will meditate that he was cut off from the land of the living [i.e. killed] for the sin of my people, a plague befell them."

The definition of "Meditate" is:

1. To plan mentally; consider,
   
2. To focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation.
   

I know it isn't the latter, because that is just ludicrous and silly. But guess what? They even tried to claim it is the latter, which is beyond amusing to me and any other sane person reading this.
2. Consider:

"He was taken from arrest and trial, and as for his generation, who will consider that he was cut off from the land of the living [i.e. killed] for the sin of my people, a plague befell them."

It still obliterates the doctrine of the Original sin completely.
3. Put forth thoughts:

"He was taken from arrest and trial, and as for his generation, who will put forth thoughts that he was cut off from the land of the living [i.e. killed] for the sin of my people, a plague befell them."

It still obliterates the doctrine of the Original sin completely.
This is what I have to deal with. He is correcting my interpretation by yet again confirming it and he doesn't even realize it. He refuses to accept that the Old Testament completely refutes this absurd Pauline doctrine that God sent His "son" to the earth to kill him and forgive mankind. He can't understand that the Old Testament aligns with the Quran, calling them cursed. I have explained this to him several times, but to no avail. According to him, the early Christians "meditated" about Jesus' "abode." He raises the same objection in every comment he makes on every future post I do, as if I haven't just refuted him using the Bible, dictionaries, and other sources. In one ear and out the other. The only reason I'm even writing this response is to make you guys realize how unknowledgeable this man really is about the Bible and the Hebrew language. But he is good at making it look like he knows a thing or two by using fancy words and elaborations that make no sense at all.
I believe (if I remember correctly) that he translates it as:

"By oppressive judgment he was taken away, Who could describe his abode?..."

This unusual rendering is achieved by mistranslating a word, done specifically to alter the actual meaning. Some Jewish translators render it the same way, but they at least have the decency to add a footnote saying:

"\Who could describe his abode?* Meaning of Heb. uncertain." (source: Sefaria.org)

As they usually do when they mistranslate stuff.
Who would describe Jesus abode? What?! With all due respect, but that makes no sense at all! It makes no sense contextually nor logically.
This is how another Jewish translation has it:

"From imprisonment and from judgment he is taken, and his generation who shall tell? For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, a plague befell them."

Does this look like a coherent sentence to you? Jesus is taken from imprisonment and judgement, and his generation who shall tell? Tell what? This is an incomplete sentence - just to change the actual intended message.
The original phrase is: "ואת־דורו מי ישוחח"
Let me break it down for you:

Word: ואת = "And his"
Word: ־דורו = "Generation"
Word: מי = "Who will"
Word: ישוחח = "Argue/Put forth/Talk/consideetc"

Crystal clear phrase. Even Google translates it accurately (which is very rare by the way):

"And his generation who will talk"

Take a look at some of the English translations of his Christian forefathers:
New Living Translation Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants...
New International Version By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested?...
King James Bible He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation?...
Some others got the first part accurate but still misinterpreted the last part of the verse, as it claims that they are cursed. God forbid, they are the ones who are cursed, for they consider Jesus to be the cursed one:
English Standard Version By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
They applied the "curse/plague" to Jesus (which they translate as "stricken," even though Biblically it is generally understood to be a plague/curse) instead of applying it to those "who considered" (i.e., the Pauline Christians). The Hebrew verse uses a plural word, indicating that it was intended for those people who would put forth this claim. They all refuse to accept the fact that God is explicitly and literally stating that they are affected by a plague for their erroneous claim about Jesus.
Let's quickly refute them too:

• The word for "plague" is "נגע" (nega).
• The word for "to them" is "למו" (lamo).

"Plague" (נגע):

Hebrew classical dictionary:

Heb: נֶגַע (n-m)
1 - stroke, plague, disease, mark, plague spot
stroke, wound
stroke (metaphorical of disease)
mark (of leprosy)

Source: מקור: Open Scriptures on GitHub, Creator: יוצר: Based on the work of Larry Pierce at the Online Bible

"To them" (לָֽמוֹ):

Hebrew classical dictionary:

1 - inflected pers. pron. meaning ‘to them’ (poetically).
2 - [Formed from לְ◌ with ◌מוֹ, a suff. used only in poetry.]

Source: מקור: Klein Dictionary, Creator: יוצר: Ezra Klein
A plague to whom? TO THEM! To the people who put forth this Pauline doctrine, the ones who argued, said, or considered this absurdity. Absolutely not to the one they believed to be cut off for the sin of God's people, namely Jesus, God's prophet, Messiah, His Word, and a spirit from Him.
But this is not surprising to anyone; it is expected, because their savior Paul also considered the blessed Messiah Jesus to be a curse:

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'" (Galatians 3:13)

It bothers them that God Himself is confirming that they are the cursed ones, and He does it in the book they believe in. I am the one who exposed it, and all praise is due to God alone. It bothers this guy who is "eXpOsInG" me, and I won't mention his name because that is most likely what he wants.
He goes on to say that I quoted from a fictitious source, which is not true at all. I simply didn’t bother looking through my entire library to find a quote I mistakenly mis-referenced, mainly because the quote turned out to be quite irrelevant, and I don’t waste my time like that. Much of what he initiated his "rebuttal" with is equally misunderstood by him, and I have responded to each and every objection in my older posts (in the comment sections where he was "eXpOsInG" me). I picked the first thing and refuted it here for you just to show how ignorant he really is and how he is either living a lie or lying to others.
So, I will not bother to refute every single point of the old stuff that I’ve already conclusively answered. It's a waste of time. Let’s move on to his objections to my latest posts, because that is what this is all about in reality.

My answers to his objections to my latest posts:

Regarding the stone God mentions that was to be placed in the Temple of God, he says that it is saying

"Stone to a stone," or "upon a stone"

My answer:
"Stone to a stone" is not a Hebrew idiom, and neither is the word "upon" there in Hebrew. He doesn't know Hebrew, had he known Hebrew, he would never have "eXpOsEd" this because it just went to show that he doesn't know the language at all.
The Hebrew word "שום" (shum) in this context is derived from the root ש-ו-ם, which means "to place" or "to put." It appears here as an infinitive construct, which is often used to convey the act of doing something, similar to the English "-ing" form. In this sentence, "שום" is functioning as a gerund, which is a verbal noun. It translates to "placing" or "putting" in English. Therefore, "שום־אבן" means "placing a stone" or "putting a stone."
As for the next word, i.e. "stone" (אבן), in Hebrew, nouns have gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural). "אבן" is a feminine singular noun. When used in the phrase "שום־אבן" (placing a stone), "אבן" functions as the direct object of the action described by the infinitive construct "שום" (placing).
The next word is אל: This is taken as a preposition according to them, and it generally means "to" or "toward," and never "upon." It is used to indicate direction or movement towards something. While the following word is, again, a stone "אבן."
So if we're going with their interpretation, while being literal, as we should because it is not an idiom, it accurately translates to:
"Before placing a stone to a stone" or "before placing stone to stone"
Which makes very little sense, if any. Why wouldn't God say "Before placing stone upon stone" or "Stones upon stones" or "before placing a stone upon a stone"? Why did He use a singular word for "stone"? Because it is speaking about a one stone, the stone that God placed in Zion:

"So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic." (Isaiah 28:16)

I have proven in countless posts that Zion is the ancient name for Mecca. Just look up Psalm 84, and you will see how it mentions doing the pilgrimage in Zion and also mentions "Bacca," another name for Mecca. I have proven how Harran is located in Mecca and that the oak of Bacca is located there as well, and we know according to Psalm 84 that Zion is located where Bacca is located. With this in mind, it’s easy to see what has been done to cover up this prophecy. They have misinterpreted the word "El" as "Upon" instead of "God." The definition of that word is not "Upon"; it means "To/toward" or "God."
Classical Hebrew dictionary:

Heb: אֵל (n-m)
god, god-like one, mighty one
mighty men, men of rank, mighty heroes
angels
god, false god, (demons, imaginations)
God, the one true God, Jehovah
mighty things in nature
strength, power

Source: מקור: Open Scriptures on GitHub, creator: יוצר: Based on the work of Larry Pierce at the Online Bible
And:

Heb: אֶל (prep.)
denoting motion toward or to, or direction toward, and meaning ‘to, unto, toward, into, at, by’.
[Shortened from אֱלֵי (which is preserved in poetry). cp. עֲלֵי, poetical form of עַל (= on), and עֲדֵי, poetical form of עַד (= as far as, until). Related to Arab. ’ilā (= to, toward, up to).]

Source: מקור: Klein Dictionary, Creator: יוצר: Ezra Klein
Let's see if any of these help him:

Before placing a stone to a stone?
Before placing a stone towards a stone?
Before placing a stone into a stone?
Before placing a stone unto a stone? (archaic term for "to")
Before placing a stone at a stone?
Before placing a stone by a stone?

Does any of this make any sense to you? I believe it certainly does not. Yet they have all chosen to ignore these valid definitions and instead opt for a definition that isn't there, namely: "a stone UPON a stone," just to claim that God was idiomatically saying "Before you build the temple." The temple was already built, as I will prove later below.
To get a more coherent translation, one that makes sense both contextually and linguistically, we need to consider "El" as "God":

ועתה - "And now"
שימו־נא - "consider, please"
לבבכם - "your heart"
מן־היום - "from this day"
הזה - "this"
ומעלה - "and onward"
מטרם - "before"
שום־אבן - "placing a stone"
אל־אבן - "God's stone/stone of God"
בהיכל - "in the Temple"
יהוה - "of YHWH" (YHWH)

Here, "אל־אבן" would translate to "God's stone" or "stone of God." Thus, the phrase "מטרם שום־אבן אל־אבן בהיכל יהוה" would be understood as "before placing a stone as God's stone in the temple of YHWH" or "before placing a stone, God's stone, in the temple of YHWH"
He is just in denial here as well. It is quite obvious that God is talking about placing a stone in the Temple of God, not about placing a stone towards a stone (whatever that means). Biblically, it is known that Jacob placed a stone in the House of God in Harran, which I have also proven to be located in the vicinity of Mecca, using 1st-century CE atlases by giants in geography such as Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and others.
He writes:

"More importantly, Exion ignored that “stone” in the Hebrew occurs twice. If we take אל to be God and take it as the construct state (the ‘s) then it would be “before setting stone’s God’s stone”. That doesn’t make sense hence why Exion dropped the first occurrence of אֶ֛בֶן in their translation."

Or you could simply not take "El" as a construct state. In Hebrew, a noun followed by another noun can indicate possession without needing a construct state (i.e. the equivalent of adding 's in English). This is often called "smikhut" or construct form, but it is not always necessary to explicitly form it.
In the phrase "שום־אבן אל־אבן" (placing a stone as God's stone), the context and the nouns' arrangement provide the possessive meaning without requiring additional grammatical changes. "אל־אבן" can be understood as "God's stone" even though it is not in the formal construct state. This is something he doesn't know because, well, who knows why. I have my speculations, but I will refrain from personal attacks.
He says:

"It makes perfect sense with the rest of the verse “in the temple of Yahweh.” It’s talking about before the building of the temple which involved setting stone upon stone."

Oh really? Is that why the 3rd verse literally talks about the Temple that already was in existence but was viewed as nothing in their eyes (i.e. insignificant):

"Who among you is left, who saw this house in its former glory? And as you see it now, is it not as nothing in your eyes?" (Haggai 2:3)

Explicitly contradicting your claim that it doesn't exist, but you didn't know that because you have probably never even read the entirety of the chapter to begin with. The Temple was already there. A stone was to be placed in it, God's stone, the black stone of the House of God, and not that it was to be built or built anew. This is why I even wrote the article, because the temple of God was already in existence. How you could have missed this, if you've read the chapter in it entirety, is very baffling to me.
This is why Jacob, upon waking from his prophetic dream, never built the House of God. (Yes, Jacob was a prophet, but Christian scholars throughout history didn't recognize this and thought he was merely a patriarch.) Instead, he only placed a stone as its cornerstone and named it "The House of God":

16. When Jacob woke up, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was unaware of it.” 17. And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven!” 18. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone that he had placed under his head, and he set it up as a pillar. He poured oil on top of it."

Going back to Haggai 2, the 6th verse states:

"כי כה אמר יהוה צבאות עוד אחת מעט היא ואני מרעיש את־השמים ואת־הארץ ואת־הים ואת־החרבה:"

Which literally translates to:

"For thus says the Lord of Hosts: Once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land."

Which they have erroneously translated as:

"For so said the Lord of Hosts: [There will rise] another one, and I will shake up the heaven and the earth and the sea and the dry land [for] a little while." (source)

Lying and adding words to the Word of God to make it look like another House would be raised.
7th verse states:
Haggai 2:7

"והרעשתי את־כל־הגוים ובאו חמדת כל־הגוים ומלאתי את־הבית הזה כבוד אמר יהוה צבאות:"

Transliteration:

"Ve-hir'ashti et kol ha-goyim u-va'u chemdat kol ha-goyim u-milati et ha-bayit ha-zeh kavod amar Adonai Tzva'ot."

Not only does it confirm that the House is already in existence, but it mentioned our prophet Ahmad coming to it by using the cognate of his name, "Chemdat," which they erroneously have translated as:

"and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple."

The preposition "the" is not there before "Chemdat," while it is before "Goyim" (heathens), which makes sense because "Chemdat of all the heathens (will come)" and doesn't translate to "The treasure of all the heathens (will come)," as they have it.
Let me break it down for you:

והרעשתִי (ve-hir'ashti) - "and I will shake"
את (et) - [direct object marker, not translated]
כל (kol) - "all"
הגוים (ha-goyim) - "the heathens"
ובאו (u-va'u) - "and they will come"
חמדת (Chemdat) - "Chemdat" (proper noun)
כל (kol) - "of all"
הגוים (ha-goyim) - "the heathens"
ומלאתי (u-milati) - "and I will fill"
את (et) - [direct object marker, not translated]
הבית (ha-bayit) - "the house"
הזה (ha-zeh) - "this"
כבוד (kavod) - "glory"
אמר (amar) - "says"
יהוה (Adonai) - "Lord"
צבאות (Tzva'ot) - "of Hosts"

Result:

"And I will shake all the heathens, and they will come, Chemdat of all the heathens, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts."

Explanation:

They have translated it as "the treasures of..." while the phrase "Chemdat" lacks a "The" (Ha), so it would more accurately be rendered as:

"And they will come, treasure of all the heathens, and..."

A very awkward sentence grammatically. And the dictionaries do not define חמדת (Chemdat) as "Treasure," but rather as "Desire" or "Precious." But translating this phrase in this way (if we consider it to mean "desire" or "precious"), we would make the verse even more awkward:

"And they will come, desire of all the heathens" or "And they will come, precious of all the heathens."

Because it is a singular phrase, and not plural, and as I mentioned earlier, lacks a definite preposition.
But if we consider "Chemdat" as a cognate of "Ahmad," as a proper noun referring to Ahmad the prophet (the only heathen prophet known today), it suddenly becomes a very coherent verse that makes much sense. The heathens will be shaken, and they will come. Then, He specifies by saying: Chemdat of all the heathens, and continues with the rest of the verse.
The phrase "הגוים" (ha-goyim) translates as "the heathens," which supports the interpretation that "Chemdat" is a proper noun referring to a significant heathen person anticipated to come. God is going to shake all the heathens, and they will come. Then He specifies who would come: "Chemdat of all the heathens (will come)." He then says He will fill this house, which they saw as nothing, with glory. The house already exists; Chemdat of all nations was just about to come, and God would fill this house with glory again. And, of course, the stone Jacob laid in Genesis 28—the same stone that Jesus referred to in Matthew 21:

1. Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes?'

43. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit."

The Kingdom of God was intended to be taken away from the Christians and given to a people who would produce its fruits, and this is what happened when Islam came.
Going back to Haggai 2, the 18th verse also confirms that the Temple already was there:

"Consider, please, your heart from this day and onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the temple of the Lord was founded, consider your heart."

Just because God considers the two Houses (the current one they saw as insignificant and the later one) as "different" does not mean that it does not already exist physically but will be a different House.
Nevertheless, he is right about one thing regarding this chapter: it does not mention the new moon to new moon and the end of the Sabbath—that was in Isaiah 66. My mistake. But the prophecy is still valid. The new moon to new moon would come, and yes, the second phrase can be interpreted as an end (if we interpret "Shabbat" as "End"), but it is Biblically and generally interpreted as "Sabbath." A literal translation of the phrase in the 23rd verse would be:

שבת (shabbat) - "Sabbath"
בשבתו (be-shabbato) - "His Sabbath"
יבוא (yavo) - "it will come"

Let's agree that it means what the traditional translations say it means, and I don't mean hypothetically, but let's actually agree on that. However, the prophecy about the new moons (Ramadan) is still there and valid because God has not canceled the Sabbath in the Quran; it is still ongoing:
The Quran states in 2:40-42:

Verse 40: "O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and fulfill My covenant [upon you] that I will fulfill your covenant [from Me], and fear Me."
Verse 41: "And believe in what I have sent down confirming that which is [already] with you, and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And do not exchange My signs/verses for a small price, and fear Me."
Verse 42: "And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know [it]."

The new moon to a new moon is combined with the Sabbath to Sabbath. This is a fulfilled prophecy!
I don't see easter, halloween or Christmas being mentioned here. It's Ramadan and the Sabbath, the two Covenants God has given to his worshipers, the Covenant of the Children of Israel and the Covenant of Peace, unlike the Pauline Christians who literally took all of their holidays from pagan idolaters, which I won't go into because it's not very relevant to our discussion anyways.
This marks the end of my rebuttal to his "part 1."
Thank you for reading,
/Your bro Exion.

I can’t believe I am even asking this and am really looking for outside opinions on the situation. I am considering not tipping my movers because of large mishaps, but moving is such strenuous labor that it feels wrong to not tip at all. Time & cost breakdown at the end.
Hired movers through an app in a big American city this week for a 1bd apt move that occurred today. Quoted $400 for 2 men & a van.
They arrived an hour late and couldn’t start moving for another 30 because after taking a video of the move the app said it will have to be a higher rate. I apologized and said of course I accept the higher rate. New price ended up being $450 but I didn’t learn that until after the move ended.
After a bit they said van’s full and this will be a 2 trip move. (Also is 2 trips common or AITA for that alone?) I moved 2.8 miles away, 20 min with traffic and 10 min w/o. It took them an hour to get to my new apt because they said the app gave them the completely wrong address? I was tweaking. they came eventually & the next trip they were timely drivers.
So those are the big mishaps, ended up adding 2.5 hours to the total move time. there are many more details (probably on both ends tbf!) just ask if it matters in your verdicts. facts only below:
4 hours active moving $450 total - $200 base - $50 insurance protection - $200 in other fees I think? Mover told me in the end he only got $250 from the move
WIBTA for not tipping? If I should tip, how much? (Instant disclaimer that the tip would be predatory app fee-free)

i know by the title you'll say "automatic asshole" but wait listen to my story first. ok so boom, i Amarya or Amri (F15) have a best friend Kameela or Kami. the other day during around i think like 3rd period and my bff's cousin is known for getting expelled for bullying n fighting n all that. She was introduced as a new students and the popular kids invited her in into their circle cuz yk, she was popular and all that, but during lunch me and kami let her sit down and with us since the popular kids decided to skip school the rest of that day. when we were eating lunch and talking. i meantioned my boyfriend named Dontrell my bffs cousin Amari who lets Kami call her Ari told me and i quote "bitch shut your stank ass up" and i looked at that bum like why tf is she saying that to me and i responded with "idk who stank ass you're talking about but definitely not mine sweetheart. are you jealous i got a man or smth ??" and i guess that fumed the alphas in her or some type of shit because then she started yelling at me and i told her "calm tf down" and after that she was a living nightmare. now i know bullies only bully others because their insecure but where i grew up don't mess with me or my family cuz then its gonna be a issue. now 2 days ago i was in the bathroom fixing up my edges and i felt a hand on my shoulder thinking it was kami so i said "what's up kami ?" and i heard a gremlin like deep ass voice that belonged to Amari "leave Dontrell tf alone before i handle you" like this is a MSA story. and i tell her "Leave my boyfriend alone ? hell no." and amari told me "You mean MY boyfriend ?" now i promise y'all im in a small town not the hood.. and i looked at her and told her "listen don't be delusional because he's my man and my man only. i know he's hot but stop acting like we're in some type of MSA story and leave me and him tf alone you understand, you might be kami's cousin but it doesn't mean i won't beat you're ass right here right now so leave me tf alone." and she punched me so obviously i got my get back and beat her tf up, a random girl found us fighting and reported us to the dean. i'm on suspension but my parents are on my side overall so i still have my phone and kami called me earlier about how her family is split between amari's side and my side and now i feel bad for beating amari up since well kami's family is split up between her and mines drama and now im debating if i go to apologize her or keep up my pride. so tell me AITA ??

Okay, y'all. My friend has been heartbroken by a guy and she doesn't know if this guy cares about her. Dear woman wants me to write this post for her instead as she is I hereby quote, "Too lazy to do anything." I'm just posting this on behalf of her. Thank you in advance.
From her point of view:
Basically, I was introduced to this guy by my closest childhood friend. We've started talking for some time and at the start, everything seemed to go swimmingly well. Conversations flowed smoothly and it was dreamlike. There seemed to be some tension there: Staring into each other eyes, the whole world got quiet, etc. The friendship was initiated by the guy and he started texting me a lot and he would call me for hours on end. After only around a week of knowing me, he started pestering me for my phone number and he was extremely persistent. I ended up giving it to him. He started texting me every single day, morning till night, no matter whether if I replied or not. He would send me updates about his life like his outfit, etc. He decided to introduce me to his close friend and that went...well. In short, it was a call with his friends and the girl, who seemed obsessed with the guy as he kept putting me down and comparing herself to me in terms of closeness to the said guy.
He started asking about me at school, like he would ask my childhood best friend about how I was, if I was okay, how I was and all those sorts of stuff. Allegedly, my childhood best friend, let's call him M, always sounded really enthusiastic when he was talking about me. "His voice softens." He initiated everything, as I was not really interested. He would always beg me to call and I ended up giving in. We started having all these late night conversations about any topic that we were into. During these calls, he would always be a little flirtatious. He would always look at me really intimately, as if I was his world. He would say things like, "I like to see your face, stop hiding your beauty." "Oh my gosh, I love talking to you. You're so enchanting." He would always be flirting about how he would be a great boyfriend and constantly asked what my type of guys was. He even had the audacity to question why I was not into him. He did many other things to seem like he genuinely cared for me. For example, he had several lessons in a day. Yes, he's a rather busy lad. However, he would always make time for me and to reply to me, even if it was a text to inform me that he was busy and not purposely ignoring me. He knew that I had trust issues, so he would even send a picture that he was busy to prove that he wasn't purposely avoiding me. Every single time he and I were online on Whatsapp, he would always text me to ensure me that he wasn't ignoring me. Lastly, he is an extremely religious guy, and he never listened to music because of that. However, ever since he met me, he started to listen to the music that I liked and replied to it in detail. He never liked texting, but he would talk to me on Whatsapp all of the time. This is extremely untypical of him, as he is an unemotional guy. In addition to that, the effort put into that should mean something?
The guy kept trying to meet me in person. Since I have extreme trust issues, I didn't want to do that. He was a guy that I met online, and I had let's just say, unpleasant experiences with guys. This was after six months of knowing me. I told him to leave and that he was creep and a pervert due to my personal defense mechanism. He then left me alone and didn't talk to me for a full day. We then talked about it and I told him that I didn't want to talk about why as it was really personal to me. He said that it was fine and I could just tell him when I felt like it.
We were fine after this for another 7 - 8 months. He just really wanted to know and that he wanted me to be honest with him. I kept yelling at him and starting unnecessary fights due to that. Childish, I know. I regret that now, but that's just what I felt and acted upon at that point of time. After all of that, he left and refused to talk to me forever.
I tried to explain to him but he just pushed me away and said that it was fine. I know, I got a taste of my own medicine. He seemed really hurt about the fact that I called him a creep and a pervert and I kept saying that I cared about him when I wasn't willing to be honest with him about why I said those hurtful words in the first place. I tried everything from calling him, to sending him texts, whether it was messages to check up on him or paragraphs explaining and apologising for treating him like garbage.
I was about to leave him and the situation alone when he started picking up my calls. He would pick them up and he would say nothing and just leave the call running. I don't know why he did that, and that confuses me thoroughly.
I regret everything. I realized that I love him deeply. What should I do? He blocked me everywhere and he won't pick up my phone. I'm thinking about showing up at his house. The whole point is not to get him back, but to explain myself. To truly apologise for hurting him. I want to know how he truly feels. Whether he loved me before, still loves me or if it was a whole joke. I sincerely regret my actions, and I want to make up for them. The what if's are burning freshly into my wounds, and I would really appreciate to know the answers.
I know that I sound absolutely horrible and maybe deranged after that paragraph. However, I would really value the opinions of the public. Maybe y'all could help me out? Thank you for your time. Have a great year ahead.
PS. Btw, I apologize for that long winding paragraph and I appreciate y'all for putting away some precious time from your day to read and perhaps, respond to it. Every response is valued, and I really appreciate them.

How do you feel about these quotes, such as "be the friend you want to have"? Because I'm conflicted and feel that it has never worked for me.
When someone I follow posts on social media that they're having a hard time, I always reach out. Even if we haven't spoken in a long time. I just wanna make sure they're ok and have someone to vent to. Because I know how much loneliness sucks.
When my friend was going through a breakup, I brought them flowers. When my friends have birthdays, I make them homemade cards. Even at work, I'm always asking people how they're doing .
But I never get that kindness in return (other than from my mom). No one calls me to check on how I'm doing. I'm really struggling mentally and have never been lonelier in my life. But I try to put a smile on in public and am kind and caring to the friends I do have.
But lately I find that I spend every weekend alone...and I just wish I had a friend, who cared, the same way I care. Some of the meanest people I've met, seem to have the most friends. And I just don't get what I'm doing wrong.

Okay, y'all. My friend has been heartbroken by a guy and she doesn't know if this guy cares about her. Dear woman wants me to write this post for her instead as she is I hereby quote, "Too lazy to do anything." I'm just posting this on behalf of her. Thank you in advance.
From her point of view:
Basically, I was introduced to this guy by my closest childhood friend. We've started talking for some time and at the start, everything seemed to go swimmingly well. Conversations flowed smoothly and it was dreamlike. There seemed to be some tension there: Staring into each other eyes, the whole world got quiet, etc. The friendship was initiated by the guy and he started texting me a lot and he would call me for hours on end. After only around a week of knowing me, he started pestering me for my phone number and he was extremely persistent. I ended up giving it to him. He started texting me every single day, morning till night, no matter whether if I replied or not. He would send me updates about his life like his outfit, etc. He decided to introduce me to his close friend and that went...well. In short, it was a call with his friends and the girl, who seemed obsessed with the guy as he kept putting me down and comparing herself to me in terms of closeness to the said guy.
He started asking about me at school, like he would ask my childhood best friend about how I was, if I was okay, how I was and all those sorts of stuff. Allegedly, my childhood best friend, let's call him M, always sounded really enthusiastic when he was talking about me. "His voice softens." He initiated everything, as I was not really interested. He would always beg me to call and I ended up giving in. We started having all these late night conversations about any topic that we were into. During these calls, he would always be a little flirtatious. He would always look at me really intimately, as if I was his world. He would say things like, "I like to see your face, stop hiding your beauty." "Oh my gosh, I love talking to you. You're so enchanting." He would always be flirting about how he would be a great boyfriend and constantly asked what my type of guys was. He even had the audacity to question why I was not into him. He did many other things to seem like he genuinely cared for me. For example, he had several lessons in a day. Yes, he's a rather busy lad. However, he would always make time for me and to reply to me, even if it was a text to inform me that he was busy and not purposely ignoring me. He knew that I had trust issues, so he would even send a picture that he was busy to prove that he wasn't purposely avoiding me. Every single time he and I were online on Whatsapp, he would always text me to ensure me that he wasn't ignoring me. Lastly, he is an extremely religious guy, and he never listened to music because of that. However, ever since he met me, he started to listen to the music that I liked and replied to it in detail. He never liked texting, but he would talk to me on Whatsapp all of the time. This is extremely untypical of him, as he is an unemotional guy. In addition to that, the effort put into that should mean something?
The guy kept trying to meet me in person. Since I have extreme trust issues, I didn't want to do that. He was a guy that I met online, and I had let's just say, unpleasant experiences with guys. This was after six months of knowing me. I told him to leave and that he was creep and a pervert due to my personal defense mechanism. He then left me alone and didn't talk to me for a full day. We then talked about it and I told him that I didn't want to talk about why as it was really personal to me. He said that it was fine and I could just tell him when I felt like it.
We were fine after this for another 7 - 8 months. He just really wanted to know and that he wanted me to be honest with him. I kept yelling at him and starting unnecessary fights due to that. Childish, I know. I regret that now, but that's just what I felt and acted upon at that point of time. After all of that, he left and refused to talk to me forever.
I tried to explain to him but he just pushed me away and said that it was fine. I know, I got a taste of my own medicine. He seemed really hurt about the fact that I called him a creep and a pervert and I kept saying that I cared about him when I wasn't willing to be honest with him about why I said those hurtful words in the first place. I tried everything from calling him, to sending him texts, whether it was messages to check up on him or paragraphs explaining and apologising for treating him like garbage.
I was about to leave him and the situation alone when he started picking up my calls. He would pick them up and he would say nothing and just leave the call running. I don't know why he did that, and that confuses me thoroughly.
I regret everything. I realized that I love him deeply. What should I do? He blocked me everywhere and he won't pick up my phone. I'm thinking about showing up at his house. The whole point is not to get him back, but to explain myself. To truly apologise for hurting him. I want to know how he truly feels. Whether he loved me before, still loves me or if it was a whole joke. I sincerely regret my actions, and I want to make up for them. The what if's are burning freshly into my wounds, and I would really appreciate to know the answers.
I know that I sound absolutely horrible and maybe deranged after that paragraph. However, I would really value the opinions of the public. Maybe y'all could help me out? Thank you for your time. Have a great year ahead.
PS. Btw, I apologize for that long winding paragraph and I appreciate y'all for putting away some precious time from your day to read and perhaps, respond to it. Every response is valued, and I really appreciate them.

Okay, y'all. My friend has been heartbroken by a guy and she doesn't know if this guy cares about her. Dear woman wants me to write this post for her instead as she is I hereby quote, "Too lazy to do anything." I'm just posting this on behalf of her. Thank you in advance.
From her point of view:
Basically, I was introduced to this guy by my closest childhood friend. We've started talking for some time and at the start, everything seemed to go swimmingly well. Conversations flowed smoothly and it was dreamlike. There seemed to be some tension there: Staring into each other eyes, the whole world got quiet, etc. The friendship was initiated by the guy and he started texting me a lot and he would call me for hours on end. After only around a week of knowing me, he started pestering me for my phone number and he was extremely persistent. I ended up giving it to him. He started texting me every single day, morning till night, no matter whether if I replied or not. He would send me updates about his life like his outfit, etc. He decided to introduce me to his close friend and that went...well. In short, it was a call with his friends and the girl, who seemed obsessed with the guy as he kept putting me down and comparing herself to me in terms of closeness to the said guy.
He started asking about me at school, like he would ask my childhood best friend about how I was, if I was okay, how I was and all those sorts of stuff. Allegedly, my childhood best friend, let's call him M, always sounded really enthusiastic when he was talking about me. "His voice softens." He initiated everything, as I was not really interested. He would always beg me to call and I ended up giving in. We started having all these late night conversations about any topic that we were into. During these calls, he would always be a little flirtatious. He would always look at me really intimately, as if I was his world. He would say things like, "I like to see your face, stop hiding your beauty." "Oh my gosh, I love talking to you. You're so enchanting." He would always be flirting about how he would be a great boyfriend and constantly asked what my type of guys was. He even had the audacity to question why I was not into him. He did many other things to seem like he genuinely cared for me. For example, he had several lessons in a day. Yes, he's a rather busy lad. However, he would always make time for me and to reply to me, even if it was a text to inform me that he was busy and not purposely ignoring me. He knew that I had trust issues, so he would even send a picture that he was busy to prove that he wasn't purposely avoiding me. Every single time he and I were online on Whatsapp, he would always text me to ensure me that he wasn't ignoring me. Lastly, he is an extremely religious guy, and he never listened to music because of that. However, ever since he met me, he started to listen to the music that I liked and replied to it in detail. He never liked texting, but he would talk to me on Whatsapp all of the time. This is extremely untypical of him, as he is an unemotional guy. In addition to that, the effort put into that should mean something?
The guy kept trying to meet me in person. Since I have extreme trust issues, I didn't want to do that. He was a guy that I met online, and I had let's just say, unpleasant experiences with guys. This was after six months of knowing me. I told him to leave and that he was creep and a pervert due to my personal defense mechanism. He then left me alone and didn't talk to me for a full day. We then talked about it and I told him that I didn't want to talk about why as it was really personal to me. He said that it was fine and I could just tell him when I felt like it.
We were fine after this for another 7 - 8 months. He just really wanted to know and that he wanted me to be honest with him. I kept yelling at him and starting unnecessary fights due to that. Childish, I know. I regret that now, but that's just what I felt and acted upon at that point of time. After all of that, he left and refused to talk to me forever.
I tried to explain to him but he just pushed me away and said that it was fine. I know, I got a taste of my own medicine. He seemed really hurt about the fact that I called him a creep and a pervert and I kept saying that I cared about him when I wasn't willing to be honest with him about why I said those hurtful words in the first place. I tried everything from calling him, to sending him texts, whether it was messages to check up on him or paragraphs explaining and apologising for treating him like garbage.
I was about to leave him and the situation alone when he started picking up my calls. He would pick them up and he would say nothing and just leave the call running. I don't know why he did that, and that confuses me thoroughly.
I regret everything. I realized that I love him deeply. What should I do? He blocked me everywhere and he won't pick up my phone. I'm thinking about showing up at his house. The whole point is not to get him back, but to explain myself. To truly apologise for hurting him. I want to know how he truly feels. Whether he loved me before, still loves me or if it was a whole joke. I sincerely regret my actions, and I want to make up for them. The what if's are burning freshly into my wounds, and I would really appreciate to know the answers.
I know that I sound absolutely horrible and maybe deranged after that paragraph. However, I would really value the opinions of the public. Maybe y'all could help me out? Thank you for your time. Have a great year ahead.
PS. Btw, I apologize for that long winding paragraph and I appreciate y'all for putting away some precious time from your day to read and perhaps, respond to it. Every response is valued, and I really appreciate them.

Okay, y'all. My friend has been heartbroken by a guy and she doesn't know if this guy cares about her. Dear woman wants me to write this post for her instead as she is I hereby quote, "Too lazy to do anything." I'm just posting this on behalf of her. Thank you in advance.
From her point of view:
Basically, I was introduced to this guy by my closest childhood friend. We've started talking for some time and at the start, everything seemed to go swimmingly well. Conversations flowed smoothly and it was dreamlike. There seemed to be some tension there: Staring into each other eyes, the whole world got quiet, etc. The friendship was initiated by the guy and he started texting me a lot and he would call me for hours on end. After only around a week of knowing me, he started pestering me for my phone number and he was extremely persistent. I ended up giving it to him. He started texting me every single day, morning till night, no matter whether if I replied or not. He would send me updates about his life like his outfit, etc. He decided to introduce me to his close friend and that went...well. In short, it was a call with his friends and the girl, who seemed obsessed with the guy as he kept putting me down and comparing herself to me in terms of closeness to the said guy.
He started asking about me at school, like he would ask my childhood best friend about how I was, if I was okay, how I was and all those sorts of stuff. Allegedly, my childhood best friend, let's call him M, always sounded really enthusiastic when he was talking about me. "His voice softens." He initiated everything, as I was not really interested. He would always beg me to call and I ended up giving in. We started having all these late night conversations about any topic that we were into. During these calls, he would always be a little flirtatious. He would always look at me really intimately, as if I was his world. He would say things like, "I like to see your face, stop hiding your beauty." "Oh my gosh, I love talking to you. You're so enchanting." He would always be flirting about how he would be a great boyfriend and constantly asked what my type of guys was. He even had the audacity to question why I was not into him. He did many other things to seem like he genuinely cared for me. For example, he had several lessons in a day. Yes, he's a rather busy lad. However, he would always make time for me and to reply to me, even if it was a text to inform me that he was busy and not purposely ignoring me. He knew that I had trust issues, so he would even send a picture that he was busy to prove that he wasn't purposely avoiding me. Every single time he and I were online on Whatsapp, he would always text me to ensure me that he wasn't ignoring me. Lastly, he is an extremely religious guy, and he never listened to music because of that. However, ever since he met me, he started to listen to the music that I liked and replied to it in detail. He never liked texting, but he would talk to me on Whatsapp all of the time. This is extremely untypical of him, as he is an unemotional guy. In addition to that, the effort put into that should mean something?
The guy kept trying to meet me in person. Since I have extreme trust issues, I didn't want to do that. He was a guy that I met online, and I had let's just say, unpleasant experiences with guys. This was after six months of knowing me. I told him to leave and that he was creep and a pervert due to my personal defense mechanism. He then left me alone and didn't talk to me for a full day. We then talked about it and I told him that I didn't want to talk about why as it was really personal to me. He said that it was fine and I could just tell him when I felt like it.
We were fine after this for another 7 - 8 months. He just really wanted to know and that he wanted me to be honest with him. I kept yelling at him and starting unnecessary fights due to that. Childish, I know. I regret that now, but that's just what I felt and acted upon at that point of time. After all of that, he left and refused to talk to me forever.
I tried to explain to him but he just pushed me away and said that it was fine. I know, I got a taste of my own medicine. He seemed really hurt about the fact that I called him a creep and a pervert and I kept saying that I cared about him when I wasn't willing to be honest with him about why I said those hurtful words in the first place. I tried everything from calling him, to sending him texts, whether it was messages to check up on him or paragraphs explaining and apologising for treating him like garbage.
I was about to leave him and the situation alone when he started picking up my calls. He would pick them up and he would say nothing and just leave the call running. I don't know why he did that, and that confuses me thoroughly.
I regret everything. I realized that I love him deeply. What should I do? He blocked me everywhere and he won't pick up my phone. I'm thinking about showing up at his house. The whole point is not to get him back, but to explain myself. To truly apologise for hurting him. I want to know how he truly feels. Whether he loved me before, still loves me or if it was a whole joke. I sincerely regret my actions, and I want to make up for them. The what if's are burning freshly into my wounds, and I would really appreciate to know the answers.
I know that I sound absolutely horrible and maybe deranged after that paragraph. However, I would really value the opinions of the public. Maybe y'all could help me out? Thank you for your time. Have a great year ahead.
PS. Btw, I apologize for that long winding paragraph and I appreciate y'all for putting away some precious time from your day to read and perhaps, respond to it. Every response is valued, and I really appreciate them.

Note: This is not clickbait, looking for genuine discussion and sharing of experiences .

We run a mostly on prem environment with some services in the cloud ( like O365 and backblaze backups ) - I guess you could call it a hybrid environment 🤓
Having done multiple quotes and ROI simulations , I cannot justify moving the rest of our environment to the cloud ( several racks of servers , 98% virtualized ) ON COST ALONE. This is the important bit ,IMHO.
I can easily see cases, where being 100% cloud makes sense : small startups, fully distributed teams , one-off projects , proof of concepts projects , etc .
However, I think the cost portion is very overhyped . Our company doesn’t fit any of those paradigms mentioned above, that would justify the cost and complexity of cloud . But I keep getting at least 1-2 pitches per quarter to move to the cloud , and their main argument is cost savings.
From my perspective , my team size wouldn’t change - same number of admins and support people , we would need the same number of VMs, I would have to pay way more for SAN / NAS ( now I can buy SANs and spread cost over 5 years) , more $ for bandwidth, slower responses for client software , technical / auth management becomes more complex , etc
Am I missing something , has anybody actually saved money going to cloud long term - TCO - total cost of ownership, small to medium size companies ?
Edit in response to questions below:
The push keeps coming from various vendors sweet-talking to company owneres. I already explained that we don't have any more workloads to move the cloud ( we moved out corporate Chat, Email to O365, many-many moons ago) . So the main argument that they are trying to "sell" is that TCO will be lower, because cloud is "better, cheaper, less IT people" .
*I guess I'm looking for validation and social proof that my position is the correct one, to put this issues to rest with company owners. *

My brother is far better read up than me. He's honestly amazing. I get jealous of all his little friends.
He's got a lot of them. He does a lot of work.
I'm so proud to call him my brother.
I've got quite a few siblings.
I don't really have friends.
I don't really do anything too terribly much.
I am pretty fairly content to zonk out, just sit in my head for long periods of time.
Like my brother, I am able to act. Those buggies will be put away, a stern, informative lecture given. The attentive ear that will challenge. That collapsed individual will find someone above them, directing others, and will find a loving face in those moments if the face can be there. If it can't, it will help keep away the crowd. It is without thought, without personal concern. It is a body in the fire to try to preserve what it can. On fire.
I assume this of him. I have learned this of me.
My son's father used to get so upset at me for trying to help. "He's no good at being uncomfortable so he can't stop staying exactly the same."
"Leave it alone, someone else will do it." We've got things to do.
Brother has a unit. They may not like his reign, they may not even like him, but I think that's part of who we are.
Unwilling to be liked.
I'm struggling at ambition. I don't seek it, by far. Fucking please, no. But I am stupid. I am a stupid, silly little woman, and I don't know my nose until I have to explain it again, and even then, give me a minute.
Within the last two years, I have learned to stop and the compulsion is so strong. My outward ticks would give me away, were they known.
Prattle.
Give me water, and I'll give it back. Give me your riches and I will cry, and not from happiness. Because, to me, that's a piece of you, and it needs to stay that way. Unless. Unless it is hurting others.
Then I'm choking down a desire to....to...
But I've gotten better. Had to turn that empathy down.
We have so much we're expected to do, and I learned a couple of years ago, though I was relatively aware already, that I'm no Martin Luther King Jr. My favorite bible verse and Samuel Clements informed me of better so long ago, as did the cruel words of my eldest sibling.
It's not modesty. It's shame.
It's shame. These aspects that could be used for such good are hampered by shame.
Leave my name out of your mouth, out of your mind at all.
Those clothes....you only want approval with that brand logo. That laugh...you only want validation when you do it in front of others.
Do not accept thanks, run away, learned I.
Do not look up to see who sees, learned I.
I hear the good quotes. I know a wise voice, and I defeat it by shame.
I knew ambition. And I know it now as shame.
Give me your backlash. Give me your struggle. Give me where it hurts, but don't give me your thanks.
How stupid am I

Hi everyone! I need some advice, or more like an opinion from a 3rd person perspective on a relationship with a friend? I know it’s kinda long but please bear with me. I need to explain the whole picture so you can get a better idea of the situation.
I (24M) moved to America a year and a half ago from a South American country. I didn’t know anybody here so it was a rough start. It is worth to mention that I’m terrible at socializing and making new friends. I’m also gay which, to be honest, complicates things to another level. The only gay thing about me is that I am into men. But that’s it. I don’t like drag, I wear regular dude’s clothing, I talk and move in a traditionally masculine way… If I don’t tell people, then they won’t know. Not that it’s anybody’s business but having to “come out” to every new person I meet and then dealing with the “what?! Are you serious? Omg do you wanna be my gay best friend?” Is honestly exhausting sometimes. I don’t have anything against any of that. I don’t have any issues with people being like that, but I just don’t identify myself with queerness basically. I am romantically and sexually attracted to other men. Other than that, I’m just another random guy. I will also say that, for America, I have some conservative views regarding some LGBT related topics like explicit sexual content in pride parades (with children in the crowd) for example. Back in my country I was considered very liberal. It was one of the biggest cultural shocks to me when people said I was being conservative. I still don’t consider myself conservative at all. All that being said let’s introduce the second character in this story: my best? friend Jake (23M). Jake moved to the same city around the same time. So he was also alone and in search for friends. We met as a Grindr hook up. And to make a long story short we met and then we lost contact and then we randomly met again (yes, on Grindr again). Since then he became very adamant on us being friends. He is very sweet and a very good soul. I know this thread is gonna sound like i hate him but I really don’t. He has helped me with a lot of stuff and I know if I need something I can count on him. With time (this is important for later), I ended up loving the guy. He is a good friend. I just don’t know if I could call him my “best friend”. I’m very reserved and like to spend a lot of time alone and doing my own stuff whilst he literally calls me on FaceTime to ask me if he should eat or workout first and then leaves the call on while doing other stuff. He basically just doesn’t like to be alone. Remember the long ass introduction about myself? Well Jake is the opposite to that. He is a fan of drag, loves dance music, wears crop tops and butterfly headbands, and (something that I find offensive) is anti straight. He sent me an invite for a pride parade pregame at his place with the quote “gay bitches dress like it, straight bitches stay the fuck home”. When I asked him about it, he just said “it’s a joke sweetie”. The problem is that he makes that kind of “jokes” all the f time. I have a pair of pink converse which I thought were pretty cool and he calls them my “girly shoes”. I don’t they are girly just cause they’re pink?? And if they were girly shoes what is the problem with that?? It’s the way he says it like trying to tease me as if I’m finally flourishing what is annoying to me. He asks me to go to gay clubs all the time (which yeah they’re fun but can’t we go to a normal club too every now and then??) and when I show up dressed like a “straight guy” he makes a fuzz about it. It feels like he doesn’t really like me for who I am but the idea of me that he created in his head. He has BPD and has told me that he has serious abandonment issues so when he first moved here he was really depressed for being alone. I’ve started to think that he befriended me out of despair and not because he liked me. I noticed our differences very early on in our relationship and did tried to distance myself without telling him that I wasn’t interested in him cause I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He would text me every single day and call me like a clock at 5:30pm when he was off from work every single day. I would ignore him for weeks and he would still be sending me tiktoks. We weren’t even that close, we were in a getting to know each other phase and I remember him vividly saying “you’re my best friend”. He wants to be my best man at my wedding (i don’t even have a boyfriend) but how am I supposed to put him over friends back in my country that I’ve known for years. When I said that he got visibly upset and since he decided to ignore that I said it and continues to make that comment. When I expressed some of my points of view regarding some LGBT topics he told me to stop talking because he doesn’t want the image he has of me to change. Gay culture here feels very close minded, alienating and just as prejudicial as republicans homophobes, but in the opposite direction. I don’t like it. Gay culture in my country was very very different. I enjoyed “scene parties” which basically was an everyone welcome thing. And when I say everyone i mean everyone. You would have straight back-flipped-caps bros and skirt-croppedtop-fullglam gays dancing in the same room. Not everywhere was like that of course but having at least a couple parties like that every other month was really nice. Here (as far as my experience) that doesn’t exist. I expressed that to him when I refused to keep hanging out with exclusively gay people that I don’t have anything in common with besides sexual orientation and he just said that I probably have internalized homophobia. I don’t feel like our friendship is genuine and I don’t know how to address it or what to do about it. Again, I love the guy. He has helped me a lot, I know he has his heart in the right place and I see him for who he is. I don’t think he can say the same about me. He definitely does say it but I don’t think he realizes that I’m not that idea he has of me in his head.

Hi everyone! I need some advice, or more like an opinion from a 3rd person perspective on a relationship with a friend? I know it’s kinda long but please bear with me. I need to explain the whole picture so you can get a better idea of the situation.
I (24M) moved to America a year and a half ago from a South American country. I didn’t know anybody here so it was a rough start. It is worth to mention that I’m terrible at socializing and making new friends. I’m also gay which, to be honest, complicates things to another level. The only gay thing about me is that I am into men. But that’s it. I don’t like drag, I wear regular dude’s clothing, I talk and move in a traditionally masculine way… If I don’t tell people, then they won’t know. Not that it’s anybody’s business but having to “come out” to every new person I meet and then dealing with the “what?! Are you serious? Omg do you wanna be my gay best friend?” Is honestly exhausting sometimes. I don’t have anything against any of that. I don’t have any issues with people being like that, but I just don’t identify myself with queerness basically. I am romantically and sexually attracted to other men. Other than that, I’m just another random guy. I will also say that, for America, I have some conservative views regarding some LGBT related topics like explicit sexual content in pride parades (with children in the crowd) for example. Back in my country I was considered very liberal. It was one of the biggest cultural shocks to me when people said I was being conservative. I still don’t consider myself conservative at all. All that being said let’s introduce the second character in this story: my best? friend Jake (23M). Jake moved to the same city around the same time. So he was also alone and in search for friends. We met as a Grindr hook up. And to make a long story short we met and then we lost contact and then we randomly met again (yes, on Grindr again). Since then he became very adamant on us being friends. He is very sweet and a very good soul. I know this thread is gonna sound like i hate him but I really don’t. He has helped me with a lot of stuff and I know if I need something I can count on him. With time (this is important for later), I ended up loving the guy. He is a good friend. I just don’t know if I could call him my “best friend”. I’m very reserved and like to spend a lot of time alone and doing my own stuff whilst he literally calls me on FaceTime to ask me if he should eat or workout first and then leaves the call on while doing other stuff. He basically just doesn’t like to be alone. Remember the long ass introduction about myself? Well Jake is the opposite to that. He is a fan of drag, loves dance music, wears crop tops and butterfly headbands, and (something that I find offensive) is anti straight. He sent me an invite for a pride parade pregame at his place with the quote “gay bitches dress like it, straight bitches stay the fuck home”. When I asked him about it, he just said “it’s a joke sweetie”. The problem is that he makes that kind of “jokes” all the f time. I have a pair of pink converse which I thought were pretty cool and he calls them my “girly shoes”. I don’t they are girly just cause they’re pink?? And if they were girly shoes what is the problem with that?? It’s the way he says it like trying to tease me as if I’m finally flourishing what is annoying to me. He asks me to go to gay clubs all the time (which yeah they’re fun but can’t we go to a normal club too every now and then??) and when I show up dressed like a “straight guy” he makes a fuzz about it. It feels like he doesn’t really like me for who I am but the idea of me that he created in his head. He has BPD and has told me that he has serious abandonment issues so when he first moved here he was really depressed for being alone. I’ve started to think that he befriended me out of despair and not because he liked me. I noticed our differences very early on in our relationship and did tried to distance myself without telling him that I wasn’t interested in him cause I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He would text me every single day and call me like a clock at 5:30pm when he was off from work every single day. I would ignore him for weeks and he would still be sending me tiktoks. We weren’t even that close, we were in a getting to know each other phase and I remember him vividly saying “you’re my best friend”. He wants to be my best man at my wedding (i don’t even have a boyfriend) but how am I supposed to put him over friends back in my country that I’ve known for years. When I said that he got visibly upset and since he decided to ignore that I said it and continues to make that comment. When I expressed some of my points of view regarding some LGBT topics he told me to stop talking because he doesn’t want the image he has of me to change. Gay culture here feels very close minded, alienating and just as prejudicial as republicans homophobes, but in the opposite direction. I don’t like it. Gay culture in my country was very very different. I enjoyed “scene parties” which basically was an everyone welcome thing. And when I say everyone i mean everyone. You would have straight back-flipped-caps bros and skirt-croppedtop-fullglam gays dancing in the same room. Not everywhere was like that of course but having at least a couple parties like that every other month was really nice. Here (as far as my experience) that doesn’t exist. I expressed that to him when I refused to keep hanging out with exclusively gay people that I don’t have anything in common with besides sexual orientation and he just said that I probably have internalized homophobia. I don’t feel like our friendship is genuine and I don’t know how to address it or what to do about it. Again, I love the guy. He has helped me a lot, I know he has his heart in the right place and I see him for who he is. I don’t think he can say the same about me. He definitely does say it but I don’t think he realizes that I’m not that idea he has of me in his head.

My boyfriend and I met at university and we had a very toxic on and off again relationship for 2 years. We finally broke up for real after I found out he slept with his flat mate while on a bender. I found out a year after the fact when I was on his phone searching my name and saw a message come up from a year ago from the girl he slept with asking if he had told me about what happened. My boyfriend had slept with her after me and him had gone on a break due to his excessive drug use but we had decided we would try work through things and see if we could make it work.
We were broken up for 2 years until we reconnected as friends. At this point I was living in a different city and we slowly built up a friendship again which led to him coming to visit me and long story short we got back together. We have been doing semi long distance (he is a 5 hour train journey away) for 2 years now. Our relationship this time round has been really good, really healthy, stable and loving. We had gotten very serious with talks of the future and moving to the same city etc. He had dealt with managing his mental health which in turn helped stop the excessive drug use. I had dealt with my commitment issues and letting someone fully in etc.
My boyfriend has told me yesterday that on a night out last week he ended up going a bender and kissing a girl twice in a club. He first told me she kissed him and tried to downplay the situation. However eventually revealed they kissed twice with the first kiss being mutual. He has also revealed he is struggling with his mental health again and excessively using drugs again and going on benders - often alone in his flat as most of ouhis friends have moved on from this lifestyle.
I am absolutely devastated and so is he. He is extremely sorry and wants to do everything he can to get me back. He wants to go to therapy and drug support etc - which I think is great but doesn’t mean I can be with him nor that we should be together.
It’s a really difficult situation because as much as I am so heartbroken and mad. Hearing him upset just breaks my heart and hearing that he is struggling just makes me want to go into fix it mode. He is also the nicest guy ever which is hard to believe with the stories above but he is the guy everyone would call a nice guy that everyone loves and who has often been quoted a guy ‘who would never do that’. But the facts are that he has and I am just so lost and cried my body weight in tears that I feel numb.
I would love to hear some advise from people who have been through similar situations.
Ps I am dyslexic so very sorry for the terrible writing.

I'm looking for cat 'father' video that showed up in my Facebook feed as a reel today (also it might have been a TikTok or Instagram video originally - Facebook doesn't seem to have this viewing data stored)

• Text in the background reads 'WHAT CATS ARE THINKING'
  
• It's a guy (white, mid-30s-ish, American?) pretending to be a cat - i.e., narrating this from the point of view of his cat - I don't believe there's an actual cat in it!
  
• He addresses himself as 'father'
  
• Thank you for 'petting me for 10 minutes' (direct quote), father - I will reward you by biting down on your hand
  
• There's a bit with him standing outside a door, narration is something along the lines of - father, you can't poop alone, we agreed that for the rest of our lives you're not allowed
  
• He also starts talking about being 'an apex predator', and gets distracted by a red dot (he says he's 'stupefied' by it)
  
• It's very similar to this https://www.tiktok.com/@samvanfossen/video/7297235533737037102
  

Any help would be very much appreciated!

This will be my last post as their coverage for this case has finally come to an end. This was an interesting one because both Stephanie and Derrick give their final opinions and I'd like to dissect some of it. I'll try and go in order of when things show up in the episode.
Plan to escape?:
All I'll say on this is that I don't think it's surprising that someone who is facing the death penalty may fantasise about escaping. As Stephanie and Derrick allude to in the episode, that ever being a realistic option is kind of fantastical thinking. They were correct on the fact that the Sheriff's office ended up announcing that there had not been any kind of escape attempt and that the brothers had nothing to do with cutting their chains.
"Several days later, after the story made front-page news, the L.A. County Sheriff's office quietly announced that the Menendez brothers had nothing to do with cutting their chains and had never tried to escape. Cut chains had been discovered at several other courthouses. Jail trustees, honor prisoners with nonviolent backgrounds who helped move prisoners between jails and courts, had cut the chains as a prank." - The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation
"Not until six years later would they learn that a sheriff's investigation had concluded no escape attempt had been made, but rather, a deputy had planted the damaged leg irons in order to take credit for finding them. He was quietly fired for his misconduct. But on that day all the jailers believed was that Lyle and Erik had tried to escape. And they had a nasty welcome home party planned." - They Said We'd Never Make it: My Life with Erik Menendez
I think the brothers maybe fantasised about escaping and wrote things down in service of that but there was never any real plan to escape.
During the cell search which resulted in this whole fiasco a seventeen-page letter written by Lyle to Erik was also found:
"We need to hang in there together, in my opinion. You notice I have not held you talking to Cig or Oziel against you even though my entire life is on the verge of destruction as a result of all this. I feel that we have done what we did together and everything we do afterwards is both our responsibility."
"I am not the pillar of strength the papers make me out to be or Leslie thinks I am. I think if dad could give us on piece of advice as we left the house that night in August, it would be never to abandon each other no matter the circumstances."
“If it were not for you I doubt I would even try for manslaughter, I would rather try to escape or die. I struggle with my belief that men take responsibility for their actions, pleading abuse is not taking responsibility.”
“We alone can get ourselves through this life after all that has happened.”
"What we did in August was a mistake from what I can tell and I don't know what to do about it. What can I do? Nothing I guess.”
"We did not do anything for the money. To go our separate ways is to lose any meaning our actions had..."
“I honestly do not believe that I am far way from packing up my bags and calling it a life. . . . I do not see things in terms of manslaughter and life terms. I see only win, lose--honor and dishonor. I refuse to give up for Dad’s sake, he is watching and I will not disappoint him a second time, or Mom, by giving up and having their deaths be in vain.”
The lawyers:
Stephanie mentioned two of the lead attorneys for the brothers. Jill Lansing was the lead attorney for Lyle while Leslie Abramson was the lead attorney for Erik but the brothers also had two other attorneys who also assisted. In the first trial Erik also had Marcia Morrisey who assisted Leslie Abramson and Lyle had Michael Burt who assisted Jill Lansing. In the second trial Marcia Morrisey was replaced by Barry Levin and Lyle had two new attorney's by the name of Charles Gessler and Terri Towery.
Stephanie was confused as to why there was two separate juries for the first trial but there actually was good reasons for it. While the two juries did see mostly the same trial, there was some evidence and witnesses that only one jury was permitted to see. This is because there is specific evidence which only relates to one brother. The defense (rightfully imo) was worried that certain evidence would spill over onto the other brother and damage that specific brothers' defense even if the evidence had nothing to do with them at all. I can't recall off the top of my head if both juries were present for this or not but the first example that popped into my head is the evidence relating to Lyle's wiping of his mother's computer. Erik had no contact at all with the computer expert that Lyle hired and there's other evidence which suggests that Erik had no idea that Lyle had even hired this person until afterwards. This is an example where evidence is only really useable against Lyle so to have Erik's jury be aware of it would be unfair.
Something else Derrick brought up which I thought was interesting because it lines up with what the brothers say happen is that the lawyers would have basically said to them "like look guys, you need to just tell the truth because otherwise you're getting the death penalty". This is exactly what Lyle said happened. As Stephanie briefly mentions later on (and there's one thing about it I'll dispute later on) Lyle had asked people to lie for him during his time in jail. According to Lyle he was essentially refusing to talk about the sexual abuse for a very long time (somewhat corroborated by his seventeen page letter, quotes of which you can read earlier in the post). Because of this he was trying every other avenue he could find so that he wouldn't have to testify. This included him asking friends to lie for him. Eventually his lawyers caught on to this and said to him basically to stop being an idiot and that he was going to get the death penalty unless he decided to testify himself. This is also why I found Stephanie's remarks regarding "Lyle always expected to tell the truth" quite funny. Even according to Erik, Lyle was the one who didn't want to tell the truth, so much so that the brothers fought with each other about it. Erik was happy getting therapy and decided he would testify while Lyle kept refusing.
Family Members:
Many of their family members testified for their defense and it's so much I can't really get into it but Stephanie did bring up a quote from an interview with some family members where they said that they forgive Erik and Lyle but they still refuse to forgive Jose and Kitty. This quote actually came specifically from two of Erik and Lyle's cousins and Kitty's sister Joan Vandermolen.
Here's a quote from their other aunt Marta Cano from an interview she did a few years ago -
"I don't think it was a crime. It is a crime by statement, but they killed fear. They felt that they would be killed if they didn't kill, that's my own personal opinion. I think that they were just panicking"
They played some of the testimony of their cousin Diane who corroborated the brothers claims of SA. She is also one of the many relatives who supported the brothers at the time and still supports them today. One other interesting thing from her testimony which wasn't discussed is that she was living with them at the time when Erik attempted to run away from home. Erik testified about this incident himself and Diane remembers it because Erik had been gone for a long time and recalls Jose dragging him back and that Erik had been crying.
As for family members who didn't support them, the only two who have ever spoken out are Kitty's brothers Brian Andersen and Milton Andersen. Brian Andersen and Milton Andersen were the only family members who testified for the prosecution. I won't get into their entire testimony but all I'll say is that Brian's testimony from the first trial is VERY telling and I recommend checking it out if you're interested. They clearly loved their sister but I think they refused to see things that were right in front of their faces possibly because they were also abusive to their children. It was such a huge disagreement in the family that Brian's son, Alan Andersen ended up disowning his dad and has repeatedly called his father "a liar".
Lyle asking friends to lie:
There is information relating to how during their time in jail, Lyle was trying to concoct some sort of defense without having to testify himself. There is some conflicting information as to when Lyle decided to not go with this as one of these people did still testify (Traci Baker) but another friend who ended up testifying for the prosecution did say that Lyle ended up calling him and telling him that he wasn't going ahead with it. There is also evidence which supports that Erik was ratting Lyle out to their lawyers at some points and that their lawyers were unaware of some of this behaviour.
There was just one thing on this I wanted to correct or supply some extra information on. Stephanie stated that Lyle had been recorded telling a friend (Marti Shelton) that he had "snowed half the jury" or something to that effect. This is a very common myth that always pops up with this case as it was reported on in Dominick Dunne's work for Vanity Fair on the case. The prosecution never used any of the tapes as there was nothing of value on them and Marti Shelton came out years later and recanted the statements she attributed to Lyle as she had allegedly been paid by Domnick Dunne to make up lies about Lyle.
She is quoted in Dunne’s April 1994 piece saying she overheard Lyle Menendez tell someone, after his first trial ended in a mistrial, “We’ve snowed half the country. Now we have to snow the other half.”
“That was a lie,” Shelton now says. According to stories in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post in mid-May 1994, authorities searched her home to find evidence to support her quoted statement, but came up empty.
Shelton now says she never overheard Menendez say that, but she was coached by Dunne.
Shelton says she told Vanity Fair fact checkers at the time the quote was made up, but they were only interested in getting her tape-recorded statement owning up to the quote – which she provided.
Shelton admits she lied in the past. “What I did was wrong,” she said, referring to the quote she gave to Vanity Fair.
“But what he did was wrong as well. He backed out of a deal.”
The deal, she alleges, was to give her $100,000 in return for her statements and help – an amount that Dunne and Vanity Fair call absurd.
The full article is here - https://nypost.com/2004/05/14/she-says-he-dunne-her-wrong/
Stephanie and Derrick's closing thoughts:
Stephanie and Derrick come to similar conclusions that while the crime was still murder to them, that the brothers should no longer be in prison and I certainly agree with them on the latter part although I wanted to mention a few things on this before I wrap this up.
I would still argue that there is a decent argument for lack of premeditation in this case and I disagree with Derrick saying that most people would agree with him and not the experts in this case like Dr Ann Burgess who testified that she believed that Erik was acting based on fear and that the crime was not premeditated. The majority of jurors in the first trial voted for either voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter and that was on two separate juries. So that's the majority of twenty four reasonable people concluding that there was enough reasonable doubt to not convict of murder.
Of course no one is ever going to know the absolute 100% truth in this case. Only Erik and Lyle know that but I would caution people away from snap judgements when it comes to this case. If you're actually interested in why so many jurors could consider manslaughter I implore you to at least watch the first trial and find out how that could have happened because there is a lot of evidence which supports a lack of premeditation. Other than that everyone is free to have their own opinions and I fully accept that.
Even though I take great issue with Stephanie's research when it comes to this case, I appreciate her trying to explain some of this in the final episode. I have still enjoyed it and it's given me something to kill time with in the evening.
I don't really have much else to add because the post has already gone on long enough. I truly have enjoyed doing these every week and if any of you are interested in anything else feel free to send a message my way as I'm always happy to talk about this case. Thanks for checking these out!