Have you tried having better luck?

I'm in my late 30s, and I've been around the block so I'll share mine. In terms of worst time being broken up with, that was my last ex prior to my wife, and she did a number on me. It was entirely my fault and all of the red flags were there and I ignored them and she's a huge cautionary tale that I won't go into because honestly I don't like thinking about her. I didn't really get a say in the breaking up, and looking back I'm so very glad it happened but it still crushed me emotionally for a long time.

The second, and really the harder of the two, was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was my longest relationship (4 years) up until my now wife (married 3 years, together 7). I met her in my early twenties. When we both graduated our programs, we'd only been together a little over a year and didn't plan on staying together. She wasnt sure where she'd do her master's, I wasn't sure where I'd be working. As luck would have it though, we both ended up in the same place, and stayed together another three years. The last six months or so of that relationship I realized how completely miserable I was with everything but her. I loved her, I still do to this day and always will, but I hated my job. I hated where I lived. I hated being so far from my family and friends. And it got to a point where I needed to tell her and figure out how to move forward. So after a long work trip I spent 5 days with her and told her how I felt and she understood but she loved it where we were and wanted to stay for her PhD, which would be after another year of her current program...six more years. She was happy where she was and she could see I wasn't happy and we talked and thought up scenario after scenario before we came to accept that we needed different things...it fuckin hurt man. We knew it couldn't keep working without someone resenting the other and we realized life was taking us different places. We broke up 2 days in, I spent the rest of the time with her and there were many tears and lots of pain and lots of last moments together that we savored.

It hurt so badly because nobody did anything wrong. We didn't stop loving each other, we didn't stop caring, nobody cheated, we didn't grow apart so much as life pulled us in different directions. That's probably what hurt the most, is how much I/we didn't want to end it, but how we both realized we had to. Life happens and that's okay, but it hurts sometimes. I am happily married now, and she is too and we're good friends now. My wife is my best friend and I can't imagine being with anyone else. I am happy for her and her husband is great and I can see how happy she is. I am not upset with how either of our lives turned out, but I also know there will always be some regret there.

I was thinking today how ridiculously accurate silicone valley (the show) has turned out to be. It feels like CEOs and mid level managers all watched that show and completely missed the fact that it was SATIRE.

Solid attempt, but you've already demonstrated that you have no idea how to properly stuff a box.

Whoever packaged these is an idiot.

Hate the Catholic Church (I do) or religion as a whole (I also do), but per the article:

St. Theresa School argued Crisitello’s pregnancy violated the terms of her employment agreement, which required “employees to adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church and refrain from premarital sex,” court documents say.

Agree or disagree, that all fine, but the exact reason for termination is verbatim in her contract which she signed well ahead of being fired. Is it prudish, archaic, and nonsensical? Yes. But did she sign a contract saying she wouldn't do that and then get fired for doing that thing? Also yes.

Don'take the mistake of thinking Grindr cares about the community. They're a company that saw an unexploited market demographic and capitalized on it. That's all they are.

Damn voyager, sync, infinity all within like 24 hours of each other!

Never heard of voyager previously but I'll give it a shot! Liking infinity a lot too. Both your apps should copy connects feature of blocking users and instances right from the post. It's super handy, especially when you realize someone is spamming, just give them the ol block and forget about it.

Been there. Happened to me in grad school but I woke up to a bat on my leg. Thing with bats ks you can't tell if they bit you because their teeth leave little baby pinpricks that look like damn near everything else that bites, including mosquitoes.

I got a bill for $13,000. Basically 1000 for every shot to the ass they gave me. I had to pay it from my student loans. Yay America.

Not speaking for OP, but I do it because if you block communities they don't show up when you browse by "all". That's my preferred way to find new stuff (even if it's meme heavy). I like that it's as easy to hide communities I'm not interested in as it is to subscribe to new communities. It's a great feature.

All due respect to my fellow lemmings, but the ones in these comments are vastly over complicating this. It's extremely simple - you give that info away, and you do it happily. Here's an extremely simple example of every single one of your questions:

Financial

• you explore job postings on linked in. You upload your resume to Google drive. You say where you work/what you do on your social media. Your bank statements get emailed. You check your credit through an email reminder.

political

You subscribe to websites with particular political leanings. The content you engage with on social media falls in certain political camps. You interact primarily with people that also have those leanings. You block or avoid content that is not to your politcal liking. Every like and subscribe is your personality and political affiliation.

health

You searched "symptoms of (insert thing here)." You ordered a next brace on Amazon. Your doctor sends your invoice to your Gmail account. Cvs emails you your receipts.

religion

See politics.

browsing info

Google literally sells everything you do. It's their business model. Every time you're signed in with Google it's tracking what you do. Every email you receive. Everything you click on. Every item you purchase. Every review you fill out. Google sells it all, and you'd be amazed how fast they do it. Fun experiment, go buy something - jeans, a shirt, shoes, drums, and guitar, whatever from a new place you haven't shopped before. Go buy it and have the invoice go to your Gmail account. Then get on Instagram...time how long or far you scroll before you see an ad for a similar product. Perhaps even a brand you comparison shopped.

You tell it all these things. Whether you realize you're doing it or not, you tell it everything it wants to know just by using your phone. Google sells it, instametathreads buys it, learns more, and then sells what it learns back to Google and advertisers. Rinse, repeat.

You have probably noticed but never appreciated that men don't usually have big hips to keep our pants up (or more specifically our waists and hips tend to be very close to the same size). Some men do, but even well fitting pants slide down on me without a belt. My wife is always amazed when we take our measurements and the hip to waist ratio is so wildly different. She's like "I knew women's hips were bigger but Jesus Christ".