
Love is a tricky mistress.
Especially when you have a mistress.
Making that choice to be with someone forever is not a game.
That is why you have a preparation period.
The engagement?
That is the time when things get real.
Redditor qquackiewanted to hear about the times when people knew "goodbye" was the right answer. They asked:
"Redditors who broke up with their fiancés, what made you go from wanting to spend the rest of your life with them to not wanting to be with them at all?"
I have never been engaged. I hear it's a hoot. Until it's not...
HIM
"He relapsed on drugs and then told me all of our relationship problems were my mental health."
User Deleted
Naked
"Caught her butt naked with some random dude when we were supposed to meet up at a friend's home for a get together and I caught her in the spare bedroom while everyone else was hanging out and drinking, queue floodgates and find out she cheated on me up to double digit times and all the people at that friends get together knew she cheated on me often. Cut off all my friends and traumatized me for a long time but I’m better now."
PartyYoung8
“wait it out”
"He was my best friend and I really enjoyed our relationship. Honestly I hold no bad feelings for him. But he had a tendency to avoid communication when angry/sad/upset. At first it seemed like a minor problem I could adjust to but the passive aggressiveness and silent treatment(that he could manage for days on end) started to get to me."
"I felt like it was a form of control. He never accepted my apologies, never apologized himself, and would just 'wait it out' until he was ready to talk again. Then he’d just skip the fight and talk normal like it didn’t happen. So basically no issue we ever had was actually addressed and I was afraid to ever cause a confrontation because I knew it would be unresolved."
"It made me feel like I couldn’t fully trust him and the idea of doing that for life stopped be appealing."
milkvamp
Mind. Blown.
"I was engaged for a hot second when I was 19. I came home to find him doing another girl. I immediately moved out and then found out via facebook that the girl was 4 months pregnant with his baby. He proposed to me when his baby mama was 3 months pregnant and he knew she was pregnant with his kid. It just blows my mind lol."
is_this_funny2_u
Thief
"She decided her future was in a different country, took our savings with her."
RolandHockingAngling
Why is love so elusive? Why can't people be honest?
“what did you do today?”
"She wouldn’t tell me where she was all day one day. And I’m not the controlling type. But she wouldn’t even answer an innocuous 'what did you do today?' question. By the time this all came to a head, it turned out she was on a date with another guy."
f0gax
Breakdown
"She went through a terrible, just truly terrible mental breakdown, leading to an eventual diagnosis. I did everything I could to keep her together, but it wasn't enough. At the end of it all I told her that I was going to stick it out, I'd do my best to work with her, but she HAD to listen to her doctors."
"She had to take all the advice she was given, she had to take her meds, she had to accept she had a mental illness and she had to deal with it. And she didn't. So when she lost her mind, for the umpteenth time, and told me to get out and not come back, I took her up on her offer."
"Some people call me an a**hole for that decision. But I'm not going to subject myself to 50 years of abuse and misery on behalf of someone who won't do the first thing to take care of themselves."
shaidyn
9 Days
"When I found out he saw me merely as a way to get into the US and as a meal ticket. Called off the wedding 9 days before it was supposed to happen. Best decision I ever made. More than a year later, he contacted me and attempted to blackmail me, not knowing I was by that time working as a defense contractor with a security clearance, which meant I had to report the attempt to the FBI, thus getting him AND his relatives in the US into serious trouble."
FlourChild1026
Alone
"I had a boyfriend while teaching abroad in Korea for a few years. We were planning to get married and he was going to come back to US with me. At the last second he told me he couldn’t do it and I came back alone. He’s great and I love him still but we just want different things for our future."
FredrickTheSeal
"gift for me"
"He spent an entire paycheck, MY paycheck, on Pop Figures. As a 'gift for me' when they were all his favorite characters. Took a hard look at how often this type of thing was happening and realized I didn't want to raise an adult baby."
TheTastySpoonicorn
When in Florida
"I caught him in two major lies as his mental health declined. He turned to alcohol and became verbally abusive. I told myself 'the next time it happens I’m out' and it did… at our friends wedding in Florida (I’m from Canada). The wedding party saw the fallout from the fight and a bridesmaid I met an hour earlier told me he cheated at the bachelor party months earlier."
"After seeing his abusive nature she decided that I needed to know the truth. The cherry on top was that the day he cheated was the day I bought my wedding dress. I know I dodged a major bullet but that’s the thing about emotional abuse. It’s insidious. Deep down you know it’s wrong but you also doubt whether you’re being a good partner and abandoning someone in need."
"I’ve moved on and am MUCH MUCH happier. I wake up everyday and am thankful it’s over. I’m almost done my PhD as well, so that’s lovely! Classic 'I went to sleep and this blew up overnight' but thank y’all so much for your kind words and awards. I hope you all have a beautiful day!"
disco_nap_
A Pariah
"I was going to be the black sheep of her very religious family for the rest of my life. I'm imperfect, but no more than most. I just don't believe what their family believed and even though I won her affections and spent years trying to earn trust with everyone; I was always going to be a pariah and it weighed too much on me."
Dangercakes13
Facing Life
"He broke the first engagement. We were very young and he broke it off because his friends didn't like me and convinced him to break up. We got back together a bit later and resumed the engagement like idiots. But with a new ring, cuz that made it better somehow."
"6 months later I broke it off because it dawned on me that if he's willing to dump me because his buddies don't like me, what's marriage or babies going to be like? My mom had told me once that love was rough when the money is tight and they turn the lights off, will you feel strong enough to get through it with them."
"I broke it off for good when I realized there's no way I saw him as my partner I wanted to face life with. When things got hard, he wasn't going to be anything but a child about it and I would be alone. He was engaged and married sometime later and ended up exactly as I thought. They divorced and he was remarried in a year, divorced in another 2 or 3. He was in love with the idea of being married , not actual marriage. Not a crazy drama story but that's it."
I-PUSH-THE-BUTTON
Just a Little
"He tapped my phone (landline) and put a tracker on my car, and spyware on my laptop. Oh, and cut my brakes. Just a little."
salmonsashimiplease
Dodged...
"I was fresh out of high school and just found out I was pregnant. Getting married seemed like a good next step until he became extremely abusive. Took me a while but I finally got away from him for good. He ended up going to prison for murder a few years later. Dodged a bullet with that one."
Nicoldhearted
Future Bleak
"We got together in our early 20s and engaged a few years later. I called it off when I realized we didn't share a vision for the future, and I wasn't willing to compromise or ask her to. Hurt like hell but I'm so glad I did it - I don't actually think I wanted to be with her forever, it just kind of happened before I knew I could shape my life and be happy There were lots of other reasons we wouldn't have worked, looking back. But that one was enough."
thefirstcoconut
True Colors
"He changed a lot after we were engaged, not pulling his weight financially or around the house. Put an offer on a house without even asking me that was about an hour away from where it made sense for us to live (my job, my family etc), not to mention I had never even seen the home before he made the offer."
"Told me that he didn’t want to have children ever (first time I was hearing of that in 3.5 years) because if we were to divorce he’d have to pay me child support. His true colors came out the last 3 months of our relationship for sure. Definitely dodged a huge bullet with that one!!"
steelergirly7
Oh Hell No
"When I met their family. No way in hell was that going to be the rest of my life."
Negative_Increase975
Choose your regret...
"She changed in ways I didn’t like after I proposed. I brought it up on numerous occasions. She mocked me, denied it, and made lame excuses. I have one divorce under my belt already. I can’t go through that again. ETA: I’m eternally grateful this behavior shift happened after the proposal and not the wedding."'"
soggywaffle69
"OP, I’m guessing you’re asking because this is relevant in you’re life. No one here can help you figure it out, but there is a saying I like: 'Choose your regret.'"
soggywaffle69
Sometimes when it's over... it's over.
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People Break Down Which Things About The Early Days Of The Internet Most Folks Have Forgotten
Oh the beginning of the interwebs.
We really thought it wouldn't be much of a fuss.
We definitely did not see what was to come.
Maybe it should've stayed simple.
We'll never know.
Computers rule the world now.
The internet is God.
Let's see where we are in another twenty years.
Those were the days.
Redditor EzucraAaAa wanted to wax nostalgic about the good old days of technology and its humble beginnings.They asked:
"Redditors, what's something the internet was crazy about but is now forgotten?"
I miss the simplicity of not having a thousand apps. I'm simple.
Ah Memories...
"Search engines before Google existed. Alta Vista, Lycos, Web Crawler..."
deenali
Bad Downloads
"Downloading custom cursors for your computer. I gave my family computer so many viruses back in the '00s trying to click things with a lightsaber."
TW1103
"Amazing. I had totally forgotten about all the virusy stuff I downloaded to my home computer, purely so the cursor would disappear and reappear. My parents had zero knowhow with computers either, so likely had no idea wtf I was downloading. Cursors were cool though, despite all the malware."
AdderWibble
Collections
"During the early days of the web, when most websites weren't plastered with advertising... Website view counters."
over_clox
"Back in the day of counters, one day I went to my website and the counter was in the thousands. I just thought it malfunctioned and ignored it. Years later I learned that my website, which had a MIDI collection, was published in a newspaper in another country. I couldn't say for sure if that was true and whether it aligned with the counter change."
pupeno
The Look
"Yea the internet was simpler too, layout style I mean. I like old style HTML webpage layouts. I personally don’t like hyper modern logos and designs on interfaces. Something about old slightly pixelated designs about them home screens and app logos really made them satisfying. I’ve even went as far as seeing if I could install some extensions that could change the layout of sites, make them feel older, give them that 2000’s html look."
Original_Ad_1103
Found It
"Stumbleupon.com"
idont*uckwithstupid
"I used to waste so much time with stumble upon."
lilbroccoli13
What a strange and crazy place the internet was.
notification
"Poking on Facebook."
lamspartacus
"I had a friend that poked me and I never noticed the notification. He died. I now have this unreturned poke as a reminder that I’ll never be able to poke them back."
Klaus0225
Playtime
"Flash games."
mc_mike810
"Many flash games are not dead. BEHOLD! The flashpoint project. They have saved thousands of the old flash games in a playable format. Go forth and relive your childhood Also paging u/The_Middler_is_Here"
Jayccob
"Rip flash games... A neat alternative I've found a lot of games on is an application called Flashpoint. Check it out!"
Warlordninja100
I will find you...
"There was a rhythm game that I don't remember the name of that me and some friends would challenge each other in, and it had the song Guitar vs Piano 2 which introduced me to Envy, who was a pretty big newgrounds artist at the time. I wanna go check out their stuff again now, I'd completely forgot about them till now."
Silvervirage
GroupMeet
"Forums. There used to be so many, incredibly active and dedicated forums."
FromJavatoCeylon
"A lot of the forums I visited were ruined by photobucket when they decided they wanted paid a lot of money from their users. So many build threads and tutorials ruined."
jus_like_at
"IMDb had the best message boards back in the day. Chatting with your internet friends around the globe about every nuance in your fave movie. Man I miss that. Reddit is close, but nothing beats the olden days."
FeFiFoMums
Fun
"Do you guys remember those egg things that hatched little creatures after a while? You'd put one on your website and then the artist would update the source url with images of it hatching? There were all kinds of little fun things like that."
Sapiencia6
And those were the.... DAAAYYYYSSSS!!!!
Not all television and movies are loved by all.
A story and its characters have to appeal to you in order for you to be engaged.
It can take next to nothing for us to lose interest and let the screen go black.
Redditor BarooTangClan wanted to compare notes on all the entertainment we've said "that's enough" to.
"What will make you instantly stop watching a movie or show and why?"
I hate bad acting, writing, storytelling... I hate bad anything.
Stop Jumping
"Fight scenes with a million visual cuts. Gives me motion sickness. Contrast the absolutely masterful work in John Wick. long cuts, realistic use of weapons (mostly), 100% skill."
StabbyPants
Louder
"When the actors whisper the whole movie and you have to crank the volume to hear what's being said - but the soundtrack or some other misc noise starts blaring at a higher volume directly after."
Blaze*itch
"I basically had to watch Stranger Things up in my attic with the windows and doors closed. I was worried the neighbors would think something was wrong or be annoyed if I watched it downstairs in my single family home. It was ridiculous."
ForecastForFourCats
"spice things up"
"Love triangles out of no where in a second or third season to 'spice things up' because studio writers are hacks and their idea of relationship drama is 'potential infidelity' at all times. It's the most tired trope on the go**amn planet and the second I see it rear its head I dip right the hell out."
amalgamas
"The whole concept of a love triangle to begin with an incredibly juvenile. Any healthy functioning adult who found themselves in a love triangle would soon choose to find themselves single."
Ouch_i_fell_down
Save your lips...
"When couples in a movie/show have a fight and one of them instantly goes to a friend and end up kissing her/him after talking for 5 minutes. I cringe so hard i turn it off and never watch it again."
Dry-Mycologist3966
"This pissed me off so much in Manifest. Girl is desperate to get back her ex-fiancé, he finally breaks up with his wife to get back with her and she's like 'nah, it's not fair to your wife, let me do this other dude I just met through a calling and be pissed at you for being jealous.' Michaela was the worst and everyone acted as if she were a saint the entire time."
gingerisla
Talk to Me
"Shows where a single polite conversation could fix everything."
Horror_Librarian_133
We are going overboard with the witty repartee. Talk normal...
Shut Up
"Annoying main character, especially if it's a kid."
abananation
"Kids who have a quippy, sassy retort to everything, and everyone just kind of crumbles before their wit."
CarpetPure7924
Speak Good
"Shows where kids in high school talk like they are 30 years olds who have done everything, been everywhere, know it all and use a ridiculously flowery and extensive vocabulary in every conversation. Like, have any of these writers ever been to high school? Literally no one talks like that. Even worse is when, in addition to this, all the adults talk normal or are just plain stupid, like so weird parallel universe."
StretchArmstrong74
Nonsense
"If the movie is too dark. Not graphic, just literally dark. I lose all sense of intensity in dark scenes and I'm not straining my damn eyes trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
TheShadowOfKaos
"I've seen about 10 percent of all DC movies recently. I've seen all of the individual films in full, just actually saw 10% of each of them."
Mortlach78
"Movies in the late 80s had a lot of dark but you could see the depth because of different shooting techniques. Now you cant see crap because its a CGI fest drowned in black color so you can't see crap because you have no depth in a scene. Compare night scenes in dark alleys in 80's movies and movies now. Utter crap show in the new ones."
Bombzey
Pay Attention Storytellers
"Bad editing would be a big one. A lot of modern horror movies can't help but edit the movies like they're trailers, with added noises to scare the audience because they are afraid the script alone isn't enough to keep people watching."
ThisIsCreation
"I remember this is where the first transformers movie lost me. When the transformers are fighting at the end, it's all a big, jumbled mess of metal and I can barely tell what's going on or who is who."
1840_NO
Drama
"When they go straight to relationship drama right away when it wasn't the selling point of the show."
LightInthewater
Do better, Hollywood. It's not that hard.
I fear death.
I wake up in cold sweats dreaming about it.
I think about it in my waking hours.
It's an obsession and clearly, I'm not alone.
But there are more preferred ways to exit.
All we can do is hope to be lucky enough to skip the mercilessly awful.
Please just let me go quick and in my sleep.
RedditorCallMehRiverwanted to hear about all the ways none of us what to leave this life.
"What Do You Think Would Be The Worst Death Imaginable?"
My list of the worst deaths is long. My imagination runs amok.
Trapped
"For me? Being trapped in a small tube or cave (like the ones you have to wiggle through) and getting stuck to where you can’t move your arms. And all you can do is wait to die. I’m getting chills just thinking about it."
Stuck
"The more I hear about cavers that get stuck, the more I think that's a crap way to go."
- braydenmaine
"There’s a great YouTube channel called Ask a Mortician and this was her #1 worse way to die. I can’t remember the exact details or their names, but two well-known divers went into an underwater cave."
"One of them became entangled and died. Years later, his friend dives back down there to try and retrieve his body, the body itself is rotten and his head comes off and the other guy also becomes tangled and dies. Really sad."
- melancholybuzzard
A Long Process
"Believed to be in a coma but coherent through the whole 20 year process until they pull the plug."
weebeardedman
"Oh man this just reminded me of a story I read on here about a guy who lost the ability to move and speak but was completely conscious. Had to just lay there and be awake but trapped in a useless body. His family thought he was brain dead or something and he couldn’t communicate to them that he was 'all there.' Crazy"
habeeb51
Slow & Steady
"Being slowly impaled by a growing bamboo. It was a form of torture probably used by the japanese during WW2 against Allied prisoners."
JazzySocrate
"My uncle who served back in the day said that people would have the bamboo slipped under their fingernails because it would continue to grow still. It would just continue growing into the body."
Payness0826
Excruciating
"Rabies."
Santolmo
"The scariest part is that once you have symptoms, you 100% will die. A 100% mortality rate has to be a psychological torture in itself."
RonaldRawdog
"Not only that, you feel irrational fear. Your brain is literally being eaten apart by the virus and it fu*ks up everything on it. You can't drink water because it hurts you. You feel dizzy, present a fever, excessively salivate, everything hurts and it only gets worse. I'd rather take a bullet and die when the symptoms are still tolerable."
Santolmo
Why can't we all just go engulfed in calm and quiet?
Suspended
"Some pulpy sci-fi book I read a while back had one of the best deaths of this real piece of crap bad guy. Left to die in a drowning sea lab under the Antarctic ice, he freezes himself in a state of the art suspended animation pod with some kind cold fusion power source that would keep it running for millions of years."
"But he forgot to inject himself with the drug that would put him to sleep. So basically he is in suspended animation at the bottom of the Antarctic ocean while his mind is perfectly awake and conscious in a near unbreakable machine that won't run out of power for millions of years and nobody knows about it."
DubiousAlibi
No Cure
"As an RN I have always thought that the worst way to die (natural process) is ALS. Lou Gehrig's Disease."
randymn1963
"My mom and grandmother have Huntington's disease, which is essentially ALS, Alzheimer's, and Dementia combined into one really messed up genetic disease. I have a 50% chance of inheriting it and if I hit 40 and there's still no cure I can't promise I'll feel like continuing on with my life because that disease is absolutely freaking miserable."
DevTheDummy
Agony...
"Radiation poisoning."
binhan123ad
"The fact your chromosomes can be so destroyed your body basically lost it's genetic code and with it the ability to make any new cells. It's literally a 'dead man walking' and you slowly rot away in agony. Stuff is so unimaginably f**ked up."
yea_nah448
"What's also bad about radiation is that it affects your nerves and brain cells last, so you have everything in place to feel all the pain of the rest of your cells being destroyed."
nosmelc
Goo
"I want to believe anything that slowly kills you painfully to be the worst. Such as slowly being crushed or something where the pain is beyond compare and yet not enough to throw you into shock or unconsciousness."
Beardless_Man
"Alternatively, being rapidly crushed into goo would probably be the least painful. I'm talking one of those massive industrial hammers they use for large steel work. Basically smooshed before the nerve signals make it to the brain."
Bannon9k
Now I'll never sleep again without nightmares of death.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Foreigners Explain Which Stereotypically American Things They've Always Wanted To Try
Most Americans think nothing of their humdrum daily activities or amenities available to them.
However, others with a different perspective might romanticize the things that are otherwise commonplace ideas and concepts for US citizens, like going to a diner or riding the school bus.
One Redditor looked to foreigners to hear of their American desires to respond to the following:
"Non-Americans of Reddit: what is an American thing you have always wanted to try?"
The things depicted in film really captivated foreign audiences.
Casual Dining
"To visit a diner like in the movies. In the middle of the night, it’s raining and just a few people there with great music from a jukebox."
– TotalAd6225
Iconic Student Transport
"Ride a yellow school bus even if I'm too old. Growing up I always loved seeing them on TV."
– infiresemo
Just Like The Ones We Used To Know
"A white Christmas."
"Living in an Australian state where I've never even seen snow in our winter, let alone experiencing that classic Hallmark movie moment of waking up to a street full of it and sitting around a fireplace while opening gifts/preparing a feast."
"Guess it's not strictly American, but the imagery and trope is something I've only really seen from American Films."
– Stoibs
They may be ubiquitous for us, but they sure seem to be novel ideas to foreigners.
Let's Be Frank
"One of the hotdogs from those little street cart things."
– Who_is_lost
Kitchen Marvel
"A friend of mine from Indonesia said, 'the food chewer in the sink.'"
"Garbage disposal."
– Mnemonic22
American Pie
"Apple Pie made by white-haired grandma, placed near window, who says 'oh dear...' as I levitate towards it."
– MegaJoltik
Pre-Game Ritual
"Proper tailgating before a ball game, the kind where there's ribs and stuff."
– SpiralToNowhere
Fried Delicacies
"Deep fried foods at a state fair. I'm from Scotland and we love to deep fry everything and I wanna know if it's just as good or better."
– fenrisulfr94
There are places to see!
Places To See
"National parks."
– nhungoc1508
"America’s greatest invention!"
– nhungoc1508
Backpacking In Nature
"I always wanted to hike The Appalachian Trail if that counts. Or see Yellowstone."
– EphemeralRemedy
New Chapters
"Being able to start a whole new life 'elsewhere' without having to leave my country and going through an arduous immigration process."
– Gmtfoegy
My cousin told me she looks forward to visiting a Trader Joe's someday when she visits America for the first time.
Her bucket list option was hardly surprising. My parents used to bring treats from TJs as a novelty souvenir gift item, and my relatives ate it up. Literally.
Let's face it. The snacks at TJs rocks.
Even store locations in New York City would have ridiculously long lines during busy hours because the West-coast-based grocer was a novelty on the East Coast.