i think one of the most underrated red flags is someone who gets offended by how long it takes to get close to you. you meet them three times and somehow they're already acting like they have historical rights to your life. they want to know everything. your childhood. your insecurities. who you're dating. why you don't speak to that one family member. what happened in your last relationship. they send you seven-minute voice notes. tell you things that would normally require six months of friendship and a minor medical emergency. suddenly you're their favorite person. it's flattering at first. someone seems unusually interested in understanding you. then you notice something strange. the intimacy keeps arriving with little expectations attached. why didn't you answer? who were you with? why didn't you tell me? you used to tell me everything. sorry, when did this become a subscription service? i think some people have learned that the fastest way to influence another person is to make them feel guilty about having a private life. they create an atmosphere where every boundary feels like a betrayal of a relationship that barely exists. and because they're often extremely warm in the beginning, you spend an embarrassing amount of time explaining away the discomfort. they're just affectionate. they care a lot. they've been hurt before. maybe i'm being cold. meanwhile they've started making little corrections. that friend of yours seems weird. you shouldn't post that. i wouldn't trust that person. you've changed lately. interesting how frequently you've apparently changed whenever you do something they didn't approve of. the really revealing moment comes when you disappoint them over something completely ordinary. you can't meet on friday. you don't want to discuss something personal. you disagree with their opinion. you need a weekend to yourself. watch how quickly the affection becomes a courtroom. suddenly there's a list of everything they've done for you, everything they've shared with you, every occasion when they were supposedly there. you're now being prosecuted for failing to honor a contract you never remember signing. who demand emotional privileges before they've demonstrated emotional restraint. being allowed into someone's private world should make you more careful with them. some people get access and immediately start rearranging the furniture. and the strangest part is how long you can mistake your own discomfort for a character flaw. you keep trying to become more understanding. more available. less sensitive. until one day you say a very ordinary sentence. "i'd rather keep that to myself." and their face changes. there it is. the first honest reaction you've seen since you met.

"so what were you doing between march 2022 and august 2023?" a hiring manager asked me that once, very friendly, pen ready. i said "freelancing." i was not freelancing. i was mostly on my floor ordering from the same thai place so often they started throwing in a free spring roll the honest answer was that i was sick. if it had been mono or a back thing nobody would've blinked. people would've said "oh god are you better now," and somebody would've brought soup i had good weeks sometimes. i'd do laundry and answer two emails and feel like a person, and then it would go away again for a month and i couldn't tell you where from the outside it looks like free time, which is what makes people weird about it. you were home, you had netflix. so when you come back they want to know what you made of it, as if you should've at least come back speaking spanish my aunt asked me at thanksgiving that year what i'd been up to. i said "honestly not much" and she said "must be nice." it was not nice. i had showered that morning specifically because of her it still takes a lot out of you even when nothing's happening. you're paying rent, you're saying "good, you?" to the cashier, you're getting through every tuesday from 3 to 6pm, which for some reason was always the worst part i know i'm not the only one. if you've had one of those stretches you probably have your own fake word for it. mine was "freelancing." a friend of mine says "i was taking some time" and then changes the subject really fast i'd just like to be able to say "i was sick for a while" and have people go "oh, glad you're better" and then ask about my dog i got the job, by the way. in my second week the same manager mentioned he once took a year off to "find himself" in portugal. he said it like it was the best thing he ever did

$212. that's what a guy i worked with at a warehouse had in checking the week he explained to me, very seriously, that paid sick leave is how communism starts. he made $19 an hour and called his landlord most months to ask for a couple more days i liked him a lot. he once drove 40 minutes at 11pm to jump my car in a walmart parking lot and wouldn't take gas money, and he picked up every saturday shift there was. he was also more scared of socialism than anyone i've ever met. buddy what money one winter he came in with the flu four days in a row because missing a shift meant missing rent. sweating through his hoodie, scanning pallets at 5am. the supervisor told him to go home and he said "i'm good." that same week on his lunch break he showed me a 40 minute youtube video about how canada is basically venezuela now. i watched maybe nine minutes of it people online love calling guys like him stupid and it drives me a little crazy, because he wasn't. he knew exactly how bad it was. he just didn't believe anybody was coming. nobody ever had, not for him and not for his dad, so when someone said the government might help it sounded like a trick, and he wasn't going to be the sucker who fell for it somewhere in his head he was always about two years away from his own place and a bass boat. he didn't want anyone voting away stuff for that guy half the country votes like they already own the boat growing up you get told over and over that needing help means you messed up somewhere. so you work sick. you don't say the deal isn't working, because saying it out loud feels like admitting it was your fault call it socialism or don't, i honestly don't care about the word. but if you've ever split an electric bill into two payments, or stood in a gas station checking your balance before buying a $6 sandwich, those arguments aren't protecting you from anything i asked him once what he'd do if some politician actually got him paid sick leave. he thought about it for a second and said "i'd figure they wanted something." and the annoying part is i've never been able to prove him wrong

advice like “say yes to everything for the first three months” and my body does that little laugh that isn’t funny. Because it sounds clean on a screen. Like friendship is a vending machine. Insert extroversion. Attend enough events. Meet one new person per night. Wait for the network effects. Then boom - you have a friend group, a brunch table, people who text you memes at 22:37 like they’ve known you for years. And I get why it works for some people. I really do. There’s truth in it. But the part nobody says is how humiliating the first months actually feel when you are the new person. I remember my first week in a new city. It was 19:18, cold air, the kind that makes your hands ache before you even realize you’re tense. I had one lamp on in an apartment that still smelled like cardboard and strangers. I was sitting on the floor eating something cheap out of a container because I didn’t have proper plates yet. My phone kept lighting up, not with invitations, but with the silent noise of other people’s lives continuing without me. Group chats back home. Photos of familiar places. People casually existing in rooms where I wasn’t. And that’s when the loneliness hits. Not as sadness. More like that thin, fizzy panic in your chest that says, nobody knows me here. So you do what the advice says. You say yes. You open the apps. You find an event that seems normal enough. Some meetup, some talk, some random class. And you go. You show up early because you don’t want to walk into a room when everyone already has someone. You hover near the edge like you’re pretending to read something important on your phone, but really you’re scanning faces like a hostage negotiator. You’re trying to find one person who looks as lost as you feel so you can latch onto them without looking desperate. Then you do the thing you hate. You introduce yourself. Hi, I’m new here. New is a strange word because it doesn’t mean fresh. It means unclaimed. New means you don’t have context, you don’t have history, you don’t have inside jokes, you don’t have the comfort of being known. New means you can leave the room and nobody will notice the hole you leave behind. It means you can walk home at 23:40 and realize you spent three hours smiling at strangers and still don’t have anyone to text “made it back” to. And you tell yourself it’s fine because you’re doing the right steps. You go again. And again. You say yes to things you don’t even like because you’re scared that if you say no, you’ll turn into someone who stays home forever. There was a month where I could barely remember what I actually enjoyed, because every week was a rotation of trying to be likable in new rooms. Coffee with someone who was “nice.” Drinks with someone you didn’t fully click with but you’re trying to build momentum. A gallery opening where the art didn’t move you but you needed to be around humans. A gym class where you smiled too much and laughed at jokes that weren’t funny because you wanted to be invited to the after thing. the uncomfortable part, the part you don’t admit out loud, is that you start treating friendship like survival. Not “I want people.” More like “I can’t stand being invisible.” That’s when you become extra polite. Extra agreeable. Extra easy. You become the version of yourself that will not create friction because you’re terrified of losing the tiny thread you just built. You let conversations stay shallow because shallow is safer. You don’t say the weird thought. You don’t say the honest thing. You don’t say “I miss home” because you don’t want to make it heavy. You keep it light. Then you go home and feel empty anyway. The advice also skips the weird social math of adulthood. People are busy, yes, but it’s more than busy. They already have their circles. Their routines. Their history. You are a new file on their desktop. They might like you, but they don’t know where to place you yet.

“I hate my birthday” persona isn’t about indifference, it’s about disappointment preemptively disguised as apathy. It’s easier to say “I don’t care” than to admit you’re afraid no one will make it feel special. Behind that cynicism is a kid who once waited for the surprise that never came, who learned to lower their expectations because it hurt less than hoping. The truth is, she doesn’t hate her birthday —she just hates feeling forgotten.