Stalking. It’s not funny to have someone follow you in the dead of night with the intention of kidnapping you. It’s not funny to find photos of you sleeping taken from outside your bedroom window on your ‘friends’ phone. And it’s most certainly not funny to feel as helpless and scared as I did. I tried to take my life because my stalker said if I told on him, he’d kill my parents, because I saw no way out.
Cancer or other health scares. I didn’t have cancer but my ex did and he went through absolute hell and it completely wrecked our relationship. All this romanticizing about being there for someone when they’re facing their mortality… trust me, it’s brutal and if they don’t cope well like my ex, it usually ends up in heartbreak.
Being a lesbian. Straight women will say “I wish I could date women, it would be so much easier”…they wouldn’t last 2 weeks after changing their dating app preferences 😆
Men continuing to pursue and harass women after being turned down.
It is not pleasant and can terrifying for someone to ‘not take no for an answer’ or the idea that harassing someone with the hope of wearing them down often shown positively
Having gay parents (I’m not homophobic by the way, they are transphobic to me lmfao). People think that being raised by queer people is like being raised by saints but it’s just like. Two angry men
Being a full time caregiver. It’s hard. It sucks. It drains you and you don’t get to live a life.
Edit to respond to a couple comments. I did not choose this. It was forced on me because there is no one else. I haven’t been alone in almost 10 years. 10 years! If I can’t even go to the store by myself. My health is in shambles. And mom is a psychopathic, racist, homophobic narcissist (always has been but it’s worse now). No one is hire would put up with it and she’d get kicked out of any nursing home we could find.
Alcoholism. The number of dramatic characters who drown their sorrows by throwing back bottles of hard liquor while remaining healthy looking and functional. The reality is so much uglier and sordid.
Look at any first time thrilled to be pregnant mother to be with her starry eyes and ‘babies are sooo cute’ talk and listen to all her plans for after the baby is born ‘when the pregnancy is over and everything will be so much easier’, compared to same woman two months after the birth.
Just offering to hold the baby while she has a shower will get you the same gratitude usually reserved for kidney donors.
It’s not sunshine, rainbows and instant reclamation of who you are. It is an exhausting process that involves untangling yourself from a person who doesn’t see you as a person.
There was nothing fun or cool about not knowing where I would go tomorrow. I was taken advantage of by a lot of people because they knew I had nowhere to go. Living on the street was significantly worse. I didn’t feel like a nomad or whatever the fuck hipster nonsense people think happens when you don’t have a roof over your head.
I didn’t feel like I had some incredible earthly experience or gained any special wisdom. All that happened is that I got traumatized, lost all of what little I owned, and realized that most people are awful when they know you can’t do anything against them.
It’s also shockingly expensive to be homeless. I had a job at McDonalds, but I didn’t have a home or kitchen, so I ate out every day. I ate cheap shitty food, but it adds up. I needed a gym membership to have regular showers and would get a hotel whenever I could. I paid people to let me stay with them. I hardly had anything left to save up.
Autism. We are portrayed as Sheldonesque Genius archetypes or savants that can memorize Pi to 10,000 digits and cracking codes right left and center. For the most part we see patterns (developed sense because we don’t see social cues IDK?) But for this everyday Autistic I am trying to mask to keep a job and not end up homeless with a child.
Mental illness. I’ve seen an increase in shows having characters (mostly teens) wishing for a disorder like it was an accessory. Newsflash: It’s a daily battle that will never end, and will truly deteriorate your brain over time.
Mental illness. Granted, I don’t have it as severe as some people, but it still isn’t fun. Ruminating for several months straight because of an OCD flare up sucks. Assuming the worst case scenario and worrying about every little thing because of anxiety sucks. Doubting your own decisions and being overly harsh on yourself because of low self esteem sucks.
The love of a good women can fix a bad man. Or the idea that women want a bad boy.
Not that I don’t believe someone can change but if someone is fundamentally disrespectful, aggressive, detached or controlling, the best woman in the world isn’t going to change that. And vice versa for women too.
It is a more common theme for it to be a bad boy trope and a good woman. But it can be in the reverse of course.
ADHD is not cute and quirky and you shouldn’t say you have it unless you’ve actually been diagnosed with it, and you shouldn’t get an adderall prescription unless you actually need it
People love going to church. People don’t want to set up or maintain anything that goes into it. They just want to read the stories and sing songs about the one Middle Eastern person they’ve ever pretended to respect. (Hate working Holy Week)
Running a bed and breakfast. My mother started one in our house when I was in high school. She would rent out all three bedrooms, including mine, and I would sometimes sleep in the field nearby, if I wasn’t at my dad’s. Then it was cleaning rooms, making breakfast, and more. She was a single mom and doing what she had to do. I didn’t like it but I respect her, and it meant my sister and I inherited some money when she died last year (or certainly more than we would have otherwise).
Real life trauma. It feels like everyone these days wants to have a trauma story. I know they say you’re not supposed to compare, but Jesus Christ people
Addiction. I feel like nearly every piece of addiction media makes it out to be an unhealthy habit that takes a little bit of willpower to break.
The reality is people being trapped living the same horrible day for years of their life and escape by a miracle. It really is a life-ending disease that people outside of it can’t comprehend.
Being on the Autism Spectrum / Aspergers. Yes at times it’s useful. But usually it’s exhausting and everyone assumes that autistic means “Stupid kid with a negative IQ who screeches and then eats glue and runs face first into the wall”
Or more recently, certain rich douche canoes are trying to push the narrative that “People with Aspergers are just toxic assholes, nothing to be done about it” instead of addressing Narcissism and Megalomania.
Working with animals/veterinary medicine. We don’t play with puppies and kittens all day. Honestly, only 10% of my day is spent with the animals, and the rest is dealing with humans. We are severely under paid, we deal with emotional and physical trauma both in the animals and ourselves, and the most common thing we get hurled at us is we only care about the money. Even the veterinarians are buried under piles of debt and are barely making it. Do you want to know why Fluffie’s vet bill is $5000? All that money is going to corporations and pharmaceutical companies. It absolutely KILLS us to hand you an estimate that we know is extremely expensive. We are drowning alive out here. There’s a reason this industry has one of the highest suicide rates.
18y old and middle aged dude like (40+) it’s not romantic, it’s creepy and the guy is pathetic for going after someone who still thinks and acts like a child with no life experience. I’m all for age gaps but I prefer if the woman is not on the cusp of barely an adult.
What a lot of people would call “romantic persistence”, the idea that if you just keep chipping away at someone, asking them out, making grand romantic gestures, wearing them down, they’ll eventually be won over by the sheer dedication of your desire.
There’s a person in my life now who’s like that, and it is exhausting, infuriating. and unsettling, sometimes in turns and sometimes all at once.
Take no for an answer, whether you’re a man or a woman. It’s not cute, it’s not romantic, it’s just shitty, juvenile behavior. 80s teen rom coms should not be your guide to how to live life.
Having big boobs. It’s hard to tell what is the bigger annoyance – the lower back pain or the inability to find clothes that fit properly because even plus sizes default to a “normal” chest. I have to buy bathing suits one size too big just to have adequate chest coverage.
Being a long haul truck driver. I’m not being paid to travel. You see very little except long stretches of highway and then small, select areas of each city or town you stop in. The work is hard, it beats the shit out of your body, your mind and your family. You spend most of your days exhausted and lonely.
This is trivial and niche, but having fruit trees. People think the trees just produce the fruit with no effort from you at all. We have people ring the doorbell every year asking if they can pick and take our fruit (at least they’re asking so we can say no). Every couple years a social media thing goes around saying “Cities should plant fruit trees instead of ornamental trees to feed the homeless.”
Y’all. To get *enjoyable* fruit off a tree, you have to baby the heck out of it. Pruning every year, and it takes FOREVER. Thinning the fruit in June: otherwise you end up with tiny fruit that is 90% pit. That also often takes forever. Spraying the trees every 2-4 weeks the entire summer to prevent insects destroying the fruit. Constantly monitoring the tree for insect damage, fungal diseases, and bacterial diseases so you can stop them before they kill the tree. Propping the branches up in the fall because, even though you took 80% of the fruit off in the thinning, some branches are still too heavily laden: you never thin enough no matter how hard you try. Sometimes taking care of your tree like this all year (minus the thinning) and not getting one piece of fruit off it because there was a late freeze.
If you count the cost of my labor, it would be much cheaper for me to buy fruit at the grocery store. I don’t because it does save me actual money and because home grown fruit tastes freaking delicious. But those beautiful trees laden with beautiful work are the result of me busting my butt to take care of them, so there is no way in hell I’m giving some away to a stranger. And fruit trees planted on a city street would result in tiny, nasty, worm-ridden fruit smashed all over the sidewalks.
Only fans. I feel like it just marginalises women to their bodies.
Idrm it, it doesn’t affect me but it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth when OF models make content on YouTube or tiktok that’s targeted at a young audience
Oddly enough, living in the Deep South tends to be romanticized by a surprising number of people. That is not to say that living in the Deep South is some constant barrage of horror or anything, but when I see people making videos on life in the South, they tend to over glamorize it. I think they are trying to be nice and to avoid offending people who live here, and there are still great things to find here, and it is still part of an extremely wealth country. But I find people tend to downplay a lot of the problems it has, such as its high levels of poverty, low-quality education in many places, poor access to medical care, religious fundamentalism, low wages, homophobia, etc.
Being a touring musician in a low level band. Living in a van with three other stinky drunks, waiting for the next inevitable vehicular disaster, not eating for days, staying in filthy motels, sudden snow storms, weird drifters, shady truck stops etc it was fun for the first half of my 20’s but its ultimately a lonely and disassociated lifestyle
The farm life. I had that experience as a kid and hated it. I have heard so many people talk about what a great life it would be. Unless you live on a dairy farm, there is a LOT of downtime. The long year-round days as a farmer is a myth. The issue with downtime is there isn’t much around you to enrich your life. You live in areas devoid of real culture, so many living in rural areas turn to alcohol. Good for those growing our food. I mean that with a lot of sincerity. If you are used to being surrounded by activity, the void of living on a farm will drive you insane.
Giving up children for adoption. So many adopted children have deep emotional issues from being given up. I’m adopted and had great parents, but still have issues, mine aren’t too bad , but I’m in a group on FB and so many have big problems.
Autism. Especially autistic women. I’m not a tortured genius, and I’m not your manic pixie dream girl either. I’m just a human being trying to deal with the fact that no matter how much I train my social skills I’ll never be able to make connections like everyone else, or talk to people without eventually accidentally making someone mad and trying desperately to pick up the pieces afterwards.
Comments
Stalking. It’s not funny to have someone follow you in the dead of night with the intention of kidnapping you. It’s not funny to find photos of you sleeping taken from outside your bedroom window on your ‘friends’ phone. And it’s most certainly not funny to feel as helpless and scared as I did. I tried to take my life because my stalker said if I told on him, he’d kill my parents, because I saw no way out.
Stalking is no joke.
Men wanting a woman who’s inexperienced in bed.
Mexican here. The narco/cartel culture
Mental health issues.
Big fat mommy milkers. I had a girlfriend with a pair of these and all in all they were more problem than anything else
Cancer or other health scares. I didn’t have cancer but my ex did and he went through absolute hell and it completely wrecked our relationship. All this romanticizing about being there for someone when they’re facing their mortality… trust me, it’s brutal and if they don’t cope well like my ex, it usually ends up in heartbreak.
Porn. It’s not what people think it is.
Motherhood!
Everything is about renunciation and sacrifice for you as a woman, I love being a mother but it’s not easy!
OCD
Being a lesbian. Straight women will say “I wish I could date women, it would be so much easier”…they wouldn’t last 2 weeks after changing their dating app preferences 😆
trauma, in general.
The 1960s.
Men continuing to pursue and harass women after being turned down.
It is not pleasant and can terrifying for someone to ‘not take no for an answer’ or the idea that harassing someone with the hope of wearing them down often shown positively
“Fixing” the bad boy… If only people knew how nice, comfortable and safe it is to go for the good guys instead
Having gay parents (I’m not homophobic by the way, they are transphobic to me lmfao). People think that being raised by queer people is like being raised by saints but it’s just like. Two angry men
Being a full time caregiver. It’s hard. It sucks. It drains you and you don’t get to live a life.
Edit to respond to a couple comments. I did not choose this. It was forced on me because there is no one else. I haven’t been alone in almost 10 years. 10 years! If I can’t even go to the store by myself. My health is in shambles. And mom is a psychopathic, racist, homophobic narcissist (always has been but it’s worse now). No one is hire would put up with it and she’d get kicked out of any nursing home we could find.
Trigger warning- controversial topic
armed forces culture.
my entire family is part of it and it’s not glamorous or easy.
Self harm… I get angry when people act like it’s something that makes them more interesting.
eating disorders, especially anorexia. tiktok has gone crazy with it as of late and i’ve had to take a break from it
Alcoholism. The number of dramatic characters who drown their sorrows by throwing back bottles of hard liquor while remaining healthy looking and functional. The reality is so much uglier and sordid.
Babies. You are never prepared.
Look at any first time thrilled to be pregnant mother to be with her starry eyes and ‘babies are sooo cute’ talk and listen to all her plans for after the baby is born ‘when the pregnancy is over and everything will be so much easier’, compared to same woman two months after the birth.
Just offering to hold the baby while she has a shower will get you the same gratitude usually reserved for kidney donors.
Leaving a toxic relationship.
It’s not sunshine, rainbows and instant reclamation of who you are. It is an exhausting process that involves untangling yourself from a person who doesn’t see you as a person.
Honestly, a ‘bad back’
Florida
Overprotective jealous partner. At some point felt like I was going to lose my life.
“Hustle culture” or “grinding nonstop” or whatever, people aren’t meant to try and work as much as possible… We need to chill
Disabled family members. It’s not fulfilling or noble, it sucks. It’s destroyed family relationships and harvested resent and worry.
Homelessness/couch surfing
There was nothing fun or cool about not knowing where I would go tomorrow. I was taken advantage of by a lot of people because they knew I had nowhere to go. Living on the street was significantly worse. I didn’t feel like a nomad or whatever the fuck hipster nonsense people think happens when you don’t have a roof over your head.
I didn’t feel like I had some incredible earthly experience or gained any special wisdom. All that happened is that I got traumatized, lost all of what little I owned, and realized that most people are awful when they know you can’t do anything against them.
It’s also shockingly expensive to be homeless. I had a job at McDonalds, but I didn’t have a home or kitchen, so I ate out every day. I ate cheap shitty food, but it adds up. I needed a gym membership to have regular showers and would get a hotel whenever I could. I paid people to let me stay with them. I hardly had anything left to save up.
Autism. We are portrayed as Sheldonesque Genius archetypes or savants that can memorize Pi to 10,000 digits and cracking codes right left and center. For the most part we see patterns (developed sense because we don’t see social cues IDK?) But for this everyday Autistic I am trying to mask to keep a job and not end up homeless with a child.
Mental illness. I’ve seen an increase in shows having characters (mostly teens) wishing for a disorder like it was an accessory. Newsflash: It’s a daily battle that will never end, and will truly deteriorate your brain over time.
Being a chef
OCD
owning a successful business
working in a library
Berlin, Germany
Being neurodivergent.
Mental illness.
So sick of people being in a bad mood and saying omgggggg..I’m SO bipolar!
Or omg I clean alllll the time, I’m soooooo OCD!
Like please just stfu already
Mental illness. Granted, I don’t have it as severe as some people, but it still isn’t fun. Ruminating for several months straight because of an OCD flare up sucks. Assuming the worst case scenario and worrying about every little thing because of anxiety sucks. Doubting your own decisions and being overly harsh on yourself because of low self esteem sucks.
neurodivergence. I embrace it because I have no choice, it’s how I am literally biologically made. But, man, it’s not some quirky personality trait.
Living off the land/ grid.
The love of a good women can fix a bad man. Or the idea that women want a bad boy.
Not that I don’t believe someone can change but if someone is fundamentally disrespectful, aggressive, detached or controlling, the best woman in the world isn’t going to change that. And vice versa for women too.
It is a more common theme for it to be a bad boy trope and a good woman. But it can be in the reverse of course.
Alcohol
ADHD is not cute and quirky and you shouldn’t say you have it unless you’ve actually been diagnosed with it, and you shouldn’t get an adderall prescription unless you actually need it
Working 9-5
People love going to church. People don’t want to set up or maintain anything that goes into it. They just want to read the stories and sing songs about the one Middle Eastern person they’ve ever pretended to respect. (Hate working Holy Week)
A career in the military during a time of war.
Running a bed and breakfast. My mother started one in our house when I was in high school. She would rent out all three bedrooms, including mine, and I would sometimes sleep in the field nearby, if I wasn’t at my dad’s. Then it was cleaning rooms, making breakfast, and more. She was a single mom and doing what she had to do. I didn’t like it but I respect her, and it meant my sister and I inherited some money when she died last year (or certainly more than we would have otherwise).
Real life trauma. It feels like everyone these days wants to have a trauma story. I know they say you’re not supposed to compare, but Jesus Christ people
Being obsessed with someone. It’s not fancy or desirable. It’s scary.
Eastern Europe trauma aesthetic
People that spend a night or a week outdoors and think that they know what it’s like to be homeless.
Or basically anyone that can decide to stop being homeless any time they want to.
It’s an entirely different level of pressure and anxiety when you can’t just choose to go back to a home.
Addiction. I feel like nearly every piece of addiction media makes it out to be an unhealthy habit that takes a little bit of willpower to break.
The reality is people being trapped living the same horrible day for years of their life and escape by a miracle. It really is a life-ending disease that people outside of it can’t comprehend.
Sugar daddy’s. People joke about getting them. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Being on the Autism Spectrum / Aspergers. Yes at times it’s useful. But usually it’s exhausting and everyone assumes that autistic means “Stupid kid with a negative IQ who screeches and then eats glue and runs face first into the wall”
Or more recently, certain rich douche canoes are trying to push the narrative that “People with Aspergers are just toxic assholes, nothing to be done about it” instead of addressing Narcissism and Megalomania.
I’m so tired you guys
Living/working on a cruise ship. Rampant sexual harassment is not worth it.
Working with animals/veterinary medicine. We don’t play with puppies and kittens all day. Honestly, only 10% of my day is spent with the animals, and the rest is dealing with humans. We are severely under paid, we deal with emotional and physical trauma both in the animals and ourselves, and the most common thing we get hurled at us is we only care about the money. Even the veterinarians are buried under piles of debt and are barely making it. Do you want to know why Fluffie’s vet bill is $5000? All that money is going to corporations and pharmaceutical companies. It absolutely KILLS us to hand you an estimate that we know is extremely expensive. We are drowning alive out here. There’s a reason this industry has one of the highest suicide rates.
Codependency. “I can’t live without you.”
Alcoholism. Helping someone recover from addiction. It’s not a bonding process, it’s fucking hell and it strips you of all trust.
18y old and middle aged dude like (40+) it’s not romantic, it’s creepy and the guy is pathetic for going after someone who still thinks and acts like a child with no life experience. I’m all for age gaps but I prefer if the woman is not on the cusp of barely an adult.
Social media followers.
What a lot of people would call “romantic persistence”, the idea that if you just keep chipping away at someone, asking them out, making grand romantic gestures, wearing them down, they’ll eventually be won over by the sheer dedication of your desire.
There’s a person in my life now who’s like that, and it is exhausting, infuriating. and unsettling, sometimes in turns and sometimes all at once.
Take no for an answer, whether you’re a man or a woman. It’s not cute, it’s not romantic, it’s just shitty, juvenile behavior. 80s teen rom coms should not be your guide to how to live life.
Having big boobs. It’s hard to tell what is the bigger annoyance – the lower back pain or the inability to find clothes that fit properly because even plus sizes default to a “normal” chest. I have to buy bathing suits one size too big just to have adequate chest coverage.
Being a strong single mom.
Female on male sexual assault and rape.
Chronic illness. r/illnessfakers is a good resource for their disgusting behavior
Sexual assault
Poverty.
Being a long haul truck driver. I’m not being paid to travel. You see very little except long stretches of highway and then small, select areas of each city or town you stop in. The work is hard, it beats the shit out of your body, your mind and your family. You spend most of your days exhausted and lonely.
Adoption
This is trivial and niche, but having fruit trees. People think the trees just produce the fruit with no effort from you at all. We have people ring the doorbell every year asking if they can pick and take our fruit (at least they’re asking so we can say no). Every couple years a social media thing goes around saying “Cities should plant fruit trees instead of ornamental trees to feed the homeless.”
Y’all. To get *enjoyable* fruit off a tree, you have to baby the heck out of it. Pruning every year, and it takes FOREVER. Thinning the fruit in June: otherwise you end up with tiny fruit that is 90% pit. That also often takes forever. Spraying the trees every 2-4 weeks the entire summer to prevent insects destroying the fruit. Constantly monitoring the tree for insect damage, fungal diseases, and bacterial diseases so you can stop them before they kill the tree. Propping the branches up in the fall because, even though you took 80% of the fruit off in the thinning, some branches are still too heavily laden: you never thin enough no matter how hard you try. Sometimes taking care of your tree like this all year (minus the thinning) and not getting one piece of fruit off it because there was a late freeze.
If you count the cost of my labor, it would be much cheaper for me to buy fruit at the grocery store. I don’t because it does save me actual money and because home grown fruit tastes freaking delicious. But those beautiful trees laden with beautiful work are the result of me busting my butt to take care of them, so there is no way in hell I’m giving some away to a stranger. And fruit trees planted on a city street would result in tiny, nasty, worm-ridden fruit smashed all over the sidewalks.
Hustle culture, I actually want free time
Only fans. I feel like it just marginalises women to their bodies.
Idrm it, it doesn’t affect me but it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth when OF models make content on YouTube or tiktok that’s targeted at a young audience
Oddly enough, living in the Deep South tends to be romanticized by a surprising number of people. That is not to say that living in the Deep South is some constant barrage of horror or anything, but when I see people making videos on life in the South, they tend to over glamorize it. I think they are trying to be nice and to avoid offending people who live here, and there are still great things to find here, and it is still part of an extremely wealth country. But I find people tend to downplay a lot of the problems it has, such as its high levels of poverty, low-quality education in many places, poor access to medical care, religious fundamentalism, low wages, homophobia, etc.
Being a touring musician in a low level band. Living in a van with three other stinky drunks, waiting for the next inevitable vehicular disaster, not eating for days, staying in filthy motels, sudden snow storms, weird drifters, shady truck stops etc it was fun for the first half of my 20’s but its ultimately a lonely and disassociated lifestyle
The farm life. I had that experience as a kid and hated it. I have heard so many people talk about what a great life it would be. Unless you live on a dairy farm, there is a LOT of downtime. The long year-round days as a farmer is a myth. The issue with downtime is there isn’t much around you to enrich your life. You live in areas devoid of real culture, so many living in rural areas turn to alcohol. Good for those growing our food. I mean that with a lot of sincerity. If you are used to being surrounded by activity, the void of living on a farm will drive you insane.
Giving up children for adoption. So many adopted children have deep emotional issues from being given up. I’m adopted and had great parents, but still have issues, mine aren’t too bad , but I’m in a group on FB and so many have big problems.
Organized crime family-ish behavior. I grew up dealing with it.
Being a kid in the 80’s. Everyone was such bigger assholes in school than they are now. And teacher’s didn’t intervene.
Erotic horror and fetish novels that have been incorrectly marketed as dark romance.
Meeting the love of my life and having her die and having people say I’ll meet someone else or that at least I had that kind of love. Ugh.
BEING POOR
Age gap relationships. Huge age gaps, particularly older man-younger woman
Autism. Especially autistic women. I’m not a tortured genius, and I’m not your manic pixie dream girl either. I’m just a human being trying to deal with the fact that no matter how much I train my social skills I’ll never be able to make connections like everyone else, or talk to people without eventually accidentally making someone mad and trying desperately to pick up the pieces afterwards.
Loss. That shit is DEVASTATING.