99
Which high school friend took a path you didn't expect?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
99 points (100.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
38041 readers
1327 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I dated a girl like that in college. She never went deep off the rails, but when I met her she was reckoning with the fact that she had basically been forced into the perfect pretty cheerleader life by her backwards Louisiana family, even having them go so far as to put her in a mental institution for a short time and hide it from everyone in their lives to keep being able to pretend she was "perfect." It dragged on her mentally, and she years later would tell me the reason she disappeared and stopped talking to me after six months was I was the first man who had ever been interested in who she was and what her thoughts were and she literally didn't know how to handle it. She tried to play the perfect pretty girl for a while longer, even marrying a guy who treated her the same way her dad did, as though she only existed to be a trophy wife, before getting divorced and starting to break free from those shackles.
Anyway, just saying, sometimes those super popular, happy seeming immaculate people have something sinister hiding under the surface: like a family forcing them to be that way.
She married the wrong guy.
But most feminists would skewer me for saying that, because it's her choice and "nice guy" actually means "predator" apparently. And then they complain about how men are so abusive and wonder why they can't find a man who treats them well.
And nobody is allowed to tell them that "Not all men are like that" or that "Your perception is indicative of the kind of men you've chosen to give your attention to."
And all the guys who spent their lives respecting women are instead quietly pursuing their own hobbies because they've realized there's no room for them in the dating pool, and never approaching women because apparently they would rather be mauled by a bear...
Y i k e s.
I guess fuck all the intergenerational trauma she experienced, it's all her fault for not being smarter about men! I guess you missed the part where she got divorced and began to break free of her traumatic upbringing which absolutely included changing the type of men she was allowing into her life.
Get a grip, you sound like a "nice guy" yourself.
She dumped you because she didn't know how to respond to a guy legitimately caring about her, and then she married an abuser to relive her trauma.
I never said her intergenerational trauma doesn't matter, but whenever my intergenerational trauma has caused me to make bad decisions, I've never received any sympathy. People just say I'm responsible for my own decisions and can't blame my present conditions on the circumstances of my past.
I've seen it happen all the time where women stay with their abusers, and take their anger out on anyone who tells them they deserve better. And yet they blame men as a generalized, abstract category for all the ways they've been mistreated by particular men, sparing no reflection for the selection bias at play.
Saying "women choosing to date abusive men is a problematic choice" isn't misogyny. Pretending they have no agency in who they decide to date is.
Don't be a cuck.
Cry me a river. Being treated badly isn't a good or valid reason to treat others badly.
And you're definitely not doing the same thing to women (blaming them as a generalized, abstract category) when you speak like this, got it, sure, sure.
Man, this couldn't get any more sad and funny at the same time. Whew, thanks for the laugh.
But seriously, you really need to learn to let go of that pain and try to not blame the opposite gender at large for what you see as perceived failures on their part. If you have only ever experienced women saying your intergenerational trauma is your own problem... you might be just as guilty of the "sin" of choosing to pursue the wrong type of person as you claim women are.
I personally have had loads of supportive and loving women in my life, so it's hard for me to wrap my mind around this mindset. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe it has something to do with me not making generalized statements about women in general instead of accepting them all as unique, flawed individuals just as much as anyone else, including myself.
Dude, you're being really based here
Thank you kindly for the compliment.
How long have you worked at the red flag factory? Do they know how many you're taking home?
"Something something, worn-out cliché, HA HA HA!"