Emerald

It is a shame that the other staff members’ perspectives are that beating is valuable to do. In fact, there has been studies done where it was found that spanking (which I’m sure is much lighter than the beatings the students have received) is ineffective at managing discipline at best and traumatic and counterproductive at worst. That said, societies change slowly. In another generation or so, there will probably reforms. Mind you, most Southern schools in America technically still allow corporal punishment with parental consent. But it wouldn’t be used by anyone who didn’t want to be on the news for child abuse. I’m sorry that you’ve gone through this. But the best advice I can give you is that your ex-teacher needn’t play any role in your healing process. He has no power over your healing.

The key to healing from trauma doesn’t exist within the person who traumatized you. He has no power over you in that way. Trauma is something that exists within your mind/body system, and it can only be healed from within the mind/body system. Just like, if someone cut you with a knife, you don’t need the knife’s compliance to heal from the cut.

Do you really think his interpretation of the events are accurate? I have suspicions that he may be drawing the wrong conclusions about her motivations. He’s put together that interpretation based on the fact that she asked him to repeat himself and that she also happened to be an atheist. She may have genuinely been trying to understand what he was saying. But maybe she was being a bitch. I just don’t see enough evidence to come to that conclusion, if he didn’t pick up on it while it was happening. But I don’t really believe women consciously do “shit tests” in the first place. I think it’s just a sizable minority of women’s personalities that make them prone to being difficult people. And men who are trying to understand and game it, framed it as shit testing to make it make sense in their framework. And now you have a bunch of men watching for “shit tests” and over-analyzing what they imagine are women’s underlying thoughts, feelings, and motives.

I’m an introvert too. But this is what a healthy social circle looks like. I know it sounds like a lot. But you’ve all probably experienced this before in school. And it’s what was just common (especially in small towns and villages) until the recent couple of decades. It’s just that the isolating way society is structured that makes this kind of social structure a chore because you have to go out of your way for it because Orange society is socially decentralized. Luckily there is the internet where you can meet lots of people. You’re all doing it right now actually.

It’s not a fantasy. Trust me. This is just part of the way social dynamics tend to work between men and women. Men tend to fantasize about very available women. But in reality, they are much less interested in pursuing women who make themselves very available to them. Most men respond to a challenge and a bit of a chase. This requires some distance on the part of the woman. And most women make the mistake of initiating most of the conversations and investing more than he does. But a good rule of thumb as a woman is to initiate 25% of the time, but let him do the rest. He’s courting you, not the other way around.

I really think do I need to crystallize what I wrote and get my mind right about it. My intuition has never really been off. It’s just that my intuition isn’t specifically looking for a happy relationship. It’s looking for deep relationship... painful or joyful, it has no preference. It wants mostly to learn, it seems. My mind, however, is the thing that has historically lined me up to the negative experience seeking part of my intuition. And it is mostly because I have always been prone to throwing caution to the wind once I get struck by the Cupid’s Arrow. So, in a way, my intuition has always lead me to the experiences and the pain I need to learn in the context of relationships and life in general. A big part of my purpose is teaching. This was something I was shown in a plant medicine ceremony. And I have experienced quite a range of varied (mild, moderate, and severe) heartbreaks and traumas throughout my first 20 years of life. And it was clear in that revelation that this variety of trauma has been necessary for me to fulfill my purpose. And this is because I can relate to most human pain, at least a little bit. But I would like now to switch gears. I’m hoping that I’ve had enough painful relationship experiences to suffice for my own learning. And I think it wise to keep these hard-won insights in mind as opposed to doing what I have done historically. But the relationships have gotten better as time has gone on. So, I’m hoping that for the next one, it will be better still. But I’m not ready for all that yet. I still have to grieve this one fully.

You’d be best to cultivate a really wide social circle for it, with several layers. Like being familiar with 600+ people in your in-person or online vicinity, and always being open to meeting more. Having 140-150 acquaintances within that 600 that you interact with occasionally. Then having 30 or so friends that you see at least once a month and would invite to parties and get-togethers. Then having like 5 or so really close friends that you see frequently. And ideally, you find most of these people in places where people on the same wavelength spend time. That’s what a healthy dynamic social circle looks like. It’s very similar to the social circle that high school or college sets up. So, you don’t really run out of options. And people who you just met can become really close friends of yours or even lovers over relatively short periods of time.

Not totally off the mark. It’s helpful to crystallize insights this way. And I am a bit sad because I just ended my last relationship less than a month ago. And I really didn’t want to. So, this helps that way, because I don’t want to wind up in another situation again where I invest a lot of energy and love into a situation that really can’t work out. But mostly, I wanted to share this because it is a really male-dominated space with lots of distorted viewpoints about women’s sexuality floating around... including distorted viewpoints about what men want in a partner. Mostly, if you ask half the guys on here, they would give some looks-based thing. But that only attracts but never keeps a man. And these viewpoints can genuinely take a number on women’s self-esteem because most women are not perfect 10s. And this might make them more prone to letting go of boundaries and settling for incompatible/low character men because they feel inadequate. So, I wanted to give genuinely helpful advice, which focuses on inner work, firm boundaries, individuality, and the cultivation of a Yin orientation to dating.

This is more of a list of things that I've learned from making many mistakes. These are the bits of advice I would give my younger self (though I've always known about numbers 7 and 8). And they are very much good advice. I am married but have been separated for 2.5 years and we were together for 9 years. We still live together with our children. It was a really rough relationship for me for a multitude of reasons that I don't feel comfortable with discussing. I really had to grit my teeth to keep it together for as long as I did. But it's much better now that we're just co-parents. I have had a couple of long-distance relationships in the past couple years (each lasting about a year a piece), and they were both very much mirrors to me, for better or for worse. And I've learned a lot in these relationships. That's why I recommend finding a man that mirrors you. It will give you what you need to learn. The first long-distance relationship in particular was the deepest I'd ever gone with a man, but we mirrored eachother so well that we ran into eachother's traumas eventually and I became very anxious and lost my boundaries and it turned sour. Hence the focus towards working through Shadows, setting boundaries, and knowing your deal-breakers. I loved him very much but he was a perfect mirror to what I had repressed in myself. And it was an incredibly painful breakup that brought me right into some childhood trauma that I wouldn't have otherwise brought to the surface. The second relationship I had was really nice and we mirrored eachother quite a lot as well. He's a very considerate person, which is something I hadn't experienced yet. We learned a lot together. But I sadly had to end it because our visions for the future were not compatible. I'd have gladly stayed with him otherwise. I also had a really bad relationship between age 16-20, that I was in prior to meeting my husband. I had the mindset at the time that, if I love a person then I need to sacrifice all of my boundaries for them. So, yeah... you can imagine how that went. So, here is my advice. It's good advice, I promise. It comes from a lot of trial and error.

I know that it isn't so simple. This is why I didn't tell the OP to go directly to the authorities. I've been in a situation that's milder but similar in nature with a family friend who was staying at our house. And I know I wouldn't have wanted to go through court trials and all that. But because my father and stepmother knew and kicked him out, it was a one time incident. Her father or some other adult in her family should know, so that they can take her out of harm's way. She's not safe where she is right now. It's not okay to not do anything.

Who should respect her wishes? The OP? Currently, the girl wants to keep it all a secret while she's still in danger of this happening again. If her mother isn't helping her, her father needs to know so that she can be somewhere that's out of harm's way. And the OP is an adult and would be wise to inform her father of her abuse. A 32 year old should not be keeping his knowledge of the rape of a child a secret from her dad.

Her father is not the rapist, her stepfather is. It was mentioned early on in the thread that her father is a good guy who is currently unaware of the rape.

I don't do shit tests, and I don't recommend doing them. That feels too gamey to purposefully give someone a hard time just to see what they'll do. Just take your time, have clear boundaries and know who you are, what you want, and what you don't. Say "no" when you feel that it's right to say no. Say "yes" when you feel that it's right to say yes.

You're welcome

Thank you!

Number 3 is very important too. Your intuition should outweigh your mind's rules most of the time. The mind would sort everyone if it were in charge of this department. So, if your intuition really does fire for someone you've just met, then go with it... but bring your brain. It's just that many women do put stock in dating apps and men they just met and they end up in unfulfilling or bad relationships. And that's in large part because their intuition didn't have time to work its magic and they took a gamble. Sometimes gambles work... but mostly the house wins. It's much safer, more fulfilling, and more in tune with our communal instincts to form romantic bonds with men we already know from day to day life. Go read some erotica (which has a primary female readership). Most of the story lines are based around going to bed with someone they've known and admired from afar for a while. And that's not an accident. That's what's genuinely most exciting. You like a guy and admire him from afar. And the tension rises and rises as you wonder if he feels the same way. And then, if he does, you get together and make love and it's amazing. And if he doesn't, it's a tragedy. That's not a bug, that's a feature. Women are adapting to the way things work and meeting random guys on dating apps. But it's pretty "meh". Many women will settle for "meh" rather than be alone. But it doesn't make it not "meh." That's why I said "nothing lukewarm". Note, that you won't find very much erotica about meeting some guy on Tinder or meeting some pick up artist... unless it happens to be someone from the protagonist's past. It's always about Johnny who works over in the next cubicle or Bill that dreamy barista at the coffee shop. Or maybe even Mr. Morgan, the handsome but much older professor that the protagonist shared a special bond with when she was a student. My experience is that female sexual attraction is like Kimchi. It has to emotionally ferment for a while to be any good. But it also consequently makes it safer.

When you go to upload your video, there is an option to upload a custom thumbnail on the same page where you add title, descriptions, and tags. It has to be under a certain size though. So, be sure to be mindful of that. Also, there are many free editors where you can make your own thumbnail. Canva would probably work well for it. There was also one called PicMonkey. I usually use Photoshop myself... but I've also used Canva and PicMonkey before and both are pretty good.

For men, the challenge is attracting. So, I can see why you would think that. But for women, the challenge is not attracting... but sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of compatibility and quality. Having fewer but higher quality/higher compatibility options is WORLDS better from a woman's perspective than just having tons and tons of options. Most of latter will be spam. This is why having a social circle of people on the same wavelength is a woman's best friend in terms of finding a compatible partner.

Maybe it is that way for some people. Though I do suspect that it isn't just me. I suspect that female sexuality generally does function that way. But regardless, I still stand by what I say as advice for women. Maybe for your girlfriend, jumping into a relationship with your right away was good because you're presumably not a bad guy. But I definitely wouldn't recommend it as general advice. Develop a strong social network. Get to know a guy for a few months platonically at first as part of your social network. Then, you'll know two things... 1. Are you really interested it him? 2. Is he a decent guy?

My experience is that I need a few platonic months to really read my intuition about someone and discover my attraction to them. And beginning a relationship with someone on a romantic foot just makes everything lukewarm because it takes all the tension out of the situation. And getting things to a boiling point is necessary for me to fall in love and sexually bond with someone. Otherwise the spell doesn't really take. I have very strong feelings about the current structure of society getting us far away from our communal natural instincts, and modern methods of dating are one reflection of this instinctual blunting. So, my experience has been that a man must already be part of my tribe for me to know intuitively if I'm interested in him.

Well, you are the adult in the situation. You can't put too much stock in what kids want for themselves in these situations because they just don't have enough perspective yet. And any bond of friendship should be put secondary. If I were in your shoes, I would get in touch with the girl's father and inform him about what has happened.

No, that's not why I asked. I asked to get more context, so that I could give you better information. It's different based on how you know her. How old are you? Are you very young too?

If you don't mind my asking, how do you know her? Are you a family friend? Teacher?

Number one, I never called for anyone to be censored. Number two, you're not important enough to be canceled. Number three, what you asked is obviously homophobic. Number four, it's important to call a thing what it is. If we see a duck, let's call it a duck. If we see homophobia, let's call it homophobia. Number five, if you're too sensitive to handle the homophobic things you say being accurately labeled as homophobic, then either own your homophobia and get less sensitive to being called out or just don't say homophobic things. It's your choice.

Actually, most progressives are pretty against stereotyping against working class folks. Though of course, wealthy progressive folks, as I've experienced, can fall into classicism just as easily because they just don't really understand what it's like to struggle with money. But I don't really understand how you see what I said was against rural people. Is it because I said that I have commercial swampland in Florida to sell you if you're gullible enough to think people are offended because of the phrase "black coffee"? By the way, I am a "rural person" from a blue collar family, who lived until adulthood in a small working class Central Florida town. And my dad's side of the family are all from rural Georgia. We would all very much be considered rednecks. And until very recently, I was very much a part of the working poor. So, don't even talk about the shaming of "rural people" to me.