[SOLVED] Single on Valentine's day

Don't break a good friendship ):otherwise you will completely lose

Hey, Mirela and the gang :) Personally, I don't care much about the day, but since people won't let you forget about it, I'll just do something positive (planning on translating an anti-war song into Russian). If your situation is tough on you, Mirela, just try to stay strong and positive. I know it's just empty words, but hey it is what it is, right?

As for Canan's situation, I don't think anyone but her knows her situation best. As for all those conventions about friends and whatnot. Look, people who are your "friend friends" - you just know they don't see you that way, and they know it too. And if you're not sure about that, if you can't help but think about your friend in a not-so-friendly way all the time, then in my opinion, you have neither a friendship nor a relationship - you're stuck in a limbo. So if you feel like you have a chance to find a loving relationship with that guy, I'd try and find out once and for all. Yes, you risk losing something (even though you most likely won't), but you stand to gain so much more. No matter what people say, even the best of friends can never be a surrogate for a loving partner. Those are two completely different loves. I believe that you can always find new friends (sometimes it's just as easy as changing a job or finding a group that fits your interests), but it's too easy to miss out on true love if you fall into that mindset riddled with cliches and easy-to-digest formulas. Good friends worth their weight in gold, no doubt, but how many times people missed out on their opportunity to find love because of false friendship ideals? And then they graduate from school, move to a new town, go to college etc. only to find out that they can do perfectly fine without those friends or even that their friendship was not what it seemed when they were too close to the picture. Sometimes it takes distance to gain perspective.

Once again, you know your situation best, and your life is always your responsibility, whether you think of something on your own or follow someone's advice, so consider the possible outcomes and make the decision that's right for you. Either way, it won't be the end of the world. As I grew older, I realised that there's only one situation in life that fits that description - that's when you're actually dying. Everything else can be fixed and will get better. And another thing I've learned: if you get a chance to have something good in your life, use it, for life is shorter than it seems, especially when you're young.

Anyway, I wish y'all well, and stay strong.

Well, here in Brazil we only celebrate Valentine's day in June, so today is a day as normal as any other. However, today would be Carnaval Sunday where I live, which is sad. Anyway, based on my own experiences, at times it's best to be on our own than with someone else. Better safe than sorry.

I've met two people on the internet a couple of months ago and this has been one of the longest relationships of any kind I've had. It's been almost three or four months and I'm still friends with them and we play video games almost every night. This amount of interaction is something I rarely experience and spending Valentines day with someone (technically given the three of us live in different states entirely), even though we're friends, made me happy. They don't mind my ADHD (which is really bad at night since my meds wear off), depression, anxiety, or my occasional mood swings and don't seem to be bothered by just me. Little things to some but issues I've had growing up. Despite me being unable to get a hold of my mental health I've kept stress somewhat under control, and I haven't had too many problems, just that I've been having a lot of anxiety attacks and getting sensory overload in situations where I cannot leave. And yet this is the first valentines day where I haven't felt self-doubt in years.

With my mental health approaching people is difficult and keeping friendships is harder. It becomes taxing, I get anxious, I get scared and I start to lose control of my mental health. It becomes a cycle that is hard to get control of and when I do I end up without a friend. After a suicide attempt when I was 16 I've reevaluated my entire life. I've crossed out and rearranged how I live. And every time I have a breakdown or episode, I reevaluate some more. I'm to the point where I don't care anymore about people I see. I don't care about love, I don't care about friendships, I care about my pain and don't like suffering. To me it's not a pain you get used to. You cannot live like this, you cannot live in constant anxiety, constant confusion, and constantly not feeling like you're worth it. You can tell yourself someone cares but it's hard to feel it. Being depraved of human interaction and intimacy makes you numb. Depression has kept me in a hole where I struggle to understand other's emotions, let alone my own! And what do you do? What can you? If everything you do confuses you or causes you pain, what can you do? It feels like there is a deadline before the cycle is too aggressive to crawl out of. If I didn't have those two episodes, maybe if I didn't attempt suicide, maybe I would be different. There are no benefits, there are no upsides. This isn't a gift, it isn't a challenge, it isn't that one unique thing about you, it's a curse. I don't know what I did in a past life or what God I've smitten but to end up in pain doing something most people don't have issues with doing is not a curse I'd wish on my worse enemy. Not knowing who to trust, if you trust yourself, being unable to understand the other person, and being afraid of hurting them or yourself, and knowing that all it takes is one shit day at work and everything you put time and emotion into is just gone.

Just do what makes you happy and when the road splits know it's a risk you need to chose. You can be happy with people, and love is a joyous emotion just like happiness. But it isn't something you can't find laying around, and it doesn't come for free. You have to pay for it and you'll lose something. What you lose is dependent on you and who you are. And sometimes it doesn't outweigh what you gain. Know that you're not going to find that someone without doing something, and paradoxically that you could be like that person and wait for the moment to come to you. Realize that there is more to life than having a partner and kids. If it makes you happy and you're comfortable with it, go for it. But if you're not happy, or they're not happy, or both of you are not happy, maybe you need to split. Realize that people may look fine on the outside but on the inside they're suffering, and that just because you're alone doesn't mean you should feel like there is something wrong with you. Strive for a friend to talk to, someone to open up and speak with, and leave it at that. Have someone to trust, someone to listen to and someone to be there, but respect them and their choices. And know that in the end, it is your life, your choices, and make the best ones for yourself. Find what makes you happy first and judge the rest of your life on whether-or-not it will make you happy or not. Judge it by the value it is to you, not the wants and needs of others.

Hey, Vlad. I wish you all the best. I feel you. Never good enough for myself, therefore stuck in the never-good-enough-for-anyone-else mentality - the story of my life. I spent a lot of time in a dark place, lost some of the best years of my life, lost most of my friends (didn't want to be a buzzkill all the time, so I just stayed away), lost so much weight that my clothes looked like I got them from a charity. But one day I decided that I can't be like that anymore, probably because I was on the edge, so there was nowhere else to go but forward. Took me years to come back. Eventually, I was in good enough shape to get myself another master's degree in a field I've always loved. I'm back with my first university's choir after a 15-year-long hiatus.

Alas, that situation changed me. Before that I was outgoing, all laughs and giggles. Now I'm calm and not very emotional most of the time, definitely a lot more rational and less impulsive than I was. But eventually I learned to accept this new me. And while I know that I've wasted too much time in that place, and I will never have the life I'd wanted to have, I just choose to do something positive with my life - for instance, donate to charities when I've got money to spare, share my knowledge and experience if someone needs it, make small contributions to this site by doing what I've always loved, and try to spread love and peace to the best of my limited abilities, primarily by saying sage stuff that most people already know, even though they sometimes forget ;)

Anyway, I'm not telling this as some kind of sob story, for many people have one. I'm just saying all that for those who may think that dark places are made for them to stay. No. Alas, sometimes people can't get their lives back, but I know quite a few who could - to a degree, myself included. The best of luck to you all, stay strong, do what you love and try not to let your heads stay idle for too long. Peace.