Thank you so much for your advice! With how little experience I have, it is really tough to not trigger a mine in the dating minefield.

Which is why if I had one moment to change my decision on, it would 100% be this. I f*cked up big-time, and it cost me my heart and lots of hot make out sessions for a stupid lesson.

Sure, I’ll give more details.

I matched with her on Tinder and waited a few hours and she messaged me first, and not something generic but something about my profile. We started chatting over text and I suggested a short first “piano practice” date in a few days (we both play piano).

The next day we had a 2+ hour call where we played video games (Fortnite, don’t judge, I don’t play that unless I play with someone else) together and just chatted. Everything was going great.

The following days she was sending me super flirty texts (“my skirt will distract you”, and suggestive stuff about touching each other all over). I’ve never gotten texts like this in my life so I was slightly reserved but still flirty.

The date went well, we both got along with each other and we sat real close to each other. I even gave her a flower, and she told me that made her feel so special. There was one point where our faces were close to each other and she might have wanted a kiss, but I chickened our and just hugged her.

We planned a 2nd date as a movie date at my place. All the while we were feverently texting each other lots of things, from platonic to romantic to sexually suggestive. We even had a call meant to be a half hour but it lasted 1.5 hours. It reached a boiling point where we agreed on an “inter-date” study session the day before Valentine’s Day.

It was just about half an hour and we were both trying to get work done in a very public place so I wasn’t touchy at all. She also brought up more somber topics like politics (we have the same political views for the most part). At the end, because Valentine’s Day was near, I asked her to be my Valentine (as per the suggestion of a female friend) and got an unenthusiastic “sure.”

10 minutes later she texted that “we’d be better off as friends than a couple” because there was “no romantic physical chemistry” and cancelled the 2nd date.

I really wanted to explain that I had little experience and that the 2nd date was where the “action” would truly begin. By this point I had developed a huge crush on her and my heart was broken. She really was just my type: nerdy, ambitious, and beautiful. Heck, I’m crying as I write this right now.

$200 for 1 night out is crazy. Can’t you just pregame a bit (courtesy of public transit), then go to some bars and get some cheap drinks for $5 or less each?

$50 or less in 2019? I live in a more urban area of the US than this and if you pregame and go with friends, you can get the equivalent of 5 drinks at 3 bars for well under $20. In 2025.

There aren’t even speed dating events for people under 25 in my area.

I’ve tried and I’m still trying. As someone who is a bit shorter than average and is socially awkward, it’s tough. Recently I’ve been able to get dates with 3 girls from dating apps (due to me being better at flirting and getting a few more matches than before), but they all went nowhere.

1 girl didn’t seem to want any touching or flirty things on the first date and the conversation wasn’t smooth, so I friendzoned her.

The other 2 girls immediately started with a flirty text conversation.

I hit it off with first one over text, we were having long phone calls and sending raunchy stuff over text. I had one short date with and was planning a spicier 2nd date with but she cancelled because I asked her to be my Valentine on Valentine’s Day.

The 2nd one wanted to take things slower, and friendzoned me after 2 longer dates. She also wasn’t that into touching.

I never kissed any of these girls. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, especially with the first flirty girl.

I got one used, and not specifically because it was curved, I just wanted a monitor and it was available for a good price. The curve is mild and the monitor is only 24" so I don’t notice it very much. The monitor feels a bit flatter to my eyes than my laptop screen due to field of vision.

I already have 2 monitors (including my laptop screen because I’m primarily on laptop) but recently I tried using Google Earth on a desktop with a fast i7-13700 and a 1440p monitor and it was so immersive. If each pixel was 100m, I could see 256km, all with minimal hiccups.

It reminded me I want a big 4k Monitor for this stuff, maybe even of TV size.

This literally just happened to me wtf. We had so much in common and we went on a great first date, but then I asked her to be my Valentine and she told me there wasn’t “romantic physical chemistry” between us.

Google was attempting to make it even worse, by having it always happen no matter what. The only way to restore the regular volume was to manually click OK on the nag screen and press the volume up button.

1. If this hasn’t been done already, being able to unlock the bootloader
2. Adding “AI” integrated into the OS with vague benefits even though the processing is done on the cloud (like Windows) just so the OEM can spy on you better
3. Forced volume limiters: The phone won’t let you stay at max volume for more than 5 minutes a day, even if connected to a BT device set at substantially under max volume
4. Making it take more clicks to disable Internet, Bluetooth, other connected features
5. DRM built into Android itself
6. Being able to sideload
7. Ads within the OS

All of these are already on their way to being implemented:

1. Already the case with the vast majority of phones
2. Pixels already have this. Samsung is focusing on this in 2024. Several Chinese OEMs already have some version of this.
3. This was an idea Google attempted to implement in Android 14. Seems like it didn’t go through that year, but there’s always this year.
4. Google already made it harder to do this in Android 12. Apple also does this with the toggles only disabling WiFi/BT until tomorrow. Other OEMs are good for now.
5. After widespread disdain for Google’s Web Environment Integrity BS, Google is quietly pivoting to this stupid change.
6. Google is now making it harder to do this on all Android phones. Now, you can only sideload apps targeting an Android version at most 8 behind the current one. This disables lots of little FOSS projects that were light on system resources.
7. Most Chinese OEMs already do this, although you can usually turn it off. Samsung used to do this, but backpedaled. Also bloatware exists.