OtherOtie

Both impressions are spot on.

I do, very much. I learned a very valuable lesson, which is that what I thought of as an innocuous association eventually came back to cause me a great deal of distress. I was having fun with her in very shallow ways. I enjoyed the physical contact we did have, and enjoyed our mutual flirtation even though I knew it was not a good idea to pursue anything serious with her. What I see in hindsight is that it wasn't worth it, and that there is no such thing as harmless flirtation. Next time when I identify a girl like this I will not indulge in that sort of thing, because of the grief that it has caused me. I believe she met him prior to us establishing that... but her flirting with him started not long after we established it. I believe it was my idea but I did not imagine either of them would do such a thing.

For me the interest was sexual attraction, yes. I am not sure if he would have felt the same way. I assumed he would have. It's difficult for me to figure out why I still care. I think there are two things at play: (1) I am still young and even though I recognize that she's not a good person, my surface level feelings have still fallen for her and so even while I rationally rejected her, my hormones did not (2) I care because my friend seemed to disregard my feelings with his actions and was willing to jeopardize our friendship for an infatuation. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and sympathy. I guess the only thing to do really is let this heal and learn from the situation.

This is going to be a long story, so let me start at the beginning. Obviously this is all from my perspective, but I'm going to try to outline the events as objectively as I can. Two months ago, I started hanging out and talking to this girl we'll call Beth. I went to the beach with her, I went over her house, and we had a lot of close phone conversations. We were physically intimate in some ways (kissing, touching, holding hands, etc.) and highly flirtatious with one another. No sex or major intimacy because I did not want to engage in any of that at the time, though she did. I think it's fair to say that the trajectory of our relationship was "getting close." We both expressed interest in each other. Somewhere along that trajectory, I introduced her to my best friend. We all play League of Legends, so that's how they met. This was fine for a while. But maybe after a week or so of that, my friend came to me and said that he thinks Beth and he might be flirting with each other, and wanted to know if that's okay. My response was that I did not think it was okay because I perceived it as a major conflict of interest and a threat to our friendship. I wanted us both to cut off all ties with her. Then she convinced us not to cut her off, because she essentially manipulated me into thinking she wasn't flirting with him and that it was all a big misunderstanding. Note that I was not upset that she was flirting with another guy, as we were not exclusive and she was under no obligation to refrain from that. My issue was that she was flirting with my best friend while she was getting close to me and that this was a terrible and inconsiderate idea. Any way, she convinced us not to cut it off with her, so things continued. I advised my friend that neither of us should pursue her, since we both had feelings for her and it would create resentment somewhere along the line. Now there's one thing about this girl that should be known: she's a very, very good manipulator. As I said, she convinced me that the thing with my best friend was a misunderstanding. She would also have conversations with my friend in which she convinced him that she was never flirtatious with me or that she had no feelings for me. This was an obvious lie because she would admit to me many times that she did have feelings for me. Yet whenever my friend inquired about it, she would downplay that reality. Essentially, she seemed to be trying to flirt with both of us simultaneously and get away with it. Another thing about this girl is that she feels that I rejected her. This is partially true. We have had conversations about the prospect of dating, and I basically expressed to her that while I did want to date her and am open to the possibility of it, it probably wouldn't be a good idea in the long run because we have conflicting values and world views. She took this as "I don't want her" -- which isn't true. Now there's a sort of climax coming up. One day, my friend and her had an apparently long conversation where she convinced him that it was okay for them to get close to each other. I was told about this, and again I expressed that it was a bad idea and that it would foster resentment between us. My friend eventually agreed and cut it off with her. She then called me and she and I had a long conversation about what to do about this love triangle situation. In this conversation, several things were established: (1) she and I both have interest in each other, but she felt rejected (2) she was flirting with me in this very conversation and was being overtly sexual and (3) she wasn't going to talk to my best friend anymore. The next day, my friend was feeling very depressed because he had cut it off with her. I did not think this was such a good idea because I didn't want him to be depressed. I wanted the situation to be diffused all around because I saw it as a huge conflict of interest. So he started talking to her again, but the idea was he would avoid to have any intimate conversations (I committed to this as well). Maybe the next day or so, he went over her house and had a "magical" night with her. And then it was decided that they would pursue a relationship with each other. When I expressed to my friend that I felt terribly hurt and betrayed by all of this, he basically told me that he's sorry that I feel that way but he feels very happy and wants to see this to the end. I gave him many good reasons why he is making a terrible decision, such as that this girl is manipulative and has lied to both of us continuously and knowingly put herself in between a best friendship. I told him that the "magic" he experiences with her is something I've experienced with her several times over the course of knowing her. And I asked him how he could be content with this when the girl was trying to have this sort of relationship with two best friends. I found it gross. He apparently did not. I've known my friend for 10+ years and we have been very close over that decade. I feel betrayed and I am a bit jealous and resentful of the whole situation, and he went through with this knowing all of that. I do not know what I should do or how I should feel. I don't know if my feelings are warranted or not. I don't know if I should end my friendship with him out of principle. I just don't know. All I know is that I feel angry, sad, alone, and betrayed, and I feel that his decision to pursue a relationship with this girl will be the downfall of our friendship, because I will always see him as the person who sold out his closest friendship for a girl who he only just met. And not just any girl, but the girl I was getting close to even before he came into the picture. Please help.

Actually I was talking about the iOS Podcast app, not the FDR Podcast app. But I didn't know the former existed, and now I'm using that instead, so it's all good.

Is anyone else having trouble downloading FDR podcasts on the iOS Podcast app? When I download one, it will download, then at the very end it will give me an error and say tap to try again. Tapping does not help. I'm good with all of my other podcasts... Not sure what to do. I can always download them manually but the convenience was nice to have.

Here is an excerpt for you...

Hi all, this is sort of an out of place question, but I'm having trouble remembering the details of something I'm sure Stefan mentioned in the past. It's regarding a communist or Nazi society (I'm sure it's the former) which created a sort of front community that was really well-off in order to disguise the fact that their overall society is poor and impoverished. This was in order to make it look like communism is successful. I'm trying to remember the details of this for a piece of fiction I'm writing, but I can't remember the specifics of what it was about. Does anyone know?

Dunno. Not familiar with the creators, just thought it was interesting.

In the second episode of House of Cards season 3, President Underwood, a democrat, turns on medicare, medicaid, and social security... he tells the poor that they are entitled to nothing. How interesting. This is how Stefan said the narrative would start to be shaped once the economic reality started to set in. Guess House of Cards sees it too.

Well the maintenance is what leads to the civilization of a society. I think most people are good but there are a significant number of bad people which needs to be kept under control. Also, even good people will look for ways to get ahead so we need someone to enforce the rules and make sure everything is kept in order. Oh, I understand. I just said that to get the roleplay ball going.

Alright! Let's try it out. So let me put on my statist hat. I think that the government is necessary for the maintence of a civilized society.

What exactly is so nefarious about this? Oh no! I thought you handwrote it but in fact you did not... how... evil?

It strikes me that most statists (and people in general) will just have this cognitive dissonance and that even though they support the state, they would not support state violence against you in particular. Is anyone who is well versed in this argument interested in doing a roleplay with me where I play the statist? I want to see how the argument handles the positions I have in mind.

Thanks! I had my first session today. It went well, I'm looking forward to more.