Canoe_Captain

Thank you dsayers. Those words clarify the matter for me. As I am looking for somebody to have a life/children with, I should base it on honesty. @Rainbow Jamz Thank you for evaluating each option. It means a lot to me to get feedback on those thoughts. "what's for ca.? " I made a mistake and used German grammar and meanings in English. I meant to say: I called her two times, each call lasted 30 minutes.

I am not sure how much honesty I should bring to the table when talking to a friend that I would like to date. How much honesty is the right amount? Telling Sally all of my thoughts and emotions right away might just shy her away. What do you think? Are all the mentioned options even reasonable, or do some options seem not based in reality? My primary goal is to find out if Sally is interested. Should honesty be my primary goal instead? Option 1: Stop my dating altogether until I have finished a therapy and have a stable income. (At the moment I am preparing to earn money within 2 month and restart my search for a therapist within 2 month.) Option 2: Suggest to Sally to have a date, since we are both single at the moment. Option 3: Tell Sally right away half of the truth in a mail or call: “Because of your virtuousness and our perceived compatibility I would like to date you. What do you think?” Option 4: Tell her all of the truth in a mail or call: That I had feelings for her for 9 years. That in the past I also felt a sexual attraction that is more or less gone at the moment but I hope might redevelop if we spend more time together. At the moment I would prefer Option 2. Here is the background: 9 years ago I was put into the friend zone by a girl, lets call her Sally. Sally and my age is both 28. We first met in school when we were ca.17 years old. We stayed in contact all those years as friends, which I take as an indication that our interests and communication capabilities are compatible. When I went abroad after the 13th year of school in 2005, she gave me a CD “mix tape” with handmade cover and such. 9 years ago I felt, like I was not in Sally’s attractiveness league and ca. 2 years into our friendship the sexual attraction I felt in the beginning, wore more or less off. I guess that is just how human hormones work, that sexual attraction does not last forever. During the last 9 years we met ca. 1 to 6 times a year and went out together or just had an evening talking and watching TV. Two times we visited each other outside of our common hometown including stay overs and sightseeing. Motivated by Stefan and RTR I analyzed all my friendships and found her to be a virtuous friend. Thus I involved her in my quitting of my 22-month-relationship with my ex-girlfriend “Tina” 3 month ago. Tina had low amounts of self-knowledge and no motivation to work towards more self-knowledge. I called Sally two times, each call lasted 30 minutes, at pivotal moments of the break-up for advice and feedback. 2 weeks ago Sally told me in a 160 minute phone call that her current 34 year old long-distance boyfriend had quit the relationship after a 4-month-relationship. I regard Sally to be virtuous, since she possess self-knowledge, is emphatic towards other humans and is honest. I am also attracted to Sally's non-virtuous characteristics. For example: she seems intelligent, she seems to have had a happy childhood where she was able to learn to express emotions. We are able to keep up interesting conversations for hours. Sally is no girly girl: she goes camping, plays guitar etc. Sally asked me to send her a link to Stefan's videos during our last call. We talked about me wanting to get therapy and she already having had tutoring similar to therapy. We talked about the importance of honest true communication in relationships. We also talked about that if you possess no self-knowledge you might choose unconsciously partners that enable you to reenact your childhood traumas. At the moment we live 740 miles apart, so we meet maybe 3 times a year. Within the last year Sally and I both had some pivotal moments: She dropped out of University when writing her PhD thesis and now works as a sales representative. I discovered FDR, stopped pursuing an international business bachelor degree and now prepare to work as a self-employed photographer. Just a side note: Sally is definitely a person that I should not meet anymore when I am in a relationship with another woman. I remember Stefan once saying that when in a committed relationship (e.g. marriage) you should not frequently spent a lot of time alone with possibly mutually highly attracted persons.

Maybe this experience somehow relates to your situation: There was a time when I enjoyed manipulating my younger brother when I was ca. 5 and he was ca 3 years old. I felt, he got much more love from our mother than me. I wanted to punish him for not playing with me, thus I told him that for not cooperating, I would not give him the present of an electric car. (The electric car never existed) When he started to cry, I felt good on one side, because at least someone reacted emotionally to what I said (albeit negatively) and on the other side I felt sorry for my brother for making him sad. As far as I remember my capacity for empathy only grew stronger when I made some friends who showed empathy to me when I was ca. 16 years old.

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, you could call it a contradiction. I see teachers at state schools as an overlap of desirable and undesirable criteria. Teachers at a private school could still be desirable though. Contradictions are to be expected in the checklist. My philosophical dating checklist is not a philosophical argument but merely a checklist to find people that likely are open to UPB and philosophy in general.

Ellie Goulding wrote this song about the difficulties when on the quest for love. Unplugged live performance. Shes a lover with a chemical heart, Only ever talks about the obvious part. The place was empty, now its body heat heart. Only hear a few words telling me what it felt like. In the morning shes as good as unaffected, But her face moves less than it ought to. And everyones just gone quiet. Only in it for the post card picture. Only in it for the smoke of the gun. Who'd want to find love? Its not as if we know what to look for, looking out but not sure.

I included only books and authors that were favourably mentioned or recommended by Stefan. (Last updated in September 2014) I assume you already know about the books at freedomainradio.com/free/ General Anarchism and Economics Stefan Molyneux - The Stateless Society An Examination of Alternatives Philosophy Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead (Stefan mentions that Nathaniel Branden has published an interesting comment on Ayn Rand's characters repressing their emotions. I believe Stefan could likely be referring to this online available text: The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand: A Personal Statement) George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman Stefan recommended the following authors in general: Aristotle Plato Socrates Descartes Rousseau Voltaire Martin Luther Self-Knowledge Nathaniel Branden - The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field Jay Earley - Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy (Book was recommended by some in the FDR community, not mentioned by Stefan yet.) John Bradshaw - Healing the Shame That Binds You Daniel Mackler - Breaking from Your Parents: Setting a New Precedent for Your Life and Our Species Dr. Warren Farrell - The Myth of Male Power (I just remember Stefan praising Farrell, but no specific book) Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Atheism George H. Smith - Atheism: The Case Against God Fitness/Health Elliot Hulse's YouTube Channel (Featured on FDR's YT Channel) Robert Whitaker - Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill Parenting /Education Thomas Gordon - Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children Alison Gopnik - The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life Alfie Kohn - Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes Alice Miller William D. Gairdner - The War Against the Family: A Parent Speaks Out on the Political, Economic, and Social Policies That Threaten Us All Addiction Dr. Gabor Maté - In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts Science & Technology Satoshi Nakamoto – Bitcoin Whitepaper: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Charles Murray - Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life Nicholas Wade - A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History Miscellaneous Paul Johnson - Intellectuals Paul Johnson - Modern Times Nietzsche - The Anti-Christ Five Dialogues - Plato (Socratic dialogues) Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment E. M. Forster - Howards End A reading list on "The Economic & Social History of Continental Europe & Britain" that Stefan recommended in 2006: http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/files/reading_list_for_economists_in_history_shenoy_apr.06.doc (source: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/883-good-economic-history-reading-list/) TEDtalk: Bjorn Lomborg: Global priorities bigger than climate change Stefan recommended in one of his shows: Laissez Faire Books Reason.com Stefan recommended the following websites in 2006: www.mises.org www.isil.org www.harrybrowne.org www.antiwar.com www.audible.com www.capmag.com www.lewrockwell.com Reddit (recommended by me or other forum members)[/color] Anarcho_Capitalism http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/ raisedbynarcissists http://www.reddit.co...edbynarcissists parentlessbychoice http://www.reddit.co...entlessbychoice AbuseInterrupted http://www.reddit.co...buseInterrupted Source for some recommendations: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/86-please-help-reading-list-resources/) If you see one book missing feel free to post it.

Singularity 1 on 1 A series of podcast interviews with the best scientists, writers, entrepreneurs, film-makers, journalists, philosophers and artists, debating the technological singularity.

There are already more than 60 transcripts of FDR podcasts on this site: http://readfdr.wordpress.com/

In order to have perfect conditions I cast my net worldwide. But if it depends on how high somebodies standards are. The woman with an 80% match lives 15 miles afar while the 96% match might live 500 miles afar.

I am not a slave to my checklist. If she has three piercings in one ear and I have a positive gut feeling, I still send her a message. I assume that my gut feelings incorporate all my conscious and unconscious knowledge and experiences. So ideally I only need to think or read about the checklist once in my life and my stomach feelings will still incorporate it, as long as it is relevant.

Her greetings usually merely tell me that she wants to greet me. The style and the subtext of the greeting is almost always very similar to the subtext and style of her profile. § If her message contains superficial questions, the author may want to wait with the serious questions till the second date. I respect that. § If her message is very informal and contains some errors, the author may be a very communicative person, who is intelligent but not detail oriented. I can accept that. § If her message is only three sentences long she might try to answer all the messages she gets from everybody. She seems to have problems with setting her priorities, but as long as she seems like an intelligent person on the first date that is acceptable to me. § If it takes her 5 days to reply, that might be due to her busy schedule. This is a red flag for me, that I would address at the first date. If she does not have time to send messages, does she have enough time for a relationship? § If she sends messages during work hours it might indicate that she is bored at work, which also might hint at a larger problem. § If she sends regularly messages at 3AM that might as well indicate that she has a larger hidden problem. As soon as I have decided to message somebody, she has already passed 90% of my internal quality-checks regarding our online interaction. The time between me initiating the first messages and the first date is about me passing her quality checks. Metrics of online communication involvement I use the following metrics to measure the involvement and balance of interest in my written online dating conversations: · Time to reply · Length of message · Quality of error-proofing · Quality of layout · Quality of wording I think it is advantageous to mirror those metrics at least during the first few messages to make your conversation partner feel comfortable.

My Philosophical Online Dating Checklist - Feedback Is Encouraged This list represents my map to decide whom I should send a message on dating sites like OKcupid. Desirable Profile Photos Indicating a happy childhood and ability to communicate effectively: · Genuine, happy face expressions. ----------------------------- This is my unprofessional, scientifically unverified theory of genuine photo smiles: -A photo of a genuine smile indicates a happy childhood.- Let’s imagine someone who grew up in an environment that preyed on his/her expression of any emotion. She/he would develop a defense strategy to hide his/her emotions. This person would experience that her/his expression of his/her friendly happiness is strongly associated with parents getting angry when seeing joy and bullies pulling her/him down to their emotional level of unhappiness. Thus this person would have a deeply ingrained tendency to hide emotions and thus has difficulty to genuinely show happiness. Furthermore this person would feel uncomfortable uploading photos which openly display his/her positive emotions. I therefore conclude that a genuine smile/ laugh indicates a person who is comfortable to express emotions. It’s also likely that the genuine smile is related with a higher probability for this person to having already achieved the ability to actively and openly communicate all thoughts and emotions with a trusted friend (read the free book Real-Time Relationships by Stefan for more information on communication). Persons with a profile photo without emotional expression who become aware of their ingrained and unconscious "automatic anti-smile protection" and work extensively on their self-knowledge will then probably also more often display a genuine smile. ----------------------------- Indicating healthy habits: · Photos shot outdoors Indicating a social life: · Photos taken by a second person Undesirable Profile Photos Indicating low self-esteem: · Photos showing several piercings and tattoos, too much make-up · Photos pushing too hard to display physical attractiveness by showing a lot of skin, cleavage, muscles · Photos that do not clearly show the face of the person (I interpret this as defense mechanism towards being judged) Indicating low empathy: · Photos that do not clearly show the face of the person or the main/first profile photo showing several persons at once (I interpret that as inability to embrace and understand the needs of profile visitors) Desirable occupations: Introduced to the scientific method: · Chemical Engineer, Physician, Biologist etc. Relatively far removed from state influence (legislation etc.) and thus more experienced with free markets: · Veterinarian, photographer, private detective etc. Encouraged and taught to gain more self-knowledge: · Psychologist, psychotherapist Some understanding of childhood development and psychology: · Teacher, kindergarten worker Relatively great exposure to undesirable effects of statist systems (thus likely understanding critique of the statist system) and encouraged to think on their own: · Entrepreneur Undesirable occupations: Relatively heavily state influenced branches: · Public state media, justice system, public state education, bureaucracy administration enforcers, politics, military Desirable Hobbies Indicating developed social skills: · Volleyball, soccer etc., meeting friends etc. Indicating developed self-esteem: · Dancing, singing etc. Indicating interest in self-knowledge: · Psychology, philosophy Desirable Favorite Books: Indicating critical thinking skills: · Animal Farm, 1984, books by your favorite philosopher(s) Desirable Age: An age that is equivalent to your own emotional age will help to relate with your future partner: If you had a difficult childhood your emotional growth has very likely been slowed during your childhood and adolescence. Your biological age might be 28, but your emotional age might be for example 24. So possible partners with a biological age around 24 years are probably the best fit for you. As far as I know listening to FDR and therapy do not help to close the gap between emotional age and biological age. The gap seems to stay with you. (It is assumed that on average a person with a biological age of 24 has the emotional age of 24.) Specific advice for OKcupid: You can use the advanced search feature to look for keywords in profiles like: Stefan Molyneux Stephan Molyneux Freedomain Radio Tuning your algorithm to FDR’s frequency: If you answer a sufficient amount (700 or more) of “match questions” and then sort your matches by “match %” you will be able to filter for persons with a similar perspective on life, similar amounts of self-knowledge and critical thinking ability. I recommend to only answer OKcupid “match questions” that carry philosophical implications and/or are important to you, otherwise your results might get skewed. I for example skipped the following questions which I find unphilosophical and personally unimportant: · “How many live plants do you have in your home?” · “Before people find out your real age, what do they usually assume?” · “How many pillows do you sleep with at night?” Furthermore you can simultaneously filter for Atheists. Skimming for matches: When you have tuned your OKcupid algorithm to FDR’s frequency you can now skim for the most philosophical matches. Visit the profiles with the highest percentage matches and rate them with 5 stars. I visited and rated ca. 500 profiles. I skipped profiles with an unappealing profile photo. In the following weeks and days some of those 500 matches checked out my profile and a subset rated my profile with 4 and 5 stars. OKcupid notifies you when you and your match both rate yourself 4 or 5 stars respectively. You have now access to a group of matches that are tuned to FDR’s frequency and like your profile. OKcupid had allegedly 30 million active users in 2013. (Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10421148/OkCupid-review-is-it-the-best-dating-site-for-men.html)

Some of my favorite YouTube videos by FreeDomainRadio. Schooools Out For Evah! Unschooling with Dayna Martin (Great Interview) Dayna and Stefan seem to be on the same wavelength, Stefan’s jokes are funny and the two delve into their shared interest of unschooling. They seem like two relaxed musicians having a jam session. Libertopia (Passionate Speech Inside Car) Stefan is relaxed and at the same time passionate for his topic. He seems to improvise and his train of thought changes directions as soon as he finds new arguments on the fly. It’s also a great view into the beginnings of the channel in 2006. How to Succeed at Online Dating! (Funny) You can see Stefan’s sense of humor at play when he delves into OK Cupid dating profiles. Screw Talent! (Empowering) Great video to stop passively sitting, watching and start doing. Some insights into how Stefs developed his debating and philosophy skills. Let's Play Capture the Flag! (Stefan Plays Unreal Tournament) A philosopher displaying dexterity and programing knowledge while shooting at tanks and simulated people. It's a memorable video because it seems strange to me that Stefan would indirectly promote this militaristic game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vowJ2Y8pq7U The Mythology of the Working Mom (Confrontation) Stefan hosts the Peter Schiff Show and talks to a mother who thinks it is possible to be a good mom while working at the same time. It’s interesting to see him talking to an FDR outsider with opposing views. The call starts at 38m 19s. http://youtu.be/ORCOn97I2ko?t=38m19s Parenting Suuuucks! (Arguments To Become A Full Time Parent) Stefan gives an account of the difficult life of the average statist parents. The Stateless Society - An Examination of Alternatives (Stefan’s First Article) Stefan reads the first article he posted on LewRockwell.com in 2005. It’s a great article. When I posted this video on Facebook I got two likes, which are more likes than I expected. One like from a Baptist and one like from a business woman in Hong Kong. FDR 1100 - Song: You Gave Your Brain to Freedomain (Singing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ1zb2D8SEE

I almost missed this great travel essay about his first day in Amsterdam. So I wanted to share it with the forum in case you were unaware of the essay as well. https://www.facebook.com/stefan.molyneux/posts/10152745569926679 "A Philosopher’s First Impressions of Amsterdam So I just spent my first day in Amsterdam, a lovely and typically chaotic European city, full of narrow legged hipsters with tight purple trousers and tween beards, women smoking and reading text messages while bicycling at Mach 12, and coffeehouses so tightly packed that it seems that no one can make it more than 18 feet before needing caffeine injections straight to the eyeballs. My first impression is that the people seem - underfed? Then I realized...."

If somebody is really sad and grieving and needs time for him/herself then some people really do not like to go to a celebratory party. But it seems this rule by your family has the purpose to keep the appearance of griefing, no matter if you are really grieving or not.

I think FDR is the most important show on the internet and it would be thrilling to get to know somebody with a similar appreciation of philosophy. I am 28 years old and currently looking for a female philosophy and life companion. You can find my OKCupid profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/_Johannes_ I am looking for somebody who likes real time communication and philosophical discussions. Somebody who bases her life on virtue and the pursuit of happiness. Send me a personal message, if you are interested! I am currently living in Augsburg, Germany but feel free to message me, even if you live on the other side of the planet By the way: I am still searching as of April 20, 2014.

I think FDR is the most important show on the internet and it would be thrilling to get to know somebody with a similar appreciation of philosophy. I am 28 years old and currently looking for a female philosophy and life companion. You can find my OKCupid profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/_Johannes_ I am looking for somebody who likes real time communication and philosophical discussions, somebody who bases her life on virtue and the pursuit of happiness. Send me a personal message, if you are interested! I am currently living in Augsburg, Germany but feel free to message me even if you live on the other side of this planet.

I think FDR is the most important show on the internet and it would be thrilling to get to know somebody with a similar appreciation of philosophy. I am 28 years old and currently looking for a female philosophy and life companion. You can find my OKCupid profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/_Johannes_ I am looking for somebody who likes real time communication and philosophical discussions, somebody who bases her life on virtue and the pursuit of happiness. Send me a personal message, if you are interested! I am currently living in Augsburg, Germany but feel free to message me even if you live on the other side of this planet.

My first memories and a trip to the prison in kindergarten A kindergarten trip to prison. Who does that? My kindergarten did that. The prison was as clean as a 1st world prison in 1991 could be: All the cells were without prisoners, but the cells were already furnished with mattresses and nothing else. It seemed freshly renovated, the walls were all white. It was like the prison guards were saying, we just made room for you. Might there be a connection to my current life, since I like to furnish my room white and spartan? There was not much fun in my kindergarten time. My kindergarten time was as ugly as the school I went later on It was a kindergarten where I fought with other boys in daily sand box wars 50% of the time. My first memory of my life is me washing the sand out of my hair at home after the daily kindergarten sand war. And the other early memory is me visiting the prison with the thoughts of “I do not like this place, what do I have to do to never end up here?" It is probably one of the early events where I learned to fear the police and state. What do average people in Germany or the USA think of prisons? Do they think it is a place that helps them protect them from evil doers? I guess since the age of five I construed prisons as a threat by the state to make me behave, like my parents beating me, screaming and locking me for hours in rooms as well as threatening boarding school and future unemployment in case of misbehaviour.

@Quickstine: Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I guess I defended underdogs because I dislike oppressors. Now, that I reflect on it: I probably spent too much time of my life on this arbitrary defending, instead I should work on fulfilling my own needs and my self-development. Eventually I hopefully will be able to help to spread philosophy to the world. As long as I remember, I never accepted completely the "sacrifice" of Jesus on the cross. There were too many illogical things going on in that story: Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost are a Trinity but Jesus needs to kill himself to make God more kind towards humans. The people in this Trinity relationship seem to have serious issues. Actually the whole Old Testament (where children are killed for god) is to me just a story of how people behaved and what they believed in the ancient times. The Old Testament seemed to have almost no morally teachable moment for me. For me the Old Testament were just some entertaining stories (Moses and the Pharaoh) and some screwed up, sick stories (brothers trying to kill each other). Just a side note: I visited a Baptist church 3 or 4 times in 2010 with a Baptist friend out of curiosity (my own little research on society and religion). In comparison the Baptists were much more into the Bible and its literally derived moral teachings. In the catholic community where I grew up, we had a much more (watered down) interpretation of the bible based on historical criticism. The catholic historical criticism made it more appealing to a critical thinking person like me, while the Baptist teachings seemed adjusted to an even more susceptible and gullible audience. Furthermore the Baptists were complaining on all the things the pope is doing wrong to convince me to join them, but since I dislike this marketing which is solely founded on bashing the competitor, I quickly got tired of going there. An update on my life: I am most likely going to quit my studies to become a self-employed photographer. I am also probably going to move to the most economically healthy region of Germany: Bavaria. I assume Bavaria is more economically healthy because it is the region with the least fertile ground for socialist ideas. I guess they are more relying on old traditions and from that tradition derive some identity based on culture, but the bottom line is: they created more prosperity for the average person. I guess I am replacing one evil with another (socialism with tradition). Is this a reasonable swap? I guess traditions and culture develop on a somewhat free market during the centuries so it might not be as destructive as socialism? I have lived intermittently for 10 month in Bavaria and I felt more comfortable than in northern Germany. On average the atmosphere in the southern regions is more industrious and the houses, streets and gardens look cleaner and nicer. I like that. I hope I am not too superficial? BTW: If it was possible to immigrate to Switzerland, Canada or New Zealand, I would attempt to do that, but as far as I know it is almost impossible for an unexperienced, self-employed photographer.

I took a test a ca. 3 years ago and came up as an INTP. My INTP profile stated: "INTPs exhibit the greatest precision in thought and language of all the types; they tend to see distinction and inconsistencies in thought and language instantaneously. ... Authority derived from office, position, or wide acceptance does not impress INTPs. Only statements that are logical and coherent carry weight. ..." My INTP profile seems to fit my own observations, but it seems to be overly glorifying of my skills. I took the 16personalities.com test just now and came up as INFP.

I have been the first caller in the Sunday Call In Show February 9th, 2014: You can stream the show online here: http://fdrpodcasts.kevinbeal.com/#/2613/sunlight-to-the-vampire-of-statism-sunday-call-in-show-february-9th-2014 After listening to the conversation a second time I am still not entirely sure from where I go from here. I gleaned this from what Stefan said to me: 1. (At 24:00) The issues I have with my parents have a lot more to do with society as a whole. If I come to conclusions about society based on the relationship with my parents then I am going to have problems going forward: My conclusions about my parents is, that they are egoistic, utilitarian and superstitious and that at the moment I do not want to have contact with my father and only sparse contact with my mother. So now I need to be careful not to continue to assume that society is egoistic, utilitarian and superstitious? Did I understand Stefan correctly? 2. (At 62:00) Society does not have empathy with the victims. To be aware to have an empathy deficiency is a good first step. Ergo achieving empathy for victims might be a goal. I hope when I achieve empathy for victims I might have even more motivation to achieve something like for example help spreading the information on concepts of the non-aggression principle, anarchy and atheism. As a side note: My girlfriend listened to the call by using the live stream in the next room. I did not know this during the call. I was open about my call-in to her. But since she finds Stefan not sympathetic and since she describes FDR philosophy as being “gaga” I did not expect she would listen. The next day I became aware of this and she told me she was shocked about the amount of problems I have in my life. I can understand her to a degree since I was more open to Stefan about my life and problems than I was to her. But I am not sure if the relationship with my girlfriend might possibly be beyond repair in general?

Enya - Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) YouTube: Enya - Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) To me this 1988 song is an invitation to sail with your life, your ship to wherever you want to and leave your hometown, your origins behind. Sometimes I see me managing my life as a captain, steering a ship. Like a ship, a life needs a certain amount of time to change course. Like a ship, a life can only get ahead fast when the environment (sea and wind) are advantageous. Like a sailing ship has no accurate time of arrival, I can only set course for a destination. I cannot will my life to suddenly be perfect, to reach the desired port. It might take longer than expected to reach my goal if I have to beat the wind. “We can sail, we can sail… We can sigh, say goodbye Ross and his dependencies... We can reach, we can beach far beyond the Yellow Sea....” On a sidenote: I made a Spotify playlist with FDR themed songs: My FDR Soundtrack

I was in a more or less similar situation in 2009. So my advice for my own self back in 2009 would have been: “Talk honestly about your feelings the next time you see her as soon as possible. Do not postpone it because of a tense situation or because of anything. If you fail to tell her, just send her a message with your thoughts and feelings the next morning. You do not have to mention that you love her, but tell her that the friendship is most precious to you and that you are developing romantic feelings.” The reasoning behind my advice: This way you prevent falling deeper in love with her if she is not romantically interested. Furthermore you prevent her from feeling rejected, in case she has developed feelings for you, but is too shy to disclose her romantic feelings first. The background story We had common friends and so we had a great first 20 minutes talk with listening and sympathy at a fun fair in 2003 when we were 17 years old. But she had a boyfriend and I was just too shy and my self-esteem too damaged by my childhood to even try to ask for a date. We kept in touch via mail and through the yearly meet up of our friends at Christmas. So when we were 23 we had again a great conversation in 2008 and I added her on Facebook and we stayed in contact even more. Then she asked me to join her on a one-month backpacking trip in 2009. I was torn between agreeing to the trip or just honestly telling her: “I do not want a trip. I want a date!” But since I never had any luck with courting women back then, I thought, a date would have had almost no chance of success and spending one month with a great friend was just too precious for me too refuse. I had already developed romantic feelings for her before the trip. The trip contained lots of deep, honest conversations every day. She was sympathetic and the best conversationalist I ever talked to. During the trip I was really tense, since I was constantly looking for a good occasion to tell her about my romantic feelings, but I always postponed. When I finally wrote her about my romantic feelings in a message in 2010, she had already started a new relationship. She married that guy in 2013 (I was among the wedding guests). I found out about FDR, RTR and honesty in relationships a few month after her wedding. Encountering this woman has given me reason for thought on many days since 2009. Disclaimer: I have not yet fully processed my own dysfunctional history.

Thanks for your reply, dsayers. I asked myself why I so extensively defended Jesus in my reply: 1. The first reason that came to my mind is: I usually like to defend the underdogs. And where I come from, religion and Jesus are underdogs, since 50% of my friends are convinced Atheists, 45% do not care about their Christian religion and the statist mainstream media mostly talks negatively about anything related with the church. I can understand that it is not always morally right to defend the underdogs, since they might have been shunned by society for their morally wrong behavior or in the case of Jesus because his message is destructive, inconsistent and based on the irrational believe of an all-powerful god. 2. The second reason that came to my mind why I defended Jesus was: A part of me still clings to an imaginary scene where Jesus is sitting smiling on a cloud above beaming constantly rays of love down to me. I did not recognize before, that I am still clinging to such unicorn daydream stuff. My subconscious probably did not completely accept yet, that Jesus died 2000 years ago...