I was at a restaurant with my wife. As we were walking out, I held the door open for a Black family. The father then held the second door open for everyone, including me. As I walked through, I said, “appreciate it, bro.”

We left, got in the car, and started to drive off. Then the same guy waved me down. I honestly thought I dropped something, so I stopped and rolled my window down.

He asked me what I said back there. I told him, “I said ‘appreciate it.’” Then he accused me of saying “appreciate it n****r,” which completely caught me off guard. I told him that’s not what I said at all, but he was really upset and threatened to harm me.

I ended up just leaving the situation, but it’s been bothering me since. I know what I said, and I’d never say something like that, so it’s frustrating to be accused of it, especially in a public setting. These types of accusations are not only embarrassing, but they can completely ruin someone’s life.

Has anyone else ever had something like this happen?

I think i almost fell for a phishing scam today and now im trying to figure out if im actially safe

I clicked a link in email that looked like a normak login page. I started tyoing my password but something felt of so i stopped before submitting anything. I immediately closed the tab, disconnected for wifi and restarted my phone.

I also changed my password after just in case

What im wondering now is:

If i no click "submit" scammers can getsomething or not?

And I realize how easily someone couldd target you if they have your email or phone number. Big part this information comes from dating sites or data broker sites thet publish personal info online

Has anyone else encountered something similar? I want to understand how much I should worry

Be honest. Think about it for a second.

Because a trained social engineer does exactly this. And their success rate is terrifyingly high — even with educated, tech-aware people.

A friend told me this week: his mom got a call from someone claiming to be a TRAI officer. Said her number would be permanently disconnected in 2 hours due to "suspicious activity linked to her account." To avoid it, she just needed to confirm one OTP.

She's a retired teacher. Uses a smartphone daily. Watches the news. Knows about online scams in theory.

She gave the OTP.

₹1.1 lakhs gone.

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Here's the thing that bothers me — we all think awareness is enough. But there's a difference between knowing scams exist and having a trained response when you're actually under pressure.

A doctor doesn't just read about emergencies. A pilot doesn't just watch crash videos. They simulate. They practice until the response is automatic.

Came across a platform called HackIQ that takes this approach to scam awareness — puts you through realistic scenarios so you're building actual reflexes, not just collecting facts. Feels like the right model. Because reading a list of "red flags" and recognizing a red flag in real-time while someone is pressuring you — those are two completely different skills.

---

Genuine question for this community:

Do you think online scam vulnerability is mainly an "older generation" problem — or are people our age (18–40, daily internet users, somewhat tech-savvy) just as exposed, just in different ways?

And if you've had a close call yourself — what actually almost got you?

I am planning on purchasing 'Dictionary of Body Language', after borrowing it from the local library, but I then noticed that Joe Navarro previously wrote 'What Every Body is Saying'. This is not avaliable at my local library. I was wondering if it is worth purchasing both books, or if there is a lot of repeat information?

I know a woman.

She's pregnant, and married to someone that hates and abuses children.

She denies it.

I got accounts of two of his cousins, who he abused and isn't allowed around anymore, and adults to back up their accounts as well.

She has nothing but silence.

What would the next step be, considering I want her to face facts and accept her husband for what he is?

Studied friendships for months because I got tired of feeling like an unpaid therapist while nobody asked how my day went. You know that thing where someone texts "hey can we talk?" and you drop everything, spend 2 hours helping them process their breakup, their work drama, their family shit, and then... crickets when you're going through something? Yeah. That was my entire social life for years. I'd be there at 2am for everyone else's crisis but when I needed support, suddenly people were "so busy" or would hit me with a "that sucks bro" and pivot back to their problems.

The worst part? I kept doing it. Because I thought being helpful made me valuable. Spoiler alert, it just made me a doormat with good listening skills.

After diving into research on reciprocal relationships, attachment theory, and boundary setting from psychologists like Nedra Glover Tawwab and Dr. Harriet Lerner, plus countless hours of podcasts on healthy relationship dynamics, I realized the problem wasn't that I was "too nice." It was that I never created space for my own needs.

Stop being hyper available. This was brutal to learn but essential. When you respond instantly to every crisis text, you're training people that you have infinite emotional capacity and no life of your own. Psychologist Harriet Braiker's research on people pleasing shows that hyper availability actually decreases your perceived value. People literally respect you less when you're always there. Now I take time before responding to heavy venting texts. Not playing games, just honoring my own capacity first. If I'm exhausted or dealing with my own stuff, I say "I want to give this proper attention, can we talk tomorrow?" Wild how much this shifts the dynamic.

Set Boundaries: The Guide No One Wants to Hear But Everyone Needs by Nedra Glover Tawwab is insanely good for this. She's a licensed therapist who built her entire practice around boundary issues, and this book breaks down exactly how to stop over functioning in relationships without being an asshole about it. The chapter on friendship boundaries genuinely made me realize I'd been volunteering for a job nobody asked me to do. She explains how boundaries aren't walls, they're clarity about what you can sustainably offer. After reading this I started saying things like "I have 20 minutes to chat" before launching into a support conversation. Game changer.

Start sharing your own struggles without apologizing. This felt uncomfortable as hell at first. I'd been conditioned to minimize my problems or sandwich them between reassurances that "it's fine though, anyway back to you." Dr. Kristin Neff's work on self compassion research shows that people who chronically self silence in relationships often have this core belief that their needs are burdensome. So I started experimenting, when a friend asked how I was doing, instead of auto responding "good, you?" I'd actually share if something was rough. "Actually I'm pretty stressed about work" and then I'd just sit in the discomfort of not immediately pivoting back to them.

Some friends rose to the occasion beautifully. Others got visibly uncomfortable or changed the subject. That information was devastating but necessary. Finch app helped me track these patterns, it's a self care app that lets you journal daily moods and relationship dynamics. Seeing it written out over weeks made it impossible to deny which friendships were actually mutual.

The Psychology of Friendship by Robin Dunbar completely rewired how I think about this. Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who literally studies how humans form and maintain relationships. His research shows that truly reciprocal friendships are statistically rare, most people have maybe 2 to 5 relationships with genuine bidirectional support. That's it. Everyone else is more casual. Reading this stopped me from feeling like something was wrong with me for not having 15 deep friendships. I wasn't failing, I was just investing in the wrong places.

He also explains how friendships require roughly equal investment to stay balanced over time. If you're consistently the one initiating, planning, or providing support, the relationship will eventually feel hollow because humans are wired to notice fairness. So I did an audit, stopped initiating with certain people for a month, and noticed who actually reached out. Brutal but clarifying.

Practice being "bad" at listening sometimes. Sounds counterintuitive but therapist Esther Perel talks about this on her podcast Where Should We Begin. She points out that exceptional listeners often attract takers because they make it too easy. So I started occasionally saying "I don't have bandwidth for this right now" or even "I'm not sure what advice to give you on that." Not to be cruel, just to stop making myself a 24/7 crisis hotline. Real friends respected it. Energy vampires got annoyed and some faded out. Perfect.

Stop using support giving as currency for connection. This was the deepest cut. Psychologist Silvy Khoucasian's work on codependency patterns explains how people often over give because they're terrified of being rejected for who they are versus what they provide. So they lead with utility instead of authenticity. I realized I'd built an entire personality around being helpful because I didn't trust that people would like me otherwise. Therapy helped untangle this. So did just showing up to hangouts without offering to solve everyone's problems. Turns out some people actually enjoyed my company when I wasn't in helper mode.

The uncomfortable truth is that some friendships won't survive you asking for reciprocity. Those people loved the dynamic where they got support and you got to feel needed. When you disrupt that, they'll either step up or step out. Both outcomes are better than staying furniture.

Thanks for reading. Check out r/ConnectBetter for more posts like this

Hello,

As far as social skills go, well, I'm not so far off where I'm drooling and smashing my head against the table constantly. I was very lucky to be diagnosed at a young age, which allowed me access to therapists to develop good skills. But. Well. I'm not perfect.

I find that I struggle too much with worrying about how my coworkers feel about me, if I am doing good enough at work, and if I'm not doing good enough, how on earth do I even fix that? It is easy for me to become picked on, unfortunately, and I suspect it has something to do with being..

Well, myself. I overwhelm and stress easy when unexpected events occur. I am chatty! I want to know how your weekend went. Things like that.

But, ultimately, this never really works out. Is there any books or things out there that can help me grow as a person?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’ve never been a shopaholic, but I still used to spend a lot of money on gas, coffee, eating out, and especially activities.

Two years ago, my husband and I moved from a big city to a very small town. The first year was hard. We missed going out, doing things, spending money. It felt like that “small life” wasn’t for us.

But over time, those cravings just disappeared.

And that’s when I started paying more attention.

I began noticing how much of consumption feels almost like a routine or even a duty. People shop every season, throw away clothes because trends change, upgrade perfectly working phones, buy new devices they don’t even fully use.

I’ve never really followed trends. My clothes reflect my personality, not seasonal trends. We chose our furniture based on what we liked, not what was popular. We even designed a colorful home when everything was white, beige, and grey.

So I used to think I wasn’t really affected by any of this.

But then I noticed something else. Once the “social” pressure disappeared, the manipulation found another way.

I started questioning if my home was clean enough. If I needed more tools like steam cleaners, cordless vacuums, or all these “advanced” cleaning devices. If something was “missing.” I spent so much time trying to make my home “perfect” before I even questioned what I was doing.

We’ve never been that perfectly organized, aesthetic couple. We live more like college students. Snacks, video games, and we genuinely enjoy it.

And that’s when it hit me:

Maybe the system doesn’t need to change you. It just finds another entry point.

Clemson University Media Forensics Hub

Abstract

We disclose and analyze a new network of at least 62 accounts affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These accounts can be broadly collected into two groups, one set operated in Spanish pretending to be located in the Americas and one set operated in English pretending to be in the British Isles. Among the first set are accounts claiming to be in Texas, California, Venezuela, and Chile, while the second set of accounts claim to be from Scotland, England, and Ireland. All these accounts systematically amplify politically divisive content and disinformation aligned with IRGC nar- ratives, and they are designed to exploit regional fault lines to advance Iranian regime interests.

[supprimé]

Tmobile rep up for swaps and lookups She will be in store from 8:30-6:00 from monday-Friday Dm for proofs and collabs also accepted