Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by Tyler__Durden

A mom tells a story about her child that she saved

Tyler__Durden — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 00:56:24 +0800

[YOUTUBE]LmfRMeU6pQ8[/YOUTUBE]

Her name is Snow.

Mom wants to reconnect with her son

Tyler__Durden — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:33:35 +0800

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-...on-lottery.html

QUOTE

Julie Gamble was driving along in her nine-year-old Vauxhall Zafira when she noticed a gleaming new red Jaguar XKR-S waiting to pull out of a side road.
Luxury cars costing upwards of £100,000 are rare in this part of Nottingham, and suddenly it dawned on Julie that it was her 23-year-old son, Matthew Topham, sitting behind the steering wheel.
She caught just a fleeting glimpse of him in her rear-view mirror as he pulled out behind her with a throaty roar of the engine.
It was the closest she had been to Matthew for seven years.
But any hope that her son might stop to talk to her as she turned into her driveway after that chance encounter three weeks ago disappeared with his tail lights.
Matthew drove past his mother without so much as a wave or a toot on his car horn.
‘I don’t know if he realised it was me in the car in front, but even if he had he wouldn’t have stopped,’ says 50-year-old Julie, an office worker, as she dabs her eyes with the first of many tissues.
‘It would have been lovely to reach out for him and give him a cuddle because I love him to bits.
'I always have and always will, and I hope he knows that.
‘But he’s a young man. He makes his own choices. Some are right, some are wrong, but he has to live with the choices he makes, and he’s made his feelings towards me crystal clear.’
Indeed, he has, and in the bluntest terms.
In short, she is persona non grata, publicly banished from the life of a son who is rich beyond his wildest dreams.
It was in February that painter and decorator Matthew Topham and his fiancée Cassey Carrington, 22, an Iceland store manager, were unveiled at a press conference as the lucky winners of a mind-boggling £45 million Euromillions jackpot to the popping of champagne corks.
The champagne bubbles quickly went flat, however, as stories emerged of a seven-year rift between Matthew and Julie.
It turned out that mother and son had not spoken since Matthew chose to stay with his father Brian after his parents’ acrimonious divorce in 2004 — for reasons Julie insists she cannot fathom.
It was a difficult situation, made all the more awkward by the fact that 67-year-old Brian lives just seven doors down from the house Julie bought after the divorce and which she shares with her second husband, airport worker Jason Gamble, 41, and Matthew’s siblings, Samantha, 19, and Craig, 14.
Today, it is Julie who finds herself in the limelight, and for all the wrong reasons.
Four weeks ago, in an attempt to heal the rift, Julie wrote an emotional three-page letter to her son, begging him to explain why he has refused to see her for seven years.
Just an hour after it was delivered, a scrawled response landed on her doormat.
In a note addressed to ‘Julie’, as opposed to ‘Mum’, Matthew accused her of mistreating other family members and forcing him out of her life.
He finished the 12-line note by telling Julie he never wanted to hear from her again, and that she would never meet any children he and Cassey might have.
Little wonder, then, that Julie can’t hold back the tears at her neat four-bedroom home in Stapleford.
‘The past few weeks have been horrendous — I feel as if I have been thrown to the wolves,’ she says.
‘I’ve been falsely accused of abandoning my son and of being a bad mother,’ she reveals, in her first in-depth interview since her son’s extraordinary win.
‘I’ve been off work for two weeks with anxiety and depression, and I’m seeing a counsellor to try to cope with it all.
'Some days I feel too scared to go out and just want to hide. This lottery win has opened a big can of worms.’
To make matters even more painful, Julie’s mother, 84-year-old Betty Gordon, has entered the fray by branding her daughter ‘selfish’ and telling a red-top tabloid: ‘Matt wanted to live with his Dad, and Julie just stopped speaking to him. She hasn’t spoken to me and her sister for six years. She just cut herself off from the family.’
Julie reaches for another tissue. But is she crying for her lost son or, as some cynics have sneered, for the millions she is missing out on?
After all, each week seems to bring a fresh story of Matt’s generosity towards other family members and friends.
Matthew and Cassey have reportedly vowed to give £1.3 million to their best friend, Eddie Smith, have paid off Brian Topham’s £80,000 mortgage and have also settled the mortgage of Matthew’s 44-year-old step-brother, Mark.
Then there’s the £28,000 Audi Quattro Matthew has reportedly given his step-brother Paul, 41, along with £30,000 for a house extension.
In the circumstances, could Julie be blamed for dreaming of trading in her £2,000 Zafira for something a little more luxurious?
‘I don’t want any of Matthew’s money. I was happy with my life before his lottery win, and I am still happy with it now,’ she insists, pulling from her wallet a treasured childhood photograph of her son.
‘I don’t begrudge Matt his good fortune. I’m pleased for him. The Matthew I left behind was a polite, kind boy, with morals and good manners. He deserves to be happy.
‘But I hope Matthew realises that while £45 million can buy you a lot of things, it can’t buy you happiness. And it certainly can’t buy you a mother.
‘I just want him to know that I’ve always been there for him, and I’ll always love him, no matter what.
'Why can’t he just tell me why he hasn’t spoken to me for seven years? Don’t I deserve that at least?
‘I’d be ecstatic if he knocked on my door and just let me be his mum again, but his letter banning me from his life broke my heart.
‘Matthew can keep his millions, because there is love, laughter and happiness in this house — something I never had with my former husband, Brian. No amount of money can buy that.’
As Julie speaks, it becomes clear she blames Brian for this whole sorry situation by ‘taking’ away her son from her after their unhappy 18-year marriage collapsed amid bitter rows.
Her view is firmly entrenched, despite Matthew praising his father at the press conference announcing his and Cassey’s spectacular win.
Julie was 17 when she met self-employed decorator Brian, who is 18 years her senior, at a party.
Six months later, she moved in with him and overnight became stepmother to Brian’s sons Mark and Paul, then aged 13 and ten, who lived with him after Brian’s first wife, Stephny, left him.
The couple married when Julie was 24 and Brian 42.
‘What Brian wanted, Brian got, and I went along with it because I loved him and didn’t really know any better,’ says Julie, who worked in human resources at the time.
‘He went out with his mates to the pub three nights a week, leaving me to look after the children. He was very old-fashioned, so even though I had a job, it was left to me to do all the cooking, cleaning and looking after the children.’
Cracks started to appear, Julie says, soon after Matthew was born.
Julie’s father Philip, 64, died on the day of the birth, and this, combined with a traumatic 22-hour labour, triggered post-natal depression that lasted 18 months.
Julie felt Brian was unsupportive then, and again in 1999 when her brother died suddenly, aged 40, from pancreatitis.
The Tophams started to argue frequently. Julie says she was so unhappy that there were many times when she wanted to leave.
‘I stayed with Brian because my confidence had been completely destroyed, and I thought: “Where will I go? Who would want me?” ’ she says.
Julie says she was faithful to Brian throughout their marriage and loved being a mother. She insists that she was close to all her children, always cuddling them and telling them she loved them, and so is mystified by Matthew’s coldness towards her.
She shows me the recent online posts her younger children have written in her defence. Craig describes his mum as ‘a saint’.
Samantha adds: ‘My mum is the best mum anyone could ask for! She is the most amazing woman I know. She is a legend.’
Julie says she bitterly regrets not fighting harder for Matt to live with her and his siblings after she divorced Brian in September 2004 and moved out of the marital home.
‘It was agreed that Craig would live with me because he was only seven, but the older two children were given a choice,’ says Julie, who put her £80,000 divorce settlement towards a new £180,000 house.
‘Samantha chose to come with me, but Matthew chose to stay with his dad. Yes, I was hurt by that, but I never pressed him to explain why because I didn’t want him to feel pressured.
‘I’d said to him all along: “I’d love you to come and live with me, but I’ll understand if you choose to stay with your dad.” He was in his final exam year at school, so perhaps he didn’t want the disruption.
‘I’d always been determined that regardless of what had gone on between me and Brian, the children should still have a relationship with their father. I encouraged it.
‘That’s why I bought a house a few doors away, so Samantha and Craig could see their dad whenever they wanted. Though Matthew chose to live with his dad, I thought he’d be popping in to see me all the time.’
Julie claims that on the day she left, Matthew changed his mind and told her: ‘Mum, I want to come and live with you.’
She says now: ‘I wish now I’d just said: “Come with me and we’ll sort it all out.” But I knew Brian would fight me for Matthew and I couldn’t face another battle. I felt traumatised by the rows, so I told Matthew he’d made his choice.
‘I told him I loved him, gave him a cuddle and said I was only down the road so he could come and see me any time.
‘That day I made the wrong choice. Matt came to my house only three times, then he stopped visiting.’
She last saw Matthew at Christmas 2004.
Relations between Julie and her former husband, who in a bizarre twist had reconciled with his first wife, Stephny, after the divorce, were seemingly so bad that Julie says all discussion with him was impossible.
Distraught at the worsening situation, Julie went for family counselling with Craig and Samantha, who regularly visited their father and were upset by the tensions between their parents.
‘The counsellor told me to concentrate on my two children and one day Matthew would come back to me,’ recalls Julie, who met her second husband, Jason, a divorced father-of-two, on an internet dating site in January 2009.
‘So that is what I did, hoping when he was older he’d ask to meet me.
‘Whenever I took Craig and Samantha for a day out, we would park outside Brian’s house and they would run in and ask Matthew if he wanted to join us, but he never did. I gave up trying.’
Samantha and Craig remain close to their brother. They were at his engagement party, and at the recent champagne bash at Brian’s house to toast the lottery win.
‘He’s their brother and they love him, but sometimes they feel torn,’ says Julie.
‘Only the other day, Samantha said: “This lottery win has made everything worse.” It has, but I don’t wish Matt had never won the money.’
A Camelot spokesman said that Matthew Topham did not wish to respond to his mother’s comments.
Brian Topham said: ‘I’m not interested in what Julie says. She can say what she wants.’
Julie’s mother, Betty Gordon, declined to comment.
Julie believes there is no chance of a reconciliation with her son — certainly not while her former husband is still alive.
If Matthew did turn up one day and offered Julie a slice of his fortune, would she take it?
‘If I turned it down, would Matthew regard it as a snub?’ she asks.
‘If I accepted it, would he think I was only after his money?
‘I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I can’t win.’

Ada wang ada mother.

High School Student Pull Off 3some with 2

Tyler__Durden — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 12:17:49 +0800

http://www.wdsu.com/news/local-news/new-or...tudent/28322566

QUOTE

ST. CHARLES PARISH, La. —Many concerns are growing among parents after alleged misconduct and extracurricular activities at a St. Charles Parish high school. Authorities in St. Charles Parish are investigating allegations that may cross parish lines.

Reports recently surfaced that two teachers had sex with a student at Destrehan High School. The school is located approximately 24 miles west of New Orleans.
Parents at Destrehan High School are grappling with the thought of two teachers engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a teenage student.

"I'm shocked. I’m very surprised. I’m just very shocked. I never expected it," said Judi Hotard. Hotard said she has a daughter at Destrehan High School.

"I'm just in a little bit of shock right now,” she said. “But I trust that principal (Stephen) Weber is going to take care of it the right way and handle it properly.”

"The two teachers met the student at one of their houses, and that's where the acts were performed," said a man who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The man said the teachers that are being investigated are both women and are both graduates of Destrehan High School. The encounters allegedly took place at a home in Kenner.

"It's not the first time this has happened. It seems to happen every four years. We just had an incident in 2008, where a male teacher with allegations against a female student. So it seems to be very popular in this parish," He said.

Back in 2009, former band teacher Byron Toups resigned before pleading guilty to malfeasance, intimidation of a witness and simple battery involving two students at the school.

Toups was originally charged with molestation, intimidation of a witness and simple battery.

WDSU has learned that the Kenner Police Department and the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office are scheduled to meet on Wednesday.

The St. Charles Parish Public School System told WDSU that the teachers were placed on leave with pay last Friday and that the district is conducting its own investigation.

Sunday night, Destrehan High School Principal Stephen Weber sent parents a message over the phone, assuring them that while authorities are investigation the allegations, teaching and learning will continue.

As the investigation continues, the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office says the investigation could wrap up by week's end.

Nearly half of women in relationships have 'Plan B

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:48:06 +0800

QUOTE

A study found many keep another man waiting patiently in the wings should they end up single - and married women are even more likely to

Half of all women have a ‘Plan B’ - in the shape of a man whose arms they can run into if their current relationship turns sour.

A study carried out among 1,000 women found a substantial percentage have managed to keep another man waiting patiently in the wings should they end up single.

And, worryingly, married women are more likely have a Plan B in the background than those who are merely in a relationship.

It also emerged the Plan B is likely to be an ‘old friend’ who has always had feelings for the woman in question.

But other candidates are an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband, a colleague or someone who they have met at the gym.

A spokesman for online market research company OnePoll.com said: “For our research to establish that almost 50 per cent of women in relationships have a ‘Plan B’ is a worrying sign.

“This news may cause a few men in relationships to think twice about not taking the rubbish out or choosing a night down the pub in favour of a cosy night in with his partner.

“This could spark fear in men across the UK and be great news for women looking for that extra bit of love and care so that their attentions aren’t swayed.”

The research also found Plan B is also likely to be someone whom she has known for around seven years.

One of the most worrying elements of the study was the revelation that he will be ‘ready and waiting’ because of ‘unfinished business’.

Furthermore around one in ten women said their Plan B had already confessed his undying love, while one in five said they were confident he would ‘drop everything’ for her, if she asked him to.

Slightly more than four in ten said they had got to know the man whilst they were with their partner, while a similar percentage said he was ‘on the scene’ long before.

Another alarming statistic was the fact around one in four women who have a back-up plan have feelings as strong for him as they do for their other half.

Incredibly 12 per cent went as far as to admit their feelings were ‘stronger’ for Plan B, and close to seven in ten admitted they are currently in contact with him.

But despite the secrecy involved in having a close friend or ex to turn to, around half of the women who took part in the poll said their other half was aware of the ‘third party’.

Of those one in five said they were able to joke about it, but one in three said their man was ‘uncomfortable’ discussing him.

One in four admitted their current partner had met their Plan B, while one in five admitted he was a friend of the man in her life.

The good news for the nation’s men is that one in three women said they ‘doubted’ anything would ever happen with the man in the background.

Around half had a ‘never say never’ approach, while trouble may lie ahead for one in six who said they were ‘seriously considering’ rekindling their romance with the man in the shadows.

A OnePoll spokesman added: “The saying ‘the grass isn’t always greener’, clearly isn’t deterring women of today.

“They understand that anything can happen and are ensuring they have a solid back up plan should things go sour with their current man”

“With sites such as Facebook and Twitter, its easier than ever to stay in touch with an old flame. Men need to be aware of any ‘old friends’ that turn up out of the blue that’s for sure.

“One thing is for certain, men across the UK today will be giving their partners that extra kiss goodnight this evening.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/sex-rela...ps-plan-4323872

So how many of you foreverarones are other's Plan B, patiently in waiting?

30 Is the New 50:

Tyler__Durden — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:33:25 +0800

QUOTE

30 Is the New 50: Old Age Is Killing My Dating Life

Jenny Bahn @jennybahn 12:23 PM ET

My career successes, my triumphs as a human being, are trumped by the fact my looks—and my ovaries—have a shelf life

It’s 1 a.m. on a Monday, and I am currently on the phone having an argument with a guy I’d been on only four dates with, three of them good. One of them—the last—was less good, given he had gone MIA for the better part of three weeks and I had a sneaking suspicion he had a girlfriend.

We hadn’t slept together, but the kisses had been the type of kisses you walk away from with shaky knees and blind hope. There was something there, and we both knew it, which is why we were attempting to hash things out over the phone at some ungodly hour. Because at our age, we’re adults, and things matter more. The mistakes leave marks.

Alex is 38. I’m 30. Technically, there are no “people our age.” But I’m starting to feel that a 30-year-old woman might as well be a 40-year-old man, though infinitely less desirable, culturally speaking.

At 40, a man is well into hitting his stride, something the guy I’m arguing with is all too aware of, as evidenced when he professes on multiple occasions, “I’m an amazing guy.” “We’re killing it. KILLING IT,” he tells me, while explaining that he’s been caught up in his rapidly expanding architecture firm.

Alex sees his stock rising. For a man, age brings success, wisdom and the Hollywood-approved wrinkles of Robert Redford. And, while I too find that my career is on the up, it doesn’t matter, because time, for a woman, is hardly as kind as it is to a man. My career successes, my triumphs as a human being, are trumped by the fact that my looks—and my ovaries—have a shelf life. Biology and Sociology 101.

Interestingly enough, Alex and I, with nearly a decade between us, are two people on the same page in terms of what we are looking for in a relationship. In New York, men approaching their 40s begin to feel the weight of time more acutely, something women are confronted with the moment they start their first period. While boys are still sitting in the school parking lot burping up Cokes and Doritos, young girls are in some ways exposed to the long, faint shadow of their mortality, a life defined by precise timing and narrow windows—girlhood and fertility immediately presented to you as finite and limited. Everything has its end.

Men, on the other hand, start to engage with their bodies only decades later, when something goes wrong. A slow-healing broken arm, a herniated disc, high blood pressure: These are the wake-up calls, when aging men begin to wrestle with the thought of impending death, or at least not wanting to be an old dad. Overnight, their biological clocks start ticking. They want kids. They want a partner. Their timer has gone off. DING DING DING.

After decades after messing around, they’re ready to settle down. Which is precisely where Alex was at about a year ago with his ex-fiancée, who—kudos to Alex—was four years his senior and under the crushing pressure of having kids right away, lest the opportunity pass them by altogether—or, more precisely, pass her by. Alex couldn’t handle the idea of having kids right away and broke it off, because he had the luxury his fiancée did not: namely, time. And the ability to eventually, when he was ready, find someone 15 years younger to have children with.

Which brings us to the point when he finally—after nearly an hour on the phone explaining that he’s been so hot and cold because he’s too busy with work, because he’s very into expanding his business, because he’s shy—admits he’s been seeing some 20-something girl named Anouk for the past few months.

This, by the way, follows this part of the conversation by about 20 minutes:

Alex: Well, what do you want?

Me: I want to love someone and I want them to love me.

Alex: You? You think you’re lovable? You think someone can fall in love with you? You’re so guarded. How can anyone fall in love with someone so guarded?

Alex, of course, self-professed amazing person that he is, is not very well versed in Newton’s Third Law and its role in relationship physics. I was guarded because he did things that made me sense he had a girlfriend. Which he did. But that’s not his fault. Because Alex the Architect is amazing!

As though any amount of talking is going to make this better, Alex continues to tell me about Anouk, who doesn’t mind his going on dates with other women because he “doesn’t love her,” and who he is dating precisely because she’s not looking for anything at all.

It’s this logic that has most of my 30-something guy friends dating girls fresh out of college. , in my experience, are less impressive, less striving, less volatile, less successful, less intimidating, less questioning, less pressing, less complex, less damaged, less opinionated, less powerful, less womanly. They are less, and, to a guy not ready for anything—like most of the guys I have dated in New York—less is more.

Hamster2

A 30-year-old woman is an undertaking, and it’s the real reason Alex has been putting me on the back burner for the past two months, telling me that I’m amazing and that he’s interested and then disappearing to hang out with a 23-year-old instead. Age ain’t nothing but a number, until it’s a number someone else doesn’t want to deal with.

Jenny Bahn is a writer and editor (and former model) living in a yet-to-be-ruined part of Brooklyn. You can find her work on V Magazine, CR, The Style Con, Lady Clever, Harry’s, and, of course, on xoJane.

http://time.com/3422046/30-is-the-new-50/

QUOTE

A new book based on relationship data reveals much about the way people interact and view each other, but one graphic from the book’s first chapter is generating all the buzz. Here’s how the author describes the salient piece of data regarding how men view women:

“From the time you’re 22 you’ll be less hot than a 20-year-old, based on this data,” Christian Rudder said at a recent talk, according to FiveThirtyEight. “So that’s just a thing.”

The book, “Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking),” is based on data from the dating site OkCupid that Rudder co-founded, which revealed that men up to age 50 find women ages 20-24 most attractive.

DATACLYSM
The graph is especially enlightening when compared to its parallel, on how women view men: Up to age 39, women prefer men’s looks who are just about one year younger than they are. Even at age 50, 46-year-old men are looking good to women.

The graphic is based on data from the online dating site OKCupid, and Rudder is quick to note that these preferences don’t necessarily mean 50-year-old men are actually dating women who can’t legally drink.

“This is just measuring people’s opinions, not what they actually go out and do,” he told NPR. “What you see when you actually look at what people do, you see the realism set in. So these 40-year-old guys … the people they actually have the courage to actually go out and message are a lot older: it’s 30, 35-year-old women.”

Rudder also says the data reveal racial biases: “All the data on race I have is from dating sites, but on these sites black users, especially, there’s a bias against them. Every kind of way you can measure their success on a site — how people rate them, how often they reply to their messages, how many messages they get — that’s all reduced.”

http://news.discovery.com/human/life/men-s...e-21-140912.htm

Ouch, biology wins.

Drillz.

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Inspiring story about a husband who gave his all

Tyler__Durden — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:55:56 +0800

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-27...eft-fed-up.html

QUOTE

A multi-millionaire who gave away £16million to help cancer patients after his wife survived the disease has ended up losing his home, possessions and even his spouse.

Brian Burnie, who owns a recruitment business, paid for his wife Shirley's treatment when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and became so inspired he devoted his life to helping other sufferers.

But after selling the family home, cars and possessions, the couple have divorced as Mrs Burnie reveals she could no longer put up with her husband's generosity.

Speaking for the first time since their 2012 split, Mrs Burnie told the Sunday Mirror: 'I didn't want to give everything away.
'I wanted security for us and our family.'

While her husband had always been generous - he asked guests at their wedding to donate to a leukemia charity rather than give them presents - his urge to give back became overwhelming when Mrs Burnie was given the all-clear.

After selling their 10-acre estate, the couple moved into a rented house opposite a council estate in Morpeth, Northumberland in 2010.

Mr Burnie, who has owned petro-chemical and recruitment businesses, traded in his luxury car for a Ford Fiesta, and revelled in the idyllic notion of a simple life.

At the time his wife fondly described his 'madness', but his unrelenting devotion to the charity began to drive a wedge between them.

Mrs Burnie said she became fed up with her husband caring more about the charity than their financial security. The 70-year-old now lives alone in a flat above the charity's headquarters

But when Mrs Burnie learned he had bought a house without telling her, she assumed her 70-year-old husband was preparing for divorce.

However when she learned the property had in fact been bought for Mr Burnie's charity - Daft As A Brush - she was pushed to confront the issue.

'I didn't intend to have to beat cancer and then spend the rest of my life living in a house like this and doing everything for everyone else.

'I'm sick of bloody charity and the hard work - we all are.'

'I felt he had put me in a position where we had to end the marriage.'

While Mr Burnie regrets buying the house, he would make no changes to the way he gives so generously.

Living alone in a flat above his charity, he said: 'We acquired the life-style, we lived very well, but nothing gave me as much pleasure as giving it all away.'

Until she left him.

Internet meltdown when a 57 is dating an 18 yr old

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:03:12 +0800

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/11/s..._n_5804410.html

Manolo is his prime days.

Mother and Daughter Come Out about Lesbian Relatio

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:37:00 +0800

http://stuppid.com/mother-daughter-lesbian-relationship/

QUOTE

“Vertasha and I knew we were attracted to each other when she was sixteen,” Mary Carter said. “But we decided to wait to have sex until she was eighteen, legally of age. We are now going public with our relationship to help others who might be in gay mother/daughter relationship feel confident and okay about coming out. We want the world to know we love each other as mother and daughter and romantically.”

Laws forbid incest mostly because of inbreeding and the birth defects that can often come as a consequence.

“We’re women, so Vertasha and I obviously can’t make children,” Mary Carter said. “It’d be one thing if her daddy (he’s out of the picture) got her pregnant and a baby was born with deformities, but we’re not hurting anyone. We’re a new minority and just want acceptance.”

Vertasha is apparently happy with the relationship as well.

“My mom is still my mom. She does normal mom stuff: buys me clothes, pays for food, tells me to make our bed. We just happen to enjoy sex with each other too.”

American wants to join Best Korea

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:21:26 +0800

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...-six-years.html

QUOTE

An American who travelled to North Korea and reportedly claimed asylum, ripping up his visa on arrival, will serve six years in a labour camp.
North Korea's Supreme Court said Matthew Miller, a 24-year-old from Bakersfield, California, had entered the country illegally and tried to commit an act of espionage.
Mr Miller was arrested in April and put on trial on Sunday morning. The court denied him any appeal, but details of the proceedings were not published.
According to the Korea Central News Agency, the official news agency, Mr Miller had behaved "rashly" and ripped up his visa after landing at Pyongyang airport. He allegedly shouted that "he came to North Korea after choosing it as a shelter".

Why I Want My Sons to See Me Naked

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:16:56 +0800

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rita-templet..._b_5797920.html

QUOTE

I live with a houseful of boys: four, to be exact. But they're still relatively young -- so there are no nudie mags stashed between mattresses, no stealthily-accessed porn sites that someone forgot to erase out of the Internet history, nothing like that. As much as I'd love to think my kids won't be curious, I'm well aware that won't be the case: those things are looming and will probably start happening much sooner than I'd like. (I mean, if I had my druthers, they wouldn't even think about sex until they were like 25.)

But before all that happens -- before they're exposed to boobs that are as round and firm as cantaloupes and pictures of taut, airbrushed, dimple-less butts -- I'm exposing them to a different kind of female body.

Mine.

.......

I don't want to do them, or any women they might happen to see naked in the future, the disservice of telling them that saggy boobs are bad or that a little bit of flab is something to be ashamed of. I want them to know that this is the norm, not the nipped-tucked-and-digitally-enhanced images they're going to be bombarded with. Sure, they'll gawk at those bouncy boobies and flat stomachs and perky butts... but I have hope that, deep down inside, they'll know that isn't the standard to which they should hold women's bodies. Like, ever.

There will come a time when I cover up when they're around. I'm sure at some point I'll hear, "Ugh, Mom, put some clothes on!" or that they'll learn to knock before barging into the bathroom (which sounds heavenly -- I'm not gonna lie). But until then, I'll let them run their fingers along my stretch marks, and grin and bear it when they squeal with delighted laughter at the way my butt jiggles when I walk across the room to grab a towel. Because while they're young, I want to plant the seed -- so that when they're older, and their wives say, "I wish my thighs were smaller," my sons can say, "They're perfect just the way they are."

And mean it.

Homeless Millennial Survives By Picking Up Women

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:12:23 +0800

[YOUTUBE]bmav517MQJc[/YOUTUBE]

QUOTE

If you were homeless, could you still pick up chicks?

Meet Joe, the homeless Millennial who has mastered the art of getting women to take him home with them.

Originally from Boston, Joe, 26, may spend his daylight hours panhandling in Manhattan – making up to $150 on a given day – but his nights are a completely different ballgame.

If you don’t think Joe looks homeless, well, that’s only because he’s good at what he does. According to Joe, his only responsibility is to not look homeless. In his mind, his appearance is a survival tactic.

Joe spends whatever money he makes on keeping his appearance up, in addition to copious amounts of drugs and booze, with one goal in mind: attract as many girls as possible.

For Joe, sleeping with a lady is his only chance at sleeping with a roof over his head. Joe uses his charm and good looks to sleep out with chicks three to four nights a week, where he’ll shower and enjoy an evening away from the streets.

After meeting Joe – about a block from our office – the Elite Daily Video Team spent over a week with him, chronicling his epic lifestyle and learning about the hardships and triumphs of one “cardboard all star.”

Ada wang ada amoi?

Masculine men have lower-quality sperm: study

Tyler__Durden — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 15:18:40 +0800

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/heal...ticle-1.1927646

QUOTE

Students ranked the appearances and relationship potentials of sperm donors, and researchers compared those rankings to the men's sperm. Too much testosterone has been thought to negatively affect sperm.

Manly men, be warned: Your baby-making abilities might be compromised.
The more masculine a man's face is, the worse his semen quality might be, according to a new study in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Higher levels in testosterone have been shown in the past to harm sperm production.

For this study, male students donated sperm and their photos were shown to other students, who would rate their appearance and relationship potential. The students doing the judging were from Colombia and Spain.

The researchers saw that while attractive guys have better sperm quality — which has been suggested in the past — guys with more masculine features had lower quality sperm. But those numbers didn't hold up when men with literally unhealthy sperm were dropped from the equation, so the results may be a bit inconclusive right now.

Researchers also found that men ranked the people in photos they saw higher than women and that the Spanish raters gave higher scores than the Colombian raters.

They're unsure why they saw the results they did, but it may have something to do with masculine guys having ample sex and not needing a high-quality sperm to impregnate a woman. But because handsome men tend to have healthy sperm, that would mean that masculine-but-not-handsome men are getting more action.

mengel@nydailynews.com

Kpopfags will rule the world in the future!

Big penis, big problem in a marriage: study

Tyler__Durden — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 16:48:14 +0800

http://www.timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/2014/...-marriage-study

QUOTE

A study into marital infidelity has found that longer penises are linked to wives cheating on their spouses.

The study, published in the online Journal PloS One, was led by US and Kenyan researchers, found that every extra inch boosts the likelihood of wives engaging in extramarital affairs.

"We included this variable because of the interest and controversies that surround men's pursuit of penile enlargement ostensibly to sexually satisfy their spouses while women do not necessarily approve of it," the researchers wrote.

"Surprisingly, [having a] spouse [with a] longer fully erect penis was associated with increased likelihood of the women having extra-marital partnerships. From these results, every one inch longer penis increased the likelihood of women being involved in extra-marital partnership by almost one-and-half times," the researchers wrote.

This is apparently because a longer penis increases sexual discomfort. The researchers quoted one of the women in the study as saying, “…some penises may be large yet my vagina is small, when he tries to insert it inside, it hurts so much that I will have to look for another man who has a smaller one [penis] and can do it in a way I can enjoy”.

According to the study, domestic violence and denying a woman a preferred sex position also increased the likelihood of extra-marital relationships.

Meanwhile factors which reduce the likelihood of a wife cheating on her husband are her age (older wives were less likely to cheat), and how sexually satisfied she is.

“Some [men] just take a minute and leaves you there when you are still ‘hanging’… You cannot even tell if this thing is over or still continuing. Sometime we aren't satisfied yet we can't explain it [to our partners]. However, when we get men who can satisfy us, we do not waste such chances," one woman told the researchers.

Dua ki also not gooding.

Dude Secretly Films His Psycho Girlfriend Abusing

Tyler__Durden — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 01:51:24 +0800

[YOUTUBE]5hdCGbw8Qbc[/YOUTUBE]

The video says it all.

For women that says men shouldn't judge them by

Tyler__Durden — Thu, 22 May 2014 10:21:59 +0800

https://twitter.com/heightismxposed

Short guys...You're disgusting!

Short guys piss me off. Like why must you be that height looking the way you do.

When short guys hit on me and ask me if im into it ... Like NO sorry im not into midget sex....f***.outta.here.

hate when short guys single me out to dance because I am also short.
No.

Recent Black College Grads Face Severe

Tyler__Durden — Thu, 22 May 2014 10:01:41 +0800

QUOTE

The weak labor market has been particularly devastating for young black workers. That’s even true for many of the most qualified young black Americans — those with a four-year college degree— who are stuck in low-paying jobs, a new study found.

Among those with a job in 2013, more than half of black recent college graduates—56%–were in an occupation that typically doesn’t require a college degree, according to a report Tuesday by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning Washington think tank. Among all recent college grads with a job, the rate still was a very high 45%. (The report defines a recent college grad as someone between the ages of 22 and 27 with a four-year degree.)

The study’s authors call this underemployment, in which college-educated workers aren’t getting high enough salaries to pay off their student debt and achieve a middle-class lifestyle.

Experience makes a difference, with workers further out of school tending to hold better jobs than recent college graduates. Among all employed black college graduates—regardless of when they earned their degree—about 42% were in a job that didn’t require a degree in 2013. Among all employed college graduates regardless of race, the figure was 35%.

The weak labor market comes at a time when young college graduates also are carrying higher debt loads than previous generations to cover rising college costs.

“Black workers have been told for a generation that the way for you to do better is go to college,” said Janelle Jones, a co-author of the study. “These are people who go to college in the face of rising tuition, needing to work to support themselves, not having a family structure. They finish college and then they end up finding a job that job doesn’t end up requiring a degree” and pays less than those that do require a degree.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/05/20/...nderemployment/

Similar situation happening here? Discuss.

Jay-Z vs Solange

Tyler__Durden — Fri, 16 May 2014 16:22:02 +0800

[YOUTUBE]rWdhX9c_7FA[/YOUTUBE]

So far, clips has been released,

A male, is showed to be attacked viciously, his wife didn't do anything.
The other male that leaked this clip to the media has been sacked from the hotel.

The female perpetrator walks scot free even after her act is caught red-handed and for the world to see. No charges has been filed.

Fast Food Protests Spread Overseas

Tyler__Durden — Fri, 16 May 2014 10:57:15 +0800

QUOTE

Even though fast food workers have staged several one-day strikes in the last 18 months, the protests have not swayed McDonald’s or other major restaurant chains to significantly raise their employees’ pay.

So on Thursday, the fast food workers’ movement wants to broaden its reach as it pushes for a $15-an-hour wage that restaurant companies say is unrealistic. In addition to one-day strikes in 150 cities across the country, the movement’s leaders hope to take their cause global. They say support protests will take place in 80 cities in more than 30 countries, from Dublin to Venice to Casablanca to Seoul to Panama City.

Over the last decade as American labor unions have declined in membership and power, they have increasingly turned to unions in Europe and Asia to help pressure companies overseas to stop battling organizing drives at their United States units. And now the fast food movement, underwritten by the Service Employees International Union, is embracing a similar strategy as it struggles to gain influence with the fast food giants.

Photo

Protesters at a Burger King in Boston in December. Labor is using its influence overseas to support American workers. Credit Stephan Savoia/Associated Press
“It’s a global economy, so they’re saying, ‘Why not go overseas to make it into a global fight?’ ” said Lowell Turner, a professor of international labor relations at Cornell University. “They’re trying to create a global protest movement.”

The movement’s organizers say there will be protests in 30 cities in Japan, 20 in Britain, five in Brazil and three in India. The effort’s strategists point to some fast-growing overseas markets as vulnerable targets for corporations like McDonald’s that have begun relying more heavily on foreign revenue now that domestic fast food sales have languished.

To help propel the effort, a labor federation with 12 million workers in 126 countries — the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations — met in New York last week. It brought together union officials from more than two dozen countries, many of them with thriving, powerful labor organizations, to throw their weight behind Thursday’s protests.

Massimo Frattini, international coordinator of the federation’s restaurant division, said restaurant workers in Europe, Asia and Latin America were eager to join in — both to help their own cause and that of their United States allies.

“Fast food workers in many other parts of the world face the same corporate policies — low pay, no guaranteed hours and no benefits,” said Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union.

Her union has previously teamed up with overseas unions. For instance, it worked with Swedish unions to persuade Securitas, a Swedish security services company, not to oppose many efforts to unionize security guards at its American subsidiaries.

But such overseas cooperation does not always guarantee success. The United Automobile Workers have asked unions in Japan and other nations to pressure Nissan to adopt a less hostile stance toward its unionization campaign at Nissan’s plant in Mississippi. So far, those efforts have not changed Nissan’s position.

Scott DeFife, an executive vice president for the National Restaurant Association, a trade group, dismissed Thursday’s protests — however broadened — as more of the same. “These are made-for-TV media moments — that’s pretty much it,” he said.

Eddie Foreman, 40, a McDonald’s worker in Opelika, Ala., who makes $7.75 an hour and takes home about $200 a week, said he had persuaded several other workers in his town to walk out Thursday.

“The reason I’m going on strike is I don’t make enough money to take care of my kids,” he said. “We need to go on strike and protest — that’s the only way we’ll get them to improve things.”

Businesses have generally opposed the $15-an-hour proposal, saying it would cut into their profits, reduce hiring and force them to raise prices. Mr. DeFife warned of harmful repercussions if wages climbed to $15 an hour. “It would have consequences on hiring patterns for Main Street businesses across the country,” he said.

For its part, McDonald’s — which has been one of the biggest targets — said its restaurants offered competitive pay and benefits, with opportunities for advancement. In a statement, McDonald’s said: “This is an important discussion that needs to take into account the highly competitive nature of the industries that employ minimum-wage workers, as well as consumers and the thousands of small businesses which own and operate the vast majority of McDonald’s restaurants.”

The one-day strikes have drawn attention to low-wage workers across many industries, including retailing, and have provided fuel for congressional lawmakers backing President Obama’s call for a minimum-wage increase to $10.10.

Even with the new overseas protests, Jake Rosenfeld, a labor relations expert at the University of Washington, doubted the movement would achieve its $15 goal unless the employees were unionized. “I don’t think they’re any way close to getting there,” he said of the effort.

At the moment, the movement seems far from unionizing many restaurants, even though one of its main demands is getting the chains and their franchisees’ to promise not to fight such efforts.

Organizers said a total of 200 workers walked out at 60 restaurants in New York City during the first one-day strike in November 2012, adding that thousands went on strike when the walkouts expanded to more than 60 cities last December.

But Mr. DeFife disputed those accounts, saying few restaurant workers actually went on strike during the five previous one-day walkouts and that only a handful of restaurants were forced to close, even for a few hours.

“The vast majority of these protesters are not actually restaurant workers, and if they are, they’ve taken the day off in advance,” he said, adding that the efforts did not fit the description of a strike.

Ms. Henry said that if workers went on strike in 150 cities on Thursday, with accompanying protests overseas, that would be one of the biggest labor protests in years.

She said these mushrooming protests showed “why a settlement with the big fast food companies is possible.”

The movement, known as Fast Food Forward, has also sought to pressure McDonald’s by filing several lawsuits accusing the company and its franchisees of illegally underpaying workers through, among other things, off-the-clock work. In addition, organizers are planning a protest at McDonald’s annual shareholders’ meeting on May 22 in Oak Brook, Ill.

Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, said Thursday’s protests were an example of “the labor movement reinventing itself. It’s the most experimental thing labor has done in a long time.”

But he characterized the goal of a $15 hourly minimum as overly ambitious.

“They seem to forget you have to take little steps at a time,” he said. “When you don’t have very much, getting a little can mean a lot. You can’t get it all at once.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/business...tw-nytimes&_r=2

Malaysia no protest a?

Lessons for modern family - The Two-Income Trap

Tyler__Durden — Fri, 09 May 2014 12:07:58 +0800

Excepts from ‘The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke’
New book looks at how the ferocious bidding war for housing and education has quietly engulfed America’s suburbs

QUOTE

Our research eventually unearthed one stunning fact. The families in the worst financial trouble are not the usual suspects. They are not the very young, tempted by the freedom of their first credit cards. They are not the elderly, trapped by failing bodies and declining savings accounts. And they are not a random assortment of Americans who lack the self-control to keep their spending in check. Rather, the people who consistently rank in the worst financial trouble are united by one surprising characteristic. They are parents with children at home. Having a child is now the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse.

Consider a few facts. Our study showed that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts. A divorced woman raising a youngster is nearly three times more likely to file for bankruptcy than her single friend who never had children.
Over the past generation, the signs of middle-class distress have continued to grow, in good times and in bad, in recession and in boom. If those trends persist, more than 5 million families with children will file for bankruptcy by the end of this decade. That would mean that across the country nearly one of every seven families with children would have declared itself flat broke, losers in the great American economic game.

Bankruptcy has become deeply entrenched in American life. This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce. Heart attacks. Cancer. College graduations. Divorce. These are markers in the lives of nearly every American family. And yet, we will soon have more friends and coworkers who have gone through bankruptcy than any one of these other life events.

And the lines at the bankruptcy courts are not the only signs of financial distress. A family with children is now 75 percent more likely to be late on credit card payments than a family with no children. The number of car repossessions has doubled in just five years. Home foreclosures have more than tripled in less than 25 years, and families with children are now more likely than anyone else to lose the roof over their heads. Economists estimate that for every family that officially declares bankruptcy, there are seven more whose debt loads suggest that they should file for bankruptcy — if only they were more savvy about financial matters.

Unseen dangers
Who are the families in so much trouble? Most are like Ruth Ann and James — ordinary, middle-class people united by their determination to provide a decent life for their children. Like James, many had been felled by a layoff or a business failure; someone who glanced at this year’s tax return might label them as poor. But very few were chronically poor. For most, poverty was only temporary, a setback in an otherwise solidly middle-class life. When membership in the middle class is defined by enduring criteria that don’t disappear when a pink slip arrives — criteria such as going to college, owning a home, or having held a good job — more than 90 percent of those in bankruptcy would qualify as middle class. By every measure except their balance sheets, the families in our study are as solidly middle class as any in the country. And they are united by another common thread: Most of these families sent two parents into the workforce.

By the usual logic, sending a second parent into the workforce should make a family more financially secure, not less. But this reasoning ignores an important fact of two-income life. When mothers joined the workforce, the family gave up something of considerable (although unrecognized) economic value: an extra skilled and dedicated adult, available to pitch in to help save the family during times of emergency. When Junior got sick, the stay-at-home mother was there to care for him full-time, without the need to hire a nurse. If Dad was laid off, Mom could enter the workforce, bringing in a new income until Dad found another job. And if the couple divorced, the mother who had not been working outside the home could get a job and add new income to support her children. The stay-at-home mother gave her family a safety net, an all-purpose insurance policy against disaster.

If two-income families had saved the second paycheck, they would have built a different kind of safety net — the kind that comes from having plenty of money in the bank. But families didn’t save that money. Even as millions of mothers marched into the workforce, savings declined, and not, as we will show, because families were frittering away their paychecks on toys for themselves or their children. Instead, families were swept up in a bidding war, competing furiously with one another for their most important possession: a house in a decent school district. As confidence in the school system crumbled, the bidding war for family housing intensified, and parents soon found themselves bidding up the price for other opportunities for their kids, such as a slot in a decent preschool or admission to a good college. Mom’s extra income fit in perfectly, coming at just the right time to give each family extra ammunition to compete in the bidding wars — and to drive the prices even higher for the things they all wanted.

The average two-income family earns far more today than did the single-breadwinner family of a generation ago. And yet, once they have paid the mortgage, the car payments, the taxes, the health insurance, and the day-care bills, today’s dual-income families have less discretionary income — and less money to put away for a rainy day — than the single-income family of a generation ago. And so the Two-Income Trap has been neatly sprung. Mothers now work two jobs, at home and at the office. And yet they have less cash on hand. Mom’s paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of keeping the children in the middle class.

At the same time that millions of mothers went to work, the family needed the stay-at-home mom (or a costly replacement) more than ever. The number of frail elderly, most of whom must depend on family for daily care, spiraled upward. Hospitals began discharging patients “quicker and sicker,” expecting the family to pick up the task of nursing them back to health. With Mom in the workforce, parents were faced with a painful choice between paying for expensive care and taking time off work. At the same time, the divorce rate continued its upward climb. This situation was compounded by a leaner-and-meaner business climate that closed plants and laid off workers with alarming frequency. In this tougher world, millions of two-income families learned the price of living without a safety net.

Inevitably, the Two-Income Trap affected the one-income family too. When millions of mothers entered the workforce, they ratcheted up the price of a middle-class life for everyone, including families that wanted to keep Mom at home. A generation ago, a single breadwinner who worked diligently and spent carefully could assure his family a comfortable position in the middle class. But the frenzied bidding wars, fueled by families with two incomes, changed the game for single-income families as well, pushing them down the economic ladder. To keep Mom at home, the average single-income family must forfeit decent public schools and preschools, health insurance, and college degrees, leaving themselves and their children with a tenuous hold on their middle-class dreams.

What about single-parent families, the group that has no choice about getting by on one income? Not surprisingly, they are in even worse shape than their married counterparts. But the magnitude of the problem for single-mother families shocked us. If current trends persist, more than one of every six single mothers will go bankrupt by the end of the decade. The usual explanations for why these women are in trouble — “deadbeat dads” who don’t pay child support, discrimination in the workplace, and so forth — cannot account for the growing distress. Today’s middle-class single mothers have better legal protection, higher salaries, more child support, and more opportunities in the workplace than their divorced counterparts of a generation ago, yet they face a much greater likelihood of financial collapse. We estimate that over the past twenty years, the number of single mothers in bankruptcy has increased more than 600 percent.

So why are these women in so much trouble? We will show that changes in the family balance sheet before a couple divorces explain much about the vulnerability of today’s single mothers. Married parents are in trouble because they have spent every last penny and then some just to buy a middle-class life for their children. As a result, today’s newly divorced mother is already teetering over a financial abyss the day she signs her divorce papers. She has nothing in the bank, and the family’s fixed costs stretched the limits of two incomes, let alone one. She hasn’t a prayer of competing with double-income families to provide her children with what have come to be seen as the basic requirements of a middle-class upbringing.

Is the only solution for all the mothers to scurry pell-mell back to the hearth? It may sound like a tidy resolution, but it won’t work. Like it or not, women now need those paychecks to pay the mortgage and the health insurance bills. Their incomes are committed, and calling for them to abandon those financial commitments would mean forcing them to give up their families’ spot in the middle class. No, the real solution lies elsewhere — in addressing the reasons behind the bidding war and helping all families, both dual- and single-income, to get some relief.

The Two-Income Trap is thick with irony. Middle-class mothers went into the workforce in a calculated effort to give their families an economic edge. Instead, millions of them are now in the workplace just so their families can break even. At a time when women are getting college diplomas and entering the workforce in record numbers, their families are in more financial trouble than ever. Partly these women were the victims of bad timing: Despite general economic prosperity, the risks facing their families jumped considerably. Partly they were the victims of optimistic myopia: They saw the rewards a working mother could bring, without seeing the risks associated with that newfound income. And partly they were the victims of one another. As millions of mothers poured into the workplace, it became increasingly difficult to put together a middle-class life on a single income. The combination has taken these women out of the home and away from their children and simultaneously made family life less, not more, financially secure. Today’s middle-class mother is trapped: She can’t afford to work, and she can’t afford to quit.

http://www.today.com/id/3079221/ns/today-m...e/#.U2xRFPmSyXw

Thoughts and discussion for family people that runs on single income and dual income.

Business guru apologize for losing investors money

Tyler__Durden — Tue, 06 May 2014 15:35:48 +0800

QUOTE

Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. On the surface, it seemed like I had the best life. A popular blog with millions of readers. The perfect relationship with Brian, the most adoring fiance in the universe. A great set of supportive friends and a nice social standing in Austin, TX. And, last but not least, an awesome company, making marketing software, with a great team, that was making money and (finally!) shipping products.

Yet something lurked just beneath the surface. It would come out at awkward times, like 3AM, when I would wake up and feel an edge, a discomfort. Something felt broken. But when I looked at my life, I couldn’t spot it. What was going on?

Then, one day, a few weeks ago, an event happened (I’ll save the details of that for some other time.) Suddenly a torrent of emotions poured in. I was overwhelmed. I stayed home from work one day–my best friend Erica sent me some poetry, and I just cried. I wept. It felt like my soul was pouring out of me, one tear at a time.

I reeled from the onslaught of emotions for days, and soon thereafter, I broke off my relationship with Brian. Whatever wasn’t right in my life wasn’t easy to find. It went deep into myself.

Brian was shocked, and as well he should be. I loved Brian. I still love him. But something wasn’t there. It wasn’t right. It was why we weren’t getting married. He was the perfect guy on the surface, but for some reason he wasn’t perfect for me.

I Had to Leave…

That was Friday, April 25. Saturday morning, I woke up and bought a plane ticket to Boulder, CO for six days. It was there that I would kill my company. But at that point, I didn’t know that. All I knew was that I had to leave. I had to get away. Something was so profoundly broken in my life–something I knew I couldn’t see without the perspective that leaving my home in Austin, TX would show me.

Sunday morning, April 27, I arrived in Boulder. I felt a strange sense of unity, peace, and relief. All of the noise in my brain was quiet for the first time in years. I had told Brian this trip was to create my preferences, to help me understand what I wanted in this life. But it was also to fix the pain and the brokenness that I could no longer ignore.

Today is my fourth day in Boulder, and I have not stopped crying. Yesterday, our largest customer, representing 22% of our revenue for Whoosh Traffic, cancelled. Because of their cancellation, we could no longer make payroll next week.

I pinged my friend Andy on Facebook, and I did something that until now has been incredibly difficult for me: I asked for help.

“What Do You Really Want?”

Andy asked me, “What do you really want?” I felt strongly this was the crux of the question that had led me to Boulder, that had led me to drop everything in search of myself. At first, I didn’t know how to answer. But he helped me work through it.

After my conversation with Andy, I got on our company chat room and told Paul (our CTO) and Amanda (my assistant) that there was no more money left, and that we wouldn’t be able to make payroll. I thought they’d be upset, but they were stoic.

Isn’t it interesting how when things are broken in your life, people sense it somehow? I believe that’s why we haven’t raised investment capital in the past 7 months since we got out of Techstars. I knew, somehow, deep inside, that so many things were broken in my life, and that that extended into our business. So how could I ask investors to sink more money in? It would be disingenuous. I couldn’t do it.

The truth was, I didn’t really want to build a huge SEO software company. We knew that coming into Techstars. My cofounder and I split during Techstars, and I decided I really wanted to build a marketing automation platform. That platform would become MarketVibe.

But something still wasn’t right. If MarketVibe was what I really wanted to do, why wasn’t I launching it on my blog? Why wasn’t I doing whatever it took to get paying customers and make it successful?

The Brokenness…

The brokenness pervaded my dreams, leaving me exhausted when I woke up in the morning. I developed a sugar addiction and a video game addiction. I gained so much weight that many of my clothes stopped fitting. It’s hard to explain the contrast between the abject depression that ate at me in the middle of the night when I was alone and vulnerable, and the “everything is OK” smile I’d put on as my “public face.” It was why I stopped blogging.

Today I write this, still in Boulder, still reeling emotionally from the large volume of changes in my life in the past week. I write this humbly, with a complete lack of ego. My business failed and it took my savings, and $640,000 of investor capital on top of that, with it. I let my blog income sources dry up while I focused on the business, and now I must figure out what’s next, from an awkward place I haven’t been in in many years: no money, no salary, and some credit card debt on top of that.

Sometimes you have to rip everything apart to find the core of yourself, the beauty inside you. And this is where I am today.

For so many years, I was the rock, the glue that held my friends together. I was the one who was always there, always ready to listen and give a hug. I was the nice one, the one who rarely judged, who smiled and wished everyone well.

When I tore my life apart, I found an inner core of myself–a twin core of vulnerability and strength, the masculine and the feminine, sitting together peacefully inside myself for the first time. My business failed, but I am not a failure. That’s the key difference that going into myself enabled me to acknowledge on a deep and personal level.

Am I Upset?

Am I upset that I lost my investors’ money? Only in the sense that many of our investors were my friends and I didn’t want to disappoint them. But the me coming out from this hurricane of chaos is a much stronger me, able to acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made, able to open up and be emotionally raw with my friends and my team–qualities that every great leader must possess.

This is what puts one on the path to success–true, authentic success with deep happiness and fulfillment. From where I stand today, I can see why so many leaders are unhappy. They are afraid to be themselves. They are afraid to be vulnerable, to let down their guard, to take the help that their friends and family offer. This is what breaks relationships, both personal and professional.

And now I can share with you what shifts for me this week: I know that this is what I have to offer the world. The twin cores of vulnerability and strength, standing together. As more women enter our workforce, and we as female leaders struggle to find our voices and our innate leadership qualities, we must not forget that the feminine side of ourselves is not a weakness. It is, in fact, our greatest strength as the leaders of this world. We are vulnerable, and we are beautiful, and that’s not just okay–it’s needed in our society.

And as it broke down with me, so it will with others, as we learn how as a society to be authentic, to be raw, to be emotional, to cry it out and hug our friends and tell them we love them. To deal with the pain as it comes instead of bottling it up, taking anti-depressants, and committing suicide (in the worst of cases.) To love without fearing the loss.

The people who embrace that vulnerable core of themselves are our true next generation of leaders, and today I get to stand up and say: That’s me. That’s not just who I want to be–it’s who I am now. I had to break my entire world to find it in myself, but now I stand before you, humbled, having failed in a way but having found something even better from that breakdown.

The world is quiet. The noise in my head is gone. For the first time in many years, I am at peace.

So What Comes Next?

There are a few things that are clear:

I want to keep our team together. Paul, Amanda, and I work together well. So we may form a new company, or rearrange the current one. I think I may do some consulting for a month or two, recovering my finances and helping other authentic leaders of larger companies find their voices and build better teams. (Email me at erica at erica dot biz if you’re interested in talking about this further–it won’t be cheap, but it will be worth it for you.)

And I would like to do MarketVibe, but I think it is time to explore some funding options that buy us some time, instead of feeling rushed to half-ass a product out to market. I no longer sense the perfectionism inside me that was causing us to not launch a product–but I do feel a need to give our product the time and attention it deserves to get the user experience to a state similar to the beauty I see inherent in this world.

Some of our current investors may come along for the ride. Some won’t, and that’s okay. As a person, I am worlds apart from the one who raised money back in 2012. I was not confident in myself back then. I had a gritty edge. I was scared.

Today I’m embracing myself as a leader not just in business, but in our world. I am “in flow” and I know the right people will show up to help me along and support my journey. It is time to show the world that the feminine and the masculine can work together; that neither is inferior, that both are needed. It is time to embrace my own vulnerability and lead by example.

And it’s time to redesign my blog. (Forthcoming!)

if this post compels you to reach out, by all means, do so. (Email, Facebook, Twitter) And if it’s not your cup of tea, feel free to unsubscribe. I am no longer concerned. This is who I am. This is why I’m here. And I’m excited to have you along on this journey with me, through my blog and social media, if you’d like to be a part. (Subscribe to my email list and/or follow me on Facebook.)

Thanks for reading. I’m sorry I lost your money.

With love,
Erica

http://www.erica.biz/2014/dear-investors/