If you look at the new laws, there's been a big shift since 2024 in how it's done. They've tightened the system significantly, making path to citizenship for migrants from Central Asia significantly harder, raising requirements in classic, immigrant dominated niches like food delivery and taxis, and now favoring North Korean, Indian and (rarely) African economic migrants that have absolutely zero paths to citizenship over Central Asians, who often have (or had) simplified paths to citizenship due to Soviet legacy. The system is the complete opposite of what the orangutans in EU have been doing
ser
3d ago
How do these conversations actually go for you? The ones making you feel unimportant?
They don't go terrible, most people have enough social know-how or manners to not instantly do a 180 on you right away, but I can usually tell who's judging and who doesn't care after some time.
What’s home life like? Are you involved in your parents’ lives? Do you share meals? Are you friendly with any of their friends? Or they with yours?
There's some issues unrelated to me, but I don't know how they are relevant to my situation. Despite living with my parents, the house is big enough for us to live separate lives if we want to. I currently follow a pretty strict routine, so we don't tend to eat meals together but I obviously still interact with them daily. I know their friends, but our social lives are pretty separate.
ser
3d ago
All valid points.
"I know I should just get over the hump and do it" is a line of thought that sets you up to fail and procrastinate over and over, because the entrenched habits, promising safety, will usually win at each turn over the "threatening unknown".
The reason why I'm thinking this way is because there's no more progression I can do towards the goal of 'moving out'. I know your image of me is probably different given what I've said about myself, but I'm not a slob that has mommy and daddy take care of him at the grand age of 28. I'm fully autonomous, I take care of myself, I cook, I clean, I wash my own clothes and bedsheets. I have the funds necessary to move out. There's literally nothing else to do other than to hop on Zillow, figure out where I want to live and start scheduling viewings.
I grew up in a family that was transitioning from lower class to upper middle class, so I got to experience both the bad times and the good times. And then my experiences got reinforced by the comparison of my family's [new upper middle class] life and lives of all of my lower class friends. Visiting a friend and seeing how his parents sleep in the living room, and him sharing a tiny bedroom the size of my closet with his sister and having to do homework on the kitchen table, then going back home to my own room the size of half his apartment, with my own desk, left a very strong impression on me. So for the longest time, I've treated money as an ultimate goal because having no money leads to a plethora of issues I don't want to deal with. And aside from that, I think the fact that money is such a simple indicator of whether you're winning or losing has always been appealing to me. Other parts of life are a lot more complex and winning conditions are not as clearly defined.
What goals are you working towards achieving right now?
High level goals: 2-3x current net worth, find something I enjoy doing without monetary reward (or at least with monetary reward not being the main aspect), and have a family before I turn 35.
I'm very aware of my issues, when I was a lot younger I was even more money focused. A simple hangout with friends would throw me into an opportunity cost calculation and whether I'd learn anything useful from spending time with them vs sitting alone in my room focusing on my business. I don't know if it was a defense mechanism from my social anxiety that would just try to come up with any and all excuses to not socialize or if it was my actual way of thinking, but it wasn't a good mindset. I'm significantly better than this now. I don't mind spending money on experiences or on friends these days.
it's either sitting on money, luck, or is not happening
The answer is pretty simple. I'm terminally online, have adequate risk management skills and have lived frugally in my 20s, thanks to my crippling social anxiety. And of course luck. I've covered my journey briefly in comments under previous post, but I've been doing this since I got my hands on a computer at 12, so if anything, it took too long to get here given how much time I've spent on purely focusing on money.
ser
4d ago
I can definitely sweeten it up and say something fancy like 'I'm a directional equities trader with some angel investing on the side' and it is all true. They don't have to know I do it from 'momma's basement' and my angel investments amounts to 2 $25k checks into 2 failing companies. It won't make me feel any more important than what I am though, I think I'll still be feeling like a liar ha.
ser
4d ago
Your perspective on life and yourself is bad, unhelpful to you.
Yes, I know. Hard to brush off social pressures and judgements. I'm working on this daily.
Spending an extra 30k a year is a no-brainer to go for.
it is, but the rational part of my brain is rejecting it. It doesn't make sense money wise, at least while I'm single. I'd be spending more for roughly the same lifestyle. And splitting home chores with other family members is a great time saver. Perhaps I'm also scared of change, I've lived the same lifestyle, for the most part, since I was 12. I know that it's one of those things that I should stop making excuses for and just do it.
ser
4d ago
$1500 on the first or the 15th every month, give you some incentive to actually move out.
Honestly not a bad idea. I already pay for a lot of things around the house, but it's usually in random chunks. I paid half of the roof replacement bill last year ($15k). Making this a stable monthly expense would make me get used to this.
The future divide of people your age when they get older will be people who had assets that appreciated with inflation and those who didn't, and the difference will be a deep chasm.
I'm extremely aware, and that's why I think I shouldn't relax now. Don't think I'm there yet in terms of numbers.
You have enough to put 20% down on a quadplex - why not do that, live in one unit, rent out the others? Focus on making that building pretty, learn how to maintain things, spend more time having an influence in the physical world. Then your wealth will be concrete to you.
I'm extremely bearish on real estate. The opportunity cost of putting a chunk of my money (and time!) into this endeavor is just too great, even though I understand that it would give me purpose and something to do day to day. Not to mention that I would also be a 'real estate investor' instead of a 'trader', probably an upgrade in people's eyes.
the other thing is that everyone should have at least two hobbies - one where you build something and one that builds you.
I agree. I need to work on this. The hobbies I currently have are non-social and all boil down to either increasing my money stack (online poker, side hustles) or keeping me in shape (swimming and working out).
Traveling is good to some extent but I don't think it's what you need to finally put your adolescence at an end.
You're definitely right. It seems like a temporary solution to the problem. But also, once again, my economically optimized brain is telling me I should do this now while I'm still young and living with family - going on long travels while paying $2.5k/month for my own place would make me hate myself, it's lighting money on fire for no apparent reason.
ser
4d ago
It will not stop the identity crisis or the feelings of inadequacy
Yeah, seeing some of my friends get fired in the past year, leaving them with nothing in return, has proven to me that attaching identity to a job is not a good way to go about it. I think I'm starting to realize that what I crave is not exactly identity, but status. And a regular job, which would've probably been in software development since that's what I got my degree for, would've put me in the same mindset that I'm in now anyway if I went the traditional route. And I don't know what to do with this realization.
ser
4d ago
don't disdain social signals
It's hard not to.
Get some nice clothes, a good jacket (or whatever is culturally appropriate for well-to-do young men where you are), pay to have your shirts ironed by a service if you don't want to do it yourself.
Funnily enough, while being crippled with social anxiety for all my life, I never became a slob that didn't take care of himself. I already have a nice wardrobe, colognes, nice watches. I even have a pretty nice car. I think there's an aspect of me feeling like an imposter. Having some money in a bank account doesn't give me status. Someone that runs his own 'real estate management company' seems more prestigious than the guy that clicks buy and sell in his 'momma's basement' even if he makes more.
10 months ago, I made this post. I'm sure nobody cares, but I wanted to write an update, mainly for my own sake - putting this all out in the open should light a fire under my ass. When I wrote the original post, I was recovering from an injury that made me homebound for 3 months and for that whole time I was just trapped with my thoughts with no ability to release that energy anywhere. It got so bad, I was even getting panic attacks every other night before falling asleep. It's gotten better since, but I've still got a long way to go until I'm satisfied. I got in shape, fixed my health, and got significantly more social. Selank was a silver bullet for my social anxiety and I don't know how I've lived my life before it. The levels of stress I was experiencing in social situations were insane, even the times where I would rate my stress level a 4/10 would probably feel like a 7/10 to a normal person, I was just so used to being stressed. Now it feels like I don't have social anxiety. I still have some, what I imagine, normal anxiety here and there, but it's not crushing to the point where I can't function in social situations. My only issue now is my own beliefs and mental limitations that prevent me from getting better. I'm slowly working through them, but it will take time. In those 10 months, I've become a lot more proactive with my existing friendships and that yielded a lot of results - I've got something going on almost every week, and I've taken a few trips with friends. I even was an extra in a commercial my friend produced, something that I would've definitely avoided doing before Selank. My social life genuinely did a 180, and I imagine I'm currently at the "this is what an average 28 year old's social life is like living in the suburbs" level, which is great, but I'm not happy.
All this socializing just makes me face my inadequacy - sometimes people would ask me what I do these days and I would freeze and mumble 'I trade equities and crypto', and I can feel the judgement coming because it usually either means that I'm an unemployed loser or one of those course peddling scammers. And if they learn that I still live with my family, it pretty much confirms their judgement. Not everyone does this, but when it happens it feels horrible. I've caught myself trying to overcompensate for it by doing absolutely retarded things like wearing my expensive watch when I absolutely had no reason to or trying to squeeze status indicators into conversations just to make sure they know (no, my former classmate doesn't need to know my tax bill for the year is 6 figures). It's embarrassing to even write about it. And all this ties to my other issues - I haven't met any new people at all. In fact, I don't even try. Still living with parents at 28. Unemployed, never had a job. Yes, I have some money and I'm doing better than ever, but on paper I'm a chud and I'm embarrassed of it. It's funny, because the solution is so easy - it starts with just moving out, I can definitely afford it. But then I'd be spending an extra ~$30k/year, probably living a worse lifestyle than I do now. My monkey brain is rejecting this idea. Not to mention, that it still doesn't solve the other, more complex parts of the issue such as lack of identity. Trading is a snoozefest, I don't even get dopamine hits from winning trades anymore. I probably have 2-3 more years of it in me, but then what? Not to mention that never having a real job and making money off trading just destroyed my perception of money - losing $50k on a trade is okay in my head, but somehow spending $30k-40k/year on a my own housing is an unacceptable expense.
Anyways, I'm fucking weird, I'll have to get over it and 'grow up'. At the very least, crippling social anxiety is no longer the main issue and that feels liberating. The plan is to wrap all the business up by the end of the year and do some solo traveling. I can be someone else while traveling, so no feelings of inadequacy and no mental limitations to prevent me from meeting people. I'll also be around a bunch of new people that are my age and are willing to socialize, an environment I haven't been in since college. After that, I'll do month long stays in young people hubs - NYC, Austin, etc. Hopefully that gives me some clarity on what I wish to do with my life.
ser
5d ago
Aren't those more likely to set off Cloudflare?
Well, in your case, it seems that your IP address is fully cooked, so it may be worth trying alternatives. Some VPNs should work and most residential proxies will work too - 'residential' just means that it's a real consumer's IP address being used to route your traffic (how companies get ahold of those is a long story, often not entirely ethical, but whatever) and those IPs are usually the cleanest.
ser
8d ago
Did you use the same browser when doing the hotspot method? If yes, it means your home IP address must be hard flagged in Cloudflare's system. The solution is to get request a new IP from your ISP. If that's not an option, you can try doing a hard reset of your modem but that doesn't guarantee a new IP address in most cases since IP allocation is handled on ISP's end. You can also try some VPNs and residential proxies as well
ser
18d ago
I think you've got plenty of time, being a cog in a bureaucratic machine is probably one of the best ways to retain your job for as long as possible in the current environment.
ser
19d ago
My friends and acquaintances that work in tech have been getting let go left and right in the past year and a lot of them are pretty much mentally and physically checking out. One has been solo travelling for the past 6 months with no plans to stop, burning through his big tech severance package and savings. The other spent almost a year trying to get another job in tech but no luck at all, probably because of past experience being QA and frontend only. The other one had a very laid back 20 hour/week remote job and knew he was going to get eliminated eventually ever since ChatGPT came out few years back, but was too lazy to prepare for it and it finally happened a few months ago, now just sitting around, burning through savings, not sure what to do. One more is in accounting, and not fired yet, but was pretty much told it will happen in the next 6 months, so he's now desperately trying to come up with his own side hustle/business so he doesn't have to look for another job since he thinks accounting prospects will only get worse from here. Even my friend's brother, who has some senior position at Meta is totally burnt out and expecting to get fired at some point soon, now just trying to save up as much as possible.
ser
19d ago
I cook almost every day. Usually, I ingredient prep proteins for 2-3 days in advance and for carbs, I make them fresh everyday. Learn how to make the basics first. Carbs - potatoes, rice, pasta. Proteins - chicken and beef (start with ground beef, easier). Don't get fancy, just get some classic seasonings, can go for a store bought seasoning mix for starters. I recommend getting an air fryer. For oil, I prefer avocado, olive and butter. You can ask an AI to help you with steps and recipes, just tell it what ingredients and tools you got. You'll get a hang of it after just 1-2 weeks preparing all these, then you can expand your seasoning selection and figure out what you prefer. Red sauces are your friend, don't indulge into oil based sauces. I sometimes prepare more elaborate dishes, but for the most part it's very simple 4-5 ingredient meals.
ser
24d ago
2-3 times a day at least, sometimes 4. This is also an annoying problem, just having up to 30% of my day revolve around cooking/eating/shitting. I do eat a lot of fruits and drink a protein shake in the morning.
ser
24d ago
Yes, this is exactly what I was thinking too. I eat foods that are very voluminous, and average American probably gets large chunk of those calories from processed foods loaded with fats. One time I had some dubai chocolate mousse cake cup and that thing was third of my palm in size and was 500 calories, loaded with sugar and fats. My usual dinner carb of choice is 700gr of potatoes and that is also 500 calories.
ser
26d ago
I don't know why but this bulk has been unexpectedly difficult. Eating this much has been wrecking my sleep. Every single night, I go to bed feeling full and bloated. I can feel the contents of my stomach and it's uncomfortable to lay down on my back. I end up just laying there uncomfortable as fuck, not being able to fall asleep. I've tried eating my last meal at 6pm, but still, 6 hours later, I was bloated. I'm now trying to frontload at least 60% of my daily carbs consumption to the start of the day. It's difficult because if I overdo it, I end up being bloated at the gym and that's not great either. At least I'm finally gaining weight now and I'm seeing progress at the gym. Hopefully I can keep this up for at least a few more months.
ser
30d ago
You're most likely directionally correct, but it will probably take a decade+ to play out. The opportunity cost of locking in your capital in this trade is not worth it imo
Is there a reason you want to avoid this?
No specific reason, just trying to eat healthy whole foods as principle.
3 meals a day, 2 snacks could come out to 500 breakfast/150 yogurt/700 lunch/350 shake pre-gym/1000 dinner rice chicken avocado extravaganza. 7am/10am/12pm/4pm/7pm.
That's roughly my routine now, it's annoying. I go to the gym early midday, I try to not stuff my face before then, so breakfast is only 500-600 cals. Quick carb snack right before gym 100-200 cals. Then a quick carb snack right after gym 100-200 cals. Then late lunch at around 3-4pm 800-1000 cals. Then dinner 800-1000 cals at 6-7pm. And finally, if there's any leftover macros to hit, quick snack at 8:30pm latest. I pretty much get like 30-90 minutes in between food breaks, it's not ideal. Comparing it to when I was at 2k cals: medium breakfast before gym, 1 huge late lunch/early dinner, evening snack. That's it, all needs covered. Food was an afterthought, now it's a big part of my day.
messed up bulk big time and got fat(ter than I wanted)
I don't think I'll have that problem - I naturally don't eat enough if I don't count my calories unless I'm abusing uber eats.
ser
1mo ago
For sure, I'm definitely consuming too much protein but that's not the worst problem to have. I'm trying to overcompensate for having only around 60% come from perfect protein sources like chicken, the rest comes from incomplete slop. Like I said, the hard part has been carbs. Protein and fats are a solved problem, for now.
You're spot on. Last time I wrote about my situation, I was desperate and just wanted to pour my thoughts out, and I couldn't do it in real life because I hid my situation under the guise of just being very introverted. And it was helpful, it kind of motivated me to start working on myself because I knew that others have read the post. I'm hoping this time I get the same motivation to keep pushing, especially now because now my life doesn't seem that terrible anymore and I know it's very easy to get comfortable. I realize I could just relax, blink and boom I'm 35 living the same life I've been living and that would be horrible. I know I need to continue progressing.
I think my beliefs around having a job, status and so on are distorted by me never having one. My imaginary job that could've brought me status and purpose is not the code monkey, office slop, cog in the machine type, it's the agentic one, the one where I'd get to solve interesting problems, the one that would teach me new interesting skills or bring me around powerful and interesting people. Literally what I imagine an impressionable 18 year old's idea of a job he/she is going to have once out of college. Me never going through this cycle of actually getting a real job and getting your dreams and aspirations crushed leaves me with this idealized view and having people around me base like 80% of their personality around their work keeps me coming back to this idea of what could've been, although I fully realize I definitely would've been another code monkey that would've gotten smoked the moment ChatGPT came out because I was always a mediocre programmer (that's what I went to college for).
It's cliche, but after missing out on most of my 20s due to my condition, I just want to live a fulfilling life.. I remember when I was 13, my parents wanted to send me to a summer camp. Naturally, me being fucking terrified of socializing, I rejected the idea. Then, at 15, my parents pretty much just forced me to go to this summer camp because it was the last time I could go (16 is the cutoff), and so I did. Despite my first few days being hell, I found new friends and my social anxiety calmed down and I had an absolute blast. So, so, so many opportunities like this completely lost out on... I just don't want to have any more regrets like this. Now I don't have an excuse anymore - my condition is under control. And I'm also recognizing that now that I'm much older, I don't just get 'free' opportunities any more like I did as a teenager or while in college. Very few people around me have opportunities, curiosity and willingness to live interesting and fulfilling lives, so I can't just be a +1 to someone else's interesting life, I have to be the one that makes my life interesting and fulfilling all on my own.
I agree. But I also recognize that to find these people, I must have indiscriminate curiosity and willingness to connect with as many people as I can and that's what I hope to do.
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