Aaaaah! That is the cutest thing on the Internet! If I'd seen that in real life, I would never have stopped laughing. I'm in a much better place now than I was last week, but this is still the most perfect Friday GIF I have ever seen. Thank you for brightening my day. :)

Definitely did not roll my eyes. I don't begrudge you a surprise 30th birthday party. In fact, you sound like you deserved it.

I didn't think of it in that context, but you're almost certainly right. If you teach a 12-year-old that it's acceptable for a total stranger to police whether she wears underwear, how is she going to develop the framework to know when she's being manipulated or judged unfairly as an adult?

Back when I did martial arts, the senseis would have the men line up during testing and check to make sure they were wearing cups with a quick prod to the crotch. The theory was basically, "You're almost certain to be kneed in the nuts during the fighting portion of this test, so let's sort this out now while your…

Noooo, not the re-angry! Fight it! (Unless they're still in your lives and taking advantage of you, in which case do what you've got to do.)

I'm betting at a minimum that if they catch her, they'll shame her into disrobing in front of the congregation to remove her God-blocking items. Doubtful she'll get her undergarments back at the end of service, so heaven forbid she only owns one bra.

How long until the pastor himself is checking each woman personally to see whether they deserve these "grave consequences"?

Thanks for that. They've promised to make it up to me (their words), so we'll see what that involves. I'm trying to sit back and let it happen while simultaneously keeping my expectations low. I certainly don't expect them to orchestrate more whizbangs and fireworks than I had planned for the original event — I just…

I think in this particular case, I put a few too many emotions into the original comment and gave the impression that I was going to actually be rude to my friends, or whine about it in front of them and demand that they drop everything to attend to me, which wasn't ever going to happen. I got a few responses from…

It made perfect sense. Thanks for taking the time to write all that, I appreciate both the sympathy and the buck-up-iness in equal measure.

You know best, so if that's your instinct, by all means obey it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I'm so sorry you went through that, it sounds really rough. It's impossible for me to "logic away my hurt," as you put it. What I feel tends to show up on my face, and I'm one of those people who cries when I'm tired, or sad, or angry — I desperately want to lock it…

Thanks for this. The "treat people how you want to be treated" sword cuts both ways in this instance. If I were in their shoes, and suffering, and I made a mistake that hurt a friend, I would feel awful, and I would want the hurt friend to be forgiving and understanding of the fact that I would never knowingly have…

Didn't even read it beyond the F word in the username. Thanks for summarizing it for me.

And sometimes we come online to vent our feelings, rather than squelching them, so that when it comes time to go out into the real world, we're better able to deal. I could have done without the final snarky tone of "being a grown up," but I do get where you're coming from. Just remember that some of us stuff it deep…

Thanks for the advice. I think in this group, sending an email like that would read as slightly passive-aggressive, no matter how gently I phrased it. They already know that I ended up alone, you know? Luckily one of them has already offered to make it up to me by scheduling a do-over. I don't want them to feel…

Sorry you had a shitty 30th too. Thanks for being so respectful in how you phrased your response (NOT sarcasm, honestly, thank you. Some people were real dicks). I think I came online mostly to vent, not to get permission to be selfish. I don't really have an outlet for my feelings in real life right now because…

Ha! I'm not that passive-aggressive, thank the heavens. A ton of people did the standard, "Happy birthday! Hope you had a great day!" post, and it took a lot of willpower to resist the urge to write back, "Actually it was awful!" Just not worth it.

I genuinely LOLed at the thought of brooding and stroking a fluffy white cat. That's going to be my go-to mental image for the rest of this debacle.

How awful! That would devastate anyone. I'm glad he figured out who was worth his time.