Beautiful article. I've started reaching out to friends from university or even secondary school that I lost contact with. Sometimes it works out and we eventually meet up, but other times it just fizzles out. I've only ever regretted not reaching out to people. It's scary to do every time but I want to keep at it. Perhaps I'm too sentimental but I genuinely miss some people, and from what I've experienced, sometimes they missed me too.

One of my fondest memories from only a few years ago was when a friend that I was reasonably close with but hadn't seen in a long while messaged me on birthday. Probably didn't mean much to her but it still means a lot to me to this day. I should text her.

That's amazing to hear! And it definitely feels scary every time.

"Perhaps I'm too sentimental" --> I disagree, you're just brave enough to admit you care. That birthday message that still means something years later? That's the whole point. She probably has no idea she gave you that gift.

The fizzled conversations are less important than the ones you reignite. Every reach out is worth it, even the ones that go nowhere, because you're practicing becoming the person who tries.

What if, you text her right now? Like right now. Don't wait until you finish reading comments. Tell her that birthday message still matters. I bet you'll make her whole week.

I tried paying for YouTube premium then they fucked around by not giving me all the features I paid for when I was visiting another country. There's no winning with these people.

I paid premium a few months, then they added shorts and there was no way to block them, so I installed a blocker and stopped paying for it.

Yes me too, and they fucked me.

I don't know how to edit posts on here, but they found her thankfully. Take care everyone.

Please just fuck off with this

She has a psychotic mental condition

A commenter put the missing persons notice below

I don’t think that would entirely change things for Google.

That's her yes. Thank you.

You're lucky we have the luxury of such opinions like yours. With the way the world is going towards extreme financial inequality, and with the US becoming more hostile to other nations, I suspect that opinion will become harder and harder to justify for many people.

> You're lucky we have the luxury of such opinions like yours.

“Civility” is the first recourse of the privileged.

This shit was one of the reasons I stopped paying for YouTube premium and went back to aggressively blocking all ads. You try to give them money and they spit in your face regardless.

I'm using Revanced - it removes a lot of shit like this.

I am quite literally sleeping in a hospital while I read that. Horrifying.

Wow this sort of scenario is my nightmare. I'm an immigrant in Canada and even though I've been able to go to the US for years, I really have no interest in going, partially due to fear of something like this happening to me.

I could easily drive to the US in less than two hours, but no thanks.

As a young man I travelled a lot (US only twice, Canada once) in democracies and authoritarian regimes and quickly took the habit of always having some sort of paper on me (passport, copy of the visa and passport, city/tax registration...) depending on the place.

I was controlled countless times, I thought at the time I didn't stand out much but I probably did. I was always unlikely to be detained, but vehicle / luggage searches, questions etc can be a huge waste of time so better show some paperwork that will cut the questioning short and not risk missing your bus/flight/train/meeting etc. It sometimes even helped to get into nightclubs...