Posts made by Bark24

@Scottish that sounds amazing man. Yea I love meeting from around the world as well. It's always nice to explore different cultures :) thank you for sharing.

@anonymous92 thank you so much for your input :) I agree it makes you more receptive to difference in opinion too. And yes we are yet to meet hope to run in to you someday on pubchat :D

@ItzMeXavi Thank you so much :) Much appreciated

I have been making friends online for over 4 years now. I seriously got invested in it when I was staying in Houston for an exam. People from all around the world would gather in a hotel and study for this exam and that's where I got to experience different cultures that this world has to offer. In my free time I would learn so much about them and then eventually it kind of became a norm for me. I soon started realizing different ways to relate with many of them too. Meeting someone from the same country that I already had the pleasure of meeting someone from before was a treat. I would tell them stuff that I learned from before and they would be delighted to hear that I took some interest in how things are for them back home. Be it simply words or a random fact. I had some cool and funny exchanges too with these people. A friend from Philippines told me they have a feast in honor of a saint where people come to their house to feast without questions asked and they cook food all day to prepare for the guests. I met a Swedish guy and he told me that the government encourages to get education by paying people to go to school. I met a Polish girl and she showed me the videos of her wedding, which was very interesting lol. The groom has to tuck his head inside the bride's dress and untie a ribbon tied around her leg using only his teeth :D. I got to celebrate Holi and Diwali with friends on multiple occasions. I met a friend from S. Korea who bragged a lot about music from his country and I had no idea about Kpop back then, of course for him it was just music and he never called it Kpop :D, it wasn't till @Ella-26 enlightened me how incredible Kpop really is lol. My friend from Russia and Poland introduced me to Pierogi which were the most amazing dumplings i ever had.I met my boys from Ghana and Nigeria, they always wanted me to dance to music they liked and I loved every single minute I spent with them they were the most energetic of the lot. I met amazing Americans of course in my journey, a girl on the front desk put a cheesecake slice in front of me a day before my exam when I was reviewing and whispered "You need to eat" and walked away. There was a guy from Germany who really wanted me to learn German lol. His sense of humor was amazing, he said German is gonna be the only language that will matter in a few years, of course he was joking. I had a team of Americans with me a couple of months back, some were students from the University of Alabama and some were a lot senior than me but I had an amazing time working with them, they were very professional but fun to work with. I think I had the honor of meeting all these amazing people from around the globe and I learned something here and there from all of them. This is the reason I still come back to sites like TWS to make a new friend across the sea and I value every opportunity that presents itself. Share what is your reason to be here on TWS and we can have a bit of a discussion :)

@Imduck haha don't worry all opinions are welcomed. And I believe so too, many times some negativity from others has given me the drive to improve myself. Sometimes we keep such people around us so we can feel more sorry about ourselves. And I think it's okay to let go sometimes because at times these people just bring you down so they can feel good about themselves. I think we should not give a sense of superiority over us to anyone and let them dominate us. But yea i agree with you we can use that negativity as ammunition to drive us.

@Scottish haha I like the idea of being friends :) I am no thinker man XD just blurt out whatever comes to my mind. And that is so true what you said too that counterbalancing by thinking all the pros about yourself helps you cope with the negativity.

As I talk more to people here on TWS, I come across one trait quite often which is self depreciation. I think it is perfectly natural to think less of oneself at some point in life, is it okay though? Well it definitely has negative effects psychologically, but how could you use it to improve yourself? The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one. So what is the problem actually? The problem is lack of self love and not being comfortable in your own skin and I talk about this with my friends all the time. There are things that you can change about yourself and there are things that you can't. A perfect example is weight, if you don't like the way your body looks start doing something about it, set realistic goals to keep yourself motivated. You also need to drop people who are just there to criticize you and don't have anything constructive to contribute towards your progress There are going to be people around you who are just going to state the obvious and you don't need those people. What you need are friends who are brutally honest but still there to motivate you and help you with any changes you decide to make about yourself. Self love and a positive image of yourself is going to help you be more productive and help you being comfortable around people as well as be more confident in your daily interactions. Stop victimizing yourself and leave self pity behind. People who are superficial are going to have a less impact on your life the more you practice to love yourself. You don't need these people in your life and learn to let them go because more often than not these are the people who are going to end up hurting you the most and bring you down. Be yourself and find someone who loves you for who you are and appreciates only the things you willingly want to change about yourself. We run in to such people more often than we anticipate because we are not looking closely and we fail to notice as we treat them as subtleties. I don't know if this post makes a difference or if it even makes any sense but I would love for you to share your thoughts on the matter :)

@Scottish thanks man appreciate it :)

@rosey5678 XD

@thegodbrother TGB well at least you made good friends XD

@AAfro25-5 i just saw this XD

@Scottish his anniversary just passed a few days ago and i write something in his memory every year. This year thought of sharing it over here :)

@sarah_the_magpie me neither. Glad you liked it.

@Indrid-Cold i am yet to watch that movie XD

@wet-teri I am so sorry for your loss. Passing away of a parent is never easy. I am glad you are trying to become everything she expected you to be. We owe it to them. We are fortunate to have their memories with us. I know she must be an incredible person and proud to have a sun like you. May your parents rest in peace.

I had this person in my life that was really hard on me. This person was the hardest on me than anyone else has ever been. Sometimes it was suffocating and at times I felt like there was a lot being expected from me and it wasn't fair. There were times when I questioned whether this person even loved me or not. I never hated them, I actually loved them a lot and I felt i deserved more in return. There were times when they made me felt loved like no one else and I cherished those times the most. But then at times this same person would change in to someone I wasn't very fond of, like giving me a hard time and not understanding that i was just human. Sometimes out of spite I would do stuff that I knew I wouldn't do otherwise just because of their behavior and it was plain rebellious. I think I did those things to intentionally hurt them and now looking back I feel I was young and stupid. When you grow up and get a little bit of perspective you start realizing some of the things you were just too immature to understand. In hindsight I started looking at things differently and that's when reality hit me, that this person did what they did to protect me, to teach me about the harsh reality that is life and cared about me more than I could imagine or comprehend at the time. This enabled me to achieve everything I have in life so far. I lost this person when I was still very young and there are times when I regret that I didn't tell them enough that how much I loved them and just how much they meant to me, to hug them one last time and thank them for all they did for me, from putting food on the table while they were fighting with a debilitating illness to smiling in the toughest of times so we can live in our little bubbles and not realize that we may lose him one day as they were fighting a losing battle without us realizing. I was only 12 when I lost them and it left a gaping hole so big that will never be filled by all the happiness in the world as I will never stop missing them like I do. Thank you dad, for everything and I am sorry for being delusional that you will always be around. I really hope you are in an amazing place. I urge the readers, if you have parents, go hug them, love them and value them more and like you haven't till now. And God forbid if you don't, make prayer for them and cherish the memories you had with them. If you don't have any memories of them then just keep them in your thoughts and wish they are in a happy place.

@Scottish Me too, I like sharing my culture with people and finding about their culture in the process. This place is definitely diverse and that is the beauty of it. Its nice to explore some other species I mentioned as well and provides an opportunity to self reflect as well.

@anonymous92 I am glad you had those interactions, and i am glad you felt heard by the right people. I have a few people here that I fall back on to myself. I like our daily exchanges and there are things I can share without being judged with a few people I met here which I always wanted in real life but couldn't get. Cheers

@Ella-26 thank you for the feedback Ella XD

@IssMeXavi i think you want validation for something O.O hahaha jk bro