So speaking as an American, the Indian diaspora here is typically thought of positively, at least in the sense they tend to be responsible members of the community.

Unfortunately, Americans are pretty geopolitically ignorant, and so end up developing views on countries based on the behavior of their American communities.

So I would say most Americans impression of India is “vaguely positive”. This notably includes at least tacit approval from American conservatives, in that Indians are left off their “which minority group are we targeting today” bingo card.

This is probably mutually reinforcing with America’s geopolitical priorities, which is essentially deepening ties with India as a counterbalance to China.

As to your “too proud of your country” comment, obviously as an American I sympathize, but they’re not wrong in that because of your country’s size and growth, India will become more prominent in global affairs.

Unfortunately as you’ve noticed, that leads to some people having an inflated view of themselves. It’s just something you have to live with as a world power.

Anyway, the below article actually answers your question, and overall, generally positive is the answer (but what did you guys do to South Africa though?)

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/08/29/international-views-of-india-and-modi/

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Honestly this was true for large parts of USAs history, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now.

In truth our democrat and republicans reps have almost no similar voting history, they vote the opposite of each other on almost every issue.

Below is a good visualization of what I mean. You can see that from the 50’s to the 80’s, there was really quite a bit of voting overlap by the parties, so during that period, you’d be right, both parties could be consider the same or similar.

But for the last 30 years or so, democrats and republicans have had very little overlap on what they vote in favor for. It’s party line votes on almost everything.

So how people can say “both parties are the same”, when they vote the opposite on almost everything is beyond me.

And that’s not even taking into account executive actions, like for example for the last 50 years or so every democrat president has provided contraceptives as part of foreign aid, and every republican has not.

We may not have options in terms of political parties to choose from, which I agree is bad, but saying both parties are the same is to be willfully blind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/

What data do you have to say neither of those options are relevant?

“Mid-priced homes are becoming more popular with investors, making up 32% of investor purchases in the fourth quarter, a record high. Low-priced homes are still most popular with investors, making up 37% of purchases.”

Low cost homes, exactly the ones in rural/historically low income area you described, are the most purchased category of residential real estate.

Also, the downtowns of those areas, which are almost all single story commercial/retail, are exactly the places most in need of walkable, dense development I’m describing, especially if there’s a housing shortage and most of the surrounding areas already have built up residential developments.

So both of those options are actually more relevant for your example then the US as a whole.

https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q4-2021/

You seem to attribute the housing affordability crisis the last few years to WFH-ers, but isn’t it more fair to say that there are multiple other factors contributing to it?

Not just the post COVID appreciation for housing, but things like historically high percentage of investor owned homes (including corporate and foreign buyers), and historically low building rates compared to projected need, to name a few.

So then the question becomes, which of these should we focus on? For me, that means what gives you the most positives, and least negatives.

Let’s look at three options:

1. Banning corporate and foreign non-occupying homeowners from owning American residential real estate
2. Rezoning low density areas (particularly single story commercial/retail in smaller cities and towns’ downtowns) into vertical dense mixed use residential and commercial/retail development
3. Ending work from home

1 and 2 accomplish our primary goal of reducing home prices across the country, both by increasing supply (1 would too, since those investors would need to sell, increasing supply), and 1 would also reduce demand. 3 does not, because any price reductions in rural areas will be offset by higher rates in urban one

2 also gives us positive secondary benefit of encouraging walkable cities, which leads to health improvements, less traffic, and reduced climate impact. 1 would also increase business investment, encouraging long term growth, if the “money printer” option of buying US residential properties and collecting rent is not available.

3 gives us no positive secondary benefits, and since it does essentially the opposite of 2 in terms of walkability, it also is the only one with a high negative cost.

So pretty clearly that idea is the worst one for solving housing affordability. So why support it when their are other much better options available to accomplish your goal?

So I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not trans, so I can’t speak to that specifically. And if that perspective is what’s important to you, feel free to ignore.

But the main thing to remember is that they are not hating you because you are trans.

They hate you because they are hateful people, and will use whatever justification they can to avoid treating everyone well.

First it was black people, then Latin people, then gay people, etc.

They will always pick a group, big enough for them to be aware of but small enough they feel can be bullied without consequence.

And unfortunately right now, trans people are that group. But looking at the above list should also give you hope, because they tried to dehumanize all of those groups, and they lost every. Single. Time.

So just remember that ultimately if your not hurting anyone, then you are not doing anything wrong, and feel free to tell anyone that tells you otherwise to go fuck themselves. For being trans, or anything else.

Remember MLK’s quote, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

So you’ve talked about the impact on your work, have you ever thought about just like, leaving?

You obviously speak English well enough to be a native speaker. A long time ago I wanted to get away from my situation, and so went to teach English in a foreign country I wanted to visit.

Have you ever thought about doing the same? Are you worried that once you get there, you’d somehow get revealed as a “failure”, or however you think of yourself, again?

You know that if that happens, you can just… move again, you know? I’ve moved around a lot, and I reinvented myself as a different, I think better person each time. Or at least I made a sincere attempt to think about what my weaknesses were and how to improve them.

How many places have you lived? You say you’ve run an experiment to exhaustion, but to continue that metaphor, if you ran each one in the same petri dish, how can you say you say they were truly independent?

There are more than a hundred countries who want native English speakers as foreign language teachers. Is there not a single one of those places you’d like to live in for a while?

Your current situation is literally making you want to kill yourself. If you think making the most extreme change you can requires “courage”, then don’t you think you owe it to yourself to try a less-but-still-extreme complete change of scenery? Have the courage to do that first at least.

I just watched a show where one character was speaking a lot like you do now. That they never did anything worthwhile.

And the other character answered with a memory of something, and said essentially that even if their whole life was just to have that one happy memory, it would be worth it.

That memory wasn’t something “worthwhile”. It was a completely trivial thing, but one that they found joy in.

Being involved in a greater cause can be a good thing, as long as you can do it and stay true to yourself. I hope you find one, if that’s what your interested in.

But don’t devalue your own joys by placing them in this category of being “not worthwhile” of some vague societal standard. Society is fractured, and grows more so by the day. So I guarantee there’s a corner of it somewhere that values what you bring.

Some things we can’t change, like who our family is. But we can always control who we associate with. It sounds like you’re associating with people that don’t value you. Before you decide to literally end it all, maybe try distancing yourself from those people, and meeting some others.

I can hear you say to yourself “but that’s so hard, I’ve never had success with it before, why should I even try?”

But that’s crap. I just moved to a new place. I was completely alone, with no friends there. But I like playing tabletop games. So I looked on Reddit/r/lfg every day, and posted multiple times. It took me months. But eventual I found a group that I love meeting up every week and playing with.

Those people all agreed to meet and play before they ever saw what I looked like, or knew anything about me. They all took a chance on me, and I took one on them. Take a chance to do whatever it is you love, and if you don’t know what that is, take a chance to do different things and find out! It might not work out, but it’s worth the effort. Don’t give up.

Ultimately the best way to meet people, and especially to grow and maintain those connections, is to have the same hobbies as them.

Do you like sports? Join an adult league.
Do you like reading? Join a book club. Do you like tabletop games? Use Reddit’s r/LFG, or look for a local meetup group, and find some people there.

Ultimately it’s hard to make new friends when you have nothing to tie you to them long term.

People have set routines, and it can be difficult to have them make time for a stranger initially.

But if you join group doing something you enjoy, you already a part of their lives through that. You also have an easy source of conversation, talking about whatever your joint interest is.

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It’s the highest voted comment in his original post.

If she initiated these new things, then I think you’re right that she thinks you like them, and doesn’t want to lose you over her not being willing to do them.

First, get things straight in your own head about would you like to have done any of those things with her if you had not seen the video?

Then, once you have an idea about what you like or don’t, tell her something like “hey, while (the things you like) I do like and would like to keep doing, if it’s ok with you, (the things you don’t like) were her idea, and I don’t want you to feel like it’s something we have to do together because it’s not something I particularly enjoy. I much prefer (doing this thing you two did together, that your ex didn’t do).” Even if that thing is just holding hands after or something like that, not necessarily kinky.

The main thing to remember is that you’re her first, so she has no frame of reference to compare you too, whereas you have an ex that she’s worried she’s being compared to.

So just let her know that your happy with how the relationship is, and exactly what you said at the end of your post, that you want to grow together and view this as the relationship of not just your present, but far in the future as well, so she shouldn’t have any concerns.

To echo what some people have said, if you haven’t changed jobs in the last year or two; you absolutely should do so.

As you’ve realized, there’s only so much you can do on the cost side to have things balance. Cost of living has risen relentlessly, but thankfully in many areas wages are finally growing too, and new hires usually get the higher rates.

So not changing jobs frequently, especially in the industries you mentioned, is just leaving money on the table.

Aside from that, definitely look into trades, but also look into local government, healthcare (like being a patient scheduler at a hospital), really any industry you are looking to break into as a career.

They really need the help now, especially for entry level positions, and if you do a good job, you could parlay that into a career in an industry you’re excited about.

So spend like 30 minutes each day looking for jobs, and don’t stop until you’re hired. Remember, even if you end up hating it, you can always quit and get rehired immediately in industries you’re more familiar with, because they also desperately need help too.

I knew someone that did something similar for the same reason, though it was conversations about his future with his mom that he was trying to avoid.

Something that helped with him is to go outside, NOT to interact with people, but just to go on hikes or walk, where you can keep your headphones in and not say a word to someone else, but just to get outside your room, which even though it’s a refuge, can also start to feel like a prison.

Honestly you interact with people much more indoors than outdoors, so viewing a walk as a form of peaceful solitude can be great for getting fresh air and exercise, and you’ll notice you get much less judgement from your roommates if your going outside. You’ll also notice your mental health will probably improve as well.

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Those are also some of my favorites, the only reason I didn’t recommend is because I didn’t consider it to be quite the same genre, but agree they are excellent!

They are also in the same universe, as foundation makes a few references to that series, which are also fun to catch.