#very upsetting

Me: that's weird. it's been working fine for years

Customer: it just started happening

Me: again, weird. we haven't changed anything or updated you

Customer: fix it fix it fix it

Customer: FIX IT

Me: okay. in order to diagnose the issue, I'll need some logging data. the software keeps very detailed logs of everything it does and everything that happens. here's how you can get me a copy of those logs

~~hours later, after many back-n-forth exchanges, phone calls, chat messages, and (finally!) an email containing about 9 megabytes of logging data arrives. yes, they emailed the files to me like it's 1999. all because I am not permitted to connect directly to their network~~

Me: okay! I see the problem

Customer: oh thank god

Customer: when can you fix it??

Me: the problem is, user xxxxx is not hitting the Save button after making their changes

Customer:

Me:

Customer: wat

Me: is user xxxxx a new hire, by any chance?

Customer: no. they just got over COVID

Me: okay! well, explain what they're doing wrong and the problem should go away

At 6 PM, someone else we used to know reached out to apologize over his behavior right before we cut him off- again, around five or so years ago now. That’s legitimately an insane coincidence, so we’re trying to give him the conversation we didn’t get to have because we don’t want anyone to hurt the way we did, but… having a lot of complicated feelings about that.

On top of that there is the expectaion that all of your friends will eventually find someone that is more important than you, and be placed above you in terms of that importance. I would like to have someone that I can trust implicitly to have my back, for the rest of my life, but I can't, because I would never be able to love them in the way they would want.

I know about QPR relationships, but I can't find someone who wants to be in one with me who is also as aromantic as I am. Who doesn't want to be in any romantic senearios just as much as I do, but also wants that intimacy, that trust, and care you have for someone in that way, with me, and I do them. I can find a lot of non-aromantic people who love being close friends with me, but there is still the expectation that it won't last, that at some point, they will leave me for someone else and that is perfectly fine.

Then there is the societal expectaion put on me by my family that I will get married at some point and have children. That I "just haven't found the correct person yet", that "I will know when I have found the correct person, and me not looking for them is actually a good thing because that means you'll find a 'good' one".

Being told that you are doing the right thing in the wrong way even without them knowing really fucks with your brain a whole lot. Makes you wonder if their right, if you just need to find someone who will make your heart flutter with anticipation and love for them and the children you will bare them. But then you think about it without the rose colored glasses and get a little sick, a little queasy as you think up the realities in a romantic relationship, the expectations put on you in one. All the things you would have to compromise on just to be with them, for the relationship not to turn volatile, and you get sick to your stomach and realize, it's still not for you. And I don't mean the big compromises, but the little ones, like the color of the walls, which rug to get, where to go on vacation. That kind of thing. But you just don't want to do that with a romantic partner, someone non romantic would be fine, but romantic?? Makes me sick.