Yeah I can’t say the conversations with those guys were exactly a good thing, but you regret it and I don’t see the point in dwelling on it as long as you don’t do it again. Feeling guilty about not telling him at first is a normal reaction, but things didn’t go wrong just because you didn’t tell him immediately. You worked up the courage to tell him, and that took strength. I will say though, I don’t think it’s necessarily good to tell him just because it makes you feel guilty. You should share things with people out of a positive want to, not out of guilt.

I saw elsewhere in the thread that your body count made you feel terrible because it got such a negative reaction from this guy. I don’t think you should be worried about it, because it doesn’t define you or say anything about you as a person. I’ve had partners and irl friends with much higher body counts than you, and I didn’t think any less of them because of it. It’s one of the least interesting things about a person, so getting too worked up about it is weirdo behavior.

I’m probably the wrong person to ask, since I haven’t really been on socials for about 4 years now, but I really don’t think it’s a big deal to share your Instagram with someone. Are you both particularly cagey about who you share it with? I’m 26, so maybe there’s just a more recent divide on how you curate your personal stuff now.

As far as being upset about not immediately sharing that someone else sent you unsolicited pictures, I think the anger is probably related to some other underlying issue moreso than trust. It could be about some insecurities that he has, but I’m not going to try too hard to rationalize his thought process because the response was completely inappropriate. We can’t even know for sure the response would have been any different even if you had told him right away. You didn’t want the pictures, and you did tell him about them on your own without him prying. He doesn’t get to determine the timeline that you do it on.

You’re not being delusional if you think he’s being irrational. He complains about not being able to trust you, but I don’t see why he deserves your trust either. I wouldn’t trust him with my emotions since he hasn’t shown that he can treat them with the depth that they deserve. The Instagram and GoFundMe stuff sounds like a really complex scenario, but he only thought about how it made him feel. If someone I actually care about did something that made them feel disgusting, I would want to comfort them before addressing the way that it made me feel. It’s something that happened to you, not him. He doesn’t get to be the victim just because you didn’t perfectly follow his instructions regarding the GoFundMe. He just dogpiled on you without giving you any air when you were the one who trusted him enough to open up about it.

In the future, you shouldn’t have to “try” to win anyone back. People who want to be in your life will put in the effort, since relationships are a two-way street. The people who don’t try aren’t deserving of your time. This sounds like it was a pretty terrible experience for you, but I hope it doesn’t make you more jaded about emotionally connecting with people.

I’m gonna be frank: I would not want to remain friends with someone like this at all. It’s incredibly insulting and manipulative to tell someone that they’re unworthy of being trusted when you know that they have issues with their self-worth, while also continuing to maintain contact with said person. Trust should be implicit in any opt-in relationship, whether it’s a platonic friendship or a romantic one. Relationships require sharing vulnerability, and I wouldn’t do that with anyone I don’t trust not to take advantage of me. If for any reason I no longer feel able to trust a person, that’s fine, it’s just where the relationship is going to end. From my (admittedly extremely limited) outsider perspective, you’re being vulnerable to this guy and he’s taking advantage of it.

You were honest with him about what you viewed as a mistake, and he used that as a vehicle to say you can’t be trusted? Make that make sense. I can’t say whether I’d be happy about it in the same scenario, but if anything it would make me trust you more. Even though you knew it would be upsetting, you made the mature choice to tell him what happened. I think an appropriate response in that situation would be to be upset, but to recognize that you were already reflecting on your actions. It sounds as though you were already unhappy, and even if he wasn’t going to comfort you, the least he could do is not blow a fuse. That’s not healthy behavior in a relationship, and I’d urge you to look at things like that when vetting potential partners in the future.

Plainly speaking, it sounds like you were just being strung along from this point forward. He knows or should have known how hurtful it is to say that he can’t trust you, especially given all of the nice and flowery things he’s said in the previous months. He knows your insecurities, and made them so much worse with his actions. Then, he continues a physical relationship with you and the dates under the guise of being “just friends” while knowing that you want something more from the relationship. That’s a horribly shitty thing to do to someone that you know you have an emotional grip on, especially if they have some emotional trauma as you seem to. It’s not something I would do to someone I dislike, let alone a friend I’m supposed to care about. It shows a complete disdain for your feelings. You deserve much better from your friends. Strangers on the internet shouldn’t be more considerate of your feelings than some guy that you wanted a relationship with.

I hope your therapy goes well. I’m rooting for you, and want to tell you that I think that you are absolutely worthy of love as you are, so you should try loving yourself. You’re honest, introspective, and capable of self-critique.

You can try using this tool by Unspecialty to get an idea of the grind size/uniformity without buying any fancy equipment. As far as whether your grinder is up to snuff, I think how the coffee tastes to you is the best determinant. If it tastes good to you, it’s good coffee :)

Assuming that you’re looking for filter coffee, the Specialty Coffee Association and European Coffee Brewing Center both have certification programs for home coffee makers. None of these machines should be a barrier to getting a great cup of coffee, so you can comfortably focus on picking a machine based on price/aesthetic/convenience features from either of these lists. Even if you don’t want anything from these lists, looking at their guidelines will be helpful in knowing what to look for when selecting a machine. Naturally, the lists are nonexhaustive and only feature machines that have paid for the certification testing.

If you’re interested in manual brewers, some of the more accessible brewers would be the Clever Dripper, Ceado Hoop, Aeropress, or the Hario Switch. None of these brewers gets much benefit from using a gooseneck kettle, so you won’t need to jump too far down the rabbit hole.