My main issue is that I can't find someone willing to sell me $VTI at $100/share. Is it possible that your standards of what you consider a woman "attractive enough to date" are too high, and so you are filtering out potential candidates that would be happy to be with you?

Four years seems like a really long time for someone actively looking to be in a relationship to stay single, and surgery with the objective of finding a partner seems wildly extreme (just my own opinion, I clearly do not know your circumstances).

I am the most average looking (if that) man on the planet, and really never had too much trouble dating, and I live in Silicon Valley where the statistics are not even in my favor. Certainly I never went after the prototypical "Instagram model" as that would have dramatically affected my chances, but by no means I am less happy.

I would consider it a deal breaker if I found out my partner didn't think I was attractive.

Most women really feel this too. For better or worse, most women feel their self-worth is tied to their looks. If you told her that you didn't find her physically attractive (but still loved her and so on), you'd be broken up with by the overwhelming majority of women. I don't know if I've ever met a single woman who has ever said different. I'm sure they exist but may as well be a rounding error.

In virtually all cases the suggestion was extremely naive and coming from a lack of understanding of all the requirements. This did not come from a curious angle “wondering if we could do X?”, it was always based on some ground truth they knew better.

Very calmly, you start explaining to them all the key requirements that they just missed in their grand vision. Upon hearing those, some will decide to double down and come up, on the spot, with increasingly complex and arcane evolutions of their initial proposal (this is always very comical, and painful to witness), while others will quickly get the message and basically say “oh sorry, seems like I lack a lot of context, please ignore”.

And let’s not even talk about their first code reviews.

I truly don’t know what goes in someone’s head when they decide, shortly after joining, to dismiss years of work of a competent team who has objectively solved problems for the business.

For a lot of people, not having to work would cause them to become much more curious, with a lot more going on too. I wouldn’t link work, especially modern office work, to those other qualities.

My dad is retired and is the happiest he has ever been. He had a very interesting working career, built several small businesses in his life, but retirement gave him a completely new joy and purpose. He routinely states how retirement is simply amazing, starting from the silly ability to stay up late at night and sleep in every morning (for him late night means 11pm, and sleeping in is 7am, lol).

In what way is not retiring (let’s assume with decent savings, your typical 25X yearly expenses including typical ACA premium and deductible) significantly lowering the chances that a serious illness will cause bankruptcy, enough that it will make it worth to continue working? Isn’t the probability more or less the same in either case?

Clearly one cannot just save their way into self-insuring, as it’s trivial to imagine medical bills in the many millions of dollars if your insurance starts denying expensive treatments that you do need, wiping out everyone without a $50M+ net worth. Hell I had a routine 1h colonoscopy a while ago and it was a $20k bill (of which I “just” paid $4k out of pocket while the insurance paid $16k, “lucky” me), can’t imagine what an expensive surgery would cost if insurance denies it, there’s really no amount of savings that can shield you from such risk.

Is the thinking that for as long as a person is covered by an employer plan they will get better coverage than what’s available on the exchange, therefore it’s better to just never retire? This also doesn’t seem too logical.

Or is the thinking that by continuing to work one can mitigate the scenario where the insurances constantly nickle and dime you for some non-black-swan medications/procedures, causing one’s healthcare costs to inflate way above the stated maximum out of pockets, but in a way that can still be somewhat offset by the additional income? This is probably more plausible as I read stories of people taking medications that improve their quality of life at the cost of $2k+ per month, which they fully pay because the insurance decided not to cover those. Those can definitely put a dent in one’s planned budget.

I seem to have answered myself after all…

I think core of retiring early basically means I have financial safety to last me at least my lifetime. yet, health-related expenses weight heavily in that decision - do you really have enough?

Is the thinking that for as long as a person is covered by an employer plan they will get better coverage than what’s available on the exchange, therefore it’s better to just never retire? This also doesn’t seem too logical.

THIS is hardly ever talked about - I could not agree more. I think it is psychological thing where if you are still working the money keeps coming in and as long as you do you may not run out… or course as you so eloquently put it - it is very ilogical

My tricks will be:

- Living modestly. I never spent more than $50-60k a year in my life even while living in Silicon Valley and traveling internationally a few times a year. I plan to keep it that way, it will probably go up a little bit if I have to pay for my own healthcare on the exchange.

- Traveling extensively but to cheap destinations and off season.

- I am also a dual citizen US/EU so if the US healthcare situation becomes too wild (e.g. ACA gets repealed) I can get universal healthcare in my home country, which is “free” (in quote because in order to get into the healthcare system there I would need to become a resident, which comes with a substantially higher tax on dividend/capital gains than US, but that’s still an infinitely better deal than the US healthcare situation).

What would be a reasonable estimate of when it could start to “get better”? I find “country eating its young” to be a perfect metaphor and honestly I don’t see any hope, it’s sad to see.

I have been in the US for close to 15 years now, as a renter, and the insane rent increase driven by housing shortage is truly sour. Every year there’s a high probability that my rent will be dramatically jacked up, to the point where I have moved 11 times since I came here, in several instances directly driven by a 20% rent increase.

And I work in tech so generally can afford things due to high pay, I cannot even imagine how less fortunate professionals in other careers manage. Probably tons of roommates or accepting 2h commutes.

All this has definitely added a sense of instability to my life that certainly contributed to other downstream decisions, some serious like never having kids (not the only reason, but a factor nonetheless), and some trivial like never buying any nice furniture/tools because it’s just going to be an annoyance when I’ll have to move again in N months after the landlord says they can now get $4k on the market instead of my current $3.5k.

Fortunately I am a european citizen and most likely I see myself gravitating more and more there as I age. Europe has a lot of problems, including housing shortage in some pockets, but where I come from, which is a generally desirable urban/suburban metro, it’s easy to find affordable rentals on a 8 year contract, which makes it so much easier to plan your life and not live with the anxiety that in just 9 months a 20% increase will come your way.

My parents have been so good and kind to me, we were never poor but money was always tight with my dad being a small business owner with some ups and many downs, and yet they never failed to provide memorable gifts when I was a kid. I was very happy back then, but just as an adult I came to appreciate the sacrifices they must have made for me.

So no advice but you’re not alone.

A few years ago I went down a spiral and wasted a couple of solid hours on a financial sub Reddit with a master troll who just wouldn’t stop gaslighting me despite my attempts to build a rational discussion. I was so incredibly frustrated since it was on a topic I happen to be very qualified on. I remember refreshing the screen every 5 seconds to see if their new reply would finally be acceptable.

Then I snapped out of it, reflected on the silliness of the situation and decided that from that moment on I would allow myself to ignore comments, whenever I wanted. Seems simple, but it has been quite a powerful mental tool.

Even here on HN many times I deliberately choose not to engage (comment negativity is not even a requirement for the ignore, sometimes I just decide I don’t want to reply to even a thoughtful question that someone might ask me, ha!), it’s quite powerful having the ability to just ghost another party, makes me feel I have superpowers (I know it sounds silly).

In a career of 15+ years I don’t think I have ever reached out to an ex coworker, not even once. My current company happens to be particularly “prestigious” at this point in time and I have received hundreds (yes, 100+) of LinkedIn messages from ex coworkers ranging from “meet and catch up” to “can you refer me there”. Some have gone as far as finding my phone number and texting me, after they didn’t receive a reply on LinkedIn. The nerve someone has after causing me so much pain and stress during code reviews or random acts of corporate backstabbing to ask for a referral years later. I ignored each and every one of them.

I am not saying this is healthy at all and I well understand the problem is “me”, I would say I suffer from quite a bit of misanthropy against pretty much every coworker I ever had, and on top of that I am an extreme introvert, relationships forced upon me cause a lot of contempt. Fortunately I have a very small circle of people that I love (wife, blood family and a few good friends), so despite the misery of my comments I am not too unhappy when I’m not at work.

To be clear, I am not the one looking for part-time gigs, I have decided that the solution to my struggles is to become financially independent via above-average frugality and diligent savings/investing, and then withdraw from the obligations of modern work. Technically I am already there, just trying to find the courage to quit my current (and last) job.

Given all the people who seem to be making you miserable at work, and how much you seem to hate the job overall, what's keeping you from just walking out the door tomorrow and never returning?

A literal 7 figure paycheck, which substantially pads my savings. Waiting until my next major vesting cycle in a few months to get out from corporate forever!

Yeah man, the problem is 100% you. That's a crazy thing to say. Have you ever seen a therapist?

And how in the world do you expect these people to just magically know that you're a weirdo? The nerve to reach out after having reviewed your code.. man I'm baffled.

Yes, I have a right to have an opinion on how other people’s behaviors make me feel, and so long as I’m still functional at work it’s not a problem (and I am, I always put up a good face and don’t cause any drama, I will refactor my perfectly working PR 1000 times to make all the nitpickers happy). Fortunately “being functional” doesn’t require to answer their referral or Zoom request years later, the hell with that, why would I want those people in my life again.

I simply have no tolerance for most coworkers and managers, it is not that hard to believe and I know a lot of people who despise their coworkers, I am not a unicorn.

My spouse is pretty much the same and has her own small solo business because she couldn’t stand the 9 to 5.

My dad, a very wise man living in a different side of the world and the happiest person I know, decided in his 30s after a corporate stint that he couldn’t live his life being told what to do by managers and coworkers, and became entrepreneur. Clearly he had ups and downs, but he has always been very happy with the independence this choice afforded him.

I earn 7 figures a year through my job in Silicon Valley and so I am putting up with this fundamental pain until I have enough to withdraw, which should be soon!

I'm sure a lot of people have issues with some of their coworkers, but hating all of them across multiple jobs is insane. If you smell shit everywhere you go you probably need a shower.

> Yes, I have a right to have an opinion on how other people’s behaviors make me feel,

how others act is outside your control. how you interpret and 'feel' is within your control, and quite empowering when you take the reins.

> and so long as I’m still functional at work it’s not a problem

But what about when you retire and carry this this forward, likely alone.

Sounds like you have 'good' problems. Good luck to you.

Curious what you mean by this: once I retire from work, what life situations will force me to be in close contact for 10+ hours a day, for years, with people I wouldn’t otherwise want to deal with, ready to cast their arbitrary negative judgement on everything I do and put pressure on me due to their own demons, pet peeves and rat race ambitions that I couldn’t care less about? Because that’s really my problem, I have wonderful relationships with wife/family/etc., with whom I am very much aligned in terms of life goals, so these issues do not occur outside of work, or are temporary.

I expect my early retirement to be just wonderful, and I can’t wait for it to happen. I just reached 100X living expenses in 2024 thanks to a generous market, just looking for one final 401k max out in 2025 and a tiny bit of courage!

If you have the same experience with most of your coworkers whenever you go, perhaps your coworkers aren't the problem?

> I well understand the problem is “me”, I would say I suffer from quite a bit of misanthropy against pretty much every coworker I ever had, and on top of that I am an extreme introvert, relationships forced upon me cause a lot of contempt.