So she gave you green light for no protection and meanwhile was doing her ex at the same time... sigh. Don't some people call that rape?

Can? Well, a Genius without a plan can also beat an Idiot with a Plan. So he didn't really say anything. Depends on the plan.

They say it matched - but the rate was 50 times faster than the estimates. So does that really match?

This victim role you're pushing yourself into is a defense mechanism and a poor one at that.

Correct way to deal with this is to get your self-esteem back on track. You're a man, approach this situation like one. Open your eyes to what's good about you, what's attractive about you, what you love and like about yourself. Once you remember that you're a good man with a lot to offer, once you remember that you like yourself and want to see yourself succeed - your inner resources will naturally go towards recovering from this correctly and moving on to something better.

How we think about things matters a great deal. In this case it will be a difference in total misery for a long time, or a quick recovery with a relationship with someone better on the horizon.

Life is getting tougher everywhere, just in slightly different ways. Americans like to pretend their living situation is getting so bad... but if you roll some random country generator - you'll find that living conditions in the resulting country are much worse.

Trouble with USA is that it's very expensive, has very little government support for healthcare and has a workaholic culture. On the plus side - earning potential here is one of the highest.

My father kept moving around trying to find an ideal place to live, after a lot of work they relocated to New Zealand. Lived and worked there for a while - found out that pensions there are tiny and the country was getting expensive. Had to move back. Now retired to Bulgaria, it's cheap and fairly nice - but turned out that Healthcare is awful and there are year long lines to the clinics with good Healthcare. Plus a lot of beurocracy and they almost force you to learn Bulgarian to get through it.

It's very difficult to move permanently to a lot of countries and be able to work. Many nations don't really allow it, or only allow it for some professions and you have to do a lot of work to get through their systems. And that's before language barrier comes into play.

You might benefit from Toastmasters. It's a great resource for speaking in public and trying stuff like mock interviews, etc. It's all about practice and becoming comfortable in a situation because you've been there - done that.

Lucky its not summer. Was still 80 degrees, parking lot was unshaded and rental company employees only noticed 45 minutes after car was returned.