There was a student in my elementary school class in the early 90s, whose single mother worked as a cleaning lady at the school and supported both of them with that money. They had a small apartment, a car and while she was considered poor, she always had enough clothes, school supplies etc.

That sounds to me like she doesn’t even know you are infatuated with her, correct? You mention that you never told her you’re in love. What you are doing is unfair both to yourself and to her: If she thinks you are friends, she has no reason to treat you any differently than her other friends. So it’s understandable she might take some time to answer if she’s busy. How would she know you are expecting more of her?

It is unfair to yourself, because you’re keeping yourself in that limbo by obsessing over it. You are expecting her to magically behave in exactly the way you want - without ever having communicated your feelings and expectations. And then you get stressed because another person didn’t behave the way you wanted them to. That’s like getting depressed because the sky is blue and you got it into your head that it ought to be yellow. The only reasonable thing you can do is work on your own expectations and reactions to other people. You have no influence over other people’s feelings, how they behave or whether they like you or not. If you allow things you have no influence over to take control of you so much, you will never be happy in life.

Even if she told you today “I love you” and you get together - how would a relationship work if you can’t even communicate a simple need such as “I noticed you take a long time to answer - is something up? I’d appreciate if you could at least write a short ‘I’m busy, let’s text later’.”

And yes, the people who tell you to work on yourself DO get it. One person not reciprocating your feelings should not throw you into such a deep depression and if it does, you need to work on yourself and not date.

That’s a cool concept, hadn’t heard of it. Nanotech might also be an option for this. You have a bunch of nanobots in your brain and when you encounter a new language, some AI will decipher it and rewire your brain to understand it.

The Webshifter Series might be a good start (Book 1 is Beholder’s eye). The main character is a shape shifter, so we get to see the world from the point of view of someone who can change her form between different alien races. The book has a lot of interesting descriptions about her changing senses, e.g. suddenly being able to perceive different colors or having an organ to feel the magnetic field etc.

Star Trek has a common language in the federation or not? It would be cool if they encountered a new species and get out their communicators, record for a bit and have an AI figure out the new language. Wouldn’t take up a lot of screen time and explain the communication.

That’s a good point. Or even poorer parts of the population not being able to afford the newest tech.

I like that. They had a ton of cameras on all Star Trek ships - but then a scandal involving sex tapes and an illegal porn trade between Star Fleet officers happened and cameras in Star Fleet ships were completely outlawed.

Exploding anything I would say, though this seems to be a general TV problem. Your device got shaken up a tiny bit? EXPLOSION!

I get what you mean, but on the other hand I want to be able to out myself into the story and relate to the characters. If the characters are behaving in a dumb way or the problems they face are too unrealistic, that takes away from the enjoyment. Let me put it like that: I can suspend my disbelieve to accept that an allien artifact can create a wormhole to another planet or that intelligent parasitic life forms exist. I find it hard to believe the US military would send poeple to alien planets without cautioning them about eating the local food. Because to me it is inconsistent with the premise: A military operation would at least address this problem in some form. As I said, it’s just a minor annoyance to me, not a big plot hole or anything. But I find it hard to enjoy media where part of the storytelling is based on the premise “let’s just assume this advanced human/alien civilisation hasn’t thought about an easy solution that we have been using for decades”.

I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Dirk Van den Boem “Sternkreuzer Proxima” (“Starcruiser Proxima”, couldn’t find the actual English titel on a quick search). He has some very good descriptions of the gruelingly long times any maneuver in space takes. Also being cramped in a small space ship with no fresh air, tasteless food rations and not knowing what is going to happen, while your ship and the enemy ship spend the next 50 hours getting in position for their attack.

That’s true. I already mentioned Julie E. Czerneda, her books have female main characters that are pretty well written. I’d recommend looking into her books.