This is a long post…I’m not sure why I am doing it. I’m reaching out to you, fellow nostrich.

Pre-nostr I was a part of an online men’s forum, whose full membership and posting privileges had to be earned by intelligent, reasoned posts (and essentially scored by member reactions.). It was a haven of free thought and open discussion for me, especially through the Covidian times. It kept me sane. It helped me find bitcoin (the bitcoin thread went back to 2013).

Almost all the old posters from the bitcoin thread are gone. Me and a core group of guys are the ones orange pilling now, and debating the skeptics. One of the guys from the forum, who I’ve known for about 4 years, is from South Africa, and has recently decided to leave everything behind and seek asylum in the USA with his wife and 3 kids. He has a brother here, married to a Colombian woman, who had promised to take them in until he could get established, rug pull him on basically everything because the Colombian wife refuses to let them stay with them (afraid they will make their new baby sick or some nonsense.)

I feel like I know him, even though he is just an online friend. He was going down the bitcoin rabbit hole. I was able to set up a PayPal “donation” so he could buy bitcoin from me, until PayPal shut down the donation loophole and fees became ridiculous 😂

OK getting to the meat of the matter…in the USA, you need a car…unless you live in a very dense urban hellscape, not having a car is not an option. He reached out to me to see if I knew anyone selling a car under $2k. That’s a tall order for anything remotely decent, but I have a beater car that I don’t really need or drive much (usually I just take the motorcycle to work). I offered it to him. He wants to pay me rent to use it, but I told him no, use it until you get on your feet. I asked him to give me a list of things that could make life more livable for them in the current situation, and put some stuff in a box (household items, books and a game for his kids). I feel the urge to help him. His wife and 3 kids ranging from 4 to 10 years old are all crammed into a hotel room with 2 beds.

I have a lot of respect for him, risking everything and leaving everything to give his family a better life. My own wife however, thinks I’m insane. We had a huge fight about it. She is afraid that he is a scammer, or a sex trafficker, that will come to our house and kidnap our daughter. She thinks that I could be robbed or killed when I bring the car to him.

I think she is being irrational, and I don’t understand her point of view. She thinks I am putting our family in danger and that I care more about strangers than my own family.

So, I am not looking for validation or anything nostr fam, I just had to vent, because like in 2020, I’m questioning if I am the 1 sane person in the asylum, or the 1 crazy among the sane. Feel free to tell me either way.

My wife is a city girl and I’m a country boy. I’m used to helping strangers. I feel I have failed somehow as a husband or as a man, if my wife doesn’t trust my judgement though. I was 26 when we met, and I was certainly not as confident or much of a man back then.