Career Post-Mortem, or: How flashing teenager girls can ruin your life

I can tell that logically you understand what you did was wrong, but all the subtext in your writing points to you desperately trying to blame something else (society, drinking, the victims being underage) when the blame really falls squarely on you. Even though you say that you know did wrong, you don't actually sound sorry, and it's very obvious. I would believe, having read that, that you think that you're a victim. You're not. You're the predator of this story. No improvement of any kind will be met through this frame you've constructed. You need to actually accept the facts. Actually.

The linked article is already taken down, but from the perspective of a woman, I will add a few thoughts. I attended a rural university that also shared a town with a state penitentiary. Periodically over my years there, the university would put notes in student mailboxes informing us "The state prison was releasing on parole convict X on [insert date]. X was tried and found guilty of 3 counts rape. X stalks women and was armed during each of the events for which he was convicted. Psychologist have stated that X has near 100% likelihood of reoffending. If you are female do not walk alone. At night, do not walk without campus security or in small groups." The times we got a note like this, some weeks or a few months would pass, X would reoffend, raping some woman who normally did not have the benefit of campus security escorts, and we would get another note in the mailbox telling us that the security recommendation was no longer in effect. The town police were hard men.

Last year in college, a neighbor came to my door freaked out because somebody was peeping on her. Called the local police.

Police officers came to our door told us that peeping toms and flashers had statistical likelihood of escalating their behavior to more and more extreme acts including rape. They already knew the guy based on the neighbor's description. Also said not to fuck around if we saw him again. Any indication of a fixation was a really bad sign.

So should submitter be subject to legal scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint on behavior after that single event? Absolutely. Bad behavior for some, begets worse behavior later. Should submitter be subject to scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint decades after a single offense? Probably not.

We have sexual predator laws for a damn good reason: some people are guaranteed to violently reoffend unless prevented from doing so. Use of those same laws to ensnare teenagers who sext, Romeo & Juliet lovers, and the legitimate one-time offenders, is outside the original law's intent. The issue for the last category of offender is having a legal path to redemption. This piece seems to be missing. Arguable that for a lot of ex-convicts, a path to redemption and unrestrained participation in society is missing.

You just publicly outed someone who stuck his neck out for you by lying about your performance. People get sued for that. I would toss your resume in the trash just for your lack of discretion. I strongly suggest scrubbing any real names from your post, if not for your sake then for theirs.

> All the software jobs that I had were opportunities given to me out of compassion and charity. But I wasn't qualified for them. I've always had attention span difficulties. Each of my open source projects were done out of excitement. I had an idea of how to automate something, and I just went for it, and could focus on it for weeks at a time.

What do you mean that you weren't "qualified"? For all of your legal issues, you sound like a brilliant and productive programmer. Have you seen opportunities (e.g. requests from people) to be an online teacher/tutor for programming, perhaps being funded through Patreon?

What about lowering your sights and doing independent consulting, perhaps for small or local businesses, or tech work for an organization that values forgiveness as part of its mission (e.g. a church or similar nonprofit)?

[Archived] https://pastebin.com/CtLFcc97

>and once again gave into that old stress relief of flashing

Can you change your legal name?

inb4 "too bad so sad, stop flashing teenagers you pervert, you did this to yourself it's your own fault" - thanks, heard this a million times in my mind, let alone from other people, but thanks anyway.

Have you thought about moving to the EU. Good tech jobs and sane laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten Also, English works in most countries