Because as much as they want to claim they’re logical and rational, no logical or rational argument would ever be the thing to convince them. Identity politics prevents people from accepting anything from the “other side”, so they ask for sources so they can point to it as biased and unfair etc. There’s really no point in arguing with someone like that using facts. The things most likely to change their mind is their own personal experience or writing an entirely new narrative about the world.

It’s one of my favorite movies, and I find the story beautiful. Incredible acting from a child, as well as Lee Pace.

The “laughs” all felt from the outside. There was very little humor aimed at the people who would self identify as nerds and way more “haha look at these nerds and how quirky they are” set ups. Sure there are misogynist asshole nerds but usually they need to grow beyond that to find friends and partners. As far as I could tell none of them did. Sheldon and Howard were still super sexist, Leonard was still passive and whiny, but the story pushed forward foisting “perfect matches” on them.

Throughout the whole thing there was very little actual geek humor, and it felt denigrating to actual nerds.

Sounds like a job for a trailer

I picked up a steel tongue drum out of pure serendipity and I can’t keep my hands off of it. The good quality ones that are hand tuned by an artisan and crafted from the highest quality steel will sound good no matter how you hit it. I started just bopping random notes with mallets, then tapping patterns with my hands, and whatever I do it sounds great and feels zen and beautiful. I don’t really play any songs on it, just patterns, but it’s like the audio version of a warm bubble bath.

There are mass market dinky derpy ones off of Amazon and they’re completely different instruments. If it sounds like a gong or a bell it’s a cheap one. If it sounds like the ethereal thrumming of the deep forest magic it’s a good one.

https://imginn.com/p/DIynnGEI680/

I’ve posted this a few times but here it is again for you:

I have managed to nearly eliminate Amazon entirely from our lives for the past two years. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy on DuckDuckGo and then adding “-amazon”, “-etsy”, “-walmart”, “-temu” and “-pinterest” as search modifiers.

A lot of little shops are perfectly legit, but watch out for:

Things being ridiculous bargains. Small shops will almost always be more expensive due to higher overheads and less bulk

Too much variety in product (unless they’re a marketplace with 3rd party vendors). A legit shop will have inventory that makes sense together in its theme. If they sell everything from bubblebath to uranium they’re either probably not actually selling it or drop shipping it.

Pictures that look like they come from lots of different sources, or no consistency in images. If they don’t have their own pictures of products or standards of presentation that’s suspicious

Some general recs that apply if you’re in the US:

For anything electronic or computer related: B&H Photo or Microcenter

For music stuff: Sweetwater, but there’s a lot of great small music stores, or you can use a marketplace like Reverb

For clothes: if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don’t, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I’ve discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.

For house repair and DIY stuff: we order from a local building supply store, but there’s also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy’s Toolbox etc.

For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.

For cosmetics, skin care and some home cleaning things, there’s Hive or Grove Collaborative which try to prioritize sustainability

For tea, coffee and spices, Adagio and its sister websites

For that “everything store” experience, Costco will ship a good percentage of its offerings for free with a membership in the continental US.

For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.

I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I’ve personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet

I’ve started noticing birds, and worse, I’ve started recognizing them.

My favorite MMO is Guild Wars 2. While it certainly has grind available, it doesn’t require it to play the content. It genuinely respects your time and understands people have lives outside of gaming, and tries to give a lot of options for ways to progress so you can focus on content you enjoy. There’s a lot of communities, guilds and activities to do with others. You can join 5 guilds at once, if for instance you wanted to join a group of friends, a big guild that does events together, another one that does raids, another based on your identity or location etc.

It kind of throws you into the deep end when you start, and suffers from layers upon layers of developed complexity thanks to add-ons and content updates over the years, but for a certain type of person it will really click. It’s free to try so you might as well see if you like it.

As someone who is demi and married, it was a lot of hard work to find what I was looking for. It was not something I was able to achieve organically out meeting people via a hobby or something. The dating pool is shallow and small for aces, tiny if one is rural. I was determined and persistent because it was important to me, and it still took me about 6 years of consistent effort to find the right relationship for me. I do not blame anyone for just opting out of trying.

I see, I didn’t interpret that paragraph that way

This reminds me of Althea Chrome, the artist who made all of the knit accessories for Coraline.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NQCf8fjgoJQ&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD

you deserve the full range of the human experience.

Please remember that if someone is sex repulsed or doesn’t feel sexual desire that this is a weird thing to say. There are so many things humans can experience, with varying degrees of joy and pleasure, sex is not in some special category of “required in order to be human”. From my perspective if someone hasn’t had a perfectly ripe mango they haven’t had the full range of human experience, but some people don’t like mangos.

I didn’t see anything in her posts that implied she wanted a higher libido or that she saw her lack of sexual desire as an issue in her day to day life. I did see her say she might like intimate human connection but that’s perfectly possible without sex. I think we might both be doing some projection, as yes I am sensitive to people who recommend seeing a doctor when someone describes what its like to be ace, but also you seem to assume having sex is a prerequisite to having an intimate relationship with someone.

It’s not.

Aces exist, there is nothing wrong with not feeling sexual desire or attraction. If it doesn’t upset her or effect her life in a way she doesn’t like then she doesn’t need medical intervention.

As someone who is demi and has lived many years at a time as essentially ace, it’s frustrating to hear people consistently downplay asexuality as a physical ailment. No, some people are just like this, it’s as valid an orientation as any other.

I haven’t watched much standup for a while but even I’ve heard of Hannah Gadsby, so they must be decently well known at this point.

Sounds great, Photuris for supreme dictator!

You won’t be everyone’s friend.

Along with “don’t chase after people who aren’t interested” and “you don’t like everybody, not everybody will like you”.

Genuinely has been so helpful to keep in mind every time I reach out to make connections but get ignored, brushed off or rejected. There will be people who reciprocate my friendship, who recognize my value and enjoy my company and I can use my energy on those relationships.

Tanned arms, skinned knees, bug bites
Summer leaves its mark

Be grateful, I tell myself
But the longing doesn’t listen

This guy lives at Golden Corral in the middle of Oklahoma or something