Yup, you’re going to want at least a tiny keyboard at some point soon.

If too many controls is intimidating in your plugins, either try one but into the DAW like ReaSynth in Reaper which will be basic but still fairly powerful, or something like Decent Sampler which has knobs that do a bit of tweaking but are still most just preset sounds. Many will have ADSR and some basic effects and that’s it.

Make sure both people get tested before doing the deed.

Not one for spontaneity, eh? 😄

“I’ve had a great night, what do you say we keep this night going?”

“Sure, swab yourself here, here, and here and spit in this tube, and in a couple days, if all goes well, I will be so down for that!”

I got a vasectomy when I was already in for other surgery, but condoms were a mild annoyance with a more than acceptable tradeoff. They’re ready to go whenever, it’s a no-go for some if you won’t use one, and it’s as much for my own protection as it is for the other person. I wouldn’t necessarily expect someone to take my word on it that I got it done right off the bat either.

If you’re out dating, I think it’s just respectful to have them available. Different people have different comfort levels, so one should come prepared to accommodate.

The latex free ones aren’t a bad idea either if you need to keep some on hand. My partner has an allergy so I couldn’t use regular ones. They were more expensive, but I actually thought they were better, and it was still a low price to pay, considering what I got in return. She carried her own, but after we continued going out I wasn’t going to make her keep paying for them every time.

I’m with you. I’ve tried it a bunch of times since so many people seem to like cucumbers, cucumber water, cucumber in sushi, cucumber gin, and whatever else. I don’t like pickles either. I just cannot cuke.

I used to be about the slashers, but now I like stuff that makes you use your imagination. It’s hard to make something that will scare a large group of people, but if it gets you to engage your mind or feelings to fill in the gaps, it fills it in with things you do find scary.

I just watched Weapons last weekend. I wasn’t expecting much, it sounded like a simple plot, but it really created a disturbing vibe that was creepier to me than the on scene deaths. It kept my attention throughout and though the ending went gorey, I think it would have been just as good without showing the result.

I started One Piece about 3 years ago and have read all the manga and just recently caught up on the anime.

Some of the things I really enjoy about it:

The story progression ramps up nicely. Nobody is that OP from the get-go, and the stakes and power levels have increased steadily as the story goes on. There is definitely plot armor, but it’s not like every bad guy is on the same level as the previous one.

There is great representation. There are people of different races. There are gay-coded, trans, and gender fluid characters, there are young and old people. And none of them are really played for laughs for those traits. All character types have heros, villians, comic relief, and serious characters. And none of the characters with real screen/page time are flat and one dimensional. This along with the power scaling, really makes the adventure feel important and like a fleshed out and lived in world that you are part of. I can only imagine this is even moreso true for people that have been fans since the late 90s.

At almost 1200 chapters, I feel like I understand this fictional world and how it works. There are macguffins and such, but nothing that feels out of place. Characters still behave how you would expect them to behave and the creator doesn’t just pull stuff out of nowhere. There is still great continuity with the earliest things that happened in the story. There are many familiar characters, but more still come and go, but not before becoming necessary parts of the full tale. It’s not like Star Wars where it feels there’s about 2 dozen characters with names in the whole universe.

And the last thing I’ll say is in spite of all this, it still does stuff just for laughs regularly. It knows it’s a story primarily for young boys, and despite being one of the best loved anime/manga ever, it doesn’t take itself all that seriously. It’s a damn fun time to read and watch almost every bit of it with few exceptions. The stuff coming out now is as good or better as it’s ever been.

Like anything else, it won’t be for ever single person out there, so if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I saw a few random episodes on Toonami in the 90s and was WTF is this random stuff then. It is a weird thing to dive into the middle of, and a lot of it is outright silly. But I had people at work keep telling me I’d like it, I finally gave in, and I was hooked from the first chapter.

Taking away that spiraling feeling is the best thing they do for me.

I always tell people something along the lines of, they do nothing to make me happy, they just give me a chance to make myself happy.

I still get sad, angry, depressed, etc, but it’s manageable now and doesn’t have every inconvenience drag me down to my deepest depths and feeling like I’m stuck there.

Young me: triceratops all the way. A bulldozer with horns, plus it wouldn’t eat me. Not as over the top with horns as styracosaurus.

Current me: ankylosaurs. Always thought they were unique, but young me also found them weird looking. Now I see it as a giant armadillo with a massive club.

Shout out to ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs. Not dinos but very awesome and terrifying creatures. I feel much safer knowing neither is around anymore though. gh.

Very awesome animals, but I don’t think these are technically dinos.

Those limited Cokes keep breaking my heart. So many of them have been good. The Spice and the Rosalia have been my favs, but the space flavored one and the League of Legends ones were good too.

I also like the Pepsi and Mt Dew with real sugar when I can find them, and Cheerwine also needs wider distribution.

Despite what it sounds like, I don’t drink massive amounts of soda, I just like trying the new flavors and regional stuff as I find it.

Poop in a group is good 😄

Yes, I lost some really great people along the way. But I understand it perfectly now why they felt they had to move on from me.

I’m glad we can have conversations like this here. It feels really important to discuss this, and I hope the person I think that inspired you to make this post reads this and can turn his life around.

It isn’t always easy to publicly admit we used to be this way, but I feel it benefits the community as a whole.

I don’t like when people trash the OP in cases like this. Sometimes they are trolls or attention seekers, but at least at first, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. I appreciate you not crapping on him. He already has that covered, and more certainly isn’t going to fix him.

I only got out of my own mess because enough people were patient with me. If I can give some of that back, that’s just me passing some of that grace I was given forward.

Every day gives you another chance. It’s really freaking hard when you’re down in a hole like this. That’s why I said to check out that other post. Many of us have been in similar spots. We’re here to help, but we can’t give you answers cuz we aren’t you. You need to work every day to find what does work for you.

There’s no secret to being liked by women. It’s the same as being liked by anyone. You have to be someone likeable, not just fake likeable, and it starts with valuing yourself enough to lift yourself out of the mental place you are at. This is like anything else, you got to build from the bottom up with a strong foundation.

I don’t know your full story, but a skim through your posts makes it feel like you have some internal things you need to address, and I mean that in a helpful way.

You really sound like you would want to have a partner, but you seem to be chasing symptoms and not core issues.

I’d recommend reading some of today’s thread on overcoming incel-like behavior. I shared a bunch of my personal story on there in BodePlotHole’s reply, and reading that and some other comments in there might be of real value to you.

That’s about all the help any of these posts are going to get you, and most of it is not bad advice. There’s no quick-fix other than the stuff you’re already getting burnt out of trying. You’re going to have to put in real work and take yourself seriously if you want to get out of this hole you’re in and find a happier life.

Again, not here to lecture you, do what you want, but I think your solution is fixing you, not continuing to ignore things and smooth them over temporarily with prostitutes and substances.

Your first line of how it all seems stupidly obvious now is so true. But that’s the thing about being self-centered, that you can’t get any other perspective on it.

I’m glad you were able to get out of that cycle!

I always knew he was a bad example, but having to grow up in that environment gave me a crappy set of social skills for when I was in the outside world from my family. I had to play the transactional game to stay out of trouble, and worry about my own well-being for most things. From spending my whole development years that way, I knew his behaviors were bad, but without any other context, I couldn’t grasp that I was doing much the same things. I was just being me and what I felt I had to do.

There’s obviously a lot left out of the story, it’s 40+ years of life. I started making progress acting like a decent human in my later 20s / early 30s as I moved out and started meeting better people and being able to spend more time around them. After my wife divorced me, I spent a lot of time by myself reflecting and that was when I went to the doctor about depression as I was completely humbled and ready to face up to having problems I couldn’t fix on my own.

After getting medicine, it was the last boost I needed, as I was able to let go of a lot of things holding me back. Whenever something would go bad, it would feel like it would drag every memory of me screwing up or people “screwing me over” back up to the surface and it would just swallow me whole. I couldn’t get anywhere because I’d just go into survival mode and shut down. Medicated me can tell those memories to shut up because I need to tend to the current thing that needs my attention. Which at that time was for me to stop being a jerk.

I still get mad at myself for all the bad things I did to people and to myself, but now they moreso serve as a reminder to stay being my best than something that really haunts me. Everything is just more manageable is about all I can say. It’s hard for me to really accurately verbalize my feelings through all these time periods without really taking a ton of time. I just think a lot of people, especially men these days, suffer with a lot of this stuff, and I’d rather rehash my worst times than see people get sucked down deeper into manosphere and incel crap. I haven’t forgotten for a second how bad and lonely those feelings are, and I don’t want to see other people go through it feeling alone.

After getting my depression treated, I was able to really work on myself better and have lasting results. With the untreated depression, it was like trying to rebuild a house while it was still on fire. I’d try to fix one part of my while the other stuff was still actively messing me up. Getting treated let me let go of a lot of things that were just a byproduct of my own mind and focus on what the root causes of things were. I wasn’t reliving slices of all my previous bad days every day. I could come to terms with things in my past, see what I did that was cringe/jerky/etc and understand it and see better ways to go through life.

It was far from a quick fix, and I still have to live with that part of me, ala The Babbadook. This year in particular has been very hard on me. Medication just lets me manage it, it does nothing to fix core problems. That’s why many people go to therapy in addition to medication. Meds do just enough so I can sweep away the bad crap my mind tries to trick me with before it causes trouble.

What it feels like and how people react to it is different for everyone because we all have different brain chemisty and different underlying and associated issues. For me, a quick visit to my GP and a cheap Rx for Lexapro gave me what I needed. My partner had a much harder time and it took a few years to get sorted out. She also talks to the therapist and has done DBT programs and group therapy to get where she is, while I usually do ok on my own or just talking things out to her or friends.

It can be a real struggle, but it really sucks being your own worst enemy and is far, far worth it to talk to a medical professional if you think you are having problems. No matter where you try to hide from things, you can’t escape your own mind, and it knows every way to really mess you up if it wants to. It isn’t being weak and it doesn’t mean you are a bad person, it’s taking personal responsibility for yourself. You wouldn’t try to heal a broken leg yourself, and a mind is no different. Some things are best left to the pros.

Research something non-work related (usually owls)

Plan a vacation or home project

Study music/theory/plugins/production or play on my mini keyboard

Make friends with other contractors outside of my company

Go out and enjoy the fall weather

Read an ebook or enjoy an audiobook. I started Discworld. I’m down 4 so far out of 41 I think it is.

Basically stuff I’d want to do anyway that requires little or no equipment. Down time is my time. The only thing that stinks is an open office with no real privacy. People don’t seem to care, but it makes it less enjoyable for me. I’ve been here 2 years now and no one has ever said anything.

Bad examples of manliness, seeing things as transactional, and being so focused only on myself.

My dad has a narcissistic type of personality. I’m going to just insert this bit from Mayo Clinic to save me a ton of time.

Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and how severe they are can vary. People with the disorder can:

• Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.
• Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.
• Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.
• Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.
• Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
• Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.
• Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.
• Expect special favors and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.
• Take advantage of others to get what they want.
• Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
• Be envious of others and believe others envy them.
• Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.
• Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.

At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they view as criticism. They can:

• Become impatient or angry when they don’t receive special recognition or treatment.
• Have major problems interacting with others and easily feel slighted.
• React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior.
• Have difficulty managing their emotions and behavior.
• Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.
• Withdraw from or avoid situations in which they might fail.
• Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection.
• Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.

When to see a doctor

People with narcissistic personality disorder may not want to think that anything could be wrong, so they usually don’t seek treatment. If they do seek treatment, it’s more likely to be for symptoms of depression, drug or alcohol misuse, or another mental health problem. What they view as insults to self-esteem may make it difficult to accept and follow through with treatment.

So long story short, a lot of treating the world like it owes you something and being an asshole to people when they don’t live up to your unreasonable expectations. Everything had to revolve around him, and that is the example I got, as I wasn’t around many other adults.

Relationships were transactional. I did this, this, and this, so now you owe me this, no excuse. It’s like grinding in a game. Complete these objectives, earn this reward. But that isn’t how life is. You can do as you please, as nice or rude as you want, but so can everyone else. If I did something nice for someone, that should be out of wanting to be nice to them, not to make them owe me something and being rude if they don’t see it that way.

In the OP’s nice guy scenario, guys will compliment someone, do them a favor, listen to them when they need someone to talk to, and not see that as being a friend or supportive person, but basically as points. I helped you, so now you should owe me a date, for instance. You see the boyfriend thing not as a partner, but a business relationship. I did this, so why aren’t you doing that? You aren’t thinking of building an equal partnership with someone, you are being selfish and inconsiderate of them as their own person. It’s totally hollow, because even though another person is there, they’re not really actively involved in the relationship, they are basically a game piece in your eyes when you think that way. You don’t care what they want or feel, you see it as they owe you something. And who would want to be with someone like that? But a person with that mindset can’t place themselves in the other person’s shoes and they lash out of anger instead. The other person will usually just WTF on out of there, and I don’t blame them.

So much of my life has been me losing friendships for having an egocentric view like this. Everyone tires of it eventually. Some last longer, others see how you are right away. I am constantly reminded of such cringe stuff I’ve done, and now that I understand it after getting medicine for my depression, I was able to see what I was doing and fix it. I found better examples of how to be a respectable person, and made friends with women instead of trying to “win” them. Now I’m able to be an interesting and well rounded person that people will naturally like…usually. Some people will still dislike you, not want to date you, or be rude to you for no apparent reason, but that’s just how it goes, and I can handle that now.

I’ll shut up now, since that’s a lot, but if you want to hear more about anything else, or if I’ve missed the mark on what you’re looking for, I can talk more.

My experience echos yours. Bad examples of manliness, seeing things as transactional, and being so focused only on myself.

Making friends with some really great people and getting treated for depression helped me break free from the cycle and start putting others first and understanding myself more had really helped me be a person that other people can enjoy being around.