Do I win something for achieving it all a few years early?

My cat and my cell phone

Oh man, that makes me think back to college when I got an eyebrow piercing. I did it because I liked the looks but also as a social experiment, wondering how people’s reactions to me might change.

I expected the worst, but I found that it actually seemed to make most people approach me easier.

I think the lesson is that doing things that are highly visible draw attention. Some will be good, some might be bad, but it’s a conversation starter either way!

Anecdotal observation I received from a doctor’s office indicates there may be some change in the insurance industry…

Last month I saw a surgeon who does not take insurance, but her office helps people get all the pre-authorizations done to file an out-of-network claim. They told me that of the codes they bill, there’s one that used to have a 50/50 chance of getting approved. But after 12/6/24 they see it come back approved every time.

Without more data to back this up I recognize it’s not enough to say anything for sure, but this does point to insurance companies more broadly approving claims.

Ah her. She has a bad habit of doing react videos that are just her posting other people’s comments while she just makes faces and nods at it and doesn’t add any meaningful commentary. I personally think that’s a shitty kind of content creator as they’re ultimately making money off of someone else’s work. And she occasionally has had a pretty shitty take. I think The Dadvocate is much better in this particular genre of content personally.

there is ZERO way to indicate to others that information.

Ah, you’re getting to a challenge that women have faced forever: “If I reject this man, will he decide to attack or kill me?” (Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6)

Or just in general the concept that’s been named “Schrodingers Rapist.”

It would be a whole lot safer for many people if there was an automatic way to see into someone’s soul to know what they are like and what they are capable of. Are they a rapist? Do they have the potential to be? Will they reject me violently? Will they publicly humiliate me?

None of us can know those things. The best we can do is to try to establish strong social skills and pattern recognition, and work to avoid the situations that put us in danger (whether physical, social, or emotional). It’s hard and there’s no silver bullet.

While you want to put the onus on women to minimize the risk of a man being publicly humiliated, you’re ignoring the realities that women are dealing with the exact same kind of uncertainties (except statistically speaking, with much worse outcomes). There isn’t an easy answer here and it’s not one that falls on just one gender to resolve.

The Dadvocate? Sounds like the YouTuber you’re describing.

I don’t think laughing at someone is an acceptable response to any person being respectful to another person, and your assumption that I am saying that from my comment shows more about you than me.

Anyone who would laugh at another person just because of how they look or how much money they appear to have is a flawed, unkind person.

Anyone who approaches another person and doesn’t respect if they set physical or verbal boundaries showing they don’t want to be approached is also flawed and either socially unaware/challenged or themselves unkind. And sometimes an easy way to get one of those people to go away is to laugh at them.

It’s unlikely for a cold approach to anyone asking for a date to be successful. Unlike 80 years ago, people aren’t looking for their first romantic connection to turn into life-long marriage; they actually want to have an established rapport with a person before the first date. So if someone just asks another person out with no lead up, or in certain settings, sometimes that will be so disconnected from social realities as to be absurd.

Anyway, regardless of the social intricacies of appropriate places to approach and/or ask out another, believing that women (or men) are a monolith who all will react the same way in a given situation is out of touch, disrespectful, and points to a lot of deep-seated sexism. I hope you can work that out before you pass it onto your son or he’s likely to have a much harder time finding a relationship.

Wow, I’m sorry for the abuse that’s led you to the level of fear you live in. Of course it’s going to be hard for you to start any kind of connection with someone who might have a potential romantic component if you aren’t able to connect to people who don’t have that potential.

If you’re looking for broader advice, I’d recommend getting into some social groups for hobbies or business-type things. Board gaming, hiking, maker space, Toastmasters, cons; anything that gets you out of the house and meeting people.

Once in those groups, start socializing in general. Get more comfortable meeting people and establishing friendships. Realize that not everyone you meet will respond with violence and there are better people out there.

You won’t frequently get far if you aren’t in social settings where people are trying to meet other people; 95+% of the time any interaction like that is likely to be a one-off. But if you’re confident and friendly, sometimes it’s not. It is NOT predatory to still talk to people outside of those settings, but if you only talk to people you’re physically attracted to then it’s borderline weird and could be a bit predatory.

As you build the skill of talking to anyone and everyone, you’ll also develop better communication skills and more confidence (which, btw, happens to be one of the most attractive traits). And you might just find in the process of doing so that only talking to people you find physically attractive upfront isn’t the best way to meet a potential partner.

I’m genuinely sorry your family hasn’t helped you learn these skills and has actively undermined you in a way that makes it more difficult. Whether it’s a romantic interest, friendships, or your career, working on these skills will help you become a better person.

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” —Margaret Atwood

I think the guy you’re responding to is well down the path of believing that it’s “unsafe” to be laughed at.

We have a black cat. After a trip we left a black bag on the floor for a bit. She would get on the bag and if you walked by her without acknowledging her, she’d bop you on the foot.

If you acknowledged her, no bop. I could look right at her but if I didn’t say her name, I’d be bopped.

We left that bag on the floor for several more weeks to continue the game 😅

In your heart I think you know the answer or you wouldn’t be posting here like this. No, it’s not normal or healthy. That person is not a friend, and he seems dangerous to be around (maybe not for physical reasons but definitely for mental reasons).

Continue to be secretive and distance yourself from him; that’s not asshole behavior, that’s self-preservation. I hope you are able to separate yourself and get free from this person and in time find actual friends who care and support you for who you are.

I have a friend with one but haven’t talked with her about it much.

I think a strong use case you may not have considered is women’s tiny or nonexistent pockets. Having a phone small enough to securely fit in a pocket while still having a large screen phone definitely has its appeal.

This is always how I’ve framed it. Either it will recover or we’re dealing with societal collapse–level problems. In the former, great, wait it out. In the latter, good luck no matter how much you had.

Talent, dedication, and luck. Spot on.

I am very successful in my career and earn more than my school-age self ever expected (tbf, I expected to be a teacher). I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all three, though.

Lucky points include:

• Being the kid of small business owners who gave me/made me get a job with them at 16.
• Knowing someone at a company who recommended me for an internship.
• Working adjacent to a badass development team that made the best proof of concept to build a new app, so they brought me to their team to support it.
• My Lead retiring so I was able to move to her level after only a couple years.

I wouldn’t have gotten those opportunities if I didn’t also have the dedication and talent, but luck was a huge factor.

I have tried the metaphor that luck opened doors for me, but I had to get to and walk through them. I will never take where I am today for granted.

My company offers parental leave (generic, not gender-specific, and applies to adoptions as well as giving birth). Everyone I work with expects people—men included—to take it.

A guy on my team took his a couple years ago and now with his second child recently born, he is applying his lesson learned. Instead of taking the time as soon as his kid is born, overlapping time off with his wife, he’s letting his wife take her full time then he’s taking his. That way they stagger the full-time care of the newborn for about 6 months straight, after which his wife will be done teaching for the summer, meaning more like 8 months straight.

Another coworker (Director level) had his latest kid December before last. Our busy time is January to April, so he delayed and took his time off in May or June.

Fuck companies that don’t support it and the small-minded people who think men shouldn’t take it. I can understand how challenging it can be for a small business to support that kind of leave, but as humans we should care more about supporting the next generation than a couple hits to productivity at work for 2-3 months. (I write as a permanently child-free person.)

What you’re missing is that the people you work with are stuck in the mindset from 2 generations ago. Don’t buy in. Taking your leave IS supporting your family; you’re doing it right.

There was literally an executive order on it yesterday. Link

TL;DR: he’s ordered Denali to be renamed back to Mount McKinley and Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

Sadly not The Onion.

Yeah, and that’s also the time that people who are grieving are likely to feel like they should be moving on, but that’s rarely the case. Having someone else acknowledge that it’s still ok if it’s still a difficult time can be really validating.

I recently reached out to a coworker whose dog died and said, “I’ve been thinking about you and [Dog’s name]. I hope you’re finding moments of comfort and are doing as well as you can. I just wanted you to know you’re in my thoughts.”

I recently lost my cat and know when a couple people reached out with similar comments it meant a lot.

So I just realized a few years ago that “join” is one syllable like “coin.” Should make sense, right?

I’d always pronounced it “joy-in.” I still have to consciously change my pronunciation to say it right.

I also learned a couple months ago that I trill the ‘r’ in “three.” I don’t really know how to make the “thr” sound without a slight trill. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I appreciate you breaking it down this way. It helps me understand the stance so many hold on landlords.

However, I think you’re missing a lot in your distillation that everything above mortgage + handyman salary is making money for nothing.

Owner also pays property taxes, insurance, all maintenance costs, all upgrades, and possibly utilities or yard care. The benefits for the renters include having a maintenance person on-call all the time, not needing to vet each tradesperson, not needing to get quotes, no expenses when an appliance breaks, no liability in case of a disaster, and more.

If I didn’t have a handy partner and the market was reasonable, I’d love to rent. I don’t want to deal with maintenance and I like having a consistent monthly fee rather than suddenly having to spend $2k on a new water heater like I did last month, or being afraid that our heat might die suddenly this winter because we weren’t ready to spend >$20k this summer to replace the air handler when it went out and needed a new part. Plus my partner took 3 half days off work to get 3 quotes for it. They each told us significantly different things that we needed to do, so we couldn’t decide if we were comfortable doing business with any of them. That shit is stressful! Having the assurance that I can call just one person and someone else will take care of it is worth a good price.

So the cost of owning some units is more than just the mortgage, and the benefits of renting are more than just a maintenance person’s salary. Distilling it to just those two things is an unjust comparison.

Should a person get stupidly rich off of being a landlord? No. That’s exploitative. The cost of renting should match the cost of the property and maintenance (as averaged out over time) plus the cost/savings of the additional benefits of renting. That’s all. But that’s a lot more than just mortgage + handyman salary divided out over however many units the landlord owns.

(Also this assumes the person is actually a good landlord, and we know there are many landlords out there who aren’t.)