I do read, go for a Pokemon go walk, browse on my phone or listen to music when I get a break at work.

You can love someone romantically without wanting to share your life with them, or progress the relationship beyond casual.

You can love someone sexually but not romantically, or vice versa. And sure, you can have romantic feelings for someone and not trust your feelings because of previous experience.

Anything you can imagine, someone can feel.

I would just take her at her word. And tell her what you want, without asking her for anything. If she is not open to the kind of relationship you want, does it matter what she is feeling? I think not.

Beautiful. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful.

I agree with everyone saying its thirst. Drink a big glass of water.

I got married to my husband for two reasons. Mostly because his preference to be married was stronger than my preference to avoid it my whole life, but another big reason was that “stepfather” has more legal rights here than “mom’s boyfriend”. It was easier for him to pick my kids up from school or take them to the doctor, things like that. Same with me & his kids .

I didn’t marry my ex, 4 kids, over 20 years, we were a family. There should be (there were for us) forms you can fill out to give each other access for medical information and also to set each other as the responsible party if you are incapable. You don’t have to be married. We had to get something notarized, that was all. Find out if you can do that where you are.

FWIW I didn’t read it that way. OP describes a particular workplace not a universal situation. Maybe where he is, the women at his work are useless. That doesn’t make it a sweeping generalization, just the situation where he is. I had a boss who wouldn’t hire men because his experience was that women actually got the work done, men did not. And I had a boss who only hired men (I was there before he was hired) and when I asked him WTF he said he wanted people who weren’t afraid of him, that me & the other lady there weren’t but most women would not speak up. Those are sexist - they held universal views and even worse, based their hiring on it.

I think it’s probably because people get irritated. Not to excuse it, but it does take some awareness and tolerance and patience, just like it does for you. Not “lesser” at all, more likely just annoying, and again, just like you are likely annoyed with them.

This happened to my youngest child. They had a high school girlfriend a grade younger, but more than a year younger, so for awhile it was sketchy, we teased them, but here the laws say it’s ok as long as you are not too far apart in age, I believe it’s 3 years or less apart in age.

No man is an island. So nobody.

If you mean ‘having your own place’, maintaining an apartment on one person’s earnings? I am nearing 60, and have never lived alone. I don’t think it’s normal or usual to be able to support a household of 1 by yourself, there are economies of scale so roommates pretty much always make sense.

I do recognize how lucky I am now, to be able to see and hear and read and dance, to be living on a world with such a beautiful sky, with the biological equipment to be able to perceive it! To have no chronic pain but to have occasional crippling migraines that give me perspective on how I don’t have chronic pain.

No idea what gives you the impression I don’t know this? Do you believe all life is suffering?

I do not subscribe to the All Life is Suffering idea. Personally enjoy being physically embodied so much. My kids seem glad to exist too. We are the universe looking back at itself, it’s just so wonderful to get any time at all here to experience this.

I would never argue for everyone to have babies, at all. You have your own life, do what you want. But I don’t at all agree with extinction of all life because “suffering”. Yes that is part of life but it’s not all of it, not nearly.

“Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.”

This is an important factor, and not always a gender thing. I can be thick skinned at my work because I don’t care, if that makes sense. For whatever incomprehensible reason, management where I work thinks I do a better job than others in my department even though I give them all credit and make as many mistakes. So I say what I mean in meetings and the other ladies are amazed that I push so much, one is convinced she’s on the brink of being fired all the time, I have mostly worked at startups and never got in the habit of deferring to management and so I don’t.

That’s just work though. We don’t have much politics here. My one experience with a place like that, with complicated underlying relationships, cliques and people trying to undercut others, I was absolutely useless, no idea how anyone navigates all that. It did affect me, I did feel lost and upset and frustrated.

I got both together this year and will never do that again. 5 day headache. I have gotten them separately before no problem and will do that again but not both the same day.

I think print media is much better about this - I read a lot of indie comics and there’s plenty of women talking to women about war or other things (though a whole lot of it seems to be war), and in books too. Maybe just because there are more of them there is more variety overall.

If I understand correctly what you are asking, is there art by women that has a different perspective, then I think that answer is yes, but beyond “know it when you see it” I can’t think of a test.

This is a good question and not stupid. I generally don’t say sorry reflexively, no. But yes I seek to empathize and see how my actions affect others. If there is something to apologize for, I do, and always try to take ownership of my mistakes.

If it’s something where I feel fine about what I did and sincerely think the other party has wildly misinterpreted it, I may ask what they think, depending on if I have time and whether I know them, or just let it go if I don’t know them, because I’m sure I’ve done the same to people.

In general I think I err on the not apologizing side and on the defensive side, not on the over-apologizing and too self critical side, nor on the blamey and critical of others side.

I am from here, grew up without air conditioning, in fact even the school didn’t have it until 7th grade. The weather suits me fine, and there’s plenty good about it locally.

Honestly I can pinpoint the hour it went wrong, when Al Gore conceded, though he won. Barely. I always wish I’d landed in the other timeline.

It’s not a new thing exactly, I went to school with kids from NY and Michigan and NJ. What’s new is the ideological idiocy. I’m sure you are glad to be rid of them, but they weren’t doing as much damage up north. It’s like gerrymandering the nation.

I am registered as independent, and vote as progressive as I can.

Also WTF, until 2020, D held an edge in registration. It’s all those fucking conservative northerners who came down here during COVID. Two on my block, plus my boss are in this group. I’ve never been a “fuck off back to where you came from” person, but really, fuck off back to where you came from. May the alligators and hurricanes drive you back up north.

Are you renting them for unaffordable amounts? Maybe. But I think you can both live in the world that exists, and argue for a better one.

And I guess if your investment property is affordable housing then you are also walking the walk, right? So no I don’t think it’s necessarily hypocritical. Likely so, but not necessarily so.

We’ve rented for much less than it costs to buy a house here, in fact all of the places we rented were like that. Old houses that were paid off, that we did not want to buy, just paid to live in them month to month. Sure we can wish for a better system but sometimes renting is affordable.