Hard agree. But I’m autistic, and as far back as I can remember, I’ve avoided social interactions. My mom talks about how I happily played by myself as a toddler. I also remember a neighbor kid who seemed to call constantly to ask to play, and I turned her down over and again. (She eventually back-stabbed me, so don’t feel too bad for her.)

Some people legit like to be around others. Some people can’t stand the thought of spending time alone at all. Everyone’s built differently. For me, it takes a special kind of person to make me want to socialize with them (almost always other neuro-divergent folks, where I can “remove the mask” so to speak.)

Androgen insensitivity syndrome is fascinating. Plenty of people with it grow up female and have no idea their genes are different, until they reached puberty and never get their period.

It’s a combination of the water depth, suspended sediments, and the phytoplankton population in an area. The Bahamas are on shallow waters, where the light doesn’t penetrate as deeply as it does in the open ocean. In the open ocean, sunlight gets absorbed until it reaches a depth where no light remains. On shallow waters however, especially where the sea floor is built out of white sand such as in the Bahamas, more light gets reflected back to the surface, making the area appear brighter.

Sediments and phytoplankton also play a role. Less sediment around the islands leads to clearer waters. There’s also less phytoplankton in the area. Phytoplankton, much like plants, use chlorophyll to make their food. As a result, both phytoplankton and plants reflect a lot of green light. Without phytoplankton, the area looks more blue.

This is one of the biggest reasons I never got into makeup. I remember being a teen and hearing people ask women, “Are you okay?” when they didn’t do their full makeup routine. I thought, “Man, it’s got to hurt to feel like having a natural face means something’s wrong with you. I’d rather go into the world how I am and have that be accepted as normal.”

I learned a NSFW animal fact the other day. There are some fish that care for their young by holding them in their mouth, it’s called mouthbrooding. That’s not the new or NSFW part though.

Ahh, nature. So beautiful. So like us.

This happened many years ago for me. A guy at a party was giving me massive red flags. The final straw came when he outright lied to me and doubled-down on it when I asked if it was true, just to brush it off as a joke later that same day and make fun of me for believing him. I avoided him at every friend get-together afterwards.

A few years later, after I’d moved away, I learned that the rest of the friend group left him too. Turns out he had a habit of trying to hook up with teenage girls and after some event (that I never learned the details of) brought it to light, everybody abandoned him.

God, the vindication felt good.

Maybe we can think of religion as a multi-tool. Such a tool can be used as a screwdriver, a nail file, a bottle opener, etc.

OP is saying religion has always been used for control. However, religion can be used for many other things as well, like spiritual fulfillment, moral guidance, and providing a social community. It being used for control doesn’t mean it can’t also be those things, just as a multi-tool used to open a bottle can also be used to tighten a screw.

At least, that’s the way I interpreted this situation.

Mid-Altantic region here. Every day I pass a billboard that says, “Shackled by lust? Jesus sets you free!”

Which does nothing but make me think, “I guess Jesus is into domming now.”

Lucifer, with a name meaning “bearer of light,” makes far more sense as a deity that encourages education.

Next time you feel “enlightened” by new knowledge, remember that Lucifer’s the one behind it. God would rather lock knowledge up in a tree and call its fruit “forbidden.”

I can’t wait to play this game three days straight with the upcoming long weekend.

(For the international crowd - next Monday is Memorial Day in the US, a federal holiday and one of the rare ones where my workplace is closed.)

I must be out of the loop. What does “blue dot fever” mean?

The city I live in hasn’t updated its lane designations in ages. There are numerous streets where there’s no visible line at all anymore, and you honestly can’t tell if there’s supposed to be one lane or two in a given a direction. Sometimes old lines are faded but still visible, while new lines were just lazily slapped alongside them. Then there are intersections where the lanes don’t match up with each other once you pass through - that is, you could be driving in the center lane, but if you continue going straight across the intersection, you’ll wind up in the left lane. The road shifts over without warning or guide lines on the street.

My car doesn’t have lane assist or departure warnings or any of those bells and whistles. I can’t imagine how much more difficult navigating here would be if it did.

I disagree that the rules and patterns are easy to figure out. However, I agree with your point about gut feelings and therapy.

Different people can act/react in different ways, which is part of what makes these moments confusing. Sometimes gut feelings can clue you in to things you’re not consciously aware of, but in interpersonal situations gut feelings can also be colored by your own hopes, fears, and biases. Someone who likes another person may be more likely to read another’s cues as flirtatious. Similarly, someone who doesn’t like another person may read different cues as confirming that they aren’t liked in kind.

Either way, this isn’t enough information to go on. I do get a positive vibe, but what that means can vary. She could like OP romantically, or she could like OP as a colleague and friend. Assuming romantic intent too soon can be disastrous, but building a friendship in the meantime has pretty much no downsides. Personally, I’d let it simmer for a bit and see if other signs come up before making any decisions that could jeopardize either kind of relationship.

So many people can’t even change their shopping habits to make more ethical choices. There’s no way a sizeable population is going to forego passing on their DNA just to send a message.

As a teen, I figured I’d adopt kids when I got older. The amount of people who were dead-set on “b-b-but my genetic lineage!” was startling. As I’ve aged through my 20s and now my 30s, I’ve seen them stick true to their word and have their own babies, even with the world circling down the drain. The biological call to reproduce seems to override a lot of other matters.

Now consider how hard it is to get people to quit something without a biological imperative, like shopping on Amazon…

Anyway, I admire your initiative. I just can’t imagine people participating en masse in a protest that involves forfeiting something so dear and intimate to them as their choice to reproduce.

this country allowed the idiots to breed and there are no easy way back.

It’s even worse than that. The school system is fucked. A lot of people that could’ve wound up mildly intelligent were denied the skill of critical thinking and the benefits of well-rounded education. Instead, they were taught to game tests and to obey their authorities without protest. Don’t rock the boat, don’t “talk back” when you’re wronged, just do what you’re told and keep your mouth quiet about it.

It’s no mystery why so many people rely on talking heads to direct their political opinions.

You mean even my Steam games are actual steam? Neat.

If we’re lucky it’s furry porn. I’m more worried about the non-consensual porn of real people, including simulated CSAM.

Some aircraft engines, too. The old single-engine Cessnas I trained on were air-cooled. Though that’s pretty easy when you’re pushing cool, atmospheric air over the engine at 100 knots.

I can’t help but wonder what exactly is going on here. Are the good contractors scared of ICE taking them away, leaving talentless MAGA hacks as the only ones participating in this project?

Or maybe they’re aware Trump never pays others for their work, and this is an example of “you get what you pay for”?

Or it could be an example of top-down incompetence, where the workers are faithfully following a boss’s orders, but the boss is such an inept loser that this is what following their words gets?

Or maybe the workers hate Trump and this is their small way of protesting/sabotaging his plans?

So many possibilities!

Interesting. Although users in Philadelphia can cross the river to New Jersey to buy legal cannabis, it’s only available in Pennsylvania with a medical card. I have to wonder if these cases are coming from people who bought weed legally in a neighboring state, or is it happening with people who consumed unregulated alternatives (like Delta-8) from places like smoke shops and gas stations?