In college I had a guy friend (I’m a guy, both of us straight) who I’d regularly go to breakfast with, and he always paid because I was very poor, he made plenty, and he wanted company for breakfast. I regularly tried to pay and he waved me off. I think he knew that if we went back and forth, we’d go to breakfast a lot less because I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Maybe that’s what’s going on here.

I’m 42 and it has worked out pretty well so far, honestly.

I joined the military, got good reviews (called “marks” for us), and tested well when I tried. Now I make good money, have the support of a lot of people in different departments and largely able to work on the projects I want, have gotten my #1 pick for station every time I have had to transfer, and will be retiring in 4 years with a bunch of ties to the community to keep me involved with things I enjoy after.

I get a lot of this is luck, and privilege (e.g. not everybody can join the military), and other factors. And regardless how hard I worked, many things ended up being popularity contests, so I missed some opportunties that way. But at no point did I feel like being nice and hardworking worked anything but in my own favor.

Pretty sure the ones at my work (only by the higher-ups and the people responsible for ordering stuff) don’t have presets. So since my desk was just outside my boss’ boss’ door, whenever he was out I would pop in and move his desk halfway up. That way, every single time he walked in to use his desk, he’d had to move it whether he wanted to stand or sit.

I didn’t dislike him or anything. I (and every person I told to do it when they went into his office) just thought it was funny.

This is an open ended attempt (with some frustration) to try to under why members of the community do certain things.

I am fine with not commenting in women-only spaces, but that is very much not what OP is trying to do. OP is venting and using a rhetorical question they don’t seem to particularly want an answer to. Is that “requesting support?” Does that extend to emotional/moral support?

I think if the OP is complaining about not following the rules and spirit of a community when posting, it seems appropriate to point out if they are violating the rules (and spirit) of the community they post it in.

Look, I’m not about to post comments myself in those places, but happening upon one recently after a previous post like this, I noticed how poorly the rule was displayed.

Each post should have a stickied mod comment at the top stating commenting is for women only. Otherwise it’s easy not to notice what community the post is in that you’re responding to, especially on mobile.

You can expect people to know the rules of any community before posting, or take the time to look, or whatever, but the only person you’re hurting is yourself for having those expectations.

If your community is public, the onus is on you (or rather, the mods of the community) to make it as clear as possible what the rules are, if they exclude people or go beyond “be civil.”

I had to explain to people that I relaxed after a few drinks because the more I drank, the less was going on in my mind. It’s like one of those annoying user interfaces that pulls up a description box every time you mouseover anything, except it’s analyzing things or hypothesizing about stuff, or going down some rabbithole hased on something somebody said. All while 1-3 songs are going on in my head.

I’ve managed to quiet most of it down as I’ve aged (and realized that exhaustion, which was my constant state, horribly exascerbated the issue). But my mind was exhausting to be in, so being out and overstimulated without something to dampen the inner voice was torture.

In simple terms they understand.

If they’ve baked cookies with you, you tell them the daddy gives some of the ingredients, the mommy gives some of the ingredients, and then the mommy is like the oven, and makes a baby over 9 months in her belly.

There were no further questions for years, and my kids knew that they came from mommy and daddy, and that they grew in mommy’s belly. The older they get, the more specifics they get, and if they’re old enough to ask a specific question, they’re old enough to get a specific answer.

And her brother’s name?

DeNephew Crosby.

I wonder if crying will pull a boat for me.

This is a good opportunity for a meme template.

a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,

And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn’t moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially “downsizing” to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young’uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren’t in a position to buy a house and wouldn’t want to.

This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.” Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.

First, that doesn’t solve the problem because then somebody else has two units in one building.

Second, downsize… from a four bed to a three bed? Not sure what sense that makes. Our needs won’t have changed dramatically.

Another piece that I didn’t mention is that I’m in the military, in a place with 3-year tours (so fairly temporary), and the young single people who arrive usually don’t wany anything too permanent, and are not in a position to buy. But I do know what their allowance for housing it, so I would be able to charge less than their allowance for housing, meaning they would get money out of the deal (and stuff is expensive here, so I’m not sure how they live anyway), and I get a respectful, reliable tenant (and we could offer home-cooked meals to whoever stays).

I know it’s a unique circumstance, and an exception hardly disproves the rule, but I don’t think “there’s no such thing as a good landlord” is a true blanket statement.

there is no such thing as a good landlord.

Okay, I’ll bite. I just bought a 4-bed/3-bath (actually 4 bathrooms, but bathroom math made it “3-bath”) because we are a family of four in an expensive tourist spot and wanted a guest bedroom for family and visitors. It just so happened one bed and a 3/4 bathroom is in an attached 1-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen and living room.

So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately. So the choice is be a landlord, or don’t offer housing (I suppose I could make it an AirBnB and make even more money, but this area is already fucked for housing for that reason).

So if there is no such thing as a good landlord, what would you recommend in a situation like this? Let someone live there for free? Then they’d be costing me money. Don’t rent it out? AirBnB?

I’m with you on words just being words. But there is one factor, especially in ongoing relationships (romantic, platonic, familial, whatever), that makes apologies important.

I don’t care about the feeling bad or the words or whatever, but I do care about acknowledging wrong-doing. Because if they haven’t apologized, they might not think what they did was wrong, and there is absolutely no reason to believe if the situation came up that they wouldn’t do it again.

Now, don’t get me wrong, plenty of people apologize and then do the thing again. But if they don’t even apologize, it’s practically guaranteed. The apology just sends the message that you and they are on the same page about whatever it is.

I assumed it was a smoker

Right? I’ve gotten “Aren’t you worried about going to Hell?”

Just… no.

I live on an island in Alaska, so my Amazon alternatives are usually Walmart, maybe Target… not a lot of others. If I can buy direct from the company I will, but a lot of times Amazon is the only real option (and no option to buy local).

I definitely blame the system for allowing all that illegal voter suppression.

And I definitely blame Democrats for being such a shit party and doing such a shitty job.

But I also blame people who didn’t vote, or protest voted. They still enabled what is happening, and commentary on how the Democrats didn’t woo you (not you you, the “you” that is making the argument) to their side is childish. The time to hit hard on making change to allow better options is in between elections, not when the choice is full-on fascism and significantly less fascism.

And those of us still harping on the point is because the no-vote people still don’t think they did anything wrong, and will continue the behavior in the future. And frankly, as small of a chance as there is, we’re more likely to convince those people to vote next time than we are to, currently, convince the government to fill the systemic gaps in or convince the Democrats to… stop being… what they are (though some are making some headway there, which is great! Let the Leftists take over the Dem Party they way the Teabaggers took over the Republican Party!).

I haven’t felt lonely in many years. I kind of miss it (or at least the opportunity). What little time to myself I have is so precious.

It’s like spending your childhood occasionally stuffing yourself so full you feel sick and miserable, but the rest of the time at least feeling well fed. And then you hit adulthood, get poor, and every chance you get to eat just takes the edge off the hunger.

More of a respect-loop, but my world history teacher in high school would sit at his desk and all of us would chat or whatever until he was ready to start the lesson. Then, without saying a word, he would get up, walk to the front of the class, and sit on the stool there, and within seconds the classroom was silent with every student looking at him. The man never raised his voice (unless he was telling a story), and ultimately never needed to. He didn’t believe in homework, because he respected our time. He never talked down to anyone.

He got respect, behaved in a way that justified that respect, and got more respect. It was inspiring.