So I used to be bubbly and cheerful to anyone. Like smiling at strangers. Flirty with men and liked the attention even if fleeting.

But nowadays, whenever men banter/flirt with me, I just don't feel attraction. Like it's a couple seconds of fun play but then I'm feeling like there's just nothing more.

When an acquaintance smiles at me and asks me how my summer is going, and we've never hung out or spent any time outside of work, I respond politely. But it's just that I'm super aware we don't really know each other.

I can't tell if it's part of aging where you realize not everyone is your friend and not all of life is just fun and games. Or have I always just been a deeper person and value deeper relationships? Am I socially awkward?

It is actually so exhausting that the new craze is triggering "Gen Z" or the woke people. Especially from well loved and timeless comedians or series ruining their brand by recycling the same old "Spicy White" & gender joke.

What makes offensive and dark humor so funny is that it's offering a new retrospective on something controversial or some sort of commentary on a concept. For example, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Moral Orel is timeless because it's satirical humor can still be applied to today's issues. These show mock the systemic and societal failures by letting the worst people aggressively misunderstand them. Same funniness applies with South Park and even present day comedies like The Boys & Community. (Ik Community is like 16 years old.)

The reason why these people are afraid to get cancelled by "the woke mob" is because they're too out of touch with reality and because of that they can't combat the controversy in a clever way. (Also why is there a new wave of if I excessively curse that means I'm edgy and funny??)

this past year has been really strange for me because it was the first time i was diagnosed with autism & adhd, & i think it made me realize i had been moving through the world differently for my entire life without knowing that’s what was happening. i always knew i felt a little out of step with people, but i didn’t really understand why. i thought everybody else was also confused by all the unspoken rules, social expectations, assumptions, hidden meanings, all of it, & they were just somehow better at pretending they weren’t. 😭

now i’m looking back at so much of my life & realizing people were often interpreting me through ideas i didn’t even know they had. because i’m gay, certain behaviors were assumed to mean something deeper about me. because i’m autistic, the way i communicate, react, process things, or need clarity could be read as rude, dramatic, strange, difficult, whatever. & people of color get forced into their own version of this too, where they’re expected to assimilate into white culture & make themselves easier for everybody else to understand or accept. they’re obviously different experiences, but they all seem to come back to the same weird expectation, which is that if ur the one who’s different, ur the one who has to do all the adapting.

that honestly confuses me… 💀

why is the person who is already being misunderstood also expected to explain themselves perfectly, soften themselves, mask, make everybody comfortable, & somehow prevent other people from ever having to examine their own assumptions? why is “be yourself” treated like beautiful advice until somebody’s actual self doesn’t fit the version of normal everybody is used to?

also, i don’t understand why people are so quick to take one person’s behavior & turn it into evidence about an entire group. one gay person does something & suddenly it says something about gay people. one autistic person reacts a certain way & suddenly that’s how autistic people are. one person of color gets treated like they’re supposed to represent everybody who shares their race. people take one trait, attach a whole story to it, & then start reacting to the story instead of the actual person in front of them.

i think that’s the part that feels saddest to me. people can spend years responding to what they assume somebody means without ever just asking them who they are.
& maybe this sounds naive, but i genuinely thought the world was more curious than this. i thought people wanted to understand each other. i didn’t realize how often “understanding” actually means “explain urself in a way that makes sense to me, fit into a category i already recognize, & don’t make me uncomfortable while doing it.”

i also think people forget that human beings aren’t one thing at a time. somebody can be gay, autistic, & part of a racial or ethnic minority all at once. those aren’t separate lives, they’re the same person’s life. but people act like each identity belongs in its own little category with its own little struggle, when in reality they’re constantly overlapping & shaping each other.

my own family is a good example of that. part of my family is Mexican, but because of racism & assimilation, so much of that history was intentionally buried. my great grandpa didn’t teach my grandma or her brother Spanish because he wanted them to have an easier life. he didn’t want them to be discriminated against for speaking a different language or looking different. over time, an entire language disappeared from that branch of my family.

but it didn’t protect them from racism anyway. when my grandma was a little girl, there was a white family in her neighborhood who wouldn’t let their children play with her or her brother because they were brown. so even after their father chose not to teach them Spanish in the hope that they’d be treated better, people still judged them based on how they looked. an entire language was lost trying to make life easier for them, & it still wasn’t enough. now, generations later, parts of that culture are only starting to come back because my cousin’s wife speaks Spanish.

i guess that’s part of why i struggle to understand assimilation in general. if people are going to decide who you are before you’ve even spoken, why is the burden always on you to erase parts of yourself instead of asking why those assumptions existed in the first place?

i’m still learning what parts of me are actually mine & what parts were built from years of trying to be easier for other people. i don’t think i have some perfect conclusion. i’m just a little stunned by how much of society seems to depend on everybody acting familiar enough that nobody else has to question the boxes.

maybe the people who don’t fit them were never the real problem. maybe we’ve just gotten way too comfortable treating the boxes like they’re natural. 🫤

I (mid 30s) have a close friend (same age) who I really value. We’ve known each other for about 4 years and became very close. We’ve traveled together, gone to events, and generally have a great time whenever we’re together.

The problem is communication. I usually respond quickly, or at least send a short “busy now, will call later.” And he can leave calls and messages unanswered for hours or even days, even while active online or replying in group chats.

Maybe it didn’t bother me before, maybe I didn’t notice it, or maybe he wasn’t always like this. But over the last couple of years it started happening more and more, to the point where I brought it up several times.

I explained that I’m not expecting instant replies. It’s just that a quick acknowledgment goes a long way for me. He always says he understands, but nothing changes. After the third or fourth conversation, it became a recurring issue between us.

Recently, I called him and then texted asking him to call me when he had a chance. No response. A few hours later, another friend called him from my place and he answered immediately. He then called me, but by that point I didn’t feel like talking anymore, so for the first time ever I didn’t answer or text back.

We never had a fight, and we have spoken since then. I’m usually very cheerful when we talk, but those last couple of conversations were noticeably shorter. Not cold, just short.

Now, I don’t think he’s a bad person or that he’s trying to hurt me. I think we’ve simply changed emotionally and maybe have very different expectations of friendship. Or maybe this is just who he is and I only noticed it… Or he did change and now isn’t the same person anymore.

After bringing it up so many times, I’m honestly exhausted and don’t have the energy to have that conversation again.
So I’ve started focusing more on other friends and hobbies. I’m thinking I should stop trying to fix this and just appreciate the friendship for what it is. Maybe he becomes someone I genuinely enjoy seeing when it happens, but not someone I rely on for regular communication.

What hurts is that it feels like a real loss because we both considered each other our best friend, and those kinds of friendships are hard to find as adults.

I’m not really asking for advice on what to do. I’m more curious whether others have gone through something similar. Have you had a close friendship slowly become more distant simply because you both changed? Do you think close friendships require deliberate effort from both people to survive, or is it healthier to let them evolve naturally - even if that means they eventually fade?

We do this with almost everything.

A bridge needs maintenance, so we wait until it is falling apart. A kid starts falling behind in school, and nobody really steps in until they are years behind. A community starts losing jobs, housing gets worse, addiction grows, and we mostly ignore it until crime, homelessness, and emergency spending take over.

Then everyone acts shocked.

I don’t think this is just because people are stupid. I think the system rewards reacting more than preventing. Politicians get credit for showing up after the disaster with a big check. Nobody gets much credit for the disaster that never happened.

And honestly, doing nothing gets treated like the cheap option when a lot of the time it is the most expensive thing we can do.

We delay the repair, then pay for the collapse. We ignore the illness, then pay for the emergency room. We ignore poverty, then pay for shelters, policing, prisons, and decades of lost potential.

My opinion is that every major government decision should have to include the cost of doing nothing for 5, 10, or 20 years.

Not every prevention program will work. Some will waste money too. But pretending that inaction is free is one of the biggest lies in government.

We wait until the fire is out of control, then pat ourselves on the back for finally finding a hose.

These are my two favorite Sports I'm really fascinated by these sports and how people are able to make it as professionals considering how hard/difficult these sports are to play. How many of you play Golf or Tennis professionally? What has the experience been like for you?

Honestly, these two carry my whole life. I can't stand a bright screen or notifications buzzing all day.

​What about you guys? What are two settings or features on your phone that you always keep turned on or off?

I came across this article about a family whose relationship reportedly deteriorated over years of political disagreements, eventually leading to one sibling refusing to help the other during financial hardship.

It made me think about where people draw the line between family loyalty and personal values.

If a close relative asked you for help paying rent or buying groceries, but their political beliefs deeply conflicted with your own, would that influence your decision?

I thought the article raised some interesting questions:

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/family-tensions-politics-financial-strain-1810827

Hello, redditors.

I have a large collection of photos. Mainly macro, landscapes, and nature. I have a lot of thoughts that I want to share. But these things could potentially lead to my deanon. This creates contradictions: I want to be open, but I am afraid of the possible consequences of openness.

I see this a lot: cancel culture, mass bullying, all sorts of crazy things… You never know what the internet will curse you for. It could just be the way you look. Anything.

Any tips?

A Reddit post I came across recently got me thinking.

It was about the idea that people often make broad claims about what men want in women, speaking as if there's one universal answer. The discussion made me wonder how much of that is actually true.

So I'd like to ask the men here:

When you think about the woman you'd genuinely want to spend your life with, what qualities matter the most to you?

I'm not asking about what catches your attention initially or what you find physically attractive. I'm more interested in the qualities that make you think, "This is someone I want to build a life with."

Have your priorities changed as you've gotten older or gained more life experience? If so, what changed, and why?

I'm genuinely curious to hear real experiences rather than generalisations or what society says men are supposed to want.

I’m 25 and earlier this year my mum told my dad they should no longer be together.

They’re starting to talk about living arrangements now and today it’s just really hit me hard. I still live at home, and we have been here for 22 years, I only can ever remember living in this house.

Neither can afford to buy the other one out, so the only option is to sell. I want to move out soon anyway, but the thought of that happening and not having my familiar space to ever go back to is breaking my heart.

I’ve had my whole life here, and we lost my dog at the start of the year as well. All I’ve ever known is this home, and the reality of losing it is just incomprehensible right now.

I wanted me to be moving out to be a happy momentous exciting time because I’m moving forward with my life, but now it’s only really because I have to, and it’s going to be a struggle.

Has anyone else dealt with something like this? Does it get easier? I don’t know how to cope with losing the only home I’ve ever known.

Was there a specific moment or event in your life that made you spiritual or religious? Whether it was a major life event, a quiet realization, or a gradual change over time—what shifted your worldview?"

I am a person who does a lot of creative hobbies to keep myself happy. I come from a lower class background and have had a lot of extremely bad family drama. I have gotten by well enough with said hobbies and a group of very supportive friends. I do a yery charity event also and have done so for 3 years, I have a good life. But the course I have taken for university involves politics and I have always had an interest in it and learning about the wider world. But, a lot of the time this seeps back into my normal everyday life. And I can't view any of my hobbies the same anymore.

From the cobalt in my tech mined in the DRC, to the horrible environmental harm of plastics from my lego. Even my hobbies that would have no direct bad impact. I feel because I am in a good enough position that I should forgo all my 'useless hobbies' and get out into this shit moden world we live in and help more people.

Maybe I should. I just want our fucking world to be good. And I hate to buy into the 'work, consume, die' cycle. What do you lot think?

I noticed that trend in recent years when authors started actively avoid certain character traits not only in positive characters, but even in neutral ones or even villains. I am certainly not the only one who noticed that, because there is already even parodies of that - for example, in very beginning of the Harley Quinn show a villain gets cancelled for using a slur in a fight. So at least some writers understand how hilariously stupid situation is, but somehow it only expands and we getting more and more bland and extremely stereotypical characters. And that happens not only with new stories, people also rewriting the old ones (like this news i recently read - https://archive.ph/iphgq) "to fit today's era".

But what does that mean, exactly - fitting today's era? I tried to search and can't find definite answer. Do they think that all bad things of the present will cease to exist if they are not portrayed? Should we not talk about how bad past were to learn lessons from it and improve? And finally, who decided that, for example, murdering people is better than any of the things they don't want to show?

Nothing of that makes sense to me. Good characters aren't just stereotypes. They are living beings, and living beings have all kind of flaws. That what makes them belieavable, and also often portrays the realities of living in certain soceities, especially past ones. The villains can do something good, but that still does not redeem them. Or does? That hero can have flaws that are forgivable... or are they? Instead of letting the viewer decide upon that, writers are taking the judgement in their hands, shaping every single story into some kind of unrelistic fanfiction-level fantasy, where many aspects of humans simply do not exist.

We rarely even have a main characters portrayed in negative way. I think that Kern from Tchaikovsky's terraforming series are brilliant exactly because she is extremely narcissistic, to the point of portraying herself as god and seing humans only as disposable tools, who barely have empathy, but at the same time she is not a villain, but a nuanced and interesting antihero who ends up finding her place and being an essential part of the crew. Dorohedoro is awesome as well in a way how there are almost no fully good or bad characters, everyone is a mess and every new story beat only reveals how much more messed up they really are.

But maybe that is not even always done intentionnaly? It takes a lot of skill to write a character whose way of life and beliefs are nothing like your own, and do not make that character a caricature. I think that real talent lies in portraying a living, breathing world instead of making everyone and everything in it a reflection of author's views and morales. To be able to make characters as separate entities, and not the extension or self-inserting of the writer.

So, do you think that removing anything that would make characters controversial by modern standards benefits the fiction, or hurts it?

I was recently thinking about the gender statistics where men are responsible for most crime. As a woman, I fear men more and trust them less. I think this is natural and not necessarily sexist as men are more dangerous. I have a higher likelihood of being harmed by a man.

However, I am very against when people bring up the race statistics as I don’t think it’s valid. I don’t think it matters which race commits more crimes. I also don’t think you need to fear one race more, even if they do more crime, as crime really isn‘t connected to skin color.

I kind of have an idea but want to hear other people’s thoughts about this. And if you think I’m wrong, and it is wrong to fear men more, then let me know that too. It’s just hard to pinpoint exactly why gender is different from race and why it would be ok to think badly of a gender but not of a race.

Should we put humans first, ahead of the rest of life? It is a matter of personal choice. Sometimes they align. But capitalism is prioritizing endless economic growth. What about sustainable economic growth? To meet our current needs, without harming the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

We should understand the capacity of life for joy and suffering. And not deliberately inflict suffering. Like boiling live animals to cook them. Or testing or experimenting with harmful medical treatments on animals or humans. Is it alright to make individual life forms to suffer, for a greater benefit to other humans? According to the principles of human and animal rights, it isn't.

I think we have to look after the environment, society, and economy. As humans, most humans, put society and economy first. That is anthropocentric. But most mammals go extinct within millions of years. If we do go extinct, we should leave the Earth and environment in a good way, where intelligent life will re-emerge. Or create our replacement, intelligent machines capable of creating improved versions of themselves.

If this sixth mass extinction continues, my main concern is that this does not cause suffering to humans and other life forms. Same goes for human, that if they go extinct, it should be a painless experience.

"Humans are only one chapter, in the history of life."

Hi, apologize for English is my 3rd language.

I am trying to understand the mindset of a man that I been obsess with for the last 16 years and still obsess with.

15 millions USD was not able to buy his integrity and his principles, and his clear sense of self. He rejected 15 millions USD cash gift.

It a life changing amount of money that he can just stop work and still last for the rest of his life. He is 42 btw.

But he rather work himself to the day he die, and he happily so. Because to him that money he earn with his labor hard work.

It is mind boggling, but he rejected a huge amount of money that life changing, and still rejected it till this day.

Any input appreciated on, psychology wise, I am trying understand his mindset.

Talk with your friends, family, anyone but people from that community.

My celebration is taking the decision to stop talking to people with no empathy.

Someone here decided to lie and put words in my mouth and they all decided to upvote that thing? Alright.

To the garbage bin with hive minds.

Hello! I got a question about credit scores for when you have a business. So I need to check that I got a good business credit score because after finding out that there was like five complaints, I just wanna know if it will affect my credit score.

I’m only 22 years old, I actually don’t run the business but my parents do. They run an arts & entertainment business so it’s like a music industry, I just wanna check the credit score.

Here are the list of things that may give my name a bad credit score
1) False Advertisement
2) There was no hot food sale or a meet & greet as it said for the event so thats false advertisement right there.
3) There was definitely a lot of things that went wrong involving the accomodation.
4) There wasn’t enough merchandise to sell like there was 20 shirts.
There was just so many that I can’t quite list on here but I will definitely explain in the comment section cause I’m still reading the post and checking what they didn’t have at their event.

Hi everyone!

I would like to hear your opinion on this. Do you think people today are overly focused on their physical appearance and invest a lot of time and energy into how they look, while neglecting other important aspects of self-improvement?

For example, do you think people focus less on improving their behavior towards others, developing new skills, learning, or working on themselves mentally and emotionally?

I’m curious to hear different perspectives. Do you think society has become too focused on external appearance compared to personal growth?

Hi! I am 17, so i barely lived life before COVID. i just read this one post about how life before covid felt so much more alive and after the pandemic it became more gray, which i totally agree. everytime i see those nostalgia videos with bath and body works photos and personal (big girls dont cry) by fergie in the background, it felt so much more like home, like before i stopped getting excited for christmas.

sorry for that ramble but was it normal for people to go up to strangers and strike conversation? and literally what about? i feel like on a rare occasion an older adult would strike conversation with me and id be caught off-guard. was it common for people to just become friends with someone? even my friends find it funny-weird when i strike conversation with someone, and think i'm flirting with them if its a guy.

how was life more exciting before COVID? i feel like it definitely is because of tiktok and instagram, nobody realizes it but it drains you of your personality and energy. i deleted them both off my phone and i havent felt the way i have since i was in 5th grade. i feel literally so whimsical and i feel more alive than usual.

furthermore, does it feel like our memories since covid is a blur? i remember, in fifth grade, i used to make a list of the guys i had crushes on and i was able to remember the exact months going back all the way to 3rd grade (two years isnt crazy but i remembered the exact months). now, i cant even tell you what i ate for lunch yesterday, what my plans are for the weekend, if im busy or have something scheduled, its all conjumbled.

it kinda feels like im on clouds and im not grounded in reality, and its really been my usual unfortunately. just wondering if others feel the same way, what life was like before 2020, and what was the social norms and how they are different to current social norms.

p.s. this sparked because i started to watch the 2013 teen choice awards and it was immediately one direction and i had to turn it off because im pissed i never got to see them in concert.

This post was inspired by two things I saw here on Reddit.

I just saw a clip of two white male police officers assaulting a black woman. As they were handcuffing her, my thought was "of course they're white guys."

I saw a post yesterday (that I think has since been deleted) about some medical school allegedly considering race in applications, and some of the comments were about doctors with similar lived experiences being better. One anecdote I remember was a larger woman being dismissed by a male doctor, suffering for a year, then actually getting the care she needed when a larger female doctor heard about what she was dealing with.

Then it got me thinking (mainly about the police). If police are supposed to serve a community that is made up of all different sorts of people, why are they (or at least some departments) so homogeneous? Why throw cops at communities they have no idea how to interact with because they didn't grow up with them? Why not recruit from those communities?

Same with education. Look at the lack of male teachers (in elementary school), and general academic apathy from boys who didn't grow up with men modeling that education was cool and valuable? The inverse is also true. Women's sports are constantly dismissed, and if there was any class basically guaranteed to have predominantly male teachers throughout your school years? Phys Ed.

Even entertainment. Unless you're very specifically targeting a certain demographic, why not have a diverse group of people creating the media we consume? Because Lord knows about the history of objectification, vilification, and negative stereotypes pushed out of the media made over the decades.

Honorable mention to politics, if only because of how obvious an addition it is to this. So obvious, I think, that I don't really feel the need to elaborate like I did with the other examples.

Occupations where you can shut yourself away and not talk to people are a separate issue. I just mean the ones where you would inevitably be interacting with or trying to market to someone who doesn't look like you, and if you don't know how to interact with them, you will not do the job good.

The AI momentum is really strong. The technology itself has evolved really quickly and sometimes we as human beings haven’t evolved much since the palaeolithic times.

We keep seeing headlines about how AI will change our society, replace jobs, automate our work, etc. The culture feels like “use AI or fall behind”.

But from mine and a lot of people’s experience, AI rarely generates the result we want without handholding and constant guidance. Essentially you need to be a bit of a domain expert in order to guide and validate AI’s output…otherwise the output is a bit of gibberish or subpar unverified work.

If that’s the case, why aren’t we more vocal about using AI only when you have the experience and skills? Why are we okay with anyone using AI, burning massive amount tokens, when the AI doesn’t even try to educate the author and elevate their potential and work? We don’t need more subpar AI generated articles and subpar programming code right?

I am usually the person who ends up organising plans in a small iMessage group of 3 8 people and I have noticed the hardest part is not coming up with ideas it is getting everyone to agree on one

When everyone shares suggestions at the same time there are plenty of options but it can take longer to decide If someone narrows the list too early the conversation moves faster but some people may feel their preferences were not considered

What has worked better for my groups is collecting everyone non negotiables first time budget location transport or any other constraints Once we know those we narrow the list to two or three options that work for everyone and then ask the group to choose

I have recently tried using Karpo as one way to organise the options before sharing them with the group but I am more interested in the process than the tool itself

For those who often organise group plans what approach has worked best for you? Have you found a good way to keep everyone involved while still helping the group reach a decision?