Lace a specific item - one you're unlikely to forget - with laxative, then laugh directly into the face of the mystery thief as their arse prolapses into the toilet.

>>32592
Not really up for poisoning anyone. Plus, with his habit of coming home pissed out of his head and the sort of things he brings home to eat at those times, I'm not convinced he'd realise the difference.

Have you tried speaking to the housing department at your local council? I can't make any promises because it depends so much on where you are in the country, but they might be able to help you move into social housing or get a deposit. You're in priority need due to your disability and you're at risk of homelessness due to antisocial behaviour, so they have a legal duty to help you. It might be worth speaking to Citizens Advice first if you want a better understanding of your rights or need a bit of coaching on what to say.

Sorry dude, I can't help, but repost the old classic GS anthem. Hope it gets better lad.

https://youtu.be/fgmJmZIZHAU?si=rBaiYw1eH2ng6Emm

I had a dickhead housemate in an HMO about 10 years ago. He'd have loud parties and the house would be taken over by his scum friends, but I'd stay in my room and it was fine.

When it was the Christmas period, all of the tenants except him went away. When I came back on New Years Day morning as I had to work that day, I found my room trashed, with a condom and a pair of shoes (not mine) on the floor. I went to work, came back, the shoes had disappeared, and there was only one person in the house that wasn't me so it was obvious it was him. I reported him to the landlord, and he got evicted pretty fast. Got the landlord to fit locks to all the rooms, and have never stayed in an HMO since unless it had rooms I could lock.

My experience reporting to a landlord went well, but if your landlord and/or property managers are useless cunts that might not be so easy. I am sorry you have to go through this, feeling vulnerable in your own home is a terrible feeling.

Eh, I have 'numerous' scars of varying boldness, most of the larger ones are on the upper arm so usually hidden. I don't think anything of them these days, though I tend to wear three quarter length sleeves most of the time.
To be quite honest, I imagine you'd be better off to cover any self harm scars before an interview. They're difficult to miss. I mean only to be realistic, mind. It really depends on what sort of job you're aiming for though - i knew of a noticably anorexic person who landed a job tilljockeying at Tesco.

>If I do get the job they'll see them eventually so why start with false pretenses?
I don't suppose it's a false pretense, merely presenting yourself in the best light. Stacking the odds and all that. Pretty much the same reason you'd iron your shirt, brush your hair, whatever.

>What do you lads think when you see those with self harm injuries?
Achievable and/or potentially interesting, though I've only every noticed scars on females. I've no doubt I'd think less positively if I saw them on a male. Although it really depends on what the scars are coupled with in terms of identity claims - if the person is still wearing MCR hoodies and mascara, they're probably a twat.

It's a job interview, the whole exercise is an elaborate dance of false pretences. Go buy a proper shirt. And a suit.

>What do you lads think when you see those with self harm injuries?

Same as you might think of someone with forearm tattoos - low-impulse control and won't play the game of covering them up. With the addition that it's likely you're a bit tapped. I know you must think I'm a bit of a cunt but especially at an interview there's not much to go on and I'm actually always one of the more professional ones.

Ordered a long sleeve shirt. The job is pretty low status, working in customer service at a call centre for a big multinational. The pre-interview guidance says to dress formally if appropriate, but to dress informally when that is more appropriate. So not very clear. I'm thinking shirt, no tie, dark jeans, and brogues. Is that smart casual? I hope I don't need a suit to be a call centre wagie.

I've had gaps on my CV that were listed simply as a "career break due to ill health". I'm not embarrassed or ashamed to talk about my mental health, I'm happy to go into detail if I'm asked, but I want to do it on my own terms. I want to have a real conversation that gives me the opportunity to challenge stereotypes and prejudices, rather than just putting it out there and letting people come to their own conclusions. I think wearing long sleeves to an interview is a similar principle - you're not hiding anything as such, you're just taking control over if, when and how you disclose things about your health.

>>32458

>dark jeans

Chinos or tailored trousers are probably a safer bet, if you've got them.

>>32458
>The pre-interview guidance says to dress formally if appropriate, but to dress informally when that is more appropriate.

Boils the piss.

>>32373

You're sounding a bit rapey, m8.

>She mentioned about a month in that something happened in her past and things might not happen as quickly as I am used to. This didn't bother me, but I must admit I didn't think it would be this long.

Have you asked her what is was, talked to her about it? Because as I see it, if you've been patient and nothing has really happened so far, it seems pretty obvious she expects you to talk about and understand that situation she had in the past. That's about as direct as a woman will be in these matters, I know it's not obvious but woman don't really verbalise what's important to them in a relationship very often.

Obviously it would be a hard subject to bring up but I still think she will want to talk about it with you before she feels comfortable with sex. I would just word it in a way that sounds like you care about her and want to know how she feels. And if it goes absolutely tits up I think she would later appreciate that you broached the subject and open up to you

Apologies if you have already been through that discussion with her and you already know the advice I gave and if I seem like a five year old trying to advise a forty year old, but I don't see any her being comfortable with sex until you prove to her you understand her feelings on the matter. I think it's better advice at least than telling her about your boners.

> That way, she'll have a chance to interrupt him before anything gets too frightening

No. Just no. There is not just flight or fight, there is also "let it happen, you'll be safe later".

Taking a broader perspective, I'm guessing that OP's girl has either been a victim of SA or is something akin to asexual (the possibility that she's simply not that into him is also there, unfortunately).

As harsh as it sounds, it's not his duty to fix that and from his previous posts, OP self-admits to having tendencies in that vein, which might be why he's persisting with her. It sounds very much like his needs for communication, emotional validation/stability and sexual needs are not being met, which is a pretty devastating symptom considering that they're only 5 months in this relationship.

It's a bit of a generalisation, but the problem with such women is that you tend to spend so much time and energy servicing their previous traumas and emotional needs that the actual business of living a fulfilling life tends to fall by the wayside, which eventually leads to resentment when you realise that you're putting much more into that relationship than most people would, only to get far less out of it.

Of course, it's possible to tolerate and work through such issues but the obvious question would be, wouldn't it be a much better use of OP's time and effort to find a woman who doesn't carry around such baggage and would be happy to fulfill his emotional and sexual needs?

>>32377
>Taking a broader perspective, I'm guessing that OP's girl has either been a victim of SA or is something akin to asexual (the possibility that she's simply not that into him is also there, unfortunately).

That's the crux of this, really, isn't it? OP really needs to ask her why she has this approach to intimacy, then figure out if they're compatible.

I think it's a natural occurrence in everyone's life, unfortunately. As people get older, more and more of them drop out because they've got married, had kids, moved, or even just got sick of hanging out with the same friends every week. You're not doing anything wrong; life is just moving on without you until the only friends left are the unstable alcoholics who just don't want to drink alone.

Also,
>I spent most of the last 6 years being away
A lot has happened in the past six years. Not just to your friends, but also to society in general. I'm afraid you're probably going to have to just make new friends, and even then, they'll be people who go to the pub a lot less often than they did in 2017.

>>32318

No, of course it is. I'm just not really entirely sure what to do to proceed, really.

Obviously I know that hanging on for people who don't really make me feel appreciated isn't healthy, but I feel like the ways I'd make a relationship now would feel almost entirely inorganic and I'm a bit afraid of it being forced, if that makes sense.

This might seem trite because it gets said here a lot, but it's 100% true: men need hobbies and clubs.

Men aren't particularly great at maintaining friendships. That gets worse once you hit your thirties, because people take on the sorts of family responsibilities that make it harder to justify going down the pub. We need structure in our social lives, we need a thing to do every Thursday night or Saturday afternoon.

For the vast majority of older men with healthy social lives, that social life revolves around some sort of club or team. The activity itself is pretty much irrelevant, it's just a reason to get out of the house even if you're knackered, a justification for seeing your mates instead of taking the kids to the park or going curtain shopping, a gang of lads who don't need to be persuaded to go out because they do the same thing at the same time every week. We need a social life that commits us to something, or all of the other commitments in life will inevitably take a higher priority.

It might be possible to rope your old mates into something, but you would probably benefit from expanding your social circle. The withering away of old friendships is inevitably painful, but it can be a positive opportunity to broaden your horizons. As a childless man in my late 30s, my social circle has a much wider age range than it used to. Blokes my age often don't have a lot of free time, so the men I regularly see range from their late teens to well into retirement age. It's a really nice dynamic to be a part of, because there are so many different perspectives in the mix.

>>32351

>>32324

To echo what others have said, partly it's just normal as people's lives move on. You've been away for all these years, and you've missed to gradual slipping away phase, so it feels like you're just outright being rejected; but really if you'd been there the whole time you'd have gone through the process of slipping further adrift until you barely see each other. Not that you would necessarily feel any better for that, but it would at least give you a bit of context that would stop you feeling quite so alienated.

Adult life just takes its toll, gradually, I think. Even without considering kids, you tell yourself it's that you're "busy", but really it's not, it's just that you're fucking tired. I'm exactly as un-busy as I was at 23, it's just that I'm ten years more fucking tired. I don't want to go round my mate's house and get stoned until 11 o'clock and then come home to play Fallout for 3 more hours before getting up for work again at 7, I simply don't have the energy now. I want to put feet up on the sofa and nod off by about 10.

So what you end up with is a social life that's really only viable for a Friday night, Saturday, or Sunday at a real push. But the effect that has is you're pushed to split those windows between an increasingly splintered friend group, and your partner (or attempts to acquire one). Nevermind the fact you just need a day to yourself time to time, because weeknights weren't enough and you need to spend all day Saturday napping on the sofa.

It's just hard innit.

I saw one of my mates for the first time in about 6 months the other week. We had a brilliant time and I hope we will stay more in touch from now. I'm going to make an effort at any rate. But even so, I know it'll never be hanging out 3-4 times a week like we used to. Just one of those things you've got to roll with as you get older I think.

I've got a girlfriend who regularly pisses me off, but I reckon it's more like I just use her as an anger baiting mechanism, because when I look back on it a lot of the stuff she does isn't actually that bad and I was looking for the excuse to be annoyed. Although sometimes she is a complete prick too, I suppose, so I dunno. It's hard to say. I struggle with telling the difference frankly, and that in itself is something I wish I could resolve- When am I being unreasonable, and when am I justified?

Anyway what helps me is just redirecting my energy into productive things. Anger generally isn't productive. It feels good, it's cathartic to seethe about something and sit there all in a huff and rant to yourself, and make yourself feel like you're the only one who's really sensible in a world full or retards and arseholes. But it really doesn't ever achieve anything. It's more of an outlet valve for emotions that, as a male, you probably don't even have the mechanism to express in other ways.

It's trite and cliche to say pick up the weights, go for a long hard run/bike ride, thrash away on a guitar for a bit, or whatever. But it works. I feel at my best and I get angry less often when I keep myself strictly focussed on a routine of those kinds of things, and I can positively reward myself instead of seeking my little anger hit.

>>32259

Thank you lad, you've nailed it rather well. I usually get to lifting to release that frustration, but unfortunately I burn myself out on it quite often (rest days are needed, I get nagging injuries., etc.)

I suppose it's all about finding enough healthy outlets to cope.

>>32256
I knew very quickly when I met her. It took a couple more years for me to actually go out with her, and then it was very very obvious from the word go. Been almost twenty years now.

I would argue that if you have to delete all traces of an ex to "get over" them, you are not really getting over them at all. What you are doing is just avoidance. Avoidance is, in psychological terms, pretty much one of the least healthy way of dealing with something.

I've never really had an ex I was so badly traumatised by that I felt the need to do something like that, but I have noticed with female friends they tend to have a very emotional response at first where they (literally, in one instance) burn all traces of anything in their life that could remind them of the ex. I had one partner who got angry at me because she went scrolling through my Facebook page and found pictures I was still tagged in with her and so on. To me that felt totally mental- To her it was a sign I hadn't moved on and wanted to keep her around somehow, but to me it was just that it just simply never occurred to me in even the faintest way that you're supposed to do that when you break up with someone.

Now, if you are still regularly wanking over nudes of your ex, you've got the opposite problem, and out of all the memories you should want to preserve, I'd imagine there are more important ones than the out of focus titty pics she sent you when you were both drunk. But in principle I think it's along the same lines, really.

I think perhaps my own stance on the matter is that I don't see a problem with keeping them, but you shouldn't be "using" them while you're with someone else. I'd see no harm in stashing them away on some old memory stick, just in case you're single again in future and need some comforting wank fodder, and frankly just on a personal moral level I don't believe it's anyone else's business what you do with stuff like this. But it's obviously not healthy if you feel the need to keep pining over them on a regular basis.

>>32243

Except your mum.

Don't be a dick on emo.

>>32239
Everyone does this. You are normal.

>>32244
>I'd see no harm in stashing them away on some old memory stick, just in case you're single again in future and need some comforting wank fodder

OP here. This also definitely does not sit right with me, as it a) indicates a deliberate curation of the images, and b) suggests a very low level of faith in the current relationship.

>>32246

Every woman I've ever been with has been the woman I wanted to be with until the day I die, until one day she wasn't any more. You don't have to have a "low level of faith in your current relationship" to acknowledge that life has many ups and downs, and you can never say what the future may hold.

If anything you are placing unhealthy and unrealistic expectations on a partner if you truly do think they are The One, who you will love forever and that they will reciprocate it forever, and nothing will ever change for either of you. I think this is another flaw in the conventional wisdom of relationships, and in reality, you are much likely to be happy with a relationship when you can live for the present of that relationship.

You've obviously made your mind up that it's wrong to keep them, so I don't know what exactly you were even asking us for- Just go delete them. I'm only giving you some things to think about when it comes to acceptance of your (and a potential partner's) past, and mindfulness about your (and a potential partner's) future.

>>32247

I think it's okay to ask for opinions on /emo/ to see what others think, and then respectfully disagree with some of those opinions.

My questions are fairly clear in the OP, and you're right, I've been leaning towards deleting them from the start.

>>31601

Sounds to me like your current girlfriend is quite toxic, and should probably be chucked if she continues.

The long-distance girl might be a foregone conclusion, but there's no harm in throwing her a message and seeing how she responds. The worst that can happen is that she tells you to get lost, and you're exactly where you are now. But you would have more clarity about your situation and wouldn't be playing what-if in your head for years to come.

Hope you don't mind a necrobump but I want to know what happened on this one. OP's post is wonderfully written. Can you do another chapter please lad?

>>32017
OP here. If it's of interest I will provide an update, can't promise it will be of the same or similar quality, but appreciate your kind words. It just dawned on me this was well over a year ago too, wow.

So how do I continue? Well if you want the short answer, I'm still with the girl I wrote this post about. There was no mad reconnection elsewhere, no Walter Mitty moment where I ran out of the office mid afternoon and boarded a flight and no complete flip, but things have picked up significantly.

I continued for a while dreaming, and thinking, and wondering about my situation. As I let one possibility go, I was able to become more committed to the other. I continued to keep raising my issue, and was told that some of the reluctance came from some of the issues with me, and her not wanting to make the effort as she felt I didn't in other areas. I realised that there was a lot of work for me to do, and this produced dividends and she started putting in work the other way. I unfortunately went through and still am going through some sort of weird extremely anxious period of my life and she couldn't have been better. I still have days when I think about what I wrote originally, sometimes I look at my meagre savings and think I can have my run away moment but it's not likely at this moment, who knows though? I might get fired and dumped next month and have to give it a go.

I did check the on the other girl a few months ago, but she looks like she's happy in her new relationship and has been for a while. I guess all that's left for me is to try and let my dreams go somewhat and wish her a happy life.

>>32227

Booo, rubbish. I'm going to headcanon that you ran off with the fantasy girl and now live in Jamaica selling coconuts on the beach or something.

Just kidding lad, I'm glad you have resolved it in what sounds like a constructive and character building kind of way.

I sometimes do find myself thinking if the best thing about dreams is precisely that they are dreams- The "what if" is something nice to fantasize about. If the dream became reality, you'd be fantasizing about mundane English lass in mundane English city from the other side of the fence, learning to appreciate the meaning of that saying about grass not always being greener. I am often drawn to the thought that satisfaction, indeed happiness itself, is mostly an illusion- Most things are basically okay, when you really think about it, and the only thing stopping us being content with them is the abstract notion in our heads that there's something better out there. That's what stops us appreciating what we do have.

That's why I find myself still having those nostalgic wanks to all my various exes' nudes, even though they all variously broke my heart, drove me mental, or pushed me away through boredom. Soon as I can't have them any more they become desirable again. Such is the way nature of man.

Anyway, all's well that ends well eh.

>>32228
>I sometimes do find myself thinking if the best thing about dreams is precisely that they are dreams

>>32122

Not exclusively though. It can also mean something like the equivalent to a spinster, i.e. somebody who is past the point where most men would have got married, and who isn't likely to still get married.

>>32124
Yes, and a fudge-packer can also mean someone who works in confectionery, that is how euphemisms work.

>>32128


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6KJ2U9YGwE

Next you'll be telling me that people actually work in chocolate bon-bon factories.

https://xhamster.com/videos/traceys-first-anal-sex-60863

>>32131
Classic.

>>32038

>but the point is you're looking for someone you have a strong and immediate chemistry with, and when it's there, you KNOW it's there

I know this isn't particularly helpful, but I tend to take the opposite position. Perhaps it's just a sign of age, but I'm wary of chemistry and far more keen to let things slowly develop. The bit of my brain that says "I think you're amazing and I want to jump your bones right now" just isn't very good at picking people who I can tolerate in the long term. The world is full of people who are interesting and alluring precisely because they're fucking nuts.

If I see absolutely nothing in someone and just can't get a conversation going then fair enough, that's probably a dead end, but the presence or absence of a "spark" has been a very poor guide to the actual success of a relationship IME. First and foremost, I'm looking for someone who is reasonably well-balanced and can deal with adversity with a sense of lightness and good humour. In terms of the Big Five model of personality, I'm just desperately trying to avoid people with high neuroticism and low agreeableness. I'm happy to compromise on most things, but I just can't be arsed with someone who defaults to stress and resentment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

>>32039

I get where you're coming from, but I'd suggest you're over-thinking it a bit, especially if you want to bring some psychocolgy guff into the matter, as though it's at all helpful in the world of something as illogical and unpredictable as love.

I will maintain that the spark and chemistry is important, but I will re-emphasise this bit:

>For me, the question is when you spot something that might be a "red flag"; you have to force yourself to pay attention to it, and actually honestly pay attention to it, not just sweep it under the rug or handwave it.

That's the bit where most people go wrong I reckon. You find someone who gives you the butterflies, has you laying there thinking about them before you go to sleep, someone who seems dead interesting and is just as enthusiastic about you, and you get carried away with it. But you don't ever have the heart to frankly and honestly confront the fact that her being a vegan fisherperson will eventually do your head in. You try to ignore it. You found the spark, but it was a poor guide because you didn't listen to your head.

What I'm trying to say is that it works one way around, but not the other, like a valve. The initial chemistry isn't a guide or indication of a successful relationship, by any means; but I firmly believe you will struggle to find a successful long term partner without it, unless you are prepared to accept a relatively dull relationship. If dull but safe matters to you more than passion and connection, fair enough, everyone has different desires, but this thread is all about a lad who has realised that's not what he wants, and how to best avoid ending up there again.

>>32040

OP didn't describe his girlfriend as dull, but annoying. She might be dull, I don't know, but I suspect that the problem is more down to a lack of communication, a mismatch in expectations and/or a clash of personalities.

This line jumped out at me:

>maybe it's down to me refusing to open myself up to love for her

I'd ask OP whether he knows what he's looking for and what's missing from his current relationship; if the issue is a lack of trust and openness, that might give some cause for introspection as to whether you're afraid to be open with her, or you're just afraid to be open full stop.

If you think that I'm overthinking it, read some women's magazines and prepare to have your mind blown. Women spend a frankly terrifying amount of time thinking about this sort of stuff.

>>32041

Maybe, but the gist seemed more to me about the fact he ends up with girls he's not all that keen on just because he is too passive to really look for what he wants, in essence he gets with the first one who deems him "suitable" instead of being more proactive about it himself. My advice is about how to make sure you're doing that, because I notice there is a similar tendency in a lot of lads.

It's as much a matter of how difficult dating nowadays can be as a lad as it is personal preferences, so blokes are inclined to settle rather than gamble on something better. They take the offer for ten grand and they might be happy with it, but there's always a little Noel Edmonds at the back of their head saying they might have had the £250,000 in the end.

>>32042

Or, actually no, more accurately it's because at the time when they settle, their little Noel was telling them their box probably has 1p in it.

You see what I'm getting at.

>>32020
>stand my ground and tell a mate/colleague/girlfriend to fuck off and/or apologise

I think there is a middle ground for sure. I have a lot of sympathy for much of what you say, but it your emotions in this post seem somewhat bipolar.

>they're always "testing me" and I need to put my foot down to "be the man", but at times that's the only way I can honestly read the situation
>Like they want to get a rise out of me.

I think this bit is interesting and worth talking about - my experience of life is that I have never wanted a rise out of anybody - I don't think people work that way, quite the opposite - particularly if it is going to make somebody upset or angry. Maybe I am naive but most people want to avoid conflict.

>>32021

>I think there is a middle ground for sure.

Indeed, but how does one control their emotions in the heat of the moment to see it?

>I don't think people work that way, quite the opposite

In general my impression is that they don't consciously realise they are doing it, or actively want to, but that it's one of those daft subconscious human nature ways of establishing/testing a power dynamic.

There definitely are certain personalities out there who'll try to get a rise out of people for one reason or another. But the thing to do is laugh or shrug it off, if you can't avoid them entirely. It's a knack that can be hard to learn if you're not used to doing it but it's worthwhile.
Rather than 'swallowing [your] pride', try feeling sorry for them. See if you can make your internal reaction be 'Oh no, why does this person feel they have to be this petty? What turned them into this sad little thing?'. The point isn't to empathise with them so much as to realise you're a bigger person than that, you're above the silly game.

>>32006

>Sometimes I want to ask pronouns but feel like that might actually be more offensive.

Indeed, but that's the whole point of them trying to make it normal to ask, in the grander scheme of things.

It's quite ironic but the logic is essentially sound. Instead of "Terribly sorry, but I couldn't even tell what the fuck you are, so I had to ask", it's more "It's easier if we all just ask anyway, to avoid the embarrassment of getting it wrong, because we now self-consciously acknowledge that we're such a collective bunch of freakshows you're in with about a 50/50/50 chance of being wrong either way."

That and almost every single one of these people is autistic. I'm not saying that to be mean, there's a massive crossover. Autistic people love clearly defined conventions and etiquette and so on which disposes of any room for ambiguity or faux pas, and I think hat's where a huge amount of it comes from. We're not just talking about the gay or the trans community or whatever here, but a specific neurodivergent (and terminally online) subset of that subculture.

So while I do tend to think it's all a load of shite in a lot of ways, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be at least sympathetic. It's just that perhaps it would be helpful if at some point, people felt more comfortable drawing a line, and saying look, we don't need the entire of human civilisation to revolve around this tiny niche group of people. It's nice to be accommodating, but it's also nice to get on with your life without bending over backwards to meet everyone's increasingly arcane and nonsensical "needs".

I've always been fascinated by how people seem to take neopronouns more seriously than neopronoun people themselves seem to do. You could do a solid materialist analysis of it (and i'm not even marxistlad) as a natural outflow of the near irrelevance of sex or gender when you're online. This is a place where maleness or femaleness pales in importance compared to the fact that you've made a minor punctuation error or said "your" when you meant "you're". In this environment, the default "he", the baggage of "she" and the pedants who crop up for singular "they" can all melt away and for all it matters you can replace those weighty signifiers with something that vaguely implies an affinity for rabbits or cute things.

Nobody wants to look at basic status competition in small social groups without judgement - they'll see someone losing an argument and going "nice of you to ignore my neopronoun and call me 'she' btw" and assume that this must be the same political phenomenon and the same level of perceived social offense as insistently calling a transgender person by their birth gender (something which would still be fucking rude by the norms of 20 years ago) in real life. It isn't. The former is a a social maneuver on a level with going "*you're", and the people involved know this on some level. Nobody is going to drop a friend over it unless they were already looking for an excuse to drop a friend, and even then it'd obviously be a tenuous one. The latter is actually a dick move, the kind of thing that might make you re-evaluate how you see someone. One is internet fun-having, the other is being nasty in real life, and it's only in pretty small friend groups or in otherwise niche circles that you're going to find more than one person using 'bunself' or 'fae' or so on. Doing so is perfectly harmless fun on the one hand, and a fascinating outflow of the material irrelevancies of gendered pronouns in a digital environment on the other. It's the kind of thing that warrants a fascinating essay, not getting mad about how if you've gotta call this person 'her', next thing you know she'll be demanding you call her (sorry, '666') 666self.
The same applies to a lot of progressives too - some will get mad at kids playing with neopronouns because they think it makes it harder to have people use their preferred regular pronouns, as if most people who currently refuse to do so would change their tune overnight if only you'd behave bunself.

I could go on - not all neopronouns are created equal, you can set up a little hierarchy where all the hard to say gender neutral ones created by nerdy adults who can't stomach 'they' in the singular are taken more seriously than the obviously frivolous ones created by teenagers who grew up online - but it's not really worth it and would quickly become a bullet point list of tentative theories. I'm not an expert myself, it's just very obvious to me that people are looking at these things without appreciation for a raft of smaller details, sometimes because it's useful for their own cynical arguments but usually because it would require domain specific knowledge of communities they've no interest in which often peaked in activity 10 years ago. The results often feel like the equivalent of if people were developing hostile opinions about this website's culture by drawing inferences from what they half remember about Futaba Channel and Father Ted.

I don't have any issue with anyone identifying however they like, but I've always thought that they/them covers everything and is already baked into the language. People can specify if they want, but we could all just be "they" and it wouldn't make much of a difference, right?

>>32009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5qJC1xQ8A

>>32009

In English it works, with other languages it gets more troublesome. We're used to French, German and Spanish where you refer to objects by a gender, but wait until you get to Slavic where changing the grammatical cases and genders means you're more or less just saying entirely different words. In French or Spanish etc you can reasonably substitute "Ted put his letter in the (masculine) postbox", for the equivalent of "Ted put their letter in a (neutral) postbox".

But in Polish or Czech or whatever you have "Tim (masculine subject) letter (masculine verb that Tim is doing in the present tense) postbox (masculine, the object being acted upon by Tim in the present tense)". There's no such word as their or even the, because the grammar tells you it. So just try figure that the fuck out without just ending up saying "Tim is a postbox".

I feel you. I find myself in a similar place. When you're an introverted sort to begin with and you find it hard or stressful to keep up "normal" social relationships, it's very easy to fall back on things like this. But I think on some level it is definitely unhealthy.

The trouble is they can fill in for the base level feeling of wanting to hang out with someone, just that general desire for company. But you can never meaningfully interact with them, and when your romantic partner is the only one where you can do that, you're putting all that pressure onto them. That becomes even worse when the person you need to talk to someone about is your partner. You need more people than just your partner in your life, if only for the simple mercenary fact that sometimes, your partner is actually the very last person you can talk to. And frankly, this place, while we're good on some things, doesn't have a great track record for relationship advice or just general ranting.

I've been guilty of this thing over the last few years, across two relationships, where because I've become so distant with my actual mates, I don't really want to open up to them about some stuff, so I don't have anywhere to get it off my chest or get some perspective on the matter if my other half does something to upset me. So I just stew on it for ages. I internalise it and reinforce it, and the molehill invariably becomes a mountain. I can never just vent about it to someone and move on, because I don't have a healthy outlet, and my fake YouTube friends can never fulfil that role. Don't really know what to do about it. Ah well.

I'm talking about relationship stuff here because in my life, that's really the only source of occasional emotional turmoil that I can't deal with on my own. But it applies to a lot of things really. It's important to have mates. Just try and keep in touch with some of them instead of being totally estranged.

>>31947

I think you might find some useful stuff in acceptance and commitment therapy. It's all about identifying what matters to you and committing to act in line with those values. It can be really useful if you're feeling aimless - it doesn't tell you what you should be doing with your life, but it offers a clear structure for how to figure it out for yourself. I can recommend the book The Happiness Trap by Dr Russ Harris.

https://libgen.rocks/ads.php?md5=12106E52DFAACEC7F3691141137C189B

>>31945

Psilocybin and DMT are almost identical in their mechanism of action, DMT just has a much faster onset and elimination. That's a double-edged sword - it can be a massive shock if you're not properly prepared, but the shorter duration means that challenging experiences are far easier to handle. In either case, set and setting are crucial.

Small Pharma are currently running clinical trials for DMT as a treatment for depression and have some promising early results.

>>31948
I don't suppose you can do just a *bit* of DMT? So instead of having a full blown mad one, I just take a small amount and get a smaller trip?

>>31954
Smoke it instead of eating it. It's very easy to make, you can even put it in a vape.

>>31954

You certainly can, although we don't know yet if it'll have a meaningful therapeutic effect. We have some evidence to suggest that there's a correlation between the therapeutic benefits and so-called "mystical experiences". People who take psychedelics in a therapeutic setting and experience things like the dissolution of their ego, a sense of connection to the whole universe or an encounter with divine beings tend to get significantly more benefit from the treatment. It's too early to say whether this is a standard dose-response relationship (i.e. people who took bigger doses got more benefit) or whether there's something specific about those mystical experiences that has a therapeutic effect.

Some people regularly take psychedelic substances at doses far too low to have a psychedelic effect, in the belief that it has a positive effect on their wellbeing. This isn't yet supported by clinical evidence, but there are plausible arguments for and against it.

In any case, the most critical factor is being properly prepared and taking the drug in a safe, supportive environment. In clinical trials, we've found that unpleasant or frightening experiences can still have large positive therapeutic benefits with no lasting ill effects. Those patients weren't taking the drug at a party because they thought it would be fun; they had a full understanding of what to expect, they were taking it in a safe setting and had a supportive person supervising them. People don't "go mad" because of a psychedelic experience, that's not how it works, but they can get into a state of high anxiety if they aren't prepared or don't have proper support.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.917199/full%C2%A0
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211023

>>31954
Just a "normal" dose of the stuff will be an intense experience but not full-blown mystical. It's about the minimum you can do and still break through. Also it's a knack to smoke right so odds are the first few attempts won't do anything.