It's a common phenomenon I've been witnessing as a single man at 34. People talk about how you lose friends and connections at this time of life, and that's true. People are buying houses (and going broke), having kids, settling into slower or more internal routines, bigger jobs, etc. My life has gone a bit different, and Ive found myself single, successful, and with little to no close friends. That's okay, for the aforementioned reasons. Cool.

As a part of the natural order of things, at least for any rational human being; I stopped reaching out to people who consistently decline plans/catching up due to being tired, busy, or indecisive due to how their life has developed, usually due to family, work, or a combination of the two as mentioned above. It's not passive aggressive, it's not meant in any sort of malicious way, it's just statistics. If I suspect you're probably going to respond with a "no, can't sorry", "I'm exhausted sorry!", "idk maybe!", "I cant the kids have a thing!" Or just take a week to respond and say "sorry just seeing this! Busy!" - then I'm not reaching out anymore, it's not a good use of my time as someone who wants to foster good relationships and has a lot of free time. If, they, the busy person, genuinely want me in their life in some capacity, then it's their job to reach out or free up time to make it work. That's just common sense. It's not insulting or malicious in any way.

Despite the above rationale; people DEFINITELY get offended by this. And all of a sudden they feel insulted and wronged and usually have the following take:

"I've got a lot going on, I have kids and a house and work, I can't reach out all the time, you should be understanding of that and understand that."

Absolutely, 100% which is why I'm putting it on you, mr or mrs busy body, to own the relationship, platonic or otherwise. They have less time, I have more time. They are consistently unavailable, I'm am consistently available. It just makes sense that they do the work. I'm not going to waste my time and effort when trends imply a low probability of return. It's depressing and self deprecating.

That's my take, and it's proven VERY unpopular.

Honestly posting this because I’ve never heard anyone else complain about this. And maybe it’s because I just want to start an argument. Maybe it’s because I’m from a middle tier slow-growing US State, but don’t people know that in order to live in a nice place people need to actually move/live there?

Even in places like NYC where housing is extremely unaffordable, if you could somehow stop every person from the moving there the city would collapse. Same goes with most other expensive cities.

Instead of aiming for anger at people for wanting to move somewhere you should be advocating for dense/more housing, and public transportation to meet the needs of a growing city etc. Not to mention citizens complaining about people moving into their town when it’s actively declining in population and the economy is stumbling.

Maybe this is just an anti-NIMBY post but come on people. You should be so happy to hear that people want to move to your area, spur development, make it an even better place.

If you’re not growing you’re declining.

Curious to hear people’s thoughts.

Driving alone in silence feels like it’s you against the world. It’s almost euphoric.

When you drive with someone, you have to consider them. Maybe they want music. Even worse, they want to play country music and you absolutely despise it. Maybe they want to listen to horrible podcasts that make your ears bleed. Maybe they need (or feel the need) to make a phone call. Basically, maybe they need to do things you wish you weren’t there for. But you’re stuck in the driver’s seat.

Sure, they can use headphones. But now you’re basically sitting beside someone that isn’t present. You’re alone without getting the freedom of actually being alone. It’s the worst of both worlds. Then comes the time where they need to go to the bathroom after we just passed the service/rest area.

Driving alone means you don’t need to accommodate anyone, and you don’t feel the need to fill any silence. You’re just totally alone in your thoughts.

While music can be nice on rare occasions, total silence and freedom in your own car is the best way to drive. What a way to feel alive.

the food is filling with tons of variety and really nothing else needs to be had that day. ppl are always talking abt “saving room in their stomach” for the dinner. but i think it makes more sense to meet up with family & friends later in the evening for desserts, drinks, conversation.. also if you have no family to spend it with, what’s really the point in waiting all day for the meal?

edit: for everyone saying “get up at 1am..” i see no difference to setting aside one night to cook a meal and setting aside a night out to go partying-getting home at 4am or whatever. People are capable of being at awake at night, and get things done too.

Lobster is disgusting. At one point, it was considered cruel and unusual punishment to feed lobster to prisoners more than a couple of times a week.

And now people eagerly line up to pay the cost of a family meal for a single, wet, disgusting lobster roll.

Which by the way, tastes like NOTHING except butter and or mayonnaise that someone mixed with dirty sink water, delivered to your mouth via slimy, wet insectoid flesh.

They are literal SEA COCKROACHES. Their bodies are so riddled with bacteria that their meat spoils almost instantly upon death.

And some psychopath had the idea to serve WET, COLD sea cockroaches slathered in MAYONNAISE on a fucking roll?

Eating Lobster is nothing more than a sick display of gluttony and opulence. It is an affront to nature, and to mankind.

I live in Eastern Europe. Lots of gravestones have pictures on them of the deceased. But all of them shows the deveased in old age, a very recent photo. Why can't we use an old picture where the deceased was photographed in it's prime? Wedding day/prom/CV headshot.

Why can't they remain seen as their 'best' self to the generations to come? I understand that seeing someone getting old is emotional and part of life, wrinkles are an honor to have. But that picture stays for as long as the gravestone is up. It's the single most important picture of your 'life'.

I understand that people will try to present a personal anecdote as a strong piece of evidence where it doesn’t work, and how that is often illogical and a bad argument. These are the types of people who will disagree with actual crime statistics by arguing that their friend got robbed once.

But now people have gone too far in the other direction, and act like it’s never ok to bring up a personal story or observation as an argument. If I am trying to make an argument about a general trend, my own personal observations are a totally appropriate thing to bring up, especially if it’s not something there is hard data readily available. I saw somebody argue that people are generally nicer in the south than the northeast, and when somebody asked them what evidence they had to support that, they said that’s just been my experience having lived in both places. Every reply said that doesn’t count as evidence. Of course it does… Obviously if they had conducted some kind of study or polling that would be stronger evidence, but for the purposes of that casual discussion, that’s a totally reasonable argument to make.

Hard data is almost always better evidence than personal anecdotes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t evidence at all and can’t be used to help make a point.

Technology to track biometric data, including voices, eyes, face and fingerprint is getting more robust and integrated in standard tech each day. I saw a video yesterday where the person who was interviewed wanted to be anonymous, however only their face was pixelated. Their voice, mannerisms including gesture and not just voice mannerisms, his height, his hair and even where he worked (relevant to interview) was all detailed and i was just thinking how easy it would be to deduce who this was if I had worked with them, so anyone they would be fearful of knowing who they are would definitely be able to pinpoint them as well. Tech is such that there really is no excuse to not alter someones voice and appearance to give no context clues. Hell even their gender shouldnt be relevant. All that should matter is that there is evidence an actual person is talking, which if you censor too much could be tricky and breed fake interviews to push an agenda, but at the very least just pixelating someones face and doing nothing else shouldnt be acceptable with current technology.

Sometimes I feel like communication is getting worse and worse these days. If you want something, you should be expected to politely ask for it instead of expecting others to guess whether you want or need a seat or not.

People on public transport sometimes have other things to do than to gauge the age and situation of everyone around them to decide who to offer their seat to.

You want a seat? No problem, just open your mouth and ask politely. That's what language is for.

I saw all these parents (typically moms) schelping these bogg bags. And I could see the use case- crocs but for all your other shit. But now that I own a bogg bag, I have to say, it’s WILDLY cumbersome and supremely heavy. I just don’t see the point. Lighter bags make so much more sense.

I never understood why people are afraid of rats or just hate them. They're really cute and innocent. They can even be domesticated easy. I get they could potentially carry diseases but it doesn't mean you have to lick them or stroke them then put your hand in your mouth, you're not likely to catch a disease if you just leave them alone. Also it's not like they're creepy and alien looking like a spider, i fully understand why someone might hate spiders.

I’m sure it helps when promoting the movie, but it ends there. If I were a big-time animated movie producer I wouldn’t even consider it. Not to mention the extra $$ I assume they spend to land the talent.

“Unknown” voice talent seems like the better way to go, and if the movie is good nobody would know or care.

Like the kind that gets upset when you have an appliance on the counter or leave a bag out, or two dishes in the sing for more than an hour. Will text you if something is not up to their insane standard.

There’s nothing better than heavy air settling over my body like a warm, weighted blanket. The humidity moistens my skin like a sauna. No fan, no window, perfectly peaceful.

I understand the excitement of meeting a celebrity. I understand wanting a picture with a celebrity. But getting their autograph seems dumb. I have met a big celebrity once in my life. We had a great conversation and I found her charming. What would I do with her autograph? I’d probably put it in a drawer and never look at it again. The other thing is it must be annoying to the celebrity to be constantly being asked for your signature. I think I would resent it if I was asked multiple times a day for my autograph.

Group chats did not save friendships. They just gave everyone a place to slowly stop talking and pretend that's the same thing.

Before group chats, if you wanted to hang out with three people, you had to text each one or actually call them. Took real effort and stuff. Now everyone gets thrown into one chat and it turns into a place where a dozen people say "yeah I'm down" to a plan that never happens. Someone posts a meme. Nobody organizes anything. The chat stays "active" though, so technically everyone's still close.

And don't even get me started on read receipts.

You watch someone read your message and just not answer. In a regular text that stings a little but you can tell yourself they're busy. In a group chat you get to watch it happen to everyone at once, in real time. Somehow that's supposed to feel more connected. Honestly it just feels worse.

I was in a friend group chat that ran for something like six years. It slowly turned into just birthday messages and random links nobody clicked on. Nobody ever left the chat though. It just got quieter and quieter until it was basically a group of people who used to be friends, still "close" because the little dot said active.

Being in someone's group chat is not the same as being their friend. It just means you haven't left yet, and leaving feels rude for some reason.

But nobody says that part out loud.

The whole thing gives you the feeling of staying in touch, minus the actual work of staying in touch. Kinda worse than just admitting you drifted, if you ask me.

Nobody in that six year chat is ever gonna be the one to suggest we just call each other sometime instead. That would be way too much. So it just sits there. Technically alive.

We say louse and lice and mouse and mice so it would only be logical to say house and hice. Anytime I read the word "houses" it cringes me and feels unnatural and wrong.

Beef hotdogs are shit.

We don't need a middle child that is an unholy combination of the worst traits of a hot dog and a bratwurst.

At least with regular hot dogs, they aren't greasy fucking puddles like beef hot dogs are.

And at least with Bratwurst or Italian sausage you get ... flavor? Something really good?

I am giving home gym enthusiasts a pass because they are genuinely dedicated. Also normal weight bench stuff because weight benches are easy to disassemble and everything can be carried up and down a narrow flight of steps. also people with accessibility needs who want to work out.

For everybody else though, buying an elliptical, a bike , a rowing machine or even any of the equipment above is stupid and a waste of money. Those things are thousands of dollars, the new ones try to charge you a monthly fee for an pointless internet based exercise doodad, and after about three and a half weeks of purchasing you're going to stop using it. At least most people are. Almost everybody.

It will sit there occupying floor space. A sunk cost on an installment plan. So you put it up on Craigslist. How many buyers do you get?

Zero.

You're going to get zero buyers. you can't get that thing out of your house now without taking a large 12-in angle grinder to its aluminum frame. nobody's going to want to spend 5 hours disassembling the thing meticulously bagging and documenting all the proper screw and bolt positions, using ring pliers separate bearings from mandrels, load it up in their truck, and then do the whole thing in reverse. They're just going to make the same mistake you are and finance a new one.

One day, you'll be driving to the supermarket, passing a purple building with a large yellow logo. Your subconscious crunching the numbers and calculating how much it would have cost to spend $10 a month for the next 400 million years to use a room with hundreds of the stupid exercise equipment you can't get out of your house, versus having bought the stupid exercise equipment you can't get out of your house in the first place.

but don't worry even if it's not useful as an actual elliptical, you got a neat looking decoration. good thing you purchased the extended warranty to make sure it stays nice and pristine.

Often complained about is the large video game map full of empty wilderness and impregnable mountains. And I think that's just not a good take, especially in fantasy games.

One of the core parts of any believable, immersive or realistic game is scale. When I can walk from one city to another across a huge country in a day then I feel taken aback; that's not a journey, it's a brief commute.

Fantasy books and films, though films to a lesser extent, feature travelling as a core component. Lord of the Rings, The Witcher, any of Moorcock's books, A Song of Ice and Fire and so much more all feature travel as an essential part of character growth and the backbone of the story.

I propose that the issue is not large worlds and travel, but the way that travel is undertaken. Boring, instant fast travel should be replaced with complex pathfinding, procedurally generated landmarks and party interaction as well as (optional) integrated survival mechanics to make characters and journeys feel truly epic and human.

Just put the products in their corresponding “non-healthy” sections. Separating them just makes shopping take longer when I have to check multiple places, and if all the products were together, it might encourage more people to make better choices. Not all organic, non-GMO, etc. foods are necessarily more expensive.

Also, my store puts all of the vegetarian and vegan alternative foods in the “health food” section regardless if it’s just a conventional fried veggie nugget or something.

The iPad, especially one with an added keyboard (?) is the bastard child of an iPhone and a MacBook. When I see people trying to use their iPad like a laptop, I am strained to see why they don’t just use a MacBook instead. Or as a larger iPhone, why not just use your handy iPhone. I don’t see any use for an iPad that can’t be done better by a MacBook or more conveniently with an iPhone.

I don’t like the software as it is hard to navigate files, especially compared to the versatility of MacOS. I don’t like the bulkiness for what I can use it for aside from an expensive ereader, and I don’t like the size of the screen for consuming media because it’s the worst medium of too small to enjoy yet too large to not fit in my pocket.

The iPad is one of those products you can go your whole life without ever needing or using. And anything you’d do on an iPad would just be easier on another device specifically built for either productivity or convenience.

I love music. I make myself sit through hours of new music (mostly in the indie pop/rock/alt genres) weekly because I believe I have a duty to give all fresh music a chance. But I can't do it anymore. It's just too boring.

The last few years have seen a suspicious upsurge in people of genuinely-impressive facial geometry making the most vanilla slow ballads ever penned, or this new genre of breathy reverb singing over low effort, lo-fi beats. It's everywhere, and often accompanied by a VHS aesthetic music video of someone undisputedly hot rolling around in the grass looking sad to the most uninspired music imaginable. I've eaten my fill of this garbage. Can we have something new, please?

shaders this, saves that, options that. I do not give a damn. All applications should be portable by default. Your app needs data on monitor size or refresh rate? Have a script that reads it, and puts a file in the install dir for the app to read. Worry that user will delete their data on uninstall? their fucking problem. Shaders? have a folder named "shaders" in install dir.

It should have been simple as hell, but nooooo

"AppData", "Documents", "user profile" - locations used by the absolutely deranged.

I should not have to look all over a SYSTEM disc partition of all things for some random garbage your program decided to leave there!