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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • I don’t have kids, but I’ve dated a few people with kids and my ex-husband had a child. From that perspective, my question is always are you willing to be a step parent? If yes, go for it. If not, stay away. Even if you think it’ll be something casual, there’s always the possibility feelings will develop beyond that, and having to break up with someone you really love because you don’t want to be a parent sucks a lot more than just saying no on the first place.

    The other thing to consider is whether the other parent is still around. My ex’s first wife suuuucked. They co-parented relatively well considering how their marriage ended, but she was also a hypocritical bigot (born-again christian, shocker), which caused some friction when my stepkid was being taught things like, “we hate this person because they’re gay.” But like it or not, she was going to be around, so I had to account for that in my decision to get serious with him.



  • Oh yeah this one. Plus, wear a hat. My hairstylist found skin cancer on my scalp a year or two ago and now I have a bald spot where they removed it because scalp skin doesn’t have a whole lot of excess to close a wound. So cute. Thankfully, I can hide it, but it pretty much requires me to wear my hair up every day.

    Eta: I feel like it should go without saying, but maybe doesn’t, that I was incredibly lucky that it was basal cell, not melanoma. A big scar is one of the best outcomes I could’ve had.


  • I tried a piece of kibble when I was a kid, mostly because it bothered my mom and I thought it was funny. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. Most of my dogs have eaten pretty much whatever you offer them, except (of course) my chihuahua. She’d eat buffalo sauce but not a carrot. When she lost all her teeth, she’d eat a flavor of wet food happily for like, a week, and then refuse to touch it ever again, so I don’t think it was the food being gross as much as it was her being a picky little shit.


  • Not mine but my sister’s school - it was the first year the school was open and they had full length stalls in the bathroom. And then a couple months into the school year, a girl gave a boy a blowjob in one of them and of course they got caught. And that’s why the school got rid of the full length stalls very shortly after installing them. There were only a few hundred kids enrolled at that point, so of course everyone found out about it and any time someone mentioned that poor girl’s name for the next 4 years, it was, “oh the one who sucked [guy]'s dick?”


  • My entire career has basically been an accident. I majored in history thinking I’d be a teacher because it was my favorite subject and I was 18 and didn’t know what else I could do with my life. Three years in, I realized I didn’t want to be a teacher and most history-adjacent jobs didn’t pay a living wage, so I dropped out. A bit later, I started a temp job working for the state because I needed a job and had call center experience, did a good job and managed to get hired full time. Almost 20 years later, I’m doing work I never expected to be doing but it turns out that I like paperwork and I’m pretty good at navigating bureaucracy and explaining it to laymen. Can’t imagine working in the private sector at this point. I eventually finished my degree (in human services this time) but tbh it was mostly just so I’d have one for my resume.

    The biggest lesson from all of it for me has been that kids really don’t need to go to college right out of high school, or at all in some cases, and I’m glad the tide is turning on that to some extent. I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve done in my career and I’ve benefited enormously by not having a “dream job” in mind. Education is great, don’t get me wrong, but so is flexibility and a willingness to learn new things outside of school.





  • Oh jeez, you’re another one of those gangstalking people, aren’t you? I know there’s no way you’ll take me up on this because of the paranoia, but please see a therapist. No one here is equipped to help you with this, and if it goes anything like the last time, a bunch of well-meaning people will believe you and waste their time offering advice that doesn’t work because this is all in your head.









  • Same. I stopped eating meat in the mid 90s, was pescatarian until 2019, and have been vegan since. I don’t miss meat at all. I’ll eat an impossible or a beyond burger occasionally because it’s sometimes my only option, but I could just as easily skip them.

    I wouldn’t judge anyone else for eating lab meat, though. I don’t have any moral issue with it, it just isn’t something I’m personally interested in.


  • Definitely don’t do what I do, which is to shut down entirely, pretend it doesn’t bother you, and completely close the door on any future relationships until you’ve gotten so used to being alone that you probably couldn’t allow another person in even if you wanted to. Super healthy stuff! Honestly, being able to express that you’re sad and hurt is good. It hurts and it can feel unbearable, but it means you’re still feeling things. The last time I coped in a healthy way, I wanted to wallow in bed (and I did, some) but I made myself get up and do small things I enjoyed. Nothing big that required a lot of effort, just things like going to get lunch with my mom or taking a walk with a friend. It was distracting enough to ease the pain, and showed that my whole life wasn’t over because of a break up. The only other thing that helped was time.


  • It’s really dependent on the field. I started a job as a temp and then proved that I was smart enough to do other things, so I got hired permanently, but it wasn’t in the field I was studying, just something I ended up enjoying. There are some jobs where that won’t cut it. Whatever your dream job is might be one of those, but I don’t really believe in dream jobs, so I was open to stuff that seemed kind of weird on the surface. I learned a lot about what mattered to me in a job doing that.