Everything will be okay and I’m proud of you.

Someone else pointed out I was really uncharitable with reading your post, just wanted to apologise. I’ll leave my crappy response up for some good ol public shaming

I think that’s part of it but less and less so nowadays and especially the younger generation. I think the aversion to physical or emotional closeness is more cultural memory at this point than homophobia, but it might still play a part. Like someone else pointed out, I think a big part of it is just wanting to feel a bit special but just not having existing avenues for support

Oh yeah you’re right. I thought they were being sarcastic at points where I see they weren’t. Sorry about that

The question I posited was: if all signs point to men and women having equal amounts of sex, why is there no “female loneliness epidemic” but there is a “male loneliness epidemic”? I posit that the reason we think of sex as a benefit for male loneliness therefore can’t be quantity of sex but men must be getting something from sex that women either don’t need or are getting elsewhere. Since scientific evidence points toward gender differences being social and not innate, there must be something women are doing different socially that leads us to think of men as a population as in need of sex or intimate relationships but not women. I’m presenting a neutral logical argument here by way of discarding illogical conclusions, not accusing anyone of anything or implying that the comment above me was accusing women of being too promiscuous. I just wanted to ask the question of why are straight men lonely but straight women not lonely even though logically the two populations must be dating and having sex at approximately equal rates

Assuming a roughly equal number of straight men and women, either a large amount of women are consistently sleeping with a small number of men or the same number of women are not having sex as men. The former is a pretty common incel assumption that would require women to be a hive mind, so imo the latter should be more true. In my experience as someone present in both male and female social circles, women tend to feel a lot more emotionally supported in platonic relationships while men tend to expect more emotional support from a romantic partner than a platonic friend. I think as a result, men tend to associate physical intimacy with emotional intimacy because they aren’t really getting either from their non-romantic relationships. You can see this in the way platonic men are so much less likely to hug each other or hold hands or cuddle than platonic women. So to me, OP is actually onto something with their original assumption. Not getting laid isn’t as much of a problem for women because they don’t expect as much emotionally from sex and romantic relationships since their emotional needs are fulfilled elsewhere. Imo, male loneliness isn’t so much a problem with modern dating or with women as a problem with the fact that social expectations placed on men are preventing men from feeling fulfilled outside of romantic relationships and sex. In conclusion, hug your bros and tell them everything will be okay and you’re proud of them.

Yeah, I think this article is way too far into the weeds. A lot of the comments in this thread are starting to sound a little too much like the right wing conspiracies we saw coming out of the 2020 election. And I get it, we’re all looking for ways to prevent this from happening again.

I don’t think there was any fraud–bar the usual voter suppression and sleazy tactics the Republicans engage in. Voter turnout went way down for the 2024 election compared to 2020. Had there been wide scale vote tampering, I doubt they would’ve let the total number of votes for Trump go down. Besides, the 2020 post-election bullshit lawsuits showed that our voting system is relatively secure and it’s quite difficult to fabricate votes. The unfortunate reality is that Trump voters really are just that dogmatic and close minded to keep voting for him

You’re very right. Dick move of them to hear about Skyblivion and instead of thanking the heavens for plopping a marketing opportunity for minimum effort, went “crush them out of principle”.

I trust the Skyblivion team more than I trust Bethesda

Yes, thank you. I feel like since the AI boom people have forgotten that the purpose of school isn’t just to teach kids to regurgitate facts

Honestly the thing I’d be most worried about is that kids at that age are learning important social and language skills. Without an adult in the room to interact with, who are they going to learn that from?

Return of the Obra Dinn. Indie darling puzzle game where you are an insurance adjuster working on a recovered ghost ship. Very thematic and satisfying to take notes by hand

Edit: whoops someone already mentioned it

Yeah if I ever give it another go I’ll definitely check it out even if it’s a little janky. I liked the intro but after the first few missions I gave up. The POV thing was such an unreasonable thing to be a deal breaker, but I really just couldn’t get immersed after spending so much time making my character and then not seeing them as part of the world

Honestly the fact that the game puts such an emphasis on customizing your character and then is 1st person all the way through annoyed me to no end. Thanks for the recommend, didn’t know there was a mod that changed it

I try to make everything from scratch, but sometimes I make pre made when I know I’m avoiding eating because I don’t feel like cooking. If I make pre made though, I’ll always add something to it to bulk it out. Ramen? Handfuls of frozen veg. Frozen pizza? Slap mushrooms, peppers, onions on top. Pasta sauce? Spinach, homemade stock, and carrots.

To me, its about health. I know processed food isn’t healthy, so I want to mitigate the damage.

Hey! Not sure if anyone’s still here, but here’s a serious answer:

TL;DR: everyone perceives swear words differently, and swearing can be used for purposes other than to insult someone directly

Swear words serve a purpose in language just like every other word. People, or at least many English speaking people that I’ve encountered, tend to consider rude language/swearing to be superfluous speech, words that can and in some cases should, be removed from the language. That’s a misconception. The point and purpose of swear words is to be taboo and rude. If these words didn’t exist, they would likely be substituted by something else, because from a sociolinguistic perspective, our society right now has evolved to need a linguistic way to express the things that are conveyed with swearing, even if it’s really bad things like racism, disdain, threats of violence.

Now, one of the interesting things about swear words and rude language in general is that everyone perceives these words with a different severity. Some people feel comfortable with saying “cunt” for one reason or another. For example, Australian and British English speakers tend to be more comfortable with that word than American English speakers. For other people, even minced oaths can be considered rude, such as saying “darn” instead of “damn” or “fiddlesticks” instead of “fuck”. It could also have to do with background or identity, like women calling each other “bitch” can be considered less severe than a man calling a woman a “bitch”. Or someone who’s deeply religious could object to the use of “hell” while someone who isn’t might not even consider it rude.

Lets get back to the purpose of swearing. Swearing can have many different uses, such as showing you’re part of an in group. Imagine a group of women working in a auto body shop together for example. In order to signal to each other that they’re comfortable around each other, they might refer to each other as their “bitches”. But that doesn’t mean that a customer can come in and say “hey bitch I need new headlights”: they’re not part of the group, they haven’t earned that privilege. Swearing is also a rite of passage. Adults get to swear, but we consider a sign of a good upbringing in the English speaking world as a child that does not swear. Throughout all these uses, there’s a through line of flaunting social expectations. Swearing can be used to damage and berate and humiliate, of course, but a lot of swearing is done with subtext. “Hey, you’re my friend, this is a relaxed environment, of course you’re not going to think when I say a rude word that I’m insulting you” or “I’m feeling such a strong emotion right now that the only words that fit that are very rude”.

I also think that as our society moves away from more structured and rigid social roles, swearing is getting more acceptable since we in general are more tolerant of deviations from the norm.

Edit: I’ve obviously only scratched the surface, since this is a broad and complex topic.