Sombyr

Most conservatives, however deeply red, are not intentionally hateful and are usually open to rational discussion. People just don't know how to have rational discussions nowadays and the few times they do, they don't know how to think like somebody else and put things in a way they can understand.

People nowadays think because a point convinced them, it should convince everybody else and anybody who's not convinced by it is just being willfully ignorant. The truth is we all process things differently and some people need to hear totally different arguments to understand, often put in ways that wouldn't convince you if you heard it.

It's hard to understand other people and I feel like the majority of people have given up trying in favor of assuming everybody who disagrees with you knows their wrong and refuses to admit it.

I had a teacher tell me to drop out then be forced to write an apology letter for it.

She wrote "I'm sorry you thought I told you to drop out."

So I'm gonna say "I'm sorry you thought" is high up there. Straight up gaslighting.

Fixed typo resulting in ticks giving lyme disease instead of limes diseases. Ticks now properly feed on fruit juices instead of blood.

It thoroughly confuses me that many people have come to the conclusion that people saying "closeted trans people do X thing quite often" actually mean "all people doing X thing are trans." I don't know how half the replies here have come to that conclusion.

This meme is reductive, only talking about it like it'll be either a trans person or toxic cis dude, but it's a joke. Jokes need to be some level of reductive to work. Otherwise you're just describing a funny situation in real life. (Also, reread the meme. They never say those are the only two options, they just say those are two possibilities. That's not the same thing.)

But yeah, offering to help somebody who you think may be trans acquire resources isn't a bad thing just because the majority of people won't end up needing it. Just politely decline it if you don't. Nobody's trying to force you to be trans. They're just trying to help the people that are.

It took me a long time after realizing I was trans to transition, so I ended up having to get comfortable in women's sections while still looking very obviously like a man.

Turns out, it's the nervousness that makes people uncomfortable, because there's a lot of less good reasons a male appearing person might be nervous in a women's section. Once you can manage to shop with confidence, the worst anybody will assume is that you're shopping for a gift for a girlfriend or sister or something.

As somebody who was once part of a cult, it's just the same circus but worse.

Maybe I don't understand the definition of straw man properly, but I don't think this is one. It's a response to a metaphor some conservatives have used against trans people that the look of a pizza hut is so iconic, that it'd be rediculous to call it anything else, because it's obviously a pizza hut, no matter what you put inside it. This is a response to that, showing that insisting it's still a pizza hut just because it looks like one to you is absurd. I agree it's a little bit cringy. There's been better rebuttals to it, but I think this still makes the point.

I don't think this was ever a popular conservative argument though. I've only seen it in screenshots of a single highly retweeted tweet with various rebuttals attached. I guess it seems more like just a random dumb argument people decided was fun to make fun of.

I don't have any job, since I'm disabled and just live off government disability benefits. For hobbies though, I still don't get much into anything tech related. I do cooking and sometimes attempt writing. Unless tinkering with Linux a tiny bit sometimes counts as tech.

Perhaps this will enlighten you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZVwFa-Fz5Q

And in case you don't feel like watching that: It's a meme harkening back to the stupidity displayed on a well known tumblr post, one of the many displays of which was somebody insisting 2 was odd.

Also see this Ace Attorney version, which is hilarious and the first place I'd heard of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFcyYnUHVBA

The anticheat for a game I liked to play with my wife didn't work on Linux and playing in a VM barely worked due to the game's outdated spaghetti code. It was more important to me at the time because the game was how I met her and at the time we weren't dating yet, she was just a friend I was crushing on big time, enough to reinstall windows for her.

We don't even really play it anymore, so maybe I'll switch back to Linux. I still got mint installed on dual boot, just never thought about starting it up until now. I always did like how a couple of terminal commands could fix like, 99% of issues whereas windows says "Noooo... You have to reinstall me for the 20,000th time! It's the only way!"

I noticed there was always a gust of wind after cars passed, so I concluded wind was caused by invisible cars driving by. Storms were caused by the invisible drivers driving too fast.

I used to go outside during storms and yell at them to slow down. I was convinced it was working.

4 years is elder trans? I've been elder trans for a full year and a half?

...I'm not sure if I can process that information. I feel like I still understand the trans experience less than people who've been transitioned for half that time. I get asked for advice sometimes and I'm just a deer in the headlights.

When I was little I got stung 6 times between the legs by a velvet ant that managed to get stuck in my bathing suit. It's not as bad as some exaggerated videos on the internet may have lead you to believe, but I did cry for about 30 seconds before I went back to what I was doing.

Not years ago, but a year ago I got covid and for reasons nobody can explain it made a nerve in my lower back malfunction and just start sending out the maximum pain signal it could. That's probably the most painful thing I've experienced. Tied for it at least.

I used to be like this, but with movies. When I first met my wife, she was utterly baffled at the concept of somebody not enjoying movies, and she made it her mission to make me enjoy them.

Come to think of it, she actually doesn't like music much. I've failed to change her opinion on that though because my taste in music is shit (and I'm proud of it.)

Pure ethanol. If I'm gonna die of dehydration I might as well have fun doing it.

Don't even have to be that old to experience that. There's this weird phenomenon where if you're born at the tail end of the 90s, anyone born 2000 onward feels infinitely younger, even if the actual age difference is only a few years.
I was born 1998 and I still look at anybody born in 2000 like "you've gotta be 12 years old max."

Every time that comes up, I think to myself "Something I've gone through must be more painful, right? I've gone through some pretty hellish things, and you're trying to tell me something MORE painful exists? Not just a little more, but dramatically more? For my own sanity, I'm gonna have to live in denial of that."

I'm not the only one who thought it was fucking hilarious, right? I know it's supposed to be body horror, and I do generally find Junji Ito's stuff goddamn disturbing and horrifying, but this is the first one I saw and it just looked so funny to me that all his other stuff caught me completely off guard.

I like listening to multiple songs at the same time. Like, playing a video game, while listening to music, but not also muting the game's music, so I hear both at once.

When I need to say something I'm embarrassed about, my strategy is to say it in as few words as possible, to curb over thinking and get it over with fast, and as bluntly as possible, so it won't be misunderstood causing me to have to say it again, and so it hides my embarrassment somewhat by showing some amount of confidence.

Also, waiting for the best time to say it isn't always the best thing to do, despite how logical it seems, because it gives you too much time to gather self doubts and decide not to do it. You can, of course, gather confidence that way too, but in my experience it's not as easy. I recommend saying it the next time anybody can be there to listen.

This advise is of course, based on my own personal, autistic and somewhat tone-deaf experience, and based on the assumption that you will be accepted, which you seem to indicate you would be.

At the very least, it'd create a discussion for you to talk about what you need to, so if you think it'd work for you I think it's worth a shot.

In horror games, I always try to domesticate the monster by letting it follow me around the map without catching me. Then I have a buddy.

You know what weirdly does fill me with dread though? Space games. I played around with space engine and it doesn't matter what I'm looking at or where I am, I am just super uncomfortable and want to stop. Those're my horror games.

Only to view NSFW images when I really don't have any other option. I don't have an account anymore though so usually it's not worth the trouble. Lemmy really just doesn't have the diversity reddit did with that yet.

Bear in mind what you're about to read is the ramblings of an autistic women. I may be a woman, but the world still looks a lot different through my eyes than it does to other women, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Anyway, definitely not too late to date. That part's simple to answer.

As far as losing weight, depends really on how much you weigh as for how it'll effect your dating options. For men, I think gaining a little muscle is more important than losing fat. Even if you weigh quite a lot, if you've got a bit of muscle showing through there will be women who find you attractive. I can't speak for all women, but to me, it's more attractive when a guy's body shows that they're thinking about their health than it is when a guy has a traditionally attractive physique. In other words, a little muscle shows you're putting work in regardless of if you're successfully losing much fat. You'll probably inevitably lose some fat anyway if you gain some muscle, because it speeds up your metabolism.
In the end though, physical appearance isn't as often important to women as it is to men. If you've got a personality that meshes well with somebody, they'll probably like you anyway.

What you're doing to meet people is good, but another good way to find people Imo, is through your hobbies. Although that can be tougher if all your hobbies are male dominated. Even if you do meet women into it in that case, I speak from experience when I say we're expecting to be approached and tend to already have our rejection locked and loaded. If that's the case, I'd say the best option is to wait and see if they show interest in you first.

Making more friends is also good. Besides the fact that it's good for your mental health, they can also introduce you to people, and somebody who knows you well is gonna be way better at finding people who will match well with you than anything like dating apps or searching aimlessly. I was introduced to my wife by a friend. They didn't even intend it as a romantic setup, they just thought we had a lot in common and would make good friends. The romance happened to blossom from that.

I'd end this off by telling you it's good to learn to be happy being single, but I know that's harder than it sounds, and sometimes you can't manage it until you've already been in and out of a serious relationship or two. Do take care of your mental health though. A happy man is an attractive man.

Achievable desire? To finally be in a stable place in my life so I can be together with the people I love, and finally have friends again. Might be bisexual, and my wife is totally open to a polyamorous relationship for me to figure that out, so tbh finding that out and maybe gaining a long term boyfriend is also high on my list of desires.

Unachievable though? I want to miraculously recover from all my disabilities and health conditions so I can finally be normal. I want to stop relying on meds to keep me from turning into a batshit crazy nutcase every time I miss even a single dose. Or at least be able to take those meds every night without issue because of my damaged throat refusing to swallow nearly anything I put in my mouth except the most miniscule pills without choking and vomiting them back up. And I want to be able to operate my muscles like a normal person again, something which my meds have thoroughly fucked with, with nothing helping in the slightest. I straight up can't even move my legs if my cat's on top of them. He weighs barely 10 lbs. Plus I get sick constantly even when nobody around me is and nobody knows why. Last month alone I got sick about 6 times. I was only feeling relatively ok for about 3 days total.

The good news, I guess, is every single one of my more achievable goals are well in sight. Just a few months ago they'd all be buried deep in with the unachievable ones, so things are improving little by little.

Things have certainly vastly improved since about 3 years ago, when I couldn't even will myself out of bed. So as whiney as I sound, I'm actually quite happy with where I am and where I'm going.

Somebody filled a trash bag full of sharp objects they were planning on throwing out, then decided "I can't just throw a bag of loose sharp objects in the dumpster. Oh, I know the perfect place for this! Dead center of the living room floor." I stepped on it in the pitch black of the night. Luckily I only hit the edge so I only injured a single toe, but I straight up ripped the flesh nearly from the bone of it. Even stupider, I didn't go to the hospital for it. At least until I had an appointment for something else anyway, at which point they saw it and immediately made me go to another doctor to get it addressed.

You'd hate me then. I'm not even married nor engaged to my wife. We just call each other that because it feels nice.

No, on account of I cannot drive at all. I'm 25 and live in Vermont. The particular part I live in, everything's accessible by bus, so I've just never felt the urgency to learn.

I've always heard other women have this problem, but I've personally only ever experienced it with expensive brands like designer stuff, which designers for some reason think all women are so tiny that their size 18 should only be just barely big enough to fit a middle school girl.
Cheap stuff, especially stuff I find at walmart and such, seems extrodinarily consistent, to the point where I just pick up my size or one higher if they don't have it, and don't even bother to check if it fits.

Shoe sizes however... I'm 99% sure those are supposed to be standard, and yet I've found size 9s and size 12s that were the same size. Got sick of it and now I only buy men's shoes unless I need something fancy. Even then, logger boots are fancy enough to me.

I have some pretty severe memory issues, but weirdly it doesn't apply to passwords. I use different passwords everywhere, but I don't bother with password managers. I just type random letters, numbers, symbols, and randomly capitalize some letters, then I never forget any passwords I frequently use. They're always really long, too. I do forget ones for sites I used like once and then like a year later decided to log in again.

However, when it comes to literally any other area of my life, I'm so shit at remembering things it's basically a mental disorder. I've had moments where I've been talking to somebody, and couldn't remember anything in the conversation past 2 sentances ago. Hell, typing this, I keep having to reread it to remember what I already said.

I'm also fairly young, at least compared to people who'd usually be developing memory issues, but in my case it seems to be caused by the fact that I'm on 7 different meds right now, 4 of which can cause memory issues. Unfortunately unavoidable though. My doctors have tried switching me off and other meds didn't work. The symptoms they prevent, let's just say turned out to be a hell of a lot worse than a few memory issues.

On the bright side, my wife can keep explaining the same Warhammer lore to me over and over again and every time it's just as new and interesting as the first time. And I can play games and read books and such for the first time multiple times. That's something most people only wish they could do. Granted, if I do hear or see something over and over it eventually begins to stick in my head, so I can't do it forever.

An MMO called Mabinogi, but only because it's literally designed to suck as much time and money away from you as possible without you noticing. Steam says I'm nearing 5,000 hours, but more than half my playtime was from before it was on steam, so it's probably closer to 12,000 to 13,000 hours. I haven't even reached the end game yet.

At this point, I don't really play it anymore. I think from now on I need to start avoiding games that are gonna absorb that much of my time for so little progress. Definitely wasn't mentally healthy because I wasn't even enjoying myself a good way in, I was just addicted.

I believe in a power above all else which gave rise to the universe. You could technically call it "God," but I prefer to think of it just as a primordial force of nature, like gravity and such, but far more ancient.

Basically I believe that in the beginning, there was nothing, and that includes the rule that something can't come from nothing. That didn't exist either, so the void just kinda imploded on itself and now stuff exists.

With no rules or restrictions on what could happen yet, literally anything could happen. In a sense, that would make the void omnipotent, but also probably mindless. In my eyes, less like a god, more like the most powerful force of nature to ever exist. Or I guess not exist.

Guess I'm chaotic good.

I chose my name because it means "prophet," and psychics kept telling me I had really strong spiritual energy, but the name itself is pretty normal.

Yes, I frequently encounter psychics in my daily life. It just occurred to me how weird that is.

As a trans woman, we definitely can get a similar phenomenon, but I can't vouch for how common it is or if it's the same thing.

If it does happen, it generally starts a while after your hormone levels get consistently in the right place. Don't need surgery. For me, it's even straight up dependant on what brand of estrogen I'm taking. I take injections, and if I'm on 10mg/ml, it happens, but any time I have to take 20mg/ml, it stops. Doesn't matter that my hormone levels haven't shifted even slightly.

It is known that it's the same organs producing it as males have, but why it begins to behave like that and why it doesn't happen to everyone is, as far as I know, completely unknown.

👋

Most of the time, it feels to me just like a logical conclusion. Like "hmm, yes, this person has traits I generally find attractive. I am thus attracted to them."
There's of course a physical attribute to it too, where I feel strongly drawn to the person, but it feels more like the result of the previous logical conclusion rather than the source of the attraction itself.

The one and only exception to this that I've experienced thus far was my attraction to my wife. It was an instant click. My first thought after meeting her was that I needed to get closer with her. It's worth noting I didn't actually know what she looked like yet (we met online) and barely knew anything about her personality besides she was funny and apparently had similar hobbies to me (though I didn't know which hobbies, I'd just been told that.)
I didn't connect it as attraction at first though, because I'd never experienced attraction like that before. I just wanted to be really good friends with her. I was really happy whenever she showed up. I enjoyed every conversation I had with her way more than it felt like I should.
Then slowly those feelings grew, never changing, only getting stronger. At a certain point, when I started to realize every second I was away from her, I was wishing she was there, and every time I was sad or upset about something, she was the one I wanted to go to for comfort, it finally clicked that I was attracted to her, at least in some way.
It wasn't until we were already dating that it finally fully clicked that I'd been in love with her the whole time.
Physically I'd say my attraction to her felt... I guess like heart burn? That's the closest physical sensation I can think of. Like that, but not painful. Like a fullness in my chest every time I thought about her.

Also as far as chemistry and attraction goes, definitely different things. There are people I've been attracted to that I meshed horrifically with. Just because I like certain traits in theory doesn't mean I could actually stand those traits in practice.

Yeah, I was the same way. But now that I'm this far into my transition I've realized it's a lot like a kid becoming an adult. They seem all-knowing and wise until you are one.

I'm not sure if gay men have to deal with that more, or if it's me specifically who's weird for never having anybody do that to me when I mention my wife.

The one time anything like that did come up, I was the one who brought it up and the dude was just like "Yeah, I knew you were into women before you even said anything. You've just got that vibe."

Point is somebody took the door off my closet.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually ask somebody to leave where I'm from. If it gets too late and our guests are still there, guess they're staying the night. Luckily, most people leave before then.
I've lived most of my life in tiny Vermont villages, for context.

Unfortunately, don't think we can do any of those to any significant effect. We're both on medicaid and non-taxable disability income. In other words, we don't usually legally have to file taxes unless we had some other kind of income that year because it's just gonna be a long string of zeros.

What we can do though is file for disability as a married couple, then we can legally save up a lot more money in exchange for being paid slightly less. The requirements for that are just living together and "holding yourself out as a married couple to the community you live." Well, actually, there is a bit of awkwardness with the wording last I checked that accidentally makes it only apply to heterosexual couples, but I'm sure they legally have to apply the rule to homosexual couples as well. We'll see anyway.

I believe we also have the same visitation rights as a married couple if we're ever hospitalized, which is helpful considering we've both found ourselves hospitalized as a result of our disabilities a few times. I'm not certain about that though. We had quite a distance separating us every time that's happened so far, so haven't had the opportunity to test that.

I can agree with that. I've been part of a cult before (was born into it) and I can recognize a lot of what I went through there in far right people. I guess I'm just a little sensitive to people calling these people idiots and hateful people due to seeing myself in them. Like, to me, they're (usually) just good people being manipulated into thinking the awful things they say and do are good, and they need a rational and caring person to pull them slowly out of it, the same way I did.

Obviously, it takes more than just talking usually to pull somebody out of a cult, but I think it's still a big part of it. They've been fooled into thinking that things that are rational aren't, and unless they're confronted with the actual truth and the facts to back them up, they're not going to even start to question their beliefs.

I'm also not suggesting that every person needs to debate every republican about every issue they bring up. If you can't or even just don't want to debate somebody, you don't have any obligation to, but I don't think insulting them over it is almost ever the right response.

There's also the angle of how every cult teaches you that you're going to be persecuted for your beliefs, and brainwashes you into thinking that should reaffirm you that you must be correct. That is one major reason I think labeling all conservatives as irrational and hopeless is dangerous. When somebody who's been taught that the world is going to hate them for being "right" finds that the world does not, in fact, hate them, but instead just displays genuine concern, that's when you fully start to question everything.

I don't think every right winger is going to fling left when presented with this view. In fact, I think the vast majority won't, but it will make them a little more understanding, and a little more understanding over the course of many years and generations adds up.