mostly, sweet potato is the odd one out

And the onion rings.

it’s now frowned upon to be hit on?

It’s frowned upon to hit on someone who doesn’t have an exit from the situation: a customer talking to a retail/hospitality worker whose job includes not pissing off customers, colleagues who need to continue working with each other (or worse, a superior-subordinate relationship), etc.

I don’t know what 20-somethings are doing these days, but navigating that transition from school to young independent adulthood was something difficult every generation had to do. It’s just that this generation may have had their social skills development stilted during COVID or the smartphone era so that they’re less equipped to make that jump, and that gap is leaving a greater proportion of that population behind.

It doesn’t have to be structured. It just has to give opportunities for repeat interactions, and maybe a promise of future interaction with the same person, in that low pressure environment.

Dog parks have a bunch of dogs mingling, so their owners will often have the opportunity to get to know each other.

Neighbors who see each other often have an opportunity to get to know each other. That goes for work neighbors, too, even if they work for another employer entirely (but in the same building or something.

Regulars at a coffee shop, restaurant, bar, or gym might learn to recognize each other and go from exchanging pleasantries to actually getting to know each other (and the staff).

Church isn’t as big a thing as it was a few generations ago, but any kind of social meetings, from support groups to volunteer associations, give the opportunity to work together for a common goal.

This is where hobbies and free time come in. And I’m not going to knock video games and other hobbies where you might interact with people online, but there is something fundamentally different about repeated in-person interactions. So it’s worth making sure that your routine includes regular interaction with people in low-stakes settings.

The latest xkcd has one of my favorite hover texts of all time:

It’s important for devices to have internet connectivity so the manufacturer can patch remote exploits.

I suspect this is actually what’s changed - labor is so expensive compared to the cost of the machine that people replace their appliance with a new one because it’s only a little more than fixing their old one.

The guy on an assembly line who places a particular assembly in place and connects the tubes/bolts can perform that task on hundreds of machines in a day. The guy who has to drive to each person’s house to replace the exact same part can do maybe 2 a day, assuming he has the right part on hand, and assuming that it’s easy to diagnose which part has failed.

I suspect that ordinary avenues for meeting friends in one’s 30’s is also available for meeting partners, only you have to acknowledge that most of the people you meet aren’t going to be single/interested.

I’m an extrovert. I talk to strangers in certain settings, especially where waiting around is normal. One of my best friends, I met in line waiting to get into a standup comedy show. I’ve met other friends in line for concerts and sporting events, too. I’ve also met friends sitting at the bar or some kind of communal table of a restaurant, and connected over the food itself. It just takes the boldness of asking for contact information and then texting “it was nice to meet you today, great talking to you” and then sometimes that becomes a friendship.

But pure strangers are hard to connect with in one interaction. Most of the friends I made after 30 were from repeated interactions over time: neighbors you see regularly, other regulars at the dog park/coffee shop, etc.

And once you’re in a mode where you can make friends, if some of them happen to be single and compatible, maybe you try going out on a date.

And yes, this means that sometimes you’ll meet people at the gym, or at their place of work, or other circumstances where it’s frowned upon to hit on strangers. But making the friendship bridge first can give you that read on the situation of whether they’re actually open to dating.

muscle gym divorced military dads

I know a bunch of these dudes, and most of them are into books and video games.

Something about the RPG grind mechanic in certain video games and a typical strength/barbell progression program scratch the same itch, so people who tend to be into one are also into the other.

The Icarus myth is still a useful analogy, even if you don’t believe it actually happened.

And what’s their takeaway? Is it about learning from their mistake and trying again? No, it’s “God is punishing your hubris!”

Just substitute any force or phenomenon bigger than human ability for “God” in that sentence and it’ll still apply to a lot of situations.

Yup, small lenses and thin wire frames were the defining trend of the 90’s. And there was a bit of a frameless trend where the earpieces and nose bridge screwed directly into the lens itself. See this picture of Jennifer Aniston as an example.

Carbonation adds bubbles. The bubbles in water dissipate very quickly, whereas bubbles in other drinks with sugars or other compounds tend to have a bit more stability in the bubbles (think about how long the foam takes to settle from a beer being poured).

So when you force carbonate in a bottle, the bubbles tend to rise to the top, and when the pressure is released, will spray out it every direction, causing a huge mess.

It can be managed by being very slow and methodical at adding pressure, and, more importantly, by being slow and methodical and slowly releasing the pressure. But you have to be ready for it to make a mess.

Two things.

First, dating and commitment is about matching and compatibility, not about some kind of objective ranking system of quality or merit. It’s about how a partner or potential partner rates on your own personal scale, not some sort of societal scale built by social consensus. So while it is ok for you to find a particular trait to be a negative, or even a deal breaker, your point is completely irrelevant to the advice being given, which is not to hide important traits of one’s identity.

Second, your own preference here is stated in unnecessarily condescending terms, as if your preferences are right and the opposite preference is wrong or the sign of some kind of disorder. Whatever your definition of “toys and dolls” are, it probably isn’t a very tightly defined term, and I’d venture to guess that you are OK with some kinds of “toys” but not others. People collect stuff. People develop emotional attachment to physical things all the time. And for you to gatekeep and say which things are acceptable or unacceptable is kinda an asshole move.

Tim Whatley

My single, “My single is dropping,” is dropping.

My favorite of his are:

This commentary on Batman

The best things in life are free

The true meaning of Christmas

I don’t care what anyone says, Zach Woods as Gabe Lewis and James Spader as Robert California (aka The Lizard King) were fantastic.

And the single best cold open was from Season 8, when Erin faked Andy’s mother’s death to impress a client.

That’s kinda the thesis of the whole article.

Stories about rich people where their wealth is part of the plot are getting tired, but more insidiously, stories not involving wealth are still defaulting to very well-off people with expensive homes/furnishings/clothes/style/cars.

404 is great, too, for coverage of those topics.

Defector is worth a special mention in large part because it’s one of the few places on the internet that still makes me laugh out loud. It’s ostensibly a sports site, but when they stray off topic it’s some of the best stupid shit on the internet.

I think of it more as a set of skills that needs to be maintained, and is easier to do when regularly engaged.

There was a comment recently that I really liked, here, by @[email protected] :

I think people do not recognize the immense value of weak interpersonal bonds, like going to the same corner store all the time. But they are the glue that holds society together. It’s not the deep friendships, you can only have a few of those. It’s those people you are acquainted with, and look forward to seeing, people you wave to, all those little connections add up.

The little weak bonds help keep you grounded so that you can tighten and bolster the deeper and more meaningful bonds. I’m a better friend to my closest friends in large part because I have the experience and lessons learned from past situations with friendship: how to be supportive when a friend is going through a death in the family, a divorce, a period of unemployment, how to celebrate with a friend getting married, having new kids, etc. Each little situation presents an opportunity to be a good friend (and gives better information about what you can expect from your good friends), and just basically sharpens those social bonds and your ability to navigate them in a way that enriches your own life and your friends’ lives.

So it’s not a finite amount of juice. It’s a muscle that can be made stronger, and I’d argue is worth actively making stronger.

I’m making lifelong friends in this Wendy’s right now.

I’m baffled by some of the responses in this thread. Yes, it’s harder to make friends in one’s 20’s than in the teens, and harder to make friends in one’s 30’s than in one’s 20’s.

But to act like it’s inevitable, or even desirable, to not make new friendships after the age of 20 seems like overstating things.

The people you grow up with and befriend at a young age share those similar roots. That will always be valuable in friendships.

And the people you befriend later in life, through your hobbies, your career, your neighborhood, your mutual relationships also share those commonalities, and that will bring something valuable to those relationships, too. One of the most things I love about meeting, dating, and marrying my wife is that it mingled our two worlds of friends, and a lot of the friends I met through her in my 30’s are now some of my best friends today.

I rely on local friends for things that require geographical closeness. I rely on fellow parents for parenting support (including favors, advice, even jokes/rants). I am close with former and current colleagues, and we talk shop, careers, people we know, and sometimes refer each other to job opportunities or other work.

There is a certain richness that comes from multiple social relationships evolving and developing over time, including repeat acquaintances, superficial friendships, all the way to very close or very intimate friendships. We’re all just walking through life in different stages, and each stage has different needs and opportunities to rely on and provide support to your social network.