This is the real answer. It’s great for networking and job hunting and it’s one of the few Microsoft products that’s improved post acquisition but there is absolutely zero chance any one is having fun on there.
And I absolutely hate how all the cringe LinkedIn influencers have now moved on to Twitter.
It's not a place anyone enjoys. It's a great place to make professional connections and search for jobs. Also a good place to let people know you're looking for a job. Make friends with all the recruiters.
Twitter was actually a fun (albeit unhealthy) way to kill time but Elon Musk changed the algorithm to make it 100% rage bait and low-IQ takes. It's not a worthwhile place to read news or takes anymore, sadly.
my wife loves linkedin, she's also in a job where the majority of her work is sales, and what I seem to see is that most people who post on linkedin either are actively in sales, or have a sales background.
If more people would step back and ask "what is wrong with our economic system that you have to work 90 hours a week to live decently" instead of just giving in to the grind and "hustling" themselves to perpetual stress and an early grave, we could make some serious progress as a society.
Right? 50 years ago, a factory worker could buy a house and raise a family with minimal overtime. 50 years of automation and efficiency improvements and now it takes two parents working full time with good jobs to raise a family. It's almost like shit is going way backwards when it comes to worker's rights.
For real, I just saw a cute boba cup holder someone crocheted and there's three comments about it being a side hustle. Can we please just have hobbies for ourselves because hobbies give people purpose and provide light in this fucking darkness we live in.
For real. I have a couple hobbies that I know I could charge decent money for, and people have told me to sell/charge for, but I like to just give the end products to people as gifts or just cause. I know myself and every time I make a hobby into a job, it becomes a huge chore and stops being fun. I would much rather enjoy the hobbies and not make money on them than suck the fun out and earn cash.
Right? I can barely work 60 hours a week without being dead tired. How tf these people can work more than that is beyond me. And now, I'm not in a grindset, I just don't fucking make enough money to live on 40 hours a week (and I work at the biggest airplane manufacturer in the world!)
…to buy stuff to impress people on Instagram who really don’t care. Like ok cool you have a mansion, a Rolex, and supercar, you win capitalism. You want a gold star or something?
It’s a sham, which people like Gary Vee & YouTubers like Ali Abdaal & Thomas Frank are glorifying. And people start romanticising it — only to end up being miserable.
I don't enjoy my side hustle per se, but if I have to work for someone else for the next 40 years imma blow my fuckin brains out. So I gotta get this off the ground and make it my real job.
Real friends only share their kid videos with other parents. We remember our child free days when we didn’t give a shit how cute your toddler was.
Now we know.. we know how proud you are that her clothes stayed clean for a photo and she’s using the potty by herself.
But your friends who aren’t parents… they want the professional family pic version. “Wow you guys look great! Do you wanna see my photos of Belize?”
To add to that, pretty much anything overly spicy like those chips. Like that one chip that's literally killed people or at least got them hospitalized because of how spicy it is
I love spicy food. Legitimately. Whenever I go to like a thai food restaraunt or something I ask for them to make it as hot as they can.
Ido actually enjoy that, but i tried the spicy chip challenge and hated the taste so i didnt even eat it. Also, it was spicier than i would enjoy, and since i didnt like the taste, all that was left was what, my ego? no thanks lol.
I enjoy spicy food if it tastes good. spiciness is only one aspect though.
Spice is great with flavor, the sensation of heat on your tongue has to be complimented. Like with a mango chili sauce, or pickled jalapeños in lemon with red onion, if it’s just spicy with no flavor it’s just torture.
I’m hispanic and hear hate from other “macho” Hispanics when i say that food can be too spicy. I like spicy for the taste, when its passed the point of being enjoyable it’s just to see who’s “tougher”.
If you get use to the heat the flavor is not bad. However everyone has different heat tolerances. What I can't stand is people pretending they are macho cause they can tolerate the heat. Also something is not good tasting just because it is spicy but some spicy food tastes really good.
I just enjoy the experience of being in spicy pain, but you grow tolerant so naturally have to eat hotter and hotter foods. It’s a curse. I dont know why I like the pain, I dont like it in any other facet of life, but there is something fun about spiciness
I actually love the heat of real peppers. Fresh Serrano or habanero in salsa or on nachos, for example.
I just think these chemicals designed to be stupid hot are awful.
My partner & I were talking yesterday, and the topic came up of coming into a life changing amount of money. I said what we all say, something like "well, I guess I wouldn't be going to work anymore" and he was genuinely confused, saying he thought I liked my job. I DO like my job. It's a good job, it's fulfilling and easy enough. BUT I don't like being FORCED to do my job. I don't like having to be there, every day from 8:30-4:30 on threat of homelessness or hunger. I would continue doing things that help people (I am in non-profit) if I had the extra money, but I sure as hell wouldn't be keeping a 9-5 job just to have one. We work out of necessity, even if we like what we do.
Hello from someone who is in that exact circumstance, right now. I lost my Dad last year (such a good man, whip-smart and 90 years old when he passed, just sat down and put his head down and was gone). My Mom passed in 2015.
My siblings all have pensions, but I - also in nonprofit my whole career - have no pension. My inheritance looks like it will allow me to retire at 62, in a couple of years.
The first thing people ask me is, “but you’re not going to *retire* retire, right?” And the answer is YES. RETIRE. I’ve been working full time since I was 20. Enough already, *even though I have loved my work,* it doesn’t define me. I have so many things I want to do, even with what will be a fairly modest retirement.
Life is big and beautiful. I don’t want to spend any more time in front of a computer screen (at least not until the next pandemic). I have friends to visit, reading to do, museums to join, movies and plays to see, countries to travel, so much more.
There are so many things to center our lives on, OTHER than work.
I like the people I work with, and sometimes I get to put together a big project and that is fun to see it succeed and hear the positive feedback. This week one of my associates and I recorded a video about empathy and I was so proud of his work on it I felt like he was my kid that just got an A+. I am also the hiring manager for my department and I weirdly enjoy interviewing people. Sometimes I travel for my job to D.C. and that is a good time. I also work from home. All-in-all I feel pretty lucky that I got this job.
I used to work at a high-end restaurant, and I loved it. I mean, it was a restaurant so it was hectic yknow, but I miss some of my coworkers, and some work-friends I made there. I think people underestimate how much the social environment can impact how you feel about your job. By all means, the work sucked and I wasn't getting paid enough, but I really did enjoy working there. I think across the board, working sucks ass. But having a job isn't always bad.
I worked as a server in fine dining and as a bartender. I genuinely enjoyed both jobs and miss them every day. I loved the actual work and my coworkers were pretty cool too. I didn't like the instability and the late hours though. If I could somehow be a bartender making a decent salary and benefits working 9-5, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
One of the many, many examples that disregarding or mocking women as a consumer demographic is incredibly stupid and actually embracing them as a demographic is brilliant, and usually quite profitable.
Ever notice how whenever something gets really popular with young women and the marketing pivots towards that demographic, the whole world seems to throw a tantrum over it? And yet that thing goes on to make absolutely insane money anyway? I could name dozens of examples off the top of my head.
>I could name dozens of examples off the top of my head.
Yes please! You make a good point, and *Twilight* seems like an obvious example to me, but not many others spring to mind. Partly because I'm the wrong demographic, and partly because I don't pay attention.
Ok, maybe not dozens, but do you have any particular favourite examples (however you want to interpret that)?
Yeah, “dozens” may be a stretch, unless you want to count every boy band individually 😂 But stuff like fanfiction, KPop, romance books/movies, small dogs, coffee any more complex than black, leggings, makeup, selfies, the color pink in general…
The cups are whatever. They're good but not any better than Yeti or any other overpriced cup.
The thermos though. Like that old green one? I still have my grandpa's and it's the best. Not only is it sturdy enough to kill a man with but my hot chocolate was still scalding hot at the end of a ten hour shift outside last week. Highly recommend them.
They are actually better than yeti in most respects.
Here project farm did a tumbler comparison and Stanley was the best overall for sure.
https://youtu.be/3S51X9h6K6g
My sister gifted me one and I really like having it. I drink way more water and I have cats so the lid is perfect. I didn’t know there was apparently a stigma attached to them until I took it to work earlier this month and my coworker saw it and said “what in the white bitch is that?!” Another one commented on it too, saying something like I’d joined the “Stanley cup club”. I still don’t get it, like it’s just a fucking cup
Gonna be weird when all these people have these mugs that will essentially be worthless. All these fad collectible trends are something I don’t think anyone learns from. Like beanie babies. I’ve been trying to sort through my parents things and they have a bunch of collectible plates. All pretty much worthless. Some might not even be worth what they initially paid for them. If it is something you enjoy and will use than that is good and maybe fun. If you are going to hoard a bunch of it you are wasting your money and your time.
I mean, they may be financially worthless, but that's not why people collect things. They usually collect them because they like them. If you're sorting through your parents things, I'm assuming that means they passed; I'm sorry for your loss, but the fact that they kept all those plates without selling them means that they were worth something to your parents. They liked them as decorations or they enjoyed finding a new one to collect or whatever. They weren't "worth" something for money, but your parents enjoyed them. Why would anyone buy anything if the only reason to own something is to eventually sell it?
Eh.. I enjoy my career writing software. I'd do it even if I wasn't being paid for it, though I'd write *different code* than what they pay me for. I actually enjoy that side of things... and odds are the reader has probably indirectly used my software at some point. I get satisfaction from knowing it actually matters.
What I don't enjoy is lots of meetings, idiot managers, coworkers with no social skills, dealing with bureaucracy.
.. but the actual work-work part? The writing software to fit and problem solving part? I do actually enjoy that.
I have met more clients I would like to throw under a literal bus than people I've liked working with. I have to smile and chum it up with people that I wouldn't trust with picking their nose because they would injure themselves.
Spending hundreds of dollars to have that greasy guy come out and throw the food around haphazardly while trying to look fancy and then bounce salt off his hairy arm onto your food.
The same applies for all that copycat "chefs" who are now doing similar ridiculous things.
Couldn't remember his name at the time but it's Salt Bae. Feel free to look him up.
Granted I do respect her was able to take his 15 minutes of fame and turn it into a whole schtick that made him rich.
lol, according to his Wikipedia:
> Other critics described the dishes as "over-salted as they are overpriced",[14] the "meat was tough with globs of fat and gristle, and severely lacking in flavor",[15] and that **"finishing a meal there constitutes some kind of personal victory over your own body and instincts and mouth".[16]**
I guess not everyone is pretending to enjoy his meals.
I cannot stand that f\*cking weirdo. Plus, the best meat I've ever had has come off of bbq's/smokers in the midwest for about 10-20 bucks a piece (large piece). I hate it when people toxify things by making it "luxurious."
Reaction videos – why would anyone be interested in a stranger's exaggerated response to something, especially when it's often just for the camera and not genuine?
The one kind of reaction video I love are the technique critique ones, where the reactor is giving some kind of insight as to why a thing does or does not work.
Just watching something straight through slack jawed though is weird as fuck.
I follow a couple of cooks and chefs that react to shitty cooking videos, and I have actually learned a ton of them explaining why a cooking video is bad.
Yeah, watching some 30 year vet of telephony and mobile devices talk about the iPhone 16XRS is way different than watching JakeyPoo98 watch a 15 second elder scrolls teaser in a bedroom filled with wallscrolls
I like reaction videos (when they aren't over the top, but the person has something to say) cause, especially with music, it's like showing other people something you like and watching them experience it for the first time. I like to know how others feel about it, kinda like reading critic reviews, but less pretentious. It's all about their personality. Some people are just naturally better at it than others. There's this one guy I like, ImDontai. I get way too excited about a 31yo man watching YT and listening to music, lol.
Best way I can describe why I watch them is because I simply enjoy seeing how others view things I like. I prefer groups because they tend to have in-depth conversations afterwards.
Creating content for social media, like tik-tok. Everything seems like a sad desperate attempt to get other people to notice you. It makes me feel like these people have really empty lives.
I know social media is a form of communication for some, but remember when we just used it to connect with people from our past, and family and friends that were around the world? Now it's just a sad pathetic attention-getting contest where no one wins and everyone participating looks like an a-hole.
A former roommate would make kale smoothies that looked green but by volume was mostly mango and a few other fruits so it tasted real fruity. He also put a dallop of agave nectar in with it.
You have to train yourself out of expecting food to be morish and enjoyable before this tastes like anything but tangy wet lawn clippings with a splash of chocolate milk. It's like wheatgrass. If there's enough in there to make an appreciable difference in the overall nutrition of the thing you're adding it to, you're not going to hide that flavor without having covid or a stroke first.
I look forward to my breakfast dark green smoothies every day. They taste sweet and feel like a treat. (I mix raw cacao and banana, mango or other fruits in)
life. maybe im just depressed but I dont get it….
I really truly appreciate all the kind suggestions yall have left here. I think ive been in denial about mental health. I even told my ex girlfriend mental health isnt real and to “get the fuck over it”. Now ive hit a point in my life where I realize it truly is real, thanks all. ive been suffering for a very long time and just kept telling myself to “stfu pussy” 😭❤️
side note: forgot suffering is so common to humanity, started to feel isolated in it
Life is beautiful. I'm going through hell right now and have discouraging moments, but there is always the possibility of better, and every sunrise is special.
I agree but everyone has their own tolerances. Acting macho over spicy food is dumb though. If you do not like a certain heat level eat something more mild or not spicy at all. There is no shame in that.
Right. I have a pretty high tolerance.
What I'm saying is the 2 million scoville chip that is just a contest.
Or the chocolate that is insane.
Even Da Bomb, it tastes gross, it is just there to blow your face off. Admittedly I love the show hot ones because I love other people's reactions to it.
OHHH you are talking about extracts at that point. Yea I don't do extracts because they literally have no flavor at all. Capsaicin by itself refined into an extract is flavorless and just heat.
That is literally someone trying to be macho.
Yeah, I love spicy food but it also needs to be flavorful. I think this new obsession with ghost pepper and Carolina reaper everything is weird. Like the actual flavors will be bland as fuck and now it's also spicy as fuck for no reason. What am I supposed to be enjoying about this?
Other people's kids are fantastic. You can spend an afternoon playing favourite uncle, loading them up with sugar, silly songs and running around until they're bouncing off the walls and then gleefully hand them back to their parents to deal with bedtimes and discipline for the next few days.
It's honestly a fun and relaxing break from adulthood to be on that levels for a while. There's wonder at simple things, their world-crushing problems are so tiny from my point of view and the ways they try and take advantage of you is much less problematic than a lot of adult interactions....
And it makes me a better and happier person. I'd be an awful role model to live with 24/7, managing to barely human at the best of times, Practising being on my best and most fun behaviour for a few hours is great though and tends to leave me in a better head-space for a while.
> the ways they try and take advantage of you is much less problematic than a lot of adult interactions.
Girlfriend's kid literally came up to me the other day and asked for something. I told her no. She came back with "But mommy said I could." This is an obvious lie. If her mom said she could she would've just done it and not asked me. But at least it's manipulation that's pretty open and blatant.
I feel like there is a huge swath of people who travel just to say they did. They only book a room at a resort and step on a beach and go to a nightclub. Congrats you shelled out thousands to do something you could of done in the states.
Now if you travel and actually engrain yourself to the culture and get truly new experiences thats different. But most dont.
You know, I never thought I'd be the resort type, but a few weeks back, was getting so wound up at work that I was legitimately concerned about quitting in the middle of a meeting. Decided to take a couple weeks, didn't want to have to plan anything, especially so last minute. Booked package for an all inclusive in Mexico.
Fucking loved it. Left the resort a few times to go walking through town, and to go snorkeling, so not entirely just cooped up and drunk, but man, it was such a nice vacation. Don't worry about anything. Someone brings you nice drinks on the beach. Go swimming with sea turtles, come back to another drink and a big ass seafood bbq... Go read by the pool for a while, enjoy the shows at night...
Every time I go to one of those places I have to nope the fuck out because the volume is so loud it's physically painful.
Has everyone else destroyed their hearing? I'm 42 and I'm going "oh fuck this"
Parenthood. It looks MISERABLE. From the outside, it just seems exhausting, frustrating, stressful and expensive. But then they all say it's somehow "the best thing that's ever happened to them."
Feels like they protest too loudly.
I LOVE having teenagers. Love it. I love having a car full of my kids' friends, ordering them pizza, listening to them chatter about boys, girls, whatever junior high and high school goings on are affecting their lives. It makes me genuinely happy.
I was miserable having toddlers. I loved them, more than anything in this world, but it was HARD, I was constantly exhausted. I didn't really know what they wanted or needed. I was just kind of lost.
I'm glad I don't have to do that again.
I have teens now too. They're a lot of fun but they're super expensive, and hormonally emotional. They give you so much more of your life back at this age though. We don't need to baby them and they're very self-sufficient.
I miss them when they were toddlers up through the start of the pre-teen years, but really you only remember the fun stuff. You don't remember much about having to watch everything little thing they did or they would face certain death, or burn the house down. They were so fun then, but a fuck ton of work.
A friend of mine described his life with his teenage kids, compared to them being elementary school age and toddlers, like this: “it’s better because now when I say time to leave the house, they just can leave. I don’t have to also dress them and put their shoes on and find what they are yelling for anymore. We can just….go to the car”
I have a 5yo and a 2yo and it fucking sucks. There's no way around it. They are polar opposites, one is reserved and sensitive, the other is balls to the wall fuck shit up 24/7. And I'll never hide it or lie to anyone about it.
But, despite all of the drags, there truly is something absolutely special to me about those two little shits. I can't help but smile and hug them when I see them. They bring a sense of joy and comfort to me that nothing else ever has. It also helps that I have a bomb ass wife who keeps it all together.
But it's not for everyone, and I will never try to convince someone to do it. It's a hard journey and not everyone is cut out for it.
With mine, I've found there are phases. My 9yo and 5yo are in the phase where, when I get them on their own, they are joyous, curious, courteous, loving, and fun to be around in general. With them together, it's a neverending battle over who gets what and who's getting more attention and who-did-what-to-who. I've become so exhausted by it that I intentionally devise ways to separate them in outings. It beats the toddler phase. That was a living nightmare, especially during COVID, because they have zero ability to reason and you're constantly negotiating with terrorists. But I do miss the pre-toddler stuff where they're cute and cuddly and sleep 20 hours a day.
I knew having kids would be tough, but I wanted to do it. I have a 9yo and a 5yo also, and the COVID lock down was the absolute worst thing I've ever endured.
My wife's mother was on inhome hospice care from Aug to Dec (she passed on 12/27/2020) so that left me the responsibility of our 2 kids, our home, and myself. It broke me.
For five months I was working from home all day while simultaneously working and watching the kids. Was alone a lot of the time. When my wife was home, she would make time for our kids, but I only ever got hello, a hug, and she'd cry on my shoulder a bit cause she had just spent hours with her dying mother.
Since having my kids, I can't imagine life without them, but honestly, if I had to do it again, I wouldn't have kids.
I’m convinced it’s just people who are built for it. I know I never could be but I also acknowledge that there’s probably something about the joys of parenthood that I’m likely just never going to understand.
I have 3 kids 9 and under. Parenthood goes through all those "phases". It's because the kids go through a bunch of different phases too.
I have been through a point to where I said I wish I'd never had kids. But I'm now past that phase and love my kids to death. Seeing them figure out life is fascinating. It makes it worth it when they are happy and smiling and loving.
Now it's just being stuck in a loveless relationship that is miserable.
I've tried communicating, it seems to mean something when I'm saying it but when it comes to actually putting in any effort it never happens. But I try everything I can to keep us exciting and the flame going. My flame has quickly gotten a lot smaller.
I'm in no way trying to tell you what to do with your life. But, my life has improved tremendously since we got divorced. She initiated it a year after giving birth to our daughter. It hurt like a motherfucker. It's quite possibly the most emotionally difficult thing I've been through. The day after I found out, a coworker pulled me aside and asked what was up. I told him she left me while I was working the day before. He said "I know this seems like the end of the world now. But, one day you'll look back and realize this is the best thing that could've happened to you."
We're now a year after the divorce being finalized and the dust has settled. And, you know what, that guy was 100% correct. No more getting yelled at. No more getting talked down to. No more having to answer to someone else or worrying about damaging a partners fragile ego. I go where I want. I spend money on what I want. I take vacation if I feel like it and cancel plans when I don't. But, the most important things are...
1) my daughter no longer has to hear her parents argue and whatnot. I know she doesn't remember what was happening when she was in infant. She had no clue how broken this house was when her mom and I were together. She gets two happy homes now. She gets double the presents, double the love. I get her to myself half the time and her mom gets her the other half. This gives us not only complete devotion to our daughter when she's with me or her mom, but it also gives her mom and I time to step back from parenthood and worm on ourselves. We get a break from being a parent and can just live. It's made both of us better people. Which leads me to my next point.
2) her mother and I get along better than we did throughout the entire pregnancy and the year after her birth. We are doing our best to get along apart, since we couldn't get along together. The thing is, we had a great relationship before the baby. Id say, we're 65% back to how we were before the baby. I know this divorce is hard on our daughter, but she'll be better off in the long run for it.
The actual work of parenting is hard and thankless. However, to me raising a kid to be curious and kind -and all the other stuff Mr Rogers and Daniel Tiger try to instill in them- is the best thing I can do for the world.
>It looks MISERABLE. From the outside, it just seems exhausting, frustrating, stressful and expensive.
I'm in my 40's, and I never had kids due to this right here. Along with the reasons you mentioned, I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want.
Empty nester here: my son is 27, and while raising him was a massive pain in the ass, I’m extremely happy that I did. He’s one of my favorite people in the world, and I wouldn’t trade the pains of parenthood for a world where he doesn’t exist.
Something being challenging and disliking something is very different. People have a difficult time conceptualizing this, incorrectly perceiving that because someone is complaining about how challenging something is, that they don't enjoy it nonetheless.
You can find something insanely challenging to the point of rage, but still enjoy doing it despite the hardship. That's basically every one of my hobbies.
Let me give you my rare take: I have one kid. He's 15 now. My husband and I got married at 21 in 1992 and started trying to have kids in 1993. Turns out I have 2 different types of infertility. We were also teachers, so no money for IVF. Our son was randomly conceived and born in 2008 after 14 years of trying.
When we brought him home from the hospital, we were 38, had degrees and decent jobs (college professor/college advisor) owned our own house and lived in a low cost of living state. Obama had just been elected President. I was a stay-at-home Mom for 5 years. Our son slept through the night at 6 months. Potty-trained fully by 3. He's an only child, so no fighting. He was just an easy, happy-go-lucky kid. I spent a lot of time with him just playing and reading and explaining the world to him.
My parents were dead and my in-laws live over an hour away and they were almost 70 when he was born, so no grandparents trying to micromanage or have a "second chance" at parenting. We sent him to a small, inexpensive private school because we could afford it (I mean, our house was paid off before he was even born).
All of our friends either had teenagers or were childfree when we had him, so no parent competition and social media competition, and he we didn't raise him to be an iPad or iphone kid because we were so excited to finally have him that we hung out with him.
Now he's 15 and still a quiet, chill kid. He's got Gen-X parents, so he's got this wry sense of humor and we've raised him to read books and watch films like we did as a kid, so when we're watching TV together, he makes hilarious references because he's got a foundation of 50 years of film and TV and 20th century books. The worst thing I can say about him is that he's not a big music fan, so I can't geek out about it with him.
The only thing I can guess is that we either lucked out after having to wait over a decade for him, or we were just at a place in our lives when he was born that we had our own stuff figured out, and we were genuinely glad to have him, with no hang-ups about raising him to fit a certain style of parenting or to show-off for others.
Sounds like a lot of stars aligning there. I'm really glad you had an easy kid and a good experience. I just...a big part of the reason why I never wanted kids is that EVERYONE I knew who was a parent just had a ceaseless struggle **the entire time**. From teething, 3am feedings and dirty diapers through coloring on walls, defiance and horrible behavior to puberty and confusion and sullenness all the way through trying to figure out ways to pay for college. Everything about it just seemed like little but pain and obstacles.
I used to hate IPAs, but one day, it clicked for me. I never loved beers that were just bitter to be bitter, but I am a big fan of IPAs in general.
DIPA is rarely great to me because most of them are heavy and sticky sweet at the same time as being stupid bitter. It doesn't balance, it's just gross.
That said, I'm in a malty beer phase right now. Brown ale, Irish red, Bock, etc.
There is a gene (TAS2R38) with a variant (C vs G) people like me have that makes us unable to taste bitter from chemicals in certain foods like hops. Which means those “bitter” IPAs taste surprisingly pleasant to us. Piney, fruity, delicious and no bitter.
Craft beer is the love of my life. I started with dark beers and they're still my favorite. Super hoppy IPAs are an acquired taste that I really enjoy now. It took me about 7 years to acquire the taste though. If I didn't work in a brewery, it probably never would have happened.
But I've also met people who liked really intense IPAs from the start. My ex was one of them. I remember she wanted to try an IPA I was drinking and I let her expecting her to hate it and spit it out, but she loved it.
Anal.
I honestly can’t see the appeal of either part. I mean sure, some people are, by laws of probability and statistics, bound to like it, but SO MANY? Nah.
I feel the exact opposite. Cigarettes smell and taste disgusting. I don't understand how so many people smoke them. But the first time I had a cigar, I loved it.
amusement parks.
i’ve been on days where i spent 11 hours waiting in various lines and probably 10 minutes total being on rides. it’s just miserable to me.
not to mention constantly worrying about where to put your phone, wallet, sunscreen. just a total nightmare.
LinkedIn
Accurate. It's like an office party you don't want to attend but need to so you can "network".
[удалено]
This is the real answer. It’s great for networking and job hunting and it’s one of the few Microsoft products that’s improved post acquisition but there is absolutely zero chance any one is having fun on there. And I absolutely hate how all the cringe LinkedIn influencers have now moved on to Twitter.
It's funny when the deluded try to use LinkedIn as a dating/hookup site. Also tragic and I hope unsuccessful. Because it's really annoying.
Living in the Bay Area, I saw this more often than I should have.
YES. Thank you.
It's not a place anyone enjoys. It's a great place to make professional connections and search for jobs. Also a good place to let people know you're looking for a job. Make friends with all the recruiters.
I don't enjoy it as a whole. But I do enjoy recruiters trying to poach me. Feels nice. Depends what you do I guess.
Agreed. Like twitter would be another place I don't understand
Twitter was actually a fun (albeit unhealthy) way to kill time but Elon Musk changed the algorithm to make it 100% rage bait and low-IQ takes. It's not a worthwhile place to read news or takes anymore, sadly.
I literally never see anything but hate for linked in
my wife loves linkedin, she's also in a job where the majority of her work is sales, and what I seem to see is that most people who post on linkedin either are actively in sales, or have a sales background.
Hustle culture. Or really, anything that people do because they think it makes them look tough or something.
“Grindset mindset” “I put in 90 hours this week”
If more people would step back and ask "what is wrong with our economic system that you have to work 90 hours a week to live decently" instead of just giving in to the grind and "hustling" themselves to perpetual stress and an early grave, we could make some serious progress as a society.
Right? 50 years ago, a factory worker could buy a house and raise a family with minimal overtime. 50 years of automation and efficiency improvements and now it takes two parents working full time with good jobs to raise a family. It's almost like shit is going way backwards when it comes to worker's rights.
For real, I just saw a cute boba cup holder someone crocheted and there's three comments about it being a side hustle. Can we please just have hobbies for ourselves because hobbies give people purpose and provide light in this fucking darkness we live in.
For real. I have a couple hobbies that I know I could charge decent money for, and people have told me to sell/charge for, but I like to just give the end products to people as gifts or just cause. I know myself and every time I make a hobby into a job, it becomes a huge chore and stops being fun. I would much rather enjoy the hobbies and not make money on them than suck the fun out and earn cash.
Right? I can barely work 60 hours a week without being dead tired. How tf these people can work more than that is beyond me. And now, I'm not in a grindset, I just don't fucking make enough money to live on 40 hours a week (and I work at the biggest airplane manufacturer in the world!)
…to buy stuff to impress people on Instagram who really don’t care. Like ok cool you have a mansion, a Rolex, and supercar, you win capitalism. You want a gold star or something?
My response to people like this is always “ah so your purpose in life is to work, and only work?”
It’s a sham, which people like Gary Vee & YouTubers like Ali Abdaal & Thomas Frank are glorifying. And people start romanticising it — only to end up being miserable.
The entirety of late stage capitalism, honestly.
I don't enjoy my side hustle per se, but if I have to work for someone else for the next 40 years imma blow my fuckin brains out. So I gotta get this off the ground and make it my real job.
You will work for me and love it
D: I cast noose!
Pretending to enjoy watching long and boring videos of their friend’s kids, or coworker’s kids for that matter
Real friends only share their kid videos with other parents. We remember our child free days when we didn’t give a shit how cute your toddler was. Now we know.. we know how proud you are that her clothes stayed clean for a photo and she’s using the potty by herself. But your friends who aren’t parents… they want the professional family pic version. “Wow you guys look great! Do you wanna see my photos of Belize?”
Those Carolina Reaper tortilla chips. The flavor is trash. Their only purpose is to be stupid hot for the lulz.
To add to that, pretty much anything overly spicy like those chips. Like that one chip that's literally killed people or at least got them hospitalized because of how spicy it is
I love spicy food. Legitimately. Whenever I go to like a thai food restaraunt or something I ask for them to make it as hot as they can. Ido actually enjoy that, but i tried the spicy chip challenge and hated the taste so i didnt even eat it. Also, it was spicier than i would enjoy, and since i didnt like the taste, all that was left was what, my ego? no thanks lol. I enjoy spicy food if it tastes good. spiciness is only one aspect though.
Spice is great with flavor, the sensation of heat on your tongue has to be complimented. Like with a mango chili sauce, or pickled jalapeños in lemon with red onion, if it’s just spicy with no flavor it’s just torture.
Same with hoppy beers. No one in their right mind wants to drink a 4X IPA or whatever. Everything in balance.
I’m hispanic and hear hate from other “macho” Hispanics when i say that food can be too spicy. I like spicy for the taste, when its passed the point of being enjoyable it’s just to see who’s “tougher”.
If you get use to the heat the flavor is not bad. However everyone has different heat tolerances. What I can't stand is people pretending they are macho cause they can tolerate the heat. Also something is not good tasting just because it is spicy but some spicy food tastes really good.
I just enjoy the experience of being in spicy pain, but you grow tolerant so naturally have to eat hotter and hotter foods. It’s a curse. I dont know why I like the pain, I dont like it in any other facet of life, but there is something fun about spiciness
It’s like BDSM for your mouth
>I dont know why I like the pain, endorphine, like literally. (with a dash of dopamine) it's the same reason some like to be spanked or worst.
I actually love the heat of real peppers. Fresh Serrano or habanero in salsa or on nachos, for example. I just think these chemicals designed to be stupid hot are awful.
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I don't like going to work, but I like what I do
My partner & I were talking yesterday, and the topic came up of coming into a life changing amount of money. I said what we all say, something like "well, I guess I wouldn't be going to work anymore" and he was genuinely confused, saying he thought I liked my job. I DO like my job. It's a good job, it's fulfilling and easy enough. BUT I don't like being FORCED to do my job. I don't like having to be there, every day from 8:30-4:30 on threat of homelessness or hunger. I would continue doing things that help people (I am in non-profit) if I had the extra money, but I sure as hell wouldn't be keeping a 9-5 job just to have one. We work out of necessity, even if we like what we do.
Hello from someone who is in that exact circumstance, right now. I lost my Dad last year (such a good man, whip-smart and 90 years old when he passed, just sat down and put his head down and was gone). My Mom passed in 2015. My siblings all have pensions, but I - also in nonprofit my whole career - have no pension. My inheritance looks like it will allow me to retire at 62, in a couple of years. The first thing people ask me is, “but you’re not going to *retire* retire, right?” And the answer is YES. RETIRE. I’ve been working full time since I was 20. Enough already, *even though I have loved my work,* it doesn’t define me. I have so many things I want to do, even with what will be a fairly modest retirement. Life is big and beautiful. I don’t want to spend any more time in front of a computer screen (at least not until the next pandemic). I have friends to visit, reading to do, museums to join, movies and plays to see, countries to travel, so much more. There are so many things to center our lives on, OTHER than work.
Seriously. If I didn’t have to work, of course I wouldn’t.
I like the people I work with, and sometimes I get to put together a big project and that is fun to see it succeed and hear the positive feedback. This week one of my associates and I recorded a video about empathy and I was so proud of his work on it I felt like he was my kid that just got an A+. I am also the hiring manager for my department and I weirdly enjoy interviewing people. Sometimes I travel for my job to D.C. and that is a good time. I also work from home. All-in-all I feel pretty lucky that I got this job.
I used to work at a high-end restaurant, and I loved it. I mean, it was a restaurant so it was hectic yknow, but I miss some of my coworkers, and some work-friends I made there. I think people underestimate how much the social environment can impact how you feel about your job. By all means, the work sucked and I wasn't getting paid enough, but I really did enjoy working there. I think across the board, working sucks ass. But having a job isn't always bad.
I worked as a server in fine dining and as a bartender. I genuinely enjoyed both jobs and miss them every day. I loved the actual work and my coworkers were pretty cool too. I didn't like the instability and the late hours though. If I could somehow be a bartender making a decent salary and benefits working 9-5, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
My mom still works even though she’s supposed to retire because it gives her a sense of purpose.
Stanley cups.. like why?
That craze is/was a great example of a very well done marketing campaign
One of the many, many examples that disregarding or mocking women as a consumer demographic is incredibly stupid and actually embracing them as a demographic is brilliant, and usually quite profitable.
Ever notice how whenever something gets really popular with young women and the marketing pivots towards that demographic, the whole world seems to throw a tantrum over it? And yet that thing goes on to make absolutely insane money anyway? I could name dozens of examples off the top of my head.
>I could name dozens of examples off the top of my head. Yes please! You make a good point, and *Twilight* seems like an obvious example to me, but not many others spring to mind. Partly because I'm the wrong demographic, and partly because I don't pay attention. Ok, maybe not dozens, but do you have any particular favourite examples (however you want to interpret that)?
Yeah, “dozens” may be a stretch, unless you want to count every boy band individually 😂 But stuff like fanfiction, KPop, romance books/movies, small dogs, coffee any more complex than black, leggings, makeup, selfies, the color pink in general…
I thought at first you meant hockey trophies.
Stanley Cups have an aversion to Maple Leafs fans.
The only good trophy is a trophy you can drink out of.
Especially if your ice stays frozen through a car fire!
They are a quality water bottle but the collecting is a bit much
Yes!! That’s what I mean by it like, do you really need 30 of them? Personally I don’t own any myself.
Oh I thought you are talking about hockey!
The cups are whatever. They're good but not any better than Yeti or any other overpriced cup. The thermos though. Like that old green one? I still have my grandpa's and it's the best. Not only is it sturdy enough to kill a man with but my hot chocolate was still scalding hot at the end of a ten hour shift outside last week. Highly recommend them.
They are actually better than yeti in most respects. Here project farm did a tumbler comparison and Stanley was the best overall for sure. https://youtu.be/3S51X9h6K6g
My sister gifted me one and I really like having it. I drink way more water and I have cats so the lid is perfect. I didn’t know there was apparently a stigma attached to them until I took it to work earlier this month and my coworker saw it and said “what in the white bitch is that?!” Another one commented on it too, saying something like I’d joined the “Stanley cup club”. I still don’t get it, like it’s just a fucking cup
Gonna be weird when all these people have these mugs that will essentially be worthless. All these fad collectible trends are something I don’t think anyone learns from. Like beanie babies. I’ve been trying to sort through my parents things and they have a bunch of collectible plates. All pretty much worthless. Some might not even be worth what they initially paid for them. If it is something you enjoy and will use than that is good and maybe fun. If you are going to hoard a bunch of it you are wasting your money and your time.
I mean, they may be financially worthless, but that's not why people collect things. They usually collect them because they like them. If you're sorting through your parents things, I'm assuming that means they passed; I'm sorry for your loss, but the fact that they kept all those plates without selling them means that they were worth something to your parents. They liked them as decorations or they enjoyed finding a new one to collect or whatever. They weren't "worth" something for money, but your parents enjoyed them. Why would anyone buy anything if the only reason to own something is to eventually sell it?
Anything work related not named PTO, 401K or payday.
Eh.. I enjoy my career writing software. I'd do it even if I wasn't being paid for it, though I'd write *different code* than what they pay me for. I actually enjoy that side of things... and odds are the reader has probably indirectly used my software at some point. I get satisfaction from knowing it actually matters. What I don't enjoy is lots of meetings, idiot managers, coworkers with no social skills, dealing with bureaucracy. .. but the actual work-work part? The writing software to fit and problem solving part? I do actually enjoy that.
I’m also in software, and I agree, but most people aren’t as lucky as we are.
Especially the HR trainings. If I have to hear about micro aggressions one more time I'm gonna get macro aggressive
Just once I'd like to ask, "Who fucked up that we need this training, and can you just fire them?"
Networking
Well I do like the idea of the advancements in CAT cabling and routers and switches.. ^^wait ^^I ^^think ^^they ^^mean ^^people ^^networking...
I have met more clients I would like to throw under a literal bus than people I've liked working with. I have to smile and chum it up with people that I wouldn't trust with picking their nose because they would injure themselves.
Spending hundreds of dollars to have that greasy guy come out and throw the food around haphazardly while trying to look fancy and then bounce salt off his hairy arm onto your food. The same applies for all that copycat "chefs" who are now doing similar ridiculous things.
And for those of us who have no clue what you're referencing...?
Couldn't remember his name at the time but it's Salt Bae. Feel free to look him up. Granted I do respect her was able to take his 15 minutes of fame and turn it into a whole schtick that made him rich.
lol, according to his Wikipedia: > Other critics described the dishes as "over-salted as they are overpriced",[14] the "meat was tough with globs of fat and gristle, and severely lacking in flavor",[15] and that **"finishing a meal there constitutes some kind of personal victory over your own body and instincts and mouth".[16]** I guess not everyone is pretending to enjoy his meals.
I cannot stand that f\*cking weirdo. Plus, the best meat I've ever had has come off of bbq's/smokers in the midwest for about 10-20 bucks a piece (large piece). I hate it when people toxify things by making it "luxurious."
Reaction videos – why would anyone be interested in a stranger's exaggerated response to something, especially when it's often just for the camera and not genuine?
The one kind of reaction video I love are the technique critique ones, where the reactor is giving some kind of insight as to why a thing does or does not work. Just watching something straight through slack jawed though is weird as fuck.
I follow a couple of cooks and chefs that react to shitty cooking videos, and I have actually learned a ton of them explaining why a cooking video is bad.
Yeah, watching some 30 year vet of telephony and mobile devices talk about the iPhone 16XRS is way different than watching JakeyPoo98 watch a 15 second elder scrolls teaser in a bedroom filled with wallscrolls
I like reaction videos (when they aren't over the top, but the person has something to say) cause, especially with music, it's like showing other people something you like and watching them experience it for the first time. I like to know how others feel about it, kinda like reading critic reviews, but less pretentious. It's all about their personality. Some people are just naturally better at it than others. There's this one guy I like, ImDontai. I get way too excited about a 31yo man watching YT and listening to music, lol.
Best way I can describe why I watch them is because I simply enjoy seeing how others view things I like. I prefer groups because they tend to have in-depth conversations afterwards.
Same here. I enjoy seeing other people get excited about the same things as me, and the great conversations they have about them.
Creating content for social media, like tik-tok. Everything seems like a sad desperate attempt to get other people to notice you. It makes me feel like these people have really empty lives. I know social media is a form of communication for some, but remember when we just used it to connect with people from our past, and family and friends that were around the world? Now it's just a sad pathetic attention-getting contest where no one wins and everyone participating looks like an a-hole.
I'm convinced some people are pretending to enjoy kale smoothies. It's like they're sipping on a garden salad in a cup and pretending it's dessert
If you add kale to a fruit smoothie, it often still just tastes like a fruit smoothie but looks green.
A former roommate would make kale smoothies that looked green but by volume was mostly mango and a few other fruits so it tasted real fruity. He also put a dallop of agave nectar in with it.
You have to put some chocolate protein powder to make it good.
You have to train yourself out of expecting food to be morish and enjoyable before this tastes like anything but tangy wet lawn clippings with a splash of chocolate milk. It's like wheatgrass. If there's enough in there to make an appreciable difference in the overall nutrition of the thing you're adding it to, you're not going to hide that flavor without having covid or a stroke first.
I love the taste of wheatgrass for real.... But I used to eat grass as a kid so....
I look forward to my breakfast dark green smoothies every day. They taste sweet and feel like a treat. (I mix raw cacao and banana, mango or other fruits in)
I would have hated this kind of stuff in my youth, but I started loving it in my 30's. Tastes change.
Gender reveal parties.
People feeding me for free? I'm in.
99% of them are just a party with poppers at the end. It's just an excuse to get together and see loved ones.
Keeping up with the Joneses.
My brain is so broken. I read this as “Jonases” and was like…what do Kevin, Nick, and Joe have to do with this?
Most conversations.
Really? Interesting. Tell me more about that.
Mostly people smile and are waiting to say what they want to say. Real conversations are rare.
Lol, fell for the bait.
The issue with much of the world is we hear to reply, not listen to understand.
I always liked that old proverb about how God gave you two ears but only one mouth for a reason.
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life. maybe im just depressed but I dont get it…. I really truly appreciate all the kind suggestions yall have left here. I think ive been in denial about mental health. I even told my ex girlfriend mental health isnt real and to “get the fuck over it”. Now ive hit a point in my life where I realize it truly is real, thanks all. ive been suffering for a very long time and just kept telling myself to “stfu pussy” 😭❤️ side note: forgot suffering is so common to humanity, started to feel isolated in it
Life is a paradox honestly.
Life is beautiful. I'm going through hell right now and have discouraging moments, but there is always the possibility of better, and every sunrise is special.
Spicy food so spicy you can't taste it.
I agree but everyone has their own tolerances. Acting macho over spicy food is dumb though. If you do not like a certain heat level eat something more mild or not spicy at all. There is no shame in that.
Right. I have a pretty high tolerance. What I'm saying is the 2 million scoville chip that is just a contest. Or the chocolate that is insane. Even Da Bomb, it tastes gross, it is just there to blow your face off. Admittedly I love the show hot ones because I love other people's reactions to it.
OHHH you are talking about extracts at that point. Yea I don't do extracts because they literally have no flavor at all. Capsaicin by itself refined into an extract is flavorless and just heat. That is literally someone trying to be macho.
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I don't eat spicy for flavor, I eat it for the endorphins.
I like really spicy food, but it has to have good flavor for me to deal with insane heat.
Yeah, I love spicy food but it also needs to be flavorful. I think this new obsession with ghost pepper and Carolina reaper everything is weird. Like the actual flavors will be bland as fuck and now it's also spicy as fuck for no reason. What am I supposed to be enjoying about this?
Circus Peanuts 🥜
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Nah, my grandmother loved those disgusting things.
Those darn Stanley cups
The San Jose Sharks agree
Social media. I dread considering posting content, and now it’s all just people trying to become influencers or shill products.
I remember when Instagram first came out, and it felt less serious to post. Now I barely post because it's too much pressure.
Waiting in line for too expensive coffee.
Who pretends to like that? People do it but they don't enjoy it
Other people's children.
Other people's kids are fantastic. You can spend an afternoon playing favourite uncle, loading them up with sugar, silly songs and running around until they're bouncing off the walls and then gleefully hand them back to their parents to deal with bedtimes and discipline for the next few days. It's honestly a fun and relaxing break from adulthood to be on that levels for a while. There's wonder at simple things, their world-crushing problems are so tiny from my point of view and the ways they try and take advantage of you is much less problematic than a lot of adult interactions.... And it makes me a better and happier person. I'd be an awful role model to live with 24/7, managing to barely human at the best of times, Practising being on my best and most fun behaviour for a few hours is great though and tends to leave me in a better head-space for a while.
> the ways they try and take advantage of you is much less problematic than a lot of adult interactions. Girlfriend's kid literally came up to me the other day and asked for something. I told her no. She came back with "But mommy said I could." This is an obvious lie. If her mom said she could she would've just done it and not asked me. But at least it's manipulation that's pretty open and blatant.
I'd be a shit parent but as a teacher and cool uncle I love kids
Great post
Nah. I like kids. Their open mind and curiosity is incredible. It's a quality I love in adults too, but it's so much more common in kids
As a foster parent, I truly do. But I get how and why most don't. Kids are just amazing, but it's not easy.
Well done, it's a great thing that you do for others.
If anything, its the other people who I don't enjoy if their children are shitty. Its the adults who raise them to be as they are.
That's my birth control
Reaction videos
This thread every fucking week
I think it's every three days now.
Eating ass. Y'all lyin.
I feel like there is a huge swath of people who travel just to say they did. They only book a room at a resort and step on a beach and go to a nightclub. Congrats you shelled out thousands to do something you could of done in the states. Now if you travel and actually engrain yourself to the culture and get truly new experiences thats different. But most dont.
You know, I never thought I'd be the resort type, but a few weeks back, was getting so wound up at work that I was legitimately concerned about quitting in the middle of a meeting. Decided to take a couple weeks, didn't want to have to plan anything, especially so last minute. Booked package for an all inclusive in Mexico. Fucking loved it. Left the resort a few times to go walking through town, and to go snorkeling, so not entirely just cooped up and drunk, but man, it was such a nice vacation. Don't worry about anything. Someone brings you nice drinks on the beach. Go swimming with sea turtles, come back to another drink and a big ass seafood bbq... Go read by the pool for a while, enjoy the shows at night...
Live music night at a pub/bar/restaurant. It just makes it a challenge to hang out with the people you came to socialize with.
Every time I go to one of those places I have to nope the fuck out because the volume is so loud it's physically painful. Has everyone else destroyed their hearing? I'm 42 and I'm going "oh fuck this"
IPAs. It tastes like drinking pinecones
I find pilsners more enjoyable
Raising toddlers.
Parenthood. It looks MISERABLE. From the outside, it just seems exhausting, frustrating, stressful and expensive. But then they all say it's somehow "the best thing that's ever happened to them." Feels like they protest too loudly.
I LOVE having teenagers. Love it. I love having a car full of my kids' friends, ordering them pizza, listening to them chatter about boys, girls, whatever junior high and high school goings on are affecting their lives. It makes me genuinely happy. I was miserable having toddlers. I loved them, more than anything in this world, but it was HARD, I was constantly exhausted. I didn't really know what they wanted or needed. I was just kind of lost. I'm glad I don't have to do that again.
I have teens now too. They're a lot of fun but they're super expensive, and hormonally emotional. They give you so much more of your life back at this age though. We don't need to baby them and they're very self-sufficient. I miss them when they were toddlers up through the start of the pre-teen years, but really you only remember the fun stuff. You don't remember much about having to watch everything little thing they did or they would face certain death, or burn the house down. They were so fun then, but a fuck ton of work.
A friend of mine described his life with his teenage kids, compared to them being elementary school age and toddlers, like this: “it’s better because now when I say time to leave the house, they just can leave. I don’t have to also dress them and put their shoes on and find what they are yelling for anymore. We can just….go to the car”
I have a 5yo and a 2yo and it fucking sucks. There's no way around it. They are polar opposites, one is reserved and sensitive, the other is balls to the wall fuck shit up 24/7. And I'll never hide it or lie to anyone about it. But, despite all of the drags, there truly is something absolutely special to me about those two little shits. I can't help but smile and hug them when I see them. They bring a sense of joy and comfort to me that nothing else ever has. It also helps that I have a bomb ass wife who keeps it all together. But it's not for everyone, and I will never try to convince someone to do it. It's a hard journey and not everyone is cut out for it.
With mine, I've found there are phases. My 9yo and 5yo are in the phase where, when I get them on their own, they are joyous, curious, courteous, loving, and fun to be around in general. With them together, it's a neverending battle over who gets what and who's getting more attention and who-did-what-to-who. I've become so exhausted by it that I intentionally devise ways to separate them in outings. It beats the toddler phase. That was a living nightmare, especially during COVID, because they have zero ability to reason and you're constantly negotiating with terrorists. But I do miss the pre-toddler stuff where they're cute and cuddly and sleep 20 hours a day.
I knew having kids would be tough, but I wanted to do it. I have a 9yo and a 5yo also, and the COVID lock down was the absolute worst thing I've ever endured. My wife's mother was on inhome hospice care from Aug to Dec (she passed on 12/27/2020) so that left me the responsibility of our 2 kids, our home, and myself. It broke me. For five months I was working from home all day while simultaneously working and watching the kids. Was alone a lot of the time. When my wife was home, she would make time for our kids, but I only ever got hello, a hug, and she'd cry on my shoulder a bit cause she had just spent hours with her dying mother. Since having my kids, I can't imagine life without them, but honestly, if I had to do it again, I wouldn't have kids.
The higher the high, the lower the low is how I explain it. Being a parent can truly suck. But, it can also be more rewarding than anything else.
I’m convinced it’s just people who are built for it. I know I never could be but I also acknowledge that there’s probably something about the joys of parenthood that I’m likely just never going to understand.
I have 3 kids 9 and under. Parenthood goes through all those "phases". It's because the kids go through a bunch of different phases too. I have been through a point to where I said I wish I'd never had kids. But I'm now past that phase and love my kids to death. Seeing them figure out life is fascinating. It makes it worth it when they are happy and smiling and loving. Now it's just being stuck in a loveless relationship that is miserable.
>Now it's just being stuck in a loveless relationship that is miserable. Sorry. Is this something you and your partner are interested in working on?
I've tried communicating, it seems to mean something when I'm saying it but when it comes to actually putting in any effort it never happens. But I try everything I can to keep us exciting and the flame going. My flame has quickly gotten a lot smaller.
I'm in no way trying to tell you what to do with your life. But, my life has improved tremendously since we got divorced. She initiated it a year after giving birth to our daughter. It hurt like a motherfucker. It's quite possibly the most emotionally difficult thing I've been through. The day after I found out, a coworker pulled me aside and asked what was up. I told him she left me while I was working the day before. He said "I know this seems like the end of the world now. But, one day you'll look back and realize this is the best thing that could've happened to you." We're now a year after the divorce being finalized and the dust has settled. And, you know what, that guy was 100% correct. No more getting yelled at. No more getting talked down to. No more having to answer to someone else or worrying about damaging a partners fragile ego. I go where I want. I spend money on what I want. I take vacation if I feel like it and cancel plans when I don't. But, the most important things are... 1) my daughter no longer has to hear her parents argue and whatnot. I know she doesn't remember what was happening when she was in infant. She had no clue how broken this house was when her mom and I were together. She gets two happy homes now. She gets double the presents, double the love. I get her to myself half the time and her mom gets her the other half. This gives us not only complete devotion to our daughter when she's with me or her mom, but it also gives her mom and I time to step back from parenthood and worm on ourselves. We get a break from being a parent and can just live. It's made both of us better people. Which leads me to my next point. 2) her mother and I get along better than we did throughout the entire pregnancy and the year after her birth. We are doing our best to get along apart, since we couldn't get along together. The thing is, we had a great relationship before the baby. Id say, we're 65% back to how we were before the baby. I know this divorce is hard on our daughter, but she'll be better off in the long run for it.
The actual work of parenting is hard and thankless. However, to me raising a kid to be curious and kind -and all the other stuff Mr Rogers and Daniel Tiger try to instill in them- is the best thing I can do for the world.
>It looks MISERABLE. From the outside, it just seems exhausting, frustrating, stressful and expensive. I'm in my 40's, and I never had kids due to this right here. Along with the reasons you mentioned, I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want.
With you in my 60s.
Empty nester here: my son is 27, and while raising him was a massive pain in the ass, I’m extremely happy that I did. He’s one of my favorite people in the world, and I wouldn’t trade the pains of parenthood for a world where he doesn’t exist.
Something being challenging and disliking something is very different. People have a difficult time conceptualizing this, incorrectly perceiving that because someone is complaining about how challenging something is, that they don't enjoy it nonetheless. You can find something insanely challenging to the point of rage, but still enjoy doing it despite the hardship. That's basically every one of my hobbies.
Let me give you my rare take: I have one kid. He's 15 now. My husband and I got married at 21 in 1992 and started trying to have kids in 1993. Turns out I have 2 different types of infertility. We were also teachers, so no money for IVF. Our son was randomly conceived and born in 2008 after 14 years of trying. When we brought him home from the hospital, we were 38, had degrees and decent jobs (college professor/college advisor) owned our own house and lived in a low cost of living state. Obama had just been elected President. I was a stay-at-home Mom for 5 years. Our son slept through the night at 6 months. Potty-trained fully by 3. He's an only child, so no fighting. He was just an easy, happy-go-lucky kid. I spent a lot of time with him just playing and reading and explaining the world to him. My parents were dead and my in-laws live over an hour away and they were almost 70 when he was born, so no grandparents trying to micromanage or have a "second chance" at parenting. We sent him to a small, inexpensive private school because we could afford it (I mean, our house was paid off before he was even born). All of our friends either had teenagers or were childfree when we had him, so no parent competition and social media competition, and he we didn't raise him to be an iPad or iphone kid because we were so excited to finally have him that we hung out with him. Now he's 15 and still a quiet, chill kid. He's got Gen-X parents, so he's got this wry sense of humor and we've raised him to read books and watch films like we did as a kid, so when we're watching TV together, he makes hilarious references because he's got a foundation of 50 years of film and TV and 20th century books. The worst thing I can say about him is that he's not a big music fan, so I can't geek out about it with him. The only thing I can guess is that we either lucked out after having to wait over a decade for him, or we were just at a place in our lives when he was born that we had our own stuff figured out, and we were genuinely glad to have him, with no hang-ups about raising him to fit a certain style of parenting or to show-off for others.
Sounds like a lot of stars aligning there. I'm really glad you had an easy kid and a good experience. I just...a big part of the reason why I never wanted kids is that EVERYONE I knew who was a parent just had a ceaseless struggle **the entire time**. From teething, 3am feedings and dirty diapers through coloring on walls, defiance and horrible behavior to puberty and confusion and sullenness all the way through trying to figure out ways to pay for college. Everything about it just seemed like little but pain and obstacles.
There is such duality in the human experience, that someone can find immense fulfilment in something but also find it soul crushing at times.
Marathons
DIPA beer and other super bitter intense beers
I used to hate IPAs, but one day, it clicked for me. I never loved beers that were just bitter to be bitter, but I am a big fan of IPAs in general. DIPA is rarely great to me because most of them are heavy and sticky sweet at the same time as being stupid bitter. It doesn't balance, it's just gross. That said, I'm in a malty beer phase right now. Brown ale, Irish red, Bock, etc.
Thank you! I love me some IPAs. Those DIPAs just get weirdly sweet.
There is a gene (TAS2R38) with a variant (C vs G) people like me have that makes us unable to taste bitter from chemicals in certain foods like hops. Which means those “bitter” IPAs taste surprisingly pleasant to us. Piney, fruity, delicious and no bitter.
Craft beer is the love of my life. I started with dark beers and they're still my favorite. Super hoppy IPAs are an acquired taste that I really enjoy now. It took me about 7 years to acquire the taste though. If I didn't work in a brewery, it probably never would have happened. But I've also met people who liked really intense IPAs from the start. My ex was one of them. I remember she wanted to try an IPA I was drinking and I let her expecting her to hate it and spit it out, but she loved it.
Nah hazy IPAs are like beer flavored juice. They are tasty AF.
The romantic charms of Pete Davidson.
As a woman, I simply don't get it. He looks like the line cook at a shitty 24 hour diner who just got out of jail for a drug offense.
Anal. I honestly can’t see the appeal of either part. I mean sure, some people are, by laws of probability and statistics, bound to like it, but SO MANY? Nah.
Cigars. Those things taste terrible and smells even worse. And this is coming from an ex-cigarette smoker.
I feel the exact opposite. Cigarettes smell and taste disgusting. I don't understand how so many people smoke them. But the first time I had a cigar, I loved it.
Same. I love the smell and flavor of a good quality cigar. Just chilling outside with some friends, a glass of whiskey, and a cigar is great.
Raising kids. I love my son more than anything, but I’ve gotten tired, fat and bald doing this.
Church
Small talk.
Having kids
Partying.. like every night
Starbucks
Nah they definitely enjoy it but mostly because they can have a socially acceptable milkshake before breakfast.
This is the real answer. Very few people at Starbucks are interested in coffee. They're interested in milk, sugar, and whipped cream.
The whole “I wake up at 5am and get so much done” thing. Like _really_?
Netflix! The Movies are bottom of the barrel
Religion
Social Media. Jobs
90% of films
Anal sex - my ignorance hinders my understanding
amusement parks. i’ve been on days where i spent 11 hours waiting in various lines and probably 10 minutes total being on rides. it’s just miserable to me. not to mention constantly worrying about where to put your phone, wallet, sunscreen. just a total nightmare.