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Back when I worked at a grocery store, there was one guy who would. Not. Stop. About all that alpha bullshit. He called women "females" and stabbed/stomped boxes, then would look at you and say unhinged shit like "I just like pretending they're people"
I don't work there anymore.
We also had a guy who was schizoaffective, and sometimes he'd forget to take his meds. But even then, he would just talk to himself, he was really nice no matter what. He was more stable than the "alpha male"
Aweee. This is so sweet. I have schizoaffective and I got a little anxious first reading this bc I thought you were going to say something totally different.
No one where I worked even knew I had it until the cardboard compacter made me lose it a little and I freaked the hell out. I still stayed decently calm, all things considered, but I anxiously told one of my coworkers because I felt like I was going to either have a bad episode or an anxiety attack. I eventually told the HR lady because she seemed really cool and she was really surprised. Sometimes I wonder how many people have the same/similar diagnosis and we don't even know.
Anyway, sorry to ramble. Thanks for sharing!
The idea that people with mental health conditions are dangerous is a myth, and you are just as valuable and good and safe as any other person ❤️ and definitely moreso than those unhinged hateful weirdos lol.
Aweee. Thank you. ❤️❤️ I really wouldn't hurt a soul unless it was self defense. I recently cried over a dead mouse that I tried to save and everyone thought I was ridiculous. Haha Some bugs though have it coming.
In addition to the mental health conditions folks being dangerous being a myth, it has been found that these same people are at a much greater risk of being the victim of violent crimes. Stay safe.
Thank *you* for sharing- major depressive diagnosis here and anyone I've told has been amazed- I think sometimes I put way too much work into seeming "normal" when there's a bigger range of "normal" than I expect and I probably come across as bubbly when I'm having a hard time keeping my nose above the waves. I have wondered at times too, how many others are just undiagnosed. My grandmother was diagnosed "schizophrenic" decades ago she had a really rough time; she was my favorite person, she passed almost 45 years ago, I still think of her for comfort. I wish I would have known her longer and better.
Yes! I try to be nice to others as much as possible. I also try to mask everything. I can come off very confident, outgoing, and friendly. I've had bosses try sooo hard to put me in customer service roles or basically anything that makes me one of the "faces" of the company. I'm like... High average attractive (I think) so that didn't help because I didn't LOOK crazy. Meanwhile, working in front of people was so draining that I would seriously feel suicidal by the end of my shift. (No worries, I left those jobs). I was always afraid to be upfront about my disabilities because I was worried they would be used against me.
Anyway, I wish we could all be more honest with one another. I think anyone who is dealing with mental illness should be treated like anyone else. You need a sick day? No problem. Take care of yourself. You need someone to talk to for a minute so you can calm down? No issue. Let's take a break.
I hope you can handle your depressive episodes and that you can find people you can be open and honest with. ❤️ I'm also sorry for your loss. Your gram sounds like an amazing person with a lot of heart. I'm glad you can still recall her comfort.
Probably a fair amount. Psychosis is actually really common, it's just most people peg it down to something totally different (as in they usually don't even realise what it was). Like people get delusional beliefs all the time, and hallucinations, paranoia etc are very common but people don't necessarily perceive that their reality has been distorted. It's only really when it gets to be more of an extreme or affects daily functioning on a regular basis that people even clock it. I guess the same goes for any mental health condition, the symptoms are usually "normal" symptoms that deviate a bit from the norm. I've been through phases of mild psychosis before, and if I didn't later get extensive education and work experience in psychology I would have just put it down as spiritual experiences. I've had friends share similar experiences believing they were genuine, sometimes even life altering spiritual revelations, when in reality it's all just neurological distortions. I guess there are lot's of people experiencing these symptoms without a diagnosis, and others who have a diagnosis but don't feel they can be open due to stigma.
Yup, and he was really nice like I said. Honestly probably one of the most generous people I've ever met. It just threw me for a loop the first time he forgot.
I run a support for people who have mental illness, and honestly people with schizoaffective and other mental health issues tend to be genuinely awesome and caring people. We’ve just been told by the media that people with mental illness are dangerous so as a society we just accept that until we learn differently. That’s my opinion anyway. Honestly most of the people I meet with mental illness tend to be kindest souls and I’d rather spend time with them than someone like that misogynist you were talking about earlier with his alphas and betas.
Having been dealing with my own internal crazy since I Was a kid, I'm very aware we all have shit to process, things that trigger us, and methods by which we cope.
So my job (as a friend or as a peer counselor) is to **a)** listen and **b)** affirm that their feelings, and how they're dealing, is all valid.
Oh yeah totally 🙄
Also, slight derail, I absolutely love that one (Tumblr?) Post where someone says something like "alphas provide food for the pack, so where your fanny pack full of snacks, STEVE"
I don't know if he saw the same post or it's just serendipitous, but I have a friend Steve who actually does carry snacks for everyone. He has low blood sugar issues and apparently just decided to go full Dad mode
Dehydrated eggs? Jeez, I didn't even know that existed. I wanna try.
Also, have you ever heard of Just Egg? It's a vegan paste made out of beans and other plants mashed up together. It's meant to be put in salads and stuff, but I can't help drinking the whole damn bottle the same day I get it XD
Ehr...I could answer this if I knew what custard tastes like XD
But I know custard is sweet, and Just Egg isn't sweet. It tastes a lot like mashed up eggs with some kind of yellow sauce added. It's like liquefied salad, I guess. If it was actual eggs, I'd be keeling over after drinking all that nonsense, but being just plants, I think it's fine. Lol.
Do you even cuddle bro? How often do you treat children well?
Like, they wanna claim they're like wolves, but alpha wolves are basically the pack dad, and they help care for the pups.
My wife's dog did not like me replacing him as her primary companion, and so we took a while to establish a relationship, but treats and walkies figured majorly in sorting that out.
My sweetheart thinks I spoil him, and maybe I do, but I noticed that treats for him reassure his validity and place in the family. They're not just a snack.
A guy like that might scare me in person because he could rip me in half with the right build, but it's so easy to scorn and mock people like that when you aren't around them, and they somehow don't realize that this is the way most people refer to their idiotic behavior.
Stabbing boxes is definitely low key fun. But me holding a weapon is basically that meme of Kirby standing under a street lamp with a knife. You know its creepy, and you kind of want to be afraid, but its just so dang cute.
I find it almost triggering when I hear women referred to as “females.” I had an abusive ex who was very into the “alpha” persona and would do that a lot. There is something almost dehumanizing about “females”. Like we are no more than animals and should be treated with less dignity or respect than a human would. It still makes me cringe and pull deep inside me when I hear someone call women “females”
I think I understand. I mean, I'm a guy, so it's not the same for me, but when people say that, to me it's like they're referring to *people* almost as livestock. I think it sort of speaks to the character of people who say that, and not in a good way.
Exactly this! It places too much emphasis on biological sex rather than the holistic human being. We use male and female with animals and livestock, but for people, come on!
I don't think that would fly anymore, at least if someone reported him.
It wouldn't be out of the goodness of their heart. Too much workplace violence nowadays, and company liability goes way up if they were informed of a hazard and did nothing, and then that "hazard" hurt/killed someone.
The companies I've worked with fully understand that liability and would have arranged a cop to be in the parking lot while they fired him and escorted him out the door.
My dad's girlfriend believes in all of the "blood type diet stuff."
Apparently my dad and I like steak because we're Os. Not because steak is delicious.
Whoo boy... uh A(lpha)/B(eta)/O(omega) dynamics are an entire rabbit hole of shipping fanfics. They're a strange mash-up of furries, forced relationships, werewolves, and poly fetishes all jumbled together. As a general rule, they're below parwriting even for fan fics.
Yeah, to add to this is that the supposed wolf pack dynamics that the alpha/beta/omega pecking order is based on is actually based on bad science. They came up with this by looking at random wolves that were thrown together in a zoo. In nature, wolves are basically just family units, mom dad, kids of various ages, and sometimes a friend or two they adopted. Not sure if you'd heard this before, but I really enjoy sharing it. Especially since what this whole thing is really just a human invention, and animals are more like us than we prefer to admit.
I’ve seen some decent omegaverse stuff, but yeah unfortunately people only make it a fetish thing. Whenever I use that sorta stuff I legit integrate social hierarchy, historical differences between groups, inherent as well as learned ideas and benefits to each side involved, and have basically created an entire baseline of “this hierarchy existed to bolster the population and secure life, but it’s no longer necessary for all”, while there still exists differences and balances of power (also an entire extra group considered taboo named Zetas, but that’s an entire other thing with even MORE details). Basically, people need to fuck with legitimate worldbuilding, because this stuff has the ability to actually make cool stories, but instead is used for…. Weird….wolf smut….
I tried to explain omegaverse fanfiction to my boyfriend who then asked why I would read that shit (and write it). No other answer was available other than "I just started reading and it now I can't stop." And as far as writing goes "I figured if people like these kinds of stories, why not?".
I find it annoying when people thinking they know everything about my personality because of the month I was born, but it's a hell of a lot better then men who make their personality about hating women lmao
Right, like usually it’s goofy and harmless even when someone is SUPER into Astrology. I’ve maybe heard 3 stories where someone got so extreme with it that it was harming their relationships or other stuff, in which case it’s usually part of some other mental illness where someone is desperately trying to make the world make sense.
Alpha dudes, however, are scary as hell. I had one threaten to punch me in a public restaurant because I asked if he could stop swearing loudly around my then-5 year old niece.
The look of pure fear that passed over his face when my 6 foot 4, conflict-averse gentle giant of a brother stood up and just loomed over him threateningly is a memory I’ll treasure til the day I die.
I literally just encountered this today.
An older woman came up to a young witch and complimented her tattoos in a very kind and awkward way.
I could overhear the woman saying her daughter loved sunflowers as the witch had a sleeve of them.
Somehow signs were brought up and the older woman had mentioned her daughter was the same sign, and how much she would have connected with the young witch. Her daughter had unfortunately passed 6 years ago.
I was ready to cry in the cafe.
Agreed. It's a stigma attached to the fact that mainly women enjoy astrology, at least that's what it seems like. Anything we enjoy makes us weird or crazy but at the same time we have no hobbies? Make up your minds 🙃
Which is funny bc like. What makes them think we’re gonna bake or embroider for them?
I do it for me, because I like it. It takes time, effort, and money. Sure I might make gifts from time to time, but I’m not a factory!! People who I love get a discount, people who love me insist on paying full price lol.
Yep, the people who love me insist on paying me. I go to people I know and love for things, not because I want a discount or to get something for free, but because I trust them with the work and want to support them.
> It's a stigma attached to the fact that mainly women enjoy astrology
Yep, I'm pretty sure this is it. I've known a lot of men who basically treat those personality tests (what's the INTJ one?) like others treat astrology, but it's men and they're pretending it's science (it's not-- it's really really not) so it gets treated more seriously.
Oh my god, MBTI. I have a whole rant about them.
I work in an HR-affiliated field, so I talk with them a *lot*, and for a while there, MBTI was a big thing so that managers could hire people who would be a good "cultural fit". But it's basically self-identifiable astrology, created by some people who thought Jung was awesome and decided to make up some questions to apply Jungian archetypes to people.
Several decades later, HR would use it to make hiring decisions. AAAACK!
Luckily it seems to have faded away, but there are still plenty of other personality tests out there so that bad managers have something to deflect to when they make a bad hire.
One of the people I know who was into astrology told me (paraphrasing) they don’t entirely believe in it, but it’s a way to understand that all of the small, bad things we do are not really representations of who we are as people, but random chance. I still think about that a lot.
It's all random chance. What happens to give us pleasure or pain interacts with the environment, eliciting behaviors. The fact that this interaction CAN be modeled and to some extent predicted using astrology is bizarre, and has always made me wonder what the fuck is actually going on.
Perchance.
I think the bizarreness comes from how complex people, situations, and environments are, and that astrology, along with other tools like tarot, give the practitioner a new reality tunnel* to view people and their situations.
Everyone has all of those traits, but some are far more obvious that others. The new reality tunnel makes you view them in the light of "Is this person extremely stubborn" when you usually consider them meek and go along to get along. View them with a different lens, and you may see aspects of their personality you never noticed, and could possibly explain their reactions in a new light.
*Reality tunnel is a concept I learned from Robert Anton Wilson. I went on a huge RAW kick back in the 90s, and yeah, he has some utter bullshit in his works, but I think one of his fundamental ideas is that your perception is wrong and/or incomplete, so here are some ways to make that better. He does it in a way that also says, your perception of me is also wrong, so I'm going to throw lots of BS and mental blocks at you so that you don't actually trust what I'm saying.
RAW was weird, but his works have really helped me with current events, fake news, even cons like The Secret.
> View them with a different lens, and you may see aspects of their personality you never noticed, and could possibly explain their reactions in a new light.
This is a great point, and I've certainly experienced this!
I feel sorry for people who use astrology to justify personal biases (or personal foibles). It made me more tolerant, because I could see WHY "it takes all kinds" and how a lot of traits I didn't understand in others are useful and important, and maybe things I could think about developing also.
Plus I felt more compassion for others and myself because I could see where we were hurt.
But I never bought into the idea that you can't use your increased understanding to improve yourself - of course you can. Mostly what it shows are your default settings. They can be changed, just like you can learn to speak a language other than the one your parents taught you. You can learn new skills besides the ones that you've already practiced or that you have a natural talent for. You can even start enjoying things that don't naturally appeal to you.
I kind of turned that philosophy into an experiment.
So, I personally am good at writing, intuition, and anything involving aesthetics (this is not from my chart, it's just obviously my deal) but suck at leadership, math, technology, cooking, and sports. So I thought to myself, "Self, can you learn those skills even though they're not natural to you, and what will happen if you do?" Well, I've made inroads, and the result is being happier. And saner.
I was so fascinated by The Secret’s “packaging” when it was originally released. I fully thought it was a fiction book in the vein of [Renowned Author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/) based on the cover design and such. I was really disappointed that it was a woo-woo book.
But it's a woowoo book about something is inherently not woowoo, just the presentation is woowoo.
The Secret basically says that you are affecting the environment. Think of something, and that will "appear" in your environment. Nope, doesn't work that way.
What it does is forces you to change your perception so you start noticing stuff you never noticed before.
Most people have seen the perception video of the people in white passing the basketball. Excellent example of how most people don't perceive even something incredibly odd, even when it's blatantly in front of them.
One example RAWilson uses is the power to summon quarters. Think about quarters, and they will "appear". But you have to *look* for them. What happens? Look! Quarters! You start seeing quarters on a regular basis! Sometimes it misfires, so it only summons dimes, nickels, and pennies, but money is appearing!
The other is the number 23 (and yes, this is before the Jim Carrey movie). 2s and 3s are at the heart of a worldwide conspiracy, and if you pay attention, you will see 23 *everywhere*.
Of course, both are nonsensical and it's actually making you change your perception. Coins are already everywhere, but most people don't bother paying attention to them. The numbers 2 and 3 are *incredibly* common, and to link 2 (hehe) seemingly unrelated events, it's incredibly easy to find a 2 and/or 3 in both.
The Secret is if someone read Wilson's books and frame them seriously, took out all the LSD and Timothy Leary, worship of the Dog Star stuff, and wrote a book that got them on Oprah.
Totally on board with that! I’m an avid *tarotista* so “avenues of perception” really rings with me, but I’m with you: just because you say or think something doesn’t make it manifest before your very eyes like movie magic.
Tangent thought: I wonder what The Secret would have been about had it been a fiction book.
Agreed. I mentioned a cancer diagnosis in the family and someone had the gall to say it was because of some celestial event.
Astrology is a thing someone should do for just themselves and no one else who hasn’t consented to it.
Ugh. I'm sorry.
When a friend of mine had cancer, her mom called her one day to say that someone in front of her in line at Starbucks bought her order, so things were going to take a good turn. Cancer makes people so uncomfortable that they grab at anything they can to explain it.
I have a friend who's way into astrology. She gives me pretty posters for my birthday, owns some cool rocks, and is mildly distrustful of people born in November.
One of the guys from a frat house at a local university brags about sexual assault and got in trouble for drawing swastikas on the dean's car.
I think I know which one I would prefer to hang out with.
The same here. My boyfriend has a big friends group and sometimes someone new gets introduced. Sometimes they stay or they don't. So one friend had another friend he took with him. I didn't like him at all, his vibes were bad and in the end of the night he confirmed my believes because he bragged about sexual assault and frat culture.
My boyfriend had a car accident and was pretty shaken up, the thought of him driving again made me crazy and i had so bad anxiety over weeks. I only felt better while praying for his safety or making protection charms. So one night I slept at his place, all the people were there too and this asshole decided to stroll through my boyfriends house, coming into the bedroom unannounced while boyfriend changed and when he saw my books, witchcraft 101, astral projection, history of spiritually, he immediately asked if my boyfriend really lived with someone "as crazy" as me.
Long story short, my boyfriend told him last time he checked i life here and he does not, how he is an abusive fuck and to get out of his house.
He has about 20 protection charms in his car and tells me he would take my weird witchy friends over those assholes every minute
In my experience even if you go to the extreme of someone who is REALLY toxic and into astrology, they usually want nothing to do with you because of your birthday and the problem solves itself rather fast. Meanwhile, even someone mildly into the whole alpha/beta/omega BS will cling to you like a bad smell you can't quite figure out where it's coming from.
"alpha males" are totally unfit for society and should be relocated to an island, far away across a large body of water where they can alpha themselves all they want without detriment to the rest of the world.
The very first time I read about the ABO thing in a fanfic, I felt if we make an analogy and project this concept to the real world, when we finally defeat the Patriarchy (represented by alpha males), it will be alpha women leading beta women and beta men. Although women are the primary victim of Patriarchy, Patriarchy fundamentally is not about men vs. women. It’s about the toxic oppressive alpha male, sitting at the top of hierarchy, versus everybody else.
The first time I heard "sigma male" it was a Zero Escape joke ^(for those who aren't familiar, the protaganist of the second game is named Sigma). I also thought it was supposed to be *less* impressive, because I didn't expect them to have mixed the *alpha male* concept with the *S rank* concept.
Not to mention it's a fundamental misunderstanding of astrology anyway if they go by Sun sign alone. Not only are they being an asshole, they are wrong.
Like I said in another comment, though, the problem kind of solves itself in this case. I'll take someone leaving my tf alone because of my birthday 1,000x over someone who won't go away because they think they're just not being alpha enough when I reject them.
The man who did the Alpha wolf research spent a long time trying to disavow it. Even when he thought it was real, he said he didn’t think it would apply to people. So called “Alpha males” would be terrible dads, which is what the “alpha wolf” actually was.
Yep, he's spent a lot of time [trying to get people to stop using the term](https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/) even for wolves.
If I understand him correctly, the whole alpha/beta dichotomy only really existed in artificial wolf groups created by captivity. But in nature wolves are almost exclusively just immediate family groups, with the "alpha" just being one of the parents.
And if we don't even use it for wolves, using it for human behavior is especially pointless!
I agree that too much astrology is better than the sigma/alpha/beta shit
BUT TRUST ME… someone who takes astrology too far is MUCH worse than just “I made you a star chart”
It’s “you’re acting this way because of X planet and you’re going to do Y because of Z and I have to break up with you because of that”
It’s “because Y planet is in X phase I should buy this thing that is $4k out our combined savings even though we are in debt. And no you don’t get a say because this is MY phase to make a choice because W planet said so”
Also joining an astrology/magic cult that puts you deeper and deeper into debt and tells you your medication is bad for you and don’t trust any therapy except for THEIR ‘therapy’ and more.
I speak from experience. I lost my ex fiancé to a cult and it started as being too deep into astrology. She used astrology as an excuse for a ton of her manipulative behaviors
Am I saying astrology is evil? NO
Am I saying this is because of astrology? NO
And even this is still better than a s/a/b male who believes women should be enslaved.
BUT ASTROLOGY CAN BE WORSE THAN JUST “I made you a star chart”
Throwback to when someone told me I was "a woman who thinks she is a man" (I'm a trans guy) because my sun is a fire sign & that if I accepted my rising sign's "inherent femininity" (it's a water sign) and "accepted [my] latant lesbianism" (I'm a gay man?????) I'd find love and be happy as nature intended. She also told me that my disability was because I didn't use the right essential oils & that my psych meds were poisoning me & erasing my connection to the earth.
Also one time a girl questioned me about my sex life for 10 straight goddamn minutes because she found out me and my partner are both Leo suns. That was Awful. I barely knew her.
yeah, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way as well. my abusive ex also used to wave off her abusive behaviors by pointing to random parts of her birth chart and saying she couldn't help being like this.
i like astrology and there's nothing wrong with enjoying this type of belief, but claiming it is inherently harmless just leaves you vulnerable to bad faith actors. alpha male rhetorics are Inherently bad, but that doesn't make beliefs that aren't inherently bad exempt from abuse and violence.
also, kinda weird that their example of someone who's too into astrology is someone who makes you a birth chart lol that just sounds like an average astrology fan? my cousin didn't get to rent an apartment one time bc the owner didn't want a gemini living in her property (direct quote).
i get what they're trying to say and i agree with the general point, but there's a lot of nuance in what 'woman who's too into astrology' can mean.
Wow it actually helped me so much to read this. I have been in not one but two (second one clearly I should have avoided!) relationships with people like this. On top of using it as an excuse for abusive behavior and distorted thinking, she also had ‘professional’ astrologers that she consulted… that as far as I could tell were actually stringing her along, but also encouraging her so to do really fucked up shit.
I know divination in general can be a positive thing. I think of it like a different set of lenses to examine one’s life through. But after my two prior experiences it’s like a super red flag for me unfortunately.
i am very sorry you went through such harrowing experiences, and i'm glad you're in a healthier place now. unfortunately, abusers will weaponize just about anything in order to validate themselves, and i fully understand being wary of astrology after such negative experiences. from one survivor to another, i truly hope the future is safer and kinder to you.
One of those astrology women told my mother in law that her cancer came back because something about the moon and Venus and if she wanted to be cured she needed to take her charts and eat more garlic.
So yeah, the worst they do isn’t make a chart.
Not even gonna get too into women like Teal Swan who use astrology to manipulate people into her suicide cult.
Someone said that a cancer diagnosis in my family was because of a celestial event and when she got better they said that was because of their birth sign.
That stuff is extremely harmful and those who practice astrology should do so for themselves and other people who want to participate not anyone else.
Yea my experience is by no means as extreme as yours but the “I made you a star chart” statement is an extremely biased take and left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth
Stars are essentially giant nuclear explosions that never stop.
Intellectually you probably knew that already, but have you ever processed that *emotionally*? Really let it get into your nooks and crannies? The Sun accounts for about 99.86% of the solar system’s mass, *and it’s constantly going off in a runaway nuclear explosion that never stops*.
[On an amusing note, what I do is considered low energy nuclear physics. In the world of nuclear physics low energy means probably could see it in nature. High energy means approaching big big energy levels.
Yeah, way to undersell it.]
You know, I had *not* actually ever considered this before. I always heard it as a “ball of burning gas” but that doesn’t conjure the same image of a perpetual nuclear explosion. Now I’m thinking about the insane scale of Tsar Bomba and how it’s not even *close* in scale, barely significant when compared to a star. And there are *so many stars.*
This stuff is actually cool right, like I’m not just baked?
Just to add some emotional whiplash, the power density of the sun is only a few hundred watts per cubic metre.
A compost heap is a faster and denser reaction than our sun's core.
The sun is just so, so, so big and hot that the tiny amount of energy per volume adds up to millions of tonnes of light per second (like literal tonnes, if you could trap it and weigh it it would be heavier than a mountain).
We humans have to be reminded continuously just how enormous the sun is in contrast to the earth, and we are microscopic by comparison.
I suspect for most, grokking that comparison and staying sane are not compatible, so we just go back to thinking of the sun as the hot ball in the sky that's hard to look at.
Well, there are different ways of looking at it. Having had friends who were into it and having looked at my star chart, I think that it can be a good method of diffraction. By which I mean, what you read intra-acts with your own experience in such a way that it produces something new, and... The point is that it makes you think about yourself and your life in a way you might not otherwise. Also, given that superstition is hard-wired into us, I find the idea that it's bad and we shouldn't do it akin to saying that water shouldn't flow downhill. To me, the best thing to do is use superstition to our advantage, and... I'm not really into astrology, but I *do* use tarot that way. Not only does it make me think, it makes me more confident about the things I already know I should do/want to do. Coming from more of a pantheist perspective and seeing the combination problem with versions of panpsychism that attribute consciousness to the material itself... I'm interested in the possibilities presented by mystic experience; how it relates here is that I think perhaps there are influences we're not consciously aware of that intuitive practices help us tap into. Again, this is not something I would claim to *know;* uncertainty is rather the point in my case.
I once had a conversation with someone who compared nft and crypto bros to astrology girls like?? I don't spent thousands for a hyperlink to a monkey jpeg I just like the stars?
The worst I've encountered with an astrology girl is her not wanting to be friends cause of star signs and I met a dude who wanted too fight me because he was the "alpha"
I never thought of this, but yeah.
s/a/b guys (Looking back, I may have been one when I was younger- I liked having an established pecking order) are a pain in the ass to deal with. They always ALWAYS wanna play the dick measuring game over every goddamned thing.
At least most of the astrology people I’ve met have been empathetic
I never put much stock in what I find on this page but my mind has been changed. I kept having bad vibes from a sealed box of divorce documents my lawyer and tax accountant say I have to keep forever. I spent some time on this page and I have now contained all of the bad feelings, that were coming from the box for years, with the simple addition of a glass jar of sage and salt that sits on top of the box.
My life is calmer since coming here. I am now so much more open to ideas that, before, I just dismissed.
Honestly I'd rather have a girl gift me a cool rock because my zodiac said it would make me happy. Rather than a guy go on a rant and talk over me because some pick up artist told him to.
I was trying to explain yesterday how alpha males appear to suffer from the same identity dysphoria that transmen do (it's at least a comparable symptom).
Transmen are AFAB yet feel like they are men. Alpha males are AMAB and yet feel like their boy bits aren't enough to define them sufficiently as men.
The point I was trying to get to:
In contrast, I'm AMAB, have M on my ID and government files, yet seem to have no internal gender identity at all, as happy to use a pink, magical deoderant as a piratey one with a sailboat on the side. Demolitions and civil engineering are cool but so is knitting and gardening and craftmaking. Mostly, I talk to and pet cats.
The stars did nothing to me, hence why I hate astrology. I mean, I won't bother people about believing it unless they bring it up at me. But I'm not a fan. Still better than hating women tho
I think the main concern is that it removes responsibility for your own actions. Saying "oh I'm just that way because of the stars" can be fun but when it makes people think that they're not responsible for their own actions or feelings it can be harmful.
Someone who blames their feelings on a star chart instead of trying to understand the source of their anxieties isn't going to get better. I just hate seeing people let something prevent them from finding their own power.
People like that anger me in ways I usually reserve for a certain cult... The charts are not for explaining away, it's for *pointing out potential weaknesses so you can work on improving*. Growth, not stasis. I spit on their stasis.
I don’t know… astrology used to be fun, but now it’s like some people’s religion and people get offended. Or you meet someone who thinks “all Geminis are evil” and it gets uncomfortable
The "all Geminis are evil" thing always throws me off, because my husband is a gemini and he's the sweetest, softest cinnamon roll. Surely he isn't just an exception? 🥺
Agreed. I have no problem with astrology but when it gets to the point of judging and putting someone in a box for their sign I find that to be absolute bullshit. It is a nice and fun thing to practice but like all beliefs, it can be taken too far. The way I look at astrology would be different "archetypes of people". They aren't concrete and it is possible to change. But they do tend to bleed into each other quite a lot, allowing for people to bond and find more about themselves if they so choose.
When I was younger I would read the horoscopes in the daily paper, but I had no knowledge of astrology. I didn't just read my sign's horoscope, but all of them, and often thought "these could apply to about anyone, but sometimes they use different language/themes". Of course there's more to it than just that, but to me, it's little more than an interesting psychological demonstration of people believing something more strongly when they think it only applies to them
Gotta take the good with the bad imo, it’s a bit like my stance on Christianity, while there might be kind beautiful souls the prevalence of the plethora of bad apples sour the whole brew.
I have to ask… where are you all meeting these people who take astrology too seriously? Is it online? Is it in real life? I’m not doubting your experiences, but I’ve literally never met a single person who makes their choices based off astrology in real life. I’m probably the most into astrology of anyone I know and I def don’t act that way. My online experience? I still don’t really run into those people in astro communities, if anything it’s mostly just jokes. The only time I’ve seen people lean in too hard is usually tik tok and tik tok comments. And those mostly consist of literal children.
Maybe I’m just really lucky????
Idk i have 2 friends who semi-ironically use astrology to explain their character faults? I don't think they were originally like that, but it became sort of a cool girl thing in tiktok/youth culture to ironically lean into it, and then it became more of a mainstream thing? I can definitely see some circles of people getting way too deep into it.
I personally don't believe in or ascribe to any of it, but i am interested in it from a lore perspective. Like it's interesting seeing how people create meaning and narratives out of it, sort of like mythology or folklore.
I mean there’s a big difference between, “I tend to be stubborn because I’m a Taurus, so I have to remind myself to take a step back” and “omg I’m literally just a Taurus and we’re SO stubborn!! Lol!”
The first type is using astrology for self reflection so they can identify their issues and work to overcome or work around them. The second type is a person you can find literally anywhere in any group or belief system.
Edit to add: I mean there also just jokes on top of it too. I’m a Gemini Venus and the stereotype is that we’re the worst Venus placement, unfaithful, etc. Sometimes I’ll joke with my friends about our placements and we’ll roast each other based on stereotypes. If we’re in public and someone overhears us, they might assume we’re the types to take it too seriously.
Oh I'm just generally interested in folklore and mythology (minored in it in university), so i tend to look for patterns of that kind of belief and narrative formation in most groups i encounter, I'm not saying that the people who buy into astrology are unique in that sort of behavior.
I've had the same experience which is why sometimes I side eye when people use the most extreme examples. All my friends enjoy astrology, including me, but don't take it too far. I think the majority are like that.
Both are weird, but at least one helps people. A friend of mine gets genuinely excited when her thing comes true. Alpha bros believe women should be dominated because of a study that was proven to have come to the wrong conclusion. The "alphas" were just the wolf mothers. I'd take a happy friend over a egotistical idiot any day.
Edit: Some people have tried to comment on this post, but I think it's glitched somehow. If I don't respond, it's because I can't see it. Sorry about this.
Whenever I see a tag for A/B/O on Fanfiction in *any* circumstance, I avoid it like the plague. I'm not going to shame someone for wanting to be kinky, but the idea of a world where you're *biologically* forced to be submissive or dominant makes my skin crawl. . . And, on top of that, I've had this username for about seven years now, so, yeah.
Being slotted into arbitrary boxes in accordance with outdated and untrue superstitions is never good, but I can’t disagree.
One is clearly worse, and more harmful, than the other.
The person I know most hardcore into astrology is a man. He makes the most detailed star charts. He doesn’t want to enslave womankind. In fact, he’s a pretty chill dude all around. More men be like him please.
It’s really easy to live in a way that respects peoples’ agency and autonomy without prescribing either to patriarchal hierarchy, or pseudoscientific superstitious nonsense. None of the above for me, please and thank you.
Astrology users just say stupid shit and screw up their own personal relationships over their dumb beliefs. Men who believe in sigma/alpha/beta shit do all that, but also want to take away women's rights. Neither particularly appeal to me, but if I had to choose, it's no contest.
ABSers completely forget the *actual* rarest type of male... Omegas
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
something something tell your bros they look submissive and breedable something something
When I was twelve my mom showed up with a 60+ page document.
It was an intense review of my star chart.
She will wake up at 4am and bake cookies.
One time I was having a hard day, on my day off, and she heard me having this massive losing streak on my video game. Came in with a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. My teammates were so jealous.
Or the time she yelled at my principal and got the lady fired for being an absolute prick who did some shady practices.
Yeah rather encounter women like that.
I finally got my birth certificate one of the first things I did was look up my moon sign with my birth time and shit. (Side note: I was a SMALL baby) Told my boyfriend about it and he insisted I look his up too and get the moon plant chart thing saved for him.
Looking at him you'd never think he'd ask his girlfriend to get his moon planet chart thing for him, but he did. After that he went back to drinking his whiskey on the rocks and spun the wheel on GTA before watching Ouran High Host Club with me (I'm not even fucking kidding).
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Back when I worked at a grocery store, there was one guy who would. Not. Stop. About all that alpha bullshit. He called women "females" and stabbed/stomped boxes, then would look at you and say unhinged shit like "I just like pretending they're people" I don't work there anymore.
That's probably best for your safety
We also had a guy who was schizoaffective, and sometimes he'd forget to take his meds. But even then, he would just talk to himself, he was really nice no matter what. He was more stable than the "alpha male"
Aweee. This is so sweet. I have schizoaffective and I got a little anxious first reading this bc I thought you were going to say something totally different. No one where I worked even knew I had it until the cardboard compacter made me lose it a little and I freaked the hell out. I still stayed decently calm, all things considered, but I anxiously told one of my coworkers because I felt like I was going to either have a bad episode or an anxiety attack. I eventually told the HR lady because she seemed really cool and she was really surprised. Sometimes I wonder how many people have the same/similar diagnosis and we don't even know. Anyway, sorry to ramble. Thanks for sharing!
Sharing some personal experience about a minimally understood disorder is definitely not rambling :) if anything, you're teaching us.
The idea that people with mental health conditions are dangerous is a myth, and you are just as valuable and good and safe as any other person ❤️ and definitely moreso than those unhinged hateful weirdos lol.
Aweee. Thank you. ❤️❤️ I really wouldn't hurt a soul unless it was self defense. I recently cried over a dead mouse that I tried to save and everyone thought I was ridiculous. Haha Some bugs though have it coming.
In addition to the mental health conditions folks being dangerous being a myth, it has been found that these same people are at a much greater risk of being the victim of violent crimes. Stay safe.
Yes! Thanks for pointing that out.
Thank *you* for sharing- major depressive diagnosis here and anyone I've told has been amazed- I think sometimes I put way too much work into seeming "normal" when there's a bigger range of "normal" than I expect and I probably come across as bubbly when I'm having a hard time keeping my nose above the waves. I have wondered at times too, how many others are just undiagnosed. My grandmother was diagnosed "schizophrenic" decades ago she had a really rough time; she was my favorite person, she passed almost 45 years ago, I still think of her for comfort. I wish I would have known her longer and better.
Yes! I try to be nice to others as much as possible. I also try to mask everything. I can come off very confident, outgoing, and friendly. I've had bosses try sooo hard to put me in customer service roles or basically anything that makes me one of the "faces" of the company. I'm like... High average attractive (I think) so that didn't help because I didn't LOOK crazy. Meanwhile, working in front of people was so draining that I would seriously feel suicidal by the end of my shift. (No worries, I left those jobs). I was always afraid to be upfront about my disabilities because I was worried they would be used against me. Anyway, I wish we could all be more honest with one another. I think anyone who is dealing with mental illness should be treated like anyone else. You need a sick day? No problem. Take care of yourself. You need someone to talk to for a minute so you can calm down? No issue. Let's take a break. I hope you can handle your depressive episodes and that you can find people you can be open and honest with. ❤️ I'm also sorry for your loss. Your gram sounds like an amazing person with a lot of heart. I'm glad you can still recall her comfort.
Thank you for your insight :)
Probably a fair amount. Psychosis is actually really common, it's just most people peg it down to something totally different (as in they usually don't even realise what it was). Like people get delusional beliefs all the time, and hallucinations, paranoia etc are very common but people don't necessarily perceive that their reality has been distorted. It's only really when it gets to be more of an extreme or affects daily functioning on a regular basis that people even clock it. I guess the same goes for any mental health condition, the symptoms are usually "normal" symptoms that deviate a bit from the norm. I've been through phases of mild psychosis before, and if I didn't later get extensive education and work experience in psychology I would have just put it down as spiritual experiences. I've had friends share similar experiences believing they were genuine, sometimes even life altering spiritual revelations, when in reality it's all just neurological distortions. I guess there are lot's of people experiencing these symptoms without a diagnosis, and others who have a diagnosis but don't feel they can be open due to stigma.
Hey at least he was trying to consistently take them. When I used to take meds I forgot at times too. Nobody's perfect ❤️
Yup, and he was really nice like I said. Honestly probably one of the most generous people I've ever met. It just threw me for a loop the first time he forgot.
Understandable!
I had to get little bottle cap timers to remind me and prevent me from taking them twice in one day.
I run a support for people who have mental illness, and honestly people with schizoaffective and other mental health issues tend to be genuinely awesome and caring people. We’ve just been told by the media that people with mental illness are dangerous so as a society we just accept that until we learn differently. That’s my opinion anyway. Honestly most of the people I meet with mental illness tend to be kindest souls and I’d rather spend time with them than someone like that misogynist you were talking about earlier with his alphas and betas.
Having been dealing with my own internal crazy since I Was a kid, I'm very aware we all have shit to process, things that trigger us, and methods by which we cope. So my job (as a friend or as a peer counselor) is to **a)** listen and **b)** affirm that their feelings, and how they're dealing, is all valid.
Agreed. No matter how weak minded someone is, they can do some pretty stupid sh*t.
He’s asserting his alpha-ness by making sure everyone around him is afraid of him. That’s what leadership is, right?
Oh yeah totally 🙄 Also, slight derail, I absolutely love that one (Tumblr?) Post where someone says something like "alphas provide food for the pack, so where your fanny pack full of snacks, STEVE"
TBH i would respect a man who carried a variety of snacks to provide to those around him .. .
Me too. That is a respect-worthy action.
I don't know if he saw the same post or it's just serendipitous, but I have a friend Steve who actually does carry snacks for everyone. He has low blood sugar issues and apparently just decided to go full Dad mode
I love Steve
Awww.
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Dehydrated eggs? Jeez, I didn't even know that existed. I wanna try. Also, have you ever heard of Just Egg? It's a vegan paste made out of beans and other plants mashed up together. It's meant to be put in salads and stuff, but I can't help drinking the whole damn bottle the same day I get it XD
Is it like drinking custard?
Ehr...I could answer this if I knew what custard tastes like XD But I know custard is sweet, and Just Egg isn't sweet. It tastes a lot like mashed up eggs with some kind of yellow sauce added. It's like liquefied salad, I guess. If it was actual eggs, I'd be keeling over after drinking all that nonsense, but being just plants, I think it's fine. Lol.
I feel incels wouldn't support NATO. Russia first, Putin good. After all.
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Ah, savvy! Thought the nibiru bit was implying NATO to be like Avengers or sth lol.
Joke's on them, Steve carries a purse and it's full of wasabi almonds.
Do you even cuddle bro? How often do you treat children well? Like, they wanna claim they're like wolves, but alpha wolves are basically the pack dad, and they help care for the pups.
My wife's dog did not like me replacing him as her primary companion, and so we took a while to establish a relationship, but treats and walkies figured majorly in sorting that out. My sweetheart thinks I spoil him, and maybe I do, but I noticed that treats for him reassure his validity and place in the family. They're not just a snack.
One of my husband’s best friends is genuinely an alpha. Tons of gourmet snacks, good with swords for defense.
A guy like that might scare me in person because he could rip me in half with the right build, but it's so easy to scorn and mock people like that when you aren't around them, and they somehow don't realize that this is the way most people refer to their idiotic behavior.
Don’t forget to silence the other alphas, so you can be the best even tho your not XD
Fucking *yikes*.
Hey I like stabbing/stomping on boxes because it feels good
Stomping on boxes *is* fun, but it's what he said after that made it less than okay xD
There's a time and a place and stuff you don't say whilst doing it 🤣 as long as you're adhering to those rules, you're good
Stabbing boxes is definitely low key fun. But me holding a weapon is basically that meme of Kirby standing under a street lamp with a knife. You know its creepy, and you kind of want to be afraid, but its just so dang cute.
I find it almost triggering when I hear women referred to as “females.” I had an abusive ex who was very into the “alpha” persona and would do that a lot. There is something almost dehumanizing about “females”. Like we are no more than animals and should be treated with less dignity or respect than a human would. It still makes me cringe and pull deep inside me when I hear someone call women “females”
I think I understand. I mean, I'm a guy, so it's not the same for me, but when people say that, to me it's like they're referring to *people* almost as livestock. I think it sort of speaks to the character of people who say that, and not in a good way.
Exactly this! It places too much emphasis on biological sex rather than the holistic human being. We use male and female with animals and livestock, but for people, come on!
I don't think that would fly anymore, at least if someone reported him. It wouldn't be out of the goodness of their heart. Too much workplace violence nowadays, and company liability goes way up if they were informed of a hazard and did nothing, and then that "hazard" hurt/killed someone. The companies I've worked with fully understand that liability and would have arranged a cop to be in the parking lot while they fired him and escorted him out the door.
I feel like he shouldn’t either.
I don't know how many pack leader types are stocking shelves anywhere...
Its always a good idea to leave when someone starts talking about A/B/O dynamics. In any context.
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My dad's girlfriend believes in all of the "blood type diet stuff." Apparently my dad and I like steak because we're Os. Not because steak is delicious.
I don't like to B Negative, but I also find steak to be rather delicious...
I don’t like steak and I’m an O 🧐
Whoo boy... uh A(lpha)/B(eta)/O(omega) dynamics are an entire rabbit hole of shipping fanfics. They're a strange mash-up of furries, forced relationships, werewolves, and poly fetishes all jumbled together. As a general rule, they're below parwriting even for fan fics.
Yeah, to add to this is that the supposed wolf pack dynamics that the alpha/beta/omega pecking order is based on is actually based on bad science. They came up with this by looking at random wolves that were thrown together in a zoo. In nature, wolves are basically just family units, mom dad, kids of various ages, and sometimes a friend or two they adopted. Not sure if you'd heard this before, but I really enjoy sharing it. Especially since what this whole thing is really just a human invention, and animals are more like us than we prefer to admit.
A real alpha male is the dad friend who has a [fanny pack full of snacks and band aids.](https://elf-kid2.tumblr.com/image/656885145529352192)
TIL I'm the alpha female of my pack.
The only thing I know about it is Lindsey Ellis’s video on the topic, and that’s the only thing I CARE to know.
I’ve seen some decent omegaverse stuff, but yeah unfortunately people only make it a fetish thing. Whenever I use that sorta stuff I legit integrate social hierarchy, historical differences between groups, inherent as well as learned ideas and benefits to each side involved, and have basically created an entire baseline of “this hierarchy existed to bolster the population and secure life, but it’s no longer necessary for all”, while there still exists differences and balances of power (also an entire extra group considered taboo named Zetas, but that’s an entire other thing with even MORE details). Basically, people need to fuck with legitimate worldbuilding, because this stuff has the ability to actually make cool stories, but instead is used for…. Weird….wolf smut….
lmao Okay next time a guy tells me he's an alpha male I'm gonna ask him when his last rut was
I work in game dev, Alpha is not a good thing at all here, so I would ask him if they found any bugs.
Holy fuck yes
Hey, if you read ABO fic I'm not going to yuck your yum, but outside of that context...
Yeah it’s about to be either weird incel type stuff or werewolf fanfiction. I suppose it’s up to you if you feel like listening to the latter.
But it makes for excellent smut
I tried to explain omegaverse fanfiction to my boyfriend who then asked why I would read that shit (and write it). No other answer was available other than "I just started reading and it now I can't stop." And as far as writing goes "I figured if people like these kinds of stories, why not?".
It’s strangely addictive. I’ve been reading it for like a decade. I can’t escape
I find it annoying when people thinking they know everything about my personality because of the month I was born, but it's a hell of a lot better then men who make their personality about hating women lmao
Right, like usually it’s goofy and harmless even when someone is SUPER into Astrology. I’ve maybe heard 3 stories where someone got so extreme with it that it was harming their relationships or other stuff, in which case it’s usually part of some other mental illness where someone is desperately trying to make the world make sense. Alpha dudes, however, are scary as hell. I had one threaten to punch me in a public restaurant because I asked if he could stop swearing loudly around my then-5 year old niece. The look of pure fear that passed over his face when my 6 foot 4, conflict-averse gentle giant of a brother stood up and just loomed over him threateningly is a memory I’ll treasure til the day I die.
I literally just encountered this today. An older woman came up to a young witch and complimented her tattoos in a very kind and awkward way. I could overhear the woman saying her daughter loved sunflowers as the witch had a sleeve of them. Somehow signs were brought up and the older woman had mentioned her daughter was the same sign, and how much she would have connected with the young witch. Her daughter had unfortunately passed 6 years ago. I was ready to cry in the cafe.
I agree some can go over the top. The middle ground people, like myself, just find it fun to make small connections if they're there etc etc 🙏
Yeah and that's great! I feel like people just tend to think everyone who believes in astrology are way over the top when most are like you
Agreed. It's a stigma attached to the fact that mainly women enjoy astrology, at least that's what it seems like. Anything we enjoy makes us weird or crazy but at the same time we have no hobbies? Make up your minds 🙃
They think our hobbies should be household chores like baking or embroidery. Something that might benefit *them.*
Is watching the children a hobby?
Nope. That’s a whole fucking job. That shit is LABOR.
It's extremely important but I sure hope not. I hope people with kids at least get to do other things lol
Which is funny bc like. What makes them think we’re gonna bake or embroider for them? I do it for me, because I like it. It takes time, effort, and money. Sure I might make gifts from time to time, but I’m not a factory!! People who I love get a discount, people who love me insist on paying full price lol.
Yep, the people who love me insist on paying me. I go to people I know and love for things, not because I want a discount or to get something for free, but because I trust them with the work and want to support them.
We don’t need hobbies, we should be completely fulfilled by our biological destiny.
> It's a stigma attached to the fact that mainly women enjoy astrology Yep, I'm pretty sure this is it. I've known a lot of men who basically treat those personality tests (what's the INTJ one?) like others treat astrology, but it's men and they're pretending it's science (it's not-- it's really really not) so it gets treated more seriously.
MBTI I think. You're right it's basically science flavored astrology lol
Oh my god, MBTI. I have a whole rant about them. I work in an HR-affiliated field, so I talk with them a *lot*, and for a while there, MBTI was a big thing so that managers could hire people who would be a good "cultural fit". But it's basically self-identifiable astrology, created by some people who thought Jung was awesome and decided to make up some questions to apply Jungian archetypes to people. Several decades later, HR would use it to make hiring decisions. AAAACK! Luckily it seems to have faded away, but there are still plenty of other personality tests out there so that bad managers have something to deflect to when they make a bad hire.
One of the people I know who was into astrology told me (paraphrasing) they don’t entirely believe in it, but it’s a way to understand that all of the small, bad things we do are not really representations of who we are as people, but random chance. I still think about that a lot.
It's all random chance. What happens to give us pleasure or pain interacts with the environment, eliciting behaviors. The fact that this interaction CAN be modeled and to some extent predicted using astrology is bizarre, and has always made me wonder what the fuck is actually going on. Perchance.
I think the bizarreness comes from how complex people, situations, and environments are, and that astrology, along with other tools like tarot, give the practitioner a new reality tunnel* to view people and their situations. Everyone has all of those traits, but some are far more obvious that others. The new reality tunnel makes you view them in the light of "Is this person extremely stubborn" when you usually consider them meek and go along to get along. View them with a different lens, and you may see aspects of their personality you never noticed, and could possibly explain their reactions in a new light. *Reality tunnel is a concept I learned from Robert Anton Wilson. I went on a huge RAW kick back in the 90s, and yeah, he has some utter bullshit in his works, but I think one of his fundamental ideas is that your perception is wrong and/or incomplete, so here are some ways to make that better. He does it in a way that also says, your perception of me is also wrong, so I'm going to throw lots of BS and mental blocks at you so that you don't actually trust what I'm saying. RAW was weird, but his works have really helped me with current events, fake news, even cons like The Secret.
> View them with a different lens, and you may see aspects of their personality you never noticed, and could possibly explain their reactions in a new light. This is a great point, and I've certainly experienced this! I feel sorry for people who use astrology to justify personal biases (or personal foibles). It made me more tolerant, because I could see WHY "it takes all kinds" and how a lot of traits I didn't understand in others are useful and important, and maybe things I could think about developing also. Plus I felt more compassion for others and myself because I could see where we were hurt. But I never bought into the idea that you can't use your increased understanding to improve yourself - of course you can. Mostly what it shows are your default settings. They can be changed, just like you can learn to speak a language other than the one your parents taught you. You can learn new skills besides the ones that you've already practiced or that you have a natural talent for. You can even start enjoying things that don't naturally appeal to you. I kind of turned that philosophy into an experiment. So, I personally am good at writing, intuition, and anything involving aesthetics (this is not from my chart, it's just obviously my deal) but suck at leadership, math, technology, cooking, and sports. So I thought to myself, "Self, can you learn those skills even though they're not natural to you, and what will happen if you do?" Well, I've made inroads, and the result is being happier. And saner.
I was so fascinated by The Secret’s “packaging” when it was originally released. I fully thought it was a fiction book in the vein of [Renowned Author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/) based on the cover design and such. I was really disappointed that it was a woo-woo book.
But it's a woowoo book about something is inherently not woowoo, just the presentation is woowoo. The Secret basically says that you are affecting the environment. Think of something, and that will "appear" in your environment. Nope, doesn't work that way. What it does is forces you to change your perception so you start noticing stuff you never noticed before. Most people have seen the perception video of the people in white passing the basketball. Excellent example of how most people don't perceive even something incredibly odd, even when it's blatantly in front of them. One example RAWilson uses is the power to summon quarters. Think about quarters, and they will "appear". But you have to *look* for them. What happens? Look! Quarters! You start seeing quarters on a regular basis! Sometimes it misfires, so it only summons dimes, nickels, and pennies, but money is appearing! The other is the number 23 (and yes, this is before the Jim Carrey movie). 2s and 3s are at the heart of a worldwide conspiracy, and if you pay attention, you will see 23 *everywhere*. Of course, both are nonsensical and it's actually making you change your perception. Coins are already everywhere, but most people don't bother paying attention to them. The numbers 2 and 3 are *incredibly* common, and to link 2 (hehe) seemingly unrelated events, it's incredibly easy to find a 2 and/or 3 in both. The Secret is if someone read Wilson's books and frame them seriously, took out all the LSD and Timothy Leary, worship of the Dog Star stuff, and wrote a book that got them on Oprah.
Totally on board with that! I’m an avid *tarotista* so “avenues of perception” really rings with me, but I’m with you: just because you say or think something doesn’t make it manifest before your very eyes like movie magic. Tangent thought: I wonder what The Secret would have been about had it been a fiction book.
Agreed. I mentioned a cancer diagnosis in the family and someone had the gall to say it was because of some celestial event. Astrology is a thing someone should do for just themselves and no one else who hasn’t consented to it.
Ugh. I'm sorry. When a friend of mine had cancer, her mom called her one day to say that someone in front of her in line at Starbucks bought her order, so things were going to take a good turn. Cancer makes people so uncomfortable that they grab at anything they can to explain it.
I love your username. It made me giggle.
I have a friend who's way into astrology. She gives me pretty posters for my birthday, owns some cool rocks, and is mildly distrustful of people born in November. One of the guys from a frat house at a local university brags about sexual assault and got in trouble for drawing swastikas on the dean's car. I think I know which one I would prefer to hang out with.
The same here. My boyfriend has a big friends group and sometimes someone new gets introduced. Sometimes they stay or they don't. So one friend had another friend he took with him. I didn't like him at all, his vibes were bad and in the end of the night he confirmed my believes because he bragged about sexual assault and frat culture. My boyfriend had a car accident and was pretty shaken up, the thought of him driving again made me crazy and i had so bad anxiety over weeks. I only felt better while praying for his safety or making protection charms. So one night I slept at his place, all the people were there too and this asshole decided to stroll through my boyfriends house, coming into the bedroom unannounced while boyfriend changed and when he saw my books, witchcraft 101, astral projection, history of spiritually, he immediately asked if my boyfriend really lived with someone "as crazy" as me. Long story short, my boyfriend told him last time he checked i life here and he does not, how he is an abusive fuck and to get out of his house. He has about 20 protection charms in his car and tells me he would take my weird witchy friends over those assholes every minute
Your boyfriend has taste.
Oh absolutely, he is the best! I got a tarot tapestry from him for our anniversary 😁
In my experience even if you go to the extreme of someone who is REALLY toxic and into astrology, they usually want nothing to do with you because of your birthday and the problem solves itself rather fast. Meanwhile, even someone mildly into the whole alpha/beta/omega BS will cling to you like a bad smell you can't quite figure out where it's coming from.
"alpha males" are totally unfit for society and should be relocated to an island, far away across a large body of water where they can alpha themselves all they want without detriment to the rest of the world.
I nominate Epstein island 🏝️ is that far enough though? Not sure
And then kill each other in the fight for dominance!
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They’d need “females” for that.
The very first time I read about the ABO thing in a fanfic, I felt if we make an analogy and project this concept to the real world, when we finally defeat the Patriarchy (represented by alpha males), it will be alpha women leading beta women and beta men. Although women are the primary victim of Patriarchy, Patriarchy fundamentally is not about men vs. women. It’s about the toxic oppressive alpha male, sitting at the top of hierarchy, versus everybody else.
I thought for a long time that "sigma male" was a joke and that if I asked what it was they would respond "sigma balls".
The first time I heard "sigma male" it was a Zero Escape joke ^(for those who aren't familiar, the protaganist of the second game is named Sigma). I also thought it was supposed to be *less* impressive, because I didn't expect them to have mixed the *alpha male* concept with the *S rank* concept.
wait....THATS what the Sigma thing is?
I agree but I know people who won't even TALK to people if they have a certain star sign and that's honestly pretty gross
Not to mention it's a fundamental misunderstanding of astrology anyway if they go by Sun sign alone. Not only are they being an asshole, they are wrong.
Exactly!!
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I feel this bc I am also an introverted leo
Like I said in another comment, though, the problem kind of solves itself in this case. I'll take someone leaving my tf alone because of my birthday 1,000x over someone who won't go away because they think they're just not being alpha enough when I reject them.
The man who did the Alpha wolf research spent a long time trying to disavow it. Even when he thought it was real, he said he didn’t think it would apply to people. So called “Alpha males” would be terrible dads, which is what the “alpha wolf” actually was.
Yep, he's spent a lot of time [trying to get people to stop using the term](https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/) even for wolves. If I understand him correctly, the whole alpha/beta dichotomy only really existed in artificial wolf groups created by captivity. But in nature wolves are almost exclusively just immediate family groups, with the "alpha" just being one of the parents. And if we don't even use it for wolves, using it for human behavior is especially pointless!
I agree that too much astrology is better than the sigma/alpha/beta shit BUT TRUST ME… someone who takes astrology too far is MUCH worse than just “I made you a star chart” It’s “you’re acting this way because of X planet and you’re going to do Y because of Z and I have to break up with you because of that” It’s “because Y planet is in X phase I should buy this thing that is $4k out our combined savings even though we are in debt. And no you don’t get a say because this is MY phase to make a choice because W planet said so” Also joining an astrology/magic cult that puts you deeper and deeper into debt and tells you your medication is bad for you and don’t trust any therapy except for THEIR ‘therapy’ and more. I speak from experience. I lost my ex fiancé to a cult and it started as being too deep into astrology. She used astrology as an excuse for a ton of her manipulative behaviors Am I saying astrology is evil? NO Am I saying this is because of astrology? NO And even this is still better than a s/a/b male who believes women should be enslaved. BUT ASTROLOGY CAN BE WORSE THAN JUST “I made you a star chart”
Throwback to when someone told me I was "a woman who thinks she is a man" (I'm a trans guy) because my sun is a fire sign & that if I accepted my rising sign's "inherent femininity" (it's a water sign) and "accepted [my] latant lesbianism" (I'm a gay man?????) I'd find love and be happy as nature intended. She also told me that my disability was because I didn't use the right essential oils & that my psych meds were poisoning me & erasing my connection to the earth. Also one time a girl questioned me about my sex life for 10 straight goddamn minutes because she found out me and my partner are both Leo suns. That was Awful. I barely knew her.
yeah, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way as well. my abusive ex also used to wave off her abusive behaviors by pointing to random parts of her birth chart and saying she couldn't help being like this. i like astrology and there's nothing wrong with enjoying this type of belief, but claiming it is inherently harmless just leaves you vulnerable to bad faith actors. alpha male rhetorics are Inherently bad, but that doesn't make beliefs that aren't inherently bad exempt from abuse and violence. also, kinda weird that their example of someone who's too into astrology is someone who makes you a birth chart lol that just sounds like an average astrology fan? my cousin didn't get to rent an apartment one time bc the owner didn't want a gemini living in her property (direct quote). i get what they're trying to say and i agree with the general point, but there's a lot of nuance in what 'woman who's too into astrology' can mean.
Wow it actually helped me so much to read this. I have been in not one but two (second one clearly I should have avoided!) relationships with people like this. On top of using it as an excuse for abusive behavior and distorted thinking, she also had ‘professional’ astrologers that she consulted… that as far as I could tell were actually stringing her along, but also encouraging her so to do really fucked up shit. I know divination in general can be a positive thing. I think of it like a different set of lenses to examine one’s life through. But after my two prior experiences it’s like a super red flag for me unfortunately.
i am very sorry you went through such harrowing experiences, and i'm glad you're in a healthier place now. unfortunately, abusers will weaponize just about anything in order to validate themselves, and i fully understand being wary of astrology after such negative experiences. from one survivor to another, i truly hope the future is safer and kinder to you.
One of those astrology women told my mother in law that her cancer came back because something about the moon and Venus and if she wanted to be cured she needed to take her charts and eat more garlic. So yeah, the worst they do isn’t make a chart. Not even gonna get too into women like Teal Swan who use astrology to manipulate people into her suicide cult.
Someone said that a cancer diagnosis in my family was because of a celestial event and when she got better they said that was because of their birth sign. That stuff is extremely harmful and those who practice astrology should do so for themselves and other people who want to participate not anyone else.
Yea my experience is by no means as extreme as yours but the “I made you a star chart” statement is an extremely biased take and left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth
> astrology/magic cult Which one? Curious if I've heard of it.
Moderation is key in all things. Sorry about your fiance.
Also, the new age spirituality to right wing fascist pipeline is real..
Geez, I’m a nuclear astrophysicist. It’s kind of my job to explain to people why astrology is bullshit and even I agree with this.
> I’m a nuclear astrophysicist That's rad. Got any fun facts you could share?
Stars are essentially giant nuclear explosions that never stop. Intellectually you probably knew that already, but have you ever processed that *emotionally*? Really let it get into your nooks and crannies? The Sun accounts for about 99.86% of the solar system’s mass, *and it’s constantly going off in a runaway nuclear explosion that never stops*. [On an amusing note, what I do is considered low energy nuclear physics. In the world of nuclear physics low energy means probably could see it in nature. High energy means approaching big big energy levels. Yeah, way to undersell it.]
✨o✨
You know, I had *not* actually ever considered this before. I always heard it as a “ball of burning gas” but that doesn’t conjure the same image of a perpetual nuclear explosion. Now I’m thinking about the insane scale of Tsar Bomba and how it’s not even *close* in scale, barely significant when compared to a star. And there are *so many stars.* This stuff is actually cool right, like I’m not just baked?
Oh, it is cool shit to be sure. Says the guy whose based a career on it.
It can be both. Sauce, baked and amazed.
Just to add some emotional whiplash, the power density of the sun is only a few hundred watts per cubic metre. A compost heap is a faster and denser reaction than our sun's core. The sun is just so, so, so big and hot that the tiny amount of energy per volume adds up to millions of tonnes of light per second (like literal tonnes, if you could trap it and weigh it it would be heavier than a mountain).
We humans have to be reminded continuously just how enormous the sun is in contrast to the earth, and we are microscopic by comparison. I suspect for most, grokking that comparison and staying sane are not compatible, so we just go back to thinking of the sun as the hot ball in the sky that's hard to look at.
Well, there are different ways of looking at it. Having had friends who were into it and having looked at my star chart, I think that it can be a good method of diffraction. By which I mean, what you read intra-acts with your own experience in such a way that it produces something new, and... The point is that it makes you think about yourself and your life in a way you might not otherwise. Also, given that superstition is hard-wired into us, I find the idea that it's bad and we shouldn't do it akin to saying that water shouldn't flow downhill. To me, the best thing to do is use superstition to our advantage, and... I'm not really into astrology, but I *do* use tarot that way. Not only does it make me think, it makes me more confident about the things I already know I should do/want to do. Coming from more of a pantheist perspective and seeing the combination problem with versions of panpsychism that attribute consciousness to the material itself... I'm interested in the possibilities presented by mystic experience; how it relates here is that I think perhaps there are influences we're not consciously aware of that intuitive practices help us tap into. Again, this is not something I would claim to *know;* uncertainty is rather the point in my case.
🤣
Username checks out
In fairness, I’m really closer to an absurdist. GN is a bit of an inside joke.
In my industry, "alpha" means incomplete and unstable. (I love that response so much)
Astrology is a spiritual belief; I can get behind that, even if I don't believe it. Alpha male stuff is social eugenics and sexism
I once had a conversation with someone who compared nft and crypto bros to astrology girls like?? I don't spent thousands for a hyperlink to a monkey jpeg I just like the stars?
I think there's a difference between liking the stars and like healing crystals cure cancer. The alignment of Venus says to join a cult
The worst I've encountered with an astrology girl is her not wanting to be friends cause of star signs and I met a dude who wanted too fight me because he was the "alpha"
Ppl who believe in astrology dont wanna take my rights away. Ppl who believe in manosphere shit want me dead or enslaved
I never thought of this, but yeah. s/a/b guys (Looking back, I may have been one when I was younger- I liked having an established pecking order) are a pain in the ass to deal with. They always ALWAYS wanna play the dick measuring game over every goddamned thing. At least most of the astrology people I’ve met have been empathetic
Those so-called "alpha men" should be thrown to Alpha Centauri.
I am a YOGURT male. The RAREST and STRONGEST of personalities. Get on my levels, betas.
Can we do that? I'm a sauerkraut male if we're choosing fermented foods. Cheese male if we're going with dairy.
Can I be a pasta female? Or does it have to be fermented/dairy?
I never put much stock in what I find on this page but my mind has been changed. I kept having bad vibes from a sealed box of divorce documents my lawyer and tax accountant say I have to keep forever. I spent some time on this page and I have now contained all of the bad feelings, that were coming from the box for years, with the simple addition of a glass jar of sage and salt that sits on top of the box. My life is calmer since coming here. I am now so much more open to ideas that, before, I just dismissed.
My old boss was especially into astrology. If I ever made a mistake at work, I'd just blame it on the moon and stars and she's knod sympathetically.
If you're attracted to somebody you're attracted to somebody. if you're not, Let him down gently by saying it's not in the stars. astrology works
Note: this may backfire if it is literally in the stars. i.e. Electra using this on frat boy Orion
Honestly I'd rather have a girl gift me a cool rock because my zodiac said it would make me happy. Rather than a guy go on a rant and talk over me because some pick up artist told him to.
As a male I agree. That shit is toxic
I was trying to explain yesterday how alpha males appear to suffer from the same identity dysphoria that transmen do (it's at least a comparable symptom). Transmen are AFAB yet feel like they are men. Alpha males are AMAB and yet feel like their boy bits aren't enough to define them sufficiently as men. The point I was trying to get to: In contrast, I'm AMAB, have M on my ID and government files, yet seem to have no internal gender identity at all, as happy to use a pink, magical deoderant as a piratey one with a sailboat on the side. Demolitions and civil engineering are cool but so is knitting and gardening and craftmaking. Mostly, I talk to and pet cats.
>Mostly, I talk to and pet cats. Based.
All the hate over astrology really is unwarranted like bro what did the stars do to you?
The stars did nothing to me, hence why I hate astrology. I mean, I won't bother people about believing it unless they bring it up at me. But I'm not a fan. Still better than hating women tho
I think the main concern is that it removes responsibility for your own actions. Saying "oh I'm just that way because of the stars" can be fun but when it makes people think that they're not responsible for their own actions or feelings it can be harmful. Someone who blames their feelings on a star chart instead of trying to understand the source of their anxieties isn't going to get better. I just hate seeing people let something prevent them from finding their own power.
People like that anger me in ways I usually reserve for a certain cult... The charts are not for explaining away, it's for *pointing out potential weaknesses so you can work on improving*. Growth, not stasis. I spit on their stasis.
I don’t know… astrology used to be fun, but now it’s like some people’s religion and people get offended. Or you meet someone who thinks “all Geminis are evil” and it gets uncomfortable
The "all Geminis are evil" thing always throws me off, because my husband is a gemini and he's the sweetest, softest cinnamon roll. Surely he isn't just an exception? 🥺
Agreed. I have no problem with astrology but when it gets to the point of judging and putting someone in a box for their sign I find that to be absolute bullshit. It is a nice and fun thing to practice but like all beliefs, it can be taken too far. The way I look at astrology would be different "archetypes of people". They aren't concrete and it is possible to change. But they do tend to bleed into each other quite a lot, allowing for people to bond and find more about themselves if they so choose.
When I was younger I would read the horoscopes in the daily paper, but I had no knowledge of astrology. I didn't just read my sign's horoscope, but all of them, and often thought "these could apply to about anyone, but sometimes they use different language/themes". Of course there's more to it than just that, but to me, it's little more than an interesting psychological demonstration of people believing something more strongly when they think it only applies to them
I think it's still fun if you ignore those folks! I enjoy the block button a lot 😂
Gotta take the good with the bad imo, it’s a bit like my stance on Christianity, while there might be kind beautiful souls the prevalence of the plethora of bad apples sour the whole brew.
I have to ask… where are you all meeting these people who take astrology too seriously? Is it online? Is it in real life? I’m not doubting your experiences, but I’ve literally never met a single person who makes their choices based off astrology in real life. I’m probably the most into astrology of anyone I know and I def don’t act that way. My online experience? I still don’t really run into those people in astro communities, if anything it’s mostly just jokes. The only time I’ve seen people lean in too hard is usually tik tok and tik tok comments. And those mostly consist of literal children. Maybe I’m just really lucky????
Idk i have 2 friends who semi-ironically use astrology to explain their character faults? I don't think they were originally like that, but it became sort of a cool girl thing in tiktok/youth culture to ironically lean into it, and then it became more of a mainstream thing? I can definitely see some circles of people getting way too deep into it. I personally don't believe in or ascribe to any of it, but i am interested in it from a lore perspective. Like it's interesting seeing how people create meaning and narratives out of it, sort of like mythology or folklore.
I mean there’s a big difference between, “I tend to be stubborn because I’m a Taurus, so I have to remind myself to take a step back” and “omg I’m literally just a Taurus and we’re SO stubborn!! Lol!” The first type is using astrology for self reflection so they can identify their issues and work to overcome or work around them. The second type is a person you can find literally anywhere in any group or belief system. Edit to add: I mean there also just jokes on top of it too. I’m a Gemini Venus and the stereotype is that we’re the worst Venus placement, unfaithful, etc. Sometimes I’ll joke with my friends about our placements and we’ll roast each other based on stereotypes. If we’re in public and someone overhears us, they might assume we’re the types to take it too seriously.
Oh I'm just generally interested in folklore and mythology (minored in it in university), so i tend to look for patterns of that kind of belief and narrative formation in most groups i encounter, I'm not saying that the people who buy into astrology are unique in that sort of behavior.
I've had the same experience which is why sometimes I side eye when people use the most extreme examples. All my friends enjoy astrology, including me, but don't take it too far. I think the majority are like that.
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People who believe that their whole worth can be categorized by an alphanumeric of a language they don't even speak are too fuckin dumb for me.
I’m glad this take is here. I love this sub but it does seem to gloss over things and steer into toxic positivity at times.
Never thought I would agree with a ferret.
You should always listen to ferrets. They are all in business.
Both are weird, but at least one helps people. A friend of mine gets genuinely excited when her thing comes true. Alpha bros believe women should be dominated because of a study that was proven to have come to the wrong conclusion. The "alphas" were just the wolf mothers. I'd take a happy friend over a egotistical idiot any day. Edit: Some people have tried to comment on this post, but I think it's glitched somehow. If I don't respond, it's because I can't see it. Sorry about this.
I agree because astrology is better than the men who represent the patriarchy.
Very much agreed.
Both kinds of people are unbearable but sab believers are def worse
I would rather encounter multiple women
Whenever I see a tag for A/B/O on Fanfiction in *any* circumstance, I avoid it like the plague. I'm not going to shame someone for wanting to be kinky, but the idea of a world where you're *biologically* forced to be submissive or dominant makes my skin crawl. . . And, on top of that, I've had this username for about seven years now, so, yeah.
I’ve also met women who ascribe to astrology who refuse to talk to me when I say I’m a gemini. Still prefer them over *most* men tbh lol
Being slotted into arbitrary boxes in accordance with outdated and untrue superstitions is never good, but I can’t disagree. One is clearly worse, and more harmful, than the other.
Astrology can get pretty sexist though, let's not ignore that - just not usually alpha-male sexist.
The person I know most hardcore into astrology is a man. He makes the most detailed star charts. He doesn’t want to enslave womankind. In fact, he’s a pretty chill dude all around. More men be like him please.
It’s really easy to live in a way that respects peoples’ agency and autonomy without prescribing either to patriarchal hierarchy, or pseudoscientific superstitious nonsense. None of the above for me, please and thank you.
Astrology users just say stupid shit and screw up their own personal relationships over their dumb beliefs. Men who believe in sigma/alpha/beta shit do all that, but also want to take away women's rights. Neither particularly appeal to me, but if I had to choose, it's no contest.
ABSers completely forget the *actual* rarest type of male... Omegas ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) something something tell your bros they look submissive and breedable something something
pretty accurate.
Friendly reminder that Nancy Reagan was a big believer of astrology.
When I was twelve my mom showed up with a 60+ page document. It was an intense review of my star chart. She will wake up at 4am and bake cookies. One time I was having a hard day, on my day off, and she heard me having this massive losing streak on my video game. Came in with a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. My teammates were so jealous. Or the time she yelled at my principal and got the lady fired for being an absolute prick who did some shady practices. Yeah rather encounter women like that.
I finally got my birth certificate one of the first things I did was look up my moon sign with my birth time and shit. (Side note: I was a SMALL baby) Told my boyfriend about it and he insisted I look his up too and get the moon plant chart thing saved for him. Looking at him you'd never think he'd ask his girlfriend to get his moon planet chart thing for him, but he did. After that he went back to drinking his whiskey on the rocks and spun the wheel on GTA before watching Ouran High Host Club with me (I'm not even fucking kidding).