One approach- focus on how horrible it is that those awful anti-vaxxers have convinced grieving parents to blame themselves for their baby’s completely unpreventable death.

A wedding guest :(

It’s very real. Some of the research on anxiety actually looks at levels of cortisol in the blood- if someone had been collecting blood samples from you during that day, they would have seen the surge of stress hormones during your panicky episode. We’re living in a world of exams and interviews, but on some level,…

Yeah, I agree. It’s so tempting to come up with rules for How to (not) Approach Women in Public, but the real issue not a lack of rules, it is a lack of respect, which manifests as faux-obliviousness to social cues.

Yeah. The ‘old maid’ trope sucks, but in some ways it’s better than not having any media depictions of permanently single people. Women make not-quite-jokes about getting a dozen cats or taking up knitting if we don’t find love. Men seem to find involuntary singledom more shocking- they’ve been raised on ‘the hero…

The building manager sort of makes sense if the dress was thrown out by an employee. An afternoon digging through trash might be less of a pain than dealing with small claims court. No idea about the sanitation supervisor though.

That is hard.

I love my weirdly long, nearly prehensile toes.

Totally normal, and not a reflection on your character or your friendship. And I’m saying that as someone currently planning a wedding.

I always felt that way while living with roommates. Even when we got along pretty well and were friendly, I could never really fully relax unless I was alone. It got a little better over time, partly because I adjusted and partly because I got better at setting my boundaries and at budgeting some of my social energy…

Yeah, but it’s not like having a hole in the heart is rare. 25% of healthy adults have a patent foramen ovale. And it’s one of the major causes of stroke in healthy younger people, especially since she had the stroke while on a plane.

A one-time meeting with a financial advisor may be worthwhile as a source of advice, but don’t hire someone to manage your money for you. A lot of the best financial decisions are of the ‘set it and forget it’ variety, ie, you set up the accounts once and have money autodeposited when you get paid.

I’m going to be on the unpopular side here and say that while old cats are great (mine was 9 when I adopted her), it sounds like you’re looking for a specific personality and this cat may not be the right match.

I just had one of those taken off. Try not to worry (easier said than done). Most “could be melanoma”s end up being benign. Someone in my family has one pretty much every year, and so far none have been melanoma.

Yeah, experiences are going to vary, and someone else suggested it might be a regional thing. It came up recently in a class at nursing school, and there were probably 4 or 5 people in my class of 30 who knew the background and that it was an offensive term- the rest of us thought of it was just a synonym for klutz.

Correct. The word “spastic” just never entered the general vocabulary in the US, as an insult or otherwise. We picked up “spaz” from the Brits, but “spastic” is a word you learn in a classroom or a doctor’s office, not part of layperson’s day-to-day vocabulary. So most people in the US don’t realize that the slang…

Yeah, I cut a lot of expenses (Starbucks, delivery food, recreational shopping) when I went back to grad school and I find I don’t really miss them.

It is exactly like going to a car dealership or an electronics store together, except inverted. Everyone focuses on me and completely ignores him.

He’s good about it- he’ll say something about how we’re both really excited about the wedding, and if they continue to push, he’ll sometimes blame his relatives for the Big Traditional Wedding Pressure. The last bit isn’t really true, but it prevents people from blaming me without having to open up the whole ‘she…

YES. I’m dealing with a lot of this, except it’s my fiance who wants a bigger, more traditional wedding. I wanted a super cheap, DIY, self-catered BBQ party in a local park. My family and friends would have been fine with that. But my fiance really didn’t like that idea- he needs air conditioning and real chairs, and…