Yes! This! I had such a hard time with this when I moved to England because I was accustomed to US fashions, but also because I had a warm weather wardrobe. So once the cold came and I couldn’t afford to buy all new clothes, I had no choice but to layer up like a madwoman.

That has also been my experience, as a white American. Part of it, too, was age. I moved to Europe when I was about 24, which I think is roughly the age when people start being more open-minded about who they date. In college and high school, people were definitely pinned down by strict conventions about beauty…

I mean, I’m going to disagree with you, but now that you have set the stage so that anyone who disagrees with you is an “angry American making excuses,” I’m sure you’re not going to take it well.

Well, that’s true, but there is also a degree of “work put in” that I think some men account for. As in, it might be worth a lot of “work” in the form of dates, flirting, etc. to “get” an incredibly attractive woman, but if a woman is perceived as being “loose,” the work put in is lower, so she doesn’t have to be as…

Yeah I’ve never understood why people hold up the fact that Holden Caulfield is a whiny little shit as evidence that it was a bad book. Of course he was a whiny little shit! That’s what the book is about! The book knows that Holden sucks; Holden knows that Holden sucks.

I had no idea so many people knew the full history of the “I Saw the Sign” guys.

I’ve only been to two, but one was drinks and Mexican food, and one was a Bloody Mary buffet followed by Mardi Gras, so...both of those were spectacular and I loved them!

Yeah, your comment definitely didn’t stir any ire in me or anything! I just personally haven’t come across anyone practicing yoga with a bindi or what-have-you, so it also didn’t resonate with me. But I would absolutely agree that that was wrong!

Oh man, I am so sorry about the pile-on. I didn’t totally agree with your original statement myself, but my god, the amount of angry responses you are getting is nuts!

Yeah it is always weird how people will say in the same breath, “I would never do X because I am not horrible in Y and Z ways,” and then claim not to be judgmental about people who do X. I don’t know why I ever get into arguments on the internet, though; they consistently spiral out and lose the plot, even though…

OK, I guess I get that. It’s still not for me personally, but thanks for helping me understand why it might work well for other people!

But I guess I don’t understand what benefit it would bring to enter into the shorter-term contracts. For one thing, it’s not as though you can guarantee that any future breakup would coincide perfectly with the running out of the contract.

Yeah I would absolutely forget to do it. There is simply no way I would remember. The world would be full of accidentally-separated couples.

Ahhh you are so lucky! Everyone I know on fb going through a spectacular soap-opera-style explosion of their own making is much more discreet about it. Why won’t my people just post web sites with rundowns of everything that is going on, so that I can judge others at my leisure?

My photographer threw in a free engagement shoot anyway, and I think that is pretty normal practice? We didn’t use it, because we live in a different city and simply didn’t have the time to go down there and have a photo shoot, but I’m sure we would have if we had lived there because...it is free. I am a huge sucker…

That is EXACTLY what I said. In my mind, we were beautiful and graceful, and I really don’t want that mental image disrupted by reality.

I mean, I personally did not get engagement photos, but I feel like they are just...nice photos? Just like any other photos you might have framed or in an album (or on your laptop screensaver), but better because they are professionally done?

As a bajillion people have pointed out to you, not all stations have stairs. But even when they do, it is clearly faster to walk up an escalator than to walk up the stairs. Just...obviously. It is also no skin off someone’s back to stand to the right. None whatsoever. That is zero inconvenience for the person standing…

I mean, I feel like you are nitpicking a little bit here. If someone shat on public transport where I live (in a major capital city), people would freak out and say words. Even if no one is reacting specifically because it’s a thing they are aware of that happens, and they know that it is better to ignore it, that is…