Yeah, but my point was how do *people* live their lives - not just people in college towns. But also people not in them. You replied to that comment, so it’s totally in bounds to wonder about the people your response leaves out.

Public transportation doesn’t work if it doesn’t exist. In my hometown (a smallish town a few hours from New York near a smallish “city” that’s really an overgrown town) there is ZERO public transit. How can I judge something that doesn’t exist?

How can one get food at a grocery store if there is no bus to the grocery…

Not every town is a college town, and not every town has trustworthy people offering free rides.

So what do you do in those 30 days if you can’t cycle and can’t beg rides?

...and if you have no one to beg rides from?

My personal experience growing up in a small town in the US is that no, there aren’t bus systems, even bad ones. The university town down the highway had a rudimentary bus system and walkable downtown, but my own town and the others near it did not. And you couldn’t even…

I’ve always wondered what people who don’t live in certain few major cities do if they lose their license. Not that I think licenses shouldn’t be suspended for drunk driving etc - of course they should. But how do you, like, do your life? What with the craptacular state of “American public transit”* and all?…

Grad students don’t get to apply I guess? That would pay my tuition. All of it.

No, of course not. Arguably nobody does. Ever.

When your upbringing and the expectations foisted on you distort your life and actions to this degree, you DO need treatment, even if you as a human being aren’t the source of the problem. People are in therapy all the time - and for good reason - when things are done to them, not necessarily only when they do bad…

He’s choosing his crappy religion over honesty with his wife. He’s choosing a religion that would excoriate him for cheating anyway (Catholicism would basically say “sorry, you’ve gotta be celibate then”) and pretending religion only matters when he wants it to (it matters vis-a-vis not divorcing, but not vis-a-vis…

Yeah, you know, I don’t judge him either. Just not up to it. People do things, he seems kind of dumb, but whatever.

I’m not judging him as I really don’t judge people in relationships I’m not privy to, especially if I don’t know those people.

I am really sorry to hear that. Especially being threatened so much that you felt you had to give that information up.

Another solution if she starts up again is to give her the passwords to shadow accounts - I did this to an employer I suspected was keylogging my personal email password (use of personal email was…

My grandparents are generally good people but they also pull the “you got all those crazy ideas in college” crap.

They really did not like it when I told them that no, I’ve always been this way, I was arguing in favor of women in combat in junior high, I wrote an essay in favor of Bill Clinton in high school (sorta…

You could just block him from seeing those posts...

I’m quite curious how she had them through college? Did you go to school at home?

(If so, I’m so, so sorry. Nobody should have to put up with that)

I highly doubt I would have found someone else after I stopped looking. I wrote a whole long thing about why that is but don’t feel like commenting with another novel, so you’re just going to have to trust that I really don’t think so and I have some good reasons.

Re: changing one’s appearance and lack of respect, I…

I don’t think it’s a good strategy either, but I see it happen all the time and I see women who don’t employ it stay single, often forever. Which is fine as far as I’m concerned, but if getting married is a priority, it may not be fine to them.

I wouldn’t say so - or rather, a lot of them are good men, but not the…

There are a lot of eligibility requirements, like being full time, the company having more than 50 employees, being salaried rather than hourly (I think), being a formal employee (not a contractor or adjunct), not being in certain industries (like service) and having worked there for a year...all for **unpaid** leave.…

What I’d like to know is why they were washing the cat in the first place. There are reasons to wash a cat (too old to wash itself, got into a muddy or skunky situation outside, some times of flea issues), but usually, it’s not necessary.