“I like Cruz’s commitment to making the US a theocracy, but I also like Trump’s vitriolic xenophobia. How to choose?” This is why I still read the comments*. Perfection.

I definitely had some creeper rub up against me when I dared to not give him part of my seat. I kept my leg right where it was (within my space), and first he pushed my leg with his leg, and then he brought his hand down to his knee and and started rubbing my leg with the back of his hand. Blech.

I see it a lot on the bus in Southern California. The last guy I remember vividly was splayed super-wide, and rhythmically tapping his junk.

Innate physiological reasons seems unlikely to me, because sitting with legs spread feels soooo much better than with legs together, but anything’s possible, and I am a sample size of one. But it would be difficult to test in adults, simply because you can’t really separate out that conditioning from the physiological…

It’s true. I am a strong, fiercely independent woman myself, and when I am alone, I will suddenly realize I am holding my legs uncomfortably close together to avoid offending- who? And then I will spread my legs apart, and my hips will heave a sigh of relief. It’s not conscious, it’s conditioning.

I’m pretty sure everyone, male or female, feels physically more comfortable with legs spread apart.

THIS. Women also feel more physically comfortable with our legs apart. We’re not biologically predisposed to keep our legs together, we’ve just been conditioned that sitting with legs spread is a wanton display. It’s kind of a breathtaking example of the power of socialization to override our own physical comfort.

When men explain that they “have to” manspread because biology, comfort, whatever, I just want to scream at them: “Don’t you know that it is more comfortable for everyone to sit with legs spread? Women have just been taught from the womb that A) we should make room for others, and B) if we sit with our legs spread…

I definitely prefer “wench.” Someone using it isn’t trying to get away with something the way someone using “female” is.

“Adding in some females changes the dynamic quite a bit.”

“What do you mean the check doesn’t clear until Tuesday? My rent is due Friday!”

Realizing that some people claim the prize anonymously gives me hope that someone in my family is already a secret lottery winner, and will remember me in their will.

I already am happy. If I won the lottery, I would be happy, but with more money.

I tend to think Pawnee and Eagleton together are <60,000 people, and things like the harvest festival draw from smaller places of a few hundred to a few thousand residents.

It doesn’t have the tower, but it’s pretty big:

The city hall in Parks and Rec is smaller than the city hall in the Missouri town where I grew up. We had 70-75,000 people, so not a tiny, but as someone who grew up in the Midwest, it always seemed like a pretty good (if obviously exaggerated) portrayal.

People make very weird political assumptions about others.

He did not cheat. They were clearly on a break. And Ross was way too good for Rachel.

Well that is one ugly mansion, Sarah Palin. Shameful.

That is a real insult to Elizabeth Olsen.