I mentioned this upthread, but I’d recommend talking to your son about not being brainwashed by the diamond industry as well. I know at least one married couple where the woman thought it was silly to spend all that money but her husband-to-be’s ego was really caught up in buying her the “right” sort of ring.

I don’t know. I definitely know one couple where that fight happened in the opposite direction. i.e. she thought that they should just use her grandmother’s ring and save the money, and he was VERY insistent that he buy her an expensive ring that she didn’t want.

One of the things that I have found is that putting in the time and effort gets easier the more you do it. I’m usually a pretty sociable person, but last winter I ran into the perfect storm of personal issues, and I just didn’t have the time or energy to maintain my friendships like I usually did. Getting back into it…

Yes? And people have to deal with the consequences for the bad choices they make. Especially when those bad choices are violent crimes.

Ugh, destination weddings are the height of tacky.

I worked at a castle in northern Scotland one year, and it was 8 hours a day of bagpipes. I have never felt as much visceral hatred for anything as I have for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers.

Disclaimer: I wouldn’t consider myself a romance reader, so I’m not speaking from a place of great knowledge.

It’s going to be the worst. I get that the GTA is like, 3/7 of the population of the province, but he’s so unnecessarily obsessed with sticking it to Toronto.

So much this. I have tried years of mindfulness and meditation and it never worked for me.

I have absolutely no interest in this movie, until I saw that he was in it! Go Hardison!

Oh how I hate gender reveal parties. I never knew anyone who actually had or attended one until I moved out of the city and some of the people at my partner’s work actually send out invitations to one, after they’d already had a baby shower.

It’s true that “it’s just a joke” isn’t really a valid defense of social criticism.

Hear! Hear!

Hey :) That’s what I did... and it’s what my best friend did. I got a gorgeous white cocktail dress at Nordstrom for $150 (on sale). She got her bridesmaids dresses at Zara, and I just gave my sister $200 to buy whatever she wanted. My sister still wears her dress to fundraising events, and I wore my maid of honour…

You are 100% correct about the statistics you cite, but I don’t agree with your blanket statement that my earlier argument was wrong. Although there are different ways to interpret the data, I think that there is a good case to be made that men using paternity leave does increase gender equality.

I mean, this article is talking about the UK, which already guarantees paid maternal leave - so this isn’t exactly an instance of the policies only being implemented when men want them.

I agree! Plus, more men taking (and being able to take) paternity leave is good for women financially. It takes some of the burden of primary childcare off of women, helps end the stigma around hiring and promoting young professional women who want families, allows both parents to share any gaps in careers, AND has…

Thanks for your answer! It makes a lot of sense in terms of propaganda. I don’t understand it on the gut level that a lot of the commenters seem to be experiencing, but I can see how people like Trump could use it to shape the narriative.

But why do we need a better way to measure? Maybe this is because I’m not American, but I don’t really understand why we need to measure “the best country in the world.” There’s never going to be one simple answer - and it doesn’t really change anything.

I’m pretty sure, from my reading of some other research into this that it isn’t aloneness that is causing problems, it’s loneliness. So if someone spent pretty much all their time alone it wouldn’t necessarily mean that they would have negative health outcomes if they weren’t actually lonely.