I agree. My friend got married last spring. Her now-husband proposed after several months of discussion about whether they were ready to take that step. When I told my boyfriend about that (in the context of "isn't that so mature/responsible of them?"), he said, "well that's not very romantic. I wouldn't want to…

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "creating a climate of fear" thing. My parents most definitely smacked me when I was growing up, but with my dad it was almost ceremonial, like, "If you do this there will be consequences... oh, you decided to do it anyway even though I JUST said that? Well, here are the…

I have ALL of the giggles...

Hm that's interesting. I mean, I guess I could see how it would be hurtful for someone to say they don't want to be your friend, but I'd much rather someone be honest with me and if I care about that person I'm not going to want to make them sad or uncomfortable by hanging around. I would only get upset or feel like…

Yay! Other pro-Sansa fans! I'll admit, when I read the first book I really couldn't stand her. But she's grown SO much. I read a post on A Forum of Ice and Fire (I'm a huge book nerd, what about it?) that discusses something the poster calls "the Sansa effect" - i.e., Sansa's ability to make the people around her…

The thing is that a truly nice guy (like, an actually kind and pleasant human being) won't normally get put in the NiceGuyTM category. The latter is nice ONLY because he wants to get in his lady friend's pants. He's disingenuous. An actual nice guy is nice to female friends without having ulterior motives and…

I don't know, I'm lactose intolerant and I've gotta say I'm pretty jealous of y'all's milk privilege :)

I'm sorry, I did not mean to make you feel attacked or defensive (if that is in fact how you are feeling). I'm not worked up about this, I was just voicing a different perspective.

By your definition, I qualify as a "real" runner, and yet I wear lacy, colorful Hanky Panky thongs when I run (and at all other times) because I like them and I think they are comfortable. In fact, I have tried fancy, wicking, high-performance underwear and I hate it. I think it's silly to judge someone for the…

Ugh... bathing in the blood of virgins is SO 16th century.

Yes! This! I am 27 and I am student teaching at a high school near my office. When I walk in the door, the security guard is always like, why aren't you in class? And when I work with a group of kids I haven't met before, they're always like, are you a new student? I'm like, hey guys, I'm literally 10 years older…

It's an interesting thing, the whole phenomenon of women dying their hair/tanning/wearing heavy makeup to look younger when, in fact, it makes them look older. My mom colored her hair for years. When she was younger, it was this rich, dark brown. As she got older, it became harder for her to maintain that color, so…

I totally get this... I used to run long distances because I wasn't getting along with my roommate (which was killing my self-esteem because she was a good friend of mine before) and I couldn't stand being in the house with all of that tension. So I would just run and run and run. And then when I realized how…

My roommates and I used to make a drinking game out of Bachelor/ette in college. But I agree that the show is pretty boring - after seeing one season, you've seen them all. They even say the same things every time around (which, to be fair, does make for a good drinking game - drink every time someone says "here for…

Yeah I was thinking the same thing as I was reading this. Maybe it will be really expensive to update all of those case studies? I don't know. But if they're going for more gender equality they could, you know, actually make things more equal between genders.

Yeah, I think that's a (albeit rare) side effect of a lot of antidepressants... kind of counterproductive. But they probably tried to give it to you because SSRIs are really frequently prescribed, even for mild situational depression, because they kind of help pull you out of the funk you can get into.

Just a word of caution (speaking from my own experiences) - Lexapro works REALLY well for treating depression and anxiety, but coming off of it was literally one of the worst experiences of my life. I have never felt so miserable, both physically and mentally. I have read reviews from people/talked to friends who…

I think people try to keep it casual by calling it "hanging out" versus "dating" for two reasons - either they don't want to get seriously involved or they are afraid of putting themselves out there and getting rejected. Either way, that level of vague doesn't do anyone any good. When my current boyfriend first…

Well I mean, I suppose they do have the freedom to act like racist assholes and post pictures of themselves behaving that way. I guess they just got mixed up about the whole making good choices thing - just because they legally can do something doesn't mean they should.

I totally agree with your point about actively teaching your kids not to be racist. They'll be inundated with so much racist bullshit from the media, their school and their peers. Parents can't just sit back and be like, well I don't do/say racist things in front of my kids, so they won't be racist either. Unless…